Brandon Stanton‘s Humans of New York is one of the best books I have read in several years. He and his camera have roamed the five boroughs of New York and dozens of his encounters are in the book. Here is a recent post at his website:

“My husband was an editor at the New York Times, so he’d work really late nights, and I’d sometimes get lonely. So I started letting this tomcat into our house everyday. But my husband was horribly allergic to cats, so right before he’d get home, I’d let the cat back out again. But one night it was raining so hard that I refused to let the cat out, and my husband stayed up all night sneezing. And that’s how I got a puppy!”

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Her story is not in the book but is representative of the “voices” that, together, help us to gain a deeper understanding and a greater appreciation of what it means to be a thinking, caring human being.

To check out my review of Humans of New York, please click here.

“My name is Brandon and I began Humans of New York in the summer of 2010. I thought it would be really cool to create an exhaustive catalogue of New York City’s inhabitants, so I set out to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers and plot their photos on a map. I worked for several months with this goal in mind, but somewhere along the way, HONY began to take on a much different character. I started collecting quotes and short stories from the people I met, and began including these snippets alongside the photographs. Taken together, these portraits and captions became the subject of a vibrant blog. With over seven million followers on social media, HONY now provides a worldwide audience with daily glimpses into the lives of strangers in New York City. It has also become a #1 NYT bestselling book.. It’s been quite a ride so far. Feel free to follow along.”