131. Reading the City
June 8th to 14th
Welcome back to Reading the City, a weekly newsletter of bookish events in NYC.
This Monday both Dave Eggers and Amitav Ghosh launch new novels; on Tuesday, the National Book Foundation officially introduces its 5 Under 35 honorees; and on Thursday celebrate Pride at the Morgan Library.
On Friday, it’s the kick-off of the inaugural Black Bookstore Crawl culminating on Juneteenth; pick up a passport at any of the 10 participating Black-owned bookstores. And if you want to get out of town this weekend, head upstate for the Beacon LitfFest, which has some great talks lined up.
One last thing: our friends at the Writing Co-Lab are hosting their annual Summer Camp from July 11 to August 1. This three-week online program is designed to reinvigorate your writing practice and has an awesome faculty (Alejandro Varela, Lisa Ko, and Katie Yee, to name a just a few!), so if you’re looking to get some words on the page and build community it’s a great place to start. Read more here.
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, June 8
LAUNCH | Amitav Ghosh: Ghost-Eye
Amitav Ghosh, author of the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted Sea of Poppies, discusses his new novel Ghost-Eye—past and present collide in a novel about a girl who might just be a “case of the reincarnation type”—with Ravi Agrawal, editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy magazine.
$10; 7-8.15pm; The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, and livestreamed
LAUNCH | Thalia Book Club: Dave Eggers, Contrapposto
Dave Eggers, the award-winning, bestselling author of The Circle and The Eyes & the Impossible, launches Contrapposto, a sweeping novel about friendship, love, and the lifelong pursuit of art. Moderated by John Hodgman (Judge John Hodgman) and featuring a reading by Josh Hamilton (The Last Thing He Told Me).
From $19; 7pm; Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Manhattan
LAUNCH | Morgan Thomas: Mad Eden
Morgan Thomas (Manywhere) celebrates the launch of Mad Eden—a thrilling, form-bending novel about a trans healthcare worker whose carefully built life is suddenly imperiled—in conversation with Laura van den Berg (The Third Hotel).
$5, redeemable in-store; 7pm; McNally Jackson Seaport, 4 Fulton St, Manhattan
Tuesday, June 9
AWARDS | 2026 5 Under 35 Ceremony
Celebrate the 2026 5 Under 35 honorees Megan Kamalei Kakimoto (Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare), Anika Jade Levy (Flat Earth), Carrie R. Moore (Make Your Way Home), Maggie Su (Blob: A Love Story), and Stephanie Njeri Wambugu (Lonely Crowds), who will read from their exceptional debut works of fiction. The honorees will be introduced on stage by their selectors (previously honored by the National Book Foundation): Kali Fajardo-Anstine, Sigrid Nunez, Danielle Evans, Charles Yu, and Kaveh Akbar. Hosted by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Friday Black). This is a 21+ event with a cash bar.
$12; littlefield, 635 Sackett Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed free
SERIES | Must Love Memoir
This monthly reading series, hosted by Krystal Orwig and Hope Elizabeth Kidd, celebrates three years of sharing true stories, with June’s lineup of readers: Sari Botton (of Oldster Magazine), Jackie Domenus (No Offense: A Memoir in Essays); Francesa Fontana (The Family Snitch: A Daughter’s Memoir of Truth and Lies); Prachi Gupta (They Called Us Exceptional: And Other Lies That Raised Us); Nikkya Hargrove; and Nina Sharma (The Way You Make Me Feel: Love in Black and Brown).
Free; 7.30pm; Jake’s Dilemma, Oak Cellar Room, 430 Amsterdam Avenue, New York
LAUNCH | Andrew Sean Greer: Villa Coco
Andrew Sean Greer (Less) joins The New Yorker’s Alexandra Schwartz for the launch of his new novel, Villa Coco—a sun-soaked mystery and a bawdy Mediterranean ballad about becoming who we’ve always wanted to be. The evening will open with a special performance by Jason Robert Brown, offering a preview of Less: The Musical.
From $50, including the book; 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, Manhattan
LAUNCH | Carlos Barragán: The Yahoo Boys
The New York Times journalist Carlos Barragán launches his debut The Yahoo Boys: Love, Deception, and the Real Lives of Nigeria’s Romance Scammers—born out of Barragán's personal experience, and grounded in his extensive reporting in Lagos, The Yahoo Boys is the story of four young men struggling to get by in one of the world’s most unequal cities, and their victims on the other side of the globe—in conversation with staff writer for The New Yorker Gideon Lewis-Kraus.
Free; 7.30pm; Greenlight bookstore, 686 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
Wednesday, June 10
LAUNCH | Sara Nović: Mother Tongue
Sara Nović (True Biz) celebrates the launch of Mother Tongue—in this emotionally rich memoir, she retraces her path out of the hearing world and into the deaf community and seeks to understand what it means to raise children who are different from her—in conversation with Ruthie Ackerman (The Mother Code).
$10, redeemable in-store; 7-8pm; Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed free
TALK | Imaginative Firsts: On Writing Debut Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Wondering what it takes to write an immersive—and transgressive—speculative tale as a debut author? Join the Center for Fiction for a conversation with sci-fi and fantasy novelists Joseph Eckert (The Traveler), Thomas Elrod (The Franchise), and Isabel J. Kim (Sublimation). Throughout their discussion, the panelists will consider sci-fi and fantasy’s place in the literary world, dive into the genres’ ability to reinterpret familiar topics, and share their unique creative processes. Yume Kitasei (Saltcrop) will moderate the conversation.
$10; 7-8.15pm; The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, and livestreamed
Thursday, June 11
LAUNCH | Deb Olin Unferth: Earth 7
Deb Olin Unferth (Barn 8) celebrates the launch of Earth 7—an end-of-the-world love story, an epic full of pathos and humor, asking what can be saved of our planet—in conversation with Chloé Cooper Jones (Easy Beauty).
$10, redeemable in-store; 7-8pm; Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed free
ONE-OFF | Morgan After Hours: Pride
Celebrate Pride in the library with an evening honoring queer voices in art and literature. Enjoy live music by ChamberQUEER and DJ Dada Cozmic, artmaking, dancing, drinks, and art set against the Morgan’s iconic Gilded Age glamour. Discover books and manuscripts by LGBTQ+ creators in the Historic Library, dive into the avant-garde world of photographer Peter Hujar in the exhibition Hujar:Contact, and explore the art collection of poet John Ashbery in Friends Who Came to See Me: Drawings from John Ashbery’s Collection.
$30; 6-9pm; The Morgan Library & Museum, 225 Madison Avenue, Manhattan
Friday, June 12
POETRY | Queens World Film Festival and FTH Present Prideful Poetry
An intimate, high-energy evening centering LGBTQ+ voices through the power of poetry and spoken word, this curated event invites poets and community members to gather, connect, and share their work with an enthusiastic audience in the FTH gallery. Hosted by Avant Garbage, Prideful Poetry will feature Pelayo AF, Cerulean Chen Long, KayTheePoet (Kayla Dudley), Hoshiko Hsu, Stevie Latham, Joseph O. Legaspi, David Nazario, and Kir O’Hanlon. The lineup is curated by Queens World Film Festival Founding Executive Director Katha Cato. Refreshments and mingling will close out the evening.
$5; doors 6.30pm, 7pm performance; Flushing Town Hall Gallery, 137-35 Northern Blvd, Queens
Saturday, June 13
FESTIVAL | Schomburg Center Centennial Festival
This free, all-day gathering in the heart of Harlem brings together the Schomburg Center’s literary programming and its Black Comic Book Festival. Across five stages along 135th Street and inside the venue find author talks, panels, a cosplay showcase, marketplace, and a block party to close it all out. Featured authors include Sasha Bonét (The Waterbearers), Dimitry Elias Léger (Death of the Soccer God), Rob Franklin (Great Black Hope), ReShonda Tate (With Love from Harlem), and a film screening and talkback spotlighting Black Arts Movement–era author Toni Cade Bambara. The Moth returns with their popular Personal Storytelling workshop among others.
Free; 11am-7pm; 135th Street between Malcolm X and Adam Clayton Powell Boulevards, Manhattan
READING TOGETHER | Reading Rhythms Presents … Brooklyn’s Biggest Reading Party
Another mass community reading event from Reading Rhythms. Read a book of your choice, and enjoy the intervals of guided conversation and live music amongst hundreds of participants.
Free; 2-4pm; Abolitionist Place, 110 Willoughby St, Brooklyn
FAIR | The Rolling Library’s Free Queer Book Fair
I love that this exists and is in its sixth year. The Free Queer Book Fair from the Rolling Library has hundreds of free LGBTQIA+ books for all ages to give out, plus loads of fun activities from local groups, including arts and crafts like printmaking and storytime sessions for kids. You can also bring books to donate and/or donate to the Astoria Food Pantry while you’re there.
Free; 12-4 pm; Access Oasis Garden, 24-10 Hoyt Ave N, Astoria, Queens
Sunday, June 14
SERIES | Sunday Salon
To close out the season, with Sunday Salon turning 24, and Pride Month in full bloom, writers Michael Hawley, Maxim Matusevich (Six Trains of No Return), Giada Scodellaro (Ruins, Child), and Radhika Singh (Earthly Playing Field) deliver fiction that travels from immigrant dislocations to queer love stories to the quiet magic humming beneath everyday life. Chiche, the folk project of Jared Chichester, plays original music to finish the night.
Free; 5pm; Von Bar, 3 Bleecker St., Manhattan
SERIES | Second Sundays: June 2026
In addition to the usual open studios at Pioneer Works’ Second Sundays, its literary programming is on point: the House of SpeakEasy's Bookmobile makes a special visit; writer and queer iconoclast Wayne Koestenbaum discusses his novel My Lover, the Rabbi with critic and editor David Velasco (12.30-1.30pm); and poet and naturalist Diane Ackerman celebrating the reissue of her celebrated 1973 debut, The Planets: A Cosmic Pastoral (2.30-3.30pm).
Free, with RSVP; 12-6pm; Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street, Brooklyn
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.