The dilemmas of work and leisure for women at the turn-of-the-century.

With Amusement for All contextualizes what Americans have done for fun since 1830, showing the reciprocal nature of the relationships among social, political, economic, and cultural forces and the ways in which the entertainment world has reflected, changed, or reinforced the values of American society.

'THIS BOOK is EVERYTHING' Marian Keyes 'Unputdownable . . . one of the best novels of the year' Sunday Independent In the seaside town of Tramore, County Waterford, visitors arrive in waves with the tourist season, reliving the best days of their childhoods in its caravan parks, chippers and amusement arcades. Local teenager Helen Grant is indifferent to the charm of her surroundings; she dreams of escaping to art college with her glamorous classmate Stella Swaine and, from there, taking on the world. But leaving Tramore is easier said than done. Though they don't yet know it, Helen and Stella's lives are pulled by tides beyond their control. Following the Grant and Swaine families and their neighbours over three decades, The Amusements is a luminous and unforgettable story about roads taken and not taken - and a brilliantly observed portrait of a small-town community. __________ 'Flannery's flawed, hopeful characters live and grow on the page' ANNE ENRIGHT, author of The Gathering 'Brilliant . . . her sentences crackle with life, energy and devastating insight into the human condition. She writes with a rare combination of compassion and black humour. Her characters live on in my mind like people I have always known' LIA MILLS, author of In Your Face 'Effortless, perceptive, and hugely entertaining - I loved it' DONAL RYAN, author of Strange Flowers 'A cracker of a book' KATHLEEN MAC MAHON, author of Nothing But Blue Sky 'Fantastic . . . we were gripped' STELLAR 'If you like dark humour, superbly drawn characters, caravan parks, fish suppers and slot machines, The Amusements is what you've been waiting for' JAN CARSON, author of The Fire Starters 'A joy to read' LOUISE NEALON, author of Snowflake 'A brilliant book. I loved meeting all these characters, who jumped off the page and stayed in my head' RÓISÍN INGLE 'Brilliant. Dramatic, heartfelt, sometimes shocking and sad' IRISH EXAMINER

Reproduction of the original: Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney

David Nasaw has written a sparkling social history of twentieth-century show business and of the new American public that assembled in the city's pleasure palaces, parks, theaters, nickelodeons, world's fair midways, and dance halls. The new amusement centers welcomed women, men, and children, native-born and immigrant, rich, poor and middling. Only African Americans were excluded or segregated in the audience, though they were overrepresented in parodic form on stage. This stigmatization of the African American, Nasaw argues, was the glue that cemented an otherwise disparate audience, muting social distinctions among "whites," and creating a common national culture.