In his epic novel Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe describes New York City as 'the Rome, the Paris, the London of the twentieth century, the city of ambition, the dense magnetic rock, the irresistible destination of all those who insist on being where things are happening.' 

I read this line for the first time in high school and it, like the city itself, transfixed me. My fascination with New York City has only grown since then. I'm drawn to its size, its energy, its complexities, and its never-ceasing status as the center of the world. 

Naturally, I tend to devour anything literary in which New York City plays a central character. To that end, I'm excited about Tim Murphy's new book Christodora, a novel that views the city's constant clash of mini-civilizations through the eyes of a storied and controversial luxury apartment building in the East Village. Christodora follows a cast of characters who call the building home and whose lives are reflective of and guided by both the time and space in which they live. The book dips its toes in both the past and the future, starting off at the height of Reagan's America in the 1980s and finishing in an imagined New York a decade from now. I can't wait to read another novel about New York, as it continues to be for me, as Mr. Wolfe put it, that "irresistible destination." 

Photos via The Washington Post and Streeteasy.