«A Booklover's Guide to New York Offers Illustrated Guide to the City's Bibliophile Scene. Cleo Le-Tan portrays her findings (200 literary destinations) along with 26 interviews with prominent literary and media figures»

Bronwyn Cosgrave (@bronwyncosgrave), The Hollywood Reporter (@THR)

«This week marks the debut of A Booklover’s Guide to New York (Rizzoli, $29.95). An illustrated manual of the intellectual pleasures to which Manhattan and the outer boroughs lay claim, the lavishly illustrated, informative guide was conceived by the novelist Cleo Le-Tan. The artistry of her late father, renowned illustrator Pierre Le-Tan, beautifully portrays her findings: 200 literary destinations, along with 26 interviews with prominent literary and media figures.

»"Maybe it’s cool to be smart," Le-Tan muses. "I do see a trend for nerdiness. The world is so digital. Everything is on the internet, and there is a desire to go back to the old-fashioned and the intellectual."

»The project evolved organically. In 2012, when she moved from Paris to New York and embarked on her 2017 novel,The Family, Le-Tan was taken by the city’s spacious public libraries and atmospheric bookshops. Exploring the "people and places" defining its literary scene, she "became a New York bibliophile" and conjured her guide to navigating it.

»[...]

»Chelsea art book destinations include folksy 192 Books (founded by gallerist Paula Cooper and her husband Jack Macrae) and avant-garde Printed Matter, specializing in rare and limited-edition art volumes. Among the Upper East Side recommendations are the Frick Art Reference Library (imposing but open to the public) and the Carlyle Hotel’s Bemelmans Bar (the hotel is named after Scottish essayist Thomas Carlyle). The Brooklyn basement apartment in which Truman Capote penned passages of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood is another intriguing pilgrimage point.

»Le-Tan’s interview subjects include an array of writers, from Chicago transplant Tavi Gevinson to Richard Price and Sigrid Nunez. The guide also features her conversations with some “book lover” friends: fashion designer Marc Jacobs (whose Bookmarc shop lends vibrance to Bleecker Street), Vogue’s international editor-at-large Hamish Bowles, power couple Tina Brown and Harry Evans, and entertainment executive Tom Freston».

Read the entire report on The Hollywood Reporter.