86 Books Like New York Nocturne

Dickens wrote this essay, which is one of his very best pieces of non-fictional writing, at a period when he was undergoing something of a crisis, largely because of the breakdown of his marriage. It describes a walk he took at night through the streets of London, though in fact it is probably a composite of many nocturnal strolls he took in the late 1850s. Although the piece is sharpened with Dickens’s characteristic spirit of satire, it is remarkable for the sympathetic warmth with which it sketches those who, in contrast to Dickens himself, have no choice but to inhabit the city at night – the lost, the lonely, the homeless. Movingly, he finds a sense of community in these isolated individuals who live on the margins of society.

The cover is what I most love about this book, which I picked up in a second-hand bookshop. In my edition, “The Big City After Dark" is emblazoned in large yellow letters across the top. Beneath it, there’s a deliciously louche illustration of two people standing against the backdrop of Manhattan at night. One is a man in a trilby hat and a cheap brown suit. The other is a blonde woman in cinched black dress and pearls, twirling her pearl necklace and looking alluring. Both appear to know a thing or two about New York’s seediest hangouts. This is a gripping noir guidebook to the twentieth century’s most exciting nighttime city, written as if it’s pulp fiction. 

This brilliantly funny poem, written in heroic couplets, is a satirical celebration of the teeming streets of London in the early eighteenth century, when this imperial city’s pretensions to order were constantly threatened by the chaos of an expanding, and highly mobile, population. It is an instruction manual for survival – "Through Winter Streets to steer your course aright, / How to walk clean by Day, and safe by Night" – but also a colourful cityscape comparable to the paintings produced by William Hogarth at roughly the same time. It offers a highly atmospheric description of London at night in one of its sections. 

Iain Sinclair is London’s finest London poet, even though he hasn’t published poetry for decades, and The Last London is his elegy to a lost London – a London that is being buried beneath the concrete, glass, and steel of private housing developments. As ever, Sinclair conducts his archaeological excursions into the city and its forgotten precincts by tramping its streets relentlessly – in this book, principally after dark. He records his observations and reconstructs his encounters with others in a hypnotic, poetic prose. Here is a city fading into the night because it is erasing its history… 

I love the huge size (12.5”x17”) and gorgeous printing of this book.

Of course, the photos are amazing. This book was published by Abrams during the years when they were known for their exquisite art books. There are not many publishers who would put out a book like this today, including Abrams. The photos of New York City in this book are the work of a photo genius.

I get immense pleasure holding this book and going through the pages which show all of New York in beautiful late sun and night light, and so large you can feel like you are right there.

Once again I could have chosen the old Ballantine Edition, ‘the art of Boris’ for nostalgic reasons but this was the book I drooled over most as a young working illustrator. The fact that a living artist could paint in oils with such finesse was astonishing to me. One of those rare books I bought multiple copies to study from over the years (I cut the pages out and tape them to my easel for inspiration). Decades later Boris would graciously write the foreword to my first book ‘sci-fi and fantasy oil painting techniques’, which was the honour of a lifetime.

Gordon Matta-Clark is one of my favorite ever artists. An innovator who crossed the fields of architecture and art, Matta-Clark found new modes of expression by simultaneously deconstructing his urban surroundings and destabilizing the canonical regulations of art. What’s more, and unlike many of his contemporaries, Matta-Clark had a keen eye for graffiti, using it within his own practice (such as in the work “Graffiti Truck”) as well as archiving the images that surrounded him in 1970s New York. 

Whilst some of these images have previously been seen in exhibitions of Matta-Clark's work (his hand-colored, stunning “Photoglyphs” most famously), the majority of the 2000 photos Matta-Clark took during the early ‘70s have never been seen until the publication of this stunning book. At over 400 pages and with over 400 beautiful color images, as well as containing interviews and essays by some key practitioners and writers of the era, this… show more.

I was late coming to this author, but once I discovered her I knew I’d go back to her earlier books in the Lady Eleanor Swift series.

In this book, Lady Swift leaves England to see what Manhattan is all about. With her butler, Clifford, (and her dog Gladstone) in tow, she is soon ensconced in a high-end apartment and is giving and attending all of the parties with the rich and famous. But her society status is put on hold when she witnesses the doorman of her building killed in a hit and run.

This is soon followed by another murder connected to the doorman. She, of course, gets involved and is determined to right the wrong. The book is a perfect bit of escapism, written with humor. 

I loved the originality of The Impossible Girl. Cora Lee is a resurrectionist—she steals bodies from cemeteries for medical dissection in 1850s New York City. This isn’t really a sympathetic activity, however. Would you love a grave robber? So, to add flavor, bodies with unusual physical traits bring in extra money, and Cora specializes in stealing these.

But she’s got a unique malady of her own—she has two hearts. And people want to kill her to cash in on her body. Now we have a reason to cheer for her.

The story has many twists as Cora learns who she can (and can’t) trust. Add to that some romance, the vibrant setting of 1850s New York City, and some twisted characters, and this is a fun book.

It’s 1764 on Manhattan Island, and a stranger from London arrives at a small town called New York. He expects to receive a thousand pounds. A cast of dynamic characters appear. There are intrigues and adventures. All writers try to be vibrant on the page—to write smart, vivid, witty descriptions and dialogue. And then you come upon a writer like Francis Spufford, who is able, somehow, do it a degree or two better than everyone else.