City Girls

I've been obsessed with the NYRB Classics editions of books for the past few months, the quality of the lesser known works (at least, many of the authors I'd never heard of before)is just remarkable, the covers are gorgeous (yeah I'll admit it, I like the objects!). Also worth noting is the fact that they publish a huge amount of great women writers (working for this website: Shewrites.com has made me more conscious of the fact that so many of the authors I really cling to, are men... But that's another story) and international work that was hard to find in translation. Elizabeth Hardwick is one of the great writers I've recently discovered, and I particularly love how she writes about cities:

"The miseries of the deformed diners and their revolting habits; they were necessary, like a sewer, like the Bowery, Klein's, 14th street. Every great city is a Lourdes where you hope to throw off your crutches but meanwhile must stumble around on them, hobbling under the protection of the shrine."

Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights