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Get Your Summer Reading (or Flirting) On With These 9 Book Talks

No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America

(Image credit: Amazon)

Thursday, August 2 at the Brooklyn Historical Society, 6:30-8:00 p.m.

Darnell Moore, writer and leader in the Movement for Black Lives, brings what’s sure to be a riveting discussion of his new memoir No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black and Free in America to the Brooklyn Historical Society. The description for his book on his website recounts how three neighborhood boys in Camden, New Jersey tried to set him on fire when he was only 14. In the three decades since that encounter, Moore has gone on to seek solace in the gay community of Philadelphia, justice on the front lines in Ferguson, Missouri, and life in his current home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn. In this book, he seeks to understand how that 14-year-old boy not only survived, but became the individual that he is today. Tickets to this event cost $5.

Books Beneath the Bridge: Greenlight Poetry Salon

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Cool Off And Get Cultured At These Seven June Book Talks

(credit: Amazon)

Michael Eric Dyson + Shaun King + Harry Belafonte
Monday, June 4 at The New School, 7 pm to 8 pm.

Michael Eric Dyson joins The New School and The Strand to unveil his book What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America. The book follows his New York Times bestseller Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America. Acclaimed singer and advocate Harry Belafonte, along with activist and The Intercept columnist Shaun King, join Dr. Dyson in conversation about his important and timely book. More →

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Book Jackets: Stephanie Marano Combines High Fashion With Works of Literature

Image via God Save the Misanthropes

Tavi Gevinson caused quite a stir among Donna Tartt fans last week when she posted an Instagram photo of a custom-made jacket inspired by Tartt’s 1992 novel The Secret History. Designed and sewn by Stephanie Marano, a Brooklynite and fellow book lover whom Gevinson, the Rookie founder and influencer par excellence, happened to meet on a subway platform, the jacket is equal parts awe-inspiring and allusive. The response on Instagram was enormous, and now Marano’s exclusive “book jackets” have become the must-have piece for any bibliophile worth their salt.
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Brandon Harris Talks Gentrification, Race, and the Perennial Struggle of Making It in NYC

In his first book, Making Rent in Bed-Stuy (HarperCollins, 2017), New York-based writer and filmmaker Brandon Harris uses his memoir of “trying to make it in New York City” as the starting point for a complex, multi-layered discussion of race, class, and gentrification.

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In Williamsburg, a New Zine Destination Snuggles Up With a Comics Store

(Flyer via Quimby's /Facebook)

(Flyer via Quimby’s /Facebook)

When Quimby’s opened up a few weeks back just off the Metropolitan stop, Williamsburg gained another hip little bookstore in an area where it sometimes feels like culture is on the way out. Thankfully, Quimby’s is the real deal, even if it’s a revival of a Chicago institution first opened by Steven Svymbersky in the ’90s.

But wait a minute, isn’t there already a specialty book store on the block? Yeah, there most definitely is: Desert Island, probably the best comic bookstore in the city, and maybe one of the most glorious shops dedicated solely to graphic novels and arty comics.

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Reductress Has Literally Written the Book on Feminism, But They’d Still Like To ‘Do More’

REDUCTRESScover_HowToWinAtFeminism

(image courtesy of HarperOne)

For being a somewhat niche concept of a satirical women’s magazine, Reductress really runs the gamut when it comes to content. There’s been their acclaimed and biting homepage dedicated to sexual assault (headlines include: Man Who Sexually Assaulted You Likes Your Facebook Post About Sexual Assault and ‘Most Woman Lie About Rape,’ Says Man Lying About Rape), sadly relatable posts like Woman Thanks Boyfriend For Putting Up With Her Totally Reasonable Behavior, heavy hitters such as Six Thanksgiving Pies that Won’t Fix What Happened In Ferguson, and more absurd moments, like 10 Beautiful Red Carpets You Can’t See Because Blake Lively Is In The Way.

But for their new book How To Win At Feminism: The Definitive Guide To Having It All— And Then Some!, they’ve focused on the topic that seems to be in everyone’s mouths lately: feminism, and how to get it “right.” Throughout six sections and 200 pages, punctuated by Plinky the Fairy Witch (a vibrator-wielding second-wave feminist who speaks in whimsical rhyme and turns out to be “an actual Feminazi”), Oprah, Lena Dunham, Beyoncé, and “Ruth Bader Ginsburg After She’s Had Her Wine,” among others, How To Win At Feminism is an exhaustive and silly exploration into the follies of feminism and the many, many ways to joke about it. And after last night’s news, jokes can help to ease the pain. God only knows how long we’ll have to poke fun at the state of women in this country before the absurd becomes reality. More →

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Bernie’s Revolution Is Great and All, But Ralph Nader Thinks It’s Time to Start a Youth Party

(Photo: Nicole Disser)

Coincidence? Unclear… (Photo: Nicole Disser)

Let’s be real about this right up front– if we’re talking actual votes, Ralph Nader hasn’t exactly seen a lot of success as a presidential candidate. We’re taught that, as a third-party candidate who has run with the New Party, no party, and Green Party, Nader’s campaigns have been doomed from the start, just like those of every other non-binary (i.e. neither Democrat nor Republican) political player seeking the highest office (or really any office of consequence) in the land.

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Death By Audio’s Residents Dish on the DIY Venue’s Final Freaky Streak

"We've Come So Far" a new book of photos by Ebru Yildiz documenting the last days of Death By Audio is out now, available at Rough Trade

“We’ve Come So Far” a new book of photos by Ebru Yildiz documenting the last days of Death By Audio is out now, available at Rough Trade

To celebrate the arrival of Ebru Yildiz’s new book, a hefty collection of black-and-white photos from the final 70 or so days of Death By Audio, the photographer and nearly everyone from the bygone Williamsburg DIY venue’s inner circle descended on Rough Trade on Thursday night for a panel discussion. But really, it was more like a bunch of friends telling great stories from the venue that reigned for seven years, and was known for its wide array of amazing shows with lineups that weren’t so much about making money (uh, tickets were around $7 and a friend who played there several times told me that DBA was known for taking care of its touring bands).

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Tim Murphy, Author of Christadora, On the East Village Then and Now

Tim Murphy (Photo: Courtesy of Edwin Pabon)

Tim Murphy (Photo: Courtesy of Edwin Pabon)

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the East Village in the 90s? Junkies passed out on Avenue A while runaway kids hung out in squats on St. Marks? CBGB and other classic punk bars still going hard, only to be priced out of their leases less than a decade later? Punk heads and artists sharing studios in derelict tenements? For Tim Murphy, the New York-based journalist and author of the new novel Christodora, it was all of these things, but above all it was the home for a community of diverse people from different backgrounds, sexual orientations, and experiences who were searching for a place that would accept them just as they are.

As a young man who arrived to the city in 1991, the East Village represented a haven for an alternative gay scene that was way less polished and more grungy than the one in Chelsea and the West Village. “Courtney Love was the patron saint of the gay East Village in the ’90s,” Murphy told us with a laugh.

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Four Readings: Alt-Comedy Collective to Tear Up the Strand + Actor Winos, Winot?

TUESDAY

(Photo: Courtesy of Hyperallergic)

(Photo: Courtesy of Hyperallergic)

Hyperallergic IRL 2
August 16, 7 pm at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe

The super stylish Hyperallergic, the online magazine for all your arts-and-culture-related thinkpiece needs, will come to life tonight at Housing Works for the second time as three Hyperallergic writers (Seph Rodney, Claire Voon, and Carey Dunne), as well as three editors (Elisa Wouk Almino, Jillian Steinhauer, and Hrag Vartanian) read from some of their pieces and bring your favorite self-proclaimed “Art Blogazine” to the masses.

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