“New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village—the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up!” ~E.B. White

NONFICTION

1185 Park Avenue: A Memoir, Anne Roiphe, 1999 — Roiphe’s carefully observed memoir of growing up rich, Jewish and isolated on the Upper East Side of Manhattan is intense and powerful.

Manhattan, When I Was Young, Mary Cantwell, 1996 — Cantwell’s tale of arriving in Greenwich Village in the 1950s to work on a glossy is the pre-Sex and the City in the era of the two-martini lunch.

Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York, Luc Sante, 1991 — A pop culture classic chronicling the dives and lives of the Lower East Side, 1840 to 1920—well before the neighborhood became the home of the Gap and Starbucks.

Greenwich Village: A Guide to America’s Legendary Left Bank, Judith Stonehill, 2002 — Full of delightful illustrations, maps, quotations, walking tours and tales of such luminaries as Walt Whitman, Edward Hopper and Willa Cather.

FICTION

Winter’s Tale, Mark Helprin, 1983 — Futuristic New York that takes its title from the Shakespeare play and shares a central character who disappears and returns many years later, a changed man.

The Alienist, Caleb Carr, 1994 — Carr’s best historical mystery follows a doctor pursuing a serial killer of boys through the well-etched streets of Victorian New York.

House of Mirth, Edith Wharton, 1905 — Single artistic Lily Bart desperately seeks a rich husband in this Gilded Age tragedy.

POETRY

Poet in New York, Federico Garcia Lorca, 1940 — Poems written in and about New York between 1929-1930, when Lorca was a student at Columbia University.

FOR CHILDREN

Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile, Bernard Waber, 1965 — The classic tale of a crocodile raised on 88th Street and his metropolitan adventures. For children up to 8.

Mishoo: Cosmopolitan Cat, Emily Fisher Landau, 2000 — Published by the Whitney Museum of Art, this illustrated tale features a cat who belongs to an art collector who lives between New York, Palm Beach and Santa Fe. It was written by well-known art collector and philanthropist Emily Fisher Landau and includes reproductions of Warhol and Georgia O’Keefe paintings.

Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City, Janet Schulman, 2008. The illustrated true story of the hawk couple that made a nest on Fifth Avenue apartment building. When the coop owners removed their home, protesters picketed and proved how the birds had captured the heart of New Yorkers.

New York State of Mind, Billy Joel, 2005 — The well-known singer wrote this ode to New York in 1976; almost thirty years later, the text (with accompanying illustrations) was published. For children up to 6.

The Old Pirate of Central Park, Robert Priest, 1999 — A sweet picture book about a cranky New York City pirate who brings his toy ship to the boat pond in Central Park. For children up to 8.