When a vintage clothing store owner in New York City discovers a journal from1907, she finds her destiny at stake as the past and present collide.

Saloon-keepers and street preachers, gypsies and steel-walking Mohawks, a bearded lady and a 93-year-old “seafoodetarian” who believes his specialized diet will keep him alive for another two decades. These are among the people that Joseph Mitchell immortalized in his reportage for The New Yorker and in four books—McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr. Flood, The Bottom of the Harbor, and Joe Gould's Secret—that are still renowned for their precise, respectful observation, their graveyard humor, and their offhand perfection of style. These masterpieces (along with several previously uncollected stories) are available in one volume, which presents an indelible collective portrait of an unsuspected New York and its odder citizens—as depicted by one of the great writers of this or any other time.

Jennifer Ward, a playwright who is still haunted by the death of her sister, embarks on a journey of self-discovery in order to overcome her past and open her heart to the possibilities of love.

La història de dues dones valentes i emprenedores que, tot i estar separades per un segle, estan unides pel talent i lluiten per aconseguir els seus somnis. Nova York, 2007: quan l’Amanda, propietària de la botiga de roba vintage Astor Place, visita una vella dama de l’alta societat novaiorquesa per comprar-li uns vestits antics, no sap que un dels objectes li revelarà un passat ple de secrets. Amagat enmig de les vores cosides a mà d’un maniguet de pell, l’Amanda descobreix un diari del 1907. Pertany a l’Olive Westcott, una jove rica que va viure a Nova York fa més de cent anys. En contra dels costums de l’època, l’Olive no volia casar-se i tenir fills, sinó que somiava convertir-se en cap de compres d’uns grans magatzems. La mort sobtada del pare i la crisi financera de principis de segle, però, la van arrossegar fins a les portes de la pobresa. Envoltada de noies treballadores, va haver de lluitar per sobreviure i adaptar-se a un món completament diferent del que ella coneixia. A mesura que avança en la lectura del diari, l’Amanda descobreix que la seva vida i la de l’Olive tenen molt en comú i s’adona que amb quaranta anys ja és hora que ella també resolgui els dubtes pendents sobre la relació que manté, encari el futur i tiri endavant la botiga.

A hilarious send-up of sex, scandal, and the Golden Age of Hollywood by legendary cartoonist Edward Sorel. In 1965, a young, up-and-coming illustrator by the name of Edward Sorel tore away layer after layer of linoleum from the floor of his $97-a-month Manhattan apartment until he discovered a hidden treasure: issues of the New York Daily News and Daily Mirror from 1936, each ablaze with a scandalous child custody trial taking place in Hollywood starring the actress Mary Astor—and the journal in which she detailed her numerous affairs. Thus began a half-century obsession that reached its peak in Mary Astor’s Purple Diary, “a thoroughly charming” (New York Times Book Review, front-page review) account of the scandal in which Sorel narrates and illustrates the travails of the Oscar-winning actress alongside his own personal story of discovering an unlikely muse. Now in a stunning paperback, featuring more than sixty ribald and rapturous original illustrations, Mary Astor’s Purple Diary is the life’s masterpiece of one of America’s greatest illustrators.

The city has eight million stories, and this one unfolds just south of 14th Street in Manhattan, mostly on the seven blocks of Fourth Avenue bracketed by Union Square and Astor Place. There, for nearly eight decades, from the 1890s to the 1960s, thrived a bibliophiles' paradise. They called it the New York Booksellers' Row, or, more commonly, Book Row. It's an American story, the story that this richly anecdotal historical memoir amiably tells: as American as the rags-to-riches tale of the Strand, which began its life as book stall on Eighth Street and today houses 2.5 million volumes in twelve miles of space. It's a story cast with colorful characters: like the horse-betting, poker-playing go-getter and book dealer George D. Smith; the irascible Russian-born book hunter Peter Stammer, the visionary Theodore C. Schulte; Lou Cohen, founder of the still-surviving Argosy Book Store; gentleman bookseller George Rubinowitz and his legendary shrewd wife Jenny. Rising rents, street crime, urban redevelopment, television-the reasons are many for the demise of Book Row, but in this volume, based on interviews with dozens upon dozens of the book people who bought, sold, and collected there, it lives again.

Despite its innumerable tourist attractions, New York City still has many secrets, hidden in the most unlikely places. There is the Edison Hotel in Times Square, where magicians gather 'round the Magic Table to socialize and compete. There is Hua Mei Garden in the Lower East Side, where elderly Chinese men meet to display exotic birds. And there is Sahadi's in Brooklyn, where the culinary arts thrive, and New Yorkers go for just the right ingredients for a Middle Eastern meal. This book details thirty-two unusual locations such as these and enhances them by including a cluster of additional, related spots. Hidden New York shows you why these places matter and guides you through the historical and cultural significance of each one. Many of them matter because of the opportunities they provide for socializing, such as the Empire Roller Disco in Brooklyn that attracts a community of skaters and the Cube sculpture on Astor Place, which is a meeting spot for homeless youth. Others matter because they are focal points for communities and the spaces are intertwined with how people share in each others' lives. Still others have been lost, like the house under the roller coaster in Coney Island, made famous by Woody Allen in Annie Hall. This book is not just about Manhattan, but covers all five boroughs in New York City. It is an invitation to visit, revisit, learn, and enjoy all that you didn't know the city has to offer. It will show you what's there, what used to be there, and why it will be there for years to come. The chapters, illustrated with appealing black-and-white photos, include first-person remembrances and commentaries from New Yorkers themselves. Each entry functions as a small travel essay, evoking how certain destinations are experienced. As a guide to the New York City that is less traveled, this unique book shows that some of the best places to visit are ones that you never even thought existed. The 32 Places That Matter Hua Mei Bird Garden Russian and Turkish Tenth Street Baths Bohemian Hall and Beer Garden The Magic Table at the Edison Hotel The General Society of Mechanics and Tradesman Webster Hall The Cube Stickball Boulevard and the Stadiums of the Street Thomas Jefferson Park Pool Empire Roller Skating Center Chess Havens Coney Island The Lemon Ice King of Corona Coney Island Bialys and Bagels Sahadi's Specialty and Middle Eastern Foods Arthur Avenue Market Union Square Greenmarket The Village Vanguard Casa Amadeo Record Shop Richmond Barthé's Frieze at Kingsborough Houses Quirky Features of the Landscape Art in the Subways Governors Island Casita Rincón Criollo, Magnolia Tree Earth Center, Liz Christy Bowery-Houston Community Garden The Flower District Fishing around New York Kehila Kedosha Janina Synagogue and Museum Masjid Al-Taqwa Ganesha Hindu Temple Our Lady of Mount Carmel Grotto The Memorials of the Battery Strawberry Fields