Europa Editions

Europa Editions marks the publication of their 100th book with a May full of celebrations. And they kick off things right, as all people should, with a trivia night! Here are the details, for your next week plans:

May 4: Literary Trivia at Lolita Bar 
266 Broome Street / 6-8 p.m.

There's a ton of stuff happening on May 4. Brooklyn on My Mind, for one. But if you're in Manhattan, you'll want to swing by this trivia night/launch party for Alina Bronsky’s The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine. There will be prizes, giveaways! Plus, happy hour. Each player receives a Europa tote bag + copy of their 100th title.

Sell a man a book, sell him a whole new life.

Image via United Rotation

There's an article in the Wall Street Journal about the financing of Harry Hurt III's eBook and how, as both consequence and feature, there will be "advertising accompanying each chapter and significant product placement woven throughout its narrative."

However you feel about this, it's interesting to list books where this has been done deliberately, as a narrative choice (American Psycho, Pattern Recognition), and consider how an eBook would go about capitalizing on it. Exploiting it, if you prefer stronger language. Let's consider the possibilities.

Is this a new phenomenon? Not even a little. Will it completely warp the eBook experience? Consider television, consider movies. However, it's important to remember that e-readers are still mostly trying to retain pleasurable aspects of the physical book, from page turning to marginalia. And one of those qualities is arguably an ad-free space. I suspect there's only so far this type of thing can go, unless something is being given away for free.

Kate Walbert: Signing & Discussion

Wednesday, April 27th

Barker Lounge, Brooklyn College

6 - 7:30pm 
FREE

Please join us this Wednesday as we welcome Kate Walbert to the Brooklyn College campus. She is the author of Our Kind, a National Book Award Finalist for fiction in 2004; The Gardens of Kyoto, winner of the 2002 Connecticut Book Award in Fiction, and Where She Went, a collection of linked stories and New York Times notable book.

Her new novel is A Short History of Women.

Bossypants, Tina Fey

Not that you needed to be told but: read Bossypants. Did you have something else to do? End it. Don't start it. When, in the introduction, it's promised that "each component of this book was selected to provide you with maximum book performance," believe it. I read this in a day, on the way to work, back from work, with dinner, in bed. If I was any happier with it afterward, I would have thrown it across the room.

Highlights include a chapter about her father, how the rules of improvisation can improve your life, experiences with and perspectives on institutionalized sexism, how to be a manager. There is a chapter where she goes through the writing team for 30 Rock and highlights each member, along with a sample joke of theirs. This is especially rewarding for those who can quote episodes verbatim; knowing a former carny who watched a man die is responsible for having made Alec Baldwin say, "Never go with a hippie to a second location," multiplies the funny. Just go give Tina Fey $26.99: she gave you a meme, people.

Also, Kotex Classic! May I never forget again.

Moebius

“They said that I changed their life,” Giraud whispered in amazement. “‘You changed my life.’ ‘Your work is why I became an artist.’ Oh, it makes me happy. But you know at same time I have an internal broom to clean it all up. It can be dangerous to believe it. Someone wrote, ‘Moebius is a legendary artist.’ I put a frame around me. A legend - now I am like a unicorn.”

Allow me to direct you to this interview with Jean Giraud, where he talks about being Moebius, his eyesight, and meeting Jack Kirby. It is perfect.

[Photo / Article: Los Angeles Times]

Dorsal fins and cucamonga.

Random House has just acquired Lauren Graham's debut novel, You'll Never Make It. There's not an official relesase date yet so it's a ways from being in-store.

Still, let's get excited early! We'll be pulling for this one; Gilmore Girls has long been the balm that soothes the soul of most everyone who works at the Brooklyn location. Congratulations, Lauren!

2011 Pulitzer Prize Winners

Fiction
A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan
General Non-Fiction
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer,
Siddhartha Mukherjee
Biography
Washington: A Life, Ron Chernow
History
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln & American Slavery, Eric Foner
Poetry
The Best of It: New and Selected Poems, Kay Ryan

Congratulations, all! Find the full list of winners here. Jennifer Egan will be speaking at Brooklyn College on May 4th along with Darin Strauss and Phillip Lopate, all part of Brooklyn On My Mind. We'll be in attendance; will you?

Algernon Blackwood

"There was manifestly nothing in the external appearance of this particular house to bear out the tales of the horror that was said to reign within. It was neither lonely nor unkempt. It stood, crowded into a corner of the square, and looked exactly like the houses on either side of it. It had the same number of windows as its neighbors; the same balcony overlooking the gardens; the same white steps leading up to the heavy black front door; and, in the rear, there was the same narrow strip of green, with neat box borders, running up to the wall that divided it from the backs of the adjoining houses. Apparently, too, the number of chimney pots on the roof was the same; the breadth and angle of the eaves; and even the height of the dirty area railings.

And yet this house in the square, that seemed precisely similar to its fifty ugly neighbors, was as a matter of fact entirely different - horribly different."

"The Empty House" by Algernon Blackwood
from The Haunted Looking Glass: Ghost Stories Chosen By Edward Gorey

Rock the Drop

Imagine people around the globe finding copies of amazing books in unexpected places, gifted out of love for young adult literature.

To raise awareness for Teen Literature Day, to show that young adult literature is a vibrant, growing genre with much to offer today's teens, we're giving away some of our YA galleys. Come into the Brooklyn store tomorrow, pick up your very own, and get reading!

Angelica

"Her moods tended to deteriorate and become fouler and more petulant in the very pleasant circumstances where she had hoped they might improve. Sitting, unhungry, at dinner parties she would stare at all the expensive foods that seemed to flow on and off her plate in great tidal waves of courses. She viewed her fellow guests with a paranoid rage and horror. She felt certain that she had only been invited because she was generally considered to be pitiable. Whenever anyone tried to speak to her she suspected that they were only making an effort to be kind to her because they realized she was lonely and humiliated. She found their kindness as distasteful as all the rich sauces that smothered the fish and the meat that her hostess kept trying to feed to her."

Never Breathe a Word:

The Collected Stories of Caroline Blackwood

David Levithan

David Levithan
April 12, 2011
5:00pm
SUBO Penthouse
Brooklyn College

The Brooklyn College LGBTA in association with the Brooklyn College Creative Writing Program presents David Levithan, LAMBDA Literary Award-Winning Author and Editorial Director for Scholastic.

Join us as he reads from his latest novel, The Lover's Dictionary, and discusses this and other works. There will be a Q&A session, followed by book signing.

We'll see you there, with lots of books! Really excited about this, it's a good read. Please also visit the author site here.

Proust Questionnaire: Tina Fey

Who is your favorite hero of fiction?

Veruca Salt, Francie Nolan, Miss Havisham. That’s me in a nutshell, actually.

My ♥ of hearts. Read the whole thing over at Vanity Fair.