New York Sketches

This frisky collection from Charlotte’s Web author White (1899–1985) compiles brief dispatches, originally published in the New Yorker and Harper’s, chronicling the vagaries of New York City life. White brings a tongue-in-cheek crotchetiness to pieces bemoaning Grand Central’s newly installed sound system and the introduction of sedan-style taxis, which he suggests can’t compete with Germany’s spacious Volkswagen van cabs. White’s Scottish terrier, Daisy, serves as the muse for several charming pieces, including an imagined interview in which White interrogates the sassy pet over why she drove away a guest with her growling. The selections are rife with the author’s dry wit. Answering another writer’s idle musings about pigeons and whether they’re “hatched fully grown,” White deadpans, “When hatched, a squab is about the size of a pigeon’s egg.” Though many entries catalog White’s petty frustrations with New York (a comedic poem complains about the fence around the Central Park Reservoir ruining views of the sunset), his crystalline prose also captures the city’s beauty: “The two moments when New York seems most desirable, when the splendor falls all round about and the city looks like a girl with leaves in her hair, are just as you are leaving and must say goodbye, and just as you return and can say hello.” This pulses with the irrepressible heartbeat of New York City. Agent: Amanda Urban, CAA. (Dec.)