From glistening skyscrapers and bustling downtowns to dark alleys and creeping urban decay, cities are endlessly complicated and diverse. And so are the books that take place in urban settings. This week, we share some of our favorite city books and chat about what makes these environments so fascinating.
What are your favorites?
Shownotes
Books
Pink Slime, by Fernanda Trías, translated by Heather Cleary
Middlemarch, by George Eliot
Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee
Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust
Wind and Truth, by Brandon Sanderson
The Suicides, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen
Zama, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen
The Silentiary, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen
Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros
A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy
The City and the City, by China Miéville
Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, by Ursula K. Le Guin
My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante, translated by Anne Goldstein
Lush Life, by Richard Price
Solenoid, by Mircea Cǎrtǎrescu, translated by Sean Cotter
Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolfe
Ask the Dust, by John Fante
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Máquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa
Anniversaries, by Uwe Johnson, translated by Damion Searls
Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck
Ulysses, by James Joyce
New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster
Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke
It, by Stephen King
The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides
Open City, by Teju Cole
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens
The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larsen
Midaq Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by Trevor Le Gassick
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon
Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin, translated by Michael Hoffman
Down and Out in London, by George Orwell
City of Saints and Madmen, by Jeff Vandermeer
Cairo Trilogy, by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by William Maynard Hutchins, Olive E. Kenny, Lorne M. Kenny, and Angele Botros Samaan
The Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell
London, by Edward Rutherford
Dublin, by Edward Rutherford
New York, by Edward Rutherford
Paris, by Edward Rutherford
The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!
Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!
Share this post