Books like The Bronx Nobody Knows

If you ask me or anyone else in the punk scene in 80s/90s New York, St. Mark’s Place—which was the epicenter of cool in our day—is a sad parody of itself now, touristy and dull. Until I read this book, I assumed its heyday began and ended with us, with Trash and Vaudeville and Manic Panic, with drinking 40-ounce beers on stoops.

Well, it turns out every generation that’s ever had a heyday on this famous, radical, anarchic block—whether as a gangster or dancing at Andy Warhol’s notorious Electric Circus parties—thought theirs was the only era that mattered. Calhoun chronicles hundreds of years of this exact attitude, which is fascinating and gives me some perspective.

James McBride has an enormous gift for evoking the goodness in characters whose lives are perceived to be beyond redemption. 

They inhabit the down and out realms of addiction, impoverishment, life on the streets, in housing projects rife with crime. And yet, he also reveals the faith and spirituality that binds them with love and humor, and provides them with the endurance for facing the ugliness and miracles in everyday life.

What I love most about Deacon King Kong is the surprising affection I feel for the characters that James McBride describes in hilariously creative ways, revealing the depths of their souls as well as the sins they rectify or try to cover up.

Never pious or self-righteous, these characters offer the heart of change and give us love!

Full disclosure—I’m a former New Yorker who adores the Big Apple.

So how could I not include a book set on the vibrant, unpredictable island of Manhattan? Anna Quindlen has long been one of my go-to writers, and this is my favorite of her novels – sophisticated, subtle, and thought-provoking.

It revolves around a series of characters—some earnest, some quirky, but all flawed—who live in an apartment building rocked by a disturbing act of violence. I love this book because of all the questions it raises about family, loyalty, and community—and I love the way the building becomes a kind of island itself.

To me, Quindlen is a top-notch chronicler of contemporary motherhood, marriage, and family—and with this story, she is at her best.

My friend and co-author Aubrey Fox recommended this book to me not long after we met. 

I liked it so much that I think it is actually one of the reasons we became friends in the first place. Tilting at Mils is the story of an innovative effort by the Natural Resources Defense Council, a leading environmental nonprofit, to create a paper mill in the Bronx in the 1990s. 

The initiative attracted millions of dollars and high-level political support, both in New York City and Washington DC. But the project never happened.

Tilting at Mills is a gripping story of failure, not due to malfeasance or incompetence, but because achieving anything is difficult and lots of things can go wrong, including rotten luck and bad timing. 

"This is your night, my Amani!" The dark skies are still full of your laughter and joy, even though they get quieter as your friends go inside one by one." 

Do you love observing the night? It's something about the night that's peaceful and beautiful. I enjoy reading this story from the perspective of a father watching his daughter gain her independence and using melodic metaphors to empower her existence. Personally, I love reading literature that compares nature's beauty to something we adore...our child. I believe this is why I connected to this story and I know other parents will too. This is a delightful read-aloud to share with your child for many nights.

This book manages to be both personal and political, valuing people’s stories and experiences while explaining the way redlining and urban renewal impact individuals over generations.

Mindy Fullilove doesn’t just talk about what happened when the brutality and racism of urban renewal uprooted diverse communities; she tells how it felt and what we can do now. Fullilove has been described as “the town shrink,” and her insistence on and commitment to cities as spaces where people’s well-being should be cared for is inspiring. 

In this book, she tells real stories of neighbors in Pittsburgh, PA, Newark, NJ, and Roanoke, VA–not places on which many books focus. As I read, her narrative expanded my mind about the ways we are all connected through our humanity and these often painful histories of place and what that connection implies for all of our futures. 

This utterly charming collection of short stories by acclaimed cartoonist Nie Jun offers an insider’s glimpse into the alleys (hutong) of a Beijing neighborhood. Originally written for a Chinese audience, the book portrays a community that is quintessentially “old Beijing” and will be sweetly recognizable to anyone fortunate enough to have lived there in decades past: we see not only famous landmarks peeping out from behind the curved tile roofs of the classic courtyard-house (siheyuan) architecture, but also the green pillar mailboxes, low wooden courtyard chairs, bicycle repair stands, outdoor water spigots and washbasins, colorfully dressed old ladies dancing in the public square, and other authentic details that a book written for an international audience might not think to include.

The stories revolve around a young girl with an almost mystical connection to her quirky grandfather and are full of the kind of “everyday wonder” that… show more.

I once lived in a close-knit neighborhood similar to the one in which this novel is set, and I was entranced by the interplay between the variety of characters in this tale of domestic suspense. The story isn’t so much about the woman who disappears one night as it is about the perplexed bunch of girlfriends who are left behind. I relished the voyeuristic peek into the hidden dramas of the various neighbors’ personal and family lives—it made me feel like I was riding a silent drone through the ’burbs, swooping unseen through kitchens, bedrooms, and backyards, uncovering people’s secrets!

My Papi Has a Motorcycle is a unique look at not just a father-daughter relationship, but at how they connect with their whole community. My own dad had a motorcycle, and from waiting for him to get home from work, to slipping that big helmet on, to holding onto him tightly as we flew down the streets, I connected with this story and the bond between father and daughter. A special outing with Dad, or Papi, is always a treat, and this book brings that to life.

Theodore Bestor carries the neighborhood theme forward into the boom years of the 1980s. Based on ethnographic fieldwork between 1979 and 1981, Bestor pulls apart the deep web of social, economic, and political relationships which hold neighborhoods and communities together despite being submerged in the enormity of Tokyo. He uncovers actors, institutions, and customs which facilitated modernization while sustaining a veneer of tradition. At it core, Bestor’s neighborhood revealed a social and cultural inventiveness that enabled its communities to engage with and benefit from unprecedented social change.