Best New York book events this winter: Book readings, signings, marathons and dinners with writers
Book readings for new titles from George Saunders, Karen Russell and Nick Flynn help warm up a cold season
Mon Dec 10 2012
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Joyce Carol Oates
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Photograph: Marnie Ware
Chris Ware
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Photograph: Marco Antonio
Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich
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Photograph: Gasper Tringale
Louise Glück
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Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles
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Julie Otsuka
Julie Otsuka
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Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Vega
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Anne Waldman
Anne Waldman
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peterhookLIST
Photograph: David Sultan
Peter Hook
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Nick Flynn
Nick Flynn
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Photograph: Basso CANNARSA/Opale
Subject: SAUNDERS George - Copyright: Basso CANNARSA/Opale - Date: 20090707-
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Photograph: Tom Craig
Martin Amis
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Bonnie "Prince" Billy
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Karen Russell
Karen Russell
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Sherman Alexie
Sherman Alexie
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Photograph: Kenneth Noland
Jamaica Kincaid
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Ben Katchor
Ben Katchor
With a bounty of book readings, signings and other literary happenings in New York this winter, there's no reason to stay holed up with a tome alone. The city's bookstores and cultural institutions are offering many different events—from dinner with Martin Amis to a marathon reading of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol—that should appeal to all sorts of literature fans.
Artful Dining
- Critics choice
This special series of symposia bring readers face-to-face with favorite authors in New Yorkers' private residences. Those of us who are strapped for cash will have to stay away, but anyone feeling flush can receive dinner and discussion in close quarters, with just 24 other attendees.
- Location TBA
- Until Mon Dec 10
Building Stories: Chris Ware in conversation with Zadie Smith
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
Obsessive graphic novelist Chris Ware has done his part to prove what can be accomplished in his medium of choice, with meticulous and deeply affecting works such as Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth. His latest, the defiantly corporeal Building Stories, is a series of short tales printed on all kinds of strips, pamphlets and booklets.
- New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building Fifth Ave, at 42nd St
- Until Tue Dec 11
Selected Shorts: An Evening with Radiolab
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
This coproduction between Symphony Space and PRI's Radiolab promises much more than a standard story reading. Hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad will undoubtedly blend fun, sonic experiments and big ideas into performances by their guests Liev Schreiber, Kyra Sedgwick and Jane Curtin.
- Symphony Space 2537 Broadway, At 95th St
- Until Wed Dec 12
A Tribute to Louise Glück
- Critics choice
- Free
Notable new volume Poems 1962–2012 collects all of Pulitzer Prize winner Louise Glück's verses from that period. Tonight, Frank Bidart, Dana Levin, Robert Pinsky, Peter Streckfus and Ellen Bryant Voigt celebrate Glück's simple lines and their profound implications.
- Theresa Lang Community and Student Center (at The New School) 55 W 13th St, between Fifth and Sixth Aves, second floor
- Until Fri Dec 14
What the Dickens? Third Annual A Christmas Carol Marathon
- Critics choice
- Free
Downtown authors and actors transport a crowd from wintry NYC to wintry Victorian London in a marathon reading of Dickens’s classic tale of redemption from humbuggery. With readers including authors Eileen Myles, Mike Albo, Téa Obreht and undoubted unannounced surprises, what starts as a shopping pit stop may keep you enthralled until “God bless us, every one.”
- Housing Works Bookstore Cafe 126 Crosby St, between E Houston and Prince Sts
- Until Sat Dec 15
Junot Díaz + Julie Otsuka
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
As with The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, the Pulitzer-winning Díaz’s latest book, This Is How You Lose Her,continues to strike a compelling balance between worlds. In 2011, Julie Otsuka's The Buddha in the Attic detailed the world of “picture brides” from Japan with the same straightforward, powerful prose as the author used in When the Emperor Was Divine.
- 92nd Street Y 1395 Lexington Ave, between 91st and 92nd Sts
- Until Mon Dec 17
A Light That Never Goes Out: Tony Fletcher Reveals the Smiths
- Price band: 1/4
- Critics choice
Rock biographer Tony Fletcher turns his attention to the gloom and glam of Morrissey, Marr and the Smiths in his new A Light That Never Goes Out. The imposing but highly readable tome charts the band's inception, internal squabbles and dissolution, with access to both the band (minus Moz, of course) and its papers.
- Strand Book Store 828 Broadway, at 12th St
- Until Mon Dec 17
39th Annual New Year's Day Marathon Benefit Reading
- Critics choice
You’ll probably be too hungover to count this high, but this is the 39th edition of Poetry Project’s event. More than 140 writers, musicians and dancers read and perform to a standing-room-only crowd at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery. Proceeds from admission, and book and food stalls, fund the group’s mission to inject some classy art into the city.
- The Poetry Project at St. Mark's Church 131 E 10th St, at Second Ave
- Until Tue Jan 1
Black Blizzard: The Alternative New Year's Day Spoken Word/Performance Extravaganza
- Price band: 1/4
- Critics choice
This 19th annual happening, an alternative to the annual Poetry Project marathon, is becoming something of a tradition itself. One hundred fifty poets and performers—including Anne Waldman, Bob Holman and Cornelius Eady—read their verses. Attendees are also invited to peruse a hall of visual art.
- Dixon Place 161A Chrystie St, between Delancey and Rivington Sts
- Until Tue Jan 1
Film Screening and Book Discussion: Being Nick Flynn and The Reenactments
- Price band: 1/4
- Critics choice
For those who prefer to brush away their layers of meta with a putty knife, tonight's event involves a screening of a film (Being Nick Flynn) based on a book by Nick Flynn (Another Bullshit Night in Suck City), as well as a discussion about Flynn's new book (The Reenactments)—which is itself about the making of the aforementioned film. Flynn and Being Nick Flynn's director, Paul Weitz, worked closely together in adapting the material and on set, so the discussion should provide a certain degree of intimacy.
- BAM Rose Cinemas 30 Lafayette Ave, between Ashland Pl and St. Felix St, 11217
- Until Tue Jan 8
George Saunders
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
In previous imaginative and moralistic satires, Saunders (Pastoralia, In Persuasion Nation) captured something gross and hilariously unnerving about our commercial-drenched civilization. His new collection, Tenth of December, continues his rigorous play while promising even more vulnerability.
- Greenlight Bookstore 686 Fulton St, at South Portland Ave
- Until Tue Feb 26
First Blues: Rags, Ballads, Harmonium Songs, Chanteys and Come-All-Ye's
- Critics choice
Allen Ginsberg's 1983 double album, First Blues, is a moody combination of music and spoken-word verse, which features Bob Dylan and Arthur Russell, among others. To celebrate the album's vinyl and digital reissue, poets and musicians including Thurston Moore, Ambrose Bye, CAConrad and Steven Taylor discuss the record, as well as perform some of its tracks.
- Housing Works Bookstore Cafe 126 Crosby St, between E Houston and Prince Sts
- Wed Jan 16
Eat, Drink and Be Literary
- Price band: 3/4
- Critics choice
This series of civilized yet casual evenings features dinner, wine and a reading from a noteworthy writer, followed by a moderated Q&A about the author's creative process. This winter and spring, the excellent series welcomes names including Alison Bechdel, Colson Whitehead and January's first guest, Martin Amis.
- Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) 30 Lafayette Ave, between Ashland Pl and St. Felix St
- Wed May 29 - Wed Jun 5
Peter Hook
- Price band: 1/4
- Critics choice
Joy Division cofounder Peter Hook discusses the life and death of the group and its well-remembered singer, Ian Curtis. Named after the band's debut album, Unknown Pleasures also takes into account the wider music scene of the ’70s and ’80s, as well as the personalities that made it.
- Strand Book Store 828 Broadway, at 12th St
- Until Tue Jan 29
Will Oldham in conversation with Alan Licht and Sasha Frere-Jones
- Critics choice
- Free
Indie hero Oldham sat down with compatriot and fellow musician Alan Licht for a number of long, revealing conversations, which have been compiled into a new volume titled Will Oldham on Bonnie "Prince" Billy. Against all odds, Oldham appears tonight alongside Licht and New Yorker critic Frere-Jones to expand on the content of the book.
Karen Russell
- Critics choice
- Free
Those who fell for the whimsical characters, fantastic plots and evocative Floridian landscapes of Russell's debut short-story collection (St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves) or her novel (Swamplandia!) will be ready for her new title, Vampires in the Lemon Grove. The stories involve the titular bloodsuckers (one of whom is aviophobic), a seagull's nest that communicates the universe's secrets and much more.
- Greenlight Bookstore 686 Fulton St, at South Portland Ave
- Until Mon Feb 18
Selected Shorts: Lorrie Moore + Sherman Alexie
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
Between Alexie's recent collection, Blasphemy, and Moore's continued interest in and talent for short fiction (not just longer pieces like her much-admired 2010 novel, A Gate at the Stairs), this evening of author readings should be both funny and touching.
- Symphony Space 2537 Broadway, At 95th St
- Until Wed Feb 20
Jamaica Kincaid
- Price band: 2/4
- Critics choice
This Caribbean writer's semiautobiographical work, from her serialized New Yorker stories to the fractured 2001 title Mr. Potter, pinpoints mood with the help of a poetic diction. Her new novel, See Now Then—Kincaid's first in ten years—considers marriage and family from the perspective of mother, father and children alike.
- 92nd Street Y 1395 Lexington Ave, between 91st and 92nd Sts
- Wed Feb 27
Ben Katchor
- Critics choice
- Free
The man responsible for surreal and satirical serials including Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer and the graphic novel The Cardboard Valise publishes a new collection of strips called Hand-Drying in America this winter. The imaginative snatches of consumer life in the city and abroad prove to be funny and jarring.
- Greenlight Bookstore 686 Fulton St, at South Portland Ave
- Until Mon Apr 15
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