“I grew up surrounded by books,” says Nancy Bass Wyden, and no wonder: Her grandfather, Ben Bass, founded the Strand Bookstore in 1927 and it’s been the family business ever since. Nancy started there at age 16 — taking phone requests, working the cash register, managing the Central Park kiosks. Twenty-five years later, she’s running things along with her 83-year-old father, Fred. “His desk is in the middle of the store,” she says. “We built him an office years ago but he refused to move in!” Though she’s married to Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon — home to Powell’s City of Books in Portland, where the couple had their first date — she’s a sucker for NYC stories, especially in summer. Here are her favorites.
— Barbara Hoffman
New York Stories
Edited by Diana Secker Tesdell
This is my current go-to hostess gift for people who live in New York, as it seems to please everyone. It features stories by an amazing range of writers — O. Henry, Jack Kerouac, Edith Wharton, Jay McInerney, Junot Diaz — and it’s a great introduction to authors some people might not know. It’s a wonderful reminder that there a million different New York Cities, and it’s our job to explore them!
Martin Dressler
The Tale of an American Dreamer
by Steven Millhauser
This novel, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was recently featured on our award-winning books table. Millhauser’s poetic imagery about turn-of-the-century New York is a quintessential American success story with a rather odd and exciting twist. I love his descriptions of life in an era when, every day, one witnessed yet another high-rise was added to the skyline.
The Fran Lebowitz Reader
Fran frequently shops at the Strand and was part of our 80th birthday celebration, giving one of the best toasts I’ve ever heard. She’s ironic, uproarious, unapologetic and an amazingly sharp observer of the culture and people that make up New York City — she is the Dorothy Parker of today. I only wish she’d pick up her pen and write about the last two decades of life in New York City!
New York: The Novel
by Edward Rutherfurd
My mother recommended it. She doesn’t work in the business, so she has more time to read! It’s a really thick book — 860 pages — but it’s such a page turner. This ambitious sweeping epic covers 350 years of New York, from its beginning as an Indian village at the tip of Manhattan all the way to the Sept. 11 attacks, and it is absolutely captivating.