Just because yourbeach tripsandweekend getawaysare about to stop , does n’t think you should give up on your summer crusade to understand a book a workweek . To aid you , we send for upon Dwyer Murphy , associate editor ofElectric Literature , to severalise us the most essential contemporary New York books that every New Yorker needs to show – none of which were have on your gamey schooling English syllabus . There ’s a nonfiction accounting of a Chinese grannie who ran one of the country ’s most notorious human smuggling gang , the perfect tilt memoir , and an emotional novel that ’ll give you that much - need practiced cry .
If you want a look at the city’s bohemian underbelly…
Lush Lifeby Richard Price
Mary Leontyne Price is the master of New York City criminal offense : the copper lingo , the housing projects , the grandstand politicians , the way a simple nighttime out can go sideways and irrevocably shift the lives of everyone involved . InLush Life , a bartender goes drinking with friends after a shift on the Lower East Side and turns up dead . Two kids from a nearby lodging complex are charged with the murder . Every facet of the urban center is explored in Price ’s epic novel . For lovers of crime fable ( or Balzac for that matter ) and lover of Price ’s new HBO show , The Night Of , Lush Lifeis the book to check out this summer .
If you’re the brooding type…
Open Cityby Teju Cole
New York is a townsfolk that ’s meant to be walk , and that ’s on the nose what the narrator of Teju Cole’sOpen Citydoes . Julian , a half - Nigerian , half - German chap at Columbia Presbyterian , hits the pavement and thinks over the ups and downs of his life history , while also arrive at time for a moving picture and a few insightful conversation along the way . This is a novel for itinerant New Yorkers , and those who sleep together that immigrants are the metropolis ’s crush heart .
If you wish Dickens had been a New Yorker…
The Goldfinchby Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt ’s contemporary classic has all the Dickensian hallmarks : a foundling , a benefactor , an odds - and - ends shop , and a mystery that launches our grinder through every corner of the urban center , from the rarefied air of Park Ave to the prowess world to the criminal underworld . This is the book to kink up with when the next fully grown blizzard hits .
If you want a soundtrack for the city…
A Visit from the Goon Squadby Jennifer Egan
Time ’s a goon , and it puts a beating on New York ’s aging rocker , just like it does everyone else . That ’s the lesson at the heart ofA Visit from the Goon Squad , in which Egan meander together stories of the admirer , employees , hanger - on , and ghostly cousins of an onetime band call the Flaming Dildos . This is a report about the city ’s euphony tantrum , but it ’s also about generational alteration and the manner city dwellers are confronted by the enactment of time .
If you ever thought this city might break you…
A Little Lifeby Hanya Yanigahara
Friendships here are never as simple as they seem . In Yanigahara’sA Little Life , four vernal men on the make move to New York and begin to carve out their career . We tag along for the gallery parties , the restaurant - hopping , the late nights in Brooklyn . But these friends share a dark mystery . Jude , the lawyer and mathematician , was sexually shout in his younker , a trauma that seeps into and colors his every relationship . This is n’t a novel for the faint of fondness , but if you have the courage , you wo n’t be able-bodied to put it down .
If you’re looking for a Chinatown odyssey…
The Snakeheadby Patrick Radden Keefe
Has any city given the world more true crime narration ? Sister Ping is one of the most unforgettable ( tangible - life story ) New York figure you ’ll ever amount across . From a noodle shop in Chinatown , this grandmother track down one of the country ’s most notorious human smuggling rings . InThe Snakehead , Patrick Radden Keefe – an investigative newsperson atThe New Yorker– shines a spark on Ping ’s shadowy world and tracks the FBI investigating that finally pull down her chilling operation . This is gritty , intemperately - reach nonfiction at its very best .
If you think New Yorkers speak their own language…
expression in the Crowdby Valeria Luiselli
Every New Yorker is a kind of translator . That ’s one of the keys that unlocks Valeria Luiselli ’s winding tale of literature , memory , and the space in between . A young woman in Mexico City thinks about the time she spent translate for an indie press in New York . A translator in New York meditates on the oeuvre of a majuscule , mostly forgotten Mexican poet . This is the novel for the polyglot New Yorker who delight in all the lives and man that are unite together every aurora on an uptown A railroad train .
If you missed out on the ’80s and ’90s alt scene…
miss in a Bandby Kim Gordon
This is n’t your typical rock memoir , just like Sonic Youth was n’t your distinctive band . Kim Gordon ’s postmortem examination on a marriage is incisive and heartrending , but the substantial legerdemain ofGirl in a Bandcomes in the descriptions of the band ’s other days in New York , bet the old East Village clubs , writingBad Moon Risingin a seedy apartment on Eldridge St. In one bang-up phrasal idiom , Gordon describes what has , and always will , draw young the great unwashed to this city : “ It was all unidentified and opening . ”
If gentrification is gnawing at you…
The Edge Becomes the Centerby DW Gibson
New York City communities are constantly evolving . Fort Greene , Crown Heights , Grand Concourse , Jackson Heights – we have our lists of neighborhood under siege . This is the book for anyone who wants to larn the stories that real - acres developer and hedge monetary fund managers wish you would disregard . Gibson ’s oral history – which insure the nester ’ rights social movement , the LES riots of the ‘ 80s , and the evolution of places like bottom - Stuy – will change the way you look at every edifice and every block in New York .
If you’re ready for a good scare…
The Devil in Silverby Victor LaValle
Pepper , a 300 lb rabble - arouser , is locked up in a decay Queens hospital , and sure enough , he starts getting tardy - night visit from a demon that the other yardbird call “ Devil . ” This is part revulsion , part noir , partOne Flew Over the Cuckoo ’s Nest . If you ’ve ever wandered by Bellevue and felt a shiver run down your spine , this is the book for you .
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