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Literature and the Modern City

Morty

New Member
I'm one of those city-people; I love the pace of it at day, and the vibe of it at night. Does anyone know any writers or novels that contain some sort of description/reflection/meditation on the city? Preferably nothing before the 20th Century...

I'd appreciate any help!
 
Have you heard of Bloomsbury's Writer and the City series? I've not read any of them myself, but they seem to feature writing by authors focusing on specific cities:

Those released so far are:

  • Rio de Janiero, Ruy Castro
  • Prague Pictures, John Banville
  • Florence: A Delicate Case, David Leavitt
  • 30 Days In Sydney, Peter Carey
  • The Flâneur: A Stroll through the Paradoxes of Paris, Edmund White
  • Ghost Town, Patrick McGrath

The info is here.
 
You might enjoy Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino or maybe Jonathan Lethem's Motherless Brooklyn.
 
GreenKnight said:
Paul Auster's New York Trilogy (it's one novel, BTW) is a must-read.

Hell yes- read it! :)

It's actually available in three separate novels - I have them. In fact I have about 7 or 8 versions of it. Whenever I see all three in a cover I haven't got, I have to buy...
 
NY Trilogy...

Especially if they're in a RED cover, eh? :)

Have you read Oracle Night too? In a sense the 'fourth' book of the trilogy (to get all Douglas Adams for a moment). Continues the theme of odd-coloured notebooks and metatextual bewilderment (did I really say that?).

Love the bit in Oracle Night where the protagonist is trying to buy a new notebook... freaks me out for some reason.

Lots of people are right now wondering what could be so eerie about a simple notebook...
 
GreenKnight said:
Especially if they're in a RED cover, eh? :)

Have you read Oracle Night too? In a sense the 'fourth' book of the trilogy (to get all Douglas Adams for a moment). Continues the theme of odd-coloured notebooks and metatextual bewilderment (did I really say that?).

Love the bit in Oracle Night where the protagonist is trying to buy a new notebook... freaks me out for some reason.

Lots of people are right now wondering what could be so eerie about a simple notebook...

Metatextual bewilderment: did I really read it? :)

Oracle Night. Read it three times now, I think. Always had a bit of a notebook/stationery fetish myself, so it was right up my street.

Yes, people will be wondering, so they need to go and read!:)
 
Here's my most unhelpful post of the day.

I've got a book of short stories, called The Penguin Book of the City. I can't seem to find it though (which is why it's an unhelpful post, as well as being four months too late to help the OP) and even searching Amazon for the exact title doesn't yeild any results (well it does, it bring up 45 books actually, but none of which are the one).
 
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