Fran Lebowitz knows what she likes—and what she doesn't like. And she won't wait for an invitation to tell you. For decades, the critic and essayist has been expressing her opinions, sometimes grouchily, always riotously. A New Yorker to the core, Lebowitz has raised straight talk to an art form, packaging her no-nonsense observations about the city and its denizens into a punchy running commentary, one that spares nobody.

Shaping Lebowitz's thoughts into the furiously funny guidebook every New Yorker has at one point wished for, Pretend It's a City checks in with a classic urban voice on subjects ranging from tourists, money, subways and the arts to the not-so-simple act of walking in Times Square. (There is a right way to do it.) Along the way, Lebowitz's own past comes into focus: a life marked by constant curiosity and invigorating independence.