Six books to read when you're in a "You've Got Mail" frame of mind
Would you also like to live in an eternally autumn 1990s NYC?
Never have I ever been to New York City. You might think I’d be disqualified from writing such a list as this. Not so. The real New York is irrelevant here. What we’re looking for is a place that can only exist in a Nora Ephron rom-com: nostalgic, bookish, bustling, autumnal. If you, like me, turn on You’ve Got Mail every year when you feel that first chill in the air, and you’d like the atmosphere to drift into your reading life, then read on.
Letter from New York by Helene Hanff (1992)
In the 1980s Helene Hanff produced a series of radio addresses for the BBC Woman’s Hour giving her overseas listeners a glimpse into her life in New York. These addresses were later collected and published in book form.
A friend and I each read it and separately came to the conclusion that it’s got a You’ve Got Mail vibe. There’s so much to love here: hanging out with dogs on apartment stoops, relying on your neighbors’ freezers when prepping holiday dinners that your postage-stamp-sized kitchen isn’t equipped for, strolling through the Shakespeare Garden in Central Park. It’s cozy. It’s nostalgic. It very well might make it onto my top non-fic reads of year.
“January First is a delusion. The New Year begins in October, when New York is suddenly alive and jumping with new Broadway shows and new books in the bookstores and a new Philharmonic season and new restaurants opening and everybody moves quickly, everybody makes plans, there are new worlds to conquer and anything can happen.”
Home Cooking by Laurie Colwin (1988)
Speaking of tiny New York apartment kitchens, Laurie Colwin, food writer and novelist, lends her warm and chatty voice to these essays in which she describes dinner parties and baking bread and other culinary adventures in her tiny NYC kitchen. One Goodreads reviewer describes Colwin’s essays as “Nigella Lawson meets Nora Ephron.” Perfect.
“A long time ago it occurred to me that when people are tired and hungry, which in adult life is much of the time, they do not want to be confronted by an intellectually challenging meal: they want to be consoled.”
Morningside Heights by Cheryl Mendelson (2003)
Cheryl Mendelson, lawyer and philosopher, is best known for Home Comforts, a compendium of housekeeping advice and essays, but she also wrote a series of novels that are very much Anthony Trollope’s Barsetshire Chronicles transposed to Upper Manhattan. That is, she takes a group of people living in the same neighborhood and meanders through the ordinary tensions that spring up with their spouses, children, friendships, careers, and finances along with some romantic and legal drama thrown in for good measure.
I didn’t find the writing all that remarkable nor did I always sympathize with the characters, so take this recommendation with a grain of salt (or rather, check it out from the library before you spend money on it). However, it was an easy story to dip into, it succeeded in conveying a lovely sense of place, and it was even thought-provoking at times. One Goodreads reviewer calls it a philosophical chick flick, and I quite like that.
I thought Linnea Leonard Kickasola wrote beautifully of Mendelson’s novel in her essay, Career, faith, and family in the city.
Where’s the You’ve Got Mail connection? Mendelson’s middle-class intellectuals in late 90s NYC are, without a doubt, the very extras you see sharing screen time with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. Read the book. Watch the movie. Say it’s not so.
Need further proof?
“[Anne] failed to find the presents she needed for the next wave of children’s birthday parties. She then walked to Bank Street Children’s Bookstore, where she succeeded.”
It’s obvious that Bank Street Children’s Bookstore is actually meant to be The Shop Around the Corner, isn’t it?
Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman (1998)
I truly can’t remember if there’s a New York connection here, but Anne Fadiman and Kathleen Kelly are soul sisters even if one if one is real and the other fictional. Fadiman offers eighteen intelligent and charming essays about the reading life in this collection. A must-read for anyone who professes to love books.
“When I visit a new bookstore, I demand cleanliness, computer monitors, and rigorous alphabetization. When I visit a secondhand bookstore, I prefer indifferent housekeeping, sleeping cats, and sufficient organizational chaos”
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff (1970)
Scratch that last sentence. 84, Charing Cross Road is the real must-read for anyone who claims the title of bibliophile. If you are one of the uninitiated, this little book is a collection of letters that were written over a span of twenty years between New York writer Helene Hanff and London antiquarian bookseller, Frank Doel. Yes, many of their letters are focused on England, but I had to include a book that also has a great deal of both New York and a bookshop. Plus, I’m certain Kathleen Kelly read it at some point in her fictional life. And really, as with watching You’ve Got Mail, you instantly feel better about life for reading 84, Charing Cross Road.
“I wish you hadn’t been so over-courteous about putting the inscription on a card instead of on the flyleaf. It’s the bookseller coming out in you all, you were afraid you’d decrease its value. You would have increased it for the present owner.”
Apple of My Eye by Helene Hanff (1977)
Yes, I have included three Helene Hanff books on one list. I stand by my choices.
When Hanff embarks on a project to write captions for a photographic book of New York City, she realizes that she’s never actually been to the Statue of Liberty or Grant’s Tomb or a whole number of cultural landmarks. She enlists her friend Patsy, who combines “a native’s knowledge of New York with access to two generations of Harvard brains,” and the two of them set off to see New York with fresh eyes. It’s a very fun romp around NYC in the late 70s.
It was especially enjoyable to read this directly after Cheryl Mendelson’s Morningside Heights and to find Hanff describe cultural differences between the East and West Sides that show up in Mendelson’s novel as well.
And to further thematically tie in this book, you get to revisit famous You’ve Got Mail filming locations such as Riverside Park and Zabar’s.
“I don’t think anybody’s ever counted the number of delicatessens in New York, but there are four within less than two blocks of my apartment house and it’s not an unusual number. Every neighborhood has a string of delis and almost all of them make excellent sandwiches, sell good rye bread and pickles and the usual cole slaw, pickled beets, potato, chicken, and tuna salad. But Patsy was right. None of them can compare to Zabar’s.”
Bonus: a few things that make me want to actually visit the real NYC of today
Unknown New York by Jesse Richards: An Artist Uncovers the City’s Hidden Treasures
Catherine Shannon’s Substack
Start here:
50 Things I love about life in New York City by Linnea Leonard Kickasola
Okay, this is from back in 2006, but it’s lovely.
“I love Autumn in New York, when the lazier summer days are reinvigorated by the crisp, cooler weather and the renewed energy of seasons and semesters beginning again.” -LLK
“Don’t you love New York in the fall? It makes me want to buy school supplies. I would send you a bouquet of newly sharpened pencils if I knew your name and address.” -Joe Fox
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Recently finished 84 Charing Cross Road, and it was pure delight.
When I start to lament that there are no more books I might enjoy... A visit to your Substack is the cure!