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Health & Fitness

Long Island Books for Summer Reading

One of the most extraordinary aspects of Long Island is that even that it is quintessentially - almost stereotypically - suburban, it nonetheless possesses a distinct regional identity, rich history, and body of literature thereof that's usually associated with an individual nation or state.

Long Island is, in many respects, a country in its own right. In this vein, I recommend a few of my favorites as a summer reading list to all our Levittown historians:    

Fish-Shape Paumanok
 by Robert Cushman Murphy is nostalgic look at man and Nature on Long Island back-dropped by the author's native Setauket and his fondness for the art and poetry of William Sidney Mount and Walt Whitman. 

The Great Bridge
 is David McCollough's extensive work on the greatest artistic and technological artifact of he Victorian era and how it transformed the City of Brooklyn into one of the world's great centers of culture and commerce.

In Near Horizons, literary naturalist Edwin Way Teale describes the wildlife and folklore of an on overgrown farm in Baldwin.

In The Lord's Woods, Philip Arbib recalls a now-developed parcel of swampy woodland in the Five Towns area and life on Long Island during the Great Depression. 

Long Island/Our Story
 is Newsday's hefty encyclopedic history of Long Island rich in text and festooned in fine illustration - a "must read" to be sure. 

Nassau County: From Rural Hinterland to Suburban Metropolis 
is an anthology by the Long Island Studies Institute detailing much-neglected aspects of Nassau County history from suburban politics to institutional history to popular culture. 

Nassau County: Suburbia U.S.A. 
is Ed Smits' richly illustrated history of our area's march through the 20th Century. 

Harking Back
 is Iris and Alonzo Gibbs' collection of Essays on the Bethpage/Plainedge/Farmingdale area between colonial times and the early 20th Century. 

Colonial Hempstead 
by Bernice Marshal details the Town of Hempstead's history form the first settlement to the Revolutionary War and its aftermath with particular emphasis on the village. 

Robert Moses: Power Broker 
is Robert Caro's exhaustive - and highly critical- biography that studies how an unelected official became the most powerful man in New York State, redefined the nature of pubic authority, and changed the face of Long Island.

 Daniel Tredwell's autobiographical Personal Reminiscenes of Men and Things on Long Island will remind the reader of the diary of George Templeton Strong for both men documented in great detail and via personal observation, the history of their communities in the 19th Century.

Harold Eberlein's Manor Houses and Historic Homes on Long Island and Staten Island documents the history of the people and places where these landmarks are found.

Edith Hay Wyckoff's The Fabled Past is a slender but excellent tome covering the 17th and 18th centuries and Long Island's three founding nations - the Dutch, English, and Algonquin.    

Want to learn more about the history of Levittown and the surrounding communities? Visit www.levittownhistoricalsociety.org

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