The Guardian: “A literary crawl of New York”

Despite having never visited the place (yet!), I make no apologies for my incurable obsession with anything New York. I’ve spoken about this obsession on the blogosphere often (and featured my favourite New York ‘blogger’ Teri Tynes as Reader of the Week )), and not surprisingly this obsession crosses over into my literary interests as well (Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy are on my 50 Novel reading list for this exact reason).

Imagine my delight then, when Joshua Stein of the Guardian posted a first-rate article earlier today, chronologically listing his selection of the finest literary works centered on New York, published from the 1930s to the present-day; tasty New Yorkian morsels of which my bookish palette has yet to savour.

Take for instance Henry Roth’s Call it Sleep, about a Jewish boy growing up in the slums of the Lower East Side during the opening decades of the 20th century, or Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the story of an African-American living ‘invisibly’ in 1940′s New York. Both novels sound hugely captivating, and hugely important for giving a unique perspective on the evolving history, particularly the social one, of 20th century New York. Both of these titles have been added to my ‘to buy’ list but there are of course more titles in Joshua’s article that you may find of particular interest, including a music album from Tony Schwartz (?). I suggest you go along and check out Joshua’s article.

So, novels on New York. What are your particular favourites?