The most recommended books about the Bronx

I love the main character’s horrible, deep, dark depression. Aaron’s life as a kid in the projects of New York City means he can’t be gay. So many bad things happen to Aaron that he wants to get a procedure to erase parts of his memory.

I love that just as it seems like Aaron’s life, his friends, his romantic life, his mom and brother, all seem to be somewhat in balance, everything goes to shit and his life is worse than he thought. His father, who he thought died of a heart attack, actually killed himself in the bathtub they use every day.

In the first version of the book, the ending is so sad and depressing, the author went back and added a new chapter just to give me some hope for Aaron. The updated ending is amazing.

If you, like me, believe in the universality and power of ordinary people’s lives, then this book is essential. LeBlanc spent 11 years reporting it, practically living with the people who would become its main characters and who she followed as they sold drugs, went to prison, got pregnant, committed murder, and went on with their lives.

The only downside to reading this as a fellow journalist is that it is so awe-inspiring as to be intimidating and makes you want to hang it up and do something else.

I was born in the Bronx and lived there with my wife and kids until we moved to the suburbs in my mid-40s. I swam with the carrots in the water at Orchard Beach, roamed the NY Botanical Gardens, went to Yankee games, sang harmony under the El on Allerton Avenue and White Plains Road, and have been a professor at Fordham University since 1998. 

William Helmrecih, who succumbed to COVID-19 in 2020, left us this wonderful walking guide to the Bronx, in which he goes into neighborhoods and side streets and nooks and crannies even I didn’t know about.

New York City includes all five boroughs. When it was first published in the early 1990s, this creative book that weaves the stories of four Dominican sisters through the decades backwards from the 1980s to the 1960s was a real gamechanger.

It’s about a family that’s been taken down a few notches—having once lived as upper-class citizens with house servants in the Dominican Republic—as they adjust to New York City culture, and specifically, life in the 1960s and 1970s Bronx, and unpack the truth about their father’s reasons for relocating the family in the first place.

Part of the narrative also serves as a relatable coming-of-age story about teenage girls, their sisterhoods, and friendships. Think Judy Blume, but Dominican, with more house parties, food, and drinking. 

Will Eisner not only invented the term “Graphic Novel” but he innovated much of the art and craft of comix. He is one of the pioneers whom I have studied to learn how comix work. Contract is also amazing because it deals with Jewish New York of the mid 20th century which is where my parents grew up. I connect to the tales of how to balance being American while celebrating my Jewish heritage, and the many challenges that came with living amongst other cultures in the “Melting Pot."

Fischer’s Miracle Moments in New York Yankees History is aptly divided into five parts, the first of which—“Birth of a Dynasty”—is the most relevant for the current topic. It covers the “Hilltop Highlander” years (1903-1913), the Yankees’ decade at the Polo Grounds as tenants of their arch-rival, the National League’s New York Giants (1913-1922), the sale of the Yankees to Ruppert and Huston (1914-1915), the acquisition of Babe Ruth (1919-1920), and their move to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx and their first World Series title (1923). But Fischer’s Miracle Moments has much more to offer than these early days as it provides a panoramic view of the entire Yankees’ franchise from 1903 to the present. 

Redemption is not just about stopping this or quitting that. Whether your problems are chemical or behavioral, those simple changes are a necessary beginning, but they are rarely enough to get the monkey’s teeth out of your neck.

In this novel, Block’s protagonist from 8 Million Ways to Die wrestles with the post-addiction problem of who you are, really, after that thing that has been propping you up is taken away. Redemption isn’t about what happens when you stop digging the hole. It’s about what happens when you climb out of the hole and start becoming.

This is far more than a making of the movie book. The author delves deeply into the backgrounds of those responsible for making the 1969 film Midnight Cowboy and into the sociocultural climate of the times that led to such a groundbreaking film.

Frankel's previous books, The Searchers and High Noon, explored important films in equal depth, but the Midnight Cowboy saga seems to have greater relevance to our time, especially as it relates to LGBTQ people and their lives.

I remember seeing Midnight Cowboy in college in 1971 and wasn't sure how to interpret it; I've seen it many times since and feel it's a masterpiece of American cinema, and yet Frankel's book has given me even more to think about.

I can’t sing. I never listen to music. I can’t remember where I heard about this book or why I tried the sample, but once I started reading, I could not stop.

Harmon is a master novelist. She invites us into a new world, wraps us up in the characters’ lives, and doesn’t let go. It’s the 1960s U.S., with mobs running the show, with racism running rampant, with lives in danger in so many ways, especially when a white songwriter and a black singer fall in love and decide to marry. 

I’m usually a fast reader, but this book took me a long time. I had to stop after every two or three chapters to give myself time to fully absorb the story. When I was done, I had a powerful urge to reread it, an urge I put aside with full intent to reread the book at a… show more.

My friend and co-author Aubrey Fox recommended this book to me not long after we met. 

I liked it so much that I think it is actually one of the reasons we became friends in the first place. Tilting at Mils is the story of an innovative effort by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental nonprofit, to create a paper mill in the Bronx in the 1990s. 

The initiative attracted millions of dollars and high-level political support, both in New York City and Washington DC. But the project never happened.

Tilting at Mills is a gripping story of failure, not due to malfeasance or incompetence, but because achieving anything is difficult and lots of things can go wrong, including rotten luck and bad timing.