Although I’ve lived away from it almost as long as I lived in it, New York City will always be home to me. When I say New York City, I mean Manhattan. I was born there on New Year’s Eve, spent my first years living on Broadway, attended the famed H.S. of Music & Art, roamed the fabled coffee houses of Greenwich Village and still live on that island in my dreams.
Returning to “my city” for Book Expo America led me to think of the enduring magnetism of this metropolis where anything is possible – good or bad. And of all the great books that have featured the city for atmosphere or as a catalyst. These should be on your list:

Non-Fiction
Here is New York — E.B. White
World of Our Fathers — Irving Howe
The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge – David McCullough
Just Kids – Patti Smith

Fiction
The Age of Innocence — Edith Wharton
The Great Gatsby — F. Scott Fitzgerald
The New York Stories of Henry James — Henry James
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith
Call It Sleep – Henry Roth
Invisible Man — Ralph Ellison
Breakfast at Tiffany’s — Truman Capote
Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker – multiple authors
The Alienist – Caleb Carr

After you take a few bites of “The Big Apple”, I’m convinced you’ll develop a taste that keeps bringing you back.