Do you need something to make you smile? These Brooklyn stories will be sure to succeed.
Last Days of Summer is a charming and funny story about a 12-year-old who strikes up a correspondence with a Giants player in the 1940s. He needs a hero to replace the father who has just left the family. The entire book is told through letters, notebooks, news clippings, report cards and other printed ephemera.
Paul Auster is a popular, contemporary Brooklyn writer. The Brooklyn Follies is a delightful novel about a recently retired and newly divorced man, in remission from cancer, who moves from his suburban home back to the Brooklyn neighborhood where he grew up. He becomes involved with an eccentric cast of loveable characters—and best of all, there is a happy ending.
A new novel by Amy Sohn, Prospect Park West, depicts the gentrification of Park Slope by young professionals. Everyone has a baby in an expensive stroller or a designer dog on a leash. There is some silly intrigue between the shallow stereotypical characters, but still, for me, the book was fun to read. I got to re-visit the playgrounds, food co-op, tea lounge and wonderful Propsect Park, Brooklyn Public Library–all places where I have spent time with my baby granddaughter.
To complement Prospect Park West, be sure to look at Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. It’s a charming picture book (with a sequel!) about a Brooklyn toddler and her Daddy as they set out on their errands in the same Park Slope neighborhood. The illustrations are a combination of colorful 2-dimensional artwork superimposed on black and white photographs of the neighborhood itself.
Other Brooklyn writers you might enjoy: Pete Hamill, Jonathan Lethem, Nicole Krauss, Jonathan Safer Foer, Bernice McFadden, Marianne Moore, Walt Whitman, Henry Miller, Maurice Sendak, Norman Mailer, Joseph Heller, Bernard Malamud, Colson Whitehead, Jhumpa Lahiri, Hubert Selby and many others. The literary tradition of Brooklyn is well documented in The New York Observer’s article “The Brooklyn Literary 100.”
Also, check out Part One for more Brooklyn stories!
~Beth K., Central Library
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