Why am I passionate about this?
Iām a native New Yorker whose recent move to the UK gives me both unique insight into a city I lived the hell out of for decades and space and time to look back and wonder what it was all about, like with a lover you still adore but are relieved youāre no longer with. Iāve partied in squats and walked red carpets. I can sniff out a fake-take on this city so many people feel they know long before ever visiting it, and that always offends/bores/turns me off. These books got it right, and Iām thrilled to point more people in their direction.
Ali's book list on New York City subcultures
Why did Ali love this book?
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While most of the action doesnāt take place in NY, key scenes do and those are generally heartbreaking and speak to a city that allows for new beginnings and fresh starts for all, as well as a place that can swallow you whole.
Written about streets and squats I knew, the sentimental aspect was off the charts for me. But even without that connection, Jeannetteās writing is so moving that it will bring you emotionally into a unique, often hidden world.
26 authors picked The Glass Castle as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Now a major motion picture starring Brie Larson, Naomi Watts and Woody Harrelson.
This is a startling memoir of a successful journalist's journey from the deserted and dusty mining towns of the American Southwest, to an antique filled apartment on Park Avenue. Jeanette Walls narrates her nomadic and adventurous childhood with her dreaming, 'brilliant' but alcoholic parents.
At the age of seventeen she escapes on a Greyhound bus to New York with her older sister; her younger siblings follow later. After pursuing the education and civilisation her parents sought to escape, Jeanette eventually succeeds in her quest for the 'mundane,ā¦