Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio CD]

David Remnick (Editor), Tyne Daly (Reader), Maria Tucci (Reader), Joe Morton (Reader), Timothy Jerome (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 7, 2000

Read by Joe Morton, Timothy Jerome, and Maria Tucci
Nine CDs, 10 hours

Anthologized from the reigning literary magazine of the century - and in honor of its 75th anniversary - the finest short stories about the greatest city in the world.

Wonderful Town is the second half of our celebration of The New Yorker's 75th anniversary, masterfully anthologizes a selection of the greatest short stories written this century.  While the individual stories differ widely in their theme and tone, all share the common thread of taking place in and around New York City.  However, this anthology is as much about the writing as the venue and will make fascinating listening for all.  In the authors' capable imaginations, the city itself is not just a setting but a character itself, with the kind of range and impact that any major literary character achieves.  Like New York, Wonderful Town contains the anomalous and the commonplace, shock and comfort, triumph and melancholy.

The impressive list of short story authors include among others: Isaac Baschevis Singer, J.D. Salinger, John O'Hara, John Updike, Philip Roth, Cynthia Ozick, John Cheever, Bernard Malamud, Wendy Wasserstein, Tama Janowitz and Grace Paley.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

"Ah, what can ever be more stately and admirable to me than mast-hemm'd Manhattan?" marveled the excitable Walt Whitman in 1865. The skinny island and its four sister boroughs have continued to fascinate writers ever since, and it would be hard to find a better record of that fascination than Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker. As David Remnick explains in his foreword, the fledgling magazine paid relatively little heed to the nuts and bolts of metropolitan life, and in his original prospectus, Harold Ross didn't even mention fiction. But in the following decades, Ross and his successors published so many classic New York stories that the real challenge, according to Remnick, was whittling down the selection: "As there is barely enough room in this city to contain all of its busy, funny, angry, joyful, carping, and canny inhabitants, there was barely enough room to contain the wide range of stories we agreed upon."

So what made the grade? There are treasures from John Cheever ("The Five-Forty-Eight"), James Thurber ("The Catbird Seat"), Maeve Brennan ("I See You, Bianca"), Isaac Bashevis Singer ("The Cafeteria"), Jamaica Kincaid ("Poor Visitor"), and many others. The uptown neighborhoods appear to be more generously represented--a token, perhaps, of the magazine's well-heeled, fur-bearing readership--but from early Updike to middle-period Tama Janowitz, there are plenty of excursions south of Fourteenth Street. It's not, however, a simple matter of geography, but a kind of urban metaphysics at work. There are numerous and overlapping New Yorks represented in this collection: you'll find John Cheever's postwar paradise cheek-by-jowl with Ann Beattie's yuppie stomping ground. Then there's James Stevenson's vision of a flooded Gotham:

We are on the roof now. I have no idea what time it is, but it is daylight. The lower buildings have been submerged, the tall office buildings stand like tombstones above the heaving waves. There are whitecaps toward Central Park. An ocean liner stood by the Pan Am building for a while, then moved out to sea.... The water is swirling around the skylights now. The wind shifts. The waves are coming straight in from the Atlantic.

Even in this postapocalyptic setting, New York stubbornly remains itself. A wonderful town indeed--and a wonderful collection to celebrate it. --Anita Urquhart --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Two anthologies are being published in honor of The New Yorker's 75th anniversary, with multiple readers. The unabridged stories selected from Wonderful Town are about New York, and their authors include Salinger, Updike, Roth, and Wasserstein. The companion volume is Life Stories (see, below).
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Publisher: Random House Audio; Abridged edition (March 7, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375409556
• ISBN-13: 978-0375409554
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 5.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,326,157 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant collection, January 2, 2001

By 

Richard LeComte "richlec" (Tuscaloosa, AL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker (Hardcover)

This collection of New York stories shows both why writers have been fascinated with the Big Apple for so long and also why The New Yorker has been the hallmark of short fiction. The collection begins with Cheever and ends with Perlman, which pretty much sums up the golden years of the magazine. The pleasures here range from a story of lingering urban dread by William Maxwell to a hilarious tale of an intellectual loser by Jonathan Franzen. Updike's story both paints a true picture of New York in the snow and returns to his favorite theme -- infidelity. Philip Roth has a hilarious entry about a famous writer hounded by a game show contestant -- even funnier if you've seen "Quiz Show." The collection made me homesick for New York. It's one of the best books I read in 2000.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Terrific!, August 2, 2002

By 

Ethan Cooper (Big Apple) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker (Hardcover)

John Cheever, Woody Allen, and Bernard Malamud wrote my favorite stories in this wonderful collection about life in New York City. Three quick thoughts: (1) While the dynamic captured by some authors seems a little dated (Dorothy Parker), most of the stories resonate with characters, experiences, and social groups that are common today in New York. (2) The collection offers 44 stories and 44 authors. This helps a reader see how these authors are great in different ways. (3) This collection ends, once and for all, the impression that all stories in The New Yorker are the same. Buy this book!

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must-read for literary fiction fans, October 9, 2000

By 

Joseph Levens (Smithtown, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Wonderful Town: New York Stories from The New Yorker (Hardcover)

This is not only a good anthology to read for entertainment, but also a necessity for anyone who wants to write literary fiction. The New Yorker is the cornerstone of American contemporary literature, and this book captures a good sampling of the stories which have appeared in its pages the last 50 years or so. I particularly liked DEisenberg's story, and the fact that JCheever's story appears first. I think the book should have had a few more lighter pieces, and wonder why McInerney was skipped over.