Monday, November 2, 7pm
Marie-Helene Bertino in conversation with Laura van den Berg
2 A.M. at The Cat’s Pajamas begins in a roach-infested apartment with three record players and no milk and travels through a pack of actors catching snowflakes on their tongues, beneath the crushed cigar ends of all the city’s bars, through the bedroom of the city’s meanest girl, over the memory of a withering marriage almost saved by salsa lessons, past a display of apples shining under a heat lamp, a beautiful, nervous father, a chintsy star, a dog, and beyond the sill of William Penn, to land on the faded floors of a jazz club where a phony Cuban band has begun its first set, its lead singer pumping and keening into the mic. In conversation with Laura van den Berg.
Thursday, November 5, 7pm
Book Launch: Sunlight on the River: Poems about Paintings, Paintings about Poems, by Scott Gutterman
Scott Gutterman delves deeply into the connections between the written and the visual in the rich, new compendium, Sunlight on the River: Poems about Paintings and Paintings about Poems. From a sonnet by Rossetti inspired by Boticelli to William Carlos Williams’s celebrated interpretations of Breughel, Gutterman’s art book demonstrates the ability of artists and poets to penetrate to the essence of their subjects.
Brooklyn By the Book presents
Neil Gaiman
author of The Sandman: Overture
in conversation with Junot Diaz
Monday, November 9, 7:30pm
at Congregation Beth Elohim
RSVP Here
New York Times best-selling writer Neil Gaiman returns to The Sandman with a prequel story to his trailblazing series in The Sandman: Overture Deluxe Edition, out on November 10. Rendered in artist JH Williams III’s lush panoramas, The Sandman: Overture takes readers from the birth of the galaxy to Morpheus’s capture, before the events of The Sandman #1, and sheds new light on Gaiman’s rich mythological canon.
In conversation with novelist and Pulitzer Prize winner Junot Diaz, celebrate the release of Gaiman’s magnum opus with the author. This program is free with RSVP. For the first time in years, Neil will be signing The Sandman after the event. He will only be signing The Sandman Overture Deluxe hardcovers available for sale at this event. Pre-signed books will also be available for purchase from Community Bookstore. RSVP here.
At Congregation Beth Elohim, 274 Garfield Place, Brooklyn NY 11215
Brooklyn By the Book presents
Orhan Pamuk
author of A Strangeness in My Mind
Wednesday, November 11, 7:30pm
Free with RSVP
From Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk comes A Strangeness in My Mind, a panoramic novel centered around a poor street vendor and his fantasies of a better life. Every night, Mevlut Karata wanders the streets of Istanbul, selling boza and dreaming of riches and fame. But fate is never in his favor, and, after mistakenly eloping with the wrong girl, Mevlut moves from job to job, raising a family and marveling at the transformations of the 20th century. Told through a variety of perspectives, A Strangeness in My Mind is a loving, hopeful tale from one of the world’s most distinguished storytellers. This program is free with RSVP.
At Brooklyn Public Library, Central Branch, Dweck Center, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Stacy Schiff
author of The Witches: Salem, 1692
in conversation with Jodi Kantor
Thursday, November 12, 7:30pm
Purchase tickets here
Pulitzer Prize-winner Stacy Schiff’s new history, The Witches: Salem, 1692, tells how it all began one frigid Massachusetts winter when a minister’s daughter began to shake and convulse. A year later, 19 accused lay dead in one of early America’s darkest periods. In a sweeping account of the men and women, politicians and children caught up in a web of superstitions, Schiff takes on the Salem Witch Trials with the same urgency and erudition that illuminated her previous works, Cleopatra: A Life and Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov). In conversation with Jodi Kantor. Tickets are $10 ($7 for BPL/CBE members) and can be used towards a discount on The Witches: Salem, 1692.
At Congregation Beth Elohim, 274 Garfield Place, Brooklyn NY 11215
Tuesday, November 17, 7pm
Susana Moreira Marques in conversation with Leslie Jamison
With her new book, Now and at the Hour of Our Death, Susana Moreira Marques blends poetry and journalism to create a work of reportage like no other. The region of Tras-os-Montes in Portugal is dying. The villages empty as young people go off to look for work, leaving the elderly behind. Part oral history, part philosophical entreaty, part essay, Marques’s hybrid book chronicles a way of life in its final days.
Mary Gaitskill
author of The Mare
Wednesday, November 18, 7:30pm
Free with RSVP
The Mare, the long-awaited new novel from the critics’ favorite Mary Gaitskill, is a raw, vital American story. Velveteen Vargas is an 11-year-old, Fresh Air Fund kid from Brooklyn, sent to upstate New York. What follows is the story of her ever evolving relationship with her host family–Ginger, a failed artist on the edge of alcoholism, and Paul, a jaded academic–and a stable of horses down the road. With the same energy that charged her books Don’t Cry and Veronica, Gaitskill’s novel is a powerful take on contemporary racial and socioeconomic issues, framed around the classic story of a girl and her horse. This program is free with RSVP.
At Brooklyn Public Library, Central Branch, Dweck Center, 10 Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn, NY 11215
Thursday, November 19, 7pm
Simon Critchley in conversation with Christian Lorentzen
The first novel from renowned philosopher Simon Critchley, Memory Theater is at once a precis on the history of ideas, an autofictional exploration of memory, and a comedy. When a French philosopher dies during a heat wave, his unfinished work lands on the desk of protagonist Simon Critchley. A major feature of the book is that it predicts the deaths of famous philosophers, Critchley among them. With his death foretold, Critchley sets off to construct an archive for his memories–a Memory Theater.
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Community Bookstore Book Club
Hosted by Stephanie Valdez (co-owner)
Wednesday, November 18, 7:30pm
Augustus, by John Williams
