Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the country. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. Eight hundred forty-three carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction - 20 pieces in all, with classics sprinkled among 13 new ones commissioned from great New York writers.

Bill Buford spends a wild night in the park; Jonathan Safran Foer envisions it as a tiny, transplanted piece of a mythical Sixth Borough; and Marie Winn answers definitively Holden Caulfield's question of where the ducks go when the park's ponds freeze over. There are bird sightings and fish sightings; Jackie Kennedy and James Brown sightings; and pieces by Colson Whitehead, Paul Auster, and Francine Prose. This vibrant collection presents Central Park in all its many-faceted glory, a 51-block swath of special magic.

Introduction ©2012 by Adrian Benepe. Epilogue ©2012 by Doug Blonsky. "Negative Space" ©2012 by Thomas Beller, "The Goodbye" ©2012 by Buzz Bissinger, "My Little Bit of Country" ©2012 by Susan Cheever, "Goodnight Moon" ©2012 by Ben Dolnick, "Beastie" ©2012 by Brooks Hansen, "Framed in Silver" ©2012 by Mark Helprin, "Carp in the Park" ©2012 by David Michaelis, "Some Music in the Park" ©2012 by Francine Prose, "Squawkeye and Gang on the Dendur Plateau" ©2012 by Nathaniel Rich, "The Meadow" ©2012 by John Burnham Schwartz, "Sunday in the Park with Mother" ©2012 by Susan Sheehan, "The Hidden Life" ©2012 by Alee Wilkinson. Excerpts from Moon Palace, ©1989 by Paul Auster, from Through the Children's Gate, ©2006 by Adam Gopnik, from The Falconer of Central Park, ©1984 by Donald Knowler, from The Colossus of New York, ©2003 by Colson Whitehead. "Lions and Tigers and Bears" by Bill Buford originally appeared in The New Yorker. "The Sixth Borough" by Jonathan Safran Foer originally appeared in The New York Times. "About Those Ducks, Holden" by Marie Winn originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Used by permission.

The full list of narrators includes: Adrian Benepe, Edoardo Ballerini, Jeff Woodman, Adam Gopnik, Mark Helperin, Jonathan Davis, Scott Aiello, Jennifer Van Dyck, LJ Ganser, Steven Crossley, Marie Winn, Buzz Bissinger, and Doug Blonsky.