More New York Stories - by Constance Rosenblum (Paperback)

About the Book

Continues: New York stories. New York: New York University Press, c2005.

Book Synopsis

Fifty more essays from famous writers on their incurable love affair with the Big Apple

What do Francine Prose, Suketu Mehta, and Edwidge Danticat have in common? Each suffers from an incurable love affair with the Big Apple, and each contributed to the canon of writing New York has inspired by way of the New York Times City Section, a part of the paper that once defined Sunday afternoon leisure for the denizens of the five boroughs. Former City Section editor Constance Rosenblum has again culled a diverse cast of voices that brought to vivid life our metropolis through those pages in this follow-up to the publication New York Stories (2005).

The fifty essays in More New York Stories unite the city's best-known writers to provide a window to the bustle and richness of city life. As with the previous collection, many of the contributors need no introduction, among them Kevin Baker, Laura Shaine Cunningham, Dorothy Gallagher, Colin Harrison, Frances Kiernan, Nathaniel Rich, Jonathan Rosen, Christopher Sorrentino, and Robert Sullivan; they are among the most eloquent observers of our urban life. Others are relative newcomers. But all are voices worth listening to, and the result is a comprehensive and entertaining picture of New York in all its many guises.

The section on "Characters'' offers a bouquet of indelible profiles. The section on "Places" takes us on journeys to some of the city's quintessential locales. "Rituals, Rhythms, and Ruminations" seeks to capture the city's peculiar texture, and the section called "Excavating the Past" offers slices of the city's endlessly fascinating history.

Delightful for dipping into and a great companion for anyone planning a trip, this collection is both a heart-warming introduction to the human side of New York and a reminder to life-long New Yorkers of the reasons we call the city home.

Review Quotes

"[T]his commemorative collection captures the essence of New York's distinctive urban life."-- "Library Journal"

"Former section editor Rosenblum gathers 50 of the best pieces of the postSeptember 11 era by masters of the form including Edwidge Danticat and Francine Prosethis rich sampling delivers."-- "Publishers Weekly"

"New York is the plural city par excellence, the place of many tales. This new collection, taken from the pages of the city paper, gives us a new luxuriance of New York stories, neither neatly splashy nor narrowly sociological, but instead with the spice and eccentricity and plural energy that New Yorkers will recognize as ours and non-New Yorkers may wish was theirs."--Adam Gopnik, author of Through The Children's Gate: A Home In New York

"The City section was an invaluable counterpoint, almost a stowaway, on the cruise liner of the Sunday New York Times. It delivered news that stays newsindelible and intimate stories of city life, by turns disturbing, amusing, and enchanting. The pieces in this collection are as alive now as they were when they first saw newsprint. Reading them again, even across a distance of years, was like bumping into old friends."--Thomas Beller, author of The Sleep-Over Artist and How to Be a Man

"Three Hudson valley women contributed outstanding personal essays in this lively collection of urban musings."--Chronogram Magazine "Chronogram Magazine"