Let’s look at a few of the best Fran Lebowitz book recommendations.
Fran Lebowitz is an author and public speaker. She is deep into the New York City art scene, and well known for her hilarious commentary on American life. She has published many books including her most popular, Metropolitan Life and Social Studies.
She loves to read. She said she reads basically all the time, and that this is her favorite thing to do. One of us! As a kid, she used to get in trouble with her mother for reading past her bedtime.
In fact, she reads to escape life. She actually was quoted as saying, “But really, I read in order not to be in life. Reading is better than life. Without reading, you’re stuck with life.”
She also gave us a great look at what her favorite dinner party would be, saying, “My idea of a great literary dinner party is Fran, eating alone, reading a book.”
After looking at many of Fran Lebowitz’s book recommendations, it’s very clear that her favorites are those with humor and wit, especially when they are dealing with serious topics such as race and politics.
List of Fran Lebowitz Book Recommendations
Here is the full list of the best Fran Lebowitz book recommendations:
- The Memoirs of Hadrain by Marguerite Yourcenar
- Cheap Novelties by Ben Katchor
- The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
- The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965 by Dawn Powell
- Instant Lives and More by Howard Moss
- Queer Street by James McCourt
The Memoirs of Hadrain by Marguerite Yourcenar
The Memoirs of Hadrain was written by Marguerite Yourcenar, and published in 1951. The book is 416 pages long.
In an interview with The New York Times, Fran Lebowitz was asked what the greatest book she ever read was. She replied with, “This really kind of stumped me. Unlike almost everyone else I can think of, when I say great, I mean great. Not just great this year or not just extremely good. I know you’re not supposed to have this kind of old-fashioned hierarchy of books. But I do. So I’m trying to think of the last really great book I read. And all I can come up with is something I reread, which was ‘Memoirs of Hadrian,’ by Marguerite Yourcenar, which is actually great, and by great, I mean forever.”
The Memoirs of Hadrain is about the Roman Emperor Hadrian. It follows his entire life from his early childhood to his adulthood and all the triumphs and achievements on the way.
While the book obviously wasn’t written by him, it is from his perspective. It is written as a letter to Marcus Aurelius, a future Roman Emperor. Hadrian is on his deathbed, basically, with an incurable illness in his sixties. Therefore, he is writing to Marcus, his grandson, about all the events in his life.
Hadrian talks about his time in Athens, his love for Greek culture and arts, and his interest in astrology. Of course, we also get into his time in Rome and everything he did for his war-torn empire.
Cheap Novelties by Ben Katchor
Cheap Novelties is a graphic novel by Ben Katchor. The book was originally published in 1991, and has 108 pages.
When Fran Lebowitz recommended the book, she said, “Ben Katchor has an incredible eye for minute details. You see in this book a profoundly New York sensibility, which is very different from these other authors. It is not a mandarin sensibility, but it is piercingly intelligent and observant. If you read this book, or any of his books, you are going to get a view of New York that is not available anywhere else.”
Cheap Novelties is a book of photography of New York City. Ben Katchor wandered through the streets of the city taking amazing and beautiful pictures of New York City’s gorgeous architecture.
Through the photos he tells a brilliant story of Americana. You can see and almost smell the culture through his photos. There are urban landscapes, industrial buildings, monuments to people and events, low-rent apartment buildings, and countless amounts of the various foods found around the city.
Cheap Novelties is one of the first graphic novels to be popular and launched the contemporary graphic novel golden age.
The Portable Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker
The Portable Dorothy Parker was written by none other than Dorothy Parker. This book was originally published in 1944. It is 656 pages long.
It’s interesting that Fran Lebowitz recommended the book The Portable Dorothy Parker because The New York Times called her a modern day Dorothy Parker.
Fran Lebowitz said while recommending the book, “People should still read Parker because she is really funny. When you read the book reviews she wrote 60 years ago, you still laugh out loud, even if you don’t know the book.”
Dorothy Parker was well known for her writings about race, politics, and labor. But these aren’t just boring, droll writings. Dorothy Parker is hilarious and sensible, and can get anyone interested in what she has to say.
In The Portable Dorothy Parker she blends her incredible sense of humor with the seriousness of our culture. She combines stories, essays, journalism, and speeches to get her point across.
These “letters” were written over the course of more than 50 years, starting in 1905, when she was just 12 years old, and ending in 1962. Her first ever letter was to her father while she was on summer vacation and her last letter described her love for Hollywood actress Marylin Monroe.
This book is for anyone that wants to read something light hearted about serious topics.
The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965 by Dawn Powell
The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965 is the diaries written by Dawn Powell from 1931 thru 1965. Lucky guess. It’s 513 pages long.
Here is what Fran Lebowitz said when recommending the book, “You should read Dawn Powell’s novels and then read her diaries, or vice versa, it doesn’t really matter. But when you read her diaries you see what it really means to be a writer. She struggled her whole life for money. She’s constantly worrying about money, because she doesn’t have any. This is the condition of most writers.”
Fran Lebowitz seems to love books by funny authors, and that stands true with The Diaries of Dawn Powell. She has a clever wit about her in her diary entries, and her brilliant wisdom stands out in her writing.
The diary consists of many events that happened in Dawn Powell’s life including her mentally and emotionally impaired son, the way of life of her family members who spent the little money they had on alcohol, Dawn’s dream of having a career as an artist that may have fell too short, and all of the ideas and sketches for the novels and art that she created throughout her years.
Though her career might not have been the success that she wanted, her diaries are the best of her literary work.
Instant Lives and More by Howard Moss
Instant Lives and More was written by Howard Moss, published in 1974, and is 96 pages long.
Fran Lebowitz said as she recommended the book, “The Instant Lives are parodies of the biographies of writers, composers and artists written in the style of whomever they are about. They are incredibly layered and immensely funny. Among my friends, quoting this thing became a way of life. It’s unbelievably funny.”
Instant Lives and More is a very creative book that is made up of stories written in different styles. These stories are made-up encounters between different literary figures and their family members and friends. Some of the figures are real and some of them are imagined.
The book is very satirical and extremely funny. The conversations between these people are highlighted in over 25 illustrations created by Edward Gorey.
Some of the funny stories you can expect are from Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Mozart, the Alcott girls, Henrik Ibsen, and El Greco.
Queer Street by James McCourt
Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947-1985 is a book written by James Court. This book was published in 2003, and has 592 pages.
Fran Lebowitz recommended the book saying, “This book is a geography and a history of what people would now call gay New York. I beg people to read this book. He tells you about a sensibility that has ceased to exist. In this book you see what the status markers were within the homosexual community in this era. And the status markers were how much you knew, how smart you were, how cultivated you were. It had nothing to do with money, that’s not what status was about. There used to be competing values in this culture.”
Queer Street is about how postwar queer New Yorkers found their place in the city. The book starts off after the war as thousands of men came back home from overseas into downtown New York. Many of the people were gay and struggled to fit in. Thus they created their own culture in the city.
Their struggles to fit in spanned well over 4 decades (many can argue they are still struggling) and have overcome crisis after crisis in their community. During this time, AIDS was rampant, further casting queer New Yorkers aside and being treated by many as less than human.
This is a book that uses personal stories, the intellect, and history to show just how queer New Yorkers created their own community and found their place in New York City.