Reading the City
April 28 to May 4
Welcome back to Reading the City, a weekly newsletter of bookish events in and around NYC.
The World PEN Voices Festival kicks off on April 30th with more than 100 writers from 35 countries, including Sigrid Nunez, André Aciman, Sheila Heti, and Jennifer Egan taking part in NYC events. There’s more than I can include here, so check it out!
One of my favorite books of all time is celebrating its 20th anniversary: Samantha Hunt’s The Seas, and she’ll be having a conversation about the cult classic aboard a tall ship in South Street Seaport, which sounds brilliant.
Also, scroll down to the Booking Ahead section for the first McNally Jackson Festival!
This newsletter is on hiatus for the next two weeks as I’m on vacation and will be delightfully offline while hiking the Lycian Way. If you miss having
land in your inbox on a Monday, perhaps now is a good time to upgrade to a paid membership! I’ll always keep this resource free, but paid subscribers help me put the time aside each week for which I’m enormously grateful. And I’ll be back later this month hopefully with a new look and some new features!Monday, April 28
Nettie Jones: Fish Tales
A mesmerizing spin through the high-rolling high times of 1970s New York and Detroit, Nettie Jones’s Fish Tales—first acquired by Toni Morrison, then an editor at Random House, and originally published in 1984—is a lost classic taking its rightful place in the spotlight. Nettie Jones will be joined in conversation with Angela Flournoy (The Wilderness), Namwali Serpell (The Old Drift), and Ayana Mathis (The Twelve Tribes of Hattie).
$5 redeemable in-store, RSVP required; 6.30pm; McNally Jackson Seaport, 4 Fulton St, Manhattan
Stuart Nadler: Rooms for Vanishing
Stuart Nadler (Wise Men) celebrates the launch of Rooms for Vanishing—a prismatic, mind-bending epic about the splintering of a Jewish family from Vienna, exploring the weight of exile and how grief twists our sense of the impossible—with Benjamin Anastas (Too Good to Be True).
$10, redeemable in-store; 7-8pm; Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed free
World Transexual Forum
This month’s World Transsexual Forum celebrates the launch of books from series hosts Anton Solomonik with Realistic Fiction and Jeanne Thornton with A/S/L. Open mic to follow.
Free; 7pm sign-up, 8pm readings; Franklin Park, 618 St Johns Place, Brooklyn
Anne Berest and Claire Berest: Gabriële
Anne Berest (The Postcard) and Claire Berest (Artifices) present Gabriële, their atmospheric, exuberant novel about love and sex, art and revolution, experimentation and creativity, and three young people who changed the world. In conversation with Katie Kitamura (Audition).
Free; 7-8pm; Community Bookstore, 143 7th Avenue, Brooklyn
Tuesday, April 29
Colum McCann: Twist
Colum McCann (Apeirogon) reads from his new novel Twist—a novel of rupture and repair in the digital age, delving into a hidden world deep under the ocean.
Free; 6-7.30pm; The Corner Bookstore, 1313 Madison Avenue, New York
The Odyssey translated by Daniel Mendelsohn
Author, critic, and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn launches his landmark new translation of Homer's most popular epic, in conversation with Fareed Zakaria.
Free; 6-8pm; Rizzoli Books, 1133 Broadway, Manhattan
Venki Ramakrishnan: Why We Die
Venki Ramakrishnan, Nobel Prize-winning biologist and author of Why We Die: The New Science of Aging and the Quest for Immortality, is joined by Pioneer Works’ Director of Sciences Janna Levin to delve into the biological mechanisms that initiate the process of dying and the ethical and societal questions surrounding the pursuit of immortality. There will also be stargazing in the garden with the Amateur Astronomers Association and food to purchase from Eat Offbeat, a culinary project featuring refugees resettled in New York. Other guest specialists will be roving, available to engage and perhaps offer guidance: death doula Gabrielle Gatto of The Green-Wood Cemetery; death doula Morgan Hagney; and scent scientist and olfactory observer Claudia Bognanni.
Free, with RSVP; doors 7pm; Pioneer Works, 159 Pioneer Street, Brooklyn
Pop-Up Book Group with Novelist Elinor Lipman
Hosted in private homes in NYC , Pop-Up Book Groups from Book the Writer invite authors for a conversation around their latest work. Capped at 20 participants, these are usually sold out, but I noticed there are still a few tickets left for Elinor Lipman discussing Every Tom, Dick & Harry.
$44.52; 7.30-9pm; address released to ticket holders
Wednesday, April 30
Greg Grandin: America, América
BPL Presents welcomes the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian Greg Grandin (The End of the Myth) to discuss America, América: A New History of the New World—the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, this sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America redefines our understanding of both—in conversation with Francisco Goldman (Monkey Boy).
Free, with registration; 7-8.30pm; Central Library 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn
Sophie Gilbert with Amanda Hess, Zoe Haylock and Anna Marie Tendler: Girl on Girl
Pulitzer Prize finalist and Atlantic critic Sophie Gilbert joins New York Times cultural critic Amanda Hess, Vulture’s Zoe Haylock, and bestselling author Anna Marie Tendler to celebrate the launch of Gilbert’s groundbreaking new book, Girl on Girl: How Pop Culture Turned a Generation of Women Against Themselves—a searing examination of feminism at the dawn of the 21st century.
From $50; 7.30pm; 92nd Street Y, 1395 Lexington Ave, Manhattan
Thursday, May 1
Writing Our City: Chinese American Memoirs of New York
Mark the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month with a discussion with Alvin Eng (Our Laundry Our Town: My Chinese American Life from Flushing to the Downtown Stage and Beyond) and Qian Julie Wang (Beautiful Country: A Memoir of an Undocumented Childhood) on growing up Chinese American in NYC.
Free; 6.30-8pm; Lofty Pigeon Books, 743 Church Avenue Brooklyn
The Seas 20th Anniversary Celebration
McNally Jackson, Belletrist, and the South Street Seaport Museum host an evening of maritime-inspired festivities aboard the tall ship Wavertree, to raise a glass to two decades of Samantha Hunt's cult classic The Seas. In a conversation moderated by Belletrist's Karah Preiss, Samantha Hunt and Alexandra Auder will discuss the novel's core love story and flexible definition of reality, but also: mermaids, girlhood, identity, and slimy things.
From $5; 6:30pm; The 1885 Tall Ship Wavertree
Ashley Whitaker: Bitter Texas Honey
Ashley Whitaker presents Bitter Texas Honey—The Royal Tenenbaums meets Fleabag in this hilarious and dizzyingly smart debut about an over-the-top evangelical Texan family, and the daughter at its center racing to finish her very important novel before her ex-boyfriend finishes his—in conversation with Kristen Roupenian (Cat Person).
Free; 7.30pm; Greenlight bookstore, 686 Fulton Street, Brooklyn
Matthew Specktor: The Golden Hour
Matthew Specktor (American Dream Machine) presents The Golden Hour: A Story of Family and Power in Hollywood—a personal and cultural exploration of the struggles between art and business at the heart of modern Hollywood, through the eyes of the talent that shaped it—in conversation with (Searching for John Hughes).
From $5, redeemable in-store; 7-9pm; Powerhouse Arena, 28 Adams Street, Brooklyn
Rally Reading Series
Join the Rally Reading Series for an evening of art and activism with Sally Wen Mao (Ninetails), Chris Karnadi, and , hosted by Ryan D. Matthews.
Free; 7-8.30pm; Pete's Candy Store, 709 Lorimer St, Brooklyn
Sanibel: To Have and Have More
Sanibel presents her debut novel To Have and Have More—told through the eyes of a Korean girl adopted into a wealthy white family, this darkly funny debut explores casual racism, privilege, and the complexities of friendship—in conversation with The New York Times’ Eric Kim.
Free, with RSVP; 7-8pm; Yu and Me Books, 44 Mulberry Street, Manhattan
Friday, May 2
The Cleaving: Celebrating and Honoring the Vietnamese Diaspora
Fifty years since the Fall of Saigon and the end of the Vietnam War, a panel of authors—Viet Thanh Nguyen, Cathy Linh Che, Lan Duong, Isabelle Thuy Pelaud, and Monique Truong—will discuss two new books about the legacies of displacement and creativity that have profoundly shaped Vietnamese communities worldwide: The Cleaving by Pelaud, Duong, and Nguyen, featuring 37 Vietnamese writers on their complex ties to their homeland; and To Save and To Destroy: Writing As An Other, a deeply personal and analytical meditation by Nguyen on the role of literature in shaping solidarity and addressing historical wounds.
Free; 6.30-8pm; Rizzoli Books, 1133 Broadway, Manhattan
First Novel Friday
This month, The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Friday celebrates and launches a selection of debut novels examining internal and external pressures from family and society around race, gender and sexuality, and the challenge to be true to oneself at any cost, with Jon Hickey (Big Chief), Doug Jones (The Fantasies of Future Things), and Denne Michele Norris (When the Harvest Comes), with De’Shawn Charles Winslow (Decent People) as moderator.
From $5; 6-8.15pm; The Center for Fiction, 15 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, and livestreamed
Sunday, May 4
Emely Rumble: Bibliotherapy in the Bronx
Emely Rumble, LCSW, is a distinguished licensed clinical social worker, school social worker, and seasoned biblio/psychotherapist with over 14 years of professional experience, launches her debut book Bibliotherapy in The Bronx—a groundbreaking exploration of the healing power of literature in the lives of marginalized communities—in conversation with Yari M. Mercedes EdD.
$5; 7pm; Cafe con Libros, 724 Prospect Pl, Brooklyn
Sunday in the Cemetery with Joanna Ebenstein
Morbid Anatomy Founder & Creative Director Joanna Ebenstein joins Sunday in the Cemetery with a reading from her most recent publication, Memento Mori: The Art of Contemplating Death to Live a Better Life. Also visit Morbid Anatomy’s Library Pop-Up Table that will be open from 12pm-5pm in the Modern Chapel Lobby.
Free, with RSVP; 12-1.30pm; The Green-Wood Cemetery, 500 25th Street Brooklyn
Booking Ahead
✨ May 6: Michele Filgate: What My Father and I Don't Talk About
celebrates the launch of the much-anticipated What My Father and I Don't Talk About: a follow-up to the brilliant What My Mother and I Don’t Talk About, this collection of essays from sixteen notable writers breaks the silence on the complex—and sometimes contentious—relationships we have with our fathers. With Jiordan Castle (Disappearing Act), Jaquira Díaz (Ordinary Girls), Isle McElroy (People Collide), and moderated by Hannah Bae.
$10, redeemable in-store; 7-8pm; Books Are Magic Montague, 122 Montague Street, Brooklyn, and livestreamed free
✨ May 6: Thalia Book Club: Isabel Allende, My Name Is Emilia del Valle
The Thalia Book Club welcomes Isabel Allende to discuss her latest historical novel, My Name Is Emilia del Valle—this riveting tale of self-discovery and love, set against the backdrop of a brewing civil war, follows a young writer’s journey to Chile to uncover the truth about her father—and herself. In conversation with Ana Navarro (The View), with a reading from the novel by Shirley Rumierk (Manifest).
$40, including book; 7pm; Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway, Manhattan
✨ May 8: Elastic magazine NYC launch
A psychedelic launch party in celebration of Elastic magazine's first print issue with cumbia, snacks, mead, readings, and screenings of rarely seen animations from the inside of Keiichi Tanaami’s freaky mind. Featuring contributors to “Elastic No. 1: The Dying Issue” Isle McElroy, Samantha Hunt, Henry Hoke, Gerardo Sámano Córdova, Sara Deniz Akant, and Sasha Fletcher.
Free, RSVP to secure a spot; 7.30-11.30pm; Honey's, 93 Scott Avenue Brooklyn
✨ May 7 to June 11: Preservation of Record: McNally Jackson Festival
The first McNally Jackson Festival brings together 40 thinkers across 5 weeks, around one topic: The archive. At the heart of these events are questions of power and subjectivity. Preservation is interdisciplinary, intersectional and endlessly complex. There’s 18 events; with conversations with Rich Benjamin & André Aciman on interweaving history and personal experience, Dr. Tao Leigh Goffe on the long history of the impact of climate change on New York’s shorelines, and Annie Rauwerda, Michael Mandiberg, and Stephen Harrison on “The Last Best Place on the Internet,” Wikipedia.
From $5; McNally Jackson Seaport, 4 Fulton St, Manhattan
NB. Please check all details before attending, the fact checker went awol.
I’m a Brooklyn-based journalist and author. My debut novel Amphibian is out now from Ig, as well as Virago in the UK, and forthcoming from dtv in Germany. My first book, No Way Home: A Memoir of Life on the Run (St. Martin’s Press, 2018) followed my childhood as the daughter of an international pot smuggler and federal fugitive. I’m here and here on Instagram. Get in touch with any bookish events you’d like me to include!