If you’re in New York tonight, come join Melville House at the New York Public library to hear our author Lore Segal (Lucinella) in conversation with Julie Orringer (The Invisible Bridge).  Lore and Julie will both read from and discuss their work.

Lore Segal is a novelist, essayist, translator, and writer of children’s books. Her celebrated works include Other People’s Houses, Her First American, and Shakespeare’s Kitchen.  Melville House has reissued Segal’s wickedly funny and timeless novella of the New York literary scene, Lucinella, last fall and an excerpt is available online here.

Julie Orringer is the author of the acclaimed story collection How To Breathe Underwater (New York Times Notable Book, 2003).  Her first novel, The Invisible Bridge, will be published by Knopf this month.

The Philadelphia Center for the Book, the Philadelphia Athenaeum, and Philagrafika 2.0 present “Building by the Book,” an exhibition hosted at the Athenaeum, one of Philly’s earliest private libraries (today it is a special collections library with a public gallery).  The three co-sponsors put out a call for artists to respond to selected architecture and design books from the Athenaeum’s collection.  Out of all of the submissions, six were chosen and are on display through May. The works are quite a site to behold and remind us of the physical beauty and art that are contained in books, especially in the days of e-books, iPads, and Kindles.  Everyone lucky enough to be living in downtown Philly should stop by for a quick peak at the show.  More details here.

Today’s a big day for writer Zachary German, freshly turned 21: his debut novel, Eat When You Feel Sad, hits shelves and tonight, the lovely WORD bookstore in Greenpoint, Brooklyn hosts his launch party.  Zachary’s novel is the story of Robert, also in his early twenties. Eat When You Feel Sad is a selection of scenes from a life: Robert watching television and drinking beer, Robert at a Chinese restaurant, Robert getting mustard on his clothes and talking on G-chat. In the tradition of Bret Easton Ellis and Tao Lin, Zachary portrays the day-to-day life of a generation, complete with movie references and a soundtrack listing (seriously, its all indexed in the back of the book).

Eat When You Feel Sad– a book trailer from Catherine Lacey on Vimeo.

In celebration of the book, Zachary has been collecting video of what people eat when they feel sad.  Visit www.eatwhenyoufeelsad.com to see your favorite writers and bloggers eating when they feel sad, including Shoplifting from American Apparel author Tao Lin and Gigantic mag founding editor James Yeh (with his roommate Ben Blum).  Submit your own video and you might just win a signed copy of Zachary’s book.

See you at WORD tonight!

With the report that follows, Melville House author Zachary German continues his occasional reviews of unusual book events… this time, covering readings in the form of a film:

This past Saturday night, Chelsea’s PPOW Gallery (quickly becoming a hotbed of NYC literary activity, this year having hosted events for n+1 Magazine and Ugly Duckling Presse) presented the premier screening of Luca Dipierro and Michael Kimball’s new film, 60 Writers/60 Places, which, as the title suggests, shows sixty short readings by sixty different writers in sixty different places.

Directors Luca and Michael chat after the screening.

Luca and Michael introduced the film. Luca said that it was about the “interaction between writers and the place they’re reading.” He talked about the strenuousness of having at one point filmed twelve readings in two days, as well as the reluctance of some people to allow them to film at their location. He recalled an unsuccessful attempt at recording Giancarlo DiTrapano reading in a Hell’s Kitchen peep show, which led them to the front door of a nearby church. Luca said the recording they made there was more far more successful than it would have been in the peep show. Michael talked about editing the film, and recalled drawing each shot on an index card and shuffling them around on a table until he found the correct order.

The format of the film is a black screen with white letters stating the reader’s name and location of the scene, followed by a few seconds of the reader staring into the camera, a brief reading, and a few more seconds of staring.

Tao Lin read a poem about girls he wanted or did not want to date, while standing to the left of a hot dog cart in what appeared to be Union Square. Sam Lipsyte read about energy bars, in a cardboard box-filled office. Rick Moody, in a “Mud Hens” jersey, read in a baseball field. Deb Olin Unferth read in a laundromat, in front of active machines. In these and other shots, the ambient sound, provided before, during and after the reading, really did what Luca spoke about, in showing the interaction between writer and space.

Former Melville House intern Catherine Lacey (center) talks to Zachary German (left) at the event.

Some of the most interesting readings occurred in settings with observers nearby. Jen Michalski read in a deli, with the butcher, to the back right, providing constant facial response to the poetry.  Michael Hearst read in a woodshop, to the left of a working carpenter. Leslie F. Miller, perhaps most enjoyably for me, read in a rehearsal space, with an adolescent girl providing both audience and guitar accompaniment to Miller’s poetry. Jessica Anya Blau gets served what appears to be a martini while reading on a patio. In the film’s last shot, Will Eno, reading a poem about bees, is surrounded by them, for his reading in a park.

I enjoyed “60 Writers/60 Places.” I wasn’t sure if I would, as I often do not enjoy readings. I guess the brevity of the readings combined with the juxtaposition of readings out of the typical bar / book store setting made it good, for me.

The Hindu reports that the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) ”has chosen Buenos Aires as the World Book Capital for the year 2011 as part of the agency’s ongoing efforts to promote literature and reading.”  According to a press release at UNESCO’s website, “The city of Buenos Aires was selected for the quality and variety of its proposed programme as well as for the consolidated strategy on which it is based.”

Each year the UNESCO designates one city to be honored by the world literary community. The designation is made by three branches of the international book industry — the International Publishers Association (IPA), the International Booksellers Federation (IBF) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). This year’s decision makers were Jens Bammel (IPA), Françoise Dubruille (IBF), and Jennefer Nicholson (IFLA).

The current 2009 honor holder is Beirut, followed by Ljubljana in 2010. The UNESCO committee said it was very gratified to have had more applicants from Sub-Saharan Africa, and “two looks forward to finding ways of strengthening literature and book culture in this region.”

Dennis Cooper (left) and Tony O'Neill (photo by Justin Taylor)

With the report that follows, MobyLives introduces a new feature: from time to time, Melville House author Zachary German is going to write reviews of unusual book events given by something other than the usual suspects ….

Last Thursday, those of us lucky or unemployed enough to have a free hour or so in the early afternoon were able to see acclaimed writer and friend of mine Dennis Cooper in conversation with acclaimed writer and friend of mine Tony O’Neill, at the reading room in Bryant Park. Between thirty and fifty people braved the light rain. I didn’t bring a camera, pen or notebook (what we in the industry call “dropping the ball”), but Justin Taylor, sitting two seats to my right, took some photos and was so kind as to let me use them. Quotes are likely wildly inaccurate.

The event began promptly at 12:30, the posted starting time. A man in a suit talked about upcoming events at the reading room, and introduced Dennis and Tony. In introducing Tony, the man said something like “His promising music career was derailed by drugs and the fast life,” at which point some members of the audience laughed. The man in the suit then laughed, himself, and said something like “That’s what it says on the paper.” Continue Reading »

A new Melville House book out this week by New Yorker editor Ben Greenman takes the art of writing fiction about music to new heights. Called Please Step Back, it tells the turbulent tale of fallen American rock star, Rock Foxx, and is based on the life and times of such funk-rock greats as James Brown and Sly Stone. To quote Greenman, “Sly is an artist at the level of, oh, I don’t know, Picasso or Joyce, and what did him in was so predictable and unfortunate that it is a loss to everyone.”

A starred review in Publishers Weekly hails the book as ‘fresh and explosive.’ Other early fans include Walter Mosley, for whom the book ‘sings of the back-street, back-stage hyper-kinetic moment when music, stardom, and cultural sea changes pushed America irrevocably forward’, and the New Yorker’s pop music critic Sasha Frere-Jones,who says Greenman’s dialogue is’ as terse, piercing and easeful as Sly Stone’s lyrics.’

And this cake has a cherry: in the collaboration of the year, funk-rock legend, Swamp Dogg has recorded a cover of the book’s title track ‘Please Step Back’ and it’s been spreading like wild fire since Largehearted Boy broke the story and the song here—and quick to jump on the band wagon were The Daily Beast, Flavorwire, The Village Voice, and the Portland Oregonian.

Ahead of his New York launch at Galapagos Art Space May 12, Greenman will be blogging for MobyLives as he conquers LA, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland… For a taster of the fun to come, check out his Tour Rider just posted at McSweeney’s and thank your lucky stars you’re not his publicist…

A.A. Zhdanov

This is a Grumpy Old Woman alert: please stop reading if you don’t like crabbiness.

Today’s pet peeve: anniversaries. In personal life, they’re the ideal opportunity to fuck up, whether through simple forgetfulness or failure to celebrate in the way expected. Relationship markers, birthdays, odd religious festivals: all have their own special pitfalls.

Far more disturbing, however, is the overwhelming social urge to commemorate. The most obvious examples are the World War fests that used to come around every decade and now seem to be re-enacted with more vigour each year. In England, we have a small clutch of surviving First World War veterans. I don’t wish to imply any disrespect, rather the opposite; quite apart from the horrors they endured in the trenches, the fact that they are still lucid enough to recount it deserves our applause and admiration. Yet there is something very distasteful about the way in which they are asked to retell their stories year after year, tears rolling down their faces on international television.

And now to the literary aspect. In bygone days, when I was a publicist, we were always looking for an anniversary -– forty years since Che Guevara’s death, or the Six Day War. Whatever. The important thing was that it should be a round number -– “sixty-four years since V E Day” does not roll smoothly off the tongue –- and that it could provide an interesting enough hook to sell a review. On one occasion I sent out an email stating that the sixtieth anniversary of the second Zdhanov Doctrine was nigh and editors should therefore run a piece on Shostakovich. You know the worst thing? Someone nearly bought it.

A few days ago I went onto the Times website to find an article titled “Shakespeare’s sonnets turn 400”. I know, it seems kind of innocuous. And Jonathan Bate does make some very interesting points, and we could probably all do with reading a little more Shakespeare. “They express almost every permutation of love, from the first leap of the heart at the sight of the beloved to the last ache of sorrow and bitterness in the face of death or, worse, betrayal.” It’s a sight more poetic than Gossip Girl. But the problem with this kind of labelling is that people read the article, think “I really should read some more Shakespeare”, Google sonnets, compare their lovers to a summer’s day (though preferably not an English one) and don’t think about it any more. Anniversary honoured, job done. Who’s next?

All this encourages pseudo-intellectual vacuity of the nth degree. You go to the meeting to honour the 175th anniversary of union organising and 125 years since the Tolpuddle Marches, you shout a bit and then you go to a supermarket that actively discourages unions and everything they stand for. Maybe you vote Conservative on the way. All the while, a really important anniversary is being marked in Columbine; ten years since the high school massacre, a tragedy that might have changed the way you guys consider guns and the right to bear arms. And it’s devalued by the theatrics going on everywhere else. That’s what pisses me off the most.