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.
Our next pick is The Coffins of Little Hope, by Timothy Schaffert, from Unbridled Books. Unbridled specializes in plot-driven literary fiction (usually with a big twist). Jenn describes The Coffins of Little Hope as something like a weird blend of Lemony Snicket and The Fates Will Find Their Way -- in the small town of Little Hope, known only for being the site of the printers for an immensely popular children's series, a small girl goes missing. Narrated by an elderly obituary writer, who is not even sure that the missing girl ever existed in the first place, this book is a constant surprise and a dark pleasure to read.
10% off all June!
Pubslush Press presents a social media workshop geared towards writers and authors, published and unpublished, led by development director Amanda Barbara and founder Jesse Potash. Come with questions; refreshments will also be served. Facebook RSVP appreciated, but not required.
Pubslush is a publishing platform: authors raise funds and build an audience for new book ideas, and trendsetting readers pledge their support to bring books to life. Their publishing arm, powered by readers, acquires books from this platform, and for every book they sell, they donate a children's book to a child in need.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is perhaps the most British book ever written. From the man who brought you Gaslight, a sort-of trilogy full of characters worth loving and hating in equal measure. Due to the length of this book, we'll devote two discussions to it: the first on July 14th and the second on August 11th. 10% off all June and July!
Music Writing Book Group moves on to Margo Jefferson's meditation on one of the most popular (and contentious) musicians of all time, On Michael Jackson. 10% off leading up to discussion!
Akashic Books and Brooklyn Rail present a multi-author reading with Donald Breckenridge (This Young Girl Passing), Nathan Larson (The Nervous System, The Dewey Decimal System), Joe Meno (Office Girl, The Great Perhaps), and Leigh Stein (Dispatch from the Future, The Fallback Plan).
Facebook RSVP appreciated, but not required.
Donald Breckenridge is the Fiction Editor of The Brooklyn Rail, Editor of The Brooklyn Rail Fiction Anthology (Hanging Loose Press, 2006) and co-editor of the Intranslation web site. In addition, he is the author of more than a dozen plays as well as the novella Rockaway Wherein (Red Dust, 1998), and the novels 6/2/95 (Spuyten Duyvil, 2002), You Are Here (Starcherone 09) and This Young Girl Passing (Autonomedia 11).
Nathan Larson is best known as an award-winning film music composer, having created the scores for over thirty movies, such as Boys Don't Cry, Dirty Pretty Things, and Margin Call. He was deeply involved in the hardcore punk scene in Washington D.C., and in the 1990s, he was the lead guitarist for the influential prog-punk outfit Shudder to Think. The Nervous System is the second novel in his new dystopian-noir series, the first of which is the staff-favorite The Dewey Decimal System.
Joe Meno is a fiction writer and playwright that lives in Chicago. A winner of the Nelson Algren Literary Award and the Society of Midland Author's Fiction Prize, he is the author of the novels Office Girl, The Great Perhaps, The Boy Detective Fails, Hairstyles of the Damned, Tender as Hellfire, and How the Hula Girl Sings.
Born in Chicago, and briefly in Albuquerque, Leigh Stein currently lives in Brooklyn, NY, where she works in children's book publishing and teaches musical theatre. Her first novel, The Fallback Plan, and full-length poetry collection, Dispatch from the Future, are published by Melville House.
Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, founders of the must-read blog Go Fug Yourself, present their second YA novel, Messy (sequel to Spoiled), which continues the adventures of Brooke Berlin and Molly Dix.When she teams up with a ghost-writer to create the ultimate Hollywood insider blog, Brooke gets a taste of the big time. But how long can she keep up the charade?
Heather and Jessica will dish on their blog, writing for teens, and the meta-fun of their newest book.
Facebook RSVP appreciated, but not required.
Join The Believer in celebrating the launch of deputy editor Karolina Waclawiak’s debut novel, How To Get Into the Twin Palms. She’ll be in conversation with Ross Simonini, interviews editor. Facebook RSVP appreciated, but not required.
Anya is a young woman living in a Russian neighborhood in Los Angeles, struggling between retaining her parents' Polish culture and the American-ness she was submerged in growing up. She decides to blaze a new path, and attempt to assimilate within her adopted community, epitomized by the exclusive club the Twin Palms. It is Anya's goal to gain entrance to this club. How To Get Into the Twin Palms is hilarious and deeply moving, providing a humorous twist on the typical immigrant tale of belonging.
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.
Join WORD at the Brooklyn Bridge Park for a night of short stories with Robin Black, Tania James, Rajesh Parameswaran, Jim Shepard, and Charles Yu. There will be a special giveaway (while supplies last), so get there early!
Book Group will be discussing Zombie, and will be joined by both the author and editor! Come with all your burning questions about teen fiction, zombies, and how covers get that way. 10% off the month before discussion.
The Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn and WORD present Words by the Water, a four-week outdoor reading series along the East River. Each event focuses on publishers/authors with a local focus.
Our first night will be at the East River State Park, featuring Soho Crime authors James Benn, Henry Chang, and Timothy Hallinan!
The Open Space Alliance for North Brooklyn (OSA) works to improve and create parks in North Brooklyn. We work with our community, elected officials, and the NYC Department of Parks & Recreation to green Williamsburg, Bushwick, and Greenpoint.
Join us for the Brooklyn launch of Katie Kitamura’s new novel and staff favorite, Gone to the Forest. She'll be joined by award-winning author Adam Rapp (The Children and the Wolves), and the two will be in conversation with Sarah Weinman, news editor for Publishers Marketplace.
Jenn says: "In Gone to the Forest, a family falls apart at the same time as their country's political strife comes to a head. With a sharp eye (not to mention sharp prose), Kitamura examines the fault-lines in ourselves and our nations and what it takes to split them wide open."
In The Children and the Wolves, 3-year-old Frog is held hostage by three teenagers -- but barely notices, as she immerses herself deeper and deeper into a video game. Instead, it's the teenagers that start to crack. Rapp is the Printz Honor-winning author of Punkzilla.
Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is perhaps the most British book ever written. From the man who brought you Gaslight, a sort-of trilogy full of characters worth loving and hating in equal measure. Due to the length of this book, we'll devote two discussions to it: the first on July 14th and the second on August 11th. 10% off all June and July!
We'll shift gears in August to Preston Lauterbach's The Chitlin' Circuit, an important history of the network of venues safe for Black performers from the 19th century through the 1960s, which provided space for many American popular musics. 10% off leading up to discussion!
