Thanks to my friend Duane, over at SottoVoce, I have this fun map and article from the NYT to share with you. The article is "We Mapped Manhattan," and the project is one I wish I'd known about from the start. But, as the writers themselves say:
"Mapmaking is a process of omission -- if it were not, a map of the United States would be 3,000 miles wide. Our design allowed the display of only 49 books, plus a very nice epigraph from Melville (with thanks to Rob Tally of Durham, N.C.). In deciding what to include, we wanted to represent many genres and many eras, and to be guided by reader preferences. The triage was painful, necessarily excluding many wonderful books and authors."
I'm sure my submissions would have been the same as many others - Catcher in the Rye, the Eloise books, The Great Gatsby, Stuart Little, Time and Again. There are many on the list, however, that I haven't read - it makes a nice list of things to look for.
The resultant map is an interactive toy, you can go from location to location, seeing the actual mise en scène of each book or poem. It is a map of Literary Manhattan..."a place where imaginary New Yorkers lived, worked, played, drank, walked and looked at ducks." You may need to sign in to access the article and map, but heavens - who among us is not registered online with the NYT?
PS - I just checked, and you do have to sign in for the article, but you can access the map just from my link, without registering or signing in.
3 comments:
I read ''Tis' by Frank McCourt right after coming home from New York and it was sooo nice being able to picture the locations he talked about. This map is great! My daughter and I ate at the Morning Star (Greek-style deli) while we were there, I had no idea it had ever been in a book...I can tell I'll be studying this map and catching up on some reading for a while!
That is so cool; thanks for linking to it.
I'll be taking it with me next time I visit New York.
Keris
http://www.keris-stainton.com
Neat!!
Thanks!!
V
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