One night only: Internet friends IRL! Three fiction writers who all first met in the virtual world now all know each other in the actual world, and prove it by reading together in a real brick-and-mortar bookstore. Mark Doten is a Greenpoint local. Justin Taylor is a Bushwick ex-pat now clinging to the fringe of Park Slope. Gregory Howard is visiting from Bangor, Maine.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
NPR’s Brooke Gladstone and artist Josh Neufeld will dish on the state of modern media, the process of creating The Influencing Machine and more with a multimedia presentation, Q&A, and signing.
In The Influencing Machine, NPR 's Brooke Gladstone guides us through two millennia of media history, debunking the notion that The Media is an external force beyond our control and equipping us to be savvy consumers and shapers of the news. They burst onto the page in vivid comics, thanks to the artistry of Josh Neufeld.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
Our favorite lifestyle guinea pig AJ Jacobs will be in conversation with fellow improvement-junkie Gretchen Rubin in honor of his newest book, Drop Dead Healthy. What does it take to become the healthiest person on earth, and how happy does it make you in the long run? Jacobs will also read from the book, and both authors will take questions and sign.
Facebook RSVP encourage, but not required.
Our year of Brits continues! (Hughes is technically Welsh, but don't tell anyone.) Set against the unstable world of Europe between World Wars as well as the unstable impulses of a man who thinks he's been wronged.
Geoff Dyer has a particular talent at writing about music, film, and literature. In May, we'll look at his book But Beautiful, a collection of impressionistic portraits of jazz musicians. 10% off leading up to the discussion!
Brian Francis Slattery presents his new novel Lost Everything, in a launch party extravaganza accompanied by Dr. Caterwaul's Cadre of Clairvoyant Claptraps. The band will perform alongside Slattery as he, well, “reads” isn’t really the right word but it’ll do in a pinch. Jenn raves: “Lost Everything is a moving and timely meditation on war, a testament to the devotion of a father for his son, and a journey bursting with both terror and laughter.”
If you were lucky enough to see his performance last time he was at WORD, you know that it's a must-see experience. There's nothing quite like witnessing an author accompany himself with a banjo as he reads from a book. And if you weren't there, we cannot recommend highly enough that you come out for this!
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
TICKETS FOR THIS EVENT ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE ONLINE. There will be a limited number available at the door, first come first served!
In the culminating event of his tour, David Rees will be joined by fellow funnymen John Hodgman and Jonathan Coulton. The evening will include a pencil sharpening tutorial, a Q&A and signing, and much much more.
Please note: This event will take place at Public Assembly, and is 21 and up only! Doors will open at 6:30pm, and the show will start at 7pm SHARP. There is no physical ticket; please bring your ID to check in and receive your book. Each ticket includes admission and a copy of How to Sharpen Pencils; extra books, including John Hodgman's, will also be available for purchase.
From Scotland to the Amazon, lacrosse to basketball, John Fox explores our relationship with that most playful of objects, the ball. In a reading and discussion sponsored by WORD’s nerdy basketball league, he’ll present his findings, entertain us with anecdotes about related topics such as beheadings and steroids, take questions, and sign copies of The Ball.
From Mexican jungles to the small-town gridirons of Ohio, from medieval villages and royal courts to modern soccer pitches and baseball parks, The Ball explores the little-known origins of our favorite sports across the centuries, and traces how a simple invention like the ball has come to stake an unrivaled claim on our passions, our money, and our lives. Equal parts history and travelogue, The Ball removes us from the scandals and commercialism of today's sports world to uncover the true reasons we play ball, helping us reclaim our universal connection to the games we love.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
May’s Largehearted Lit, a series celebrating music, books, and their intersection, features Dylan Hicks and Thad Ziolkowski. Hicks, whose novel Boarded Windows captures the music and mood of America’s boomer counterculture, will speak and perform a few songs. Ziolkowski will also read and discuss music’s influence on his novel Wichita, the latest addition to Europa Editions’ new line, Tonga Books.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
Local author and staff favorite Emily St. John Mandel presents her third novel, The Lola Quartet, with a launch party and reading, with an opening musical performance by guitarist Tzvi Skolnik!
In The Lola Quartet, mistakes made years in Gavin Sasaki's past come back to haunt him as mistakes made in his career send him back to his hometown. An intense piece of literary noir, the plot spans jazz, Django Reinhardt, economic collapse, friendship and love, Florida's exotic wildlife problem, fedoras, and the unreliability of memory.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
The Wodehouse Book Group will be reading A Bounty of Blandings in May, June and July -- one month per story! The book is 10% off during its discussion months.
WORD welcomes back staff favorite and local author Lev Grossman for the paperback launch of The Magician King, sequel to The Magicians. The Magician King brings us the further adventures of Quentin and Julia, spanning Fillory and Earth, and was the best sequel bar none that we read last year. Grossman will be in conversation with Tor.com staff writer Ryan Britt about fandom, the writing process, the relative attractiveness of naiads vs dryads, and more.
Lev Grossman is a senior writer and book critic for Time magazine. He is also the author of the international bestselling novel Codex, the creator of the Time blog Techland, and a graduate of Harvard and Yale. Ryan Britt's writing has been published with Good Magazine, Nerve.com, Opium Magazine, and Soon Quarterly, as well as the Hugo-Award winning Clarkesworld Magazine. He is the staff writer for the popular science fiction and fantasy blog Tor.com.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
Authors Andrew Blackwell (Visit Sunny Chernobyl), James Higdon (The Cornbread Mafia) and Lizzie Stark (Leaving Mundania) will combine forces for a joint reading and discussion on everything from LARPing to radioactive waste to recreational drug use.
For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth—Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth. From the hidden bars and convenience stores of a radioactive wilderness to the sacred but reeking waters of India, Visit Sunny Chernobyl fuses immersive first-person reporting with satire and analysis, making the case that it’s time to start appreciating our planet as it is—not as we wish it would be.
In the summer of 1987, Johnny Boone set out to grow and harvest one of the greatest outdoor marijuana crops in modem times. In doing so, he set into motion a series of events that defined him and his associates as the largest homegrown marijuana syndicate in American history, also known as the Cornbread Maña. In Cornbread Mafia author James Higdon--whose relationship with Johnny Boone, currently a federal fugitive, made him the first journalist subpoenaed under the Obama administration--takes readers back to the 19705 and ’80s and the clash between federal and local law enforcement and a band of Kentucky farmers with moonshine and pride in their bloodlines.
Exposing a subculture often dismissed as “geeky” by mainstream America, Leaving Mundania is the story of live action role-playing (LARP). A hybrid of games—such as Dungeons & Dragons, historical reenactment, fandom, and good old-fashioned pretend—LARP is thriving, and this book explores its multifaceted communities and related phenomena, including the Society for Creative Anachronism, a medieval reenactment group that boasts more than 32,000 members. Author Lizzie Stark looks at the hobby from a variety of angles, from its history in the pageantry of Tudor England to its present use as a training tool for the US military.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
In this interactive class you'll learn about both methods of pickling, fresh and fermented pickling. Participants will learn how to pickle small amounts of extra produce without pulling out the canner pot.
In addition to understading common safety concerns with food preservation, you'll learn the basics of fermentation (brining) as a form of food preservation. Lacto-fermented foods provide numerous health benefits using lactobacillus bacteria to preserve food as opposed to vinegar. We'll discuss how fermentation works, why it's safe and how to try a small-scale fermented pickling project at home.
Every attendee should come with questions, as Kate will make sure there is time to troubleshoot their own projects. Registration also includes a copy of The Hip Girl's Guide to Homemaking.
We've declared this the Summer of Indie Presses, starting with June! Our next pick is Everything Happens Today by local author Jesse Browner, published by the fabulous Europa Editions. 10% off the month leading up to discussion.
Next up is Great Granny Webster, on June 9th. Blackwood was raised in the aristocracy (heiress to the Guinness fortune!) and later in life, used that experience to produce this dark and witty look at the craziness that only the rich can inhabit. 10% off the month leading up to discussion.
Fear of Music discussion 6/9. Jonathan Lethem's entry in the 33 1/3 series revisits a time and place that he's also covered in his fiction: New York City in the late 1970s. In June, we'll talk about Lethem's book, which covers both this album and his own lifelong relationship with it. 10% off leading up to the discussion.
Back by popular demand, join Nathaniel Kressen, local writer and author of Concrete Fever, for an interactive workshop! Kressen will showcase the hand-bound first edition of his debut novel, and will teach attendees how to construct their own bound books. Everyone will make a notebook to take home!
Registration required: $15 (includes materials and workshop); $35 (includes materials, workshop, and a copy of Concrete Fever).
TICKETS ARE NO LONGER AVAILABLE ONLINE. There may be spots left, please call the store at 718-383-0096 to verify.
Author David Yoo will present his memoir The Choke Artist, capturing the fears, insecurities, and vicious cycles of the anxiety sufferer with insight and a large dose of humor, in a conversation with journalist Dave Cullen (Columbine).
In this brutally honest collection of often cringe-inducing episodes, David Yoo perfectly captures the cycle of failure and fear from childhood through adulthood. Whether he's wearing four layers of clothing to artificially beef up his slim frame, routinely testing highlighters against his forearm to see if he indeed has yellow skin, or preemptively sabotaging promising relationships to avoid being compared to former boyfriends, Yoo celebrates and skewers the insecurities of anxious people everywhere.
Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
The Wodehouse Book Group will be reading A Bounty of Blandings in May, June and July -- one month per story! The book is 10% off during its discussion months.
Writer and former New Yorker Carissa Halston presents The Mere Weight of Words, a novel that chronicles the efforts of a young woman to reinvent her life when faced with ill health, a career change, and an estranged father suffering from Alzheimer’s. Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
When Meredith initially hears that her estranged father has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she says nothing. When Eliot, a long-time friend of her father’s, calls and asks her to see him, she hangs up. But once she runs out of ways to say no, Mere agrees to visit, reasoning that he’ll soon lose all memory of their estrangement. He’ll forget about her paralysis. He’ll forget about their fights. He’ll forget that he ever stopped loving her mother and be the person Mere adored. She leaves her house certain she’ll say something she can’t take back and arrives at his knowing he’ll someday forget she visited at all. In language honest and heartfelt, Carissa Halston presents Mere’s life with and without her father, and how Mere fills his absence with worry, wit, and words.
More than 50 writers share their struggles and triumphs in The Letter Q, a compilation for LGBT teens following in the steps of “It Gets Better.” Join the East Coast contributors, including Nick Burd, Benoit Denizet-Lewis, Diane DiMassa, David Ebershoff, Paula Gilovich, Arthur Levine, David Levithan, Sarah Moon, Eric Orner, Rakesh Satyal, and Bil Wright, for a reading and signing. Facebook RSVP encouraged, but not required.
In this anthology, sixty-three award-winning authors such as Michael Cunningham, Amy Bloom, Jacqueline Woodson, Gregory Maguire, David Levithan, and Armistead Maupin make imaginative journeys into their pasts, telling their younger selves what they would have liked to know then about their lives as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgendered people. Through stories, in pictures, with bracing honesty, these are words of love and understanding, reasons to hold on for the better future ahead. They will tell you things about your favorite authors that you never knew before. And they will tell you about yourself.
