Selected as one of the best photography books of 2015 by the Wall Street Journal, The City is a Novel is the first major monograph devoted to photographer Titarenko's thirty-year career.

Published in Italy by Damiani editore, the book features over 140 photographs of Titarenko's work in St. Petersburg, Venice, Havana, and New York. The City is a Novel also includes a short autobiographical story City of Shadows and essays by curator, writer, and art historian Gabriel Bauret; Brett Abbott, curator of photography at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and Sean Corcoran, curator of prints and photographs at the Museum of the City of New York. Damiani writes, "Famous for introducing long exposure and intentional camera movement into street photography, Titarenko created powerful metaphors to document the century's historic changes. His haunting, ghostlike images have become icons of the era of the collapse of the Soviet state."