Last week, Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers sent over a copy of the brand-new book The New York Times Book of New York and I haven’t been able to stop loving it and reading it since. Every night before I go to bed, I flip through some of the stories collected within it and each one sort of makes me fall in love with New York City all over again. Yes, there are terrible stories in there of murder, crime, and brutality, but for each story about the bad in New York City is one story about the good that is in New York.

The book is separated into sections about NYC people, architecture, arts & leisure, transportation, business, politics, crime, disasters, sports, food, and neighborhoods. Finding an article about a specific event is easy and reading about it is nice when all of the related stories and articles can be found back-to-back in this volume. Except for a handful of articles, The New York Times Book of New York is full of articles written by staff writers for The New York Times. The articles collected here attempt to cover the important events, people, and photos that make New York City such a great and exciting (and sometimes scary) place to live. But above all else, The New York Times Book of New York is a testament to how long The New York Times has been delivering and writing about things that happen in New York.

Sometimes, describing New York City is a hard thing to do, so I applaud James Barron and his editing team for picking such fabulous stories that tell it exactly how it is. Whether you live here already or simply dream of coming to The Big Apple, I think The New York Times Book of New York will surely do a great job of giving you an overview of what to expect.

I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourself to read especially since The New York Times Book of New York is only $18.45 on Amazon.com (that’s nearly $10 off the suggested retail price). Get it now and see or be reminded of why New York City is such a great place to be!