Metropolitan Diary: The Best Selections from the New York Times Column

Metropolitan Diary is an entertaining gathering of questions and observations heard on movie lines and buses, in theater lobbies, restaurants (delis in particular), health clubs, cocktail lounges, and escalators (especially at Bloomingdale's). In its two decades in The New York Times, the column has come to characterize city life and has become one of the paper's most popular and talked-about features--but not just among New Yorkers. Three years ago, when the Diary was dropped from the Times' National Edition, a storm of protest rose so loudly that the newspaper made a rare about-face and reinstated it. Thank you, thank you! wrote a woman from Denver.

Now, for the first time since the column's debut in 1977, editor Ron Alexander has gathered the best from the Diary's first twenty years. It's a way for New Yorkers to celebrate themselves--and a slice of good old East Coast humor for exiled Manhattanites.