Booklover’s Guide to NY showcases Bronx literary landmarks
Cleo Le-Tan’s ‘A Booklover’s Guide to New York’ explores the Bronx’s literary
landmarks. Photo courtesy of Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
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BRONX TIMES REPORTER, S 30 EPTEMBER 20-26, 2019 BTR
There’s
Nothing
Like It!
BY ROBERT WIRSING
A soon to be released book
will highlight some of the
Bronx’s hidden literary locales.
Scheduled for release in October,
‘A Booklover’s Guide to
New York’ written by Cleo Le-
Tan and illustrated by her father,
famous French painter
Pierre Le-Tan, is a neighborhood
by neighborhood expedition
through ‘The Big Apple’
exploring its many innovative
bookstores, secret literary
landmarks and writers’ favorite
watering holes and meeting
with the authors, librarians,
collectors and bibliophiles who
reside there.
The 216 page guide features
a six page section dedicated to
the Bronx’s literary landmarks
and one of its most prominent
authors.
“The Bronx is different from
Manhattan and Brooklyn,” Le-
Tan explained. “While it lacks
the selection of bookshops they
have, it makes up for it with its
history.”
She added that the Bronx
has been home to journalism
and storytelling legends
Don DeLillo, Edgar Allan Poe,
Mary Higgins Clark and Stan
Lee.
“You have some of the greatest
American writers who
have ever lived come out of the
Bronx,” she expressed.
Le-Tan added that throughout
the decades the Bronx has
served as the setting for many
seminal books such as the
novel, ‘Billy Bategate’ by E.L.
Doctorow.
The Rizzoli-published guide
explores such Boogie Down
Bronx literary landmarks as
the historic Edgar Allan Poe
Cottage and The Lit. Bar, the
borough’s only bookstore.
Poe Cottage, located at 2640
Grand Concourse, was the fi -
nal home of the Father of Horror
and Mystery and is his only
surviving residence.
Le-Tan cited Poe Cottage
as her favorite Bronx literary
landmark to visit while working
on the guide.
“I’m fascinated by his life,
which included so much tragedy,
romance and madness,”
she said.
Founded by lifelong Bronxite
Noëlle Santos, The Lit. Bar,
located at 131 Alexander Avenue,
became the Bronx’s only
bookstore following the closure
of the borough’s Barnes &
Noble bookstore at Bay Plaza in
2016.
An all-in-one bookstore,
wine bar and community
events space, The Lit. Bar
houses a wide array of fi ction,
nonfi ction and poetry most of
which are written by local authors.
A seldom-known Bronx
literary oasis featured in the
guide is the New York Botanical
Garden Shop which sells
home gardening guides, academic
volumes on plant science,
coffee-table books of
landscape and garden photography
and cookbooks for
readers interested in exercising
their green thumbs and
broadening their culinary horizons.
Aside from literary locales,
the guide also includes an insightful
interview with bestselling
novelist and screenwriter
Richard Price, a Bronx
native who spent his childhood
residing at the Parkside
Houses.
Le-Tan decided to interview
Price for the guide as he widely
considered a ‘quintessential
New Yorker’ who has managed
to create worlds and characters
refl ecting ‘old school’ New
York.
Price drew inspiration
from his hometown for his
fi rst novel, ‘The Wanderers,’ a
coming of age story set in the
Bronx in 1962, which he wrote
at 24-years-old.
The story is set at a Bronx
housing development similar
to the Parkside Houses.
A Booklover’s Guide to New
York will be available via Rizzoli
New York’s website, Barnes
& Noble and Amazon.
To purchase a copy,
visit www.rizzoliusa.com/
book/9780847863662/.
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