How to Read New York uncovers and illuminates the rich architectural language of one of the world's truly great cities, from its celebrated skyscrapers to its lesser-known treasures. Charting both the key technical developments and aesthetic movements that have influenced architecture in the Big Apple, this accessible guide.

In this delightfully witty, provocative book, literature professor and psychoanalyst Pierre Bayard argues that not having read a book need not be an impediment to having an interesting conversation about it. (In fact, he says, in certain situations reading the book is the worst thing you could do.) Using examples from such writers as Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Montaigne, and Umberto Eco, he describes the varieties of "non-reading"-from books that you've never heard of to books that you've read and forgotten-and offers advice on how to turn a sticky social situation into an occasion for creative brilliance. Practical, funny, and thought-provoking, How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read-which became a favorite of readers everywhere in the hardcover edition-is in the end a love letter to books, offering a whole new perspective on how we read and absorb them.

"A lively, immersive history by an award-winning urbanist of New York City's transformation, and the lessons it offers for the city's future"--

WHEN ARTHUR AND D.W. travel to New York City with their parents, they visit the Statue of Liberty, a museum, and they even see a Broadway show! But D.W. is most excited about visiting Mary Moo-Cow Palace with her Mary Moo-Cow doll. When D.W. doesn’t follow her parents’ rule and goes off by herself, the family must find her. Luckily, Arthur knows just where to find D.W.—Mary Moo-Cow Palace, of course!

In the summer of 1948, E.B. White sat in a New York City hotel room and, sweltering in the heat, wrote a remarkable pristine essay, Here is New York. Perceptive, funny, and nostalgic, the author’s stroll around Manhattan—with the reader arm-in-arm—remains the quintessential love letter to the city, written by one of America’s foremost literary figures. Here is New York has been chosen by The New York Times as one of the ten best books ever written about the city. The New Yorker calls it “the wittiest essay, and one of the most perceptive, ever done on the city.”

Bringing together established writers, MFA professors and students, and New York editors and agents, this must-read for aspiring writers and anyone interested in the present and future of American letters reveals the ways writers make--or fail to make--a living. Original. 15,000 first printing.

Two children walk through the streets of New York and visit the ship, Queen Elizabeth II.