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NY Public Library's List of the Best Books Based in Your Neighborhood

By Savannah Cox | August 18, 2015 11:42am

In mid-August, sometimes it's easier to appreciate the idea of living in New York City more than its sweaty, humid reality.

Thankfully, the New York Public Library offers us a helping hand. Recognizing that a good NYC-based novel provides flushed city dwellers with all the sights, sounds and intrigue of New York neighborhoods without requiring residents to roam around a single city block, NYPL staff have mapped some of the best novels set right in your neighborhood.

Here are some great novels that take place in New York City neighborhoods. Head to the nearest New York Public Library branch and pick up a copy today:

Financial District
American Psycho, Brett Easton Ellis

World Trade Center
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer

Chinatown
Shoplifting from American Apparel, Tao Lin

The Bowery/Five Points
The Gods of Gotham, Lyndsey Faye

Lower East Side
Super Sad True Love Story, Gary Shteyngart

SoHo
The Flamethrowers, Rachel Kushner

Alphabet City
Call It Sleep, Henry Roth

Greenwich Village
Great Jones Street, Don Delillo
Washington Square, Henry James

Flatiron District
Ragtime, E.L. Doctorow

Chelsea
Netherland, Joseph O'Neill

Midtown
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

Times Square
Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote

Central Park
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

Upper East Side
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton
The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath
The Goldfinch, Donna Tartt

Upper West Side
Open City, Teju Cole
Rosemary's Baby, Ira Levin

Harlem
Push, Sapphire
Jazz, Toni Morrison
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison
Go Tell It on the Mountain, James Baldwin

Williamsburg
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith
Tropic of Capricorn, Henry Miller
The Chosen, Chaim Potok

Bedford-Stuyvesant
Brown Girl, Brownstones, Paule Marshall

Downtown Brooklyn
Brooklyn, Colm Toibin

Brooklyn Heights
10:04: A Novel, Ben Lerner

Boerum Hill
The Fortress of Solitude, Jonathan Lethem

Flatbush/Ditmas Park
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Michael Chabon
Sophie's Choice, William Styron

Sunset Park/Bay Ridge
Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr.

Flushing
Native Speaker, Chang-rae Lee

Woodside
We Are Not Ourselves, Matthew Thomas

South Bronx
Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann

West Bronx/Fordham
The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe

Port Richmond
Small Mercies, Eddie Joyce

For more novels or to check out the NYPL's map of their book list, click here.