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Edwin Frank: ‘The best art is often powerfully irrelevant’
E dwin Frank is a poet and the founder and editorial director of the NYRB Classics series, a publisher of old books and new translations. Among the writers on its eclectic list are Eve Babitz , Colette, JG Farrell, Mavis Gallant, Tove Jansson, Olivia Manning , Janet Malcolm , Alexander Pushkin, Elizabeth Taylor , and Stefan Zweig . NYRB Classics celebrates its 20th birthday this year, an anniversary it marked last month with the publication of The Red Thread , a selection (edited by Frank) of extracts from some of its books.
When you first mooted the idea of a classics list to Rea Hederman, the owner of the New York Review of Books , did it seem a little preposterous, even to you? At the time, I don’t think I knew how unlikely an enterprise it was. About six months after we began, I was talking to this very distinguished publisher about Joyce Cary [the Anglo-Irish novelist], and he said: “Oh, yes… how many of his books did we sell last year? Was it 69?” It had never crossed my mind that any book I thought of as interesting would sell as few copies as that.
And yet the list is a success. How do the books reach readers? I used to say things like: can we pitch this as the old Sex and the City ? But I don’t think readers are fooled. They know that the old Sex and the City is not the new Sex and the City . There is a way in which the series sells the series. What I mean is that there is a certain logic in our eclecticism: it has multiple entry points. People might see a book they remember having loved, pick up anew and that might in turn lead them to take a look at books, also published by us, that they’ve never heard of. They’re awakened by the project as a whole.
How important is it to publish voices from elsewhere at a time when the US government is encouraging the country to turn in on itself? I’m probably deluding myself, but I think it’s very important. Our endeavour, and that of some other small presses, has thrived in this period because people have kicked against first Bush’s and now Trump’s America. They have remembered that there is life elsewhere.
What is it that makes a book last? I am looking for a book that still has the power to surprise: not just shock effects, but some sense of lived experience that is still palpable. I tend to be interested in books that have some sense of historical horizon and occasion: the notion that, though this was another time, we can see our own time in it as well.
People use the word “relevant” a lot these days. Must a book be relevant? I’m extremely suspicious of the notion. It seems to me simply to feed people back to themselves. The best art is often powerfully irrelevant. I prefer the idea of currency, which is not quite the same as relevance. A book that has currency puts our present concerns in a different but distinct perspective.
Is it relaxing dealing mostly with dead authors? Well, you don’t have to deal with authorial vanity! It’s also true that other people have let these books go. We don’t have to bid the entire bank in order to get them.
Can you pick out a few favourite titles? A High Wind in Jamaica [a 1929 novel about children and pirates by the Welsh writer Richard Hughes] is a deep yarn, almost a kind of fairytale, which I continue to be very attached to [NRYB reissued it in 1999]. I love Sylvia Townsend Warner [the author of, among other novels, Lolly Willowes , which is about a witch ]. She is a brilliant writer who always tries with each book to do something a little different; I think that may have conspired against her in her lifetime. We published a book of essays by Simon Leys, the Belgian sinologist, called The Hall of Uselessness . At the time [2013], I thought: we can’t possibly do a 500-page book of essays that have already appeared elsewhere. But then I read it and I realised that we couldn’t not do it. The range. It includes an extraordinary portrait of André Gide : one of the great literary portraits. There’s also a beautiful essay about Chinese aesthetics and a polemic against Christopher Hitchens , which I enjoyed. It made its own case for publication.
You publish several books by Kingsley Amis , a writer who is these days thought rather unfashionable. Why? Well, he is a provocateur. He’s also extremely funny at his best. Lucky Jim is a period piece, but it has the same rebellious energy as On the Road . The Alt Amis has more range than people think, and an interest in genre, which is one of the threads of our series. eration [set in a parallel universe in which the Reformation did not happen] is an alternative history, while The Green Man is a ghost story. He has a way of discomforting the reader that I find impressive.
Is it harder to find female writers? Do you look out for them? When you’re dealing with the past, it is a problem: men simply had more strategic access to the world of literature and publishing. But we do Barbara Comyns, May Sinclair, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Elizabeth Hardwick, Elizabeth Taylor… I don’t think people have taken her [Taylor’s] proper measure yet. She is so steely.
Is there a book you wish had been more noticed? One you feel a bit sorry for? Tristana is a novel of 1892 by the Spanish writer Benito Pérez Galdós. It was made into a film by Luis Buñuel [in 1970]. It’s about women’s rights and it’s set in a cloistered society – so cloistered that it’s almost surreal. It’s very sophisticated about human behaviour.
What titles are coming up in the near future? We’re publishing Diary of a Foreigner in Paris by Curzio Malaparte [the Italian war correspondent, who died in 1957; best known as the author of Kaputt ]. He’s such an unreliable narrator. In this book, he claims that he’s unwelcome wherever he goes; he’s in exile and only friends with the dogs. We’re also going to do a French novel, Malicroix , that was recommended to us by Michael Frayn. It’s by Henri Bosco, from 1948. It’s about a man who inherits a house on an island in a river in the Camargue. But in order to get it, he has to live there alone for three months.
Does your job make you feel hopeful about the future for books and reading? Yes, and it goes on surprising me: the fact that people love this or that book. It’s kind of wonderful.
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8 Lost Masterpieces from NYRB Classics
The best of an imprint that digs deep into lost classics.
First launched in 1999, the New York Review Books Classics series has famously come to be known for its unearthing of lost masterpieces. The series is comprised of incredible books that somehow slipped through the cracks of time, only to be rediscovered by NYRB’s obsessive editors and re-published in tidy, color-coded volumes.
Now numbering in the hundreds, sifting through its bookshelf isn’t always easy. Here, we select our eight favorite books published by NYRB Classics.
By John Williams
William Stoner is a poor farmer’s son who finds solace from our uncertain world within the confines of academia. He is treated both fairly and harshly, through bitter colleagues, a hardhearted wife, an absent daughter and all-too-brief affairs. From adolescence to a tragically beautiful death, this is an average life where nothing is spared.
The book that brought NYRB Classics into the mainstream, Stoner is the very definition of a “lost classic,” a novel that disappeared soon after its initial release, whispered and rumored about for decades, and republished to instant acclaim. Beautifully written, it’s been celebrated by everyone from Julian Barnes to Ian McEwan.
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Chess Story
By Stefan Zweig
On a ship from New York to Buenos Aires, a group of chess fans encounter the world champion, his ego and arrogance setting up a match that they know they can’t win. But there in the corner, a man chimes in with a strategy that can’t be beat—how he knows the inner workings of the royal game and why it matters, is the “story” in question.
A celebrity in his time, Zweig’s own story is as tragic as his last tale, suffering through the fall of intellectualism and rise of the great wars, before finally committing suicide in Brazil. Chess Story was the last thing he wrote, and it’s ironically the perfect introduction to his works—short and pithy, tense and tragic, tapping into the baseline emotions of all humans.
Related: 7 Books About the Thrilling Game of Chess
Hard Rain Falling
By Don Carpenter
Jack Levitt is born into a traumatic background in the poverty-stricken backstreets of Portland, Oregon. Growing up as a hustler in its pool halls and whorehouses, he encounters Billy Lancing, who soon becomes a lifelong friend, and then, when tragedies collide, his cellmate at San Quentin.
Like Dostoevsky siphoned through America, Carpenter’s hard-boiled account of two boys-to-men stuck in a cycle of violence reads truer than most crime works that crowd shelves. Here, we feel the pain and sorrow, the chances at redemption quickly stamped out by an unfair world, and the consolations we can occasionally find among each other.
Invention of Morel
By Adolfo Bioy Casares
A fugitive escaping to a deserted island thinks he’s alone, until he starts to see the structures of a small town. There are people arriving in the distance, parties being thrown and affairs being had. Why are they here? What do they want? And most important of all, why can’t they see him?
A work of magical realism before it was given a name, Casares’ short work had a profound influence on the genre’s many authors, from Borges to Marquez. It’s all here, from the surreal setting to the literary allusions, unreliable narrators to ambiguous narratives, all forming the framework of the many masterpieces that came after, while being entirely whole in itself.
Life and Fate
By Vasily Grossman
Life and Fate traces the lives of the Shaposhinikovs during the height of World War II, a family that stretches from peasants to the bourgeois, scientists to soldiers, as the fate of Russia ebbs and flows between defeat on the home front and victories alongside the Allies.
The title is no hyperbole – Grossman modelled his epic novel on Tolstoy’s War and Peace , restructuring the narrative to his own Soviet times and channeling the realism that made up communist communication. Quickly confiscated by the KGB after its release, it’s an epic that sits atop with the other Russian greats .
A Month in the Country
By J.L. Carr
Following the First World War, Tom Birkin arrives in a small UK village to help restore a church’s medieval mural, living simply while he encounters the kindly folk who make up the area’s populace. It’s here, as quiet starts to settle in and the art and approachability combine for something serene, that he begins to find peace.
A very British novel that charts a very British month for a very British man, Carr’s work is as leisurely-paced and regenerative as the Yorkshire countryside it depicts, peering into the main character’s recent trauma while surrounded by layers of time. The story might be simple, but its effects are profound.
Related: Why the Lost Generation Writers Still Resonate With Us
Store of the Worlds: The Stories of Robert Sheckley
By Robert Sheckley
Robert Sheckley was a funny and perceptive man. Here in his 26 short stories lie the absurdist questioning that’s rarely found in classic sci-fi works , from the many tales of first contact through to the tragedies of a population outgrowing its world.
Originally published at the height of sci-fi literary obsession in the 1950s, these short stories showcase an author who went deeper into sci-fi philosophies than most authors of his era, always questioning life’s absurdity, even as it was being lived thousands of years in the future and millions of miles away.
A Time of Gifts
By Patrick Leigh Fermor
An adventurer who never stopped exploring, A Time of Gifts charts Fermor’s attempts at an on-foot journey from his London home into then-Constantinople, at the edge of Asia. A fortuitous and frightening time, his experiences see the rise of Hitler and its effects on Europe, the gypsy lives of the Slavic heartland, as well as his own coming-of-age in a quickly changing landscape.
Fermor was a treasure of a travel writer and here, at just 18-years old, we follow that glorious period between adolescence and adulthood, explored unlike most with new sights, sounds and cultures at every turn.
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9 New Books We Recommend This Week
Suggested reading from critics and editors at The New York Times.
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Our recommended books this week run the gamut from a behind-the-scenes look at the classic film “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” to a portrait of suburbia in decline to a collection of presidential love letters with the amazing title “Are You Prepared for the Storm of Love Making?” (That question comes from a mash note written by Woodrow Wilson.) In fiction, we recommend debuts from DéLana R.A. Dameron, Alexander Sammartino and Rebecca K Reilly, alongside new novels by Cormac James, Ashley Elston and Kristin Hannah. Happy reading. — Gregory Cowles
COCKTAILS WITH GEORGE AND MARTHA: Movies, Marriage and the Making of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Philip Gefter
Rarely seen diary entries from the screenwriter who adapted Edward Albee’s Broadway hit are a highlight of this unapologetically obsessive behind-the-scenes look at the classic film starring the super-couple Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.
“Showed how the ‘cartoon versions of marriage’ long served up by American popular culture ... always came with a secret side of bitters.”
From Alexandra Jacobs’s review
Bloomsbury | $32
TRONDHEIM Cormac James
James’s new novel is a deep dive into a family navigating a crisis. It follows two mothers waiting in the I.C.U. to see if their son will wake up from a coma, and through that framework, explores their lives, their relationship, their beliefs and much more.
“Hospital time has a particular and peculiar quality, and ‘Trondheim’ is dedicated to capturing the way it unfolds.”
From Katie Kitamura’s review
Bellevue Literary Press | Paperback, $17.99
REDWOOD COURT DéLana R.A. Dameron
This richly textured and deeply moving debut novel begins with an innocuous question: “What am I made of?” From there, a young Black girl in South Carolina begins to grapple with — and attempt to make sense of — a complicated family history and her place in it.
“Dameron is a prizewinning poet and it shows: She does a beautiful job weaving in local vernacular and casting a fresh gaze on an engaging, though flawed, cast of characters.”
From Charmaine Wilkerson’s review
Dial Press | $28
LAST ACTS Alexander Sammartino
In this hilarious debut, a young man moves in with his father after a near-fatal overdose and decides to help save the family business, a Phoenix gun shop facing foreclosure. Their idea is to pledge a cut of every sale to fighting drug addiction, but they soon find themselves mired in controversy.
“Sammartino is extraordinarily good at balancing the farcical nature of contemporary America with the complex humanity of his characters. He’s also a magnificent sentence writer.”
From Dan Chaon’s review
Scribner | $27
DISILLUSIONED: Five Families and the Unraveling of America’s Suburbs Benjamin Herold
Once defined by big homes, great schools and low taxes, the country’s suburbs, Herold shows in this dispiriting but insightful account, were poorly planned and are now saddled with poverty, struggling schools, dilapidated infrastructure and piles of debt.
“An important, cleareyed account of suburban boom and bust, and the challenges facing the country today.”
From Ben Austen’s review
Penguin Press | $32
ARE YOU PREPARED FOR THE STORM OF LOVE MAKING? Letters of Love and Lust From the White House Dorothy and Thomas Hoobler
This charming collection features presidents from Washington to Obama writing about courtship, marriage, war, diplomacy, love, lust and loss, in winningly besotted tones.
“Answers the question ‘What does a president in love sound like?’ with a refreshing ‘Just as dopey as anybody else.’ ... It is a lovely book, stuffed with romantic details.”
From W.M. Akers’s review
Simon & Schuster | $28.99
GRETA & VALDIN Rebecca K Reilly
Reilly’s generous, tender debut novel follows the exploits of two queer New Zealand 20-something siblings from a hodgepodge, multicultural family as they navigate the chaos of young adulthood, and as they come closer to understanding themselves and their desires.
“If this novel shows us anything, it’s that love — of family, of romantic partners, of community — is most joyful when it’s without limits.”
From Eleanor Dunn’s review
Avid Reader Press | $28
THE WOMEN Kristin Hannah
In her latest historical novel, Hannah shows the Vietnam War through the eyes of a combat nurse. But what the former debutante witnesses and experiences when she comes home from the war is the true gut punch of this timely story.
“The familiar beats snare you from the outset. ... Hannah’s real superpower is her ability to hook you along from catastrophe to catastrophe, sometimes peering between your fingers, because you simply cannot give up on her characters.”
From Beatriz Williams’s review
St. Martin’s | $27
FIRST LIE WINS Ashley Elston
In Elston’s edgy, smart thriller, Evie Porter has just moved in with her boyfriend, a hunky Louisiana businessman. Sadly for him, their relationship is likely to be short-lived, because she’s a criminal and he’s her latest mark.
“Evie makes for a winning, nimble character. Elston raises the stakes with unexpected developments.”
From Sarah Lyall’s thrillers column
Pamela Dorman Books | $28
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5 Overlooked Nonfiction New York Review of Books Classics
Michael Herrington
Michael Herrington is a writer and copy editor from Texas who can never get enough nonfiction, documentaries, and honeycrisp apples. He has a background in journalism, having worked for The Lufkin Daily News and Charm East Texas. His favorite book genres are memoir, history, and essay collection. He can be reached at [email protected].
View All posts by Michael Herrington
For 20 years, The New York Review of Books ‘s publishing division, NYRB Classics being its most famous imprint, has offered a steady supply of under-read and almost-forgotten literary gems to curious readers. While novels like Stoner (perhaps the imprint’s biggest success) and The Invention of Morel have made the biggest splashes, the library’s nonfiction has been the biggest draw for yours truly.
Here are five overlooked (less than 1,000 Goodreads ratings) nonfiction titles from the NYRB Classics’s catalog. For a lengthier list of great nonfiction, check out Rebecca Hussey’s from last October.
The World I Live In by Helen Keller
Helen Keller’s The Story of My Life is firmly lodged in the autobiographical canon, and even people who haven’t read it or seen its adaptations, usually under the title The Miracle Worker , are familiar with the details of Keller’s childhood. You would expect her followup book to be a sequel, but The World I Live In is a completely different beast. From the direct first page to the rapturous final chapter, Keller explains her condition, corrects misunderstanding and dispels the notion that she is incapable of living a full life. Ironically, through putting her experience on paper and bringing herself down to earth, Keller comes off as even more extraordinary. The term “life-changing” gets attached to books easier than to any other art form, but The World I Live In deserves the label. You can’t help but be transformed by it.
The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual by Harold Cruse
This 550-page work of history and cultural criticism will be a slog for some readers (it’s by far the driest, most dense read on this list) and catnip for others, particularly if you’re into the Harlem Renaissance. Cruse charts the path of black intellectual thought from the 1920s to 1967, the year of the book’s publication, and ends up being harsh on both integrationists and black nationalists. Make no mistake, Cruse was not pro-segregation, but he didn’t see integration as a panacea to racial problems. Highly recommended to those interested in American race relations; just have Wikipedia at the ready.
An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
It was a routine trip to his town’s missionary bookstore when Tété-Michel Kpomassie, then 16, came across a book about Eskimos in Greenland. When he read it, he instantly fell in love with the country and became determined to go there. For over a decade, Kpomassie worked his way through Africa and Europe and finally sailed to the country of his dreams. The memoir that resulted from his travels rivals the best of the genre in terms of detail and scene-setting. Kpomassie’s good-naturedness and enthusiasm is simply infectious, and the tone of the book reminded me of the globe-trotting surfers from Bruce Brown’s classic documentary The Endless Summer . I knew I was in for an interesting book, but I wasn’t expecting a feel-good one.
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Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
This account of 1968’s Republican and Democratic National Conventions usually plays second banana to Mailer’s New Journalism classic The Armies of the Night , but I think Miami and the Siege of Chicago is every bit that book’s equal. The opening half, about the RNC, offers priceless snapshots of Republican higher-ups of the time (As with The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual , have Wikipedia on hand to brush up on your history when you encounter an unfamiliar name), but it’s the ground- (and sometimes balcony-) level dispatch about the Chicago police riot, which broke out in response to anti-Vietnam war protests, that makes this essential reading for anyone interested in 20th-century American history.
Poison Penmanship by Jessica Mitford
Jessica Mitford published two memoirs, Hons and Rebels and A Fine Old Conflict , before Poison Penmanship , and in a way this collection of magazine pieces works as a third: a memoir of the writing life. It’s also something of a journalism manual, beginning with a great introduction and following each piece with comments and criticism from Mitford, in which she often kicks herself for missing an opportunity here or there, or wishes she had structured her story differently. Above all, the articles are plain fun. “Maine Chance Diary,” “My Short and Happy Life as a Distinguished Professor” and the two Sign of the Dove pieces in particular are as funny as anything in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again . Any way you read it, and whatever you take from it, this book is a joy.
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October 27, 1988 issue
For our anniversary cover, James McMullan painted the building where he worked for many years with Milton Glaser. Their former studio is now the Review ’s new home. See the Table of Contents for the full issue here .
Classics from the Archive
See America First
January 1, 1970 issue
Animal Liberation
April 5, 1973 issue
The Instrumentalist
January 19, 2023 issue
Illness as Metaphor
January 26, 1978 issue
A Letter to My Sister, Miss Angela Davis
January 7, 1971 issue
Billie Holiday
March 4, 1976 issue
The Perils of Pauline
August 14, 1980 issue
Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers
November 18, 1971 issue
Why Read the Classics?
October 9, 1986 issue
Remembering Orson Welles
June 1, 1989 issue
Kicking the Door
March 22, 1979 issue
Making the Memorial
November 2, 2000 issue
On ‘The Plague’
November 29, 2001 issue
The Enduring Romance of American Communism
April 3, 2020
Food of the Gods
February 26, 1987 issue
The Great Amateur
March 14, 1968 issue
Aimez-Vous Brahms?
October 22, 1998 issue
Saying Good-by to Hannah
January 22, 1976 issue
A Special Supplement: The Responsibility of Intellectuals
February 23, 1967 issue
August 13, 2009 issue
The Marvels of Walter Benjamin
January 11, 2001 issue
A Conversation in Iowa
November 5, 2015 issue
Fidel in the Evening
Sweet Evening Breeze
December 20, 1984 issue
Man’s Biggest Friend
The origins of the elephant–human relationship date back into prehistory.
November 21, 2019 issue
Octopus: The Footed Void
The closer you look at an octopus, the more you see.
April 30, 2013
Intrepid Navigators
Migration’s demands on birds are as daunting mentally as they are physically.
February 25, 2021 issue
Requiem for a Heavyweight
In Fathoms , Rebecca Giggs tries to comprehend the fact that whales now literally embody their increasingly polluted world.
August 19, 2021 issue
To enjoy the company of a cat, we must be prepared to forgo our dominant pack leader role, and adopt a more modest position.
November 3, 1994 issue
Horse Sense
A book for naturalists or cowboys, bluegrass aristocrats or race-track touts, distinguished academics or little girls gone horse-crazy, and all readers with an interest in Equus caballus .
May 15, 1997 issue
Fighting Words
Critical views from the archive
Truth About Translation
June 23, 2016 issue
The Hard Work of Marriage
December 4, 2014 issue
After Great Expectations
January 9, 2014 issue
Letter from ‘Manhattan’
August 16, 1979 issue
April 20, 1967 issue
Flaubert’s Planet
Do novelists, and their readers, bear some responsibility for the climate crisis?
July 21, 2022 issue
A Hotter Russia
The cliché, avidly promoted by Moscow, is that Russia will be a relative winner in climate change, but a new book argues that the country will find itself in trouble.
June 23, 2022 issue
Reasons for Concern
The IPCC’s latest report, with warnings for supply chains and food security, may be the most suspense-filled document in human history.
March 9, 2022
From the Archives
Books and Bookstores
Feminism & Shakespeare and Company
November 18, 2019
The Lost Pleasure of Browsing
October 13, 2009
Who Would Dare?
March 22, 2011
The Last Book Sale
August 17, 2012
The Books We’ve Lost
August 13, 2013
Maestro of the Strand
January 4, 2018
The Mindsnatchers
Misleading optical effects, half-waking dreams, sleep paralysis, tricks of memory, paranoid delusions, temporal lobe lesions, intoxication, fraud, and faddism are abundantly familiar to us, whereas the UFO thesis flouts the known laws of nature at every turn.
June 25, 1998 issue
A Close Encounter
So we arrive at Francis Crick’s directed panspermia hypothesis: a few billion years ago, a technically advanced extraterrestrial civilization sent a rocket carrying a diversity of bacteria to Earth. The rocket discharged its cargo into the primeval soup, where the tiny creatures were fruitful and multiplied.
December 3, 1981 issue
The Third Coming
“For those who cannot believe in the Second Coming, or the Messianic hopes of orthodox Judaism, there are the UFOs! If the earth is being visited by extraterrestrials, surely the aliens must be friendly or by now we would have learned otherwise.”
Sharing the Universe
With the advent of radioastronomy, the scope of investigations of outer space has been enormously widened as the strange music of incredibly remote spheres keeps pouring into steerable dishes and saucers of all kinds and sizes.
February 1, 1963 issue
Food for Thought
The Noble Fish
February 9, 2022
A Taste of Home
November 24, 2021
Honing My Knife Skills
March 13, 2021
My Quarantine: Savoring the Ramen Western
May 8, 2020
The Empress of Ice Cream
April 4, 1996 issue
Eating Olives at the End of the World
April 12, 2020
The Lie of American Asylum
Three new books offer searing portraits of the people affected by family separations and the criminalization of asylum in the Trump era.
November 5, 2020 issue
Deportation Nation
The deportation system held sway over immigrant communities long before Trump became president, but under his direction it has become even more far-reaching, arbitrary, and cruel.
October 8, 2020 issue
Inside the Deportation Courts
There is no principle of innocent until proven guilty in immigration court.
October 10, 2019 issue
Native Histories
Chopping Down the Sacred Tree
April 22, 1999 issue
The Power Brokers
December 3, 2020 issue
The World from the Other Side
April 3, 2014 issue
The Indians’ Own Story
April 7, 2005 issue
Apologies to the Iroquois
April 6, 2006 issue
New World Symphony
December 1, 2005 issue
First Among Equals
“Vermeer prompts us to look at his handiwork. In the foreground, white and red paint—conjuring threads escaping from the woman’s sewing cushion—appears as if dribbled on the canvas.”
February 7, 2019 issue
The Mysterious Women of Vermeer
Vermeer has a mind-boggling technique for transferring visual sensations from eye to canvas as if without the hand’s intervention. Color has somehow wafted down, as leaves might on water, and cohered automatically into threads and ringlets and cushions.
December 22, 2011 issue
Camera Work
“To read about Johannes Vermeer and to look at his pictures is sometimes to think you have entered a fairy-tale domain. There’s an Arabian Nights flavor about a painter who leaves so few traces of himself.”
May 31, 2001 issue
November 11, 2010 issue
The Housing Vultures
The investors who exploited the 2008 financial crisis are dictating the bailout of this one.
June 11, 2020 issue
America’s Eviction Epidemic
Across the country, millions of people are facing eviction as protections in place for the pandemic have lapsed.
September 16, 2020
How NYC Is Zoning Out the Human Scale
This is a New York story only for now. Upzonings and transfers of newly created air rights are occurring in cities around the country. When it comes to real estate, New York City may lead the way, but others follow in time.
December 30, 2019
Tenants Under Siege: Inside New York City’s Housing Crisis
New York City is in the throes of a humanitarian emergency. The tide of homelessness is only the most visible symptom.
August 17, 2017 issue
There is about Maine a fascinating softness that seems to spread like a blanket over the hardness of rock and woods and icy turf. Not a tropical softness, but the odd snowy lassitude of isolation.
October 7, 1971 issue
The Vigilantes of Vermont
In 1777 Vermonters declared themselves citizens of an independent republic and ratified one of the most liberal, egalitarian constitutions in American history. How did a populist movement led by a violent, charismatic figure give birth to a stable democratic society?
April 5, 2012 issue
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Ah, Wilderness!
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50 iconic books that are set in New York
Posted: February 24, 2024 | Last updated: February 25, 2024
Books set in New York
Every state has its hallmark writers. Mississippi has William Faulkner and his incomparable (fictional) Yoknapatawpha County and Missouri can lay claim to Mark Twain. The state of Maine is gifted with Pulitzer winner Richard Russo and horror icon Stephen King. Rural Pennsylvania is the playground of the much-heralded (and occasionally maligned) John Updike, and when many bibliophiles think of New Jersey, they also think of Richard Ford's series of novels featuring recurring Everyman character Frank Bascombe. Illinois can lay claim to William Maxwell, Sandra Cisneros, and Adam Langer, among numerous others. And what reader can think of Washington State without contending with the sparkle-vampire yarns of Stephanie Meyer?
What makes authors like these inextricably associated with a particular state is not simply the matter of their having been born there or choosing to live there. The connection, from a writerly standpoint, is deeper than that—their work, nearly all of it, is set in "their" state.
Of course, there are certainly exceptions. Whether a writer sets a tale in the town where they went to college or spent part of their childhood—like Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" and its New England arts school setting and the almost-factual small town of Jo Ann Beard's "In Zanesville," respectively—or crafts a story that follows a social or political theme to a location they know little about but lay narrative claim to anyway, the world is rife with books known, loved, and respected that also capture the essence of place—books where setting itself is one of the strongest characters.
Stacker compiled a list of books set in New York from Goodreads . Whether you're looking for a good read set in the state you call home, or you're looking to expand your curiosity with a writer you're already familiar with, we've got you covered.
The Great Gatsby
- Rating: 3.93 (4.6 million ratings) - Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald - Published: April 10, 1925 - Genres: Classics, Fiction, School, Historical Fiction - Read more on Goodreads
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
- Rating: 4.28 (429,814 ratings) - Author: Betty Smith - Published: August 18, 1943 - Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Young Adult - Read more on Goodreads
The Alienist (Dr. Laszlo Kreizler, #1)
- Rating: 4.05 (166,830 ratings) - Author: Caleb Carr - Published: March 15, 1994 - Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Thriller - Read more on Goodreads
The Catcher in the Rye
- Rating: 3.81 (3.2 million ratings) - Author: J.D. Salinger - Published: January 1, 1951 - Genres: Classics, Fiction, Young Adult, Literature - Read more on Goodreads
Boy Meets Girl (Boy, #2)
- Rating: 3.83 (29,257 ratings) - Author: Meg Cabot - Published: January 6, 2004 - Genres: Chick Lit, Romance, Fiction, Contemporary - Read more on Goodreads
The Godfather (The Godfather, #1)
- Rating: 4.37 (384,223 ratings) - Author: Mario Puzo - Published: March 10, 1969 - Genres: Fiction, Classics, Crime, Thriller - Read more on Goodreads
The Gift of the Magi
- Rating: 4.10 (89,831 ratings) - Author: O. Henry - Published: December 10, 1905 - Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Fiction, Christmas - Read more on Goodreads
- Rating: 3.89 (41,379 ratings) - Author: E.L. Doctorow - Published: January 1, 1975 - Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics, Novels - Read more on Goodreads
Firestarter
- Rating: 3.90 (211,843 ratings) - Author: Stephen King - Published: September 29, 1980 - Genres: Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Science Fiction - Read more on Goodreads
Flowers for Algernon
- Rating: 4.18 (580,501 ratings) - Author: Daniel Keyes - Published: April 1, 1959 - Genres: Fiction, Classics, Science Fiction, Young Adult - Read more on Goodreads
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
- Rating: 4.15 (202,894 ratings) - Author: E.L. Konigsburg - Published: January 1, 1967 - Genres: Fiction, Childrens, Young Adult, Middle Grade - Read more on Goodreads
The Thin Man
- Rating: 3.92 (33,071 ratings) - Author: Dashiell Hammett - Published: January 1, 1934 - Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Classics, Crime - Read more on Goodreads
Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
- Rating: 3.97 (406,276 ratings) - Author: Jonathan Safran Foer - Published: January 1, 2005 - Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Historical Fiction, Novels - Read more on Goodreads
The House of Mirth
- Rating: 3.96 (91,755 ratings) - Author: Edith Wharton - Published: October 14, 1905 - Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Literature - Read more on Goodreads
Miracle on 34th Street
- Rating: 4.07 (2,443 ratings) - Author: Valentine Davies - Published: January 1, 1947 - Genres: Christmas, Fiction, Classics, Holiday - Read more on Goodreads
Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories
- Rating: 3.86 (240,174 ratings) - Author: Truman Capote - Published: October 28, 1958 - Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Romance, Literature - Read more on Goodreads
- Rating: 3.67 (14,779 ratings) - Author: Mary McCarthy - Published: January 1, 1963 - Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, Novels - Read more on Goodreads
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
- Rating: 3.72 (62,502 ratings) - Author: Washington Irving - Published: January 1, 1820 - Genres: Classics, Horror, Fiction, Short Stories - Read more on Goodreads
Stuart Little
- Rating: 3.90 (119,838 ratings) - Author: E.B. White - Published: January 1, 1945 - Genres: Childrens, Classics, Fiction, Fantasy - Read more on Goodreads
The Cricket in Times Square (Chester Cricket and His Friends, #1)
- Rating: 4.03 (63,545 ratings) - Author: George Selden - Published: January 1, 1960 - Genres: Childrens, Fiction, Classics, Fantasy - Read more on Goodreads
The Princess Diaries (The Princess Diaries, #1)
- Rating: 3.80 (247,375 ratings) - Author: Meg Cabot - Published: September 19, 2000 - Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Fiction, Contemporary - Read more on Goodreads
Death of a Salesman
- Rating: 3.55 (212,733 ratings) - Author: Arthur Miller - Published: January 1, 1949 - Genres: Classics, Plays, Fiction, Drama - Read more on Goodreads
The Lightning Thief (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, #1)
- Rating: 4.29 (2.5 million ratings) - Author: Rick Riordan - Published: June 28, 2005 - Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Mythology, Fiction - Read more on Goodreads
The Age of Innocence
- Rating: 3.96 (157,903 ratings) - Author: Edith Wharton - Published: October 1, 1920 - Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Romance - Read more on Goodreads
City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)
- Rating: 4.08 (1.9 million ratings) - Author: Cassandra Clare - Published: May 27, 2007 - Genres: Fantasy, Young Adult, Paranormal, Romance - Read more on Goodreads
Rip Van Winkle
- Rating: 3.62 (14,323 ratings) - Author: Washington Irving - Published: January 1, 1819 - Genres: Classics, Short Stories, Fiction, Fantasy - Read more on Goodreads
Seventh Heaven
- Rating: 3.76 (9,378 ratings) - Author: Alice Hoffman - Published: January 1, 1990 - Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Fantasy - Read more on Goodreads
The Pink Suit
- Rating: 3.40 (2,518 ratings) - Author: Nicole Mary Kelby - Published: April 10, 2014 - Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, Fashion - Read more on Goodreads
- Rating: 3.86 (27,526 ratings) - Author: Toni Morrison - Published: January 1, 1992 - Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, African American - Read more on Goodreads
Jaws (Jaws #1)
- Rating: 3.96 (152,287 ratings) - Author: Peter Benchley - Published: May 6, 1974 - Genres: Horror, Fiction, Thriller, Classics - Read more on Goodreads
Here Is New York
- Rating: 4.30 (8,040 ratings) - Author: E.B. White - Published: January 1, 1948 - Genres: Nonfiction, New York, Essays, Travel - Read more on Goodreads
- Rating: 4.16 (37,346 ratings) - Author: Edward Rutherfurd - Published: September 3, 2009 - Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, New York - Read more on Goodreads
Farmer Boy (Little House, #2)
- Rating: 4.07 (63,648 ratings) - Author: Laura Ingalls Wilder - Published: January 1, 1933 - Genres: Classics, Historical Fiction, Childrens, Fiction - Read more on Goodreads
My Side of the Mountain (Mountain, #1)
- Rating: 4.07 (71,247 ratings) - Author: Jean Craighead George - Published: January 1, 1959 - Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Classics, Childrens - Read more on Goodreads
Wonderstruck
- Rating: 4.16 (56,122 ratings) - Author: Brian Selznick - Published: September 13, 2011 - Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Middle Grade, Young Adult - Read more on Goodreads
Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion
- Rating: 3.85 (2,105 ratings) - Author: Jenna Blum - Published: July 1, 2014 - Genres: Historical Fiction, Short Stories, Fiction, World War II - Read more on Goodreads
The Orphanmaster
- Rating: 3.29 (2,478 ratings) - Author: Jean Zimmerman - Published: June 19, 2012 - Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Historical - Read more on Goodreads
Felix Ever After
- Rating: 4.32 (46,978 ratings) - Author: Kacen Callender - Published: May 5, 2020 - Genres: LGBT, Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance - Read more on Goodreads
The Gods of Gotham (Timothy Wilde, #1)
- Rating: 3.87 (15,434 ratings) - Author: Lyndsay Faye - Published: March 15, 2012 - Genres: Historical Fiction, Mystery, Fiction, Historical - Read more on Goodreads
The Drawing of the Three
- Rating: 4.22 (240,240 ratings) - Author: Stephen King - Published: May 1, 1987 - Genres: Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Science Fiction - Read more on Goodreads
A Fall of Marigolds
- Rating: 4.07 (52,816 ratings) - Author: Susan Meissner - Published: February 4, 2014 - Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Romance - Read more on Goodreads
Go Tell It on the Mountain
- Rating: 4.03 (60,985 ratings) - Author: James Baldwin - Published: May 18, 1953 - Genres: Fiction, Classics, African American, Race - Read more on Goodreads
Sophie's Choice
- Rating: 4.18 (87,252 ratings) - Author: William Styron - Published: January 1, 1979 - Genres: Fiction, Classics, Historical Fiction, Holocaust - Read more on Goodreads
Object Lessons
- Rating: 3.83 (8,347 ratings) - Author: Anna Quindlen - Published: April 9, 1991 - Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Chick Lit, Novels - Read more on Goodreads
Breath, Eyes, Memory
- Rating: 3.89 (28,852 ratings) - Author: Edwidge Danticat - Published: April 1, 1994 - Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary, Novels - Read more on Goodreads
Another Country
- Rating: 4.30 (20,892 ratings) - Author: James Baldwin - Published: May 1, 1962 - Genres: Fiction, Classics, LGBT, Queer - Read more on Goodreads
Rules of Civility
- Rating: 4.07 (194,884 ratings) - Author: Amor Towles - Published: July 26, 2011 - Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, New York - Read more on Goodreads
Size 12 Is Not Fat (Heather Wells, #1)
- Rating: 3.76 (84,776 ratings) - Author: Meg Cabot - Published: December 27, 2005 - Genres: Chick Lit, Mystery, Romance, Fiction - Read more on Goodreads
Gingerbread (Cyd Charisse, #1)
- Rating: 3.63 (10,785 ratings) - Author: Rachel Cohn - Published: March 1, 2002 - Genres: Young Adult, Fiction, Contemporary, Teen - Read more on Goodreads
Deacon King Kong
- Rating: 4.18 (55,323 ratings) - Author: James McBride - Published: March 3, 2020 - Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Audiobook, Literary Fiction - Read more on Goodreads
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NYRB Classics - New York Review Books The NYRB Classics series is dedicated to publishing an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction from different eras and times and of various sorts. Many of these titles are works in translation and almost all feature an introduction by an outstanding writer, scholar, or critic of our day. Filter: More filters
Listopia New York Review Books - Classics The NYRB Classics series is designedly and determinedly exploratory and eclectic, a mix of fiction and non-fiction from different eras and times and of various sorts.
John Banville. 'Live All You Can'. The early lives of Emerson, Thoreau, and William James were marked by the loss of loved ones, and in their reflections one finds a characteristically nineteenth-century American sense of resilience and regeneration. March 7, 2024 issue. Edward Mendelson.
A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say. October 9, 1986 issue Submit a letter: Email us [email protected] Let us begin with a few suggested definitions. 1) The classics are the books of which we usually hear people say: "I am rereading…" and never "I am reading…."
"NYRB has made a specialty of rescuing and reviving all kinds of ignored or forgotten works," said The New York Times, "in English or in translation, fiction and nonfiction, by writers renowned and obscure." Each month, our editors select a book from our newest titles, and that book is sent to club members as soon as it is available.
Join NYRB Classics Book Club Is there a book that you'd like to see back in print, or that you think we should consider for one of our series? Let us know! Tell us about it The homepage of New York Review Books.
The film, with its handful of Oscar nominations, has refocused attention on the novel, a satire of the literary world and its racial biases. Kaveh Akbar had a raging addiction and little reason to ...
The head of the New York Review of Books Classics series on how and why old books matter and the joys of bringing dead authors back to life. E dwin Frank is a poet and the founder and editorial ...
First launched in 1999, the New York Review Books Classics series has famously come to be known for its unearthing of lost masterpieces. The series is comprised of incredible books that somehow slipped through the cracks of time, only to be rediscovered by NYRB's obsessive editors and re-published in tidy, color-coded volumes.
New York, New York Review Books, 1999 (NYRB Classics). Paperback. Publisher's blurb: "Richard Hughes's celebrated short novel is a masterpiece of concentrated narrative. Its dreamlike action begins among the decayed plantation houses and overwhelming natural abundance of late nineteenth-century Jamaica, before moving out onto the high seas ...
An offshoot of the literary magazine The New York Review of Books, the NYRB Classics imprint specializes in reissuing volumes that have fallen out of print or been otherwise neglected, such as J ...
I've been polling others. flag All Votes Add Books To This List 35 books · 20 voters · list created August 26th, 2013 by Rebecca (votes) . Tags: classics, nyrb 2 likes · Like Lists are re-scored approximately every 5 minutes. People Who Voted On This List (20) Rebecca 5519 books 474 friends Lauren 2073 books 135 friends Ayreon 2068 books
In fiction, we recommend debuts from DéLana R.A. Dameron, Alexander Sammartino and Rebecca K Reilly, alongside new novels by Cormac James, Ashley Elston and Kristin Hannah. Happy reading ...
The NYRB Classics series is dedicated to publishing an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction from different eras and times and of various sorts. Many of these titles are works in translation and almost all feature an introduction by an outstanding writer, scholar, or critic of our day.
[1] Series and collections NYRB Classics is a series of fiction and non-fiction works for all ages and from around the world. Since its first volume, a 1999 reissue of Richard Hughes 's 1929 novel A High Wind in Jamaica, NYRB Classics has published hundreds of titles.
Janet Malcolm (1934-2021) Janet Malcolm's journalism focused on the contradictory motives, confused allegiances, and hidden drives of human life. Ben Lerner The Lights a poem Mark O'Connell Uncanny Planet A new collection of essays by Nathaniel Rich argues that there is no going back to whatever might be meant by "nature."
For 20 years, The New York Review of Books's publishing division, NYRB Classics being its most famous imprint, has offered a steady supply of under-read and almost-forgotten literary gems to curious readers.While novels like Stoner (perhaps the imprint's biggest success) and The Invention of Morel have made the biggest splashes, the library's nonfiction has been the biggest draw for ...
The New York Review of Books (or NYREV or NYRB) is a semi-monthly magazine [2] with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of important books is an indispensable literary activity.
New York Review Books, New York, NY. 214,495 likes · 66 talking about this. New York Review Books publishes the NYRB Classics, NYR Children's Collection, NYRB Poets, and NYR Comics series of books.
About New York Review Books publishes NYRB Classics, NYRB Kids, New York Review Comics, and NYRB Poets. Download our latest catalogs here. New York Review Books The New York Times has called The New York Review of Books "the country's most successful intellectual journal."
Chinua Achebe, a Nigerian-born novelist and poet, poses at his home on the campus of Bard College in ...[+] Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., where he was a professor. He wrote one of the best classic ...
New York Review Of Books Classics genre: new releases and popular books, including Renoir, My Father by Jean Renoir, Moravagine by Blaise Cendrars, Alien...
2 3 … 5 The NYRB Classics series is dedicated to publishing an eclectic mix of fiction and nonfiction from different eras and times and of various sorts. Many of these titles are works in translation and almost all feature an introduction by an outstanding writer, scholar, or critic of our day.
The New York Review Turns Sixty October 12, 2023 Emily Greenhouse, interviewed by Daniel Drake An Act of Admiration: Editing The New York Review "That is my job: to reach out to writers whose minds seem acutely alive to the world around us, to ask them to examine, ransack, and record." October 12, 2023 The Editors Where the Elite Meet to Mate
- Rating: 4.28 (429,814 ratings) - Author: Betty Smith - Published: August 18, 1943 - Genres: Classics, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Young Adult - Read more on Goodreads
26 Shopping for someone else but not sure what to give them? Give them the gift of choice with a New York Review Books Gift Card. Gift Cards A membership for yourself or as a gift for a special reader will promise a year of good reading.