New York City

New York City | READING AND TRAVEL GUIDE
Click on Essential Reading for the featured set of New York City books and a map. We offer free shipping on anything else you order with the travel books package.

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Eyewitness Guide New York City •  Eleanor Berman
GUIDEBOOK • 2008 • PAPER • 448 PAGES
There are hundreds of guides, of course, but we like this one the best. It's a very colorful, artfully designed introduction, with a focus on sites, history, and architecture, along with great local maps. We see more visitors in our West Village neighborhood carrying it around than any other, and they all seem to love it. (NYC02, $25.00)

Here is New York •  E.B. White
CULTURAL PORTRAIT • 1999 • HARD COVER • 56 PAGES • FAVORITE
Perhaps no one has captured the city as lyrically, and certainly none as efficiently, as E.B. White. This brief essay (it was originally a 7500-word piece for Holiday magazine, and is easily read in an hour) was written in a hot hotel room over a 2-day period in the summer of 1948. The famous opening line ("On anyone who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.") sets the stage for a portrait of the city that moves from Broadway to Central Park, from the horn of the great steamships to the dark of the bars on 3rd Avenue. Though, as Roger Angell points out in the introduction to the new edition, so much of what he mentions is no longer here (the hotel cafe he hung out in was gone even by the time the piece was first published in 1949), the prose has an amazingly timeless, fresh quality to it, and is a marvelous introduction to what people still love about New York City. (NYC28, $16.95)

Gotham, A History of New York up to 1898 •  Mike Wallace •  Edwin G. Burrows
HISTORY • 2000 • PAPER • 1350 PAGES
The 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winner for history, "Gotham" traces New York City life from the Dutch colonization to 1898. Jam-packed with tales of crime, violence, corruption, municipal egoism, riots and ethnic struggles, it is anything but dull. Concise biographies of famous New Yorkers and unsung heroes are interspersed throughout the book to allow for a more intimate glance at the people who shaped New York City's colorful history. Highly recommended. (NYC11, $34.95)

Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories •  Joseph Mitchell
ANTHOLOGY • 1993 • PAPER • 716 PAGES
Pure pleasure. Joseph Mitchell was a legend in his time. Mostly during the 1940s and 1950s, he wrote loving, extraordinarily vivid, short pieces for The New Yorker. He was a master at painting character, and place, in swift strokes. In many ways this book, the definitive collection of his pieces, depicts the New York (and environs -- let's not forget the great pieces on the Oystermen in the Great South Bay, or the rivermen in Edgewater, NJ) of its time as well as any ever written. (NYC61, $16.95)

New York City Map •   Popout Maps
MAP
This convenient map of New York has a clever "origami" fold to help the traveler refer to any location in the city without having to deal with an unwieldy and large piece of paper. If there's any city where this would come in handy, it's New York. Map covers all of Manhattan, and also features a Manhattan subway map and a more detailed map of Greenwich Village Two Sides. 8.5x20 inches. (NYC26, $6.95)

Related Categories

New York City Map •   Borch Maps • A convenient folded, laminated map of New York City. One side is a detailed map of Manhattan south of 96th St, and includes northern Brooklyn. On the other side is a full indes, a larger-scale regional map, and a map of the subway. (NYC207, $8.95)

AIA Guide to New York City •  Noval White •  Elliot Willensky • GUIDEBOOK • A quirky, digressive guide to the architecture of New York City, organized by neighborhood and bloated to 1,000 pages in this edition, last revised in 1987. (NYC03, $37.50)

Blue Guide New York •  Carol Von Pressentin Wright • GUIDEBOOK • An excellent, comprehensive guide to New York sights, including walking tours and a focus on art and architecture. (NYC29, $24.95)

Fodor's New York City •  Paul Eisenberg • GUIDEBOOK • A practical, frequently revised guide in the popular series. (NYC188, $18.95)

Fodor's New York City's 25 Best •   Fodor's • GUIDEBOOK • A shirt-pocket guide to New York City, featuring a detailed, fold-out map centered on Midtown. With suggested itineraries, walks and top 25 sights. (USE36, $11.95)

Hedonist's Guide to New York •   Urbandaddy • GUIDEBOOK • A guide to the vibrant city, with comprehensive listings of accommodations, restaurants and bars. (NYC181, $18.95)

New York City, A Cultural and Literary Companion •  Eric Homberger • GUIDEBOOK • An illuminating guide to the city, its history and geography, as the inspiration for writers, artists, musicians and intellectuals. With chapters on Broadway, Greenwich Village, parks, Harlem, Brooklyn, immigration and Manahattan. (NYC82, $15.00)

The Encyclopedia of New York City •  Kenneth T. Jackson •   New York Historical Society • REFERENCE • A massive reference manual with entries on everything you've ever wanted to know about NYC, ranging from biographies to "New Yorkiana". (NYC12, $75.00)

Zagat Survey New York City Restaurants •   Zagat Survey • GUIDEBOOK • The slim annual guide to New York City's restaurants that launched the Zagat empire. (NYC96, $15.95)

Central Park, An American Masterpiece •  Sara Cedar Miller • HISTORY • Written and photographed by Central Park's official historian, this visual history of New York's crown jewel pairs modern color images with drawings, plans and quotes by park designers. (NYC94, $45.00)

Coming to America •  Roger Daniels • HISTORY • Daniels adeptly explores the complex motives and experience of immigrants in the U.S. since 1550. (USE420, $17.99)

Downtown, My Manhattan •  Pete Hamill • HISTORY • Native son Pete Hamill's tribute, history and memoir of New York, mostly below 42nd Street. (NYC148, $14.99)

Great Fortune, The Epic of Rockefeller Center •  Daniel Okrent • HISTORY • In this grand social history Okrent illuminates the remarkable cast of characters, the ambitions, and mind-bending complexity in creating the beloved New York City landmark. (NYC100, $16.00)

Low Life, Lures and Snares of Old New York •  Luc Sante • HISTORY • A very engaging history of 19th-century New York's underbelly, the Lower East Side. It's a picture not only of particular neighborhoods, but of the life that was led within them: street culture, the saloons, the cops, the prostitutes, the money men, the poor. (NYC34, $17.00)

Manhattan '45 •  Jan Morris • HISTORY • A portrait of the era when New York City was at its apogee, blending history, memoir and meditation. (NYC51, $21.95)

New York Exposed, Photographs from the Daily News •  Sean O'Sullivan •  Pete Hamill • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • Tales of the city through the lens of Daily News photographers, 1919-2000. (NYC60, $19.98)

The Great Bridge, The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge •  David McCullough • HISTORY • McCullough's classic history set the gold standard for accounts of the Brooklyn Bridge, and makes walking across the old behemoth all the more enriching. (NYC30, $20.00)

The Harlem Renaissance, Hub of African American Culture 1920-1930 •  Stephen Watson • HISTORY • This book succinctly describes and illustrates the place, the people and the influence of the Harlem Renaissance through the writing and music of Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and others. (NYC57, $21.00)

The Island at the Center of the World, The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America •  Russell Shorto • HISTORY • Shorto's popular history of New Amsterdam tells in colorful detail how the short-lived Dutch colony established the principles of tolerance, multiculturalism and modern capitalism (NYC153, $16.00)

Waterfront, A Journey Around Manhattan •  Philip Lopate • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • Essayist and consummate New Yorker, Philip Lopate pulls in history, ecology, archaeology, literature and urban planning in this delightful, discursive account of his rambles along the water's edge of Manhattan. (NYC113, $15.95)

Broadway Theatres, History and Architecture •  William Morrison • ART & ARCHITECTURE • Morrison's history of 74 of Manhattan's great theatrical houses includes historical facts, archival photographs, architecture and profiles of key players and impresarios. (NYC195, $17.95)

Changing New York •  Berenice Abbott • ART & ARCHITECTURE • A phenomenal body of work by Abbott, the great 20th-century photographer of New York. (NYC50, $60.00)

Guide to New York City Landmarks •  Andrew Dolkart •   New York City Landmarks Preservatio • ART & ARCHITECTURE • An indispensable guide to landmarks and historic districts in all five boroughs with 75 local maps. (NYC10, $32.95)

Lost New York •  Nathan Silver • ART & ARCHITECTURE • This classic, published in 1967, was the urban preservationists' bible. It's a magnificent survey of the history and architectural development of the city, including many of the great buildings lost to the wrecking ball. (NYC13, $25.00)

New New York, Architecture of a City •  Ian Luna • ART & ARCHITECTURE • This beautifully illustrated survey of New York buildings and interiors, featuring 400 color photographs, includes 50 recent projects by architects including Rem Koolhaas, Gwathmey Siegel, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck. (NYC196, $45.00)

New York, A Historical Atlas of Architecture •  Alejandro Bahamon • ART & ARCHITECTURE • Three hundred and fify years of New York City architecture history unfold (quite literally) in words and vivid images in this innovative book. Set in a useful timeline format, each entry includes a photograph and description, plus dates, architects, and other relevant data. Ten foldouts delve deeper into the history of some significant structures, and feature blueprints, interiors, and large color images. (NYC194, $17.95)

Unearthing Gotham, The Archaeology of New York City •  Diana Dizerega Wall •  Anne-Marie E. Cantwell • ARCHAEOLOGY • An illustrated survey and analysis of archaeological discoveries in the five boroughs. (NYC95, $20.00)

Gone to New York, Adventures in the City •  Ian Frazier •  Jamaica Kincaid • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • Frazier writes with humor and warmth about his New York City in this collection of essays originally published in periodicals like The New Yorker and The Atlantic. (NYC156, $14.00)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn •  Betty Smith •  Annie Dillard • LITERATURE • The much-beloved story of a girl in Brooklyn, who, like the Ailanthus, surmounts harrowing obstacles in order to thrive. Enormously descriptive of the Brooklyn of its time (the 1940s). (NYC56, $14.95)

Frank O'Hara, Selected Poems •  Mark Ford •  Frank O'Hara • LITERATURE • This astute compilation of uproarious, mocking poems, recalling the glamor of 1950s New York, includes The Day Lady Died, A Party Full of Friends and Having a Coke with You. (NYC190, $30.00)

Let the Great World Spin •  Colum McCann • LITERATURE • Colum McCann's stunningly realized portrait of New York City and its people in the 1970s, winner of the 2009 National Book Award. (NYC214, $15.00)

Lush Life •  Richard Price • LITERATURE • With an ear for dialogue and feel for the nuances of class and race. Richard Price brilliantly explores the reverberations of the murder of a hipster on the Lower East Side. (NYC203, $15.00)

Portable Dorothy Parker •  Dorothy Parker • LITERATURE • An illustrated collection of the poems, stories, reviews, and articles of Dorothy Parker, one of New York City's most sharp-tongued writers. (NYC07, $18.00)

The House of Mirth •  Edith Wharton • LITERATURE • The classic turn-of-the-century novel of one beautiful New Yorker's demise. It's also a marvelous portrait of the city circa 1900, its surrounding country estates and Byzantine formalities. (NYC43, $11.00)

Time and Again •  Jack Finney • LITERATURE • In this altogether wonderful novel, Simon Morley -- an illustrator and secret government operative, native to 1970 New York -- is transported back in time to the Manhattan of the 1880s. (NYC45, $14.95)

Writing New York, A Literary Anthology •  Philip Lopate • LITERATURE • A massive, satisfying collection of good writing about New York over the centuries. Represented are Whitman, Edith Wharton, Henry Miller and many more. (NYC59, $24.95)

Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City •  Leslie Day •  Michael Klingler • FIELD GUIDE • A lovely handbook to the birds, mammals, insects, plants, fungi and geological features found in the parks and upon the pavement of the five boroughs. With over 200 detailed paintings, photographs and maps. (NYC185, $24.95)

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	These 5 items are available for $93, including U.S. shipping, a 15% discount (Item no. EXNYC12)	E-mail Print
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	Eyewitness Guide New York City • Eleanor Berman GUIDEBOOK • 2008 • PAPER • 448 PAGES There are hundreds of guides, of course, but we like this one the best. It's a very colorful, artfully designed introduction, with a focus on sites, history, and architecture, along with great local maps. We see more visitors in our West Village neighborhood carrying it around than any other, and they all seem to love it. (NYC02, $25.00)
	Here is New York • E.B. White CULTURAL PORTRAIT • 1999 • HARD COVER • 56 PAGES • FAVORITE Perhaps no one has captured the city as lyrically, and certainly none as efficiently, as E.B. White. This brief essay (it was originally a 7500-word piece for Holiday magazine, and is easily read in an hour) was written in a hot hotel room over a 2-day period in the summer of 1948. The famous opening line ("On anyone who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy.") sets the stage for a portrait of the city that moves from Broadway to Central Park, from the horn of the great steamships to the dark of the bars on 3rd Avenue. Though, as Roger Angell points out in the introduction to the new edition, so much of what he mentions is no longer here (the hotel cafe he hung out in was gone even by the time the piece was first published in 1949), the prose has an amazingly timeless, fresh quality to it, and is a marvelous introduction to what people still love about New York City. (NYC28, $16.95)
	Gotham, A History of New York up to 1898 • Mike Wallace • Edwin G. Burrows HISTORY • 2000 • PAPER • 1350 PAGES The 1998 Pulitzer Prize-winner for history, "Gotham" traces New York City life from the Dutch colonization to 1898. Jam-packed with tales of crime, violence, corruption, municipal egoism, riots and ethnic struggles, it is anything but dull. Concise biographies of famous New Yorkers and unsung heroes are interspersed throughout the book to allow for a more intimate glance at the people who shaped New York City's colorful history. Highly recommended. (NYC11, $34.95)
	Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories • Joseph Mitchell ANTHOLOGY • 1993 • PAPER • 716 PAGES Pure pleasure. Joseph Mitchell was a legend in his time. Mostly during the 1940s and 1950s, he wrote loving, extraordinarily vivid, short pieces for The New Yorker. He was a master at painting character, and place, in swift strokes. In many ways this book, the definitive collection of his pieces, depicts the New York (and environs -- let's not forget the great pieces on the Oystermen in the Great South Bay, or the rivermen in Edgewater, NJ) of its time as well as any ever written. (NYC61, $16.95)
	New York City Map • Popout Maps MAP This convenient map of New York has a clever "origami" fold to help the traveler refer to any location in the city without having to deal with an unwieldy and large piece of paper. If there's any city where this would come in handy, it's New York. Map covers all of Manhattan, and also features a Manhattan subway map and a more detailed map of Greenwich Village Two Sides. 8.5x20 inches. (NYC26, $6.95)

	New York City Map • Borch Maps • A convenient folded, laminated map of New York City. One side is a detailed map of Manhattan south of 96th St, and includes northern Brooklyn. On the other side is a full indes, a larger-scale regional map, and a map of the subway. (NYC207, $8.95)
	AIA Guide to New York City • Noval White • Elliot Willensky • GUIDEBOOK • A quirky, digressive guide to the architecture of New York City, organized by neighborhood and bloated to 1,000 pages in this edition, last revised in 1987. (NYC03, $37.50)
	Blue Guide New York • Carol Von Pressentin Wright • GUIDEBOOK • An excellent, comprehensive guide to New York sights, including walking tours and a focus on art and architecture. (NYC29, $24.95)
	Fodor's New York City • Paul Eisenberg • GUIDEBOOK • A practical, frequently revised guide in the popular series. (NYC188, $18.95)
	Fodor's New York City's 25 Best • Fodor's • GUIDEBOOK • A shirt-pocket guide to New York City, featuring a detailed, fold-out map centered on Midtown. With suggested itineraries, walks and top 25 sights. (USE36, $11.95)
	Hedonist's Guide to New York • Urbandaddy • GUIDEBOOK • A guide to the vibrant city, with comprehensive listings of accommodations, restaurants and bars. (NYC181, $18.95)
	New York City, A Cultural and Literary Companion • Eric Homberger • GUIDEBOOK • An illuminating guide to the city, its history and geography, as the inspiration for writers, artists, musicians and intellectuals. With chapters on Broadway, Greenwich Village, parks, Harlem, Brooklyn, immigration and Manahattan. (NYC82, $15.00)
	The Encyclopedia of New York City • Kenneth T. Jackson • New York Historical Society • REFERENCE • A massive reference manual with entries on everything you've ever wanted to know about NYC, ranging from biographies to "New Yorkiana". (NYC12, $75.00)
	Zagat Survey New York City Restaurants • Zagat Survey • GUIDEBOOK • The slim annual guide to New York City's restaurants that launched the Zagat empire. (NYC96, $15.95)
	Central Park, An American Masterpiece • Sara Cedar Miller • HISTORY • Written and photographed by Central Park's official historian, this visual history of New York's crown jewel pairs modern color images with drawings, plans and quotes by park designers. (NYC94, $45.00)
	Coming to America • Roger Daniels • HISTORY • Daniels adeptly explores the complex motives and experience of immigrants in the U.S. since 1550. (USE420, $17.99)
	Downtown, My Manhattan • Pete Hamill • HISTORY • Native son Pete Hamill's tribute, history and memoir of New York, mostly below 42nd Street. (NYC148, $14.99)
	Great Fortune, The Epic of Rockefeller Center • Daniel Okrent • HISTORY • In this grand social history Okrent illuminates the remarkable cast of characters, the ambitions, and mind-bending complexity in creating the beloved New York City landmark. (NYC100, $16.00)
	Low Life, Lures and Snares of Old New York • Luc Sante • HISTORY • A very engaging history of 19th-century New York's underbelly, the Lower East Side. It's a picture not only of particular neighborhoods, but of the life that was led within them: street culture, the saloons, the cops, the prostitutes, the money men, the poor. (NYC34, $17.00)
	Manhattan '45 • Jan Morris • HISTORY • A portrait of the era when New York City was at its apogee, blending history, memoir and meditation. (NYC51, $21.95)
	New York Exposed, Photographs from the Daily News • Sean O'Sullivan • Pete Hamill • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • Tales of the city through the lens of Daily News photographers, 1919-2000. (NYC60, $19.98)
	The Great Bridge, The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge • David McCullough • HISTORY • McCullough's classic history set the gold standard for accounts of the Brooklyn Bridge, and makes walking across the old behemoth all the more enriching. (NYC30, $20.00)
	The Harlem Renaissance, Hub of African American Culture 1920-1930 • Stephen Watson • HISTORY • This book succinctly describes and illustrates the place, the people and the influence of the Harlem Renaissance through the writing and music of Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston and others. (NYC57, $21.00)
	The Island at the Center of the World, The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony that Shaped America • Russell Shorto • HISTORY • Shorto's popular history of New Amsterdam tells in colorful detail how the short-lived Dutch colony established the principles of tolerance, multiculturalism and modern capitalism (NYC153, $16.00)
	Waterfront, A Journey Around Manhattan • Philip Lopate • CULTURAL PORTRAIT • Essayist and consummate New Yorker, Philip Lopate pulls in history, ecology, archaeology, literature and urban planning in this delightful, discursive account of his rambles along the water's edge of Manhattan. (NYC113, $15.95)
	Broadway Theatres, History and Architecture • William Morrison • ART & ARCHITECTURE • Morrison's history of 74 of Manhattan's great theatrical houses includes historical facts, archival photographs, architecture and profiles of key players and impresarios. (NYC195, $17.95)
	Changing New York • Berenice Abbott • ART & ARCHITECTURE • A phenomenal body of work by Abbott, the great 20th-century photographer of New York. (NYC50, $60.00)
	Guide to New York City Landmarks • Andrew Dolkart • New York City Landmarks Preservatio • ART & ARCHITECTURE • An indispensable guide to landmarks and historic districts in all five boroughs with 75 local maps. (NYC10, $32.95)
	Lost New York • Nathan Silver • ART & ARCHITECTURE • This classic, published in 1967, was the urban preservationists' bible. It's a magnificent survey of the history and architectural development of the city, including many of the great buildings lost to the wrecking ball. (NYC13, $25.00)
	New New York, Architecture of a City • Ian Luna • ART & ARCHITECTURE • This beautifully illustrated survey of New York buildings and interiors, featuring 400 color photographs, includes 50 recent projects by architects including Rem Koolhaas, Gwathmey Siegel, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry and Philippe Starck. (NYC196, $45.00)
	New York, A Historical Atlas of Architecture • Alejandro Bahamon • ART & ARCHITECTURE • Three hundred and fify years of New York City architecture history unfold (quite literally) in words and vivid images in this innovative book. Set in a useful timeline format, each entry includes a photograph and description, plus dates, architects, and other relevant data. Ten foldouts delve deeper into the history of some significant structures, and feature blueprints, interiors, and large color images. (NYC194, $17.95)
	Unearthing Gotham, The Archaeology of New York City • Diana Dizerega Wall • Anne-Marie E. Cantwell • ARCHAEOLOGY • An illustrated survey and analysis of archaeological discoveries in the five boroughs. (NYC95, $20.00)
	Gone to New York, Adventures in the City • Ian Frazier • Jamaica Kincaid • BIOGRAPHY/MEMOIR • Frazier writes with humor and warmth about his New York City in this collection of essays originally published in periodicals like The New Yorker and The Atlantic. (NYC156, $14.00)
	A Tree Grows in Brooklyn • Betty Smith • Annie Dillard • LITERATURE • The much-beloved story of a girl in Brooklyn, who, like the Ailanthus, surmounts harrowing obstacles in order to thrive. Enormously descriptive of the Brooklyn of its time (the 1940s). (NYC56, $14.95)
	Frank O'Hara, Selected Poems • Mark Ford • Frank O'Hara • LITERATURE • This astute compilation of uproarious, mocking poems, recalling the glamor of 1950s New York, includes The Day Lady Died, A Party Full of Friends and Having a Coke with You. (NYC190, $30.00)
	Let the Great World Spin • Colum McCann • LITERATURE • Colum McCann's stunningly realized portrait of New York City and its people in the 1970s, winner of the 2009 National Book Award. (NYC214, $15.00)
	Lush Life • Richard Price • LITERATURE • With an ear for dialogue and feel for the nuances of class and race. Richard Price brilliantly explores the reverberations of the murder of a hipster on the Lower East Side. (NYC203, $15.00)
	Portable Dorothy Parker • Dorothy Parker • LITERATURE • An illustrated collection of the poems, stories, reviews, and articles of Dorothy Parker, one of New York City's most sharp-tongued writers. (NYC07, $18.00)
	The House of Mirth • Edith Wharton • LITERATURE • The classic turn-of-the-century novel of one beautiful New Yorker's demise. It's also a marvelous portrait of the city circa 1900, its surrounding country estates and Byzantine formalities. (NYC43, $11.00)
	Time and Again • Jack Finney • LITERATURE • In this altogether wonderful novel, Simon Morley -- an illustrator and secret government operative, native to 1970 New York -- is transported back in time to the Manhattan of the 1880s. (NYC45, $14.95)
	Writing New York, A Literary Anthology • Philip Lopate • LITERATURE • A massive, satisfying collection of good writing about New York over the centuries. Represented are Whitman, Edith Wharton, Henry Miller and many more. (NYC59, $24.95)
	Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City • Leslie Day • Michael Klingler • FIELD GUIDE • A lovely handbook to the birds, mammals, insects, plants, fungi and geological features found in the parks and upon the pavement of the five boroughs. With over 200 detailed paintings, photographs and maps. (NYC185, $24.95)