New York Stories
New York Magazine

As you might expect with a book of this length with dozens of "stories" or essays, many are good, several are not so good and a few, such as Gail Sheehy's "The Secret of Grey Gardens," are excellent. Sheehy's portrait of Big Edie and Little Edie is incisive, sensitive, empathetic and ultimately very moving.
Another outstanding piece is "Woody and Me" by Nancy Jo Sales. It is -- thank Heavens! -- not another hatchet job of you-know-who. It is, instead, a bitter sweet retelling of her correspondence with her idol, Woody Allen, when she was only thirteen and he was forty-two and at a turning point in his film career. It is an achingly honest coming-of-age tale.
There are a number of essays that, for lack of a better word, are "snarky" and ugly, such as Ron Rosenbaum's "Sid Vicious and Nauseating Nancy: A Love Story" and Julie Baumgold's "Unanswered Prayers: The Death and Life of Truman Capote" which is particularly painful reading.
On the other hand, Joyce Wadler's "My Breast: One Woman's Cancer Story" is told with bravery and heart and humor.
And Michael Daly is to be commended for his unflinching portrait of a good cop gone wrong in "Crack in the Shield."
But my personal favorite is probably George Plimpton's laugh-out-loud "If You've Been Afraid to Go to Elaine's These Past Twenty Years, Here's What You've Missed." It also has the funniest final sentence in this volume of "New York Stories."