2024 in Review: New York City Books

Nonfiction

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  The Freaks Came Out to Write: The Definitive History of The Village Voice, the Radical Paper That Changed American Culture

  by Tricia Romano

  Drawing on more than 200 interviews with former Village Voice writers including Colson Whitehead and Vivian Gornick, Tricia Romano's 600-page oral history of one of NYC's most iconic publications is bursting with amazing gossip and extraordinary anecdotes.

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  I Heard Her Call My Name: A Memoir of Transition

  by Lucy Sante 
  
  In her "memoir of transition," which was instantly acclaimed on its publication in February, Sante recalls her bohemian youth in the New York City of the 1970s and 1980s, and tells the story of her journey, in her sixties, toward her true gender identity.

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  Language City: The Fight to Preserve Endangered Mother Tongues in New York

  by Ross Perlin

  In Language City, Ross Perlin, co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, follows six speakers of little-known and overlooked languages to learn how they are maintaining or reviving their languages against overwhelming odds. 

  Watch Now: Ross Perlin in conversation with author Suketu Mehta about Language City and the race against time to map the little-known languages in the most linguistically diverse city in history.

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  Life Underground: Encounters with People Below the Streets of New York

  by Terry Williams
  
  Terry Williams's compassionate new work of ethnography reveals the untold stories and experiences of unhoused people who have lived and sheltered in the tunnels beneath Riverside Park on the Upper West Side.

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  Paper of Wreckage: An Oral History of the New York Post, 1976–2024

  by Susan Mulcahy and Frank DiGiacomo

  Another blockbuster oral history, this time concerning America's favorite tabloid. Mulcahy and DiGiacomo, both Page Six veterans, pick up the story of the New York Post from its sale to Rupert Murdoch in 1976 and carry it through nearly five decades of controversy and bombast, bad behavior and worse puns, all the way to the present day.

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  Paradise Bronx: The Life and Times of New York's Greatest Borough

  by Ian Frazier

  Ian Frazier's mammoth new history of the Bronx—the only borough on the mainland—from the Revolutionary War to the Yankees, the birth of hip-hop, and beyond, is the product of many years of research and passion.

  Free Event: Join author Ian Frazier for a special event at the Bronx Library Center on Thursday, December 12.

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  2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed

  by Eric Klinenberg

  Rooted in the day-to-day stories of seven ordinary New Yorkers, including an elementary school principal, a subway custodian, and a bar manager, and how they coped with the COVID-19 pandemic, Klinenberg's book reckons with a pivotal year in recent history.

Fiction

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  Anita de Monte Laughs Last

  by Xochitl Gonzalez

  Moving between the past and the present, Gonzalez's suspenseful new page-turner is the story of Raquel, a third-year student at Brown, and the long-dead Cuban artist Anita de Monte, who died in New York in suspicious circumstances decades earlier.

  Watch Now: Xochitl Gonzalez spoke with Jordan Lauf at NYPL's Get Lit Book Club, presented with WNYC, in March 2024.

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  The Coin

  by Yasmin Zaher

  This debut novel follows a young, wealthy Palestinian woman through her adventures as a teacher of underprivileged boys in New York City and, following an encounter with a con artist, a reseller of Birkin bags.

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  In Tongues

   by Thomas Grattan

  This funny and moving novel follows a twentysomething from the Midwest who, after breaking up with his boyfriend, moves to New York with a pocketful of stolen money and a cheerful ambivalence about how he spends his time. Before long, he's dogsitting in the West Village for a pair of older gallerists who draw him into their lives and change him forever.

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  Lazarus Man

  by Richard Price

  When a five-story tenement building in East Harlem collapses, killing at least six people, the stage is set for a dazzling study of a community on the edge in this novel by the author of Clockers.

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  Memory Piece

  by Lisa Ko

  The new novel from the bestselling author of The Leavers depicts New York City from the 1980s through the 2040s, telling the story of three friends searching for meaning as their lives intersect across the decades.

  Watch Now: Lisa Ko spoke with Jordan Lauf at NYPL's Get Lit Book Club, presented with WNYC, in May 2024.

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  Ways and Means

  by Daniel Lefferts

  Alistair McCabe moves to the city for college and opportunity but soon finds himself in bed with an older couple—and some seriously unsavory characters. Set in 2016, Lefferts's sexy debut novel sets its sights on high finance, high corruption, and high politics.

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  You Should Be So Lucky

  by Cat Sebastian

  This queer midcentury romance by bestselling author Cat Sebastian focuses on a star baseball player in a batting slump and the reluctant arts journalist reassigned to the sports beat to cover him.