New York Stories: Landmark Writing from Four Decades of New York Magazine [Paperback]

Editors of New York Magazine (Author), Tom Wolfe (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 16, 2008

The magazine that is the city that is the world

Just in time for its fortieth anniversary, New York magazine presents a stunning collection of some of its best and most influential articles, stories that captured the spectacle, the turbulence, and the cultural realignments of the past four decades.

Covering subjects from “Radical Chic” to Gawker.com, written by some of the country’s most renowned authors, here are works that broke news, perfectly captured the moment, or set trends in motion. In New York Stories, Gloria Steinem (whose Ms. Magazine was introduced in New York) broaches the subject of women’s liberation; Tom Wolfe coins “The Me Decade”; and Steve Fishman piercingly portrays the unwanted martyrdom of the 9/11 widows. Cutting edge features that invented terms like “brat pack” and “grup”; profiles of defining cultural figures including Joe Namath, Truman Capote, and long-shot presidential candidate Bill Clinton; and reports that inspired the acclaimed movies Saturday Night Fever, GoodFellas, and Grey Gardens–all are included in this one-of-a-kind compilation.

The writers who chronicled the times that began with Nixon’s campaign and end with Obama’s are at their best in New York Stories. It’s an irresistible anthology from a magazine that, like the city itself, is still making stars, setting standards, and going strong.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In a delightful foreword, Tom Wolfe hits the ground running with a chronicle of New York Magazine's humble beginnings, as a supplement to The New York Herald Tribune, and its growth, at the hands of fearless editor Clay Felker, to rival the untouchable New Yorker. For the mag's 40th anniversary, the editors have collected some of its most memorable essays, including Mark Jacobsen's 1975 "Night-Shifting for the Hip Fleet" (which loosely inspired the television show Taxi, Nik Cohn's Tribal Rights of the New Saturday Night and, in turn, the film Saturday Night Fever), two Gloria Steinem essays (including her brilliant 1969 manifesto, "After Black Power, Women's Lib"), and other articles from the likes of Jay McInerney, George Plimpton, Nora Ephron, Joe Klein, and current New York regulars Kurt Anderson and Emily Nussbaum. More recent favorites include Steve Fishman's "The Dead Wives Club, or Char in Love," about a group profile of Staten Island firemen's wives widowed on 9/11, and Mark Jacobson's "The $2,000-an-Hour Woman," a 2005 piece on "America's No. 1 escort" (whose colleague would later bring down Gov. Eliot Spitzer). Highlights abound, including Wolfe's classic 1976 "The 'Me' Decade," which details the yuppy phenomenon's "great religious wave" of narcissistic self-discovery for "dreary little bastards" with money. A pleasure to read, this book will satisfy anyone wishing to reminisce about New York City and the birth of New Journalism.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

From its birth as a Sunday newspaper supplement, New York magazine has incubated many of the nation’s best writers, its influence on journalism and literature far exceeding its size and circulation. Virtually inventing the “new journalism” of the late twentieth century, New York has consistently courted both innovation and controversy and appeals to an audience well beyond its metropolitan base. This anthology brings together representative examples of the magazine’s prose. Cultural issues include Gael Greene on pretentious restaurants, Julie Baumgold on Truman Capote’s last days, and Vanessa Grigoriadis on bloggers. The magazine’s political pundits couldn’t be more stellar: Gloria Steinem, Garry Wills, David Halberstam, and Richard Reeves, profiling national leaders from Nixon through Obama. Tom Wolfe contributes a foreword that succinctly captures founding editor Clay Felker’s charisma and talent as well as his magazine’s perennial sniping feud with the New Yorker’s William Shawn. --Mark Knoblauch

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (September 16, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812979923
• ISBN-13: 978-0812979923
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.5 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #570,261 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a can't put it down kind of book, January 26, 2009

By 

Byron Reimus (Yardley, PA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New York Stories: Landmark Writing from Four Decades of New York Magazine (Paperback)

If you needed any proof, here are several dozen reasons why some of the best writing and journalism of the past four or more decades were to be found in the pages of NEW YORK magazine. Tom Wolfe's memory-filled foreword and ode to founding editor Clay Felker is worth the price of admission alone. But you don't need to live (or have lived) in New York to appreciate takes from Kurt Andersen on George W. Bush (and George H.W. Bush), Julie Baumgold on (the real) Truman Capote, Susan Berman on Bess Myerson (and Ed Koch), Jimmy Breslin on Joe Namath (and running for office with Norman Mailer), Michael Daly on "a good man who became a bad cop," Nora Ephron on cooking Julia Child, Steve Fishman on the post-9/11 "Dead Wives Club," Vanessa Grigoriadis on Gawker, Gael Greene on how to eat at snob restaurants, David Halberstam on Spiro Agnew, Pete Hamill on the white lower middle class circa 1969, Anthony Haden-Guest on Dr. Herman Tarnower (and Jean Harris), John Heilemann on John McCain (and Bob Dole and Hillary Clinton), Gary Indiana on life in the East Village, Mark Jacobson on "the king of prostitution," Joe Klein on race (and Bill Clinton), Ariel Levy on female chauvinist pigs, Nicholas Pileggi on the mob, George Plimpton on "the writer from Philadelphia" Jerry Spinelli and a visit to Elaine's, Richard Reeves on Jerry Ford, Nancy Jo Sales on pen-paling with Woody Allen, Jennifer Senior on Senator Barack Obama, John Simon on booing for a living, Chris Smith on a "comedy isn't funny period" of Saturday Night Live, Stephen Sondheim on crossword puzzles, Gloria Steinem on black power, women's liberation (and Richard Nixon, alone in a room), John Taylor on John and Susan Gutfreunds during the "gilded age" of Wall Street, when it was "hard to be rich," and Gary Wills on George Wallace (but really on Jimmy Carter). There isn't a bad story among this collection.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Cultural History & Fun Read, March 13, 2010

By 

Jeffrey Swystun (Ottawa & New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: New York Stories: Landmark Writing from Four Decades of New York Magazine (Paperback)

You know that old chestnut..."I just couldn't put it down"? Well it applies to my experience with this amazing chronicle of the cool, the bizarre, and the fascinating. And all three apply to the first story by Tom Wolfe who takes us into a party hosted by Leonard Bernstein for the Black Panthers. This, like many of the stories, go back a few decades in the magazine's history and time and space have improved the tales. Pete Hamill provides a gritty account of class struggle and the now famous, The Secret of Grey Gardens, tells the story of Bouvier relations and their living conditions in the Hamptons which became the basis for a documentary and Broadway musical.

Comedy Isn't Funny is a snapshot of Saturday Night Live in one of its lowest periods and the result is a sad and hollow picture. I remember reading Hard To Be Rich when it came out in 1988 and credit it with prompting me to read every book on 1980's largesse and greed that has appeared since. The Crack In The Shield haunts you and offers more questions than answers on the subject of corruption. Henry Hill is profiled in Wiseguy which became Goodfellas and the creepy duo of Sid and Nancy do provide a nauseating love story.

There are many more and all are entertaining showcasing that very unique New York style of essay writing. I recommend it for enjoyment and for gaining a clearer picture on recent cultural history.

2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Must Read for any Literary Lover, December 2, 2009

By 

Ali Cioper (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New York Stories: Landmark Writing from Four Decades of New York Magazine (Paperback)

This was a required book for one of my journalism classes. I highly recommend it for journalists and anyone interested in reading works from some of the best writers of the past four decades.
To read more about what I think of the book, visit my blog! [...]