/ Lopez Ligon Butler / Book Tour

Forgive the indulgence here, but just wanted to drop a heads up to those in the NE U.S., as I’m about to hit the road for a week up in that area for a small troop of readings in support of Scorch Atlas, along with Robert Lopez, whose new novel Kamby Bolongo Mean River just came out from Dzanc (and is seriously a mindblower of new speaking and emotional wow), and Sam Ligon, whose wonderful Drift and Swerve came out earlier this year (and who we profiled here and reviewed here). It’s sure to be something like this…

party

9/12: Brooklyn, NY @ Barbes @ 6 PM
9/14: Portsmouth, NH @ River Run Books @ 7 PM
9/15: South Deerfield, MA @ Schoen Books @ 8 PM
9/16: Boston, MA @ Brookline Booksmith @ 7 PM
9/17: Providence, RI @ Myopic Books  @ 7 PM
9/18: Clinton, NJ @ Clinton Bookshop @ 630 PM
9/19: Baltimore, MD @ 510 Series @ 5 PM
9/20: Philly, PA @ The Dive Bar @ 8 PM

If you happen to be around, would be awesome to hang out.

Also stoked this weekend that I’ll get to crash in on the Brooklyn Book Fest, hoping to catch Nicholson Baker, Ben Marcus, and Tao Lin all reading together on Sunday at noon. Weirdly awesome.

In the meantime, hope you guys have a great weekend and week. See you soon.

Web Hype / 10 Comments
September 11th, 2009 / 1:00 pm

Reviews

I Went To Two Readings Last Week

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worst reader ever

In the past few days, I went to two readings here in Houston: the Gulf Coast Reading Series (last Friday) and the NANO Reading Series (this past Tuesday). Both readings were fun. I had a fun time. So thanks to both groups of people who make these readings happen. After the jump, some notes about both series, the authors who read, and the bookstores, if you’re interested.

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4 Comments
September 11th, 2009 / 12:37 pm

(my) Zak Smith interview at The Faster Times

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From the intro (click through for the full piece):

The book is as much about life in the ’00s—and the schizophrenic, often abusive relationship most Americans have with their elected officials as well as with their own sex lives—as it is about Smith’s own particular experience in and of the alt-porn sub-sub-culture. We Did Porn is an exuberant, fearless, and badly-needed rejoinder to the mawkish dewey-eyed bullshit that plagues the latter-day memoir. The art’s not half-bad either.

Author Spotlight / 5 Comments
September 11th, 2009 / 11:25 am
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Every September 11 McSweeney’s runs a transcript of remarks John Hodgman gave at a literary event shortly after September 11. His sentiments towards this difficult matter is very well handled, even inspiring. I enjoy reading it every year.

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British Library Sound Archives


Check out this unbelievable treasure trove of audio material available for free:

The ICA Talks package consists of 1,000 hours of recordings of events at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, in the Mall, London – made in the period 1981-1994.

Here are just a few of the talks I found that look especially interesting:

Michael Ondaatje (Discussion and readings of ‘Running in the Family’ and ‘Coming through Slaughter’)

Bohumil Hrabal and Julian Barnes, in conversation

Christine Brooke-Rose and A. S. Byatt, in conversation

Juan Goytisolo and Chris Rawlence, in conversation

Angela Carter discusses magical realism

William Gaddis and Malcolm Bradbury, in conversation

Dennis Cooper talks to artist Susan Miller about pornography, violence, lust, literature and politics on the occasion of the publication of his book ‘Frisk’

Jacques Derrida and Geoffrey Bennington, in conversation

Jean-Jacques Lecercle, Philosophy through the looking glass

Web Hype / 5 Comments
September 11th, 2009 / 5:19 am
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God, speaking of great criticism, the latest issue of The Quarterly Conversation devotes a good deal of its space (and an editorial response) to a JC Hallman essay on criticism. Enjoy.

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there’s this.

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“When she stepped off the elevator, my only hope for salvation was that Lorrie Moore had been drunk, or that there was something I didn’t know about her, like perhaps that she was deaf.”

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Alternate titles for this season’s two most anticipated releases

blakeTAO

*click on covers to purchase original, and much better versions

Blake and Tao are two very talented writers, both in their own right spearheading the world of indie publishing in two very different ways. Just poking a little fun guys, good job both of you. I’m excited to read your books.

Author News / 32 Comments
September 10th, 2009 / 5:15 pm
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As a follow-up to Michael Schaub’s riotous post about hitting the publishing motherload the other day, I though I’d share this guy’s project, which could possibly make him rich, but will likely just result in a wasted year of life. It also ties to Sam Pink’s last post, because the writer ‘relates’ to Julie Powell. Nice.

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