Erica Wagner, in FTWeekend, reviews “a shelf of works that offer a multi-faceted portrait of what it means to be a woman in New York” (including Vivian Gornick’s The Odd Woman and the City). Each “demonstrates that no matter the cost of living, no matter how broken the subway or how much garbage is piled in the street, New York still exerts its glorious pull — somehow makes room for those who would hear its siren jazz. A hell of a town, just like the song says.”

Wagner, an author and critic who was born in New York and now lives in London, is editor-at-large for Boundless, a magazine and podcast launched recently by the publisher Unbound, where writing on place and nature has been featuring strongly. You can also read there what Norman Lewis considered the most important article of his lifetime: his report for The Sunday Times in 1969 on the genocide of indigenous people in Brazil, which led to the founding of Survival International.