When those same four walls start closing in, and your reading nook feels more like a cell, it’s time to go for a walk and explore new places to read. For the New Yorkers out there, we’ve got a few suggestions on where to head to next around the city. And for non–New Yorkers, be sure to jot down these spots for future reference on your next trip. Because any good bookworm should have a lengthy reading destination bucket list started!
This post was originally published on GetLiterary.com.
Morgan’s Pick #1 Fort Greene Park
Everyone has their favorite Brooklyn park, but I’m here to tell you that Fort Greene Park is the best of the best. A perfect amount of green space, an abundance of babies and dogs, and a wealth of bars and coffee shops just steps away. So bring your best picnic blanket and curl up for the entire day with THE Brooklyn novel: Kings County by David Goodwillie. This incredibly immersive story will throw you onto the streets of NYC in the 2000s, from the protests of Occupy Wall Street to the parties of Bushwick, Brooklyn. Audrey Benton arrives in New York City on a bus from nowhere, but she soon finds a home for herself amid the burgeoning indie rock scene. She also finds an unlikely match in Theo Gorski, a shy but idealistic mill-town kid who’s struggling to establish himself in the world of publishing. But when a secret emerges from Audrey’s past, it threatens to tear down everything she and Theo have created together. It’s gritty, it’s hopeful, it’s a NYC love story at its best.
A Brooklyn love story, set to music.
“Kings County crystallizes how it feels to be young and in love in New York City.” —Stephanie Danler
“A true and continual delight...Goodwillie captures the rapturous soul of a bygone Brooklyn.” —Joshua Ferris
It’s the early 2000s and like generations of ambitious young people before her, Audrey Benton arrives in New York City on a bus from nowhere. Broke but resourceful, she soon finds a home for herself amid the burgeoning music scene in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But the city’s freedom comes with risks, and Audrey makes compromises to survive. As she becomes a minor celebrity in indie rock circles, she finds an unlikely match in Theo Gorski, a shy but idealistic mill-town kid who’s struggling to establish himself in the still-patrician world of books. But then an old acquaintance of Audrey’s disappears under mysterious circumstances, sparking a series of escalating crises that force the couple to confront a dangerous secret from her past.
From the raucous heights of Occupy Wall Street to the comical lows of the publishing industry, from million-dollar art auctions to Bushwick drug dens, Kings County captures New York City at a moment of cultural reckoning. Grappling with the resonant issues and themes of our time—sex and violence, art and commerce, friendship and family—it is an epic coming-of-age tale about love, consequences, bravery, and fighting for one’s place in an ever-changing world.
MENTIONED IN:
Morgan’s Pick #2: Any bar on Avenue C
Plop yourself down on any stool at a bar on Avenue C (when it’s safe to do so) and pull out a book, and you will have found true happiness. A personal favorite is Lois Bar, and I recommend pairing that with Perfect Tunes by Emily Gould, a novel about a young songwriter who moves to NYC in the hopes of pursuing a music career, but soon finds herself pregnant by another rock star at just 23. The first half is very NYC music scene—a little gritty, a little dangerous, a little sexy. Think Daisy Jones and the Six. The second half is like Gilmore Girls meets Brooklyn Heights—flashing into the future and exploring the relationship of our songwriter with her daughter. It’s a story of music and motherhood and sacrifice and love and mental health, and it’s intensely readable.
“Perfect Tunes is an intoxicating blend of music, love, and family from one of the essential writers of the internet generation.” —STEPHANIE DANLER
“Perfect Tunes is a zippy and profound story of love, loss, heredity, and parenthood. I gulped it down, as will all mothers, New Yorkers, music fans, and lovers of quick-moving novels that are both funny and deep. I loved every page.” —EMMA STRAUB
“Perfect Tunes is mind-blowing….Full of unspeakable insights, or at least I thought they were unspeakable, but there they are. Now I want everyone I know to read this book and talk about it with me.” —ELIF BATUMAN
Have you ever wondered what your mother was like before she became your mother, and what she gave up in order to have you?
It’s the early days of the new millennium, and Laura has arrived in New York City’s East Village in the hopes of recording her first album. A songwriter with a one-of-a-kind talent, she’s just beginning to book gigs with her beautiful best friend when she falls hard for a troubled but magnetic musician whose star is on the rise. Their time together is stormy and short-lived—but will reverberate for the rest of Laura’s life.
Fifteen years later, Laura’s teenage daughter, Marie, is asking questions about her father, questions that Laura does not want to answer. Laura has built a stable life in Brooklyn that bears little resemblance to the one she envisioned when she left Ohio all those years ago, and she’s taken pains to close the door on what was and what might have been. But neither her best friend, now a famous musician who relies on Laura’s songwriting skills, nor her depressed and searching daughter will let her give up on her dreams.
Funny, wise, and tenderhearted, Perfect Tunes explores the fault lines in our most important relationships, and asks whether dreams deferred can ever be reclaimed. It is a delightful and poignant tale of music and motherhood, ambition and compromise—of life, in all its dissonance and harmony.
MENTIONED IN:
Emily’s Pick #1: Bryant Park
Younger, and its TV Land adaptation, presents NYC in quite the romantic light. In the book’s sequel, Older, coming out September 8, Liza’s novel gets picked up by a TV studio and, after flying to LA with Kelsey to create the pilot, she finds herself torn between the two cities—and two love interests. In my opinion, the ideal NYC place to read this book is Bryant Park. In the time of social distancing, Bryant Park is less busy than usual—everyone still wears masks—so there’ll always be a number of seats to choose from. Plus, in parts of Bryant Park, it’s easy to imagine you’re in LA’s popular outdoor shopping complexes of Americana at Brand or the Grove, so you can put yourself in Liza’s shoes for an even more immersive reading experience. If you want the option of straddling the two cities, pick a chair closer to the Carousel or the Fountain to be nearest to NYC’s hustle and bustle, and thus most reminiscent of LA’s glamorous outdoor shopping destinations.
In the hotly anticipated sequel to the beloved Younger—now a hit TV series from the creator of Sex and the City starring Sutton Foster and Hilary Duff—Liza Miller is torn between two cities and two hearts when her bestselling novel is picked up by a major television network.
New York or Los Angeles? Romance or commitment? Younger…or older?
Liza Miller never dreamed that anyone would be interested in her life, let alone buy a book about it. But everything changes when, on the eve of her fiftieth birthday, she publishes a thinly veiled novel about a woman posing as a millennial called Younger—which her old friend Kelsey wants to turn into a TV show.
Liza is off to Los Angeles to help Kelsey write the pilot. But that means leaving behind her on-again off-again boyfriend Josh, her pregnant daughter, and her best friend Maggie. Can Liza find happiness in her new adventure if it means leaving everyone she loves?
Yet as Liza is swept up in the heady world of Hollywood, she finds herself thinking less and less of her life back home in New York. And when she meets Hugo Fielding—the devastatingly handsome and incredibly flirtatious Brit playing her boss on the show—she toes the line between having a crush and falling in love.
Torn between New York and Los Angeles, a familiar love and a risky one, an established career and a shot at stardom, Liza must decide if it’s too late to go to the ball...and if she even wants to. From the author of the beloved Younger, this is an endearing, hilarious, and relatable tale of second chances and new beginnings that proves: the best thing about getting Older is that you finally get to be yourself.
Saimah’s Pick: Le Coucou (or any Manhattan restaurant that’s open)
When Rachel DeLoache Williams met Anna “Delvey” Sorokin through mutual friends, she had no idea the mess she was stepping into. Now infamously known as the “SoHo grifter,” Anna Sorokin conned Rachel and many others by claiming she was a German heiress named Anna Delvey. Shortly after the two girls met, Anna began inviting Rachel to go with her to all the New York hot spots, to her personal training sessions with a celebrity trainer, and more. Rachel was a photo editor at Vanity Fair at the time and didn’t have the means to pay for all the extravagance that Anna was so accustomed to. So when Anna extended an invite to Rachel to join her on an all-expenses-paid luxury trip to Morocco, Rachel couldn’t resist the incredible offer…but that’s when everything started to crumble. My Friend Anna shares Rachel’s side of the story and how she helped uncover Anna’s real identity.
The majority of this story takes place in New York City, so you can read this book pretty much anywhere in Manhattan and let it take you on a wild ride. I love visiting the places where the story unfolds in books set in New York City. Take a page out of my book and map the various locations that were the setting of this story. Spend a day with Anna and Rachel (note: you may need to have a financial backer of your own for this adventure—Anna did not do things on the cheap). $$$$ option: Head to Le Coucou for brunch (when it’s open) while observing the scene and reading the ways that Anna captured everyone into her web of lies. $$ option: Knock back a drink or two at Whiskey Tavern or the Frying Pan.
There is already dueling interest from HBO and Netflix to create true-crime documentaries about the story, and they are both racing to bring this tale to the screen.
MENTIONED IN:
Heather’s Pick #1: The Morris-Jumel Mansion
I used to live right next door to the Morris-Jumel Mansion and spent many a happy afternoon either wandering the house on a tour or, more often, reading in the beautiful gardens. Since my Washington Heights apartment didn’t have an outdoor space of its own, I secretly considered the grounds an extension of my home. Rumor has it that Hamilton creator and star Lin-Manuel Miranda has also spent a lot of time there. Why? Because onetime owner Eliza Jumel’s second husband was none other than Aaron Burr, whose bedroom on the second floor apparently made for an idyllic place for Miranda to write some of the songs we know and love today. All of this is to say that there’s no doubt in my mind that the best book to read in this lovely NYC spot, especially if you’re a Hamilton fan, is Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, the biography that inspired the musical. It’s a chunky book, but that just means you’ll have plenty of reasons to make a day of it, whenever the mansion and park are open to the public.
In the first full-length biography of Alexander Hamilton in decades, Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Chernow tells the fascinating story of a man who overcame all odds to shape, inspire, and scandalize the newborn America. Hamilton’s story will remind readers of our institutions and our heritage as Americans.
MENTIONED IN:
Heather’s Pick #2: Down by the Verrazzano Bridge
I still remember the pleasant jolt that ran through me when I started reading Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes, only to realize the story began in my own neighborhood of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. The action quickly moves upstate to Westchester County, but eh, details. I’m going to claim it anyway and confirm that an excellent place to enjoy this touching novel is on a bench on the Shore Road walkway, down by the Verrazzano Bridge. Its views of the bridge and waters of the New York Bay make a picturesque backdrop for Ask Again, Yes, which is about two NYPD officers, Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, whose families end up living next door to each other in the 1970s. As the years pass and their children grow up together, the two families’ lives become inextricably linked, for better and for worse, in ways they never could have predicted.
One of the most beloved novels of the year, the 2019 Tonight Show Summer Reads pick and “magnificent” (NPR) New York Times bestseller offers “profound insights about blame, forgiveness, and abiding love” (People) about two neighboring families in a suburban town, the friendship between their children, the daily intimacies of marriage, and the power of forgiveness.
Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope, rookie cops in the NYPD, live next door to each other outside the city. What happens behind closed doors in both houses—the loneliness of Francis’s wife, Lena, and the instability of Brian’s wife, Anne, sets the stage for the explosive events to come.
“A beautiful novel, bursting at the seams with empathy” (Elle), Ask Again, Yes is a deeply affecting and “smartly told” (Entertainment Weekly) exploration of the lifelong friendship and love that blossoms between Kate Gleeson and Peter Stanhope, born six months apart. One shocking night their loyalties are divided, and their bond will be tested again and again over the next forty years. Heartbreaking and redemptive, Ask Again, Yes is a gorgeous portrait of a relationship haunted by echoes from the past, yet marked by tenderness, generosity, and grace.
MENTIONED IN:
Emily’s Pick #2: Prospect Park
Judging by the cover, you might think my answer is the top of the Empire State Building, but think again! I read bits of this book on a summer afternoon in Prospect Park and it was the perfect pairing of book and locale. As Kavalier and Clay set off on their own amazing adventures through the comic book industry, encountering all sorts of creatives out and about in NYC, all I had to do was glance up to view a different new adventure going on right before my eyes. A kickboxing class in action? Check! A lover’s quarrel? You got it! Plus, when Kavalier and Clay first begin bonding and dreaming up their superhero comics, they do so in a tiny corner of Brooklyn, so as you read you can imagine the two cousins scribbling and dreaming in a nearby apartment.
An exuberant Pulitzer Prize–winning novel that opens in the New York City of 1939. While World War II rages in Europe, a young escape artist and his cousin dive into the American comic book craze, traveling deep into the heart of Manhattan and American ambition.
MENTIONED IN:
