Books I love and the places I've loved them in

New York

Underworld / Don DeLillo Giants vs. Dodgers baseball, life's ebbs and flows, and one of my favorite character names of all time (Klara Sax)

The Rules Do Not Apply / Ariel Levy Things fall apart spectacularly (in New York, on the west coast, even in Mongolia). One of Levy's quotes prior to the unspooling: "Nothing really bad could happen to me in my movie, because I was the protagonist."

The Goldfinch / Donna Tartt A mother's death at the Met, slipping into life on Park Avenue, restoring antiques in Greenwich Village, all the while consumed by obsession with a girl and a painting.

Super Sad True Love Story / Gary Shteyngart Near-future New York dystopia in which most people dismiss books as smelly and anachronistic, preferring to stare into their "äppäräts" instead. So now, basically.

Just Kids / Patti Smith Oh to be two young, bohemian, and inseparable artists. These stories – of shared museum tickets, shared Coney Island hot dogs, and a shared room at the Chelsea Hotel – are why people (i.e. me!) move to New York.

The Power Broker / Robert A. Caro Took Robert Caro seven years to write, and me nearly seven years to read. The history of one infuriating man ends up feeling like the entire history of New York. An education.

Fates & Furies / Lauren Groff A story of marriage – as told by the two people in it – that feels so much bigger than two people in love. Takes on identity, reinvention, creativity, and human nature.

The Bonfire of the Vanities / Tom Wolfe Master of the Universe Sherman McCoy gets lost in the South Bronx (which happened to me once too, and made me feel so New York), with fascinating and terrible consequences.

Let the Great World Spin / Colum McCann Irish brothers in outer boroughs, a prostitute on trial, a wire walker, and about a half dozen other narrators. One, Gloria, says "It had never occurred to me before, but everything in New York is built upon another thing, nothing is entirely by itself, each thing as strange as the last, and connected.” 

A Visit From the Goon Squad / Jennifer Egan Music moves, time slips away, and 13 characters flit in and out of each other's stories, like the literary fiction equivalent of New York, I Love You.

The Catcher in the Rye / J.D. Salinger Isolated and impulsive Holden Caulfield runs around New York spouting all my favorite phrases – "phonies," "that killed me," and "I got a bang out of that."

I Was Told There'd Be Cake / Sloane Crosley This book makes the minutiae of daily life feel riveting. Crosley loses her keys, bitches about being a bridesmaid, calls the cops on her neighbors. For awhile, I thought I WAS Sloane Crosley.

Motherless Brooklyn / Jonatan Lethem Modeled on a stock detective novel but isn't. Somewhat perversely, watching Lionel tic his way through the Zen Buddhist school got me to take up meditation (I lasted about two weeks).

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn / Betty Smith My childhood touchstone, detailing the delights and traumas of life in Williamsburg a century ago.

Here is New York / E.B. White Half of the great New York quotes on Pinterest started here. The other half are Woody Allen. One of the best: “The city makes up for its hazards and its deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin – the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled.”

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay / Michael Chabon. Great escapes, comics, friendships, and grinding it out in New York.

A Little Life / Hanya Yanagihara. Jude's life had me crying in public places all over NYC. Beautiful, brilliant, painful, and incredibly moving.

Sunshine State / Sarah Gerard A collection of essays recalling coming of age in one of the strangest states in America, with all the tramp stamps, McMansions, houseboats, and bird sanctuaries you'd expect.

Florida / Lauren Groff So what if the title is a little on-the-nose? These stories are so evocative of my own sense-memories of Florida – it’s steamy stickiness, its verdant-bordering-on-rotten plant life, and the eternal sunshine that only feels docile.

Telegraph Avenue / Michael Chabon Two men who run a record store stare down the specter of gentrification, corporatization, and digital music as they grapple with what happens when the world changes but you stay the same.

I'll Be Gone in the Dark / Michelle McNamara McNamara died before getting the satisfaction of seeing the Golden State Killer caught, but her propulsive, fascinating true crime account of the search that absorbed years of her life is well worth seeing through. 

My Life in France / Julia Child The joy of discovering yourself, awakening your passion, and melding seamlessly into another culture.

A Moveable Feast / Ernest Hemingway The ultimate primer on Paris in the 20s, featuring all the romance, big personalities, and cafe culture you'd expect from the most famous American in France.

Me Talk Pretty One Day / David Sedaris Follow along as David learns French in Paris, going "from speaking like an evil baby to speaking like a hillbilly." Also, so many laughs.

Bringing up Bébé / Pamela Druckerman An ex-pat in Paris offers a corrective to over-the-top American child-rearing in the form of French parenting – lessons on how to raise well-behaved, secure, and creative children without sacrificing your sanity or sense of self.

Swing Time / Zadie Smith First, a fierce childhood friendship set against class-conscious London. Then, the ambivalence of being an adult, living nomadically, loving nothing, and feeling at home nowhere.

The Idiot / Elif Batuman Ivy League angst and all the things that go unsaid on the road to growing up.

Little Fires Everywhere / Celeste Ng Tracks the seismic impact of the arrival of a nomadic mother-daughter pair upon the picture-perfect Richardson family. A beautiful meditation on how the places and ways we live shape us. 

ONTARIO