Wonderful Town

New York Stories from The New Yorker

By: Woody Allen, John Cheever, E. B. White, Jeffrey Eugenides, Vladimir Nabokov, Dorothy Parker, Susan Sontag, Isaac Bashevis Singer, James Thurber, Jamaica Kincaid

Narrated by: Tyne Daly, Timothy Jerome, Joe Morton, Maria Tucci

New York City is not only The New Yorker magazine's place of origin and its sensibility's lifeblood, it is the heart of American literary culture. Wonderful Town, an anthology of superb short fiction by many of the magazine's most accomplished contributors, celebrates the 75-year marriage between a preeminent publication and its preeminent context with this collection of 44 of its best stories from (so to speak) home.

East Side? Philip Roth's chronically tormented alter ego, Nathan Zuckerman, has just moved there, in "Smart Money". West Side? Isaac Bashevis Singer's narrator mingles with the customers in "The Cafeteria" (who debate politics and culture in four or five different languages) and becomes embroiled in an obsessional romance. And downtown, John Updike's Maples have begun their courtship of marital disaster, in "Snowing in Greenwich Village".

Wonderful Town touches on some of the city's famous places and stops at some of its more obscure corners, but the real guidebook in and between its lines is to the hearts and the minds of those who populate the metropolis built by its words. Like all good fiction, these stories take particular places, particular people, and particular events and turn them into dramas of universal enlightenment and emotional impact. Each life in it, and each life in Wonderful Town, is the life of us all.

Including these stories from the magazine's most iconic writers:

"The Five-Forty-Eight" by John Cheever

"Distant Music" by Ann Beattle

"Sailor off the Bremen" by Irwin Shaw

"Physics" by Tama Janowitz

"The Whore of Mensa" by Woody Allen

"What It Was Like, Seeing Chris" by Deborah Eisenberg

"Drawing Room B" by John O’Hara

"A Sentimental Journey" by Peter Taylor

"The Balloon" by Donald Barthelme

"Another Marvelous Thing" by Laurie Colwin

"The Failure" by Jonathan Franzen

"Apartment Hotel" by Sally Benson

"Midair" by Frank Conroy

"The Catbird Seat" by James Thurber

"I See You, Bianca" by Maeve Brennan

"You’re Ugly, Too" by Lorrie Moore

"Signs and Symbols" by Vladimir Nabokov

"Poor Visitor" by Jamaica Kincaid

"In Greenwich, There Are Many Graveled Walks" by Hortense Calisher

"Some Nights When Nothing Happens Are the Best Nights in this Place" by John McNulty

"Slight Rebellion off Madison" by J. D. Salinger

"Brownstone" by Renata Adler

"Partners" by Veronica Geng

"The Evolution of Knowledge" by Niccolo Tucci

"The Way We Live Now" by Susan Sontag

"Do the Windows Open?" by Julie Hecht

"The Mentocrats" by Edward Newhouse

"The Treatment" by Daniel Menaker

"Arrangement in Black and White" by Dorothy Parker

"Carlyle Tries Polygamy" by William Melvin Kelley

"Children Are Bored on Sunday" by Jean Stafford

"Notes from a Bottle" by James Stevenson

"Man in the Middle of the Ocean" by Daniel Fuchs

"Me Spoulets of the Splendide" by Ludwig Bemelmans

"Over by the River" by William Maxwell

"Baster" by Jeffrey Eugenides

"The Second Tree from the Corner" by E. B. White

"Rembrandt’s Hat" by Bernard Malamud

"Shot: A New York Story" by Elizabeth Hardwick

"A Father-to-Be" by Saul Bellow

"Farewell, My Lovely Appetizer" by S. J. Perelman

"Water Child" by Edwidge Danticat

"The Smoker" by David Schickler

©2000 The New Yorker Magazine (P)2000 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Wonderfully rich and textured." (The Philadelphia Inquirer)

"An anthology that makes] you remember why the magazine has long had a reputation for literary excellence." (Chicago Tribune)

"Smart, well-written, and emotionally resonant, while possessing a high entertainment value." (The Plain Dealer (Cleveland))

Fantastic Collection

Both the stories and the narration are outstanding. This was a fantastic read. Highly recommended!

A good collection of stories.

All of these New Yorker stories were worth reading. More than 75% are worth re-reading.

A wonderful assortment

Laugh. Cry. Love. You will be intrigued and uplifted by the collection of brilliant stories contained in this well curated and performed collection. A chocolate box.

Excellent!

These well crafted stories are a time capsule and a wonderful textured anthology. If you love short fiction, and/or love New York City, this is the book for you. (I listened to it on a long drive and it was a delightful companion on the road.) If you're a reader, you may have already read some of these stories, but they're great to revisit.

Some Great Stories, but a Bit Uneven

This collection of stories from the New Yorker, covering the period from the 1940s through the 1990s, is a solid read (and an excellent listen), but it's a bit uneven. Some of the stories (such as Dorothy Parker's "Arrangement in Black and White") seem rather dated. Still, the collection introduced me to writers I did not know previously, such as Hortense Calisher and her excellent "In Greenwich, There Are Many Gravelled Walks."

The performances are excellent across the board.