TOP 21 books about New York

From which list to chose a book?

Each big city has its great writers. Dickens, Amis, Waugh for London; Proust and Balzac for Paris. In their books, it is possible to find the essence of their city. For New York the choice is rather difficult as there exists so many wonderful books about it and as there is so much to say.

For some, New York was really New York during the 20's : their choice for the best book about New York would probably be "The Great Gatsby". For others, nothing is comparable to the crazyness and greed of the New York of the 80's & 90's : they would probably select "The Bonfire of Vanities" as their book number one. Some will consider the best thing to read about New York is non fiction, others that nothing matches a good thick novel. It is then not suprising that when you find different lists of "TOP Books about New York" they are completely different. The New York Times published a TOP 10 books about New York in 1995 ( you have to be registered to read it). This list has only one title in common with a recent list of TOP 13 New York novels published by Huffington Post. You can also find Top Lists created by users on Amazon : "New York, New York",   "New York City Favorites", or a  Time Out Best non fiction Books about New York.

All different, all interesting.

An average list and individual lists on Rankmill.com

On Rankmill.com, everyone has the possibility to create its own list with comments. From these lists we create an average list, the average being calculated according to frequency of an item in different lists and the rank of the item. If you are looking for best books about New York you can look at the average list : you have immediately the "wisdom of crowd" with all the comments book by book. If you consider that this list does not correspond to your taste, you have the possibility to look at individual ones and select books from the one you consider the best.

Here is our list! Go and create your own, it'll help everyone!

TOP bars in movies vs TOP real legendary bars

Time for a beer? In which bar shall we go?

A movie bar?

Movieretriever.com has published a very informative list of best movie bar. Had we the opportunity to go in such places, which one would you chose?
The nice thing with movie bars is that they offer unbeatable advantages, such as ordering Champagne to Humphrey Bogart at Rick's Café ( in "Casablanca", 1942) , or meeting Faye Dunaway at the Golden Horn (in "Barfly", 1987). The problematic thing is that it often comes often with some downsides  : the Champagne delivered to your table by Bogart has to be drunk surrounded by Nazis. Or if you try to talk to Faye Dunaway, now your lovely bar neighbour, a drunk and unpleasant Mickey Rourke could rapidly enter the picture. The biggest problem is that the beverages are probably fake : tea instead of whisky, water instead of gin,  grape juice instead of wine, that's Hollywood! Whatever, here is a TOP best movie bars that you can increase, rearrange and comment.

Or a real bar ?

If now you prefer the real thing, we still have the choice between several legendary bars as gathered by Travelpicks.com. From "The Long Bar in Singapore", to the "Harry's New York Bar" in Paris, these bars are not only legendary for their cocktails but also for their famous customers. Some of these famous customers even died at the counter creating instantly the legend, such as the actor Oliver Reed at The Pub in Malta.  

Here is the TOP World's legendary bars, you can create your own list, it will help other booze lovers!

The best albums of all times

What is your best rock album of all times? The magazine Rolling Stones has published an impressive list of "500 greatest albums of all times" in a special issue in 2003.

I guess the list would be more or less the same today as I do not see any recent album which could join at least the Top 20. Some interesting things :

Best years : 1965/1967

For Rolling Stones, the Top 5 albums were released during these four years : Sergeant Pepper (1967), Pet Sounds (1966) , Revolver (1966), Highway 61 Revisited (1965), Rubber Soul (1965). 8 of their Top 10 albums were made before 1970. Even more compelling, there is only one album in tehir TOP 20 which was made after 1990 ("Never mind" by Nirvana)

Best band by far : The Beatles

The Beatles made 13 "official albums" between 1963 and 1970. 3 of them are part of the Top 5, 4 of them part of the Top 20, 7 of them part of the Top 100. I fully agree with this ranking and I can only see one comparison for such incredible achievements in such a short period of time, Mozart and a Top list of best operas ever written! Bob Dylan has 3 albums in the Top 20.

When you're good, you're good !

Almost all the bands or artist in the the Top 100 have several albums in the list, wether it be The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and the Experience, The Clash, U2, etc.

Give your top list here!

TOP 10 legendary film guns

Some films are remembered for quotes ( "Play it again Sam", " ... Bond, James Bond", "You talkin' to me? you talkin' to me?"), others for their unforgettable guns! Askmen.com has recently published a very funny Top10 legendary films guns. From the guitar case gun of "Desperado", to the incredibly kitsch "phaser" of Star Trek, a full access to the Hollywood Gun Store.

It is worth to be noted that at least one movie could appear in both "Top Famous Quotes" and "Top films guns", the faultless "Sudden Impact".
" -Well, we're not just gonna let you walk out of here.
-Who'se we sucka?
- Smith and Wesson... and me"
The gun being of course Dirty Haryy's scary Magum 44.
Learn more and give your opinion here.

TOP beaches in the world

Imagine while planning your vacations you would like to know what are the best beaches in the world. A quick search on Google would lead you to several sites and blogs where you would find some beautiful beaches listed. You would then need to spend a few minutes to understand which kind of information appears on the site and how the ranking is displayed (within an article, in a slideshow, are there some comments ?, are there some Google maps?).

And immediately the same question would arise :

TOP 100 films of the decade

The Times has just published a TOP 100 films of the decade. #1 is "Hidden (Caché)" by Michael Haneke and # 100, "The devil wears Prada" by David Frankel.

Some interesting elements:

1 - In this list, 90% of the selected films are wether from the US, wether from Europe. Some great nations of cinema were not very "active" this decade (only 3 Italian films in the TOP 100), other nations begin to appear on the movie world stage ( China with 2 films for instance)

Out of a hundred movies :