Skylight Books Podcast Series

Scott Esposito, "THE DOUBLES"

Part memoir-through-film, part inquiry into the effect art has on our lives, Scott Esposito's The Doubles is a passionate, exquisitely written examination of 14 films that have made him.

Retelling one film per year, and covering 20 years of Esposito's life from 1996 - 2016, The Doubles shows the development via film of a critical intelligence and a maturing human being. From classic cinema like A Clockwork Orange to cosmological documentaries like A Brief History of Time to offbeat works like Koyaanisqatsi and major contemporary fare like Boyhood, Esposito's book inquires into the possibilities of a medium that has made us all.

Esposito is in conversation with Rebekah Weikel, a writer and editor living in LA.

Karl Geary, "MONTPELIER PARADE"

Montpelier Parade is just across town, but to Sonny it might as well be a different world. Working with his father in the garden of one of its handsome homes one Saturday, he sees a back door easing open and a beautiful woman coming down the path toward him. This is Vera, the sort of person who seems destined to remain forever out of his reach. Hoping to cast off his loneliness and a restless sense of not belonging--at high school, in his part-time job at the butcher shop, and in the increasingly suffocating company of his own family--Sonny drifts into dreams of a different kind of life. A series of intoxicating encounters with Vera lead him to feel he has fallen in love for the first time, but why does her past seem as unknowable as her future? Unfolding over a bright, rain-soaked Dublin spring, Karl Geary's Montpelier Parade is a rich, devastating debut novel about desire, grief, ambition, art, and the choices we must make alone.

Geary is in conversation with JT Petty, an American film director, author, and video game writer.

Clara Parkes, "A STASH OF ONE'S OWN"

A Stash of One’s Own: Knitters on Loving, Living With, and Letting Go of Yarn is an addictive-to-read anthology that celebrates yarn—specifically, the knitter’s reputation for acquiring it in large quantities and storing it away in what’s lovingly referred to as a “stash.”

The stories in Clara Parke's A Stash of One’s Own represent and provide validation for knitters’ wildly varying perspectives on yarn, from holding zero stash, to stash-busting, to stockpiling masses of it—and even including it in estate plans. These tales are for all fiber artists, spinners, dyers, crafters, crocheters, sheep farmers, shop owners, beginning knitters to yarn experts, and everyone who has ever loved a skein too hard to let it go.

Robin Sloan, "SOURDOUGH"

Lois Clary is a software engineer at General Dexterity, a San Francisco robotics company with world-changing ambitions. She codes all day and collapses at night, her human contact limited to the two brothers who run the neighborhood hole-in-the-wall from which she orders dinner every evening. Then, disaster! Visa issues. The brothers close up shop, and fast. But they have one last delivery for Lois: their culture, the sourdough starter used to bake their bread. She must keep it alive, they tell her—feed it daily, play it music, and learn to bake with it.

Lois is no baker, but she could use a roommate, even if it is a needy colony of microorganisms. Soon, not only is she eating her own homemade bread, she’s providing loaves daily to the General Dexterity cafeteria. The company chef urges her to take her product to the farmer’s market, and a whole new world opens up.

Leavened by the same infectious intelligence that made Robin Sloan’s Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore such a sensation, while taking on even more satisfying challenges, Sourdough marks the triumphant return of a unique and beloved young writer.

Augustus Rose, "THE READYMADE THIEF"

Lee Cuddy is seventeen years old and on the run, alone on the streets of Philadelphia. After taking the fall for a rich friend, Lee reluctantly accepts refuge in the Crystal Castle--a cooperative of homeless kids squatting in an austere, derelict building. But homeless kids are disappearing from the streets in suspicious numbers, and Lee quickly discovers that the secret society's charitable facade is too good to be true. She finds an unexpected ally in Tomi, a young artist and hacker whose knowledge of the Internet's black market is rivaled only by his ability to break into and out of buildings. From abandoned aquariums to highly patrolled museums to the homes of vacationing Philadelphians, Tomi and Lee can always chart a way to the next, perfect hide-out. 

But the harder Lee tries to escape into the unmapped corners of the city, the closer she unwittingly gets to uncovering the disturbing agenda of the very men who pull the strings of the secret society she's hoped to elude, a group of fanatics obsessed with the secrets encoded in the work of early-twentieth-century artist Marcel Duchamp. What these men want is more twisted than anything Lee could've imagined, and they believe Lee holds the key to it all. Augustus Rose's The Readymade Thief heralds the arrival of an astoundingly imaginative and propulsive new voice in fiction for fans of Marisha Pessl and Ernest Cline.

Rose is in conversation with Tom Bissell, author of Apostle: Travel Among the Tombs of the Twelve.

Eleanor Henderson, "THE TWELVE-MILE STRAIGHT"

Eleanor Henderson’s bestselling debut novel Ten Thousand Saints was named one of the New York Times Book Review’s ten best books of the year and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among other honors. It was deemed “fierce, devoted and elegiac,” and Ann Patchett said, “Eleanor Henderson is in possession of an enormous talent which she has matched up with skill, ambition, and a fierce imagination.” In her forthcoming novel, The Twelve-Mile Straight, Henderson boldly returns to the page with a story inspired by those she heard about the small town in South Georgia her father grew up in, and combines the emotional acuity of her earlier work with a fresh take on big, important themes.

Henderson is joined by Edan Lepucki, author of the novels California and Woman No. 17.

Daniel Sweren-Becker, "THE EQUALS"

What happens when your own government turns against you? The Equality Team continues to round up and subject The Ones—the 1% of the American population who were genetically engineered in vitro—to a vaccine that will level the playing field. Desperate to save her boyfriend James from this fate, Cody flees into the wild to seek
assistance from a shadowy rebel group dedicated to equal rights for the Ones at any cost.

But when she grows closer to a radical named Kai, she's brought deeper into the fold, only to realize the group's leader has a secret plan more dangerous than Cody could have imagined—something that could change the course of the Ones' future. 

In The Equals, themes of justice, discrimination and terrorism mix with actual science to create a frightening version of our near future in Daniel Sweren-Becker's action-packed sequel to The Ones.

Alistair McCartney, "THE DISINTEGRATIONS"

“I know nothing about death, absolutely nothing,” asserts the narrator of Alistair McCartney's inventive autobiographical novel. Yet he can’t stop thinking about it. Detached from life in Los Angeles and his past in Australia, uncomfortable around other humans, he researches death on the Internet; mulls over distant and intimate stories of suicides, serial killers, and “natural deaths”; and wanders about LA’s Holy Cross Cemetery. He’s looking for answers, all the while formulating his own disquieting philosophies.

Within this dizzying investigation into the mystery of death is another mystery: who is the companion igniting these memories? This enigmatic novel blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction, story and eulogy, poetry and obituary. Wry yet somber, astringent yet tender, The Disintegrations confronts both the impossibility of understanding death and the timeless longing for immortality.

Mr. McCartney is joined by David Francis, author of Agapanthus Tango, Stray Dog Winter, and Wedding Bush Road.

Demetri Martin, "IF IT'S NOT FUNNY, IT'S ART"

Demetri Martin, comedian and New York Times bestselling author of This Is a Book and Point Your Face at This, is back with another collection of hilarious drawings and jokes.

Packed with hundreds of new illustrations and one-liners, If It's Not Funny, It's Art is a peek into the ingenious mind of author/comedian/filmmaker Demetri Martin. Exploring the meaning of art, life, death, ennui and the elegant fart joke with a sensibility all its own, this collection is a perfect gift for word lovers, art appreciators and fans of Demetri's unique brand of comedy. Sure to make you laugh out loud, and if it doesn't, then you know it's art. 

Tod Goldberg, "GANGSTER NATION"

It’s been two years since the events of Gangsterland, when legendary Chicago hitman Sal Cupertine disappeared into the guise of Las Vegas Rabbi David Cohen. Now, in September of 2001, everything’s coming up gold for David—but Sal wants out. He only needs to make it through the High Holidays, and he’ll have enough money to slip away, grab his wife and kid, and start fresh.

Across the country, former FBI agent Matthew Drew is now running security for an Indian Casino outside of Milwaukee, spending his off-time stalking members of The Family, looking for vengeance for the murder of his former partner. So when Sal’s cousin stumbles into the casino one night, Matthew takes the law into his own hands— again—touching off a series of events that will have Rabbi Cohen running for his life, trapped in Las Vegas, with the law, society, and the post-9/11 world closing in around him.

With the wit and gritty glamour that defines his writing, Tod Goldberg traces how the things we most value in our lives—home, health, even our spiritual lives—have been built on the enterprises of criminals.

Mr. Goldberg is joined by David L. Ulin, author of Ear to the Ground.

Matthew Zapruder, "WHY POETRY"

In Why Poetry, award-winning poet Matthew Zapruder takes on what it is that poetry--and poetry alone--can do. Zapruder argues that the way we have been taught to read poetry is the very thing that prevents us from enjoying it. In lively, lilting prose, he shows us how that misunderstanding interferes with our direct experience of poetry and creates the sense of confusion or inadequacy that many of us feel when faced with it.

Mr. Zapruder is joined by David L. Ulin, author of the novel Ear to the Ground.

Attica Locke, "BLUEBIRD, BLUEBIRD"

Attica Locke considers herself a Texan-in-exile, one with a complicated relationship to the truck-stop towns up and down Highway 59 in East Texas, where she sets Bluebird, Bluebird. It also happens to be where Attica’s entire family, on both sides, can trace their roots back to slavery. It’s a place that gave Attica’s family the values that mattered, even as it consistently broke their hearts. Many black Americans left towns just like those where Attica’s family lived to move north. But Attica will tell you that her family and their lives, then and now, are defined by the very fact that they stayed.

Everything that staying in East Texas meant for Attica and her family—and the intersection of that meaning with the current political climate—was the inspiration for Bluebird, Bluebird. Darren Mathews, a Texas Ranger with a tarnished badge, faces the issues that plague every black American who encounters law enforcement, never knowing quite when it’s safe to follow the rules. Mathews soon finds himself in the center of a murder mystery that turns the classic southern script about race inside out.

Anne Gisleson, "THE FUTILITARIANS"

For most people, early middle age doesn’t include a philosophical reading list and a deep dive into existentialism. But if Anne Gisleson’s new memoir, The Futilitarians, is anything to go on, it probably should.

By turns intellectual, poignant, playful, and deeply funny, The Futilitarians explores both the personal—from Anne’s Catholic upbringing in New Orleans, to her father’s death, to the suicides of her sisters—and the universal, the questions that mankind has grappled with for millennia. What is the correct way to live, to experience loss, to grow old? And what does it mean to be human?

Anne is joined by Matt Sumell, whose stories have appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, and others. He is also a recipient of a Glenn Schaeffer Award and an Arlene Cheng Fellowship. 

BEN LOORY READS FROM HIS NEW BOOK TALES OF FALLING AND FLYING

Ben Loory returns with a second collection of timeless tales, inviting us to enter his worlds of whimsical fantasy, deep empathy, and playful humor, in the signature voice that drew readers to his highly praised first collection. In stories that eschew literary realism, Loory's characters demonstrate richly imagined and surprising perspectives, whether they be dragons or swordsmen, star-crossed lovers or long-lost twins, restaurateurs dreaming of Paris or cephalopods fixated on space travel. In propulsive language that brilliantly showcases Loory's vast imagination, Tales of Falling and Flying expands our understanding of how fiction can work.

Appealing to the fans of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi writers like Ray Bradbury, Neil Gaiman, and Philip Pullman, as well as contemporary literary powerhouses like George Saunders, Karen Russell, and Helen Oyeyemi, Tales of Falling and Flying expands our understanding of how fiction can work and is sure to cement Loory’s reputation as one of the most innovative short-story writers working today.

Praise for Tales of Falling and Flying

“Ben Loory’s stories are little gifts, strange and moving and wonderfully human. I devoured this book in one sitting.” —Ransom Riggs, author of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

“Russell Edson’s new protégé, or Steven Millhauser, distilled into tea. Meet, or re-meet Ben Loory, whose preposterous, friendly stories can’t help but charm. They are so bizarrely readable they don’t even feel like they’re made of words.”—Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

“Parables, dark fables, quirky flash fictions—call them what you will, Ben Loory has perfected the form and in Tales of Falling and Flying proves once again he can disturb a little and entertain a lot. Easily read, not easily forgotten.”—Jeff VanderMeer, author of Borne and The Southern Reach Trilogy

“To read a Ben Loory story is to slip through a portal into an adjacent dimension. To learn—with brevity and clarity—the laws of this universe next door, new rules of logic and contradiction and truth. And, in the end, to be left with the disturbing and wondrous feeling of having never left home at all.” —Charles Yu, author of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe

“Ben Loory is a wonder. I'd like to curl up inside his marvelous head and canoodle with a besotted squid, swallow a tiny dragon, levitate with Death and fall in love with the Eiffel Tower, and after reading these sublime stories-- slyly funny, melancholy and deeply weird-- I suppose I have, and it was fantastic.”—Elissa Schappell

“Equal parts Beckett and Twilight Zone . . . Perfect for reading on strange beaches and by oddly shaped swimming pools. Fits right in your pocket or purse for emergency doses of the charming and weird.” —Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

Ben Loory is the author of the collection Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day, and a picture book for children, The Baseball Player and the Walrus. His stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Tin House, READ Magazine, and Fairy Tale Review, been heard on This American Life and Selected Shorts, and performed live at WordTheatre in Los Angeles and London. A graduate of Harvard University and the American Film Institute MFA program in screenwriting, Loory lives in Los Angeles, where he is an Instructor for the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.

Event date: 

Thursday, September 7, 2017 - 7:30pm

SHAWNA KENNEY & RICH DOLINGER DISCUSS THEIR BOOK LIVE AT THE SAFARI CLUB WITH MIKE GITTER AND HIS BOOK XXX FANZINE

Live at the Safari Club: A People’s History of HarDCore is the uncensored oral history of a notorious underground punk venue in the nation’s capital, told by the very bands, fans, zinesters, promoters, graffiti artists, scenesters, senators’ kids and activists who made it happen. 

From 1988 to 1997, the Safari Club was Washington, DC’s version of New York’s iconic CBGBs. An Ethiopian restaurant by day turned-Go-Go club-on-
Saturday nights, this windowless dive deep in the heart of the city then known as the “murder capital of the world” transformed into an all-ages venue every Sunday afternoon.

New York bands Sick of it All, Murphy’s Law, Bold, Earth Crisis and Gorilla Biscuits played their first DC shows on the Safari’s tiny mirrored stage. Southern California’s Chain of Strength, Insted, and Strife all breezed through at least once, while local legends Ignition, Kingface, Swiz, Battery, Damnation A.D. and Government Issue screamed for change.

Live at the Safari Club allows the scene to tell its own tales—the broken arms, bruised egos, back-stabbings, riots, rip-offs, fights, lifelong friendships and love stories revolving around the music.

Shawna Kenney authored the award-winning memoir I Was a Teenage Dominatrix(Last Gasp), edited the anthology Book Lovers (Seal Press) and co-wroteImposters (Mark Batty Publishers). She contributed to the book 9:30: A Time and Place as well as Spoke: Images and Stories from the 1980s Washington, DC Punk Scene (Akashic Books). Her freelance work has appeared in The New York Times, Ms., Bust, Vice, Narratively, Alternative Press, Creative Nonfiction, and more.

Rich Dolinger has played in bands and has been involved in the hardcore scene since the late 80s. He’s dabbled in photography, music journalism, graphic design and film editing. His photography and articles have appeared in Spin Magazine, AP, Highwire Daze and While You Were Sleeping. He owns the Los Angeles-based contracting company Straight Edge Tile.

Photo by Kym Ghee

For well over three decades now, Mike Gitter has been responsible for hurting your ears. When xXx¨Fanzine released its twentieth and final issue in 1988, he focused on a career in music journalism as a contributing editor to Rip and Tower Records Pulse while freelancing for the likes of Thrasher, Kerrang!, Spin and Rolling Stone (amongst others). A move to New York City in 1989 eventually found him transitioning into the A&R departments of various record labels including Atlantic, Roadrunner, Century Media and Razor & Tie. Some of his more notable signings include Jawbox and Bad Religion for Atlantic, Killswitch Engage and Megadeth for Roadrunner; HIM and Chiodos for Razor & Tie as well as The Shrine and Ignite at Century Media. He’s also worked in music merchandising and artist management. Mike currently lives and works in Los Angeles, CA

Event date: 

Tuesday, September 5, 2017 - 7:30pm