For centuries, the mysterious dark-robed figure has roamed the globe, searching for those whose complicity and cowardice have fed into the rapids of history’s darkest waters—and now, in Sarah Perry’s breathtaking follow-up to The Essex Serpent, it is heading in our direction.
It has been years since Helen Franklin left England. In Prague, working as a translator, she has found a home of sorts—or, at least, refuge. That changes when her friend Karel discovers a mysterious letter in the library, a strange confession and a curious warning that speaks of Melmoth the Witness, a dark legend found in obscure fairy tales and antique village lore. As such superstition has it, Melmoth travels through the ages, dooming those she persuades to join her to a damnation of timeless, itinerant solitude. To Helen it all seems the stuff of unenlightened fantasy.
But, unaware, as she wanders the cobblestone streets Helen is being watched. And then Karel disappears. . . .
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. Her next novel, The Essex Serpent, was a number one bestseller in hardback, Waterstones Book of the Year 2016, the British Book Awards Book of the Year 2017, was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and Dylan Thomas Award, and longlisted for the Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction 2017. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
Maria Dahvana Headley is a #1 New York Times-bestselling author and editor. Her novels include The Mere Wife, Magonia, Aerie, and Queen of Kings, and she has also written a memoir, The Year of Yes. With Kat Howard, she is the author of The End of the Sentence, and with Neil Gaiman, she is co-editor of Unnatural Creatures. Her short stories have been shortlisted for the Shirley Jackson, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards, and her work has been supported by the MacDowell Colony and by Arte Studio Ginestrelle, where the first draft of The Mere Wife was written. She was raised with a wolf and a pack of sled dogs in the high desert of rural Idaho, and now lives in Brooklyn.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Girls Write Now Launch w/ Marcela Grillo, Romaissaa Benzizoune, Fanta Camara, Danni Green, + Emma Straub
Wednesday October 17 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
Join us for the launch of Girls Write Now: Two Decades of True Stories from Young Female Voices (Tin House Books).
This milestone anthology is a collection of teenage girls' most urgent true stories, punctuated by inspiration and advice from Roxane Gay, Zadie Smith, Gloria Steinem, Alice Walker, and more of today's great writers. The young women published in these pages all participated in the beloved New York nonprofit Girls Write Now, and they've gone on to write for The New York Times, BuzzFeed, Newsweek, and more.
Four young writers will read their stories, then talk writing, girlhood, and finding your voice with the one and only Emma Straub. Come celebrate with us!
Featured writers include:
Marcela Grillo was born and raised in Brooklyn. She received her BA in English Literature from Connecticut College in 2016. She was a Girls Write Now mentee from 2011-2012. Her work in fiction has been regionally and nationally recognized by the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards and the Alliance for Artists and Writers. Grillo’s first book, a research based, educational work aimed towards teenagers with disabilities, is to be released in August of 2019.
Romaissaa Benzizoune is from New York City and from-from Morocco. Her personal essays have appeared in outlets including Buzzfeed, McSweeney's, and The New York Times. Her latest project involves transferring the memes in her camera roll to a separate album titled "Memes."
Fanta Camara was born and raised in Guinea-Conakry, West Africa. She graduated from SUNY-Albany in 2016 with a B.A in Sociology. Currently, she works as a Program Assistant in the Community Wellness Program at Sauti Yetu (Center for African Women and Families) and is in a pre-nursing program. She hopes to eventually become a Nurse Practitioner as an OBGYN.
Danni Green is a poet and writer born and raised in Brooklyn. She is currently working on a chapbook that focuses on the impact of poverty on an individual and a family. She is an alum of Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Oregon and recently completed a year-long, fully funded exchange program in Germany through the State Department.
Emma Straub is from New York City. She is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Modern Lovers and The Vacationers. Her fiction and nonfiction have been published by Tin House,The Paris Review Daily, Time, Slate, The New York Times, and Rookie. She lives with her husband in Brooklyn, where she co-owns Books Are Magic.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Spanish Storytime with Toc Toc
Thursday October 18 | 10:30AM - 11:30AM
¡Hola! We’ll be very happy (¡muy felices!) to have you in Toc Toc, the immersive Spanish program for babies and toddlers.
Join us every Thursday in October for a fun mix of story time, sing-along, dancing, games and puppet show. It’s great for kids with any level of Spanish. Don’t worry if you don’t speak the language, you can even learn with your child!
In our program, kids start learning a second language at the best age to do it, which is between 0 and 3 years old, right when the “language learning window” opens.
Speaking Spanish will bring your kid valuable experiences, friends, and multi cultural insight. Give your kids a skill that will stick with them for life!
The books we will be reading are:
October 18th:
Dragones y tacos (Dragons love tacos) by Adam Rubin
Tacos!: An Interactive Recipe Book (Cook In A Book) by Lotta Nieminen
October 25th:
Día de los Muertos (Celebrate the World) by Hannah Eliot and Jorge Gutierrez
La Catrina: Emotions / Emociones by Patty Rodriguez and Ariana Stein
Non-Spanish speakers welcome! This is a drop-in class with a $10 suggested donation. Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Meghan O'Gieblyn: Interior States w/ Nausicaa Renner
Thursday October 18 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A fresh, acute, and even profound collection that centers around two core issues of American identity: faith, in general and the specific forms Christianity takes in particular; and the challenges of living in the Midwest when culture is felt to be elsewhere.
What does it mean to be a believing Christian and a Midwesterner in an increasingly secular America where the cultural capital is retreating to both coasts? The critic and essayist Meghan O'Gieblyn was born into an evangelical family, attended the famed Moody Bible Institute in Chicago for a time before she had a crisis of belief, and still lives in the Midwest, aka "Flyover Country." She writes of her "existential dizziness, a sense that the rest of the world is moving while you remain still," and that rich sense of ambivalence and internal division inform the fifteen superbly thoughtful and ironic essays in this collection.
The subjects of these essays range from the rebranding (as it were) of Hell in contemporary Christian culture, a theme park devoted to the concept of intelligent design, the paradoxes of Christian Rock, Henry Ford's reconstructed pioneer town of Greenfield Village and its mixed messages, and the strange convergences of Christian eschatology and the digital so-called Singularity. Meghan O'Gieblyn stands in relation to her native Midwest as Joan Didion stands in relation to California - which is to say a whole-hearted lover, albeit one riven with ambivalence at the same time.
Meghan O’Gieblyn is a writer who was raised and still lives in the Midwest. Her essays have appeared in Harper's Magazine, n+1, The Point, The New York Times, The Guardian, The New Yorker, Best American Essays 2017, and the Pushcart Prize anthology. She received a B.A. in English from Loyola University, Chicago and an MFA in Fiction from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin with her husband.
Nausicaa Renner is digital editor of Columbia Journalism Review and a senior editor at n+1.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Establishing Authority for Writers: A Pop-Up Seminar and Progressive Fundraiser w/ Rob Spillman
Sunday October 21 | 7:00PM - 9:00PM
Join Rob Spillman and Books Are Magic for a writing seminar on establishing authority. The class is based on Rob’s semester-long Columbia University MFA seminar. We’ll take a close look at the first 300 words of published stories, essays, memoir, and novels and examine how the authority was established.
The seminar costs $100, but there’s a catch! The payment must be made in the form of a donation to the progressive candidate of your choice. Contact Rob Spillman (robspillman@gmail.com) to reserve your spot. Attach a screenshot or receipt from your donation (which must be made 10/12 or later) to the email.
If you would like to send a student, friend, relative, etc. in your place, you can email Rob their name and the receipt of your contribution to a candidate or candidates.
Rob Spillman is editor of Tin House magazine and executive editor of Tin House Books. He was previously the monthly book columnist for Details magazine and is a contributor of book reviews and essays to Salon and Bookforum. He has written for the Baltimore Sun, the Boston Review, British GQ, Connoisseur, Details, Nerve, the New York Times Book Review, Premiere, Rolling Stone, Spin, Sports Illustrated, SPY, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Worth, among other magazines, newspapers, and online magazines. He has also worked for Random House, Vanity Fair, and the New Yorker.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah: Friday Black w/ Gabe Habash
Monday October 22 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A piercingly raw debut story collection from a young writer with an explosive voice; a treacherously surreal, and, at times, heartbreakingly satirical look at what it’s like to be young and black in America.
From the start of this extraordinary debut, Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah’s writing will grab you, haunt you, enrage and invigorate you. By placing ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, Adjei-Brenyah reveals the violence, injustice, and painful absurdities that black men and women contend with every day in this country.
These stories tackle urgent instances of racism and cultural unrest, and explore the many ways we fight for humanity in an unforgiving world. In “The Finkelstein Five,” Adjei-Brenyah gives us an unforgettable reckoning of the brutal prejudice of our justice system. In “Zimmer Land,” we see a far-too-easy-to-believe imagining of racism as sport. And “Friday Black” and “How to Sell a Jacket as Told by Ice King” show the horrors of consumerism and the toll it takes on us all.
Entirely fresh in its style and perspective, and sure to appeal to fans of Colson Whitehead, Marlon James, and George Saunders, Friday Black confronts readers with a complicated, insistent, wrenching chorus of emotions, the final note of which, remarkably, is hope.
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is from Spring Valley, New York. He graduated from SUNY Albany and went on to receive his MFA from Syracuse University. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in numerous publications, including Guernica, Compose: A Journal of Simply Good Writing, Printer’s Row, Gravel, and The Breakwater Review, where he was selected by ZZ Packer as the winner of the 2nd Annual Breakwater Review Fiction Contest. Friday Black is his first book.
Gabe Habash is the author of the novel, Stephen Florida, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lions Fiction Award and the ABA Indies Choice Award for Adult Debut Book of the Year, and named a best book of 2017 by NPR, Bookforum, Electric Literature, and more. He is the fiction reviews editor for Publishers Weekly.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Kelsey Miller: I'll Be There For You: The One About Friends w/ Akilah Hughes
Tuesday October 23 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Today, Friends is remembered as an icon of 90s comedy and the Must See TV years. But when the series debuted in 1994, no one anticipated the sensation it would become. From the first wave of Friends mania to the backlash and renaissance that followed, the show maintained an uncanny connection to its audience, who saw it both as a reflection of their own lives and an aspirational escape from reality. In the years since, Friends has evolved from prime-time megahit to nostalgic novelty, and finally, to certified classic.
I’ll Be There for You is the definitive retrospective of Friends, not only for fans of the series, but for anyone who’s ever wondered what it is about this show—and television comedy—that resonates so powerfully.
Kelsey Miller is a journalist and the author of Big Girl: How I Gave Up Dieting and Got a Life. Her work has been featured in Glamour, Allure, Teen Vogue, Salon, People, Good Housekeeping, Women's Health and other outlets. She is the founder of The Anti-Diet Project, one of Refinery29's most popular franchises, and was the recipient of the Project HEAL Social Impact Award. She lives in Brooklyn.
Akilah Hughes is a comedian, blogger, and youtuber originally from Cincinnati. She writes and produces for Fusion, and also writes for HelloGiggles, Femsplain, and Refinery29. She trained in sketch and improv comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade. She lives in Brooklyn.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Reyna Grande: A Dream Called Home w/ Rigoberto Gonzáles
Wednesday October 24 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A Dream Called Home is the inspiring account of one young woman’s journey to find her place in America as a first-generation university graduate, a Latina, and a writer determined to change the course of her family forever. Reyna Grande is a powerful and skillful storyteller, and her latest memoir is a vital narrative that gives voice to the millions of immigrants who have come to the U.S. to find a better future. It should not be missed.
Reyna Grande is the recipient of the 2015 Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature. Her first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains, received a 2006 El Premio Aztlan Literary Award, a 2007 American Book Award, and a 2010 Latino Books Into Movies Award. Her second novel, Dancing with Butterflies, was critically acclaimed and was the recipient of a 2010 International Latino Book Award, Best Women’s Issues, and a 2010 Las Comadres & Friends National Latino Book Club Selection. She was also a 2003 PEN Center USA Emerging Voices Fellow.
Her first memoir, The Distance Between Us, was a 2012 National Book Critics Circle Awards Finalist and has been selected by numerous city-wide read programs, including Rochester Reads 2018, MacReads 2018, One Book/One Michiana 2018, All Henrico Reads 2018, Timberland Reads Together 2017, and Telluride One Book/One Canyon 2017, among others.
Rigoberto González is the author of author of 17 books of poetry and prose, most recently of the memoir What Drowns the Flowers in Your Mouth. His awards include Guggenheim, NEA, NYFA, and USA Rolón fellowships, the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation, the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, and the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. A critic at large for The L.A. Times, he sits on the board of trustees of the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) and is currently professor of English at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Jumpstart: Read for the Record
Thursday October 25 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Books Are Magic is excited to join Jumpstart for their 13th annual Read for the Record! This year’s book is Maybe Something Beautiful by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell and illustrated by Rafael López. We'll be reading it at 11am in the kids room, so bring the kids!
Jumpstart’s Read for the Record brings together millions of people each year in classrooms, libraries, community centers, and homes across the US. This annual campaign was launched over a decade ago to highlight the importance of building early literacy and language skills for EVERY child, so that all children have the opportunity to enter kindergarten prepared to succeed.
Jumpstart is a national early education organization working toward the day every child in America enters kindergarten prepared to succeed. We provide language, literacy, and social-emotional programming for preschool children from under-resourced communities and promote quality early learning for all children. Since 1993, we’ve trained more than 45,000 college students and community volunteers to transform the lives of over 100,000 preschool children nationwide.
This event is free and family-friendly!
Lisa Ludwinski: Sister Pie at Smith Canteen
Thursday October 25 | 6:00PM - 7:00PM
At Sister Pie, Lisa Ludwinski and her band of sister bakers are helping remake Detroit one slice at a time from a little corner shop in a former beauty salon on the city’s west side. Born and raised in Michigan, Ludwinski spends her days singing, dancing, and serving up a brand of pie love that has charmed critics and drawn the curious from far and wide. No one leaves without a slice—those who don’t have money in their pockets can simply cash in a prepaid slice from the “pie it forward” clothesline strung across the window.
Sister Pie (both the cookbook and the shop) features recipes that are nontraditional in flavor combinations and rustic in execution, with a nod to the abundant agriculture of Michigan. With 75 of her most beloverecipes, including forty-five sweet-and-savory pies and thirty other fan favorites that have made Sister Pie a destination for locals and visitors alike.
From Sweet Potato Coconut Pie to Honey Lemon Meringue Pie, Robert Redford Cookies to Blackberry Peach Coffee Cake, the recipes in Sister Pie will inspire home cooks, through the whimsy and heart conveyed on the pages, to bake pie (and more) for family and friends. Also included are breakfast goodies like Lemon Poppy Buns and Egg-on-Top Sweet Potato and Cheddar Galettes and family-style bakeshop salads with a variety of surprising flavor profiles.
Sister Pie pays homage to Motor City ingenuity and all-American spirit. With stories of pie-making and community, Ludwinski celebrates the remarkable agriculture, people, and resolve of her city and state. Illustrated throughout with 70 photos and Ludwinski’s charming line drawings, and infused with her inimitable style, Sister Pie is the book that bakers and bakery lovers won’t be able to resist.
Lisa Ludwinski was born and raised in Michigan and is the owner of Sister Pie, which she started as a pie stand at Detroit’s Eastern Market. Before opening the shop, she trained at New York’s Milk Bar and Brooklyn’s Four and Twenty Blackbirds. Sister Pie has been featured in Bon Appetit and The New York Times, among other publications.
This is a ticketed event and will take place at Smith Canteen (343 Smith St).
Natalka Burian: A Woman's Drink w/ Nikita Richardson, Kara Newman, Jane Danger, + Alla Lapushchik
Thursday October 25 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
A chic and empowered approach to mixing drinks in style, A Woman's Drink is the ultimate cocktail book for ladies. Filled with gorgeous cocktails and favorite drinks from notable women, this chic package celebrates a new cocktail culture that's distinctly and unapologetically feminine.
Natalka Burian is the co-owner of two bars, Elsa and Ramona, as well as the co-founder of The Freya Project, a feminist fundraising reading series. She is the author of Welcome to the Slipstream, a novel, and A Woman's Drink, a cocktail book. She received an MA from Columbia University where she studied Eastern European literature. Natalka grew up on a farm in Maryland, and now lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two daughters.
Nikita Richardson is a staff writer at Grub Street, New York magazine's food site, where she covers restaurants, hospitality, and taste tests chicken nuggets and pickle soft serve. Her work has appeared in Bloomberg Businessweek, New York, The Fader, Racked, Bon Appetit, Enterpreneur, and Fast Company. She's also a violinist in the Brooklyn Conservatory Community Orchestra and believes strongly in ordering the entire dessert menu.
Kara Newman is the spirits editor at Wine Enthusiast magazine, and contributes to the Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and Bloomberg Pursuits, among other publications. Kara’s Shake Stir Sip and Cocktails for a Crowd (both published by Chronicle Books) were Spirited Award finalists for “Best New Cocktail & Bartending Book.”
Alla Lapushchik assisted with the opening of the Bourgeois Pig while studying at New York University before moving help with the openings of Mayahuel, Death & Co., Desnuda Cevicheria, Ceinfuegos and 124 Rabbit Club. In 2010, she opened her own place, Post Office, an American whiskey focused bar. In 2013 she opened OTB, a cocktail bar & American bistro, which was awarded ‘Best New Bar’ by Paper Magazine. She is the co-author of two cocktail books, Cuban Cocktails and Bourbon Bartender. She has been featured in Imbibe, New York Times, The Little Pink Cocktail Book, Brooklyn Spirits, Punch, Village Voice, among others. She was also named one of Time Out New York "Brooklyn's New Order."
Jane Danger began her own beverage program at Rum Punch bar Cienfuegos and their sister bar downstairs Mother of Pearl, a modern tiki bar. She has also been part of the openings at The Rabbit Club, Dutch Kills, Nomad 10 West, Dream Baby, The Bourgeois Pig. Her work can be found in The New York Times, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, New Yorker, Food and Wine, Imbibe, Vogue, Details, Self, Bloomberg, Cuban Cocktails, The Nomad Cocktail Book,The Please Don't Tell Cocktail Guide, The Little Pink Cocktail Book, Cocktails For The Holidays, and Mister Boston 75th Anniversary Edition.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Breast Cancer Fundraiser w/ Yes Way Rosé
Friday October 26 | 6:30PM - 8:30PM
Join Books Are Magic and Yes Way Rosé for an evening of food, drinks, support, and activism in observance of Breast Cancer Awareness month! Female-run Brooklyn spots Leyenda, Clover Club, and Ovenly will provide bites.
Proceeds from this evening will go to Breast Treatment Task Force (BTTF), a grassroots organization that facilitates free breast screening and education, diagnostic follow-up, and treatment for NYC patients without health insurance. The night will feature a raffle, special guest speakers, and more!
This event is free! Raffle tickets will be on sale. Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Storytime with Karina Wolf: I Am Not a Fox
Saturday October 27 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
A curious creature that looks like a fox but acts like a dog sets out to find where he belongs in this charming tale of self-discovery and friendship perfect for fans of Gaston and Not Quite Narwhal.
When Luca first arrives at the dog park, the other dogs turn him away. “You’re not a dog,” they say, “You’re a fox.” But . . . Luca likes to chase cats. He likes to yip at mailmen. And he likes sniff other dogs you-know-where. Still, Luca has to admit, he doesn’t look like the other dogs. So . . . he must be a fox, right? But when Luca finds a trio of foxes in the forest and asks to join them, they don’t think that Luca is a fox at all. After all, Luca acts just like a dog. Luca can’t seem to find anyone quite like him, but then he meets a caring little girl and finds something even better–a friend. In this heartwarming tale, Karina Wolf and Chuck Groenick remind us that you don’t need a label to find just where you belong.
Karina Wolf is the author of the picture book The Insomniacs. She studied literature and film in New York, Paris, and Dublin, and she works in television and film production. She lives in Manhattan with her two dogs, Luca and Barry Manilow.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Storytime with Alex Beard: The Lying King
Sunday October 28 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Can warthogs fly? Do tigers eat tomatoes? For answers, follow along as Warthog lies his way to the throne in this timeless, yet most timely, Tale from the Watering Hole.
With his trademark style that’s been called “quirky and original” (Wall Street Journal) and “lush, invigorating” (New York Times Book Review), Alex Beard illuminates real world truths for children of all ages in The Lying King as the warthog lies his way to the top. With a nod to Aesop and Kipling, this funny and pointed parable has lessons for everyone about the importance of being honest, fair, and authentic.
Alex Beard is a painter, author, and adventurer who has emerged as one of his generation’s most creative and successful artists. Alex studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. He is the author and illustrator of the critically-acclaimed Tales From the Watering Hole collection of illustrated children’s picture books, as well as the creator of a unique series of puzzles for adults. Alex is also the founder of The Watering Hole Foundation, a public charity he created in 2012 to help save endangered wildlife and the environments in which they live. Alex is a NYC native who now lives with his family in New Orleans, where his studio is located at the heart of the Art’s District on Julia Street.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you’re coming on Facebook.
Blair Imani: Modern HERstory, w/ Lori Rodriguez
Monday October 29 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
An inspiring and radical celebration of 70 women, girls, and gender nonbinary people who have changed--and are still changing--the world, from the Civil Rights Movement and Stonewall riots through Black Lives Matter and beyond.
With a radical and inclusive approach to history, Modern HERstory profiles and celebrates seventy women and nonbinary champions of progressive social change in a bold, colorful, illustrated format for all ages. Despite making huge contributions to the liberation movements of the last century and today, all of these trailblazers come from backgrounds and communities that are traditionally overlooked and under-celebrated: not just women, but people of color, queer people, trans people, disabled people, young people, and people of faith. Authored by rising star activist Blair Imani, Modern HERstory tells the important stories of the leaders and movements that are changing the world right here and right now--and will inspire you to do the same.
Blair Imani is a black queer American Muslim activist. She is the founder and executive director of Equality for HER, a nonprofit educational platform for feminine-identifying individuals. As a political journalist and commentator, she has appeared on Fox News and MSNBC, and has guest lectured at Yale and Harvard Universities. Her writing has appeared in the Huffington Post and VICE and she has been featured in Nylon, Teen Vogue, Salon, Broadly, This American Life, The 405, Public Radio International, and Bustle.
Lori Rodriguez is the Director of Partnerships and Research at Equality for HER in addition to serving as the Board President of the organization. Lori presently leads all of the organization’s research efforts. Hailing from Hawthorne, California, Lori Rodriguez earned a degree in Religious Studies from Reed College. Lori has served in roles at Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Basic Rights Oregon, and is a highly sought after voice on Anti-Capitalism, White Supremacy, and Decolonization.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Joseph Fink: Alice Isn't Dead at St. Francis College, w/ Jessica Shaw
Tuesday October 30 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
Books Are Magic is proud to present an evening with Joseph Fink, creator of the wildly popular podcast Welcome to Night Vale, as he celebrates the release of a new novel tie-in to the Night Vale Presents podcast Alice Isn't Dead. He will be in conversation with Jessica Shaw.
From The New York Times bestselling co-author of It Devours! and Welcome to Night Vale comes a fast-paced thriller about a truck driver searching across America for the wife she had long assumed to be dead.
Keisha Taylor lived a quiet life with her wife, Alice, until the day that Alice disappeared. After months of searching, presuming she was dead, Keisha held a funeral, mourned, and gradually tried to get on with her life. But that was before Keisha started to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America. Alice isn’t dead, and she is showing up at every major tragedy and accident in the country.
Following a line of clues, Keisha takes a job with a trucking company and begins searching for Alice. She eventually stumbles on an otherworldly conflict being waged in the quiet corners of our nation’s highway system—uncovering a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.
Why did Alice disappear? What does she have to do with this secret war between inhuman killers? Why did the chicken cross the road? These questions, and many more will be answered in Alice Isn’t Dead.
Joseph Fink created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn't Dead podcasts. He lives with his wife in New York.
Jessica Shaw is the host of Entertainment Weekly’s Morning Live show on Sirius XM Radio.
Please note that this event will take place at St. Francis College.
180 Remsen St, Brooklyn, NY 11201. Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Jamel Brinkley: A Lucky Man at St. Francis College
Thursday November 01 | 4:30PM - 5:30PM
Please join us as St. Francis College celebrates author and SFC faculty member Jamel Brinkley's debut collection of stories, A Lucky Man,finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. A reading and Q&A will follow with Theo Gangi, director of SFC's MFA Program in Creative Writing. Cohosted with Books Are Magic, free and open to the public. Reception will follow.
Jamel Brinkley is the author of A Lucky Man: Stories (Graywolf Press/A Public Space Books), a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award. His writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Best American Short Stories, A Public Space, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, The Threepenny Review, Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, Tin House, and other places. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he was also the 2016-17 Carol Houck Smith Fiction Fellow at the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing. His work has received support from Kimbilio Fiction, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. He is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Liza Donnelly: Be the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are
Friday November 02 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
For dog owners and lovers everywhere, a humorous, fully illustrated book that shows us that even when we feel at our worst, our dogs still think we’re the best—so start acting like it!
Be the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are is a fully illustrated book of affirmations and inspiration to remind you you’re just about the best person there is, according to your dog. Did you know your dog thinks you’re the greatest athlete when you throw that tennis ball at the park? Or you're more generous than Mother Teresa when you share that last bite of steak? No matter what in life is getting you down, remember to one special pup, you’re the world.
With forty-one full-color illustrations from The New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly, Be the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are is the perfect gift for the voracious dog-owning marketplace, reminding us just why our canine companions want us as their best friend. Hilarious, heartfelt, and howlingly clever, Be the Person Your Dog Thinks You Are is sure to find a welcome home on any bookshelf, right next to the chew toys.
Liza Donnelly is a cartoonist and writer with The New Yorker and resident cartoonist at CBS News. She also writes for The New York Times, Forbes.com, and Medium. She has been profiled globally in numerous publications and her work has been exhibited around the world. Donnelly is the author/editor of eighteen books and was a finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor. She lives in New York with her husband, New Yorker cartoonist Michael Maslin.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Back 2 Back Storytime: Alexandra Penfold w/ Lisa Anchin
Saturday November 03 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators presents Back 2 Back, a series celebrating veterans and newcomers in the industry.
This month, we welcome Alexandra Penfold and Lisa Anchin.
Follow a group of children through a day in their school, where everyone is welcomed with open arms. A school where kids in patkas, hijabs, and yarmulkes play side-by-side with friends in baseball caps. A school where students grow and learn from each other's traditions and the whole community gathers to celebrate the Lunar New Year.
All Are Welcome lets young children know that no matter what, they have a place, they have a space, they are welcome in their school.
Alexandra Penfold is the author of Eat, Sleep, Poop (Knopf, 2016) and the picture books The Littlest Viking and Everybody's Going to the Food Truck Fest. She is also a literary agent at Upstart Crow.
Lisa Anchin is a Brooklyn based illustrator. She received her most recent degree, an MFA from the School of Visual Arts' Illustration as Visual Essay program, in 2011. That same year, she won the SCBWI Student Illustrator Scholarship. In 2012 her portfolio was selected for the SCBWI Illustration Mentorship Program. Lisa also blogs on KidLitArtists, home of the SCBWI LA Illustration Portfolio Mentorship Program Winners.
This event is free and family-friendly!
Storytime with Jon Burgerman: How To Eat Pizza
Sunday November 04 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Everyone's favorite meal talks back in this deliciously irreverent new picture book.
How do you eat pizza? Do you pick the biggest slice? Add hot pepper flakes? Use your hands? Do you know how your pizza slice feels about that? He thinks it's disgusting. There are so many other things you could eat--that aren't him. He's got ideas.
Bright, bold artwork and real-kid humor create a recipe for laugh-out-loud, finger-licking fun.
Jon Burgerman is an award-winning artist, creating picture books like Splat! and Rhyme Crime, as well as murals, sculptures, toys, apparel, and posters. His art is collected by the Victoria and Albert Museum among others worldwide. Jon celebrates mistakes, experiments, and the unexpected, believing that through playful, creative acts, art can allow people to change their worlds. Born in the UK, he currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife and fellow artist, You Byun.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Edward Carey: Little w/ Kristen Radtke
Monday November 05 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In 1761, a tiny, odd-looking girl named Marie is born in a village in Switzerland. After the death of her parents, she is apprenticed to an eccentric wax sculptor and whisked off to the seamy streets of Paris, where they meet a domineering widow and her quiet, pale son. Together, they convert an abandoned monkey house into an exhibition hall for wax heads, and the spectacle becomes a sensation. As word of her artistic talent spreads, Marie is called to Versailles, where she tutors a princess and saves Marie Antoinette in childbirth. But outside the palace walls, Paris is roiling: The revolutionary mob is demanding heads, and… at the wax museum, heads are what they do.
In the tradition of Gregory Maguire's Wicked and Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Edward Carey's Little is a darkly endearing cavalcade of a novel--a story of art, class, determination, and how we hold on to what we love.
Edward Carey is a novelist, visual artist, and playwright. His acclaimed YA series, the Iremonger Trilogy, was a fan favorite, with citations for Best Books of the Year by The New York Times, NPR, and Kirkus Reviews. He is also the author of two adult novels, Observatory Mansions and Alva & Irva. Born in England, he now teaches at the University of Texas in Austin, where he lives with his wife, the author Elizabeth McCracken, and their family.
Kristen Radtke is the author of the graphic nonfiction book Imagine Wanting Only This. She is the art director and deputy publisher of The Believer magazine. She is at work on a graphic essay collection, Seek You: Essays on American Loneliness, and Terrible Men, a graphic novel, both forthcoming from Pantheon. Find her on Twitter @kristenradtke.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Lisa Halliday: Asymmetry (Paperback Release) w/ Katy Waldman
Wednesday November 07 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
The bestselling and critically acclaimed debut novel by Lisa Halliday, Asymmetry, hailed as “extraordinary” by The New York Times, “a brilliant and complex examination of power dynamics in love and war” by The Wall Street Journal, and “a literary phenomenon” by The New Yorker.
Told in three distinct and uniquely compelling sections, Asymmetry explores the imbalances that spark and sustain many of our most dramatic human relations: inequities in age, power, talent, wealth, fame, geography, and justice. The first section, “Folly,” tells the story of Alice, a young American editor, and her relationship with the famous and much older writer Ezra Blazer. A tender and exquisite account of an unexpected romance that takes place in New York during the early years of the Iraq War, “Folly” also suggests an aspiring novelist’s coming-of-age. By contrast, “Madness” is narrated by Amar, an Iraqi-American man who, on his way to visit his brother in Kurdistan, is detained by immigration officers and spends the last weekend of 2008 in a holding room in Heathrow. These two seemingly disparate stories gain resonance as their perspectives interact and overlap, with yet new implications for their relationship revealed in an unexpected coda.
Lisa Halliday grew up in Medfield, Massachusetts and currently lives in Milan, Italy. Her work has appeared in The Paris Review and she is the recipient of a 2017 Whiting Award for Fiction. Asymmetry is her first novel.
Katy Waldman is a staff writer at The New Yorker. Previously, she was a staff writer at Slate, where she wrote about language, culture, and politics, and hosted the Slate Audio Book Club podcast. She is the winner of a 2018 American Society of Magazine Editors award for journalists younger than thirty.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
TASTE presents Anita Lo: Solo, w/ Matt Rodbard
Thursday November 08 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In partnership with TASTE, we are hosting Anita Lo for her new book, Solo: A Modern Cookbook for a Party of One!
Anita Lo puts the "Lo" in alone. The life of a Michelin-starred New York City chef is a lonely one--there's not much time for dating or dinners with friends--so she's perfected the art of cooking for one. In this delightful cookbook, Lo presents 101 accessible, contemporary, and sophisticated recipes for home cooks, most of which take less than thirty minutes to make.
Drawn from her childhood, her years cooking around the world, and her extensive travels, these are globally inspired, restaurant-quality dishes from Lo's own repertoire. Think Steamed Seabass with Shiitakes; Smoky Eggplant and Scallion Frittata; Chicken Pho; Slow Cooker Shortrib with Caramelized Endive; Broccoli Stem Slaw; Chicken Tagine with Couscous; and Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie--even a New England clambake for one. (And don't worry, these recipes are easily multiplied by two if you have company.)
Anita Lo is an acclaimed chef who worked at Bouley and Chanterelle before opening the Michelin-starred restaurant annisa in the heart of Manhattan’s Greenwich Village in 2000, which she ran until it closed in 2017. Food & Wine named her one of ten Best New Chefs in America, and The Village Voice proclaimed her Best New Restaurant Chef. She has appeared on Top Chef Masters, Iron Chef America, and Chopped; in 2015, she became the first female guest chef to cook at the White House. She lives in New York City and on Long Island.
Anita Lo will be in conversation with Matt Rodbard, who is the Editor-in-chief of TASTE.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Craig Morgan Teicher: We Begin In Gladness w/ francine j. harris
Friday November 09 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
“The staggering thing about a life’s work is it takes a lifetime to complete,” Craig Morgan Teicher writes in these luminous essays. We Begin in Gladness considers how poets start out, how they learn to hear themselves, and how some offer us that rare, glittering thing: lasting work. Teicher traces the poetic development of the works of Sylvia Plath, John Ashbery, Louise Glück, and Francine J. Harris, among others, to illuminate the paths they forged—by dramatic breakthroughs or by slow increments, and always by perseverance. We Begin in Gladness is indispensable for readers curious about the artistic life and for writers wondering how they might light out—or even scale the peak of the mountain.
Craig Morgan Teicher is the author of three books of poems, The Trembling Answers, To Keep Love Blurry, and Brenda Is in the Room and Other Poems, winner of the Colorado Prize for Poetry. He also wrote Cradle Book: Stories and Fables and the chapbook Ambivalence and Other Conundrums. Teicher edited Once and For All: The Best of Delmore Schwartz and serves as a poetry editor for The Literary Review. He writes about books for many publications, including The New York Times Book Review, The LA Times, and NPR. He lives in New Jersey with his wife and children.
francine j. harris is a 2015 NEA Creative Writing Fellow whose first collection, allegiance, was a finalist for the 2013 Kate Tufts Discovery and PEN Open Book Award. Originally from Detroit, she is also Cave Canem fellow who has lived in several cities before returning to Michigan. She received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Michigan, and currently teaches writing at Interlochen Center for the Arts.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Dan Zanes' House Party!: A Musical Storytime w/ Claudia Eliaza
Saturday November 10 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
In Dan Zanes' House Party!, the Grammy Award-winning children's artist presents a huge collection of folk songs along with inspiration to start your own family band.
Dan Zanes has spent the past 20 years creating a truly compelling body of children's music that music-loving parents can also get behind. A former 1980s indie rocker and member of The Del Fuegos, Zanes' many children's albums have gained wide praise for their authentic arrangements and preservation of America's folk traditions.
In this new songbook, Zanes has curated a rich selection of folk songs that comprise an essential musical cross-section of the American experience and its multicultural, immigrant underpinnings. The selections include the standard songs we all know and love, along with folk classics. Each song is accompanied by a brief narrative on its historical context, followed by lyrics, notation, and chords. Dan Zanes' House Party! also includes informational sidebars throughout to give families the basics needed to pick up instruments and learn to more fully enjoy music as a family band. And in the back of the book, you'll find chord charts for guitar, ukelele, banjo, and mandolin.
Dan Zanes and Haitian-American jazz vocalist/Music Therapist Claudia Eliaza (Dan’s wife) will perform Dan’s most loved songs as well as the children’s music of folk icon Lead Belly, which is featured on Dan’s latest CD, Lead Belly, Baby! The show will be highly interactive; the audience is always invited to sing and dance along in what might be called a casual, educational party atmosphere. The music, based on a variety of folk traditions, is homespun, sophisticated, and artful. Claudia’s background in music therapy has given the duo additional ways to find meaningful connections and grow a wider audience. Dan and Claudia believe that “sensory friendly” is the future of family entertainment and have committed to presenting their performances in this inclusive manner.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Storytime with Sharee Miller: Don't Touch My Hair!
Saturday November 10 | 1:00PM - 2:00PM
It seems that wherever Aria goes, someone wants to touch her hair. In the street, strangers reach for her fluffy curls; and even under the sea, in the jungle, and in space, she’s chased by a mermaid, monkeys, and poked by aliens…until, finally, Aria has had enough!
Author-illustrator Sharee Miller takes the tradition of appreciation of black hair to a new, fresh, level as she doesn’t seek to convince or remind young readers that their curls are beautiful–she simply acknowledges black beauty while telling a fun, imaginative story.
Sharee Miller has a BFA in communication design from Pratt Institute. She lives in Brooklyn, where she enjoys spending time with her two cats and illustrating fun stories. Sharee is the author and illustrator of Princess Hair. She invites you to visit her website at shareemiller.com and her Instagram @coilyandcute.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Storytime with Eva Chen: Juno Valentine and the Magical Shoes
Sunday November 11 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
Juno Valentine’s favorite shoes don’t light up. They don’t have wheels. They are, to be perfectly honest, the tiniest bit boring. But they’re still her favorite muddy-puddle-jumping, everyday-is-an-adventure shoes. One day, when they go missing, Juno discovers something amazing: a magical room filled with every kind of shoe she could possibly imagine!
Juno embarks on an epic journey through time and space, stepping into the shoes of female icons from Frida Kahlo and Cleopatra to Lady Gaga and Serena Williams. Each pair of shoes Juno tries brings a brand new adventure—and a step towards understanding that her very own shoes might be the best shoes of all.
Eva Chen is a first-generation Chinese-American who grew up in New York City. She blames her deviation from pre-med at Johns Hopkins University on a love of fashion and beauty instilled in her by her mother, whose perfect bob and lipstick made a permanent imprint on her impressionable young mind. Previously the editor in chief of Lucky, Eva has also written for ELLE, Vogue, Teen Vogue, Vogue China, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal. She is currently the head of fashion partnerships at Instagram, where she is guilty of the occasional duck-face selfie. Eva lives in New York City with her husband and two children. Juno Valentine and the Magical Shoes is her debut picture book.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana, w/ Michael Witwer, Kyle Newman, & Jon Peterson
Monday November 12 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
From one of the most iconic game brands in the world, Dungeons & Dragons Art & Arcana is an illustrated history that provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the brand, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. Inside the book, you’ll find more than seven hundred pieces of artwork—from each edition of the core role-playing books, supplements, and adventures; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; and classic advertisements and merchandise; plus never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with Dungeons & Dragons.
The superstar author team gained unparalleled access to the archives of Wizards of the Coast and the personal collections of top collectors, as well as the designers and illustrators who created the distinctive characters, concepts, and visuals that have defined fantasy art and gameplay for generations. This is the most comprehensive collection of D&D imagery ever assembled, making this the ultimate collectible for the game's millions of fans around the world.
Michael Witwer is the author of the critically acclaimed Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons, a GeekDad Best Book of 2015. Michael is widely considered an expert on D&D history and has spoken on the topic at Google as part of its Google Talks series, on NPR's All Things Considered, as well as at major book and gaming conventions such as the Boston Book Festival, Gen Con, and Origins.
Jon Peterson is a widely recognized authority on the history of games. His book Playing at the World wascalled "the first serious history of the development of Dungeons & Dragons" by The Village Voice. He has contributed to academic anthologies on games including Zones of Control and the forthcoming Role-playing Game Studies: Transmedia Foundations. Jon also writes for gaming and geek culture websites including BoingBoing, the Escapist, and GamaSutra, as well as his popular RPG history blog, playingattheworld.blogspot.com.
Kyle Newman is a writer/director whose directorial work includes Fanboys written by Ernie Cline, starring Kristen Bell and Seth Rogen; Barely Lethal, starring Samuel L. Jackson, Hailee Steinfeld, and Jessica Alba; and music videos for artists including Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift. Newman also produced the critically acclaimed documentary Raiders: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made. His clients include Microsoft, Interscope Records, Starz, Coca Cola, Entertainment Weekly, and Lucasfilm.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Jasmine Guillory: The Proposal w/ Ashley Ford
Tuesday November 13 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
When freelance writer Nikole Paterson goes to a Dodgers game with her actor boyfriend, his man bun, and his bros, the last thing she expects is a scoreboard proposal. Saying no isn't the hard part--they've only been dating for five months, and he can't even spell her name correctly. The hard part is having to face a stadium full of disappointed fans...
At the game with his sister, Carlos Ibarra comes to Nik's rescue and rushes her away from a camera crew. He's even there for her when the video goes viral and Nik's social media blows up--in a bad way. Nik knows that in the wilds of LA, a handsome doctor like Carlos can't be looking for anything serious, so she embarks on an epic rebound with him, filled with food, fun, and fantastic sex. But when their glorified hookups start breaking the rules, one of them has to be smart enough to put on the brakes.
Jasmine Guillory is a graduate of Wellesley College and Stanford Law School and practices in the Bay Area. Her writing has been featured on Jezebel, Thrillist, and The Toast. She is also the author of The Wedding Date. When she’s not working, you can find her among the towering stacks of books in her living room, working on her latest cake recipe, or adding to her collection of lipsticks.
Ashley C. Ford lives in Brooklyn by way of Indiana. She’s currently working on her memoir, Somebody’s Daughter, to be published by Flatiron Books under the imprint An Oprah Book. She also hosts the Brooklyn-based news and culture TV show and podcast, 112BK, contributes to CupOfJo.Com, and hosts Fortune Favors The Bold. She maintains a regular blog and Twitter feed.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Jonathan Lethem: The Feral Detective w/ Alice Sola Kim
Wednesday November 14 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
The Feral Detective, Jonathan Lethem’s first detective novel since Motherless Brooklyn, is a singular achievement by one of the greatest living writers.
Phoebe Siegler first meets Charles Heist in a shabby trailer on the eastern edge of Los Angeles. She’s looking for her friend’s missing daughter, Arabella, and hires Heist to help. A laconic loner who keeps his pet opossum in a desk drawer, Heist intrigues the sarcastic and garrulous Phoebe.
Reluctantly, he agrees to help. The unlikely pair navigate the enclaves of desert-dwelling vagabonds and find that Arabella is in serious trouble—caught in the middle of a violent standoff that only Heist, mysteriously, can end. Phoebe’s trip to the desert was always going to be strange, but it was never supposed to be dangerous...
Jonathan Lethem is the New York Times bestselling author of eleven novels, including The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently teaches creative writing at Pomona College in California.
Alice Sola Kim, a left-handed anchor baby currently residing in New York, is a winner of the 2016 Whiting Award. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in places such as Tin House, The Village Voice, McSweeney's, Lenny, BuzzFeed Books, and The Year's Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. She has received grants and scholarships from the MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, and the Elizabeth George Foundation.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
TASTE presents Doug Crowell + Ryan Angular: Kindness & Salt, w/ Matt Rodbard
Thursday November 15 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
In partnership with TASTE, we are hosting the authors of Kindness & Salt, Doug Crowell and Ryan Angulo!
Brooklyn restaurateurs Doug Crowell and Ryan Angulo believe that every great meal starts with two essential elements: kindness and salt. Kindness is the spirit of warmth and hospitality that underlies every meal at their restaurants. Salt is shorthand for cooking carefully and bringing out the best in your ingredients. The combination of the two can elevate even a quick meal into a special occasion.
Doug Crowell is a native New Yorker and a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America. He worked in the kitchens at a number of restaurants in Boston and New York, including Picholine and La Grenouille, before moving to the front-of-house to run several of Manhattan's largest and most popular dining rooms. In 2008 he opened Buttermilk Channel and followed by French Louie in 2014.
Ryan Angulo was born and raised in Rhode Island, where he attended the Culinary Arts Program at Johnson & Wales University. Ryan has worked at restaurants in Rhode Island, California, Atlanta, New Orleans, Hawaii, and New York. In 2008, he opened Buttermilk Channel with Doug Crowell, and serves as its executive chef. In 2014 he opened French Louis as chef and co-owner. His take on American cuisine has been featured in the New York Times, Bon Appetit, Time Out New York, Food & Wine, and on the Food Network.
Doug and Ryan will be in conversation with Matt Rodbard, the Editor-in-Chief of TASTE.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
New Erotica For Feminists w/ Caitlin Kunkel, Brooke Preston, Carrie Witmer, and Fiona Taylor
Friday November 16 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
He calls me into his office and closes the door... to promote me. He promotes me again and again. I am wild with ecstasy.
Imagine a world where erotica was written by feminists: Their daydreams include equal pay, a gender-balanced Congress, and Tom Hardy arriving at their doorstep to deliver a fresh case of LaCroix every week.
Both light-hearted and empowering, New Erotica for Feminists is a sly, satirical take on all the things that turn feminists on. From a retelling of Adam and Eve to tales of respectful Tinder dates, New Erotica for Feminists answers the question of “What do women really want?” with stories of power, equality, and an immortal Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Caitlin Kunkel is a writer and satirist whose work has been featured on The New Yorker, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, and as the writer for Live Wire Radio (distributed by Public Radio International). She is the creator of the online satire program for The Second City and the co-founder of the comedy and satire site for women, The Belladonna.
Brooke Preston is a writer and satirist whose words have appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, Funny or Die, Men’s Health and across the web. She teaches satire for Second City and is the co-founder of the comedy and satire site for women, The Belladonna. She lives in the midwest with her hilarious husband, dynamic daughter and doofy dog.
Carrie Wittmer is a Brooklyn-based comedy writer, satirist, journalist and sometimes stand-up comedian. She’s been published in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Refinery29 and other publications. She is a staff writer and critic for Business Insider’s entertainment team, primarily writing about television, the MCU, and “Paddington 2.”
Fiona Taylor is a writer and satirist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Establishment, and other publications. She is a co-founder of the female-penned satire site, The Belladonna.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Storytime with Diana Schoenbrun: Take Your Octopus to School Day
Saturday November 17 | 11:00AM - 12:00PM
When it comes to show-and-tell, Sam is in it to win it. But no matter how hard he tries, one of his classmates is always showing him up with a slightly better costume or a slightly cooler object to share. His teacher says it's not a competition, but just once Sam would like to be the best--which is why he's so excited when Take Your Octopus to School Day is announced. Sam is pretty sure he's the only kid with a real live pet octopus to bring, and Thurgood, his eight-tentacled best friend, is excited too.
Together, they prepare Thurgood's travel tank and get ready for a school day like no other... What could possibly go wrong? Sprinkled with sly humor and scientific facts about the class Cephalopoda, readers who loved Flora and the Flamingo or Sparky! will want to get their tentacles on Take Your Octopus to School Day.
Diana Schoenbrun is an illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY. She received her BFA in Illustration from the Rhode Island School of Design and a MFA in Illustration from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She has also worked as a puppet builder for the Muppets films and currently designs for Random House Golden books. Diana is a member of the Society of Illustrators and the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. Take Your Octopus to School Day is her first illustrated picture book. When she is not busy in her studio drawing she enjoys reading, hiking, and traveling.
This event is free and family-friendly! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
NYRB Book Club: The Ten Thousand Things
Monday November 19 | 7:00PM - 8:00PM
Books Are Magic is proud to host the (NYRB) Books Are Magic Book Club, a book club that discusses a different book by a female author in the New York Review Books catalog every other month.
This month we are discussing The Ten Thousand Things by Maria Dermoût.
Cheryl Strayed writes of The Ten Thousand Things: "Each of Dermoût’s sentences came at me like a soft knowing dagger, depicting a far-off land that felt to me like the blood of all the places I used to love.” And it's true, The Ten Thousand Things is at once novel of shimmering strangeness—and familiarity. It is the story of Felicia, who returns with her baby son from Holland to the Spice Islands of Indonesia, to the house and garden that were her birthplace, over which her powerful grandmother still presides. There Felicia finds herself wedded to an uncanny and dangerous world, full of mystery and violence, where objects tell tales, the dead come and go, and the past is as potent as the present.
First published in Holland in 1955, Maria Dermoût's novel was immediately recognized as a magical work, like nothing else Dutch—or European—literature had seen before. The Ten Thousand Things is an entranced vision of a far-off place that is as convincingly real and intimate as it is exotic, a book that is at once a lament and an ecstatic ode to nature and life.
Maria Dermoût (1888-1962) was born on a sugar plantation in the Dutch East Indies and educated in Holland. She then returned to the Indies with her husband, a jurist, and spent thirty years living in, she later wrote, “every town and wilderness of the islands of Java, Celebes, and the Moluccas.” In 1951, at the age of sixty-three, Dermoût published her first book, a memoir called Yesterday.
Hans Koning, born Hans Koningsberger in Amsterdam, came to this country in 1951 and established himself as an American writer in 1958 with his first novel, The Affair.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Amelia Bonow: Shout Your Abortion w/ Jessica Valenti
Tuesday November 27 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Following the U.S. Congress's attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, the hashtag #ShoutYourAbortion became a viral conduit for abortion storytelling, receiving extensive media coverage and positioning real human experiences at the center of America's abortion debate for the very first time. This online momentum quickly launched a grassroots storytelling movement, inspiring countless individuals to share their stories in art, media, and community events and to create spaces for others to do the same.
Shout Your Abortion is a collection of photos, essays, and creative work inspired by the movement of the same name, a template for building new communities of healing, and a call to action. Since the movement?s inception, people have shared stories and begun building community around these conversations in a range of ways: making art, hosting comedy shows, creating abortion-positive clothing, altering billboards, making zines, and hosting "thank you" letter-writing parties for their local abortion providers. This book documents some of these projects and illuminates the individuals who have breathed life into this movement, illustrating the profound liberatory and political power of defying shame and claiming sole authorship of our experiences.
Amelia Bonow is the founding director of Shout Your Abortion, a nationwide movement working to create places for people to discuss their abortions in art, media, and at real life events all over the country. Bonow proudly serves on the Board of Directors of the Abortion Care Network and has been honored by numerous Planned Parenthood affiliates. Bonow is the coeditor of Shout Your Abortion’s eponymously named debut book.
Jessica Valenti is the author of multiple books on feminism, politics and culture, most recently the New York Times bestselling memoir Sex Object. She is also the founder of Feministing.com. Her writing has appeared in publications like The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, and Ms. magazine. She is currently a columnist at The Guardian US. Jessica lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Charles Bernstein: Near/Miss w/ Peter Straub
Thursday November 29 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Praised in recent years as a “calculating, improvisatory, essential poet” by Daisy Fried in the New York Times, and as “the foremost poet-critic of our time” by Craig Dworkin, Charles Bernstein is a leading voice in American poetry. Near/Miss, Bernstein’s first poetry collection in five years, is the apotheosis of his late style, thick with off-center rhythms, hilarious riffs, and verbal extravagance.
Charles Bernstein is the author of Near/Miss (2018), Pitch of Poetry (Chicago, 2016), and Recalculating (Chicago, 2013). He is Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is co-director of PennSound. He is the recipient of the Janus Pannonius Grand Prize for Poetry and Münster Prize for poetry, as well a receiving Guggenheim, NEA, and NYSCA awards. Bernstein is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Peter Straub is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of seventeen novels, which have been translated into more than twenty languages. They include Ghost Story, Koko, Mr. X, In the Night Room, and two collaborations with Stephen King, The Talisman and Black House. He has won the British Fantasy Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, three International Horror Guild Awards, and ten World Fantasy Awards. In 2005, he was given the Horror Writers Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
This event is free!
Susan Orlean: The Library Book w/ Susannah Cahalan, Ada Calhoun, and Karen Abbott
Friday November 30 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the author of seven books, including Rin Tin Tin, Saturday Night, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. She lives with her family and her animals in upstate New York.
She will be in conversation with the self-proclaimed "Sob Sisters," three renowned female reporters who regularly host conversations and readings.
Susannah Cahalan is the author of the memoir Brain on Fire. She reports for the New York Post and her award-winning work has also been featured in The New York Times. She lives in Brooklyn.
Ada Calhoun has written for the New York Times, New York magazine, and the New York Post. She is the author of Wedding Toasts I'll Never Give and St. Marks Is Dead, which was named a New York Times Editors’ Choice and a Boston Globe Best Book of the Year.
Karen Abbott is the New York Times bestselling author of Sin in the Second City, American Rose and, most recently, Liar Temptress Soldier Spy, named one of the best books of 2014 by Library Journal, the Christian Science Monitor and Amazon. Her next book, a tale of murder and whiskey in the Jazz Age, will be published by Crown in fall 2019.
This event is free! Let us know you're coming on Facebook.
Frances de Pontes Peebles: The Air You Breathe
Thursday December 06 | 7:30PM - 8:30PM
Skinny, nine-year-old orphaned Dores is working in the kitchen of a sugar plantation in 1930s Brazil when in walks a girl who changes everything. Graça, the spoiled daughter of a wealthy sugar baron, is clever, well fed, pretty, and thrillingly ill behaved. Born to wildly different worlds, Dores and Graça quickly bond over shared mischief, and then, on a deeper level, over music.
Music will become their shared passion, the source of their partnership and their rivalry, and for each, the only way out of the life to which each was born. But only one of the two is destined to be a star. Their intimate, volatile bond will determine each of their fortunes--and haunt their memories.
Traveling from Brazil's inland sugar plantations to the rowdy streets of Rio de Janeiro's famous Lapa neighborhood, from Los Angeles during the Golden Age of Hollywood back to the irresistible drumbeat of home, The Air You Breathe unfurls a moving portrait of a lifelong friendship--its unparalleled rewards and lasting losses--and considers what we owe to the relationships that shape our lives.
Frances de Pontes Peebles is the author of the novel The Seamstress, which was translated into nine languages and won the Elle Grand Prix for fiction, the Friends of American Writers Award, and the James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Fellowship. Born in Pernambuco, Brazil, she is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.
