Tomorrow, March 11, at 7 p.m., readers who find themselves in or near Brooklyn are invited to come here two of our “Year in Reading” participants, Lydia Millet and Martha Southgate, read at the Pacific Standard Fiction Series. The series (which I host) was just named “Best New Literary Event” of 2008 by New York Magazine, and this latest installment should be outstanding. Hope to see you there. (Pacific Standard is located at 82 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, between Bergen St. and St. Mark’s Place, convenient to most trains).
Millet and Southgate Reading Tomorrow
Heading East
Sorry things have been quiet around here. I’m heading to Washington, DC, for the weekend to attend my brother’s college graduation. As luck would have it, Book Expo is being held in the city this year, so my plan is to stop in and check things out. Hopefully I’ll be able to get in a few dispatches about the goings on at the year’s biggest book event. If you happen to be in town, feel free to stop by the LBC party, the details of which are contained within the image below.In the meantime, things will be mostly quiet around here. Also, if anyone would like to add more recommendations to the list WWII books in the comments of my last post, that would be awesome. I’m loving the suggestions so far and thinking about doing a standalone post on the recommendations next week.
Welcome Bill
The Millions is adding a new staff writer today. Join us in welcoming Bill Morris. Bill most recently wrote a consideration of China Miéville for the site this week, his fifth piece for us thus far. Bill is the author of the novels Motor City and All Souls’ Day. His writing has appeared in Granta, The New York Times, L.A. Weekly, the (London) Independent, the Washington Post Magazine and the website Aolnews.com. He lives in New York City.
Introducing ‘The Staff Recommends’
The Millions is excited to be a founding member of a new ad venture called The Staff Recommends, John Warner and Andrew Womack, both of whom are associated with The Morning News and its wonderful Tournament of Books are behind the effort. The Staff Recommends is unique in that it only features books that “pass muster” with Warner, the venture’s editor and ombudsman. The first selection can be seen at the end of our “Recent Articles” section on The Millions front page and also in the sidebar on article pages. Enjoy!
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The Welcome Wagon
It’s my pleasure to introduce to you a new contributor to The Millions. Emre is an old friend of mine and I’ve always enjoyed our literary discussions. Emre read a lot of books last year, and he put together a diary of his reading experience. My plan is to post a segment of it each week. I’ve decided to share the whole diary with you because I think it represents one way that we, as readers, can get more out of the time we devote to our obsession with the written word. The post above this one will be the first in the series, but before we get to that, here’s a little more about Emre:Emre Peker currently slaves away as a paralegal in New York. Emre likes the city, food, drinks, books, music and good people. After winning the lottery, Emre will purchase a private island, derive a way to declare independence, and establish his own kingdom. Until then, Emre hopes to keep sane by reading and writing.One more thing, Emre grew up in Turkey, but has lived in the US for the last six years or so. This explains why some of the books he read last year were in Turkish.
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The Day After
We had great fun on The Millions’ NYC Indie Bookstore Tour yesterday. Defying the dire forecast, the weather cleared up after the first stop, and it turned out to be a glorious day for walking and looking at books. We met a lot of great people and visited some very cool bookstores. The early consensus is that we’ll definitely be doing this again. And here’s just a selection of some of the many, many great books that got picked up by the group yesterday.Other highlights included a sun-drenched walk across the crowded Brooklyn Bridge and a surprise marriage proposal at our final stop.If you were along with us on the tour and have pictures or writeups to share, let us know so we can link to them.
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Save the Date: Field Guide Launch Party, this Friday
I’d like to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to invite our New York-based readers to come out this Friday, November 2, to celebrate the launch of my first book of fiction, A Field Guide to the North American Family. The release party will be held from 7 to 9 p.m. at the lovely and capacious Housing Works Bookstore & Cafe on Crosby Street in SoHo.I’ll be reading from the book for about half an hour and showing slides of the illustrations. During the remaining hour and a half, I’ll be signing books and Max and I will be hanging out and drinking free booze with you. We always enjoy meeting our readers, and I’d love to see any and all of you there. (I need all the support I can get!)
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