Today is the Brooklyn Book Festival and I'll be heading out pretty soon to check it out. We hosted a kick-off party on Friday night at the super cool Word Bookstore in Greenpoint with a ton of authors including Jamie Saul (Light of Day), Rachel Fershleiser (Not Quite What I Was Planning), Cynthia Kaplan (Leave the Building Quickly), Josh Kilmer-Purcell (Candy Everybody Wants), Toby Barlow (Sharp Teeth), Ann Herendeen (Phyllida and the Brotherhood of Philander), Simon Van Booy (The Secret Lives of People in Love), Tony O'Neill (the forthcoming Down and Out on Murder Mile), Diana Spechler (Who By Fire), Ken Davis (Don't Know Much About Anything Else), Anna David (Party Girl), Mark Doty (Dog Years) and more.
Word is such a great store -- I wish they'd been around when I still lived in NYC and frequented Greenpoint quite a bit in my first foray as almost-a-stepmother. My girls went to school there and I became a Girl Scout mom there. It's a wonderful neighborhood that has been recently discovered by the cool kids but is still retaining its charm -- with cultural influences from both the Hispanic as well as Polish population.
Today I'm hoping to see Russell Banks, AM Homes, Alice Mattison, Jhumpa Lahiri, Nicole Krauss and hopefully a few surprise authors as well.
Check out Word's Book Club section -- this month they're reading The Remainder by Tom McCarthy and over the past months they've read some really great book club books -- The Book Thief by Mark Zusak, The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, and The Great Man by Kate Christensen. They hold three book club discussions each month on that month's book, you can email them at the store to register for one of the three times. There's also an online discussion if you can't join them in person.
More to report when I get home tonight. And don't forget, tomorrow kicks of Book Blogger Appreciation Week with tons of participating blogs offering giveaways all week long. Check out all the blog giveaways here and check out the official giveaway list on My Friend Amy's blog here. It's going to be quite a week! I'll announce my first giveaway tonight!
Have a great day-sounds like a lot of fun!
Posted by: Darlene | September 14, 2008 at 11:23 AM
This sounds like a great event. I look forward to your post about the readings and schmoozing. I also will look forward to your post about the BBAW giveaways. I have some planned for this week as well. It's going to be a busy week for all of us.
Posted by: Serena (Savvy Verse & Wit) | September 14, 2008 at 04:40 PM
Wow - this is going to be a fun week!
Posted by: Michelle Boswell | September 14, 2008 at 09:16 PM