Books

Fall Books Preview: Getting booked

Readings, festivals, and other seasonal literary events

By EUGENIA WILLIAMSON | September 14, 2010

STOCKING STUFFER: With Simple Times, Amy Sedaris fashions “crafts for poor people.”

Two Sedarises, two New Yorker favorites, and a famous neurologist are among the highlights of this fall’s book events.

“SO YOU WANT TO BE A WRITER” | September 28 | At long last, an author event where questions about process won’t send eyes rolling. Grub Street presents a roundtable discussion for aspiring writers whose participants include three novelists (Michelle Hoover, Jill McDonough, Chris Castellani) and a journalist who wrote a book about LARPing (Ethan Gilsdorf). | Porter Square Books, Porter Square Shopping Center, Cambridge | 7pm | Free | 617.491.2220 or portersquarebooks.com

SMALL PRESS SATURDAY | October 2 | Five authors published by four local and national small presses will show major publishers exactly what they’re missing. Adam Golaski (Rose Metal Press), Joseph McElroy (Small Anchor Press), Sumanth Prabhaker (Madras Press), and William Walsh and Myfanwy Collins (Dzanc), plus others, will read their work. | Newtonville Books, 296 Walnut St, Newtonville | 2 pm | Free | 617.244.6619 or newtonvillebooks.com

MICHAEL CUNNINGHAM | October 6 | Five years have passed since Michael Cunningham’s previous novel, 12 since he published his Pulitzer-winning blockbuster, The Hours. Now he turns an eye to a cadre of soigné New York artistes in the throes of middle age. Will By Nightfall (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) occasion Nicole Kidman to wear a prosthetic nose? One can always hope. | Boston Public Library Abbey Room, Copley Square, Boston | 6 pm | Free | 617.536.5400 or bpl.org

CHARLES OLSON CENTENNIAL | October 9 | Poets Michael Rumaker and Diane DiPrima (poet laureate of San Francisco) were great pals of Charles Olson — Rumaker even wrote a book about his days as Olson’s student at Black Mountain College. Their reading is part of Gloucester’s week-long celebration honoring the 100th birthday of its most renowned poet. | Unitarian Universalist Church, 10 Church St, Gloucester | 7 pm | Free | 978.283.4582 or Olson100.blogspot.com

BOSTON BOOK FESTIVAL | October 16 | This free, day-long extravaganza brings dozens of writers together for readings, signings, and panels. Everyone from Ashbrook, Tom to Zheng, Da will make an appearance. Celebrity book-jacket designer Chip Kidd and the astonishingly prolific Joyce Carol Oates are among the more recognizable of the participants. | Copley Square, Boston | 617.252.3240 or bostonbookfest.org

DINAW MENGESTU | October 25 | Dinaw Mengestu represents 1/20th of those the New Yorker has anointed the best fiction writers under 40, and for good reason — his debut, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, offered an exquisitely heartbreaking take on the struggles of Ethiopian immigrants. How To Read the Air (Riverhead) expands his scope across generations and continents. | Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | 7 pm | Free | 617.566.6660 or brooklinebooksmith.com

1 | 2 | next >

Related: Vowell's America, Authors strut their stuff, Interview: Raj Patel, More

Vowell's America
How Hawaii became "American"
Authors strut their stuff
Literary gossip columnists, political poets, cranky lefties, and singing novelists are just some of the characters traipsing through Boston this spring to promote their new books.
Interview: Raj Patel
"The opposite of consumption is not thrift but generosity; if you look at happiness studies, we are happiest when we give things away rather than when we accumulate or when we don't spend."
Infinite pleasure
Admit it, fellow scribblers. You'd sell your soul to come up with an opening sentence like "Of the things we fashioned for them that they may be comforted, dawn is the one that works."
Tired sleuth
Has Walter Mosley gone off crime fiction? With the creation of Easy Rawlins in 1990, Mosley perfected the African-American side of the genre — along with a poetic and insightful take on post-war LA up through the 1960s — in 11 consistently solid books, the most recent coming out in 2007.
Raven Used Books to nest on Newbury
When some years ago John Petrovato decided to make a career change, he swapped the insecurity of playing bass in a New Jersey–based indie-rock band for the uncertainty of selling used books in Montague, Massachusetts, a mill town on the banks of the Connecticut River not far from Springfield.
Photos: Bike Porn at the Brattle (NSFW)
Photos from Bike Porn 3: Cycle Bound, The Backlash Tour
Strange trips
If you want this summer’s eerie subject matter to hit a bit closer to home, or a bit closer to reality, check out Strange Maine: True Tales from the Pine Tree State , by Michelle Souliere (The History Press; $17.99).
Review: Common Nonsense: Glenn Beck and the Triumph of Ignorance
Common Nonsense effectively and in detail confirms what thinking folks already knew but may have had difficulty explaining: Beck, equal parts Mormon and moron, is a towering ignoramus and a shameless bigot.
Review: Per Petterson plumbs The River of Time
Why would Per Petterson — the bestselling Scandinavian writer whose books don't feature an invincible crimefighting heroine — curse the river of time when he is so adept at navigating it?
Fall Books Preview: Reading list
Even if you’re not back in the classroom, autumn inspires a desire to learn, to restore the intellectualism that was fried by too many beers and barbecues and sunburns. Fortunately, Portland is full this fall with opportunities to spark your smarts.
Less

Topics: Books , Boston Book Festival, Madras Press, Sumanth Prabhaker, More

| More

ARTICLES BY EUGENIA WILLIAMSON

QUEERING THE PARTY WITH THE DJS OF NU LIFE | May 25, 2012
Growing up gay on Long Island, Brian Friedberg went out dancing almost every night: at all-ages clubs, raves, dancehall nights, gay hip-hop nights, gay clubs, straight clubs, and late-night joints. But he couldn't find the party he was looking for.

CHINATOWN HYPNOSIS CASE BULL, SAYS RENOWNED MENTALIST | May 16, 2012
Not so amazing

LIZZIE STARK EXPLORES THE WORLDS OF LIVE-ACTION STORYTELLING | May 14, 2012
For the uninitiated, the word "LARP" conjures burly beardos hitting each other with foam swords in the woods and corseted women in capes flouncing around hotel ballrooms, all for entirely inexplicable reasons.

SAVE A CAR, RIDE A PEDICAB | May 09, 2012
Before this assignment, I had never even considered riding in pedicab, even though I work in the pedicab mecca of Kenmore Square. I always thought there was something extremely icky about making someone sweat while I sit there like a pasha.