Is New York City the world capital of… everything? It’s sure putting up a good effort.
We could talk about how the New York Stock Exchange started under a tree (!) on Wall Street and how NYC is now the financial capital of the world. Billionaires, millionaires, blah blah blah.
Let’s talk about what really matters.
Like… the best pizza and bagels in the world, the Met and the New York Public Library, art deco skyscrapers and bodega cats, Carnegie Hall, Broadway, Rockefeller Center, and that one place on the corner in Brooklyn with the best Polish pastries.
There’s the immediately identifiable New York accent and the 800 or so languages spoken by New Yorkers from all around the world. The City That Never Sleeps is the ultimate melting pot; we’re all better for it.
New Yorkers are a unique breed who’ve changed the personality of the city over and over again. Dutch and British settlers named the place, immigrants made it cosmopolitan, the elite of the Gilded Age filled it with skyscrapers, and barriers were busted by the artists of the Harlem Renaissance. And let’s not forget the unnamed good samaritan on the subway who will warn you that the next station is closed so you need to transfer.
In this episode, we grab an imaginary coffee to go in a ‘We Are Happy to Serve You’ cup and explore the ultimate bookish day in New York City. In Two Truths and a Lie, we meet the musicians of the Phantom of the Opera on Broadway and visit a Brooklyn store where you can buy a can of chutzpah. Then we recommend six great books that took us to New York City on the page, including two graphic novels, a love letter to ’90s Manhattan, a frothy family saga, historical fiction with a challenging heroine, and a collection of short stories from a master of fiction.
Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
LaserWriter II by Tamara Shopsin
Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González
Hello, NY by Julia Rothman
Roaming by Jillian and Mariko Tamaki
Table for Two: Fictions by Amor Towles
For more on the books we recommend, plus the other cool stuff we talk about, visit show notes.
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Transcript of New York City: NO! SLEEP! TILL BROOKLYN!
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