"Read late Amis -- maniacally alert, secular in timbre but religious in the fidelity of his observations -- and stay on your toes," writes James Parker in reference to Martin Amis's latest novel, House of Meetings, set in the deep, dark of Stalin's Russia. Amis came to Cambridge to read from the book, with our own Peter Kadzis giving the introduction. Click below to hear Amis's Brattle Theatre reading.

LISTEN: Martin Amis, House of Meetings, Brattle Theatre, January 31

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2/2/2007 12:51:16 PM by Nina | Comments [0] |  

The choice is yours, friends.

British novelist MARTIN AMIS told the Guardian that he has “a god-like relationship with the world I’ve created.” — and he is indeed a literary deity when it comes to inspiring a troop of stylistic disciples (Will Self, Zadie Smith) and traitorous critics (John Updike). In House of Meetings, he returns to life during the gulag, with Soviet Russia as his setting and two half-brothers and the woman they adore as his main players. It’s a slim volume that Publisher’s Weekly decided has a “bullying tone”; one would hope Amis doesn’t throw any punches when he demonstrates his command of the English language (again) at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

Did that Radar exposé about the naughty behind-the-scenes antics among Mickeys and Minnies at Disney theme parks make you feel a bit funny? Well, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination may not reinstill your faith in the Disney ideal. Fairy-tale prince he was not, but NEAL GABLER’s comprehensive biography (hailed as “the definitive Disney bio” by Newsweek) will tell you the good stuff, too — the astonishing innovations and creative breakthroughs that made Disney the Dream King. Wish upon a star at the First Unitarian Church, 3 Church St, Cambridge | 7:30 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

1/31/2007 3:29:43 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

MR. VERTIGO

“Writing is no longer an act of free will for me, it’s a matter of survival,” says PAUL AUSTER. Known primarily for his postmodern series of experimental detective stories, The New York Trilogy, Auster gear-switches to the fable in his latest novel, Travels in the Scriptorium. Trapped in a spare room, protagonist Mr. Blank doesn’t know who he is or who his captors are. Or, it figures, what he’s done to warrant punishment. Get meta about Auster at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

1/30/2007 2:55:10 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

In between trying really hard not to nod off (whoever cranked up the heat at the Brattle, heads up -- it was hella sweaty in there), we took a general sense of great pleasure in sitting in a big room full of New Yorker dorks last night. Ah, NYer-heads are a great breed. The jolly Matthew Diffee, Drew Dernavich, Eric Lewis, and we <3 him long-time Phoenix cartoonist David Sipress were on hand to showcase the cream of their crap. (And make poop jokes.)

They answered lots of questions during an ongoing Q&A session:

Q: How do you know when Bob Mankoff likes your stuff?
A: If he spends more than two seconds looking at it. Literally.

Q: How do you get your cartoons into the magazine (basically a cloaked version of the real question: Why The Fug are my Cartoons Still Sitting in the Slush Pile of Doom?!!!!!11)
Answer: The New Yorker is very particular. Keep trying! <evil laughter>

They showed us witty slides of what The New Yorker's Cartoon Bank should sell (Cartoon casket liners, artificial hearts, etc. etc). They made more poop jokes. They screened an INSANE video made by Mankoff that ended in him dying from a rejected liver transplant. That man adores being a grump.

They did some ridic improv cartoon drawing (Jews against Christians -- their idea) which involved pigs, lawyers, and shopping gurus.

Oh, and they presented us with the best of their rejected cartoons, which you will not, at any point, be seeing in The Magazine. Weeee!

 We have to go turn 40 years old now. Later younguns.

11/16/2006 5:08:59 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Aside from the Steve Almond/James Joyce dirty business at Great Scott that Nina will be attending (and we can't wait to hear what she thinks of Almond's recitation), here are four more options for your Wednesday. Two of them are naughty omg!

How did Tom Brady go from being a sixth-round draft pick to the Patriots’ star quarterback and one of football’s most celebrated players? Ah, the warm-fuzzy story of the underdog. Sports journalist, former Phoenix staffer, and NPR contributor CHARLES P. PIERCE tells the tale in Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything, and he reads (did we mention that he’s a totally funny guy?) at Newtonville Books, 296 Walnut St, Newton | 7:30 pm | free | 617.244.6619.

Sure, sad little electronica musicians cum pseudo-social-justice bloggers (we’re looking at you, Moby) sometimes think they know how to inspire change through the written word, but the “AMERICAN PROTEST LITERATURE” panelists actually do. British author ZOE TRODD discusses her American Protest Literature (leave it to the Brits to know us better than we know ourselves), TIMOTHY PATRICK MCCARTHY reads Eugene V. Debs’s Statement to the Court, JOHN STAUFFER presents the images and photos that have altered public opinion, and playwright DORIC WILSON discusses excerpts from his Street Theatre. Cause a stir at the Old South Meeting House, 310 Washington St, Boston | 6:30 pm | free | 617.428.6439.

Remember that Seinfeld episode where Elaine doesn’t get the joke in a New Yorker cartoon and asks an editor and he doesn’t get it either? Could the ones they turned down have been better? A 90 percent rejection rate of submissions (even for regulars) prompted contributor Matthew Diffee to salvage lost gems scribbled by the mag’s top 30 cartoonists in The Rejection Collection: Cartoons You Never Saw, and Never Will See, in The New Yorker. He’ll present them as part of a live comedy show with colleagues Drew Dernavich, David Sipress, and Eric Lewis at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 7:30 pm | $15 | 617.876.6387. (We'll be there, probably not in the front row because there are rumors of audience participation and we tend to have a blushing problem. Report tk next week!)

Last but not least, the superfresh Boston Phoenix Author Series continues with GEORGE PROCHNIK's Putnam Camp: Sigmund Freud, James Jackson Putnam, and the Purpose of American Psychology. In other words? More sex talk. Lots of it. The reading, signing, and reception is at the Burren, 247 Elm St, Somerville | 6:30 pm | free | 617.776.6896.

11/14/2006 10:54:26 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

THE HOSTESS WITH THE MOSTEST

Not everybody hearts AMY SEDARIS (particularly reviewers of her latest film, Strangers with Candy), but we’ve been glued to the trajectory of her career ever since reading about her bizarre lifestyle in brother David’s essays. Amy’s first solo book project, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence, harks back to the days when a hostess’s duties were “charmingly old-fashioned, like courtship or back-alley abortions.” Her tongue may be stapled to her cheek, but I Like You does come with practical advice and recipes -- even if some etiquette not-to-dos would make Ms. Emily Post roll over, and then projectile-vomit, in her grave. You can ask her about that and about her imaginary live-in boyfriend, Ricky, when she reads at Borders Books and Music, 10-24 School St, Boston | 5:30 pm | free | 617.557.7188, or at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 9:30 pm | $3 | 617.499.2012.

FACIST DREAMS

Leslie Epstein, director of the Boston University Creative Writing Program and an wonderful novelist in his own right (we lurved San Remo Drive but unforch don't have time to tell you more about the dude right now -- Google him, the answers are all on the Internets) will be reading from his latest, The Eighth Wonder of the World, at the Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | Free | 617.566.6660. Read Dana Kletter's Phoenix review here.

11/8/2006 4:27:37 PM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

At 31, Londoner BEN SCHOTT has already published three ridiculously detailed collections of notions and oddities that have sold two million copies worldwide. Now he’s moved on to the formerly antiquarian almanac; rather than predicting the year ahead, his Schott’s Almanac 2007 records the year past. He dotes on arcane topics like how to survive a bear attack, offers a mini-dictionary of “Hacker, Cracker & Geek Speak,” and rounds up the 10 top cities in the world that have been Googling for porn. (Birmingham in England has the collectively dirtiest mind.) Why this guy rejected GQ’s Man of the Year award is beyond us, but you can delight in his fanatical love for ephemera when he reads tonight at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

10/30/2006 9:53:47 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Don't be jealous!

Why. Does. She. Have. SOMUCHFUCKINGHAIR?!

STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
We’re tearing through NELL FREUDENBERGER’s debut novel, The Dissident, at a crazy pace, pausing only to marvel at how this white, Harvard educated, ex-New Yorker editorial assistant managed to capture the voice of Yuan Zhao, a Chinese performance artist and political firecracker spending a year in Los Angeles teaching at the St. Anselm’s School for Girls. Alternating with his narrative is a third-person POV that circles around the dysfunctional Traverses, the family hosting the Yuan’s stay. Gawker may have slammed Freudenberger for inspiring the ire of the literary world when her gorgeous face helped make her award-winning short story collection, Lucky Girls, even more palatable to the industry, but her good looks have nothing to do with the fact that she’s one of the most compelling young voices around. She’ll read at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | Oct 77 @ 6 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ. If you miss Nell tomorrow, you can haul it over to Newtonville books and see her on Wednesday 18 @ 7:30 pm for free.

A BLUE-EYED BEAUTY
Yes, Baby Suri lives, except by our calculations she looks about a year older than she’s supposed to be. In fact, we’re convinced Mr. and Mrs. Cruisazy bought her — there’s got to be a Scientology-approved baby-black market squirreled away somewhere. Celeb photog ANNIE LIEBOVITZ was the lucky lady to snap TomKat in all their domestic bliss, and her A Photographer’s Life: 1990-2005 is packed with provocative portraits (a fetal and stripped John Lennon wrapped around Yoko, a naked and knocked-up Demi Moore) culled from her career at Rolling Stone, Vogue, and Vanity Fair. Famous people really enjoy being naked and with child, don’t they? Someone please ask if Suri’s was wearing a tot-toupee when Liebovitz speaks at the Coolidge Corner Theatre | Oct 17 @ 6 pm | 290 Harvard St, Brookline | $2 | 617.566.6660.

Just make it happen.

 

10/16/2006 10:00:59 AM by Sharon | Comments [0] |  

Pink is the new Bitch

Chuck Klosterman:
We want to punch you in the Sasquatch

Oh you! Go do what the Harvard Book Store says:

I. You can throw:

   1. Shiny beads
   2. Dusty post-feminist texts
   3. Prescription-only coke bottle glasses

II. You can go:

1. The Ultimate Indie-Yuppie is in town, and what a nasty piece of work he is:

   a. Chuck Klosterman's latest, Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, collects his previously printed profiles and trend stories from the past decade as well as more recent opinions on the new shit he deems relevant. But the real surprise to us is that, in the third section, the Chuckster tries his hand at fiction writing. Remember, that deals with actual emotions and character psychology, not just the finer points of the history of The Real World. Ask Klosterman why he really quit Spin when he reads tonight.

   b. It's a Harvard Book Store–sponsored event at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 617.661.1515.

2. Remember when you read The Women's Room and either threw up and burned it or got really inspired?

   a. We were tried-and-true Sassy fans back in the day, and now we’re utterly devoted Jane subscribers (whether you care or not, now you know), but we can give it up to Bitch for cornering the post-femmy backlash niche. The publication’s founding editors (it’s gone from stapled ’zine to a full-scale mag), Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler, celebrate the anti-Cosmo’s tenth anniversary with Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, a collection of essays, rants, and raves — some pre-published, others specially commissioned — that probe into pop-culture from a feminist, modern-girl perspective, with pieces ranging from a rundown of sex scenes in lesbian YA novels to a stand-up discussion of female urination.

   b. It’s girl — er, women — power, with a panel discussion titled “Pop Goes the Feminist,” tomorrow night at Harvard Hillel, Beren Hall, 52 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge | free | 800.542.READ.

III. Report back to us via email or comments. We're too busy watching Degrassi: TNG to participate in anything bookish. OMG thanks.

9/25/2006 3:18:43 PM by Sharon | Comments [2] |