8. Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Grace Paley

The woman who started a story with the words, “You would certainly be happy to meet me,” wrote three collections of short stories about the day-to-day lives of New Yorkers managing to get by: living together, living alone, raising children, and lying awake wondering how they were going to pay the bills, but never ever taking themselves too seriously. In a voice that’s tough and gum-crackingly New York City, with observations of neighbors in parks and the hallways of apartment houses, through scenes on sidewalks and in subways, Paley makes you see things in New York City that everyone else ignores. It is the perspective of a writer who, later in life, explained that she didn’t write more because “I happen to love being in the streets.”