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Always Running: La Vida Loca: Gang Days in L.A. [Audio CD]

Luis J. Rodriguez
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (151 customer reviews)

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Kindle Edition CDN $8.78  
Library Binding CDN $24.40  
Paperback CDN $13.71  
Audio, CD CDN $42.98  
Audio, CD, Dec 13 2011 --  

Book Description

Dec 13 2011
The award-winning and bestselling classic memoir about a young Chicano gang member surviving the dangerous streets of East Los Angeles, now featuring a new cover.

Winner of the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, hailed as a New York Times notable book, and read by hundreds of thousands, Always Running is the searing true story of one mans life in a Chicano gangand his heroic struggle to free himself from its grip.

By age twelve, Luis Rodriguez was a veteran of East Los Angeles gang warfare. Lured by a seemingly invincible gang culture, he witnessed countless shootings, beatings, and arrests and then watched with increasing fear as gang life claimed friends and family members. Before long, Rodriguez saw a way out of the barrio through education and the power of words and successfully broke free from years of violence and desperation.

Achieving success as an award-winning poet, he was sure the streets would haunt him no moreuntil his young son joined a gang. Rodriguez fought for his child by telling his own story in Always Running, a vivid memoir that explores the motivations of gang life and cautions against the death and destruction that inevitably claim its participants.

At times heartbreakingly sad and brutal, Always Running is ultimately an uplifting true story, filled with hope, insight, and a hard-earned lesson for the next generation.
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Description

From Publishers Weekly

As the preface of this admirable but ultimately disappointing memoir states, Rodriguez, an award-winning poet and publisher of the small press Tia Chucha, decided to document his youth as an East Los Angeles gang member in an effort to steer his teenaged son, Ramiro, away from the gang that he recently joined. A member of various Latino gangs based in and around the South San Gabriel Valley during the late 1960s, Rogriguez participated in random acts of violence, and was imprisoned on several occasions for the crimes he committed. Unfortunately, he offers frustratingly little detail behind the facts of his life and activity in the gangs. Rodriquez presents colorful characters and highly charged events, such as shootings, Mexican funerals, rapes and arrests, but his writing style renders much of that rich material forgettable.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"An absolutely unique work: richly literary and poetic, yet urgent and politically explosive at the same time...A permanent testament to human courage and transcendence."
-- Jonathan Kozol, author of Savage Inequalities


"Rodriguez's account of his coming of age is vivid, raw...fierce, and fearless...Here's truth no television set, burning night and day, could ever begin to offer."
-- Gary Soto, The New York Times Book Review


"Every spiky anecdote from a life of guns, razors, uppers, downers, glue, heroin, sex, and early death supports this former gang member's view of the violence as collective suicide. That Rodriguez's memoir takes place...before the '92 L.A. riots only makes this beautifully written and politically astute account more compelling."
-- Suzanne Ruta, Entertainment Weekly


"Extraordinarily haunting and evocative."
-- Paul Ruffins, The Washington Post Book World
--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Customer Reviews

Most helpful customer reviews
Format:Paperback
As he was growing up, Rodriguez had a vivid lifestyle in which he had witnessed countless shootings, racism, beatings, and several other negatively hard crimes. At 12 years of age, he experienced some illusions of gangs and rascim. People would relate to this book in many different ways, as they were growing up too. I believe this book could get to your fealings, but when I started to read it, I was resenting against the people who were rioting.
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5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST READ BOOK!!! Mar 22 2004
Format:Paperback
It's about a lifestyle of a young child, growing up in the streets of Los Angeles, Luis J. Rodriguez writes about his vivid life, encountering racism, killings,cruicial beatings, and shootings. Moving around the areas of the Los Angeles he gets involve in gangs later on his life, learns that the gang life is not great. Turn his life into school. Write this book for his son so he won't make a mistake. Relates to people who are in gang activity and show that there is another way in life to succeed, Instead of living by a gun.
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1.0 out of 5 stars Nothing More Than a Glorified Ex-Gangbanger Mar 16 2004
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I read this book about ten years ago for the first time. My son was being "courted" by a gang in our area and a fellow parent recommended it. It did not help.
Neither does it help to read that Rodriguez' son went back to prison after the publication of that book.
In my modest opinion, but is worth something nevertheless in a world where our Latino and Black youth are being killed and killing on the streets everyday--for all the hype I have heard about Luis Rodriguez--he is no more than a glorified ex-gangbanger who found an angle for self-promotion. As a parent I must ask myself, where was he when his own child needed him?
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Most recent customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book I Have Read
Always running is the best book I have ever read. This book tells us what's happening around the world. Read more
Published on Dec 8 2003 by Martin
4.0 out of 5 stars It was off the hook
Always Running was a very powerful book, it's poetic writing and creative detail gave the book a life-like twist. Read more
Published on Dec 5 2003 by Juan "Daddy" Contreras
3.0 out of 5 stars always running
I think this book is well written. It tells a lot of truth about what the life is about, but i feel that rodriuez is portrayed as courageous for escaping the street life when he... Read more
Published on Nov 22 2003 by Lady Scorpio
4.0 out of 5 stars Stop running.
This book is extraordinarily catching.I read it for an English class, and am glad I did. It opens the readers eyes to another world that only one who has lived it can tell of. Read more
Published on Nov 5 2003 by Miguel Medina
3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting subject matter but short on insight
Luis Rodriguez's autobiographical account of his childhood in East Los Angeles presents an opportunity for the reader to gain valuable knowledge and insight into a... Read more
Published on Oct 1 2003 by "katamelotte"
5.0 out of 5 stars Gritty and compelling!
Luis Rodriguez' autobiography should be required reading in every high school in America. No exceptions. I finished it today, shed some tears, and said, "wow." Mr. Read more
Published on Sep 7 2003 by D. Scott
5.0 out of 5 stars OMG THE BEST BOOK EVER...
THIS BOOK TELLS THE TRUTH OF THE STREETS, EXCELLENT EXCELLENT EXCELLENT!!!!!!!!!!!
Published on Sep 1 2003 by lauren
1.0 out of 5 stars Complete Poo
The book Always Running was a poorly written piece of literature that is only about sex, drugs, and guns. Read more
Published on May 27 2003 by Bill Fegan
5.0 out of 5 stars Quite possibly the best book I have ever read!
I had to read this book for an English class a few years ago, and it was probably the best book I have ever read. Rodriguez's stories are painfully honest. Read more
Published on Mar 20 2003 by Claudia Monge
5.0 out of 5 stars realistic and uplifting
Luis Rodriguez is able to draw a vivid and realistic picture of ganglife in east la. not only that, he proves that there is another way. Read more
Published on Jan 19 2003
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