Books Set in New York

Check out these books set in the Big Apple...

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
This brilliant epic novel set in New York and Prague introduces us to two misfit young men who make it big by creating comic-book superheroes. Joe Kavalier, a young artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdiniesque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories and art for the latest novelty to hit America the comic book. Inspired by their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapists, The Monitor and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men.

Cosmopolis by Don DeLillo
Don DeLillo's brilliant novels explore the intricacies, conflicts, and contradictions of American culture. His thirteenth is another inspired, cerebral, sometimes surreal narrative, this time skewering 1990s economic exuberance as it tracks the downfall of a 28-year-old Wall Street billionaire over the course of a day-long crosstown limousine trip in traffic-clogged Manhattan.

Plum Island by Nelson DeMille
When Tom and Judy Gordon are found murdered in their Long Island home, NYPD detective John Corey uncovers a chilling link between the couple's deaths and the theft and illegal sale of genetically altered viruses and races against time to stop the possible release of a deadly plague.

Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Coalhouse Walker Jr. is a poor black man determined to make a better life for himself. When he is racially harassed by a group of local firemen, who also vandalize his car, Walker goes into hiding and threatens to destroy every firehouse until his car is repaired. Eventually he and a character named Younger Brother take over the J.P. Morgan Library, which they see as a symbol of the evils and excesses of capitalism.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Jay Gatsby still adores Daisy Buchanan although she has married someone else, and he risks everything to lure her back. Set on the Gold Coast of Long Island, this snapshot of the decadence and excess of the Jazz Age is a literary classic.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Foer
Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.

Social Crimes by Jane Stanton Hitchcock
When her husband of 20 years dies under mysterious circumstances, leaving his fortune to a mysterious French countess, Jo Slater, once one of New York's leading grande dames, comes up with an ingenious scheme to seek revenge.

Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman
During the steamy summer of 1959, a sleepy Long Island suburban community is transformed by the arrival of Nora Silk, an attractive young divorcee, and her two young sons.

The Queen of Harlem by Brian Jackson Keith
A novel of life in Harlem during the second Renaissance follows Mason Randolph, a black preppie of impeccable Southern pedigree headed for Stanford Law School, as he moves to Harlem with the intention of living with "real black people."

The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
One young woman to take care of four-year-old boy. Must be cheerful, enthusiastic, and selfless--bordering on masochistic. Must relish sixteen-hour shifts with a deliberately nap-deprived preschooler. Must love geting thrown up on, literally and figuratively, by everyone in his family. Must enjoy the delicious anticipation of ridiculously erratic pay. Mostly, must love being treated like fungus found growing out of employer's Hermes bag. Those who take it personally need not apply.

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full—keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild—she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family.

Nobody's Fool by Richard Russo
An unlucky man in a deadbeat town in upstate New York, Sully must overcome numerous obstacles – a bum knee, terminal underemployment and a not-too-helpful group of friends – as he copes with a new problem, his long-estranged son.

Lucia, Lucia by Adriana Trigiani
In 1950 Greenwich Village, 25-year-old Lucia has it all: a warm and loving Italian family, a papa with a successful grocery business, an engagement ring from her childhood sweetheart, and best of all, a career she loves as a seamstress and apprentice to a talented dress designer at B. Altman's department store. When Lucia meets a rich, handsome businessman whose ambitions for a luxurious uptown lifestyle match her own, her goals for her future soar even higher. Over the next two years, however, her dreams gradually unravel.

The Devil Wears Prada by Laura Weisberger
What would you do if your heaven-sent job turned out to be a living hell?
Andrea Sachs, a small-town girl fresh out of college, lands the job “a million girls would die for.” Hired as the assistant to Miranda Priestly, the high-profile, fabulously successful editor of Runway magazine, Andrea finds herself in an office that shouts Prada! Armani! Versace! at every turn, a world populated by impossibly thin, heart-wrenchingly stylish women and beautiful men clad in fine-ribbed turtlenecks and tight leather pants that show off their lifelong dedication to the gym. With breathtaking ease, Miranda can turn each and every one of these hip sophisticates into a scared, whimpering child.

The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
Thirty-eight-year-old Sherman McCoy, who lives on Park Avenue, has a wife, a high-maintenance mistress, and is a successful Wall Street bond trader, faces notoriety and the criminal justice system when he is arrested for hit-and-run driving in the South Bronx.

Animal Husbandry by Laura Zigman
Jane Goodall, not the anthropologist, but rather a bright, thirtysomething Manhattan talk-show producer who is no novice to romance, staggers under the weight of being cruelly, inexplicably dumped by Ray, the man of her dreams. Nearly paralyzed by this betrayal, she becomes a self-appointed amateur scientist, studying the mating habits of the animal kingdom to make sense of her senseless human world. Jane's best friends, magazine executive Joan and David, a gay freelance fashion photographer, commiserate, having been dumped by any number of perfect men themselves.