Top 10 Novels Set In New York

[gothicangel]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/2011/may/17/top-10-books-on-newyork

Any other suggestions? I'm throwing American Psycho into the ring.

[Phaeal]

I'm fond of Wharton's The Age of Innocence. And Franny and Zooey (well, the Zooey part qualifies.)

I'm also partial to Preston and Child's Pendergast novels, many of which are set in (and under) NYC: The Relic, Reliquary, The Cabinet of Curiosities are particularly New Yorky.

[Libbie]

I'm surprised The Great Gatsby didn't make the list.

[Kitty Pryde]

My personal list would have to include:

A Cricket In Times Square
The Good Fairies of New York
Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankenweiler
Remember Me To Harold Square
Harriet The Spy
Eloise
Walls Within Walls
Gods of Manhattan

but maybe that's just because I am secretly ten years old.

[IceCreamEmpress]

Wait, most of those (on the Grauniad list) aren't novels, but memoirs.

For a novel-only list, I would add The Locusts Have No King, by Dawn Powell; Blood and Guts in High School, by Kathy Acker; Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison; The Metropolis Case, by Matthew Gallaway; The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith (writing as Clare Morgan); Butterfield 8, by John O'Hara; and The Intuitionist, by Colson Whitehead.

Seconding Harriet the Spy and Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and pretty much everything on Kitty Pryde's list!

Libbie, The Great Gatsby takes place almost entirely on Long Island.

[Lil]

Off the top of my head:
Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities
Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's
Anything by Louis Auchincloss

I don't think the Guardian knows much about New York.

[muravyets]

I agree with most of the suggestions herein and would add the fantastical Winter's Tale (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter%27s_Tale_%28novel%29), Mark Helprin, who's way better at writing than he is at politics. It's like a Wonderland dream-NYC, but to me, it really captures something about the personality of the city.

[Vito]

A few more...

Youngblood Hawke - Herman Wouk

The Young Lions - Irwin Shaw (mostly a World War II combat novel, but some nice NYC scenes as well)

The Wanderers - Richard Price.

[ElisabethF]

O. Henry. He wrote so many wonderful stories that captured turn-of-the-century New York, collected in The Four Million, The Voice of the City and The Trimmed Lamp, as well as others.

Anna Katherine Green's The Leavenworth Case, a good old-fashioned Victorian mystery set in upper-class New York. (I believe That Affair Next Door, another one of my favorites among her books, is also set in NYC.)

The list seems to include nonfiction...in that case I'd suggest David McCullough's The Great Bridge (about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge) and Mornings On Horseback, about Theodore Roosevelt's family and early life in New York.

[Darren Frey]

The Catcher In The Rye has seemed to have made a lot of murderers including Mark David Chapman realize their psychotic ways. I know its not the books fault but I am surprised that it still has the success it has.

[sleepsheep]

I would add Hubert Selby's "Last Exit to Brooklyn" and Paul Auster's New York Trilogy.

Most of the action in "The Great Gatsby" takes place in the Hamptons (Long Island) so I wouldn't include it on a list of NYC books.

[Jersey Chick]

Echoing From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Harriet the Spy and adding Caleb Carr's The Alienist, which is set in NYC in the late 1800s.

[KTC]

I'm fond of Wharton's The Age of Innocence. And Franny and Zooey (well, the Zooey part qualifies.)

It never phaeals.

[Aidan Watson-Morris]

The Catcher in the Rye is one of my all time favorite books. I like it being at the top of that list.

[sleepsheep]

I want to point out that "Caves of Steel" is also set in New York City. Also, we have Mario Puzo's "The Godfather," and William Gibson's "Neuromancer."

[Mr. Anonymous]

The Catcher In The Rye has seemed to have made a lot of murderers including Mark David Chapman realize their psychotic ways. I know its not the books fault but I am surprised that it still has the success it has.

Just because they're murderers doesn't mean they can't have good literary taste. Just sayin'.

[Xelebes]

adding Caleb Carr's The Alienist, which is set in NYC in the late 1800s.

Loved this one.

[Devil Ledbetter]

Let the Great World Spin isn't on the list? :(