\u201cI grew up on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a solid 40-minute train ride from Brooklyn,\u201d says born-and-bred New Yorker Emma Straub. \u201cBut starting in ninth grade, in 1994, that\u2019s just what I did\u2014took the subway back and forth to Brooklyn Heights.\u201d The author\u2019s<\/a> sixth novel, American Fantasy<\/em><\/a> (Riverhead), does not take place there\u2014nor on land in general\u2014but on a 1990s-boy-band cruise ship. (Brooklyn serves as a backdrop in her books Modern Lovers<\/em> and This Time Tomorrow<\/em>.)<\/p>\n Since then, the only times she\u2019s left the borough were for college and graduate school. \u201cMy husband and I rented our first apartment in Brooklyn on Smith Street in Carroll Gardens, just two blocks from where we would eventually open our bookstore, Books Are Magic<\/a>,\u201d she tells Vogue<\/em>. \u201cWe walk everywhere, to work and to our children\u2019s school, so I feel like I live in a tiny little village. Sometimes I forget that the city\u2014I still think of Manhattan that way, The City\u2014is just across the water.\u201d<\/p>\n Here, her tiny-little-village recs:<\/p>\n Best time to visit, weather-wise<\/strong>: This is not unique to Brooklyn, but the best time to visit any part of New York City is fall or spring, depending on one\u2019s allergies. My birthday is in late April, and so perhaps I am biased, but I think autumn or springtime in New York is ideal. Just ask Ella Fitzgerald! (She and I actually have the same birthday, so I know she\u2019d agree.)<\/p>\n Best restaurant:<\/strong> The restaurant that most feels like an extension of my kitchen, were I a better cook, is Popina<\/a>. An Italian gem hidden on an otherwise unremarkable stretch of Columbia Street, Popina is always delicious, and the people who run it are so kind to my children, who would eat at Popina every day if we let them.<\/p>\n For breakfast:<\/strong>\u00a0My husband and I have very little quiet alone time, so we often end up at\u00a0Montague Diner<\/a>\u00a0after school drop-off, before we go to the store, or before I go home to write. It is perfect, every time, and we always run into a half-dozen people we know. Eggs, oatmeal, pancakes\u2014they do it right.<\/p>\n![\"Image](\"https:\/\/assets.vogue.com\/photos\/69de8e66e56568de2991606e\/master\/w_1600%2Cc_limit\/GettyImages-172415771.jpg\"\/)
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