His wife is not his wife.

Atmospheric Disturbances: A Novel 

by Rivka Galchen

Last December a woman entered my apartment who looked exactly like my wife. This woman casually closed the door behind her. In an oversized pale blue purse—Rema’s purse—she was carrying a russet puppy. I did not know the puppy. And the real Rema, she doesn’t greet dogs on the sidewalk, she doesn’t like dogs at all. The hay feverishly fresh scent of Rema’s shampoo was filling the air and through that brashness I squinted at this woman, and at that small dog, acknowledging to myself only that something was extraordinarily wrong.

Book Thirteen

Review:

This novel is reminiscent of Pynchon, Borges, Murakami, with a little bit of Cervantes for good measure. It is an unsettling first novel, but often funny, post modern masterpiece. What is strongest in the plots structure is the twists and turns that pull you in as a reader and have you coming back for more. There were times that I put the book down and swore I would never return, but the need to know what happens to the tragicomic hero was enough to keep me in the game. Not an easy read, slightly high brow and often painful to put down.

Summary: 

When Dr. Leo Liebenstein's wife disappears, she leaves behind a single confounding clue: a woman who looks, talks, and behaves exactly like her. A simulacrum. But Leo is not fooled, and he knows better than to trust his senses in matters of the heart. Certain that the real Rema is alive and in hiding, he embarks on a quixotic journey to reclaim her. With the help of his psychiatric patient Harvey--who believes himself to be a secret agent able to control the weather--his investigation leads him from the streets of New York City to the southernmost reaches of Patagonia, in search of the woman he loves. Atmospheric Disturbances is a "witty, tender, and conceptually dazzling" (Booklist) novel about the mysterious nature of human relationships.

Author Biography:

Rivka Galchen grew up in Norman, Oklahoma, the child of Israeli immigrants. She attended Princeton and went on to get her MD at Mount Sinai School of Medicine. During that time she spent a year in South America, working for a Hopkins' public health researcher, mostly on projects based in Lima's shantytowns and in the villages around the jungle city of Iquitos. She has received multiple fellowships through Columbia's MFA program. Rivka Galchen received her MD from Mount Sinai School of Medicine, having spent a year in South America working on public health issues. Her fiction and essays have appeared or are forthcoming in "The Believer", "Harper's", "The New Yorker", "Scientific American", and "The New York Times".

Small Presses

Word Riot Press

Chiasmus Press

Future Tense Books

Fiction Collective 2

Small Beer Press

Soho Press

Book Club Girl

Dedicated to sharing great books, news and tips with book club girls everywhere.

The Olive Reader

OliveReader.com is the weblog of Harper Perennial, a trade paperback imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.  It was originally launched in September of 2005.

A literary playground

Susan Henderson's 

LitPark

Where Writers Come to Play

World Without Borders

The Online Magazine for International Literature

Discover the world through great writing never before available in English.

Read great new writers from over seventy countries and over sixty languages, plus original language texts...

NextBook

Created in 2003 as a locus for Jewish literature, culture, and ideas, Nextbook is a non-profit organization which commissions books on Jewish themes, sponsors public lectures, readings, and performances in cities around the country, and publishes an online magazine. The website, Nextbook.org, contains information on all of these projects and also maintains an annotated list of recommended books. 

Check out their COMPLETE AUDIO ARCHIVE.

Stephen Paul Miller

Stephen Paul Miller: Fort Dad  With Illustrations by Noah Miller

Miller can be as funny—funny—as Lenny Bruce.—Jordan Davis, Paterson Review Our consciousness needs a new conscience: human consciousness needs a new keel. ome of its lines of design may be found in Miller’s poetry. —Sam Truitt, American Book Review Uniquely affecting. Miller has redefined the confessional poem.—Carol Wierzbicki, Brooklyn Rail Conversational fluidity and unstrained syntax enable Miller to address politics, current events, theoretical concerns, and personal experience with critical acumen.—Barbara K. Fischer,Boston Review The lines snake and cascade across the pages, liberated from the flush left format…We have become the muse and are inspired by our transformation.—Jeffrey Cyphers Wright, Brooklyn Rail Lively, brainy, probing…Miller’s erudite, humane, and yes, talky poems are punctuated by young Noah with exuberant drawings. Time in these poems is shown to be illusory and malleable. The effect produced is like a dream in which one suddenly realizes one can fly or breathe underwater: one can move forward in the present-tense-simulacra of this book.—Joyelle McSweeney, Constant Critic There's a new air in the fast-talking quality of these poems, which go beyond “New York School” casualness and beyond O'Hara's stylized “Personism.” —Madeline Tiger, Home Planet News Poetry lets go of degraded language, and, Miller talks about seeking a “replacement”…a-logical contingencies and analogies spark salubrious expansions of logic…intuitive processes in an ethos of dialogue inching toward democratic realizations.—“Poetry Suffuses Politics,” Jacket Miller closes a mysterious missing gap in American cultural history.—Jeremiah Creedon, Utne Reader Stephen Paul Miller is a New York City poet and playwright. He is the author of five books of poems, Being With a Bullet, Skinny Eighth Avenue, The Bee Flies In May, That Man Who Ground Moths Into Film and Art Is Boring for the Same Reason We Stayed in Vietnam, and a Backwoods Broadside. He is also author of The Seventies Now: Culture as Surveillance. He co-edited the NPF Scene of My Selves: New Work On the New York School Poets, which stresses poetry's relationship to painting. He has had gallery shows at PS1 and William Paterson's Ben Shawn Gallery in New York City.

Literary PassPort

An irreverent and informative weblog highlighting the best in international literature. With book reviews, author interviews and news on the latest work in translation.

Paul Dry Books

At Paul Dry Books, the aim is to publish lively books "to awaken, delight, and educate"—and to spark conversation. They publish fiction, both novels and short stories, and nonfiction—biography, memoirs, history, and essays, covering subjects from Homer to Chekhov, bird watching to jazz music, New York City to shogunate Japan.

Who is Niki Aguirre?

Niki Aguirre was born in the United States to Ecuadorian parents. She spent her childhood between Chicago and Guayaquil, lived in Spain in her late teens and studied English Literature at The University of Illinois. Hershort stories have appeared in three anthologies edited or introduced by Sarah Waters, Julia Bell and Tash Aw respectively as well as in PEN International Magazine. 29 Ways to Drown is her first collection of short stories.

“Niki Aguirre is that rarest of writers, one who possesses an exuberant imagination, but who also casts a devastatingly sharp eye on human reality.“ - Laila Lalami

“such wonderful yarns” - Inpressbooks.co.uk

"Mixing the passion of autobiographical honesty with a mystical sense of universal magic, Niki Aguirre brings her literary world to vivid life. The characters love and despair, haunt and intrigue... Her exquisite tales resonate long after the last page..." - Courttia Newland; author of The Scholar, The Society Within and Snakeskin

The Overlook Press

The Overlook Press is an independent general-interest publisher, founded in 1971. The publishing program consists of nearly 100 new books per year, evenly divided between hardcovers and trade paperbacks. The list is eclectic, but areas of strength include interesting fiction, history, biography, drama, and design.

Click here to read The Winged Elephant, the book blog and book vlog of The Overlook Press.

New & Used Books

Spoonbill & Sugartown, Booksellers, specializes in Used, Rare and New books on Contemporary Art, Architecture and various Design fields, with an emphasis on Imported or hard-to-find — but we also hand pick thousands of good books every month for our voracious clientele. We stock Literature, Philosophy, Cinema, Magazines and even baby-books, but the most significant factor here is the element of serendipity: you never know what you might find.

Spoonbill & Sugartown, Booksellers was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in 1999. We pride ourselves on the books we offer, but our greatest achievement can be seen in the eyes and heard in the testimonies of our loyal customers.

Online Book Discussions

Brooklyn Book Talk

Giving book lovers in Brooklyn -- and elsewhere -- an opportunity to discuss literature and philosophy. Facilitated by staff of Brooklyn Public Library (BPL).

Bank Street Bookstore

Bank Street Bookstore

Broadway and 112th Street

New York, NY 10025

212.678.1654

books@bankstreet.edu

Books for children, teachers, parents as well as cassettes, videos, CD-ROMs, educational games. NY's Best Bookstore For & About Children

The Rise and Fall of a Canadian Town

White Rapids

by Pascal Blanchet

Award-winning Quebecois cartoonist Pascal Blanchet's graphic novel is a compelling account of the rise and fall of the small northern town of White Rapids. In the first English translation of his work, Blanchet seamlessly blends fact and fiction as he weaves together the official history of the town and snapshots of the quotidian life of its residents. Founded in 1928 in an isolated region of Quebec forest, the town was conceived and constructed by the Shawinigan Water & Power Company to function as a fully-equipped, self-contained living community for workers at the nearby dam and their families. Intended as an incentive to lure workers to the remote and inaccessible region, White Rapids provided its residents with all the luxuries of middle-class modern life in a pastoral setting-until the town was abruptly shut down in 1971, when the company changed hands.Blanchet's unique, streamlined, retro-inspired aesthetic draws on Art Deco and fifties Modernist design to vividly conjure up idyllic scenes of lazy summer days and crisp winter nights in White Rapids, transporting the reader back to a more innocent time.

Click here for a preview.

Pick up a good book.

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest. The Big Read brings together partners across the country to encourage reading for pleasure and enlightenment.

Listen to radio programs, watch video profiles, and read brief essays about classic authors.

Who is JK Savoy?

JK Savoy has always learned by doing. He has been a restaurateur, pilot to a legendary fugitive financier, a political candidate while barely old enough to vote and a corporate executive. Sickened by the moral void of corporate power games and racism, he abandoned all possessions choosing to become a street urchin. His first novel, Somewhere in Brooklyn , chronicles his adventures of living on the streets of 1970s Brooklyn were he survived by trading loose joints for food and favors. This ended with his creation of the celebrated Brooklyn moving company, Kenny the Mover, from the Minibus he slept in. The success of Somewhere in Brooklyn as a cult favorite prompted him to write two more novels, Night Bird and In The Wind. JK Savoy no longer lives on the street.

Click here to read a few excerpts from his writings.

Dzanc Creative Writing

Dzanc Books is pleased to announce our newest program: the Dzanc Creative Writing Sessions. The DCWS is an online program that will allow writers to work one-on-one with published authors and editors to shape their short story/novel/poem/etc.

Podcasts of interviews with Jimmy Breslin and Art Spiegelman

Jimmy Breslin tells the story behind his most recent book The Good Rat: A True Stor, followed by a Q&A session with moderator Daniel Menaker and the audience.

New York native Jimmy Breslin is a long-time investigative journalist, columnist, and author of over twenty books, including The Church That Forgot Christ, The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight, and the biography of newsman/writer Damon Runyon, Damon Runyon: A Life. The recipient of the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, Breslin has also received the George Polk Award for Metropolitan Reporting in honor of his work in Newsday. His most recent book is The Good Rat: A True Story.

Art Spiegelman discusses his most recent book,Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! during a Q&A session with moderator Daniel Menaker and the audience.

Art Spielgelman is the creator of several critically-acclaimed comic books, including the best-selling In the Shadow of No Towers, and the Pulitzer Prize-winning Holocaust narrative Maus. Widely published in The New Yorker, McSweeney's, and elsewhere, he has continued to be a singular force in reviving critical interest in the comic book genre. He is also a Guggenheim Fellow, and was recently inducted into the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France and named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. His most recent book is Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*!

Recorded at National Book Foundation Sponsored Events or Featuring National Book Award Authors.

Nobel Laureate

SPECIAL PRE-FESTIVAL EVENT

PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature presents 

Nobel Laureate

Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio

in conversation with Adam Gopnik

Friday, April 24,  8pm

 92nd Street Y/Unterberg Poetry Center

1395 Lexington Ave, New York City

* Mr. Le Clézio's first major U.S. appearance since being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature! *

An avid traveler, French novelist and essayist Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio has written more than 40 books about exile and self-discovery, and the clash between modern civilization and traditional cultures. In announcing the prize, the Swedish Academy called him an “author of new departures, poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy, explorer of a humanity beyond and below the reigning civilization.” He will be joined in conversation by Adam Gopnik from The New Yorker.

$25/$20 PEN members/$12 students 

 www.smarttix.com or 212.868.4444

 This event is presented as part of PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature. 160 writers from 40 countries take the stage in venues across New York City to consider how the world changes and how we change.  Do not miss this exciting week of conversations, performances and readings, April 27-May 3, 2009. For a complete schedule of events: www.pen.org/festival

Impact and Interpretations

Casebook on Waiting for Godot 

by Ruby Cohn

Book Twelve

Review:

This book is separated into two parts- the "Impact" the play has had on dramatists and the "Interpretations" (existentialism, biblical, mythical) that many scholars have had based on the play. It dates back to Paris 1953, London 1955, Dublin 1955, Miami 1956, NY 1956 and was published by Grove Press in 1967. It is a collection of the impact, reviews, reflections and interpretations. Although, the reviews were from various Europeans and American journalists, the one that stood out the most for me was by Norman Mailer. In his review, he apologized for at first writing a negative article about the play and after giving it some serious thought, he wanted to write a positive review. The whole casebook begs to have the question who is Godot answered and my favorite attempt to solve the mystery was by Beckett himself. When asked Who is Godot? and What the mysterious Godot symbolized? he responded: "If I knew what Godot was, I would have said so."

Review from Amazon:

...of this excellent compilation when writing my senior thesis and directing Godot in 1988. Cohn collects some of the most cogent, insightful and stimulating readings on this seminal work of twentieth century theatre. If you involved in a production of Godot and want to gain insight into the layers of meaning and musicality of the text, or if you simply love Beckett and want to read some very exciting and non-pedantic writing about his magnum opus, this book is a great find.

A Tragicomedy in Two Acts

Waiting for Godot 

by Samuel Beckett

Book Eleven

Review:

"One of the most noble and moving plays of our generation . . . suffused with tenderness for the whole human perplexity . . . like a sharp stab of beauty and pain."--The London Times

Summary- Taken from SparkNotes

Two men, Vladimir and Estragon, meet near a tree. They converse on various topics and reveal that they are waiting there for a man named Godot. While they wait, two other men enter. Pozzo is on his way to the market to sell his slave, Lucky. He pauses for a while to converse with Vladimir and Estragon. Lucky entertains them by dancing and thinking, and Pozzo and Lucky leave. Pozzo and Lucky leave, a boy enters and tells Vladimir that he is a messenger from Godot. He tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming tonight, but that he will surely come tomorrow. Vladimir asks him some questions about Godot and the boy departs. After his departure, Vladimir and Estragon decide to leave, but they do not move as the curtain falls.

 

The next night, Vladimir and Estragon again meet near the tree to wait for Godot. Lucky and Pozzo enter again, but this time Pozzo is blind and Lucky is dumb. Pozzo does not remember meeting the two men the night before. They leave and Vladimir and Estragon continue to wait.

 

Shortly after, the boy enters and once again tells Vladimir that Godot will not be coming. He insists that he did not speak to Vladimir yesterday. After he leaves, Estragon and Vladimir decide to leave, but again they do not move as the curtain falls, ending the play.

*I haven't read the play since college and wanted to refresh my memory before seeing it in previews at Studio 54. Nathan Lane and John Goodman are the big names that draw you to this production but Bill Irwin's mastery of physical comedy steals the show and your heart. John Glover's Lucky is heart rending. The result is a comical wordplay of poetry, dreamscapes and nonsense, which has been interpreted as a somber summation of mankind’s inexhaustible search for meaning. A highbrow delight. See it while it's playing.

What do people have to say about Leonard Cohen?

LEONARD COHEN AND HIS CRITICS 

by Michael Gnarowski

Book Ten

Review:

So much to say about Cohen and here are a few words of wisdom from the great man himself.

”Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. 

”A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh” 

”Every heart to love will come – but like a refugee” 

”Act the way you'd like to be and pretty soon you'll be the way you act” 

”I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin” 

”The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape” 

“We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky” 

This is from the blurb on the back:

"Poet, singer, novelist, song writer, pop saint - Leonard Cohen's writing is discussed here from many points of view. The essential reviews, articles, fascinating interviews and controversies are gathered together for the first time from sources as diverse as Canadian Literature, The Village Voice, Weekend Magazine and the New York Times Review for Books, among many others.

Michael Gnarowski's Introduction offers a perspective in which each contribution takes on added significance, while the collection itself provides context in which not only individual passages but all Cohen's novels and poetry may be further appreciated..."

Yes, Leonard Cohen is a poet!

Stranger Music: Selected Poems and Songs

by Leonard Cohen

Book Nine

Review:

Even if you aren't familiar with Cohen as a musician, you've probably heard his music. "Suzanne" "Bird on a Wire," "Famous Blue Raincoat," "Joan of Ark", and "Hallelujah". Cohen has written many other songs too, as well as poetry and prose poetry not set to music. If you have not read any other Cohen books, read this first - it has a great variety of poems and clips of prose. The chapters are laid out by book and album title.

I suggest you listen to some of the poems that turned into songs after you read this book to really get the feel for the "voice" of the man. A few months ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Cohen perform at the Beacon Theater and was mesmerized by his stage presence. The crowd of people that he attracted was unbelievable. There were a ton of celebrities, musicians and travelers in the audience. You could tell that you were in the presence of something special. If you haven't been exposed to Cohen, you need to rush out now and grab onto anything you can find.

Istituto Italiano di Cultura di New York

Tuesday, May 26, 6 pm

Maria Attanasio, Carla Billitteri, Giovanna Frene, Marco Giovenale, Milli Graffi & Jennifer Scappettone

Featuring the best of Italy’s experimental and emergent poets, this panel discussion and reading will bring a diverse array of new poetic voices to U.S. readers. These poets are also respected critics, and their discussion promises to reveal intriguing points of conflict and confluence within Italian poetics and beyond.

Italian Cultural Institute of New York

686 Park Avenue (bet. 68th and 69th Streets)

NYC

FREE

Bellevue Literary Review

Bellevue Literary Review Fall Reading

Featuring: 

Guillermo Castro

Kalindi Akolekar Handler

Noel Sikorski 

Amanda McCormick 

 A wine-and-cheese reception in the beautiful Bellevue rotunda

Sunday May 3rd, 5 pm 

Bellevue Hospital, First Avenue and 28th Street

Free and open to the public 

Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the United States, has been witness to nearly 275 years of human drama. In this tradition we have created the Bellevue Literary Review, a forum for illuminating humanity and human experience. BLR is published by the Department of Medicine at New York University. 

Brooklyn

Peter Golenbock, one of the nation's best-known sports authors, was born on July 19, 1946 in New York City. He grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, and in 1963 graduated St. Luke's School in New Canaan, Connecticut. He graduated Dartmouth College in 1967 and the New York University School of Law in 1970.

Follow the link below to view a promotional trailer for the documentary series based on the book "In the Country of Brooklyn".

Proposal for In the Country of Brooklyn Documentary

Independent Booksellers of New York City

The IBNYC is an alliance of independent booksellers working together to promote the cultural, literary and economic benefits of shopping at New York City's diverse collection of bookstores. We are united in our goal to keep indie bookstores thriving and raise awareness of the vital contributions that these local businesses make to the city's rich tradition as a center of publishing and bookselling.

H.O.W.

National Book Foundation

National Book Foundation

Forbidden Planet

840 Broadway

New York, NY 10003

United States

212.473.1576

New listings for COMICS, and MANGA, and TOYS. Also, be sure to check out theWEEKLY PLANET and the current DEAL OF THE WEEK.

Welcome to your personal poetry reading ...

lyrikline.org is the platform on the Internet on which poems are available to listen to, and to read both in their original languages and various translations: a concert of verse in the voices and languages of the authors.

549 poets and 5000 poems in 49 languages are available by now as well as more than 5980 translations in 47 languages!