7 BOOKS ABOUT NEW YORK
Summer in the city is the best for an avid reader. Here’s 7 books in which our beloved Big Apple plays a starring role that you can read while lounging in one of NYC’s beautiful parks:
Murder Machine by Gene Mustain and Jerry Capeci:
An absurd, true Mafia tale of Brooklyn in the 80s…before it was cool. Back when a bunch of guys could kill and dismember hundreds of people, eat pizza while the blood drained in the tub, and not have to worry about stupid bike lanes.
The Breast by Philip Roth:
The bizarre (and fictional) account of a man who wakes up to find out he’s turned into a giant breast. Now oddly reads like an allegory for that week Ebola was in town.
Guys and Dolls and Other Writings by Damon Runyon:
Worth reading if only to read how screwy everyone talked in the 30’s and marvel at a time when Midtown was cool!
Just Kids by Patti Smith:
Her description of New York in the 70’s adds to the allure of one of the city’s most romanticized periods, its the kind of thing that affirms your instinct towards love and art. Maybe nostalgia smooths out the bad memories, but no one does nostalgia like Patti.
Great Jones Street by Don Delillo:
A wacky story about a 1970’s rock god who leaves it all behind and locks himself into an East Village shithole. It’s Delillo’s fictionalized version of what lurked at the edges of Patti Smith’s lovey dovey affairs.
Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury:
The contemporary description of Civil-War era Manhattan that inspired Martin Scorsese to make his eponymous film. Everything the Tenement Museum wishes it was, without Cameron Diaz’s performance to take you right out of it.
Four Novellas of Old New York by Edith Wharton:
Refined and eerily familiar descriptions of glamorous New Yorkers. Loving portraits of the kind of people who created afternoon tea just to survive the hell of getting from lunch to dinner. Sort of like brunch!
