Central Park
An Anthology
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the county. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. 843 carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction-- 20 pieces in all, with classics sprinkled among 13 new ones commissioned from great New York writers. Bill Buford spends a wild night in the park; Jonathan Safran Foer envisions it as a tiny, transplanted piece of a mythical Sixth Borough; and Marie Winn answers definitively Holden Caulfield's question of where the ducks go when the park's ponds freeze over. There are bird sightings and fish sightings; Jackie Kennedy and James Brown sightings; and pieces by Colson Whitehead, Paul Auster, and Francine Prose. This vibrant collection presents Central Park, in all its many-faceted glory, a 51-block swath of special magic.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"In a city where people can live sixty-three thousand to a square mile," Central Park is an escape, adventure, meditation, memory, and amusement, and this anthology, comprising the work of some of New York's literary luminaries, is a charming 21-essay tribute to what "is probably the most closely watched and monitored 843 acres on Earth." Marie Winn pens a funny letter to Holden Caulfield about what happens to the park's ducks in winter; Bill Buford tries sleeping there one night; and Nathaniel Rich gives the sentimental history of an annual Thanksgiving touch-football game (the "Turkey-Lurkey Bowl"). Others Susan Cheever, Colson Whitehead, Adam Gopnik, and Paul Auster among them fish for carp, run past Jackie Kennedy, befriend goats at the zoo, and explore the place "where nature is so beautifully and spectacularly kept on a leash." But it wasn't always so: the masterpiece of Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert Vaux was, at times, a "municipal embarrassment," the site of muggings, murders, and rumor had it "a nightmarish water fountain that dribbled raw sewage into the mouths of toddlers." It's clear, by the collection's range, that there must be at least as many Central Parks as there are annual visitors and that's close to 40 million.
