There are many outstanding works of fiction and nonfiction about New York City.

Fictional works about New York City loom large in readers' imaginations all around the world. Some readers associate New York with hard-driving capitalists and hedonistic socialites. Others know it as a melting pot where anyone can make a fresh start. Still others laud the quirky characters and independent thinkers who have come to be seen as quintessentially New York. These characters are all captured in the works below.

Fiction

• Edith Wharton was born into "Old New York" society but found many of its traditions stifling and conformist. She was a keen observer of her set's social mores and norms and captured their dialogue and behavior wittily in The Age of Innocence and T he House of Mirth. Her friend and fellow writer, Henry James, was also a member of this set, ably chronicling its social quandaries in works such as Washington Square.
• Truman Capote introduced Holly Golightly to New York society as the plucky heroine of his short story, "Breakfast at Tiffany's," which made the jewelry store an international icon and spawned a hit movie and a song.
• The excesses of New York City in the 1980s are well chronicled by books like Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities, Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho, and Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. All of these books later became less notable movies. The Last Days of Disco, with Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards, by Whit Stillman, also focuses on the late 1970s (the Studio 54 era) and the early 1980s.
• J.D. Salinger describes the alienation and quiet drama of New York City in the mid-20th century with his groundbreaking collection of Nine Stories. The Stories of John Cheever also mine this milieu.
• And of course, no discussion of New York stories would be complete without F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda captivated (and scandalized) Americans during the Roaring Twenties with their madcap adventures and zany attitudes. You can find loosely autobiographical accounts in his fictional works, including The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby. The ambitious striving and sometimes self-destructive uncertainty of his protagonists have been described as quintessentially American.

New York is a place of rich history and fascinating characters, where truth can sometimes be stranger than fiction. 

NonFiction

• Avant-Guide New York City is a terrific resource for what's new in the city's restaurants, hotels, nightlife and shopping. It is also very entertaining as it is written by a group of very snarky and very wired New Yorkers.
  
• Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 is a large, meticulously-researched tome by Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace. Despite its length, it's immensely readable.
• The Encyclopedia of New York City is another good history. It was written by Kenneth T. Jackson, a professor at Columbia University and President of the New York Historical Society.
• Theodore Roosevelt penned  New York: A Sketch of the city's Social, Political, and Commercial Progress from the First Dutch Settlement to Recent Times. He was proud of his hometown, where he had served as Police Commissioner.
• You can read New York: An Ilustrated History, the companion guide to Ric Burns' popular PBS series of the same name.
• Robert Caro wrote The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York about the man who helped build many of the landmarks we associate with New York City today. The book combines painstaking research with a readable narrative and won the Pulitzer Prize.