"If I could be anywhere right now (other than a bookstore), I would be sitting on the grass people-watching in a public park. Catie Marron's City Parks: Public Places, Private Thoughts lets you eavesdrop on the inner monologues and quiet wonderings of some of the world's most beautiful writers in some of the world's most beautiful public spaces. Zadie Smith muses on her trips to Italian parks with and without her father, Ahdaf Soueif considers the sweet respite of a visit to the Al-Azhar Garden in Cairo, and Andre Aciman contemplates the newness and strangeness of New York's High Line. These thoughtful essays are set alongside gorgeous photographs of parks both familiar and foreign. Reading this book is like spending a sunny day taking a walk through the park with a good friend. After you finish reading, you should go out and do just that."
Publisher Harper
Publication Date 2013-10-15
Section New Hardcover - Nonfiction / Essays / All Staff Suggestions / Nonfiction Suggestions / Dana C.
Format Hardcover
ISBN 9780062231796
Catie Marron’s City Parks captures the spirit and beauty of eighteen of the world’s most-loved city parks. Zadie Smith, Ian Frazier, Candice Bergen, Colm Tóibín, Nicole Krauss, Jan Morris, and a dozen other remarkable contributors reflect on a particular park that holds special meaning for them. Andrew Sean Greer eloquently paints a portrait of first love in the Presidio; André Aciman muses on time’s fleeting nature and the changing face of New York viewed from the High Line; Pico Iyer explores hidden places and privacy in Kyoto; Jonathan Alter takes readers from the 1968 race riots to Obama’s 2008 victory speech in Chicago’s Grant Park; Simon Winchester invites us along on his adventures in the Maidan; and Bill Clinton writes of his affection for Dumbarton Oaks. Oberto Gili’s color and black-and-white photographs unify the writers’ unique and personal voices. Taken around the world over the course of a year, in every season, his pictures capture the inherent mood of each place. Fusing images and text, City Parks is an extraordinary and unique project: through personal reflection and intimate detail it taps into collective memory and our sense of time’s passage.
