Tag Archives: WORD

September Book Clubs

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September book clubs are approaching fast. Get started now!

WORD Fiction Book Group
Saturday, September 1, 12pm
Book: Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat
Meet Aurorarama, the first in series chronicling the antics of the society of New Venice, high up in the Arctic. Debauchery, drugs, politics, high society, a zeppelin full of anarchists-for-hire, Eskimos: this book is truly weird and riotous. Jenn says, “It reads kind of like if Jane Austen had taken a ton of ‘shrooms and gotten lost in a snowstorm with the Marquis de Sade.”
10% off leading up to discussion!

WORD Classics Book Group
Saturday, September 8,12pm
Book: Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard by Arthur Conan Doyle
We’ll be finding out what Arthur Conan Doyle got up to after he killed off Sherlock Holmes and discussing Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, the Napoleonic soldier you never knew you were missing. Bubble-pipes encouraged.
10% off leading up to discussion!

WORD Music Writing Book Group
Saturday, September 8, 3:00 pm
Book: Love Rock Revolution by Mark Baumgarten
We’ll be exploring the independent record labels that sprung up in the Pacific Northwest in the late 1980s and early 1990s via Mark Baumgarten’s Love Rock has Revolution: K Records and the Rise of Independent Music. K Records fostered some of independent music’s greatest artists, including Beat Happening, Built to Spill, Beck, Modest Mouse, and the Gossip. It has also galvanized the international pop underground, helped create the grunge scene that took over pop culture, and provided a launching pad for the riot grrrl movement that changed the role of women in music forever.
10% off leading up to discussion!

McNally Jackson International Literature Book Club
Monday, September 10th 7pm (downstairs)
Book: Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch.

McNally Jackson Essays Book Club
Monday, September 10th 7pm (travel section)
Book: T Fleishman’s Beauty, Syzygy

Community Bookstore Even Cleveland Book Club
Monday, September 10, 7pm
Book: The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham.

McNally Jackson Poetry Book Club
Wednesday, September 12, 7pm (travel section)
Book: John Ashbery’s translation of Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations.
Please click here for the specific poems that will be addressed.

Community Bookstore Book Club
Wednesday, September 12, 7:30pm
Book: Underworld by Don DeLillo

The BookCourt Fiction Book Club
Wednesday Sep 12, 7:00PM
Book: Howards End by E. M. Forster

Greenlight Fiction Book Group
Tuesday, September 18, 7:30pm
Book: Netherland by Joseph O’Neill
Led by former Greenlight staffer Natalie and co-owner Jessica, this book group discusses paperback fiction; in 2012, the group is focusing on award winners and under-the-radar gems. For September, the book group will discuss Joseph O’Neill’s novelNetherland, winner of the 2009 Pen/Faulkner award for fiction. In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, and left alone after his English wife and son return to London, Hans van den Broek stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. As the two men share their vastly different experiences of contemporary immigrant life in America, an unforgettable portrait emerges of an “other” New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.

Community Bookstore Small Press Book Club
Tuesday, September, 25 at 7pm
Book: Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman

August Book Clubs

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Get started now, these book clubs for August are coming up fast!

WORD Fiction Book Club
Saturday, August 4, 12pm
Book: Zombie by J.R. Angelella
Conversation with author and editor
Jeremy is fourteen, obsessed with zombie flicks, and struggling at school and at home. His dad disappears every night, he’s probably going to get his butt kicked weekly (if not daily) by the local jock brigade, and every time he talks to the girl of his dreams he gets a nosebleed. Angelella has written a truly surprising, frequently sinister, and very clever YA novel. 10% off.

Bluestockings Feminist Book Club
Sunday, August 5 at 2:30pm
Book: Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall
The Feminist Book Club reads and discusses feminism. We make no claims to any particular feminist platform. Rather, we rely on feminism(s). We read theoretical texts, literature and primary works. All are welcome regardless of gender, political persuasion, and familiarity. We meet on the first Sunday each month. For more information, email feministbookclubnyc@gmail.com.

McNally Jackson International Literature Book Club
Monday, August 6, 7pm (downstairs)
Book: Ghosts by Cesar Aira
On a building site of a new, luxury apartment building, visitors looked up at the strange, irregular form of the water tank that crowned the edifice, and the big parabolic dish that would supply television images to all the floors. On the edge of the dish, a sharp metallic edge on which no bird would have dared to perch, three completely naked men were sitting, with their faces turned up to the midday sun; no one saw them, of course. from GhostsGhosts is about a construction worker’s family squatting on a building site. They all see large and handsome ghosts around their quarters, but the teenage daughter is the most curious. Her questions about them become more and more heartfelt until the story reaches a critical, chilling moment when the mother realizes that her daughter’s life hangs in the balance. 10% off.

McNally Jackson Essay Book Club
Monday, August 6, 7pm (travel section)
Book: On Being Blue William Gass

WORD Classics Book Club
Saturday, August 11, 12pm
Book: Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy by Susanna Moore
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. This meet up will be devoted to the second part.

WORD Music Writing Book Club with Tobias Carroll
Saturday, August 11, 3pm
Book: The Chitlin’ Circuit: And the Road to Rock ‘n’ Roll by Preston Lauterbach
Preston Lauterbach’s The Chitlin’ Circuit is 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!

Community Bookstore Even Cleveland Book Club
Monday, August 13, 7pm
Book: The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
An audacious revision of the stories of Faust and Pontius Pilate, The Master and Margarita is recognized as one of the essential classics of modern Russian literature. For more information visit the dedicated blog for the club.

Community Bookstore Small Press Book Club
Tuesday, August 14, 7pm
Book: The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig
The post-office girl is Christine, who looks after her ailing mother and toils in a provincial Austrian post office in the years just after the Great War. One afternoon, as she is dozing among the official forms and stamps, a telegraph arrives addressed to her. It is from her rich aunt, who lives in America and writes requesting that Christine join her and her husband in a Swiss Alpine resort. After a dizzying train ride, Christine finds herself at the top of the world, enjoying a life of privilege that she had never imagined.

The BookCourt Fiction Book Club
Wednesday, August 15, 7pm
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
Annie and Buster Fang have spent most of their adult lives trying to distance themselves from their famous artist parents, Caleb and Camille. But when a bad economy and a few bad personal decisions converge, the two siblings have nowhere to turn but their family home.

Bluestockings Radical Librarians Meetup
Sunday, August 19th, 2pm
Book: Make Your Own History: Documenting Feminist and Queer Activism in the 21st Century by Bly and Wooten
The Radical Librarians Book Club is a group of aspiring librarians, current librarians, and other folks who are invested in re-envisioning the traditional library. We seek to examine issues of librarianship from a radical, politically-focused perspective, and build community within the field. The Radical Librarians meet every third Sunday. August’s text is “Make Your Own History: Documenting Feminist and Queer Activism in the 21st Century,” edited by Lyz Bly and Kelly Wooten.

Greenlight Fiction Book Group
Tuesday, August 21, 7:30pm
Book: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Led by former Greenlight staffer Natalie and co-owner Jessica, this book group discusses paperback fiction; in 2012, the group is focusing on award winners and under-the-radar gems. For August the book group will read and discuss The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga, which won the 2008 Man Booker Prize. The white tiger of this novel is Balram Halwai, a poor Indian villager whose great ambition leads him to the zenith of Indian business culture: the world of the Bangalore entrepreneur. On the occasion of the president of China’s impending trip to Bangalore, Balram writes a letter to him describing his own transformation and his experience as driver and servant to a wealthy Indian family, which he thinks exemplifies the contradictions and complications of Indian society. Amoral, irreverent, deeply endearing, and utterly contemporary, this novel was an international publishing sensation and the winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2008.

WORD Wodehouse Book Club
Sunday, August 26, 3pm
Leave It to Psmith by P. G. Wodehouse
Ronald Psmith (the p is silent, as in pshrimp) is always willing to help a damsel in distress. So when he sees Eve Halliday without an umbrella during a downpour, he nobly offers her an umbrella, even though it s one he picks out of the Drone Club s umbrella rack. Psmith is so besotted with Eve that, when Lord Emsworth, her new boss, mistakes him for Ralston McTodd, a poet, Psmith pretends to be him so he can make his way to Blandings Castle and woo her. And so the farce begins: criminals disguised as poets with a plan to steal a priceless diamond necklace, a secretary who throws flower pots through windows, and a nighttime heist that ends in gunplay. How will everything be sorted out? Leave it to Psmith.

July Book Clubs

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Don’t delay, there are some great book club reads for July at your local indie. In date order:

WORD Fiction Book Club
Saturday, July 7, 12:00pm
Book: The Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert
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!

Bluestockings Feminist Book Club
Sunday, July 8, 2:30pm
Book: Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel
The Feminist Book Club reads and discusses feminism. We make no claims to any particular feminist platform. Rather, we rely on feminism(s). We read theoretical texts, literature and primary works. All are welcome regardless of gender, political persuasion, and familiarity. We meet on the first Sunday each month. For more information, email feministbookclubnyc@gmail.com. This month’s book (available at Bluestockings) is “Are You My Mother?: A Comic Drama” by Alison Bechdel.

McNally Jackson Essay Book Club
Monday, July 9, 7pm (travel section)
Book: Six Memos for the Next Millennium by Italo Calvino
Six Memos for the Millennium is a collection of five lectures Italo Calvino was about to deliver at the time of his death. What should be cherished in literature? Calvino devotes one lecture, or memo to the reader, to each of five indispensable qualities: lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility, and multiplicity. A sixth lecture, on consistency, was never committed to paper, and we are left only to ponder the possibilities. With this book, he gives us the most eloquent defense of literature written in the twentieth century—a fitting gift for the next millennium. 10% off in-store.

McNally Jackson International Literature Book Club
Monday, July 9, 7pm (downstairs)
Book: Ake: The Years of Childhood by Wole Soyinka
When he was 4 years old, spurred by insatiable curiosity and the beat of a marching drum, Wole Soyinka slipped silently through the gate of his parents’ yard and followed a police band to a distant village. This was his first journey beyond Aké, Nigeria, and reading his account is akin to witnessing a child’s epiphany. 10% off in-store.

BookCourt Fiction Book Club
Wednesday, July 11, 7pm
Book: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
At Westish College, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league until a routine throw goes disastrously off course. In the aftermath of his error, the fates of five people are upended. Henry’s fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future.

Housing Works and The Innocents Abroad Travel Writing Book Club
Saturday, July 14, 11:30am
Book: Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier
With great empathy and epic sweep, Frazier tells the stories of Siberia’s most famous exiles, from the well-known—Dostoyevsky, Lenin (twice), Stalin (numerous times)—to the lesser known (like Natalie Lopukhin, banished by the empress for copying her dresses) to those who experienced unimaginable suffering in Siberian camps under the Soviet regime, forever immortalized by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago. Frazier reveals Siberia’s role in history—its science, economics, and politics—with great passion and enthusiasm, ensuring that we’ll never think about it in the same way again. Travels in Siberia is also a unique chronicle of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union, a personal account of adventures among Russian friends and acquaintances, and, above all, a unique, captivating, totally Frazierian take on what he calls the “amazingness” of Russia—a country that, for all its tragic history, somehow still manages to be funny. Please RSVP to nora@abbottandwest.com

WORD Classics Book Group
Saturday, July 14, 12:00pm
Book: Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky by Patrick Hamilton
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!

WORD Music Writing Book Group
Saturday, July 14, 3:00pm
Book: On Michael Jackson by Margo Jefferson
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!

Bluestockings Radical Librarians Book Club
Sunday, July 15, 2:00pm
Book: Questioning Library Neutrality by Alison Lewis
The Radical Librarians Book Club is a group of aspiring librarians, current librarians, and other folks who are invested in re-envisioning the traditional library. We seek to examine issues of librarianship from a radical, politically-focused perspective, and build community within the field. This month’s book is “Questioning Library Neutrality: Essays from Progressive Librarian” edited by Alison Lewis.

Greenlight Fiction Book Group
Tuesday, July 17, 7:30 PM
Book: The Girl With Glass Feet by Ali Shaw
Led by former Greenlight staffer Natalie and co-owner Jessica, this book group discusses paperback fiction; in 2012, the group is focusing on award winners and under-the-radar gems. The winner of the Desmond Elliott Prize, The Girl with Glass Feet is a love story to treasure. Strange things are happening on the remote and snowbound archipelago of St. Hauda’s Land. Magical winged creatures flit around the icy bogland, albino animals hide themselves in the snow-glazed woods, and Ida Maclaird is slowly turning into glass. Ida is an outsider in these parts, but during one fateful visit the glass transformation began to take hold, and now she has returned in search of a cure

McNally Jackson: Book of the Month, International Literature, Essays, Spanish Book Club, and Poetry and Translation
Listings on bookstore’s event page sidebar

Largehearted Boy and Girls Write Now Take Over WORD

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Last night at WORD, David Gutowski celebrated his the 10th anniversary of his site, Largehearted Boy, with a fundraiser for Girls Write Now, a local organization that pairs at-risk girls from New York City’s underfunded public high schools with professional women writers. Through a network of volunteers, these girls receive individual and group writing instruction. While half of New York City’s youth fail to graduate from high school, 100% of Girls Write Now participants go onto college, often with awards and scholarships.

Lots of people came out to show their support and entered the raffle to win armloads of books donated by various publishers as well as a gift certificate to McNally Jackson.

David of Largehearted Boy and local author Emily St. John Mandel hang out upstairs before waiting for the appropriate time to attack the wine

Kiesha, The Brooklyn Baker, once again contributed amazing cupcakes.

Jason Diamond and Tobias Carroll from Vol1Brooklyn and Mike Fusco of M+E, a.k.a Emma Straub’s equally awesome half, chat before the reading — probably about books.

Angie Venezia, Alex Houstoun, and Courtney Allison came out to represent the Vintage / Anchor Publicity crew

Here’s Mike, Emma, and FSG’s Online Marketing Manager Ryan Chapman
enjoying cupcakes

WORD event coordinator, Jenn Northington, introduces Girls Write Now

Local author Jen Gilmore, in celebration of Largehearted Boy’s 10th, explained her hatred for birthdays and then delighted the crowd with a reading from her novel Something Red.

Local musician and author Alina Simone and her good buddy Maria Sonevytsky from The Debutante Hour, showed some Slav-pride by singing the Russian version of Happy Birthday, which might just be better than the English version. Maria then sang and played ‘Miracle Birth‘, which, I think, made everyone in the room an instant fan.

Here’s Tobias, frequent event-goer Molly Templeton, and their friend hanging out in between readers.

Yea, lots of people

The lovely, and also local, Emma Straub read from her short story collection, Other People We Married.

Stephen Elliott, Editor-in-Chief of The Rumpus, looks on as David reads off the winners.

Electric Lit contributor Ryan Chang goes home with an arm-load of books.

Ryan Chapman waves to the camera.

Jen Gilmore and Jason Diamond are getting ready to end the night — or maybe head
out to a local bar.

Girls Write Now Program Director Meghan McNamara and mentor Therese Cox
enjoying their party.

Disclaimer: David Gutowski co-runs this site. He is not writing this, Gabrielle is — and she would do it even if they weren’t buddies. It was an excellent event for an excellent cause.

Maira Kalman and Daniel Handler Talk Breakups at WORD

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Why We Broke Up is “the story of Min Green and how she and Ed Slaterton met at a party, saw a movie, followed an old woman, shared a hotel room, and broke each other’s hearts.” It’s also the second book Daniel Handler, possibly best known as the young adult author Lemony Snicket, and Maira Kalman, whose illustrations can be seen in the pages of The New Yorker, have worked on together.

Last night at WORD in Greenpoint, the two put on a show that could easy be considered a stand-up routine. They’ve known each other for 10 years but one can imagine their chemistry, with its unforced setups and natural back-and-forths, manifested itself almost immediately.

The evening started with a game they each like to play: Maira gives Daniel a picture and he comes up with a short story. The weird images, projected via slideshow, were a perfect match for Daniel’s equally odd humor.

After warming up the crowd, the two moved on to a few choice illustrations from How We Broke Up, ostensibly a young adult novel but hefty enough to entertain an adult reader. As Maira explained the images, Daniel read, giving the audience a taste of the ill-fated love of Min and Ed.

Min and Ed may be no more but the story doesn’t end on the last page. Daniel and Maira want your breakup stories. You can share them on the Tumblr they created: The Why We Broke Up Project. If you missed them last night, you can hear them on The Brian Lehrer Show. And, of course, you can buy Why We Broke Up at WORD — they might even have a few signed copies in stock.