Category Archives: Events

Come Meet Joshua Glenn!

I’ve long admired Joshua Glenn who wrote for the Ideas section of the Globe. His new book looks fantastic. He’s reading at the Harvard Advocate on Thursday. Details are below:
WHAT: Release party to celebrate The Idler’s Glossary by Joshua Glenn.

WHO: Joshua Glenn is a Boston-based author, editor, and former Globe columnist and blogger. Introduction by the philosopher Mark Kingwell; design and illustrations by the cartoonist Seth.

WHEN: Thursday October 23. 5 pm to 8 pm. OPEN TO THE PUBLIC.

WHERE: The offices of The Harvard Advocate, 21 South Street, in Harvard Square.

WHY: This little book is a great stocking-stuffer!

Back from LA

I managed to get rid of my pasty New England skin by spending a little time outdoors in LA. I It was a good trip overall. I didn’t get back until very late last night so I’m trying to get through all the many emails.

LA was more mellow than I expected. The only crazy thing I heard about was the Prince party. It was a party thrown by Simon & Schuster at Prince’s house. He performed for about 120 book people. Life changing, is what I heard from the lucky people who attended. Danielle from Powell’s had the most memorable quote of the conference: “I could count the buttons on Prince’s tunic.” I didn’t get to go, or so I thought. Turns out I was invited, I just didn’t get the invitation. No life changing experiences for me!

One of my other favorite quotes I overheard while talking with Kelly Link at the Small Beer Press booth. It was an author describing her book to Gavin saying, “I wrote it as fiction because I didn’t think anybody would believe me.” I couldn’t hear the rest unfortunately. Originally I thought that the Fall would be pretty weak, but after wandering the show floor for 3 days, I see that there are a lot of good books coming. Some of the highlights are Home by Marilynne Robinson from FSG, Anathem by Neal Stephenson from Harper Collins, The Crow Road by Iain Banks from MacAdam Cage, A Mercy by Toni Morrison from Knopf, Good-Bye by Yoshihiro Tatsumi from Drawn & Quarterly, and Alinea by Grant Achatz from Ten Speed Press.

I’ll have more once I’ve decompressed. There are so many ARCs on my desk right now. I must organize!

Here in Sunny LA

Heather, Carole and I arrived yesterday. We’re staying in Hollywood right near the Kodak Theater. I’ve never been to LA before. It’s sunny with wide boulevards. Last night Heather and I went to a cocktail party at this neat bar called The Woods. It’s full of wood paneling and antlers. We were there as part of the Emerging Leaders, an organization for younger booksellers. We met lots of great booksellers from around the country as well as a whole bunch from Skylight Books here in LA.

Today is the day of education here at the hotel. We’ll learn about finance, how to have great events (not that we need that help in my opinion), how to green the store, etc. And of course we hope to spend some time at the wonderful looking poll on the fifth floor!

Book Expo Invitation

Each year the booksellers and publishers gather in a city for Book Expo America, aka BEA. This year we’ll be meeting in LA starting on May 29th. One of the projects I’m involved with is the Emerging Leaders, which is for young or new booksellers who want to make a career out of bookselling. Jessica Stockton Bagnulo, the Written Nerd, is also involved and you can read more about what this is all about on her blog. We’re having a party this year, so if you work in a bookstore, post this somewhere if you think anyone might want to attend. Here are the details:

THE SECOND ANNUAL BEA EMERGING LEADERS PARTY!
Who: Young Booksellers
What: BEA Emerging Leaders Party
Where: The Woods – 1533 N. La Brea Hollywood CA – 323.876.6612 phone / website: http://www.vintagebargroup.com
When: Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 7:00pm – 9:00pm (open bar from 7:00pm – 8:00pm)
RSVP: Space is limited, must RSVP no later than Wednesday, May 21st at www.bookexpoamerica.com/EmergingLeadersRSVP

Enjoy cocktails and mix & mingle with authors for the young and hip:

– Scott McCloud, author of Zot!: The Complete Black and White Collection: 1987-1991 (HarperCollins, July)
– Cylin Busby , author of The Year We Disappeared: A Father – Daughter Memoir (Bloomsbury, August)
– Curtis Sittenfeld, author of American Wife (Random House, September)
– Diana Spechler, author of Who By Fire (HarperCollins, September)
– Tony O’Neill, author of Down and Out on Murder Mile (HarperCollins, October)
– Jonathan Evison, author of All About Lulu (Soft Skull, July)

TO RSVP TO THIS EVENT GO TO: www.bookexpoamerica.com/EmergingLeadersRSVP – YOU MUST RSVP BY MAY21st.

Among Other Things

Last night I had the good fortune to see Aiobheann Sweeney read at my store from her debut novel Among Other Things I’ve Taken Up Smoking. The room filled up with Sweeney’s many friends and family—she’s a native Cantabrigian as it turns out. I had written about this strong book some months ago and was looking forward to meeting the author. She was nervous as this was her first reading, but she did a terrific job reading the packed room the first chapter.

The question period began with many of the people in the room asking her about the title, feeling like it had nothing to do with how the book ends. The publisher came up with the title, she says, and as long as it didn’t have some thin girl on the cover smoking, she didn’t mind it. I personally like the title and didn’t see what the fuss was about. I had read Ron Hogan’s account of meeting her for lunch and had a few questions about the book, mainly about her novel being considered gay literature. It hadn’t struck me as a “gay” novel, more of a coming of age and it just so happens that Miranda likes girls. She appreciated this and says that it could be a sign that the times have changed, since none of the reviews so far had even mentioned the gay aspect of the novel. Speaking of reviews, she kindly mentioned how much she enjoyed litblogs more so than the “canned” book reviews (she even thanked me out loud).

All in all, it was a really nice reading ,full of exuberant people. I’m glad that my store got to be her first stop for a reading.