Watching a movie is a special experience, but there's nothing quite as immersive and interactive as reading a book. 

Reading a book is the only communication we can have with another person inside their brain. It is absolutely the most intimate form of communication.

When you read a book, you project all your associative images into the story. 

When you read these authors' dazzling articulations of New York City, the city gets more and more gorgeous. Is NYC the literary capital of the universe?

Well, it's definitely one of them.

We promise, none of these descriptions have spoilers. We also promise that all of these books are better than all of the movies that have been modeled off their plot lines.

Now, go read a book. It is National Read-A-Book Day, after all. 

---

1. A Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan

This sparkling, knotted novel won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize presumably for its disregard of linear time and relentless examination of secrets, elegant, and deteriorating relationships.

Egan's characters maneuver from the San Francisco punk scene in '79 all the way to New York City as students at NYU reeling from the election of Bill Clinton and its effect on society, and beyond. 

[anad]

They take drugs, they laugh so hard they almost cry, they laugh their way around the Lower East Side until the sun comes up, and they grapple with the unforgiving power and decline of the music industry.

If you want a book that will change your life, that will untangle the knot in your chest, read this brilliant, gorgeous one stat.

---

2. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

Oh, Holden Caufield. 

We think of you every time we lie for no reason, every time we start telling people our secrets forgetting that it'll make us miss them, and every time we're overcome with the unbearable urge to dedicate the rest of our lives to preventing children from running off cliffs.

In the course of Salinger's classic coming-of-age tale, Caufield makes his way around Manhattan. He meets a hooker at the Edmond Hotel, wonders about the winter ducks on the lake in Central Park, and waits for his date at the clock at the Biltmore.

You can even check out this map of everywhere Holden goes in Manhattan from the New York Times. Or, you could just read The Catcher in the Rye to celebrate National-Read-A-Book day.

---

3. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann 

Let the Great World Spin is an NYC masterpiece, relaying the human condition in its pages with a preciseness never before achieved. 

McCann's vision of NYC of the 1970s is haunting, dangerous, and endlessly alluring.

His cast of characters includes an Irish monk with a tight knot it in his stomach he can't quite get at, who lives amongst a group of NYC prostitutes while battling his own demons. There's a group of mothers who gather in a Park Avenue apartments to mourn their sons who were killed in Vietnam.

Finally, there's a thirty-eight year old grandmother who's determined to prove her worth. McCann's book is a living, breathing masterpiece, revealing the compelling and infinite worlds within all his characters'' minds.

---

4. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer 

This heart-wrenching book centers around the journey of nine-year-old Oskar Schell, who bangs his way all around NYC to discover the origins of a key left for him by his father, who tragically perished in 9/11. 

During his adventures Oskar meets a ton of random New Yorkers, many of whom he befriends instantly.

[anad2]

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is earnest, off-the-cuff, and vulnerable. If there's a book that better delineates the pitch and timber of NYC, we haven't found it yet. 

Oskar fantasizes about all the tears in New York connecting to the same reservoir, called the Reservoir of Tears, and we've never heard an idea that provided us lonely city dwellers with such perfect solace. 

---

5. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Oh, The Great Gatsby. Has there ever been a more spot-on articulation of the American Dream? Why can't Jay Gatsby succeed? 

It's because Gatsby's in love with the unreal, he's tethered himself to a fantasy of Daisy to the point that the Daisy he's in love with inside his head has little to do with the Daisy who exists in reality.

Can't all of us hapless dreamers relate to the perils of loving someone inside our head, someone always a foot out of reach? 

And, sure, most of this book takes place in Great Neck and Port Washington on Long Island, but if you'll recall, they do drive into NYC to visit Myrtle's apartment and for the final showdown at the Plaza Hotel.

,

6. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

Patrick Batemen, American Psycho's main character, is a serial killer and a Manhattan businessman. He's wealthy, and he maneuvers 1980s Wall Street in the way only a rich young psychopath could.

[anad]

While this book is petrifying in every sense of the word, Ellis's cold, impartial, detached storytelling is nothing short of breathtaking. 

---

7.The Emperor's Children by Claire Messud

The Emperor's Children centers around the journeys of three friends in their early thirties during the months leading up to the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center.

This intelligent, provocative exploration into the characters' psyches rings true for everyone who's ever struggled to live up to his or her self expectations. 

And while Danielle, Marina, and Julius experience giddiness and then disillusionment toward NYC, we get to see our city with new eyes all over again.

---

8. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote

Ever wanted to experience World War II era NYC? Well, you're in luck because reading Breakfast at Tiffany's is a maintenance-free form of time travel.

Capote's unnamed narrator spends the course of the book migrating into brownstone apartment buildings to pursue a career as a writer, and falls head-over-heels, irrevocably in love with Holly, a woman who lives in his building.

[anad2]

Holly loves throwing loud parties at her apartment, and in his quest to get close to her by whatever means possible, the narrator attends. Then, chaos ensues. 

All we'll say is that Breakfast at Tiffany's is a must-read.

---

9. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

Invisible Man is a chilling invocation of metaphor to delineate a racially divided pre-Civil Rights era East Harlem that refuses to see its young, college-educated black protagonist as a human being.

As Ellison's nameless narrator moves through blindness into enlightenment, or as Ellison puts it, "from Purpose to Passion to Perception," his reader is simultaneously and symbiotically given permission to do the same. 

What's more fascinating about this novel is its ability to impart its message through dreams and memories.

Check out The Last 2 'Barnes & Noble' in Queens Will Officially Close Later This Year. 

[via Tumblr]