BookCourt » Events http://www.bookcourt.org Wed, 10 Mar 2010 20:45:15 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.1 en hourly 1 EVENTS http://www.bookcourt.org/events/ http://www.bookcourt.org/events/#comments Tue, 14 Apr 2009 15:37:07 +0000 admin http://www.bookcourt.org/?p=2443

  • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 10   – 7PM

Join us for a discussion!

BOOK CLUB MEETING – THE BELIEVERS by ZOE HELLER
The Believers by Zoe Heller: Book Cover
$14.99 – 20%

Synopsis:

When radical New York lawyer Joel Litvinoff is felled by a stroke, his wife, Audrey, uncovers a secret that forces her to reexamine everything she thought she knew about their forty-year marriage. Joel’s children will soon have to come to terms with this discovery themselves, but for the meantime, they are struggling with their own dilemmas and doubts.

Rosa, a disillusioned revolutionary, has found herself drawn into the world of Orthodox Judaism and is now being pressed to make a commitment to that religion. Karla, a devoted social worker hoping to adopt a child with her husband, is falling in love with the owner of a newspaper stand outside her office. Ne’er-do-well Lenny is living at home, approaching another relapse into heroin addiction.

In the course of battling their own demons—and one another—the Litvinoff clan is called upon to examine long-held articles of faith that have formed the basis of their lives together and their identities as individuals. In the end, all the family members will have to answer their own questions and decide what—if anything—they still believe in.

Hailed by the Sunday Times (London) as “one of the outstanding novels of the year,” The Believers explores big ideas with a light touch, delivering a tragic, comic family story as unsparing as it is filled with compassion.



  • THURSDAY, MARCH 11   – 7PM

THE BROOKLYN WRITERS SPACE READING SERIES
THIS MONTH’S READING FEATURES:
MARIAN FONTANA
NINA HERZOG
SARAH LANGAN
STACY MORRISON

  • FRIDAY, MARCH 12 – 7PM

SAM LIPSYTE – THE ASK

The Ask by Sam Lipsyte: Book Cover

Milo Burke, a development officer at a third-tier university, has “not been developing”: after a run-in with a well-connected undergrad, he finds himself among the burgeoning class of the newly unemployed. Grasping after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is offered one last chance by his former employer: he must reel in a potential donor—a major “ask”—who, mysteriously, has requested Milo’s involvement. But it turns out that the ask is Milo’s sinister college classmate Purdy Stuart. And the “give” won’t come cheap. Probing many themes— or, perhaps, anxieties—including work, war, sex, class, child rearing, romantic comedies, Benjamin Franklin, cooking shows on death row, and the eroticization of chicken wire, The Ask is a burst of genius by a young American master who has already demonstrated that the truly provocative and important fictions are often the funniest ones.

  • SUNDAY, MARCH 14 – 11AM

WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH ILLUSTRATOR PANEL

  • MONDAY, MARCH 15   – 7PM

MARCEL DZAMA
Cover Image

  • TUESDAY, MARCH 16 – 7PM

ZOE FISHMAN – BALANCING ACTS

Balancing Acts: A Novel

Fishman strikes the right balance in her warm-fuzzy debut of rekindled friendship and self-empowerment. When four women who’d gone to college together run into each other at an alumni mixer, an instant bond is formed as Charlie convinces Bess, Naomi, and Sabine to join a beginner yoga class for just the four of them at her Brooklyn yoga studio. During the six weeks of class, the foursome proves to be easy to relate to as each discovers the strength to overcome some obstacle in their life. Bess has hard news aspirations, but is stuck peddling celebrity news at a gossip rag. Single mom Naomi has shuttered her photography career for better-paying Web design work. Sabine has worked at the same publishing house since graduation, shelving her desire to be an author. And though Charlie has taken the leap from her Wall Street career to business owner and yoga instructor, she’s weighed down by the hurt left by an ex-boyfriend. It’s perfectly adequate if not especially distinguished from the trove of other books of female friendship, bonding, and weathering the vicissitudes of life with a little help from a hobby.

  • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 17   – 7PM

LAURIE ABRAHAM – THE HUSBANDS AND WIVES CLUB: A Year in the Life of  a Couples Therapy Group
The Husbands and Wives Club: A Year in the Life of a Couples Therapy Group

For more than a year, journalist Laurie Abraham sat in with five troubled couples as they underwent the searing process of group marriage therapy. Published as The New York Times Magazine’s cover story “Can This Marriage Be Saved?” the resulting article generated intense reader response and received the Award for Excellence in Journalism from the American Psychoanalytic Association. Though the article allowed Abraham to focus on only one couple, this book, which grew out of it and the reaction it inspired, tells the moving, fascinating story of all five.

The couples: Can Leigh and Aaron find the intimacy their marriage lacks; will Bella and Joe resolve the imbalance of power that threatens to topple their marriage; are Sue Ellen and Mark as ideal as they seem; what happened to Rachael that Michael cannot acknowledge; and do Marie and Clem, with the help of therapist Judith Coch – , come back from the brink of divorce?

With the dexterity of a novelist, Abraham recounts the travails, triumphs, and reversals that beset the five couples. They work with their therapist—and each other—to find out whether they can rediscover the satisfaction in marriage that they once had. At times wrenching, at times inspiring, the sessions bring out the long-hidden resentments, misunderstandings, unmet desires, and unspoken needs that bedevil any imperiled couple. At the same time, these encounters provide road maps to reconciliation and revival that can be used by anyone in a relationship. Along the way, the author draws on her explorations of literature and

Freudian theory, modern science, and today’s cutting-edge research to decode the patterns and habits that suggest whether a troubled marriage will survive or die. Both an important look at the state of marital dysfunction and a reaffirmation of the enduring bonds of love, The Husbands and Wives Club is an extraordinary year in the life of the American marriage.

  • THURSDAY, MARCH 18   – 7PM

RANDY SUSAN MEYERS – THE MURDERER’S DAUGHTERS

The Murderer's Daughters by Randy Susan Meyers: Book Cover
A beautifully written, compulsively readable debut that deals with the aftermath of a shocking act of violence that leaves two young sisters with nothing but each other—in the tradition of White Oleander, this haunting novel is a testament to the power of family and the ties that bind us together, even as they threaten to tear us apart

Mama was “no macaroni-necklace-wearing kind of mother.” She was a lipstick and perfume-wearing mother, a flirt whose estranged husband still hungered for her. After Mama threw him out, she warned the girls to never let Daddy in the house, an admonition that tears at ten-year-old Lulu whenever she thinks about the day she opened the door for her drunken father, and watched as he killed her mother, stabbed her five-year-old sister Merry and tried to take his own life.

Effectively orphaned by their mother’s death and father’s imprisonment, Lulu and Merry, unwanted by family members and abandoned to a terrifying group home, spend their young lives carrying more than just the visible scars from the tragedy. Even as their plan to be taken in by a well-to-do foster family succeeds, they come to learn they’ll never really belong anywhere or to anyone—that all they have to hold onto is each other.

As they grow into women, Lulu holds fast to her anger, denies her father’s existence and forces Merry into a web of lies about his death that eventually ensnares her own husband and daughters. Merry, certain their safety rests on placating her needy father, dutifully visits him, seeking his approval and love at the expense of her own relationships. As they strive to carve lives of their own, thespecter of their father, unrepentant and manipulative even from behind bars, haunts them. And when they learn he’s about to be paroled, the house of cards they’ve built their lives on teeters on the brink of collapse.

  • FRIDAY, MARCH 19   – 7PM

ELIF BATUMAN – THE POSESSED: Adventures with Russian Books and the People who Read Them
The Possessed by Elif Batuman: Book Cover
Sponsored by N+1
No one who read Elif Batuman’s first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. “Babel in California” told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel’s last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel’s secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature.

Batuman’s subsequent pieces—for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and the London Review of Books— have made her one of the most sought-after and admired writers of her generation, and its best traveling companion. In The Possessed we watch her investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy’s ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin’s wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has one hundred different words for crying; and see an eighteenth-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva.

Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their place in The Possessed. Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details oflived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence—including her own.


  • TUESDAY, MARCH 23 – 7PM

MATTHEW AARON GOODMAN – HOLD LOVE STRONG

Cover Image

In this poignant tale of self-discovery, a young man struggles to survive the New York City housing projects in the face of familial, communal, and personal devastation.

Born to a thirteen-year-old in the bathroom of his family’s small apartment, Abraham Sing leton enters a world laden with the obstacles inherent in an impoverished community. In spite of the crack epidemic and the HIV crisis that ravage their neighborhood, the Singleton family — cousins, an uncle, an aunt, Abraham, and his mother — is held together by Abraham’s heroic grandmother, whose deep faith and stoic nature have always given them a sense of wholeness and hope. But when the family goes through several harrowing losses, not even his grandmother may be strong enough to lead them through.

At the center of this story is Abraham, the youngest of the Singletons. Deeply intuitive and cerebral, he is determined to thrive in a place that has destroyed the dreams of those around him. College means opportunity, yet it also means leaving behind those he loves. Abraham’s journey into adulthood will break his heart but ultimately offer the possibility of redemption.

In this haunting, lyrical, and evocative novel, Matthew Goodman composes a paean to the power of family and belonging in the African-American community. Hold Love Strong is a spellbinding coming-of-age tale about love, hope, and the will to survive, and a stunning universal story about the incredible capacity of the human spirit.

  • WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24 – 7PM

GOTHAM WRITERS’ WORKSHOP


  • THURSDAY, MARCH 25 – 7PM

ALISON LOWENSTEIN – CITY KID NEW YORK: The Ultimate Guide for NYC Parents with Kids Ahes 4-12

City Kid New York by Alison Lowenstein: Book Cover
Gift Certificate Raffles!
Win two tickets to an upcoming performance at LITERALLY ALIVE
Win admission to the INTREPID for a family of four
Cake and Wine served!!!
he ultimate guide for New York City moms, with the best kid activities, savvy advice, and family-friendly resources. City Baby has been the essential go-to guide for New York City parents from pregnancy to preschool for more than ten years. City Kid follows suit with indispensable advice and resources for raising a tot, ages 4 through 12, in the Big Apple. Alison Lowenstein, a native New Yorker, author, and mom fills us in on all of the best resources for urban parents. City Kid New York covers diverse and essential kid topics such as after-school activities; fun family dining and entertainment options throughout the five boroughs; local weekend excursions for families; tips on throwing birthday parties for all ages; and where to get the best toys, clothes, books, and more in the shopping capital of the world. From fishing through the Go Fish program in Battery Park to performing stand-up at Gotham Comedy Club, the city is not just for adults anymore. Also included are community service projects for kids, DIY tips for setting up kid bedrooms in those tiny New York apartments, and kid-centric tours of museums, sports arenas, and gardens. City Kid New York breaks down all the city has to offer by subject, and features a City Kid Yellow Pages of excellent web resources and helpful organizations to prepare your child for all the big city has to offer.

  • SUNDAY, MARCH 28 – 11AM

OLIVER JEFFERS – THE HEART AND THE BOTTLE

The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers: Book Cover

There is a wonder and magic to childhood. We don’t realize it at the time, of course . . . yet the adults in our lives do. They encourage us to see things in the stars, to find joy in colors and laughter as we play.

But what happens when that special someone who encourages such wonder and magic is no longer around? We can hide, we can place our heart in a bottle and grow up . . . or we can find another special someone who understands the magic. And we can encourage them to see things in the stars, find joy among colors and laughter as they play.

Oliver Jeffers delivers a remarkable book, a tale of poignancy and resonance reminiscent of The Giving Tree that will speak to the hearts of children and parents alike.


  • THURSDAY, APRIL 1 – 7PM

SHEILA KOHLER & PHILIP LOPATE

BECOMING JANE EYRE

AT THE END OF THE DAY: Selected Poems and an Introductory Essay


Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler: Book CoverAt the End of the Day

  • TUESDAY, APRIL 6 – 7PM

DAVE TOMPKINS – HOW TO WRECK A NICE BEACH: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop

This is the story of how a military device became the robot voice of hip-hop and pop music. Though the vocoder, invented by Bell Labs in 1928, was designed to guard phones from eavesdroppers, it expanded beyond its original purpose and has since become widely used as a voice-altering tool for musicians. It has served both the Pentagon and the roller rink, a double agent of pop and espionage.

In How to Wreck a Nice Beach—from a mis-hearing of the vocoder-rendered phrase “how to recognize speech”—music journalist Dave Tompkins traces the history of electronic voices from Nazi research labs to Stalin’s gulags, from the 1939 World’s Fair to Hiroshima, from Manhattan nightclubs to the Muppets.

The result is an amazing chronicle of postwar music and culture, filled with unexpected and surprising encounters. We see the vocoder brush up against FDR, Solzhenitsyn, Stanley Kubrick, Stevie Wonder, JFK, Eisenhower, Neil Young, Kanye West, the Cylons, Walt Disney, Henry Kissinger, and Winston Churchill, who boomed, when vocoderized on V-E Day, “We must go off!” And now the device is a cell phone standard, allowing your voice to sound human.

From T-Mobile to T-Pain, How to Wreck a Nice Beach is a riveting saga of technology and culture, illuminating the work of some of music’s most provocative innovators.

  • THURSDAY, APRIL 8 – 7PM

THE BROOKLYN WRITERS SPACE READING SERIES

  • SUNDAY, APRIL 11 – 11AM

WOW! NEW YORK CITY

Wow! New York City by Puck: Book Cover

  • THURSDAY, APRIL 15 – 7PM

JOSHUA COHEN – WITZ

Witz by Joshua Cohen: Book Cover

One of the great comic epics of our time: the Last Jewish Novel about the Last Jew in the World.

  • TUESDAY, APRIL 20 – 7PM

SAM STEPHENSON – THE JAZZ LOFT PROJECT

The Jazz Loft Project by Sam Stephenson: Book Cover

In 1957, Eugene Smith, a thirty-eight-year-old magazine photographer, walked out of his comfortable settled world—his longtime well-paying job at Life and the home he shared with his wife and four children in Croton-on-Hudson, New York—to move into a dilapidated, five-story loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue (between Twenty-eighth and Twenty-ninth streets) in New York City’s wholesale flower district. Smith was trying to complete the most ambitious project of his life, a massive photo-essay on the city of Pittsburgh.

821 Sixth Avenue was a late-night haunt of musicians, including some of the biggest names in jazz—Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk among them—and countless fascinating, underground characters. As his ambitions broke down for his quixotic Pittsburgh opus, Smith found solace in the chaotic, somnambulistic world of the loft and its artists. He turned his documentary impulses away from Pittsburgh and toward his offbeat new surroundings.

From 1957 to 1965, Smith exposed 1,447 rolls of film at his loft, making roughly 40,000 pictures, the largest body of work in his career, photographing the nocturnal jazz scene as well as life on the streets of the flower district, as seen from his fourth-floor window. He wired the building like a surreptitious recording studio and made 1,740 reels (4,000 hours) of stereo and mono audiotapes, capturing more than 300 musicians, among them Roy Haynes, Sonny Rollins, Bill Evans, Roland Kirk, Alice Coltrane, Don Cherry, and Paul Bley. He recorded, as well, legends such as pianists Eddie Costa, and Sonny Clark, drummers Ronnie Free and Edgar Bateman,saxophonist Lin Halliday, bassist Henry Grimes, and multi-instrumentalist Eddie Listengart.

Also dropping in on the nighttime scene were the likes of Doris Duke, Norman Mailer, Diane Arbus, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Salvador Dalí, as well as pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts, thieves, photography students, local cops, building inspectors, marijuana dealers, and others.

Sam Stephenson discovered Smith’s jazz loft photographs and tapes eleven years ago and has spent the last seven years cataloging, archiving, selecting, and editing Smith’s materials for this book, as well as writing its introduction and the text interwoven throughout.

  • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 16 – 7PM

ANN BEATTIE – WALKS WITH MEN

  • WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23 – 7PM

BRET EASTON ELLIS – IMPERIAL BEDROOMS

Imperial Bedrooms by Bret Easton Ellis: Book Cover



]]> http://www.bookcourt.org/events/feed/ 0