How long does it take to read Low Life?
lures and snares of old New York
Lucy Sante, Pablo Duarte
Low Life by Lucy Sante, Pablo Duarte takes about 7 hours 35 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 7 hours 35 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1991. 414 pages, about 113,850 words.
16 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 12 hours 39 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 7 hours 35 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 4 hours 45 minutes |
The page count is the median across 10 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Luc Sante's Low Life is a portrait of America's greatest city, the riotous and anarchic breeding ground of modernity. This is not the familiar saga of mansions, avenues, and robber barons, but the messy, turbulent, often murderous story of the city's slums; the teeming streets--scene of innumerable cons and crimes whose cramped and overcrowded housing is still a prominent feature of the cityscape. Low Life voyages through Manhattan from four different directions. Part One examines the actual topography of Manhattan from 1840 to 1919; Part Two, the era's opportunities for vice and entertainment--theaters and saloons, opium and cocaine dens, gambling and prostitution; Part Three investigates the forces of law and order which did and didn't work to contain the illegalities; Part Four counterposes the city's tides of revolt and idealism against the city as it actually was. Low Life provides an arresting and entertaining view of what New York was actually like in its salad days. But it's more than simpy a book about New York. It's one of the most provocative books about urban life ever written--an evocation of the mythology of the quintessential modern metropplois, which has much to say not only about New York's past but about the present and future of all cities.
Subjects: Social conditions, History, Social Marginality, Manhattan (new york, n.y.), New york (n.y.), history, New york (n.y.), social conditions
