Stealing an idea from the Civil War blog TOCWOC, I thought I’d periodically post the ten best-selling books about New York history from Amazon. I took the liberty to separate the wheat from the chaff.
1. Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York
2. Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York
3. Tom Buk-Swienty, The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America
4. Jill Lepore, New York Burning: Liberty, Slavery, and Conspiracy in 18th Century Manhattan
5. Russell Shorto, The Island at the Center of the World: The Epic Story of Dutch Manhattan and the Forgotten Colony That Shaped America
6. John F. Kasson, Amusing the Million: Coney Island at the Turn of the Century
7. Mark Kurlansky, The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
8. David McCullough, The Great Bridge: The Epic Story of the Building of the Brooklyn Bridge
9. Mary P. Ryan, Cradle of the Middle Class: The Family in Oneida County, New York, 1790-1865
10. Thurston Moore and Byron Coley, No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York 1976-1980