There are so many cool things about former Chicago stock trader and 29 year old Atlanta native Brandon Stanton’s “Humans of New York” just published photography book.

You’ll trip on: the style of the subjects, the poignancy of their tales of love, transformation, adventure, suffering, regret, woe and, and more importantly, their joie de vivre.

You’ll: adore Stanton’s framing and composition of his subjects around the city and its environs.

You’ll: very importantly, substantially, adore the juxtaposition of gender and ages, the intimacy as well as the ‘pro-individual’ message eschewed in this colorful and masterfully designed tome; published in a time of conformity (think H&M, Starbucks, Ikea, et al) in this city.

You’ll:  walk away bathed in the flow and glow of Art.

Its not very often we see older folks in “cool media” in our youth obsessed culture; seeing them represented in “HONY” is refreshing as well as dope:  skater dudes and skater chicks hug margins opposite octogenarians and multi-decade widows and expats. Punks rub elbows with goths; and babies on leashes are reined in along with beloved dogs across several well thought out pages.

About 80 percent of the portraits in “Humans of New York” were published on Stanton’s blog by the same title. Since 2010 he’s photographed 5,000 people, published 50 stories and spawned dozens of copycat websites across the world. His Facebook and Tumblr pages have a combined 1,000,000 Likes. Rightly so because Stanton’s discerning eye and talent for storytelling punches you in the chest with brass knuckles wrapped in velvet.

“Humans of New York” is published by St.Martins Press and is available everywhere for $31.00. Trust us: it is worthy of your dollars, your coffee table and your shelf. This week it claimed the #1 slot on the New York Times Non Fiction Bestseller’s list, as it should.