Reviews of independent bookstores because buying and reading books is an adventure
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If I could pick anywhere in the world to be on September 12th, I’d choose the Brooklyn Book Festival. In the Brooklyn area next weekend? You have to go!
Who would I want to see? Paul Hardin, Paul Krugman and Sam Lipsyte top a long list. A weekend of events and several independent bookstores in the area, it sounds like paradise.
Tags: book festival, Brooklyn, literary festival, New York, new york city, NY
Save the jokes about how Los Angeles doesn’t read, we’ve heard them and we know they’re not true. First piece of evidence, the large turnout for last night’s Lit Crawl where 11 excellent authors read. Dennis Danziger and Graham Moore rocked the house to win. If you missed last night, no worries, here are a few events to make room for on your calendar:
September 26th – West Hollywood Book Fair is an intimate version of the the LA Times Book Festival. It’s full of author discussions and fun booths.Not in Los Angeles but live somewhere with a variety of literary events? Let us know and we’ll try to post them.
Tags: author book signing, author discussions, author readings, literary festival, Los Angeles
Looking for a literary way to cap off the summer? Pen Center USA and Stories joined forces to sponsor Lit Crawl II, a combination author reading and bar crawl along Sunset Blvd that starts at The Echo on Saturday, August 28th at 6PM. This takes the Tournament of Books one step further because these authors will be battling in person. What is a Lit Crawl? The eleven invited authors will have the opportunity to read for 8 minutes after which the audience will show their enthusiasum for the work by clapping (yours truly will be clapping hard for Dennis Danziger). The author with the most applause wins. I’m not sure what they’ll win, but I doubt it will cause them to jump into a higher income tax bracket. The buzzer keepers will be the editors of our new literary magazine that the town is raving about, Slake Magazine. Here are the authors anxious to enter the literary ring and duke it out with each other: Neal Pollack, Allison Burnett, Katie Arnold, Dennis Danziger, Graham Moore, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Samantha Dunn, Joseph Mattson, Edan Lepucki, James Greer and Rachel Resnick.
Following the reading, the party will progress to four locations–El Prado, Gold-Room, Little Joy and The Shortstop–with the authors and readers celebrating at each stop. What a fun way to experience LA authors and meet your fellow Angeleno readers. I’ll be there, let me know if you’re going to attend.
So when my publishers asked if they could fly me in to do a Jewish Book Council event in New York in May, I said yes, assuming it would be something similar to previous literary festivals I’ve done, where you speak either alone or on a panel for 20 minutes to an hour.
My sister said, “Oh, I know this event–a friend of mine did it. You and a bunch of other authors go and speak for like five minutes–it’s essentially an audition to get booked to speak at Jewish Community Centers and temples around the country.” I laughed and said something along the lines of, “Silly sister! You don’t know what you’re talking about. This is just a book festival.” And I continued to cling to that belief until I got all the official info about the event and discovered I would be one of fifty authors that night (and 150 overall since there were two other nights of the event), each speaking for TWO MINUTES.
Clearly I needed to do a little more research on the Jewish Book Council, so I visited their website and read, “The Mission of the Jewish Book Council is to: promote the reading, writing and publishing of quality Jewish content books./Serve as the resource center for information about the North American Jewish literary scene./Serve as the coordinating body of Jewish literary activity in North America.”
Toward this end, they host these “Meet the Author” events–and then coordinate speaking tours for the authors who participate (assuming, that is, that your two-minute speech is appealing enough to get you bookings–more on the pressure of that down below). They also present a National Jewish Book Award, and they . . . well, visit the website and see. They have a lot of programs, events, and resources, all aimed at promoting Jewish authors and/or books with Jewish content.
So here’s how the actual “Meet the Author” event worked: the authors (whose publishers had submitted their names to the Council and had to be formally accepted by the JBC) filled up the first three rows in the auditorium. In alphabetical order, each of us ran up to the podium in turn, spoke rapidly for two minutes (although some people ran over and I think you know who you are), and ran back off. One right after the other.
This went on for over TWO HOURS. One author played the fiddle and another one drew a picture: they were the smart ones because they stood out. Although plenty of people stood out for their sheer brilliance. Actually, almost everyone there was brilliant. It was an impressive group of writers–which made it hard for someone like me not to feel like a bit of an impostor–a potato chip left on a table filled with foie gras and filet mignon.
There were quite a few books I’d personally like to have heard more about (and plan on reading) and while I don’t know if I’ll end up booked at any events, I think it’s a wonderful way for authors to find new venues to present their work in–something we’re all looking for. And it was sheer joy to be surrounded by so many people who love books.
Followers of the Tournament of Books this year experienced a special treat. One of the commentators, John Warner, offered to suggest a book to anyone who named the last five books they read. The response was overwhelming. I don’t remember which five books I gave John, but his recommendation was Blue Angel by Francine Prose. I’d never heard of the writer, what a fun way to discover a new author. I knew the day started off right when The Morning News (where the Tournament of Books exists) announced that the Biblioracle, AKA John Warner, would make an appearance today from 8AM to 1PM PST. The requests stacked up as fast as American Idol votes and he had to shut down an hour early.
I got in and so did three friends. We are in book groups together so there is some cross over in our lists (although I skipped over most of the classics I’ve read when I made my list, I wanted a current fiction response), here’s what the Biblioracle suggested:
Kim: Mister Pip by Llyod Jones, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes, On the Way Home by Laura Ingalls Wilder, The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins – Biblioracle recommended Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Leslie: Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, Mister Pip by Llyod Jones, 39 Clues (Leslie is a good Mom!), and Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – Biblioracle recommended Silas Marner by George Eliot
Jen: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Colllins, Mr. Pip by Lloyd Jones, Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, and Lush Life: A Novel by Richard Price - Biblioracle recommended The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Gab: Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy, The Girl who Kicked the Hornets Nest by Stieg Larsson, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Charles Dickens by Jane Smiley, and The Children’s Book by AS Byatt – Biblioracle recommened The Life of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski
Didn’t get a chance to play? No worries, he will return this summer “sooner than you think,” and you can get some ideas just from scanning his responses. Both times I searched the books he recommended for ones I like, then looked back at the five book list to see if contained anything I’d like to learn more about. Two books that I kept seeing in lists that prompted the Biblioracle to name a book I liked, The Ask: A Novel by Sam Lipsyte and Next: A Novel by James Hynes (what’s with ‘: A Novel,’ can’t readers figure that out by finding the book in the fiction section?).
I love what makes John Warner qualified to make recommendations, something about teaching at the university, writing his own books, blah, blah, blah. The core of his power is spending a childhood in his mother’s independent bookstore listening to her recommend books. He is the Biblioracle because of 1) his mother and 2) growing up in an independent bookstore, both sources for superhuman powers.
Tags: book game, book recommendations, what should I read next
Claire
Kim
