Books about New York

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction from the author 'Wonder Boys'. 'The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay' is a heart-wrenching story of escape, love and comic-book heroes set in Prague, New York and the Arctic.

Jay Gatsby is the man who has everything. But one thing will always be out of his reach. Everybody who is anybody is seen at his glittering parties. Day and night his Long Island mansion buzzes with bright young things drinking, dancing and debating his mysterious character.

Tells the story of a seventeen-year-old dropout who has been kicked out of his fourth school. This novel dissects the 'phony' aspects of society, and the 'phonies' themselves: the headmaster whose affability depends on the wealth of the parents, his roommate who scores with girls using sickly-sweet affection.

When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks, nine-year-old Oskar Schell sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It leads him into the lives of strangers, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

Francie Nolan is a Brooklyn girl with a Brooklyn name and a Brooklyn accent. Her family are brave, devoted immigrants, struggling to survive and rise above the squalor, poverty and violence that surround their tenement home.

Nan goes to work for the wealthy X family in Manhattan to put herself through NYU. But with divorce on the cards, will she be able to maintain the mental health of their son, despite the onslaught of Personal Problem Consultants, a macrobiotic nutritionist and bilingual meals?

One night in the Bronx a millionaire, Sherman McCoy, and his mistress have an accident. The next day a young Black is in hospital in a coma as McCoy heads for disaster. His humiliation is at the centre of a satire on the decaying class, racial and political structure of New York in the 1980s.

The return of the beautiful Countess Olenska into the conventional society of New York sends reverberations throughout the upper reaches of society. Newland Archer, an eligible young man of the establishment is about to announce his engagement to May Welland, a pretty ingenue, when May's cousin, Countess Olenska, is introduced into their circle.

Three stories on the nature of identity. In the first a detective writer is drawn into a curious and baffling investigation, in the second a man is set up in an apartment to spy on someone, and the third concerns the disappearance of a man whose childhood friend is left as his literary executor.

The ground-breaking historical whodunnit, in which 1890s New York is as much a character as the investigators.

Through the story of the bitter struggle between two men, Peter Stuyvesant and Adriaen Van den Donck, is told the vivid history of the wilderness island that became the most powerful city in the most powerful country in the world: Manhattan.

Holly Golightly, glittering socialite traveller, generally upwards, sometimes sideways and once in a while down. She's up all night drinking cocktails and breaking hearts. She hasn't got a past. She doesn't want to belong to anything or anyone. One day Holly might find somewhere she belongs. Until then she's travelling.

Life in mid-19 century New York was tough, and violence and corruption were rife. Two gangs, the Dead Rabbits and the Native Americans, were locked in an endless battle for supremacy. Amsterdam Vallon, son of the Rabbits' murdered leader, is seeking vengeance for his father's death at the hands of Bill 'The Butcher'.

Lily Bart lives among the nouveaux riches of New York City. In this aesthetically bankrupt world, Lily, seeks a husband who can satisfy her cravings for endless admiration and wealth. But her quest comes to an end when she is accused of being the mistress of a wealthy man. Exiled from her world of artificial conventions, she finds life impossible.

In Manhattan, just after the century's turn, three thirty-year-old friends, Danielle, Marina and Julius, are seeking their fortunes. But the arrival of Marina's young cousin Bootie fresh from the provinces forces them to confront their own desires and expectations. this work presents a portrait of one of the most fascinating cities in the world.

Nathan and Tom are an uncle and nephew double-act - one in remission from lung cancer, divorced, and estranged from his only daughter, the other hiding away from his once-promising academic career. Matters change when Lucy, a little girl who refuses to speak, comes into their lives...