best fiction books about new york city

essential non-fiction books about New York City. 7. However, it is quite fun to read this book and try to map young Francie’s neighborhood adventures to the current area. Everyone has a different take on this bustling, diverse city. “The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.”. If you really want to understand a culture, you do it through the food — and through how meals are shared. He reaches a vision of the city as a universal gathering “of every age, of every genius, possessors of every human secret, antique and future”. Best crazy moment: Rose bobbing her hair. Up in the Old Hotel features many of their stories. That’s the opposite, to an almost perverse degree, of what Manhattan would later become. This deeply irresistible binge read will give you a look at both the high society and the underbelly of New York in the 1800s. Words cannot describe how much I love Fran Lebowitz — every time I read her frank, no-screwing-around, hilariously droll writing it feels like she’s speaking directly to me. See full terms and conditions and this month's choices. There’s the story of the immigrant, arriving from the Old World and taking New York as the very archetype of the New World’s newness. Not only a memoir of the friendship that defined Smith’s 20s — that with the wildly, creatively bizarre photographer Robert Mapplethorpe — Just Kids also reads like a love letter to the New York of Smith’s youth: where anything was possible, every day was an adventure, every late-night conversation life-changing, and that big creative break just around the corner. Crime! In a city with as many moods as New York, and as many ethnic histories running in parallel, fiction is essential transportation. Rose is an odd duck, as restrained as the times are not, working as a police typist in a downtown Manhattan precinct. The portraits of struggling millennials are sharply-etched and contemporary, but there’s Tolstoy hiding behind this story of innocence and ambition, and a proportionate seriousness. Obsessions! I would add Burr by Vidal. Mary, a lady maid obsessed with her wealthy socialite mistress, Charlotte, has a secret past. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. It was the first book about New York that I read when I arrived in the city. So, there’s that. . 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement highlights one of the most celebrated aspects of New York City: the international cuisine, that is available at literally every corner. The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud (2006)A comedy of manners set among New York’s wealthy uptown, this is also a state-of-the-nation story, heavily shadowed by the impact of 9/11. For instance, The Great Gatsby and Catcher In The Rye are classic New York books, but I don’t consider them historical fiction, as they are set in or near the period in which they were written. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010)Time’s dilapidations and revenges on a group of friends in the Manhattan music business, as mimicked in a set of virtuoso fictions that themselves weave backwards and forwards and sideways in time, finally alighting in a climate-changed New York of the near future. In the early 1900s, it was a place that housed ambitious young women, many aspiring to be actors, writers, and models. 31 Must-Read New York City Books. A Time to be Born by Dawn Powell comes to mind…, Daddy was a Numbers Runner by Louise Meriweather. You’ll love this unique, intimate collection of illustrated narratives. historical fiction set in New York which helps my fascination and imagination know I’m not alone. Ah, too bad, you’ve already got Jack Finney’s “Time and Again”. What a great selection of novels to evoke historical New York. Ellison's book won the National Book Award for Fiction, and we can see why -- he discusses the issue of race in America, and in New York City in particular, in an inventive way inspired by Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground." My first thought was Winter’s Tale, but I see you’ve got that! Joe has an affair with a young woman, and kills her when she decides to leave him. HuffPost is part of Verizon Media. Find out more about how we use your information in our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. Harlem, as many already are aware, is a neighborhood steeped in African American history and black culture, and it’s the setting for a number of activist and author James Baldwin’s books. Even if you’re not a native New Yorker, this collection of essays will make you feel like one, if only for a moment. All of the books in the list above are fantastic, but this is far from comprehensive. It’s romance, turn-of-the-century New York, Coney Island freak shows, and Alice Hoffman’s magical writing—in other words, it’s a must-read. These are all things I first In order to compile this fascinating and breathtaking project, Becky Cooper traversed the streets of Manhattan, passing out blank maps of the borough, upon which she asked New York-natives to “map their Manhattan.” The result is this collection of stories and drawings, chronicling the complex and intimate lives of people who had lived their whole lives in the city — love stories and tragedies, dreams realized and broken, childhoods and old age and everything in between, and even a few secrets that only the streets of Manhattan truly know. There’s the story of the New York childhood or the New York romance, often intensely nostalgic, in which the city’s pleasurable surfaces mould around the characters – a metropolitan cocoon. (For an idea of what this will look like, check out 50 Favorite New York City History Books Chosen By Bowery Boys and Readers from last month. All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor (children’s book), The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon would be a fantastic addition! ... Schiff separates fact from fiction to reconstruct the life and world of the most influential woman in ancient Egypt. Unbeknownst to Charlotte, Mary is actually Maire, an Irish exile, who spends her nights off with prostitutes and members of a secret society. In Brooklyn, she finds a city in flux—a city where immigrants from Ireland and Poland live amongst Jewish and black communities—and just as she is beginning to fall in love with a young man, devastating news from Ireland threatens the promise of her new life. Two mythologies meet on the Lower East Side, and catch the Fifth Avenue El together. Have you ever heard of the Barbizon Hotel for Women? You must be logged in to add books to your shelf. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker (2013)There’s a large constituency that swears by Mark Helprin’s Winter’s Tale as the defining NY novel of the fantastic, but I’d nominate this as better Manhattan magic, with its lovely turn-of-the-20th-century immigrant encounter between a woman of clay and a man of fire. My list below reflects both old classics and newer releases, literary fiction and genre. To me it is the best people-friendly guide to the city.”—Justin Ferate "An oldie but goodie. This collection of fiction and nonfiction lends a helping hand to any future NYC visitor looking to locate major sites, understand the city’s history, set a tone for their trip, or delve into some quality entertainment with New York as the background. I’ve heard that people go to New York for two reasons: to follow their heart, or to follow their dreams. This fascinating building, still standing on the corner of Lexington and 63rd Street, is the central topic that ties this novel together. At least, that’s what I’ve learned from the steady stream of books about New York City that have graced my bookshelves over the course of my reading life. ), Get Great Book Recommendations Delivered to Your Inbox. best nonfiction books about New York City. Is the original building still standing? Historical fiction set in New York. You’ll want to immerse yourself in Smith’s New York over and over again. The Oscar Wilde Bookshop! Score A book’s total score is based on multiple factors, including the number of people who have voted for it and how highly those voters ranked the book.

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