The Read: July 27-August 2, 2010

 

6:30pm, 37 Main Street

In her new book, Parallel Justice for Victims of Crime, author and criminal justice professor Susan Herman puts forth a new way of thinking about what is needed to help victims rebuild their lives. With more than 25 years of leadership experience in government, criminal justice, and social services, Ms. Herman is an internationally recognized spokesperson for victims of crime. Join her tonight for a discussion about her ideas to revolutionize our justice system.

 

6:30pm, 37 Main Street

Tonight the New School celebrates the release of the 18th issue of LIT, the literary magazine of its Creative Writing MFA program. Head to PowerHouse Arena for an evening of literary refreshment and three readings from the issue: a poem by Mike Young and story excerpts from novelists Traci O'Connor and Rafael Pérez Gay.

 

7pm, 163 Court Street

In his new, colossal comic novel, Rick Moody takes us into the future. The high concept, complicated, and crazy plot in The Four Fingers of Death follows Montese Crandall as he writes the novelization of the 1963 classic drive-in movie The Crawling Arm. Booklist says, "Moody’s outrageous plot reflects his love of cheesy science fiction and allows him to tweak the conventions of the genre while also launching acerbic commentary on a future U.S."

 

 

7pm, 37 Main Street

Full Spectrum and PowerHouse Arena have put together a powerful panel of four creators who have been exiled from their homelands. Tonight they will discuss their experiences and how they've found their way far from home. The panel includes Iraqi born artist Wafaa Bilal, Siberian-born photographer Slava Mogutin who was exiled from Russia for his queer writings and activism at the age of 21, Eritrean artist Dawit L. Petros exiled because of the 31-year war of liberation with Ethiopia, and Ninotchka Rosca, a Philippine-born writer permanently exiled because of a dictatorship.

 

7:30pm, 8415 Third Avenue

There's never a shortage of book clubs in Brooklyn. Tonight readers discuss Sarah's Key at the BookMark Shoppe in Bay Ridge. The story transports us to France where journalist Julia Jarmond is asked to write an article about the 60th anniversary of Vel’ d’Hiv, the day the Nazis rounded-up Jews in Paris. Through her investigation, Jarmond discovers the story of Sarah, a ten-year-old girl who was brutally arrested with her family in 1942.

 

6:30pm, 686 Fulton Street

Local Brooklyn author Carey Wallace will read from her debut novel, The Blind Contessa's New Machine, this evening in her neighborhood bookstore. The book tells the story of a nineteenth-century noblewoman whose family doesn't believe she is losing her eyesight. The only one who believes her is an inventor, who sets out to help her to transcend her blindness.

 

 

7:30pm, 123 Columbia Street

Author and New Bomb Turks frontman Eric Davidson will recount his experiences as a punk music trailblazer in Freebird's backyard. He'll read from and discuss his new book, We Never Learn: The Gunkpunk Undergut 1988-2001, a celebration of the last great wave of down-and-dirty rock before the internet completely changed the game. Beer and chips will be served, and two lucky guests will win tickets and a cab ride to that night's Gories concert at the Bowery Ballroom.

 

7:30pm, 686 Fulton Street

Super Sad True Love Story — the third novel by acclaimed New York author Gary Shteyngart — follows the professional, romantic, and unwillingly political adventures of Lenny Abramov: diarist, lover, and employee of Post-Human Services. Publisher's Weekly says the book is Shteyngart's best yet and describes it as "a rich commentary on the obsessions and catastrophes of the information age and a heartbreaker worthy of its title."

 

 

7:30pm, 686 Fulton Street

The memoir is a conflicted and fascinating creation, where memory and truth meet the demands of the marketplace; it is also both an increasingly popular genre in contemporary American books and the focus of a string of scandals and condemnations. Greenlight has put together a panel of three memoirists with varying perspectives on the genre. The authors will share their motives and efforts behind writing memoirs and discuss the state of the memoir in general.