February 2012
13 posts
18 tags
This Week's Readings
Good Monday! Before I get to the Weekly Readings, I’d like to share a few more of my fave lit sites (again, in no particular order): The Nervous Breakdown: This site was founded by Brad Listi, who hosts the popular podcast Other People (“in-depth, inappropriate interviews with authors”). Filmmaker Magazine noted that Brad is behind “a burgeoning literary media empire” (to his amusement). ...
4 tags
Anniversary!
Well, it’s officially been one year since I came up with The Plan, and I have to say it’s been quite a trip. Besides meeting fellow book-lovers, authors, bloggers and misc. cool folk, I’ve also had some pretty neat reading experiences. It was hard to narrow down the list, but I wanted to share my top ten BookStalker moments: 10. The flasher at Mindy Kaling. (And again I say: what the what?)
...
5 tags
BookStalked: Jennifer Armstrong
Jennifer Armstrong is kind of my hero. Not only did she co-found a kick-ass feminist website (Sexy Feminist), she’s also become the expert on certain pop-cultural touchstones. Her first book explored the early days of The Mickey Mouse Club, and she’s currently working on a biography of the amazingly progressive Mary Tyler Moore Show. (Which, I may add, she got me totally hooked on—I’ve...
7 tags
“The Anti-Foodie Foodies: Has Food Worship Jumped...
So my notes from this meta-ish “anti-foodie foodie” event at Housing Works Tuesday night are a bit nonsensical (“fetishization of eating,” what?), but I wanted to mention panelist Tracie McMillan’s new book: The American Way of Eating. In the book, Tracie records her attempts to uncover what it takes to “eat well” in America, especially from the view of the working poor. At the panel, ...
22 tags
This Week's Readings
Continuing my tour of the literary blogosphere: Two of the friendliest and most delightful bloggers I’ve met thus far are Gabrielle Gantz and David Gutowski. They are my fave people to attend readings with, as they always know much more than I do about the book, author, publicist, editor, etc. I am constantly amazed by their extensive knowledge of the literary scene and literature in general. ...
6 tags
BookStalked: Jami Attenberg
Jami Attenberg was the first writer I met in New York. You can read all about my awkward overtures here, but I think it’s funny that years later Jami still epitomizes the hip, exciting Brooklyn writer to me. She’s hilarious (just check out her tweets), she knows everyone in the lit scene, she’s all about the social media, and she seems to strike out on plenty of adventures (when I met her...
5 tags
Susan Cain
In this day and age, extroversion is king. How else can one market oneself, network effectively, collaborate with others and become well-known in his or her field? At Greenlight Bookstore on Monday night, Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, discussed this issue with George Prochnik (In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a...
16 tags
This Week's Readings
In order to shake things up a bit, I’ve decided to start writing about other literary blogs I admire. It’s funny that almost a year ago when I started BookStalker I had so little knowledge of New York’s rich and vivrant (that’s right, I said vivrant) literary community. Not to say I’m an expert now, but I have gotten to know some cool outlets, and, dear reader, I’d like to share them with...
4 tags
BookStalked: Teddy Wayne
It’s not easy to write “funny.” (Trust me, I’ve tried.) Teddy Wayne makes it look like a breeze, from his hilarious “Unpopular Proverbs“ in McSweeney’s to his sharp debut novel, Kapitoil. The book follows Karim, a socially awkward programmer from Qatar, as he helps a firm on Wall Street prepare for Y2K. On the side, he comes up with Kapitoil, a controversial program that predicts...
3 tags
Vol. 1 Brooklyn presents Stories from the Lower...
Tonight I’ll be reading for Vol. 1 Brooklyn’s first Manhattan event. Starts at 7 pm at RAC. If you’re in the city, stop by for a drink and to say hello!
From Vol. 1 Brooklyn: The Lower East Side has been the source of some of our favorite art and music; the home to legendary music venues past and present; the site of social protests, economic upheavel, cheap pizza, and...
13 tags
This Week's Readings
Good Tuesday! Hope everyone had a delightful weekend. A good friend of mine unexpectedly came into town, which led to one of those vacationing-in-your-own-city deals. Besides going out for some fun meals (if you’re ever hankering for a vegan Philly cheesesteak, Champs has ‘em), we also partook in some culture, wandering around the Met (it’s pay-what-you-wish, which I need to be...
4 tags
BookStalked: Caryn Rose
Caryn Rose is one of those awesomely prolific Brooklynites who seem to be living about five different lives. Not only is she a published novelist, she’s also a director of product development at Billboard.com, a music writer, a photographer, AND the founder of a popular blog about….the Mets. (It’s called Metsgrrl.com, because, as she notes on the site, “I’m a cranky punk rock feminist.”)...
6 tags
Sara Levine
If you had to choose one book to model your life after, what would it be? The unnamed female protagonist in Sara Levine’s debut novel, Treasure Island!!!, shapes hers after Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic. Though the woman’s friends denigrate it as a book for children—specifically, boys—she argues that it clearly shows how everyone can be separated into two categories: those who...