March 24 (Bloomberg) -- Dumbo is the new Tribeca; the writers have left the Upper West Side for Park Slope. Before the hipster mantle moves to the next spot, check out these books about Brooklyn, New York's borough of the moment.

If you like Eames furniture and lots of bookshelves, ``Brooklyn Modern: Architecture, Interiors and Design,'' by Diana Lind, is your kind of shelter porn. The houses here are beautiful but also look comfortable to live in. Unlike many photo books, this one is rather modest in size and features matte paper, giving it a homemade air suitable to the Brooklyn aesthetic. (Rizzoli, $45.)

``The Brooklynites,'' by Seth Kushner and Anthony LaSala, features photos of people, not rooms, and makes a good case for the borough's vitality. There are famous faces here, and people notable for their roles in the neighborhood -- the owners of Peter Luger Steakhouse; the sea lion trainer from Coney Island's aquarium -- as well as an assortment of grandmothers, deli workers, writers and musicians.

Each portrait is accompanied by a quote from its subject, like novelist Jonathan Lethem, who says Brooklyn is ``a mongrel place of sorts. It mixes old and modern in a haphazard way. It represents a tiny microcosm of the world -- a functional utopia.''

Or as printer Mike Smollar puts it, ``Brooklyn is Brooklyn. There's no place like it in the world. And when you travel to other places in the world you realize that. They got nothin'.'' (PowerHouse Books, $35.)

``Brooklyn Was Mine,'' edited by Chris Knutsen and Valerie Steiker, features essays by some of the best-known Brooklyn writers, including Lethem, Dinaw Mengestu, Jennifer Egan and John Burnham Schwartz. Alexandra Styron, daughter of William, contributes a fascinating piece about reading ``Sophie's Choice'' for the first time as her father lay dying. (Riverhead, $15 paperback.)

Finally, if you want to read about New York in all its glory -- Brooklyn, yes, but also Manhattan and the other boroughs -- get a copy of ``Writing New York,'' an anthology edited by Phillip Lopate and just reissued in an expanded 10th- anniversary edition. This exuberant collection includes everyone from Walt Whitman to Helen Keller to Zora Neale Hurston to Don DeLillo; I could easily fill a page just reproducing the table of contents, and saying ``Read this essay! And that one!'' (Library of America, $19.95 paperback.)

(Laurie Muchnick is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this story: Laurie Muchnick in New York at lmuchnick@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: March 24, 2008 00:01 EDT