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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThe Magic Barrel
Bernard Malamud · 214 pages
This is Bernard Malamud's first book of short stories. The stories are set in New York and in Italy (where Malamud's alter ego, the struggling New York Jewish Painter Arthur Fidelman, roams amid the ruins of old Europe in search of his artistic patrimony) they tell of egg candlers and shoemakers, matchmakers, and rabbis, in a voice that blends vigorous urban realism, Yiddish idiom, and a dash of a
Last Exit to Brooklyn
Hubert Selby Jr. · 303 pages
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a raw depiction of life amongst New York's junkies, hustlers, drag queens and prostitutes. An unforgettable cast of characters inhabits the housing projects, bars and streets of Brooklyn: Georgette, a hopelessly romantic and tormented transvestite; Vinnie, a disaffected and volatile youth who has never been on the right side of the law; Tralala, who can find no escape from
Maggie: A Girl of the Streets and Other Tales of New York
Stephen Crane · 239 pages
Nine Stories
J.D. Salinger · 208 pages
First published short story volume by the author of Catcher In The Rye.
Guys and Dolls and Other Stories
Damon Runyon · 283 pages
The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue
Will Eisner · 498 pages
This book joins three works by Will Eisner, all set around Dropsie Avenue in the Bronx (New York). (1) Contract with God (1978), comprising four independent brief stories. (2) A Life Force (1988), which follows events in Dropsie Avenue during the Great Depression years, and (3) Dropsie Avenue (1995), where the story follows the neighborhood from the 1800s (farming community) to high-end suburb,
The Poetry and Short Stories of Dorothy Parker
Dorothy Parker · 480 pages
Going to Meet the Man
James Baldwin · 235 pages
"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their head above water. It may be the heroin that a down-and-out jazz pianist uses to face the terror of
By the Waters of Babylon
Stephen Vincent Benet · 32 pages
After the Great Burning, when fire fell out of the sky, a young priest explores the forbidden Place of the Gods and discovers what kind of beings lived there before their cities were destroyed.
Old New York
Edith Wharton · 310 pages
These novellas, set in the New York of the mid-1800s are united by Edith Wharton's compassionate and ironic vision. From Lewis Raycie, son of complacent plutocrats, who returns from his Grand Tour with Renaissance masterpieces only to be ridiculed and disinherited, to Lizzie Hazeldean, seen leaving a hotel with a man who is not her husband - honourable but unconventional people are sacrificed to t
The Thurber Carnival
James Thurber · 369 pages
James Thurber's unique ability to convey the vagaries of life in a funny, witty, and often satirical way earned him accolades as one of the finest humorists of the twentieth century. A bestseller upon its initial publication in 1945, The Thurber Carnival captures the depth of his talent and the breadth of his wit. The stories compiled here, almost all of which first appeared in The New Yorker, are
The Great Gatsby and Other Stories
F. Scott Fitzgerald · 319 pages
The Collected Short Stories of Maxim Gorky
Maxim Gorky · 413 pages
The Company She Keeps
Mary McCarthy · 304 pages
Six episodes that tell of the experiences of a girl, in her twenties and on her own in New York, fuse into a portrait of an individual and a revelation of a distinct social milieu.
The Little Disturbances of Man
Grace Paley · 189 pages
Grace Paley explores the "little disturbances" that lie behind our everyday lives. Whether writing about sexy little girls, loving and bickering couples, angry suburbanites, frustrated job-seekers, or Jewish children performing a Christmas play, she captures the loneliness, poignancy, and humor of human experience with matchless style.
Dubliners
James Joyce · 226 pages
James Joyce's disillusion with the publication of Dubliners in 1914 was the result of ten years battling with publishers, resisting their demands to remove swear words, real place names and much else, including two entire stories. Although only 24 when he signed his first publishing contract for the book, Joyce already knew its worth: to alter it in any way would 'retard the course of civilisation
Indiscretions of Archie
P.G. Wodehouse · 248 pages
From the book:It wasn't Archie's fault really. Its true he went to America and fell in love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel proprietor and if he did marry her--well, what else was there to do? From his point of view, the whole thing was a thoroughly good egg; but Mr. Brewster, his father-in-law, thought differently, Archie had neither money nor occupation, which was dista
The Thin Man
Dashiell Hammett · 197 pages
Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.
Poor Folk and Other Early Stories
Fyodor Dostoevsky Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky