literature

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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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Before the Puerto Rican Poets, There Was the Polish Violinist

This week, we present a series of longer pieces unraveling the histories of storied buildings.

(Photo: Shanna Ravindra for NY Mag)

(Photo: Shanna Ravindra for NY Mag)

The entrance to the Nuyorican Poets Café dissolves into a mural of faceless men standing in line, all dressed in white-hat-and-suit ensembles, hands stuffed into their pockets. The painting is based on a black and white photograph from the 1980s of spectators waiting outside the Café. To the right of the entrance is a detailed portrait of the Rev. Pedro Pietri, one of the Nuyorican’s founding poets. The murals replicate the artistry of what goes on inside the walls.

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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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Four Readings: Divine Microbial Power and Bad Women Mouthing Off

TUESDAY

(Photo: Courtesy of Barnes and Noble)

(Photo: Courtesy of Barnes and Noble)

James Andrew Miller in Conversation with Andrew Ross Sorkin and David O’Connor
August 9, 7 pm at Barnes and Noble-Union Square
With his new book Journalist James Andrew Miller, who also moonlights as a media consultant, delves into the world of the Creative Artists Agency, a secretive conglomerate which controls the vast majority of the entertainment industry, whether it be music, television, or films. In Powerhouse: The Untold Story of Hollywood’s Creative Artists Agency, Miller explores the origins of the CAA and its rapid rise to power.

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Watch the JT LeRoy Doc on a Roof and Try Not to Get Blown Away

As ’90s “it” author JT Leroy once put it in a book title, the heart is deceitful above all things. But not as deceitful as LeRoy himself ended up being. Embraced as a hard-living, gender-bending literary wunderkind by everyone from Bruce Benderson to Bono, the troubled teen author was famously outed as a fabrication of Laura Albert, a somewhat less troubled 40-year-old woman. A new documentary about this bizarro episode in literary history, Author: The JT LeRoy Story, recently premiered at BAMcinemaFest– if you missed it there, Rooftop Films is offering another chance to see it, Aug. 18, with Albert and filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig in attendance.

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Howl’Ya Honor Ginsberg? By Going to This Beat Poetry Fest

Police cadets reading "Howl" (Photo: Gordon Ball, courtesy of Howl!)

Police cadets reading “Howl” (Photo: Gordon Ball, courtesy of Howl!)

If Allen Ginsberg were still croaking around today, he would’ve just celebrated his 90th birthday. I can see it now– the old man and his expansive beard, its gnarls wafting gently at the rims of coke-bottle glasses. He’d invariably be rocking sandals (whatever to the people locking eye-to-fungi) while boy servants fan him with palm leaves, gently though, so he can still roll those double-sized fatty spliff-spliffs from pages ripped out of On the Road and intermittently flash people from underneath his dashiki. Inevitably, James Franco would be VJing a Howl ft. Grimes remix and everything, everything would be lost.

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Mellow Pages Is Closing the Book on its Bushwick Library

(Photo: Mellow Pages Library Facebook)

(Photo: Mellow Pages Library Facebook)

On Tuesday, Matt Nelson and Jacob Perkins, founders of Bushwick independent library and reading room Mellow Pages, announced on Facebook that their literary hangout, in its current form at least, will cease to exist at the end of the month. They’re making like many writers before them and saying later gator to New York City.

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The Brooklyn Book Fest Is Set to Be a Stunner

Kristin Henderson reads a story with her son Griffin at a previous Brooklyn Book Fest (Photo: Meghan White)

Kristin Henderson reads a story with her son Griffin at a previous Brooklyn Book Fest (Photo: Meghan White)

Great news! Brooklyn Book Fest has now updated its website to include a comprehensive event calendar for the imminent 2014 fest, which means we at B+B are able to supplement our recent rundown of upcoming literary shindigs. More →

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A Big Egg, Big Bees, and Even Bigger Data

All subjects you can contemplate at this week’s thrilling selection of readings and talks. 

Friday, September 5

We, The Outsiders Opening Reception
We, The Outsiders is an art exhibition that explores several perplexing questions: “Can it be said that art has a consciousness of its own? And if such a consciousness were independent of us, where would it place us in relation to itself?” I have no idea what that means, but I do know that the exhibition revolves around a gigantic egg—which probes, like the classic chicken-and-the-egg conundrum (I prosaically assume), where consciousness begins and ends when it comes to art. More →

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Partake in Literature and Libations at Lit Crawl Manhattan and Brooklyn Book Fest

Crawlers read their maps between phases of a previous Lit Crawl (Photo courtesy of Ky Huynh and Lit Crawl)

Crawlers read their maps between phases of a previous Lit Crawl (Photo courtesy of Ky Huynh and Lit Crawl)

If your dream evening revolves around a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon and a Pynchon novel—or your idea of getting ruckus involves regaling amigos with Ginsberg-ian incantations after a couple stiff drinks—these upcoming literary and libation-friendly events are sure to make your heart sing. Say hello to not one but two bookish extravaganzas: Lit Crawl Manhattan and the Brooklyn Book Festival.
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