104. Reading the City
November 10 to 16
Welcome back to Reading the City, a weekly newsletter of bookish events in NYC.
It’s one of those weeks with too many events to fit in. We have some great readers at Franklin Park tonight, a bookish week-long film festival from BPL, and Donika Kelly gathers a handful of wonderful poets at P&T for the launch of her new book. That, and much more.
As ever, get in touch with events I should have on my radar (details on how to submit are here), and please share the love with your bookish friends!
Monday, November 10
SALON | Franklin Park Reading Series
Special guest Brandon Taylor (Minor Black Figures) will be joined by Charlie Jane Anders (Lessons in Magic and Disaster), Jaquira Diaz (This Is the Only Kingdom), Sam Munson (The Sofa), Jennifer Hope Choi (The Wanderer’s Curse), and Laura Venita Green (Sister Creatures). Hosted by founder Penina Roth, enjoy drink specials, mingle with fellow book enthusiasts, and get a shot at readers’ latest books in the free-to-enter raffle.
Free; 8-10pm; 766 Franklin Avenue, 618 St Johns Pl, Brooklyn
LAUNCH | Jen Percy: Girls Play Dead
Jen Percy, a contributing writer at New York Times Magazine, launches Girls Play Dead: Acts of Self-Preservation—a lyrical and groundbreaking exploration of the misunderstood ways women survive and forever carry trauma—in conversation with Leslie Jamison (Splinters).
$10, redeemable in-store; 7-8pm; Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed free
SCREENING | LitFilm 2025
BPL’s film festival about writers celebrates its seventh year with seven nights of films about some of the most influential and iconoclastic literary minds, from Hannah Arendt to Mario Vargas Llosa, with a keynote talk by Raoul Peck, and talkbacks/readings by Anne Waldman, Molly Crabapple, and more.
Free, registration required; November 10 to 16; Central Library, Dweck Center, Brooklyn
Tuesday, November 11
LAUNCH | Quiara Alegría Hudes: The White Hot
Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegría Hudes (In the Heights) launches The White Hot—the story of a runaway mother’s ten days of freedom, and the pain, desire, longing, and wonder we find on the messy road to enlightenment—in conversation with Lin-Manuel Miranda.
$10.89; 7pm; St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church, 157 Montague Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed
SALON | Must Love Memoir
A monthly reading series dedicated to telling true stories, hosted by Krystal Marie Orwig and Hope Elizabeth Kidd, this month features Asya Graf, Liz Alterman (Sad Sacked), Miguel A. Castillo Jr., Dvora Gautieri, Bailey Swilley, and Shalaka Damle.
Free; 7.30pm; Jake’s Dilemma, Oak Cellar Room, 430 Amsterdam Avenue, New York
LAUNCH | Anika Jade Levy: Flat Earth
Founding editor of Forever Magazine Anika Jade Levy discusses her debut novel Flat Earth—a young woman struggles with the artistic success of her more privileged, beautiful best friend in this ruthless portrait of the New York art scene in which relationships are transactional, men are vampiric, and women have limited time to trade on their youth, beauty, and talent—in conversation with Sam Lipsyte (The Ask).
$10; 7-8pm; Strand Book Store, 828 Broadway 3rd Floor, Rare Book Room, Manhattan
TALK | The Coppolas in Conversation
Academy Award-winning director, producer, and screenwriter Sofia Coppola and producer and director Roman Coppola discuss their mother’s posthumous memoir, Two of Me: Notes on Living and Leaving. In Two of Me, Eleanor Coppola receives a terrifying cancer diagnosis and confronts her role as wife and mother, as well as the creative challenges of an artist late in life. Sofia and Roman will be in conversation with Vogue entertainment editor Keaton Bell.
$21.82, including book; 6pm; Barnes & Noble, Union Square, 33 East 17th Street, Manhattan
Wednesday, November 12
TALK | The New Muse: Laurence Leamer, Marisa Meltzer, Sunita Kumar Nair, Amy Odell, and Rachel Tashjian
This conversation brings together four acclaimed biographers: Laurence Leamer (Warhol’s Muses), Marisa Meltzer (It Girl), Sunita Kumar Nair (Carolyn Bessette Kennedy: A Life in Fashion), and Amy Odell (Gwyneth), along with critic Rachel Seville Tashjian, to interrogate how the figure of the muse keeps reinventing itself. From Warhol’s downtown scene, to Goop’s glossy empire, to Birkin’s radical style and Bessette’s beguiling minimalism, Leamer, Meltzer, Kumar Nair, Odell, and Tashjian trace the muse’s evolution from myth to meme—asking what it means to be an inspiration in an age when celebrity is itself the canvas.
From $30; 7.30pm; 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, Manhattan, and online
SERIES | Selected Shorts: 250 Years of Jane Austen
Selected Shorts marks Jane Austen’s 250th Birthday with an entertaining evening of fiction & letters inspired by or written by the witty, the romantic, the incomparable Jane. Hosted by Hugh Dancy (The Jane Austen Book Club), with commentary from Adelle Waldman (Help Wanted) and readings by Sophie Carmen-Jones (Chicago), Wyatt Cenac (Bob’s Burgers), and Ann Harada (Schmigadoon!).
From $19; 7pm; Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Manhattan, and livestreamed
ADAPTATION | Reimagining Denis Johnson, with Clint Bentley
Train Dreams, Clint Bentley’s new film, adapts the beloved novella by Denis Johnson. The adaptation stars Joel Edgerton, Felicity Jones, William H. Macy, and Kerry Condon. Bentley will screen clips from the film and discuss the process of adapting Johnson’s work from page to screen.
Free, with registration; 7-8pm; NYPL, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, 476 5th Ave, Manhattan, and livestreamed
SALON | Patchwork Literary Salon
Curated and hosted by Nadine Santoro, Patchwork Literary Salon keeps spooky season going with a line-up of horror writing, featuring Elina Alter (It’s the End of the World, My Love,), Zefyr Lisowski (Uncanny Valley Girls), and Leila Taylor (Bitter Root).
Free, RSVP appreciated; 7pm; Sisters, 900 Fulton St., Brooklyn
SALON | Reading 101
Readers include Swati Sudarsan, Adrienne Raphel (Our Dark Academia), ARTS.BLACK founder Jessica Lynne; Aurora Huiza, and poet James Barickman (Helluva Season). Solex Yoghurt DJs, and the event is hosted by Alexis Nowicki and Maria Robins-Somerville.
Free; doors, 6.30pm; Nightclub 101, 101 Avenue A, Manhattan
Thursday, November 13
LAUNCH | George Packer: The Emergency
BPL Presents welcomes National Book Award-winning George Packer (The Unwinding) to discuss his gripping fable of imperial collapse, The Emergency, a visionary novel that goes to the nerve center of what it means to live in a time of fracture and upheaval. In conversation with The Atlantic’s Jennifer Senior
Free, registration required; 6.30pm; Brooklyn Heights Library, 286 Cadman Plaza West, Brooklyn
LAUNCH | Eshani Surya: Ravishing
Eshani Surya celebrates the launch of Ravishing—a brilliant and compelling debut, which shines a light on the dark enticements of the beauty industry and how it capitalizes on our desire to be someone we are not—in conversation with Roxane Gay (Bad Feminist).
$10, redeemable in-store; 7-8pm; Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed free
Friday, November 14
SALON | Scrappy Reading Series x Off Assignment
At a special edition of the Scrappy Reading Series, presented in collaboration with Off Assignment, six Off Assignment teachers, writers, and alums share how they interpret “scrappy,” and how they embody it in their creative work, personal lives, love lives, and every other kind of life they’re living.
Free, register to reserve a spot; 7pm; Compére Collective, 351 Van Brunt Street, Brooklyn
TALK | Jazmina Barrera and Megan McDowell in conversation with Tara Westover
Jazmina Barrera, author of The Queen of Swords, and Megan McDowell, translator of The Week of Colors by Elena Garro, come together for a conversation with Tara Westover (Educated).
Free; 7-8pm; Community Bookstore, 143 7th Avenue, Brooklyn
Saturday, November 15
POETRY | Donika Kelly: The Natural Order
Donika Kelly celebrates her latest collection of poetry, The Natural Order of Things—what does a life look like on the other side of survival, and can the one who survived come to recognize that she did? In conversation with Marie Howe (New and Selected Poems), Ama Codjoe (Bluest Nude), and Ladan Osman (The Kitchen-Dweller’s Testimony), moderated by Melissa Febos (The Dry Season).
$5, redeemable in store; 3-4.30pm; P&T Knitwear, 180 Orchard Street, Manhattan
OPEN-MIC | National Writers Union & The Ottendorfer Library Open Mic
Jointly hosted by the NYPL Ottendorfer Library and the National Writers Union, this open mic is held every third Saturday of the month. All writers are welcome to read for seven minutes. First come, first serve.
Free, registration preferred; 2-4pm; NYPL Ottendorfer Library, 2nd floor, 135 Second Avenue, Manhattan
Sunday, November 16
SALON | Sunday Stories
Hosted by Emily Neuberger (A Tender Thing) and Manuela Aronofsky, Sunday Salon returns to Gowanus with Alina Cohan, Jivin Misra, Andrea Luxenberg, Claire Greisling, and Kala Jerzy reading.
Free; 6-8 pm; Lunita Loft, 576 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn
SERIES | Readings at Parkside
Alexandra Auder (Don’t Call Me Home) reads from new work.
Free; 4pm; Parkside Lounge, 317 East Houston Street, Manhattan
This post was written by a human. Please check all details before attending.
I’m a Brooklyn-based journalist and author. My debut novel Amphibian is out now. My first book, No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run followed my childhood as the daughter of an international pot smuggler and federal fugitive. I’m here and here on Instagram.