book review: Goodbye to All That: Writers on Loving and Leaving New York edited by Sari Botton
The basics: This collection of essays takes its inspiration from Joan Didion's famous essay of the same name and invites a younger generation of writers to write about their love affairs with New York. My thoughts: I lived in New York City for only one summer, between my first and second years of college, but it was one of my favorite summers. I always imagined I'd end up living there, and when I met Mr. Nomadreader, a native upstate New Yorker, in Atlanta, we both figured we'd end up there. When we moved to Albany for me to go to graduate school, I still thought we'd end up in New York or Boston or somewhere nearby, but then reality charged in, and I realized the difference between academic librarian salaries varied little based on where you live, and as much as I love New York, I did not pick a job that would let me have any real quality of life if we lived there. Still: New York City is magical for me, and I knew this collection would be filled with people who s...