Gone to New York: Adventures in the City by Ian FrazierPicador, 2006 (Originally Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005)

Frazier’s observations of New York are detailed and rich: the long essay on Canal Street (the candy-factory-turned-loft that Frazier lived in, the army-navy surplus store his landlord ran, the sounds of car horns and the colors of the sunset) is especially excellent, as are the essays about Queens and Brooklyn. Part of what I like in these essays is the delight of seeing things I already know in print: the spot just before Carroll Street where the wisteria blooms and tumbles over the wall separating the subway tracks from yards (which I told Megan to look for on her way to into Manhattan last week), or a mention of the Hindu temple in Flushing, the Quaker meetinghouse and the Korean Baptist churches. But there’s also the delight of the unknown: the history of the building of the Holland Tunnel, for example, or Frazier’s description of walking along Route 3 in New Jersey, or visiting the Weehawken spot where Hamilton and Burr duelled. I like that Frazier is an intrepid walker who walks and writes, eloquently, about what he sees, all the little bits of life converging in the city.