This month’s book review is ‘more New York stores’ (The Best of the City Section of th New York Times).  For some reason I seem to be drawn to these compendia of stories in books and I found this vignette about New York to be wonderful.

The ‘more New York stores’ are unique, well crafted cameos from authors who love and feel New York as a place, but not just a place, it is a welcoming and living body!  The describe New York as it is, was, and in some cases wonder about what it may become.

There are fifty essays in ‘more New York stores’, gathered together under a series of general collections:-

• Characters
• Places in the City’s Heart
• Rituals Rhythms, and Ruminations
• Excavating the Past

It is with regret that I found out that the City section of New York Times was published its final issue in May 2009 after 1 years.  It fell foul of economic forces, and the need for a bottom line!

The names of the authors will resonate with some, if not all readers, they are able to write and entice you into their piece of real estate that is New York.

I am only going to quote from one story by Christopher Sorrento “When He Was Seventeen”:

…At 17 my friends and I didn’t partake of sanctioned, homogenized “teen culture.”  We participated in culture, period, meaning that often we made it ourselves.  We were perfectly aware that certain aspects of Western civilization, whether or not they would appear on network television or play on Top 40 radio, had their point of origin in the fertile brains of teenagers…

Amazon Link: more New York Stories