42 Must-Read New York City Books

Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

Stephanie Danler’s stunning debut novel introduces us to Tess, a 22-year-old recent transplant to New York City. Arriving with no job prospects lined up, she scrambles just to find a job as a lowly back-waiter. This job happens to be at one of the most renowned restaurants in the city, though, and Tess is quickly consumed by the lush and sensual food world of New York (as well as the alluring bartender and the electrifying senior server). Part love-story, part growing-up tale, and part foodie’s-paradise—grab a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon (or other wine of choice) and enjoy!

A fateful accident draws three strangers together over the course of a single day. As the day progresses, their secrets start to unravel and they begin to understand that the way out of their own loss might just lie in helping the others out of theirs. An emotionally cathartic story of losing love, finding love, and discovering the person you are meant to be.

Told through the multiple perspectives of interweaving lives, Hallberg creates a grand vision of New York in the 1970s, centered around a shooting in Central Park and the blackout of 1977. These characters range from wealthy heirs, teenage punk wannabes, a magazine reporter, detective, neighbors and lovers. How they are connected, and what they all have to do with the shooting is a story that cannot be missed.

Piercingly intelligent and darkly funny, The Life of the Mind is a novel about endings: of youth, of professional aspiration, of possibility, of the illusion that our minds can ever free us from the tyranny of our bodies.

After being expelled from a Southern Negro college in the 1930s, the nameless narrator of Invisible Man moves to Harlem, hoping there he will find acceptance. What he finds, however, is just a different version of the prejudice and anger that he left behind. His search for identity and acceptance, delivered in a witty, passionate and at times, heartbreaking prose, will stay with you long after you read this.

Wandering along the streets of New York City after a breakup with his girlfriend, Nigerian psychiatry resident Julius reflects on this vast city he calls home. His thoughts are interrupted occasionally by the odd encounter with someone else on the street, sparking conversations on topics from Alexander Hamilton to his own past. His own personal journey resonates with feelings of both dislocation and hope, and his meandering thoughts pull us along this moving narrative.

Lily left a red notebook full of challenges on her favorite bookstore self, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. Dash happens to be the first guy to pick up the notebook and rise to its challenges. What follows is a whirlwind romance, but can their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions?

Brooklyn, 1930s and 40s. The Second World War is in full swing, but so is the comic book craze, and Joe Kavalier—escape artist, magician and artist—and his cousin Sammy Clay are determined to make their mark on the genre. Their tales of the Escapist and Luna Moth, fighting against the Axis Powers and Hitler himself, will do more than just entertain the masses. This is a great American novel like no other.

In her twenties, Belle de Costa Greene is hired by J. P. Morgan to curate a collection of manuscripts, books, and artwork for his newly built Pierpont Morgan Library. Belle becomes a fixture in New York City society, but she must also hide her true identity and pass as white to leave a lasting legacy that enriched our nation.

After graduating from college, these four friends moved to New York with the intention of pursuing their dreams. As the years go by, and their lives change, for better and worse, what keeps them together is their fierce attachment to Jude. Jude’s traumatic past, while over, is far from letting him go. A powerfully emotional novel that will bring you to tears, it is also a celebration of the bonds of friendship in this anonymous city.

In place-names lie stories. That’s the truth that animates this fascinating journey through the names of New York City’s streets and parks, boroughs and bridges, playgrounds and neighborhoods.

Toni Morrison composes a riveting, immersive work in this story of 1920s Harlem. When door-to-door salesman Joe and his wife Violet moved from the rural South to New York, everything seemed grand—until the day he shoots his teenage mistress, and Violet attacks her corpse at the funeral in a moment of passion. Weaving in and out of the present, Morrison’s novel illustrates the complexities of life for black New Yorkers in the ‘20s.

One of the most iconic novels of midcentury New York (thanks in part to Audrey Hepburn’s fabulous portrayal of Holly Golightly in the film version), this novel will make you want to head over to 5^th Ave and pop into Tiffany’s, where nothing bad can happen. Glamorous, whimsical, yet thoughtful and moving, too—you won’t want to miss out on the original telling of Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

From the glittering streets of Manhattan to the moonlit rooftops of Paris, falling in love is easy for hopeless dreamer Isla and introspective artist Josh. But Isla and Josh are quickly forced to confront the heartbreaking reality that happily-ever-afters aren’t always forever.

Elizabeth Gilbert tells a unique love story set in the New York City theater world during the 1940s. Told from the perspective of an older woman as she looks back on her youth with both pleasure and regret (but mostly pleasure), City of Girls explores themes of female sexuality and promiscuity, as well as the idiosyncrasies of true love.

The most popular, provocative, and unforgettable essays from the past fifteen years of the New York Times “Modern Love” column. This is the perfect book for anyone who’s loved, lost, stalked an ex on social media, or pined for true romance: In other words, anyone interested in the endlessly complicated workings of the human heart.

James Baldwin’s first major novel chronicles a single day in a sweeping, thought-provoking self-reflection of fourteen-year-old John Grimes. Grimes lives in Harlem, the stepson of a Pentecostal storefront church minister. While his stepfather preaches, he thinks about the hypocrisies in their lives, the trials they’ve faced, and what it means for his identity.

Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true? The bestselling author of Everything, Everything will have you falling in love with Natasha and Daniel as they fall in love with each other in New York City!

Starting out in a cozy, Greenwich Village café, Patti Smith grounds her second memoir firmly in New York City, but expands it outwards as she reflects on her travels over the years, the losses she’s had, and the many wonderful experiences she’s been through. Interspersed with photographs and eloquently written, M Train is a beautiful memoir to behold.

Henry Park is no stranger to the feeling of having multiple identities. He is of Korean descent, but he grew up in New York. He started off in a working-class family in Flushing, Queens, but his father’s booming grocery store chain let them move to the more affluent suburbs. He is also a spy for the United States, with all of the identities that brings. When his next assignment is to spy on a Korean-American politician, he comes face to face with his various identities, and must reconcile them in order to move forward.

In bestselling author Fiona Davis’s latest historical novel, a series of book thefts roils the iconic New York Public Library, leaving two generations of strong-willed women to pick up the pieces.

Catherine Sloper is fairly average. Mild, plain-faced, no great intelligence to speak of. One thing that sets her apart, though, is her family’s vast fortune, to which she is the heiress. When she receives a marriage proposal, her father is convinced that the man is after her money. While her father will stop at nothing to end the engagement, Catherine’s aunt wants to use the engagement to fuel her own selfish need for drama. Catherine must navigate her world carefully, as the New York societal fetters can be binding.

A rich, bighearted debut that takes us from working-class Staten Island in the wake of the September 11th attacks to moneyed London a decade later. Startlingly honest and shot through with unexpected humor, When I Ran Away is an unforgettable novel about love—for our partners, our children, our mothers, and ourselves—pushed to its outer limits.

Stephen King meets Pretty Little Liars in this pulse-pounding novel from the author of The Merciless. When a rave in the New York City subway tunnels goes horribly wrong, three friends must stick together to survive the night.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Oscar Hijuelos, opens his life up to readers in this witty, entertaining memoir. Though a yearlong convalescence in a Connecticut hospital as a child damaged his connection to his Cuban community of Morningside Heights, he sought to regain his sense of identity through writing, eventually publishing the bestselling novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love.

While you may know Fitzgerald from reading The Great Gatsby in your high school English class (or watching the Baz Luhrmann film with Leonardo DiCaprio), this lesser known work of his is just as engrossing, if not more so. Anthony and Gloria are living the good life as a newly married couple in Manhattan, dining at expensive restaurants, going to private parties, and avoiding all responsibility. Unfortunately for them, Anthony’s wealthy uncle, who’s fortune he is meant to inherit, refuses to die anytime soon. As their money dwindles, so does their lavish lifestyle, and the cracks in their relationship and themselves begin to be revealed.

The eagerly awaited follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Hamilton: The Revolution, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s new book gives readers an extraordinary inside look at In the Heights, his breakout Broadway debut, written with Quiara Alegría Hudes, now a Hollywood blockbuster.

Working in Brooklyn as hired help for gangster Frank Minna, Tourette’s-suffering orphan, Lionel Essrog has a challenging life. It gets harder, however, when Frank is stabbed to death, and a colleague (and fellow former member of St. Vincent’s Home for Boys), is jailed for the crime. It’s up to Lionel to solve the case, and to do so, he must contend with his own compulsions and tics, which may be of more help than he realizes.

A fun and upbeat paperback original romance about a girl who finds a cheat sheet for love. Will coder extraordinaire Ashley’s epic spring break in New York lead her to love, or will her heart crash and burn?

In this raw, piercing memoir, Puerto Rican Piri Thomas writes of his youth growing up in Spanish Harlem. As he becomes more deeply embroiled in drugs and street crime, we see how his circumstances played a part in the difficult, and at times violent, choices he made, resulting in his arrest and imprisonment. Approaching this memoir with self-acceptance and understanding, Piri Thomas brings hope to a life of hardship.

A dazzling biography of one of the twentieth century’s most respected painters, Helen Frankenthaler, as she came of age as an artist in postwar New York. Fierce Poise is an exhilarating ride through New York’s 1950s art scene and a brilliant portrait of a young artist through the moments that shaped her.

You may have seen the brilliant film adaptation from Francis Ford Coppola, but have you read the book that started it all? Mario Puzo’s classic tale of New York City’s Mafia underworld is thrilling, bloody, and engrossing. Read about the powerful Corleone family as they come up against their enemies in the name of honor, vengeance, and family. Blood is thicker than water, after all.

A tiny mistake, an “accidentally” deposited check, and the click of a button is all it takes for executive assistant Tina Fontana to fall down the rabbit hole of corporate embezzlement. What’s a small student loan compared to the profit of a massive New York City media corporation? Wishful thinking and worst nightmare combine in this wry, witty novel of the modern-day assistant.

In the newest book in the Flyy Girls series, we meet Noelle. There are only three things that matter to Noelle Lee: her family, school, and the cello. She doesn’t care if people see her as selfish or mean because she knows she has her priorities in order. But she soon finds herself facing a crossroads of friendship, family, and love.

Set in 1920s Harlem, Passing is about two light-skinned African American women, one who has stayed with the black community in Harlem, and the other who has married a white man with no knowledge of her lineage. When the two meet again in Chicago after years apart, the careful threads that hold their lives together begin to unravel.

In this reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, Hannah, A Korean American girl from Queens and Angel, a Puerto Rican boy from Brooklyn, fall in love in 1990s New York City and are determined to protect their love against all odds.

Looking back on her life, Allison begins this story in 1980s New York: a time of glitz, glamour, and shoulder pads. Allison’s modeling career is falling apart when she meets the older, HIV+ office worker, Veronica. Spanning decades and, at times, continents, Allison tells us how their unlikely friendship came to be, and what happened to them over the years.

Though perhaps one of DeLillo’s lesser-known novels, Great Jones Street evokes New York at a singular time and place. Rock star idol Bucky abruptly leaves his band while on tour after determining they’ve peaked to hide away in a little apartment in the grungy East Village. Although he tries to escape the society his music has helped create, he just keeps coming up against the paradoxes and hypocrisies of living creatively within the system.

While Katey Kontent starts off as a secretary on Wall Street, she soon starts climbing the social ladder of 1930s New York after a chance meeting with a blue-eyed banker in a Greenwich Village jazz bar. With newly-found access to the offices of Conde Nast and friends in high places, Katey is bound for social success. But getting to the upper echelons is one thing; staying there, amidst the ambition, the greed, and the betrayals, is another.