Fifty more essays from famous writers on their incurable love affair with the Big Apple What do Francine Prose, Suketu Mehta, and Edwidge Danticat have in common? Each suffers from an incurable love affair with the Big Apple, and each contributed to the canon of writing New York has inspired by way of the New York Times City Section, a part of the paper that once defined Sunday afternoon leisure for the denizens of the five boroughs. Former City Section editor Constance Rosenblum has again culled a diverse cast of voices that brought to vivid life our metropolis through those pages in this follow-up to the publication New York Stories (2005). The fifty essays in More New York Stories unite the city’s best-known writers to provide a window to the bustle and richness of city life. As with the previous collection, many of the contributors need no introduction, among them Kevin Baker, Laura Shaine Cunningham, Dorothy Gallagher, Colin Harrison, Frances Kiernan, Nathaniel Rich, Jonathan Rosen, Christopher Sorrentino, and Robert Sullivan; they are among the most eloquent observers of our urban life. Others are relative newcomers. But all are voices worth listening to, and the result is a comprehensive and entertaining picture of New York in all its many guises. The section on “Characters’’ offers a bouquet of indelible profiles. The section on “Places” takes us on journeys to some of the city’s quintessential locales. “Rituals, Rhythms, and Ruminations” seeks to capture the city’s peculiar texture, and the section called “Excavating the Past” offers slices of the city’s endlessly fascinating history. Delightful for dipping into and a great companion for anyone planning a trip, this collection is both a heart-warming introduction to the human side of New York and a reminder to life-long New Yorkers of the reasons we call the city home.

Biological Essentialism addresses three main issues. The first concerns the essences (natures, identities) of biological taxa, particularly species. Kripke and other metaphysicians hold that these essences are (at least partly) intrinsic, underlying, probably largely genetic properties. This view, based largely on intuitions, is dismissed by the consensus in the philosophy of biology as being incompatible with Darwinism and reflecting ignorance of biology. Biological Essentalism argues that the demands of biological explanation show that the metaphysicians are right. The positive view of the consensus is that the essences are wholly relational: taxa must have certain histories. Biological Essentialism argues that there is indeed an historical component to the essence, but this component presupposes an intrinsic component. Its second issue concerns the essences of biological individuals. Metaphysicians have had much to say about this, again on the basis of intuitions. Many hold that an individual is essentially a member of its species. This has recently been unequivocally rejected by philosophers of biology. Biological Essentialism appeals to biological explanation again to argue for essential membership; furthermore, to argue for the Kripkean view that an organism's essence is partly intrinsic and partly relational (a matter of origin). Finally, the book addresses the lively contemporary issue of whether race is biologically "real". From the perspective developed earlier, the book argues that there are indeed racial kinds, in some sense, that are "in the realm of the biological". These kinds also have partly historical and partly intrinsic underlying essences.

This is a memoir of a driver for the transit system authority of a major city. When it comes to mass transit, people of all age groups and from all walks of life can be cruel, combative, repulsive, and downright crazy. Whether passengers, bikers, or other drivers, these people sometimes are shamelessly disrespectful. Everyone is so busy operating at a fast pace, thinking only about themselves, that they lose themselves and forget how to be calm, kind, and decent. Let me be the first to say that the job of a mass transit operator is not hard but it is not as sweet as pie as so many people believe. Most of my workdays are downright unbelievable. Some of these unbelievable stories are funny; others are insanely coldblooded. And that is the reason mass transit operators need the best-quality protection the transit authority can provide. The author shares her experiences in stories filled with shock and laughter. Taken together, they reveal the life of a big city mass transit operator.