4 Talks and Readings Not to Miss This Week

TUESDAY

The Narrow Door with Paul Lisicky, Fiona McCrae and Meghan Daum
Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe, 126 Crosby Street
Paul Lisicky was 23 when he met the writer Denise Gess in the early 1980s. Even as their paths diverged, their friendship would become a center point his life rotated around until Denise’s death in 2009. This intimate and heartrending memoir of their relationship pays tribute to her life, while also exploring the powerful effects of friendship on our lives even in the face of extreme loss.

WEDNESDAY

Clara Parkes – Knitlandia
Feb. 17 at 7 p.m. at Strand, 828 Broadway
A knitting habit might not seem like the gateway to life on the road, but when Clara Parkes traded Silicon Valley for Maine, her obsession with yarn became the basis for a popular blog, multiple books, and many travels. Her most recent work, Knitlanda: A Knitter Sees the World, transports readers to 17 of her most memorable trips. Inner grandmas– and grandpas– unite around the metaphorical “fire” at Strand and bring your wool for a cozy evening of stories, tea and knitting. Rocking chairs not included.

THURSDAY

How Music Dies (or Lives): Field-Recording and the Battle for Democracy in the Arts
Feb. 18 at 7 p.m. at Bluestockings Bookstore, 
Sick of the sound of the auto-tuned, airbrushed artists at the Grammys? Ian Brennan, a Grammy-award winning producer himself (Tinariwen, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott), provides a manual for anyone who appreciates the imperfections and authenticity of field recordings. In this fourth book, he argues that the corporatization of music has a hand in cultural devastation around the world and explores ways to democratize voices from different cultures in popular music.

Lawrence Hill presents The Illegal
Feb. 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Greenlight Bookstore, 686 Fulton Street
In The Illegal Lawrence Hill takes the refugee narrative– so often in the headlines– as his subject and boils it down to an intimate story of one man on the run. All Keita, trying to escape his repressive government, makes his way in “Freedom State,” a fictional country that feels unnervingly familiar. Trying to evade “Freedom State’s” crackdown on undocumented people, Keita is constantly torn between his drive to excel and his need to hide on the fringes of society. Hill will discuss his work with Patrik Henry Bass, editor at ESSENCE Magazine.