The 25 Most Significant New York City Novels
...from the Last 100 Years
- “Native Speaker” by Chang-rae Lee, 1995
- “Rosemary’s Baby” by Ira Levin, 1967
- “Another Country” by James Baldwin, 1962
- “Desperate Characters” by Paula Fox, 1970
- “The Fortress of Solitude” by Jonathan Lethem, 2003
- “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, 1952
- “Manhattan Transfer” by John Dos Passos, 1925
- “Passing” by Nella Larsen, 1929
- “The Street” by Ann Petry, 1946
- “The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay” by Michael Chabon, 2000
- “The Golden Spur” by Dawn Powell, 1962
- “Open City” by Teju Cole, 2011
- “Brown Girl, Brownstones” by Paule Marshall, 1959
- “Bright Lights, Big City” by Jay McInerney, 1984
- “Speedboat” by Renata Adler, 1976
- “The Flamethrowers” by Rachel Kushner, 2013
- “Jazz” by Toni Morrison, 1992
- “Ragtime” by E. L. Doctorow, 1975
- “Someone” by Alice McDermott, 2013
- “Underworld” by Don DeLillo, 1997
- “The New York Trilogy” by Paul Auster, 1987
- “Homeland Elegies” by Ayad Akhtar, 2020
- “Push” by Sapphire, 1996
- “Watchmen” by Alan Moore, Dave Gibbons and John Higgins, 1986–87
- “Harriet the Spy” by Louise Fitzhugh, 1964
For descriptions of each, see the full article on the NYTimes website.
