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Only in NYC
CITY OF DREAMS
AND NIGHTMARES
Dive into this collection of books that explore the many sides of NYC, from its upscale society to the seedy underground. This list includes stories that capture the diverse facets of the city that never sleeps.
"Everyone in new York had opinions. Opinions were demanded in return. The absence of opinion was constructed as opinion."
Joan Didion, The White Album
Lonesome Traveler by Jack Kerouac (1960)
After all this kind of fanfare, and ever more, I came to a point where I needed solitude and just stop the machine of thinking and...
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (1943)
"But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man...
Sex in the City by Candace Bushnell (1996)
“All those men who end up disappointing you. After a while, you don't even want to have feelings anymore. You just want to get on with...
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis ( 1998)
“At first she was so inexpressive and indifferent that I wanted to know more about her. I envied that blankness - it was the opposite of...
Model Behaviour by Jay McInerney (1998)
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The Subterraneans by Jack Kerouac (1958)
"No girl had ever moved me with a story of spiritual suffering and so beautifully her soul showing out radiant as an angel wandering in...
House of Mirth by Edith Wharton (1905)
“The fact that her life had never satisfied her proved that she was made for better things."
Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr ( 1964)
“(he) was able to lose himself in the chaos of his self-consciousness faded before he finished his first drink"
Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney (1984)
“There she is, as eligible a candidate as you’re likely to find this late in the game. The sexual equivalent of fast food.” DESCRIPTION...
Breakfast At Tiffany's by Truman Capote (1958)
“And since gin to artifice bears the same relation as tears to mascara, her attractions at once dissembled.” “I don't want to own...
Story Of My Life by Jay McInerney (1988)
"It's really amazing the things we pretend to be interested in when we want to sleep with somebody. Sometimes I think conversation...
The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath (1963)
I also had a dim idea that if I walked the streets of New York by myself all night something of the cities mystery and magnificent might...
Just Kids by Patti Smith (2010)
“Within that moment was trust, compassion, and our mutual sense of irony. He was carrying death within him and I was carrying life. We...
Bonfires of Vanity by Tom Wolfe (1987)
The wonderful bohemian spell of the place was broken. He now had the misfortune to gaze at an erotic dream with the eyes of a realist....
Memoirs Of a Beatnik by Diane di Prima (1978)
"No two people kiss alike – no two people fuck alike- but somehow the kiss is even more personal, more individualized than the fuck."
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
“You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.” The...
The Demon by Hubert Selby Jr. (1976)
He half closed his eyes and looked at the images within him, feeling the destiny that would bring him the money, property and prestige he...
American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis (1991)
“It strikes me profoundly that the world is more often than not a bad and cruel place.” DESCRIPTION Patrick Bateman is twenty-six and he...
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