Skylight Books Podcast Series

BRENT ARMENDINGER reads from his new book of poetry THE GHOST IN US WAS MULTIPLYING, together with CLAUDIA RANKINE

The Ghost In Us Was Multiplying (Noemi Press)

Where does one body end and another begin? In The Ghost in Us Was Mul­tiplying, Brent Armendinger explores the relationship between ethics and queer desire, infusing meditations on public life and politics with a radical sense of intimacy. Although grounded in lyric, these poems are ever mindful of how language falls apart in us and – perhaps more im­portantly – how we fall apart in language. Armendinger asks, “What ra­tio of news and light should a poem deliver?” This book is a continuous reckoning with that question and the ways that we inhabit each other.

Praise for The Ghost In Us Was Multiplying:

To “multiply.” To “ devote.” To “ferment inside a hush.” Brent Armendinger writes through and from the body, recollected [contravened] at all turns by the ferocity of its accompanying landscapes, affinities and the heart itself. “How else can I survive?” writes the poet, deep inside a book that traces the index of an intense need: the kind of contact that can’t be assuaged by touch alone. I was so interested in this other, longitudinal and “surpassing” touch that happened again and again in a book both measured and dreamed: the “pictogram,” for example, that’s heard rather than seen; the blood that’s mailed “back north”-- a “stain, my zero.” What does it mean to encounter a zero -- a “stranger”-- that doesn’t diminish in repetition, but which strengthens, glitters, hurts to look at directly or feel? Brent Armendinger writes into this quality or “crucial” space with an emotional and soulful approach to the “amniotic” potential of vocabu­laries, human and otherwise. “What do the birds think?” I loved this book so much, for what it senses into as much as it expresses: a longing for radical company; studies of water and cosmic flows of all kinds. “Where will you live now,” asks the poet, “and can you hear it,/the way your voice has changed?” Brent Armendinger is a rare experimental writer who writes deeply and passion­ately from the soul. I am extremely honored to write in support of his poetry. --Bhanu Kapil, author of Ban en Banlieue

The poems in Brent Armendinger’s The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying are hushed, as if spoken the morning after a heavy snow. They are also admirably attentive to sadness, breath, and desire. Their speaker laments being “too permeable,” but it’s precisely that translucence that matters here: it makes audible the mu­sic of his “almost way of touching,” as well as delivering the sometimes mel­ancholy, perennially essential sound of “how the heart opening always feels.
—Maggie Nelson, author of The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning

Brent Armendinger was born in Warsaw, New York, and studied at Bard College and the University of Michigan. In addition to The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying, Armendinger has published two chapbooks, Undetectable and Archipelago. His work has appeared in many journals, including Aufgabe, Bateau, Bloom, Bombay Gin, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Hayden’s Ferry Review, LIT, Puerto del Sol, RECAPS Magazine, Volt, and Web Conjunctions. In 2013, Armendinger was awarded a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts. He lives in Los Angeles and teaches at Pitzer College, where he is an Associate Professor of English and World Literature.

Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry, including Citizen and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, and the plays, Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue, commissioned by the Foundry Theatre and Existing Conditions (co-authored with Casey Llewellyn). Rankine is co-editor of American Women Poets in the Twenty-First Century series with Wesleyan University Press andThe Racial Imaginary with Fence Books. A recipient of awards and fellowships from  The Academy of American Poets, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, The Lannan Foundation,  Poets and Writers and the National Endowments for the Arts, she teaches at Pomona College. 

BLACK QUEER LIT: THEN AND NOW

In recognition of Black History Month, join us as we remember the contributions of Black Queer writers past and present. Frederick L. Smith (Play It Forward) Sheree L. Greer (Let The Lover Be), Rebekah Weatherspoon (Treasure), and Fiona Zedde (Desire at Dawn) discuss their current novels--courtesy of Bold Stroke Books--as well as the past, present, and future of Black LGBTQ literature.

Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Frederick Smith is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism and Loyola University Chicago. He lives in Los Angeles and is also the author of Down for Whatever and Right Side of the Wrong Bed. Readers can contact him at www.FrederickLSmith.com.

A Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, Sheree L. Greer has been published in Hair Trigger, The Windy City Times, Reservoir, Fictionary, and the WindyCity Queer Anthology: Dispatches from the Third Coast. She has performed her work across selected venues in Milwaukee, New York, Miami, Chicago, and Tampa, where she hosts Oral Fixation, the only LGBTQ Open Mic series in TampaBay. She received a Union League of Chicago Civic Arts Foundation Award, earned her MFA at Columbia College Chicago, and currently teaches writing and literature at St. Petersburg College. Ms. Greer is an Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund grantee and completed a VONA residency at University of Miami. She recently published a short story collection, Once and Future Lovers and an excerpt from her novel What Has Never Been Taught appears in Best Lesbian Romance 2012.

After years of meddling in her friends’ love lives, Rebekah Weatherspoon turned to writing romance as a means to surviving a stressful professional life. She has worked in various positions from library assistant, meter maid, middle school teacher, B movie production assistant, reality show crew chauffeur, D movie producer, and her most fulfilling job to date, lube and harness specialist at an erotic boutique in West Hollywood. Her interests include Wonder Woman collectibles, cookies, James Taylor, quality hip-hop, football, American muscle cars, large breed dogs, and the ocean. When she’s not working, writing, reading, or sleeping, she is watching Ken Burns documentaries and cartoons or taking dance classes. If given the chance, she will cheat at UNO. She was raised in Southern New Hampshire and now lives in Southern California with an individual who is much more tech savvy than she ever will be. Member RWA.

Jamaican-born Fiona Zedde currently lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the author of several novellas and novels of lesbian love and desire, including the Lambda Literary Award finalists Bliss and Every Dark Desire. Her novel, Dangerous Pleasures,was winner of the About.com Readers’ Choice Award for Best Lesbian Novel or Memoir of 2012. Her short fiction has appeared in various anthologies including the Cleis Press Best Lesbian Erotica series, Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers, Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica, and Fist of the Spider Woman. Writing under the name "Fiona Lewis," she has also published a novel of young adult fiction called Dreaming in Color with Tiny Satchel Press. And as “Lindsay Evans,” she has written multiple novels for Harlequin Kimani Romance. Her latest novel, Desire at Dawn, is available now.

***Unfortunately our little podcast recording device ran out of digital space before this event reached completion.  We regret the omission but trust the listener will enjoy the hour of recorded material that is available***

DAVID TREUER reads from his novel PRUDENCE

Prudence (Riverhead Books)

Please join us tonight for David Treuer's haunting and unforgettable novel about love, loss, race, and desire in World War II-era America.

On a sweltering day in August 1942, Frankie Washburn returns to his family's rustic Minnesota resort for one last visit before he joins the war as a bombardier, headed for the darkened skies over Europe. Awaiting him at the Pines are those he's about to leave behind: his hovering mother; the distant father to whom he's been a disappointment; the Indian caretaker who's been more of a father to him than his own; and Billy, the childhood friend who over the years has become something much more intimate. But before the homecoming can be celebrated, the search for a German soldier, escaped from the POW camp across the river, explodes in a shocking act of violence, with consequences that will reverberate years into the future for all of them and that will shape how each of them makes sense of their lives.

With Prudence, David Treuer delivers his most ambitious and captivating novel yet. Powerful and wholly original, it's a story of desire and loss and the search for connection in a riven world; of race and class in a supposedly more innocent era. Most profoundly, it's about the secrets we choose to keep, the ones we can't help but tell, and who--and how--we're allowed to love

Praise for Prudence:

"David Treuer's novel Prudence is a wondrous and mesmerizing narrative--intricate, seductive and wholly gratifying." --Toni Morrison

David Treuer is Ojibwe from the Leech Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. He grew up on Leech Lake and left to attend Princeton University where he worked with Paul Muldoon, Joanna Scott, and Toni Morrison. He published his first novel, Little, when he was twenty-four. Treuer is the recipient of the Pushcart Prize, and his work has been named an editor's pick by the Washington Post, Time Out, and City Pages. His essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Esquire, Slate.com, and The Washington Post. He has a PhD in anthropology and teaches literature and creative writing at The University of Southern California. He divides his time between LA and The Leech Lake Reservation.

AMELIA MORRIS discusses her book BON APPETEMPT: A COMING OF AGE STORY (WITH RECIPES!)

Bon Appetempt: A Coming of Age Story (with Recipes!) Grand Central Publishing

When Amelia Morris found a beautiful chocolate cake in Bon Appétit and took the recipe home to recreate it for a Christmas day brunch, it collapsed into a terrible (but delicious) mess that had to be served in an oversized bowl. It also paralleled the never-quite-predictable situations she's gotten herself into throughout her life, from her one-day career as a six-year-old lady wrestler to her ill-fated job at the School of Rock in Los Angeles.

Now author of a blog named one of the best of 2012 by TIME magazine and awarded “Best Food Humor Blog” 2012 by Saveurmagazine, Amelia has woven those stories into Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!) – a funny and poignant memoir about collapsing cakes and coming of age in your twenties and thirties.

Full of hilarious and touching observations about food, family, unemployment, romance, and the excesses of modern L.A., and incorporating recipes as basic as Toasted Cheerios and as advanced as gâteau de crêpes, Bon Appetempt follows Amelia as she finds that even if some of her attempts fall short of the standard set by a food magazine, they can still bring satisfaction to her and her family and friends.

Praise for Bon Appetempt

"Bon Appetempt is a charming, thoughtful, and touching memoir about growing up and becoming the person and artist you've always wanted to be--both inside and outside the kitchen. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and I could not put it down. It also made me very, very hungry for crepes!"--Edan Lepucki, author of California

"Amelia Morris's debut, Bon Appetempt, is one of the most compulsively readable books I've picked up in years. It's spirited, funny, smartly nostalgic, wistful, real. I've never seen another author break a reader's heart, make them laugh, and offer up a recipe for broccolini in the span of two pages. It's all here: big love, big sadness, superb self-aware writing, and cake. Indulge in all of it as fast as you can, and enjoy the rewarding fullness of this incredible book."--Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise and Almost Famous Women

"Amelia Morris uses her trademark humor and fierce honesty to tell a wry and touching coming-of-age story. It made me laugh, wrenched my heart and gave me an instant craving for beans and rice in coconut milk."--Luisa Weiss, founder of The Wednesday Chef and author of My Berlin Kitchen

"Morris adopts an interest in cooking as an adult, grabbing food glossies at grocery checkouts and trying to re-create the meals they picture. The impetus for the blog she starts, with which this book shares its name, was a growing realization that if words failed her, food wouldn't: cooking, as opposed to writing, became a place to lightheartedly attempt great things, and not feel personally hurt if she failed. . . Some recipes are described in the text, too, like the toasted cheerios Morris makes, immediately summoning childhood memories. Sure to appeal to fans of her personable blog, and to round up new ones."--Booklist

Amelia Morris is the creator of Bon Appétempt, which TIME magazine named as one of the twenty-five best blogs of 2012. Her work has also been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Splendid Table, Saveur.com, BonAppetit.com, and McSweeney's. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, where she was the recipient of the Margaret Shannon Morton Fellowship. She currently lives on the east side of Los Angeles with her husband, baby son, and small dog. Visit her at www.bonappetempt.com and on Twitter @bonappetempt

TOSH BERMAN reads and discusses his book of poetry THE PLUM IN MR BLUM'S PUDDING, with special guest RUTH BERNSTEIN

The Plum in Mr Blum's Pudding (Penny Ante Editions)

“My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory.”

- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding is Los Angeles native Tosh Berman’s first printed collection of poetry. In 1989, Berman left the United States behind, moving to Japan after learning his wife's (artist Lun*na Menoh) mother was ill in Kitakyushu. The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding was penned while both rapt and lost by this transition. Gracefully toiling between the quirky and earnest, these poems describe the liminal space of the foreigner caught between the strange and the familiar. The result is surreal and unclassifiable, a book of love poems overshadowed by isolation and underscored with curiosity and lust.

Originally published in 1990 by “Cole Swift & Sons” (Japan) as a small hardcover edition of two hundred copies, this new edition acts to preserve this work and features an introduction by art critic and curator Kristine McKenna and an afterword by Ruth Bernstein.

Tosh Berman is a publisher and writer. His press, TamTam Books, has published works by Boris Vian, Guy Debord, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Mesrine, artist Lun*na Menoh, and Ron Mael & Russell Mael (Sparks). He is the author of Sparks-tastic: 21 Nights with Sparks in London. As the son of artist Wallace Berman, Tosh has delivered talks and various essays toward furthering his late father’s artistic legacy including his influential folio series, Semina (1955–1964). He resides in Los Angeles.

Ruth Bernstein lives in Highland Park where she writes postcards and collects books.

BEAU RICE discusses his documentary novel TEX together with TRACY JEANNE ROSENTHAL

TEX (Penny Ante Books)

Skylight Books' very own Beau Rice joins us for the release of his documentary novel, Tex!

An experiment between the epistolary and the ectype, Tex is a performance act in print. Featuring walk-ons by various interlocutors, this archival outpour demonstrates the potentiality of relationships in the digital age. Metonymic displacements, grammatical violations and verbal spillage form the book's rowdy non-narrative about a young LA artist’s sexual explorations, his attachment to a Texas-based former fling, Matt G, and the energy and opportunism involved with the continually forthcoming publication of this, his first book.

Rated X for strong language and sexual content.

Beau Rice is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles.

By 2015, Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal will have three books, Close (Sibling Rivalry Press), Ri Ri (Re)Vision (Publication Studio), and This Is The ENDD (Wilner Books). She is Beau's friend, an art critic for Rhizome.org, and a bratty bottom.

ELAINE SOLOWAY reads from her book GREEN NAILS AND OTHER ACTS OF REBELLION

Green Nails and Other Acts of Rebellion: Life After Loss (She Writes Press)

Early in 2009, after more than a decade of marriage, Elaine Soloway's husband, Tommy, began to change exhibiting inappropriate behaviors at times, becoming inexplicably weepy at others. More troublesome, he began to have difficulty finding words. Ultimately, Tommy's doctors discovered that he had frontotemporal degeneration a diagnosis that explained Tommy's baffling symptoms and transformed Soloway from irritated wife to unflappable, devoted caregiver in one fell swoop.

In Green Nails and Other Acts of Rebellion Soloway documents Tommy's deteriorating health and eventual death, shedding light on the day-to-day realities of those who assume the caregiver role in a relationship with uncompromising honesty and wry humor. Charming, frank, and ultimately uplifting, Soloway's story reveals how rich with love and appreciation a life compromised by an incurable illness can be and how even widowhood can open a door to a new, invigorated life.

Praise for Green Nails and Other Acts of Rebellion

"Soloway's story delves deeper than the role of caregiver to her husband. It's not so much about Tommy as it is about coping with Tommy's illness and learning to live with it. It's about accepting life's challenges and moving forward, even when forward sometimes feels backward. It's a story that manages to stay surprisingly lighthearted, as Soloway injects bittersweet memories and bits of humor into her writing. There is no woe-is-me moment in this book. There is no asking of sympathy. I always respect that in a writer." -Sophie L. Nagelberg, Literary Chicago

"What a sweet, poignant collection of memories, revisited with honesty and wit. Elaine Soloway may be a rookie widow but she is a master reporter, with high honors in tender loving care." --Elinor Lipman, author of The Inn At Lake Devine, Then She Found Me, I Can't Complain: (All Too) Personal Essays

"Soloway wins the day with her upbeat closing essays, showing us that there is 'Life After Loss' as she soldiers on in her seventies, to more joy and happiness, embracing a life filled with love and laughter from friends and family." -Sandy Pesman, WidowsList.com

Elaine Soloway is the author of the memoir The Division Street Princess, the novel She's Not The Type, and a contributor to the anthology Ask Me About My Divorce. A public relations consultant for thirty years, she also writes the blogs The Rookie Widow, The Rookie Caregiver, and Too Old To Talk Tech. Along with developing her own essays, she is a writing coach and a tech tutor. Soloway is a lifelong Chicagoan and currently lives in the city's River North neighborhood. 

MEGHAN DAUM discusses her THE UNSPEAKABLE: AND OTHER SUBJECTS OF DISCUSSION, together with BERNARD COOPER

The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion (Farrar Straus Giroux)

A master of the personal essay candidly explores love, death, and the counterfeit rituals of American life. For tonight's event Meghan Daum will be joined by Bernard Cooper!

In her celebrated 2001 collection, My Misspent Youth, Meghan Daum offered a bold, witty, defining account of the artistic ambitions, financial anxieties, and mixed emotions of her generation. The Unspeakable is an equally bold and witty, but also a sadder and wiser, report from early middle age.

It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide," Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital. Elsewhere, she writes searchingly about cultural nostalgia, Joni Mitchell, and the alternating heartbreak and liberation of choosing not to have children.

Combining the piercing insight of Joan Didion with a warm humor reminiscent of Nora Ephron, Daum dissects our culture's most dangerous illusions, blind spots, and sentimentalities while retaining her own joy and compassion. Through it all, she dramatizes the search for an authentic self in a world where achieving an identity is never simple and never complete.

Praise for The Unspeakable: And Other Subject of Discussion:

“The Unspeakable is a fantastic collection of essays: funny, clever and moving (often at the  same time), never more universal than in its most personal moments (in other words, throughout), and written with enviable subtlety, precision and spring. As if that weren’t enough, Meghan Daum very nearly persuaded me to listen to Joni Mitchell again!”– Geoff Dyer

“The Unspeakable speaks with wit and warmth and artful candor, the fruits of an exuberant and consistently surprising intelligence. These are essays that dig under the surface of what we might expect to feel in order to discover what we actually feel instead. I was utterly captivated by Daum’s sensitive fidelity to the complexity of lived experience.” – Leslie Jamison

"For several years now, I've kept copies of some of these essays . . . by my desk . . . Her writing has a clarity . . . that just makes you feel awake." --Ira Glass

"A Joan Didion for the new millennium, Meghan Daum brings grace, wit, and insight to contemporary life, love, manners, and money." --Dan Wakefield

Meghan Daum is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the essay collection My Misspent Youth. She is also the author of Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House and The Quality of Life Report, a novel. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, Vogue, and other publications. She has also contributed to NPR’s Morning Edition, Marketplace, and This American Life. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Bernard Cooper is the author of the forthcoming memoir, My Avant-Garde Education. He is also the author of The Bill From My Father, Maps To Anywhere, A Year of Rhymes, Truth Serum, and a collection of short stories, Guess Again. Cooper is the recipient of the PEN/USA Ernest Hemingway Award, the O. Henry Prize, a Guggenheim grant, and a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship in literature.  His work has appeared in several anthologies, including The Best American Essays of 1988, 1995, and 1997, 2002, and 2008.  His work has also appeared in magazines and literary reviews including, Granta, Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, Story, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine.  He has contributed to National Public Radio's "This American Life" and for six years wrote monthly features as the art critic for Los Angeles Magazine

ADELLE WALDMAN reads from her novel THE LOVE AFFAIRS OF NATHANIEL P. in conversation with director MARC WEBB

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. (Picador)

Adelle Waldman, whose novel The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. has been on our bestseller list for months, discusses her book with film director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man).

A debut novel by a brilliant young woman about the romantic life of a brilliant young man.

Writer Nate Piven's star is rising. After several lean and striving years, he has his pick of both magazine assignments and women: Juliet, the hotshot business reporter; Elisa, his gorgeous ex-girlfriend, now friend; and Hannah, "almost universally regarded as nice and smart, or smart and nice," who holds her own in conversation with his friends. When one relationship grows more serious, Nate is forced to consider what it is he really wants.

In Nate's 21st-century literary world, wit and conversation are not at all dead. Is romance? Novelist Adelle Waldman plunges into the psyche of a flawed, sometimes infuriating modern man--one who thinks of himself as beyond superficial judgment, yet constantly struggles with his own status anxiety, who is drawn to women, yet has a habit of letting them down in ways that may just make him an emblem of our times. With tough-minded intelligence and wry good humor The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is an absorbing tale of one young man's search for happiness--and an inside look at how he really thinks about women, sex and love.

Praise for The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.:

"Deliciously funny, sharply observed, elegantly told, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is the best debut I've encountered in years, the best novel about New York, and the best novel about contemporary manhood and the crazy state of gender roles and just "contemporary" life. With a pitch perfect balance of satire and sympathy, reminiscent of Mary McCarthy's The Group, Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End, and Jay McInerney'sBrightness Falls, Adelle Waldman's voice is nevertheless entirely--and unabashedly--her own." --Joanna Smith Rakoff, author of the novel A Fortunate Age

"Novelist Adelle Waldman does a very tricky thing: she succeeds in crossing the gender line, imagining the world from behind the eyes of a male character both sympathetically and unsentimentally. This former young-literary-man-in-Brooklyn found himself cringing in recognition." --William Deresiewicz, author of A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter

"I can't remember the last novel this good about being young and smart and looking for love in the big city. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. reads as if one of the top tier 19th-century novelists zeroed her social x-ray eyes onto present-moment Brooklyn. Up-and-coming writers and artists everywhere will be squirming with uncomfortable recognition of themselves, their friends, and their psyches; far more readers will be thanking Adelle Waldman for this hilarious, big-hearted, ruthlessly intelligent, and ridiculously well-written novel." --Charles Bock, author of the best-selling novel Beautiful Children

""Bracing and astute. Waldman writes these crisp, smart sentences that are every bit as thoughtful as her characters--people whose relationships founder and flourish in ways that will captivate readers from page one." --Fiona Maazel, author of Last Last Chance and "Woke Up Lonely

Adelle Waldman is the author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Slate, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband.

Filmmaker Marc Webb most recently directed The Amazing Spider-Man 2, after helming the critically acclaimedThe Amazing Spider-Man which grossed over $750 million worldwide. Webb will direct the third installment in the series, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, scheduled for release in 2018. Webb made his feature film debut with the two-time Golden Globe nominated (500) Days of Summer for which he received The National Board of Review’s Spotlight Award, recognizing outstanding directorial debuts.

JONATHAN LETHEM reads from his book DISSIDENT GARDENS and LYDIA MILLET reads from her book MERMAIDS IN PARADISE

Dissident Gardens (Vintage Books) Mermaids in Paradise (W.W. Norton & Company)

Jonathan Lethem, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the MacArthur Fellowship whose writing has been called "as ambitious as [Norman] Mailer, as funny as Philip Roth, and as stinging as Bob Dylan" ("Los Angeles Times"), returns with an epic yet intimate family saga.

Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an unreconstructed Communist who savages neighbors, family, and political comrades with the ferocity of her personality and the absolutism of her beliefs. Her equally passionate and willful daughter, Miriam, flees Rose's influence for the dawning counterculture of Greenwich Village. Despite their differences, they share a power to enchant the men in their lives: Rose's aristocratic German Jewish husband, Albert; her feckless chess hustler cousin, Lenny; Cicero Lookins, the brilliant son of her black cop lover; Miriam's (slightly fraudulent) Irish folksinger husband, Tommy Gogan; and their bewildered son, Sergius. Through Lethem's vivid storytelling we come to understand that the personal may be political, but the political, even more so, is personal.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet returns to redefine “comedy of errors” in Mermaids In Paradise, the genre-bending satire of a tropical honeymoon hijacked by mermaids, kidnappers, and mercenaries.

In this hilarious novel, a honeymooning couple makes friends with a marine biologist who discovers genuine mermaids in a coral reef—and who, the next night, apparently drowns in her hotel bathtub. As a resort chain swoops in to corner the market on mermaids, the newlyweds (opinionated, skeptical narrator Deb and handsome online gamer Chip, the world’s friendliest man) join forces with other vacationers—including an ex–Navy SEAL with a love of explosives and a hipster Tokyo VJ—to protect the mermaids from the corporate “Venture of Marvels” that wants to turn their habitat into a theme park.

Mermaids in Paradise is Millet’s funniest book yet, tempering the sharp satire of her early career with the empathy and emotional power of her more recent, critically acclaimed novels and short stories. This is an unforgettable, mesmerizing tale, comic on the surface and deeply solemn at its core.

Praise for Dissident Gardens:

"Dissident Gardens seamlessly weaves together three generations, yet it doesn't broadcast itself as a multigenerational epic, nor is it afflicted by the desire to pose as the next great American novel. It's an intimate book."--The New York Times Book Review

"A tour de force, a brilliant, satiric journey through America's dissident history."--The Star Tribune

"Lethem has artfully blended, redefined, ignored, satirized and enriched the traditional categories of fiction."--The Plain Dealer

"Remarkable. . . . Lethem's best novel since "Motherless Brooklyn." . . . Crackle[s] with wordplay and intelligence."--The Miami Herald

"The writing soars. . . . Lethem can riff with the best, spinning knockout lines that make you stop and stare . . . while you admire a sentence's every turn."--The Seattle Times

"An assured, expert literary performance by one of our most important writers. . . . Magnificent."--Los Angeles Review of Books

Praise for Mermaids in Paradise:

"Mermaids in Paradise makes brilliant comedy out of a honeymoon trip that veers from the absurd to the sublime and back again. Lydia Millet is a stone-cold genius. --Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

"I laughed so hard all over town. Leave it to Lydia Millet to capsize her human characters in aquamarine waters and upstage their honeymoon with mermaids. I am awed to know there's a mind like Millet's out there. She's a writer without limits, always surprising, always hilarious. --Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! andVampires in the Lemon Grove

Jonathan Lethem is the "New York Times" bestselling author of nine novels, including Chronic City, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, and of the nonfiction collection The Ecstasy of Influence. A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Lethem's work has appeared in "The New Yorker," "Harper's Magazine," "Rolling Stone," "Esquire," and "The New York Times," among other publications. 

Lydia Millet is the author of twelve previous books of fiction. Her novel Ghost Lightswas a New York Times Notable Book; its sequel Magnificence was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle and Los Angeles Times Awards in fiction; and her story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She lives outside Tucson, Arizona. 

PETER YARROW and NOEL PAUL STOOKEY discuss their book PETER, PAUL AND MARY: FIFTY YEARS OF A MUSIC LIFE

Peter, Paul and Mary: Fifty Years of a Music Life (Imagine Publishing)

Peter Yarrow and Noel Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary celebrate the release of the first book to detail the intimate story of the trio and their music.

Here is the first and only book that visually tells us the intimate story of Peter, Paul, and Mary and their music, with stirring images that follow their passionate fifty-year journey to the center of America’s heart.

The very best of thousands of photographs, many rare and never before published, taken over five decades by some of the world’s top photographers, show them at their earliest performances in the 1960s, when Mary was the most desired, beautiful, and charismatic performer and a new role model for women. Follow the trio as they lead America to discover the passionate soul of folk music. Join the struggle for racial equality, social justice, and freedom in this memorable journey, from the historic 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., to the trio’s appearance before half a million people in 1969 to end the Vietnam War, to their singing at the Hollywood Bowl for Survival Sunday in 1978, helping to launch the antinuke movement, the world’s first international environmental movement.

Through these images, you can feel and almost hear the trio’s songs calling for a more caring, better world as you see photos of them performing with a courage and conviction that became, for so many, the embodiment and soundtrack of their generation’s awakening to conscience, to activism, and to a new dream for all humankind.

Peter, Paul, and Mary’s songs of defiant hope and a certain unmasked innocence are still a powerful part of our American consciousness. This book reenacts the history of how the trio marked our lives with their indelible stamp of honesty—the sort we yearn to recapture and recreate in our own time, for ourselves, our children, and the generations to come.

Peter, Paul, and Mary came into being at the dawn of John F. Kennedy's presidency, as America entered one of its most dramatic periods of social and political change. With music being one of the great forces that brought them together, Americans united in unprecedented ways to create a more just and peaceful society. Folk music, with its ability to reach people's hearts, became the sound track of this remarkable quest, and Peter, Paul, and Mary became standard-bearers of America's new hopes and dreams.

MATTHEW GAVIN FRANK discusses his book PREPARING THE GHOST, in conversation with DAVID ULIN

Preparing the Ghost: An Essay Concerning the Giant Squid and Its First Photographer (Liveright Publishing)

Moses Harvey was the eccentric Newfoundland reverend and amateur naturalist who first photographed the near-mythic giant squid in 1874, draping it over a shower curtain rod to display its magnitude. In Preparing the Ghost, what begins as Moses s story becomes much more, as fellow squid-enthusiast Matthew Gavin Frank boldly winds his narrative tentacles around history, creative nonfiction, science, memoir, and meditations about the interrelated nature of them all.

In a full-hearted, lyrical style reminiscent of Geoff Dyer, Frank weaves in playful forays about his research trip to Moses' Newfoundland home, Frank's own childhood and family history, and a catalog of bizarre facts and lists that recall Melville's story of obsession with another deep-sea dwelling leviathan.

Though Frank is armed with impressive research, what he can't know about Harvey he fictionalizes, quite explicitly, as a way of both illuminating the scene and exploring his central theme: the big, beautiful human impulse to obsess.

For tonight's reading, Matthew Gavin Frank will be joined by Los Angeles Times book critic (and author himself) David Ulin.

Praise for Preparing the Ghost:

"Preparing the Ghost is a triumph of obsession, a masterful weaving of myth and science, of exploration and mystery, of love and nature. Here Matthew Gavin Frank delivers my favorite book-length essay since John D'Agata'sAbout a Mountain, and with it he stakes a claim to his own share of the new territory being forged by such innovators of the lyric essay as Eula Biss and Ander Monson." --Matt Bell, author of In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods

"Matthew Gavin Frank has made a book into a curiosity cabinet, one dedicated to the storied giant squid. A mysterious but seductive mix of history, creative non-fiction, memoir, and poetry, Preparing the Ghost is written with contagious passion. In this original book, Frank weaves his imagination through history s gaps, and keeps the reader riveted with the lure of the unknown and dark, sultry prose." --Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise

"Preparing the Ghost reads like a cross between Walt Whitman and a fever dream. Who would think squid and ice cream go together? I remained riveted to the very last word." --Sy Montgomery, author of The Good Good Pig

"Matthew Gavin Frank has fashioned a book-length essay marked by unforeseen oneiric asides, and of real and imaginary escapades in search of one Newfoundlander s giant squid. Preparing the Ghost is a mash-up of a meditation on the nature of myth, the magnetic distance between preservation and perseverance, and the sympathetic cravings that undergird pain. In Frank's heart-thumping taxonomy, monstrous behemoths square nicely with butterflies and ice cream. Don t ask me how: read this book!" --Mary Cappello, author of Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor who Extracted Them

"What a marvelous essay Matthew Gavin Frank has written. Preparing the Ghost is driven by narrative, by lyric association, by memoir, by lists, by research, by imagination. Frank delivers this story of Moses Harvey, the first person to photograph the giant squid, with a passion as supercharged as Harvey s own. Above all, this is an essay about obsession, mystery, mythmaking, and the colossal size of our lives. Take it all in. Revel in its majesty." --Lee Martin, author of Such a Life

"Like the giant squid at the center of this enchanting inquiry, Mathew Gavin Frank's Preparing the Ghost is a multi-tentacled and entirely captivating saga of profound mystery and relentless pursuit." --Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire

"Part history, part lyric poem, part detective novel Matthew Gavin Frank's Preparing the Ghost is just as intriguing and hard to classify as its subject. I never thought I'd care so much about the elusive giant squid, but thanks to this book, I can t help but see its shadow everywhere." --Brenda Miller, author of Season of the Body and Listening Against the Stone

"A great essay takes us into the author's polymathic mind and out to the wondrous world, teaching us something we didn t know we wanted to know. In Preparing the Ghost's deliciously delirious layering of science, biography, history, mystery, linguistics, myth, philosophy, epistemology, adventure, travel Matthew Gavin Frank has given us a truly great essay." --Patrick Madden, author of Quotidiana

The shortest distance between two people is a great story. This one is incredible. You will embrace Preparing the Ghost like a friend you won't want to leave." --Bob Dotson, New York Times bestselling author of American Story: A Lifetime Search for Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things

"Matthew Gavin Frank reinvents the art of research in extraordinarily imaginative ways. His meditation on the briefly known and the forever unknowable courts lore (both family and creaturely), invites the fantastical, heeds fact, and turns the human drive to notate and list into a gesture of lyrical beauty". --Lia Purpura, author of On Looking and Rough Likeness

"Fans of Federico Fellini and, most especially, of Georges Perec, will adore Mr. Frank's infuriatingly baroque, charmingly eccentric and utterly unforgettable book. And with hand on heart I can truly say that I also loved every word of it." --Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded

"Inventive, original, and endlessly interesting, Preparing the Ghost is a gorgeous exploration of myth, history, language, and imagination, all swirling around the mysterious and evocative figure of the giant squid. This book is a journey through passion, obsession, fear, and adventure, and the hunger to behold what lurks within the depths of the sea. "To look into a squid's eyes is like looking into infinity," one squid-obsessed character declares, as Matthew Gavin Frank leads us deeper and deeper into this dazzling account of strangeness, and danger, and the longing to see." --Catherine Chung, author of Forgotten Country

"Preparing the Ghost is the most original book I have read in years. Opening with an arresting image that literally haunts him, Matthew Gavin Frank unstrings history and reweaves a narrative from its threads, from fiction and news reporting and his own life, to remind us that every experience is a story braid. To remind us that life and love and death all are beauty." --Lidia Yuknavitch, author of The Chronology of Water and Dora: A Headcase

Matthew Gavin Frank has previously written about everything from wine-making in a tent in Italy to the social hierarchies of a pot farm in California. He teaches creative writing and lives in Marquette, Michigan. 

DAN O'SHANNON discusses his book THE ADVENTURES OF MRS. JESUS

The Adventures of Mrs. Jesus

With the cheeky irreverence of Lamb and Go the F**k to Sleep, comes a full-color illustrated collection of hilarious, satirical cartoons featuring the wife of Jesus, from Dan O'Shannon, an executive producer of ABC’s Modern Family.

To millions, Jesus is a teacher and an inspiring leader. To his wife, he’s the man who’s always out on the road, traveling across the country and hanging out with his pals. Now, this long-suffering wife is about to get her turn in the spotlight . . .

Welcome to The Adventures of Mrs. Jesus: a wonderfully profane and inventive chronicle of the life of humankind’s most tragically overlooked spouse. Everyone has a cross to bear. Hers has her husband on it.

Dan O'Shannon has written for several well-known network comedies such as Newhart, Cheers, Frasier, and Modern Family. His various awards include but are not limited to five Emmys, two Golden Globes, five WGA awards, an Annie award, and an Academy Award nomination. He also holds an honorary doctorate from Cleveland State University.   Additionally, O'Shannon is the author of a book about comedy theory-- What Are You Laughing At? A Comprehensive Guide to the Comedic Event, which has been adopted by universities across the country.

GRACE HELBIG reads from her book GRACE'S GUIDE: THE ART OF PRETENDING TO BE A GROWN-UP

Grace's Guide: The Art of Pretending to be a Grown-Up (Touchstone Books)

"One of the sharpest, funniest voices on YouTube" ("Forbes"), comedian Grace Helbig offers an irreverent and illustrated guide to life for anyone faced with the challenge of growing up.

Face it--being a young adult in the digital era is one of the hardest things to be. Well, maybe there are harder things in life...but being an adult is difficult! So Grace Helbig has written a guide that's perfect for anyone who is faced with the daunting task of becoming an adult. Infused with her trademark saucy, sweet, and funny voice, Grace's Guide is a tongue-in-cheek handbook for millennials, encompassing everything a young or new (or regular or old) adult needs to know, from surviving a breakup to recovering from a hangover. Beautifully illustrated and full-color,Grace's Guide features interactive elements and exclusive stories from Grace's own misadventures--like losing her virginity solely because her date took her to a Macaroni Grill--and many other hilarious lessons she learned the hard way.

Amusing and unexpectedly educational, this refreshing and colorful guide proves that becoming an adult doesn't necessarily mean you have to grow up.

Praise for Grace's Guide

"This book is just like Grace Helbig--hilarious, bright, and will cut you when you least expect it. Seriously, paper cuts are no joke. This is high-quality paper stock."--Mamrie Hart, Host of You Deserve a Drink on YouTube

"Grace Helbig is a sparkly vessel of wit and fun!"--Andy Cohen, author of Most Talkative

"One of YouTube's most endearing personalities."--Variety

"I've always looked up to Grace Helbig--and not only because she's a giantess!--because she has the extraordinary ability to accomplish whatever she sets out to do. I think this book is a testament to that."--Hannah Hart, author ofMy Drunk Kitchen

"Grace Helbig is my spirit animal and I would gladly take her to lunch at Macaroni Grill so we could talk Latin conventions, first love, and hangover remedies. I wouldn't even expect her to put out."-Jenny Han, author of To All the Boys I've Loved Before

"Hilariously honest without missing a beat, Grace brings her irresistible voice and lovable personality to Grace's Guide. #MustReadImmediately."--Tyler Oakley

Grace Helbig is a comedian, actress, and YouTube personality. She previously hosted "DailyGrace "on My Damn Channel, before leaving in January 2014 to create her own YouTube channel, it'sGrace which has more than 1.7 million subscribers and 150 million views. Helbig is the executive producer and star of the feature film "Camp Takota." She is the winner of the People's Choice Webby Award for Best First Person Format and the Streamy Award for Personality of the Year and Best First-Person Series. Helbig has been named one of "Fast Company's "100 Most Creative People in Business, "Forbes"' 30 under 30, "Time "magazine's 140 Best Twitter feeds, and BuzzFeed's 11 Awesome Up-and-Coming Funny Ladies You Should Know. A graduate of Ramapo College, she lives in Los Angeles.

DANNIELLE OWENS-REID and KRISTIN RUSSO discuss their book THIS IS A BOOK FOR PARENTS OF GAY KIDS, together with VIVEK SHRAYA reading from his book GOD LOVES HAIR

This Is A Book For Parents of Gay Kids (Chronicle Books)

"An excellent and much-needed resource." −School Library Journal

This important book is the first of its kind—it is currently the only book to speak to parents who want practical, straightforward advice on how to communicate and better parent their gay child. Authors Dannielle Owens-Reidand Kristin Russo have been dialoguing with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, and supportive families and friends, for more than four years through their award-winning website, Everyone Is Gay. Expanding on the support and advice for LGBTQ youth and their families that Dannielle and Kristin offer on their website, the book’s question-and-answer format means readers can turn straight to the questions most relevant to them, or read cover to cover to discover answers to everything from profoundly personal religious questions to practical day-to-day issues. With two authors who truly understand gay youth, this book breaks down the issues that many families face when their child comes out.

This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids speaks to parents who want practical, straightforward advice on how to communicate and better parent their LGBTQ child. For tonight's event, Danielle and Kristin will be joined by Canadian author Vivek Shraya who will read from his book, God Loves Hair, a compilation of short stories following a tender, intellectual, and curious child as he navigates complex realms of sexuality, gender, racial politics, religion, and belonging.

Dannielle Owens-Reid and Kristin Russo dialogue daily with LGBTQ youth and families through their award-winning website, Everyone is Gay. Dannielle lives in Los Angeles, and Kristin lives in New York City.

Vivek Shraya is an artist working in the mediums of music, performance, literature, and film. Winner of the We Are Listening International Singer-Songwriter Award, Vivek has released albums ranging from acoustic folk-rock to electro synthpop, the most recent of which is I Could Be Good for You. His most recent film, What I LOVE about being QUEER, expanded to include an online project and book with contributions from around the world. He lives in Toronto.