The Book Review: “Never can Say Goodbye” – Sari Botton and others

The Book Review: “Never can Say Goodbye”  – Sari Botton and others

“The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world.” –  F. Scott Fitzgerald

Okay, I have to admit it. I love New York. I wanted to move to New York City since I have started watching Sex and the City which was in roughly 1998. In 1996 my mom took me to New York to go shopping because I passed my final exams in High school. The seed had been planted. I finished High school and joined the police but in the back of my mind was always New York. I loved this city more than anything. I wanted to go back there, succeed there and make a living. And I did in 2005. I passed the exams to join the United Nations in New York. Finally the city was mine. I did it all, believe me. Times Square, all the museums you can find recommended  in the  “TimesOutNewYork” magazine I visited.

I spent days in Central Park. Walked the entire City of Manhattan and discovered new things every single day. It is this love/hate relationship that I have with New York. Kind of like you cannot live with it but you cannot live without it. And as soon as I am not in New York I do miss it like crazy. Weird, I know. The book I am reviewing here is in several respects to its predecessor “Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York”. It speaks to readers who live, are living or have left New York City.

“Never can say goodbye”focuses more on writers and artists who have made NYC their home no matter what. Or  readers who have just spent some time here – like on vacation. These are the people who will enjoy this book the most.

Here are some good quotes from the book I want to share: 

“New York is a city where there are always a million exciting things to do at any given moment, and a million other people who are doing them at the exact same moment as you are. That hot new play? Already sold out. That enticing MoMA exhibit? At last report, the wait is over twelve hours. How about something simple, like a blanket, a bottle of wine, and a nightfall screening of Paper Moon in Bryant Park? Sure, if you don’t mind homesteading a coffin-sized plot of grass at around four in the afternoon, then fending off claim jumpers for the next five hours until sundown. That’s assuming, of course, you have any time left over to do any of this when you’re not either working or drinking to work off the edge from the working or trying to do regular-life kinds of stuff like buying groceries and picking up dry cleaning.”   -Adam Sternbergh

This is also true:

“People often mistake New Yorkers for rude and mean, but they’re really just no-nonsense and efficient. They don’t have time, regularly, to be warm and friendly with everyone who crosses their path. Nothing would ever get done. But when the chips are down, when it matters, they drop their cool exteriors and become unabashedly human.” -Sari Botton

Overall this is an entertaining collection of stories about the city that never sleeps. A great variety of writers address one of the most interesting places on earth. I read this book form front to cover in just about two days and I highly recommend it for any New York City lover.

Thank you for reading.

 

 

 



Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.


Follow by Email
LinkedIn
Instagram