"Start spreading the news..."

By michele on March 04, 2009 | Add a Comment

I love New York City. Ever since I went there to see my first musical when I was a kid (Carousel in Lincoln Center), I've fallen in love with the bustling city, filled with the most fascinating people, plenty of pigeons, street vendors selling sausages and pretzels, the famous and the very not-so-famous walking the same streets, giant billboards, and so much more to fill a book, or lots of books.  Colson Whitehead wrote a well-known love-letter to his city, called The Colossus of New York.  It's one of the best books I've ever seen that honestly captures all the euphoria and craziness of the Big Apple.  The miracle of it all is the book is slim.  He's economical in his ode to the city, and yet he says more with a few words than many authors do with paragraphs and pages of description.  

I'll be thinking of Whitehead as I visit New York tomorrow and Friday to meet with publicists about summer and fall author tours. 

What are some of your favorite books about cities, or New York especially? Some of my other favorites include The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon, and The Great Man by Kate Christensen.