“Reading shaped my dreams, and more reading helped me make my dreams come true….”

– Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Last week I spent a few days in New York City with my parents and my daughter, celebrating my daughter’s 16th birthday. We had a fabulous time! Some of the highlights: Like Water for Chocolate at the American Ballet Theatre’s Summer Gala at the Metropolitan Opera House, the Georgia O’Keeffe exhibition “To See Takes Time” at the Museum of Modern Art, and an exhibition of treasures from the collections of the New York Public Library. I was happy to see the portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft and six copies of Shakespeare’s First Folio—and especially happy to see the latter with my father, who’s a Shakespeare scholar.

We also enjoyed visiting the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, the High Line, and the Columbia University campus, where the above quotation from Ruth Bader Ginsburg is featured at the entrance to the university bookstore.

Three Lives & Co., in Greenwich Village:

The Metropolitan Opera House:

Flamingos at Lincoln Center:

“To see takes time—like to have a friend takes time.” – Georgia O’Keeffe

The New York Public Library:

The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine:

St. Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue:

Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral:

The High Line at sunset:

My daughter and me at Nami Nori in Greenwich Village:

And here’s a photo she found from the year she turned seven:

(As my friend Lyn said on Facebook, “she sure showed that salad who’s boss!”)

We loved exploring bookstores, including The Strand, Three Lives & Co., and the second location for Books are Magic in Brooklyn (my daughter and I had visited the original location last summer).

Do any of you have recommendations for bookstores—or other favourite places—to explore on a future trip to NYC? As I wrote here last fall, reading is my anchor, and I love what RBG says about how reading has the power to shape our dreams and make them come true.

My parents browsing at Three Lives & Co.:

A bookseller at Three Lives & Co. recommended Taco Mahal, in the West Village, and we went there for lunch on my daughter’s birthday:

Stonewall National Monument garden:

While we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge to visit Books Are Magic, we watched these people climbing the bridge:

The second location of Books Are Magic, on Montague St.:

I bought a copy of Emma Straub’s novel Modern Lovers at Books Are Magic (she and her husband, Michael Fusco-Straub, are co-owners of the store). I had read a library copy a few years ago, and I wrote about the novel here. Straub’s heroine Elizabeth writes a song called “Mistress of Myself,” inspired by a line from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility: “I will be calm; I will be mistress of myself,” thinks Elinor Dashwood.