Tips for Martin Amis

When news broke in the fall that British novelist Martin Amis had bought a townhouse in Cobble Hill, both the Brooklyn and literati-media worlds were aflutter.

Today, Slate has an article with neighborhood tips for the author, based on selections from his books. , , tennis courts on Congress Street, the article suggests, will help the author relate to his new neighborhood, a place he doesn't know very well.

"I've only been there a few times," he told the New York Observer.

The Slate writer Troy Patterson also has a good time with the tride and true joke about Cobble Hill and other surrounding, leafy Brownstone neighborhoods.

Amis is the greatest living English-language prose stylist, and the neighborhood is a New Yuppie stronghold. He represents our culture's best hope for coming up with some fresh jokes about $1,000 baby strollers and local organic cousa squash.

Yuppie gentrifier jokes aside, what would you suggest to a neighborhood newcomer? What's the best way to get to know this place we all call home?