100 Must-Read New York City Novels

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In a way that nearly no other place can, New York City is often utilized in fiction as a character unto itself. It is a living, breathing entity and when a writer places a story in a particular time in New York – even in a particular neighborhood – she is doing something very specific in the message she is trying to convey.

The five boroughs – Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island – serve as the backdrop for so many iconic stories that compiling this list actually required a significant narrowing of the qualifications. With publication dates spanning from the early 1800s through this week, the novels on this list cover an even broader range of the city’s history. All the way from its founding as New Amsterdam to a future (and fantastical) Gotham, they include the best and worst moments in New York’s lifetime.

For the purposes of this list, I looked only at adult novels. I could’ve created an entirely separate list for nonfiction or for YA or even for theater. The common thread is not just novels that use New York City as a setting, but ones that render the city as a fully realized character in the story.  Here are 100 novels of New York City. I hope you’ll discover classics you haven’t read, unknown gems you’ve never heard of, and modern additions that round out the richness of NYC’s storytelling tradition. You’ll find entries from Harlem Renaissance writers, stories of the Gilded Age, immigrant narratives from a huge range of cultures, modern tales of both excess and famine, and everything in between.

1. 1876: A Novel by Gore Vidal
2. A History of New York by Washington Irving
3. A Little Life by Hanya Yanigahara
4. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
5. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
6. Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson
7. Another Country by James Baldwin
8. Ashes of Fiery Weather by Kathleen Donohoe
9. Behold the Dreamers by Imbolo Mbue
10. Billy Bathgate by E.L. Doctorow
11. Bread Givers by Anya Yezierska
12. Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
13. Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
14. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
15. Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
16. Christodora by Tim Murphy
17. City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan by Beverly Swerling
18. Daddy Was a Number Runner by Louise Meriwether
19. Dissident Gardens by Jonathan Lethem
20. Dreamland by Kevin Baker
21. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
22. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
23. Fever by Mary Beth Keane
24. Forever by Pete Hamill
25. Fury by Salman Rushdie
26. Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
27. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
28. Going Down by Jennifer Belle
29. Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older
30. Heyday by Kurt Andersen
31. How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez
32. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
33. It’s Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini
34. Jazz by Toni Morrison
35. Last Exit to Brooklyn by Hubert Selby Jr.
36. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCan
37. Lowboy by John Wray
38. Lucy by Jamaica Kincaid
39. Lush Life by Richard Price
40. Maggie, a Girl of the Streets by Stephen Crane
41. Manhattan Transfer by John Dos Passos
42. Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk
43. Modern Lovers by Emma Straub
44. Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
45. My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
46. Native Speaker by Chang-rae Lee
47. Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
48. Nevada by Imogen Binnie
49. Open City by Teju Cole
50. Passing by Nella Larsen
51. Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish
52. Push by Sapphire
53. Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
54. Re Jane by Patricia Park
55. Rich and Pretty by Rumaan Alam
56. Rules of Civility: A Novel by Amor Towles
57. Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
58. Sex Wars: A Novel of Gilded Age New York by Marge Piercy
59. Sima’s Undergarments for Women by Ilana Stanger-Ross
60. Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins
61. Small Mercies by Eddie Joyce
62. Sophie’s Choice by William Styron
63. Speedboat by Renata Adler
64. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
65. The Alienist by Caleb Carr
66. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
67. The Ask by Sam Lipsyte
68. The Assistant by Bernard Malamud
69. The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaVelle
70. The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
71. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
72. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
73. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
74. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
75. The Chosen by Chaim Potok
76. The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
77. The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
78. The Ex by Alafair Burke
79. The Godfather by Mario Puzo
80. The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
81. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
82. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
83. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
84. The Great Negro Plot: A Tale of Conspiracy and Murder in Eighteenth-Century New York by Mat Johnson
85. The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
86. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
87. The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
88. The Prince of West End Avenue by Alan Isler
89. The Street by Ann Petry
90. The Thieves of Manhattan by Adam Langer
91. The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett
92. The Unpossessed by Tess Slesinger
93. The Warmest December by Bernice L. McFadden
94. Time and Again by Jack Finney
95. Underworld by Don DeLillo
96. Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
97. Washington Square by Henry James
98. Watchmen by Alan Moore
99. Winter’s Tale by Mark Helprin
100. Zone One by Colson Whitehead