This is a 256 page book with lots of pretty photographs of New York City, with pictures from the prettycitiesnewyork Instragram account, taken by many different photographers. It is a 7.5″ x 10 hardcover. The beginning of the book has some advice about how to take striking and attractive pictures, and the rest of it is a guide to some parts of New York. It would certainly be churlish to object to appealing images, but then, I am a bit of a downer. Let me explain my ambivalence. I spend a lot of time in NYC and I can’t imagine giving this book to anyone who lives there. Yet those same people will happily post their own pretty pictures of the city on Instragram, so it can’t be that they wouldn’t like the images in the book. The issue is more that surely only a tourist or someone who does not live there would want a collection of nice pictures of the place. It’s a bit like having a collection of postcards, (if postcards still exist). They are more interesting when they are of places where you don’t live. It is also noteworthy that most of the areas depicted are the wealthy ones, either having been like that for a long time or recently gentrified. Looking through these images is nice, but it hardly reminds me of NYC. It is a bit boring to see it all looking so lovely, when being there is such a mixture. The pictures are never even funny.  I’d be much more inclined to subscribe to a grittycitiesnewyork feed of images. But maybe that’s just me.

© 2019 Christian Perring

Christian Perring teaches in NYC.