Rabih Alameddine debuted his new novel, An Unnecessary Woman, at Community Bookstore in Park Slope and conversed with Colm Tóibín on Wednesday. Tóibín is the author of The Testament of Mary (2012), a novel exploring the life of Mary, mother of Jesus, and he is a professor at Columbia University.
The Chinese-Canadian author Kim Fu read from her debut novel For Today I Am a Boy (January 2014) at Greenlight Bookstore. She was joined by Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com, for conversation about the book. For Today I Am a Boy chronicles the struggle faced by the narrator and protagonist, Peter, girl born with the body of a boy. Adding to Peter’s struggle is his immigrant parents’ desire to both assimilate Canadian culture and maintain their family lineage. With three sisters, Peter lacks the brother necessary to divert her father’s intense fascination on raising a son.
The polar vortex thrust New York City in a frigid chill this week, weather that Okey Ndibe says reminds him of the first day in the United States twenty-five years earlier. He arrived in December, 1988, on the coldest day of the year wearing only a light jacket. Ndibe came from Nigeria, a place where cold is seventy-five degrees. Nobody warned him about winter.
This month, Okey Ndibe released his second novel, Foreign Gods, Inc, fourteen years after his debut, Arrows of Rain (2000). His publisher, SoHo Press, has sent him around the country to promote the book, and hosted Ndibe at the Jefferson Market Library in the West Village.
Two decades ago, the Barnes & Noble Discover New Writers program selected Chang-Rae Lee for his 1995 novel Native Speaker, helping launch his career as a novelist. Earlier this month he released his fifth novel, On Such a Full Sea. He read from the book at the 82nd Street Barnes & Noble before answering audience questions.
National Book Award winner Richard Powers read from his new novel, Orfeo, and discussed the book at McNally Jackson Books. The novel combines the past and present of protagonist Peter Els while relying heavily on music to propel the narrative, the third of Powers’s books to integrate music into the text.
Ishmael Beah’s previous book, the 2007 memoir A Long Way Gone, examined the life of child soldiers in Sierra Leone’s civil war. Beah’s new book, the novel Radiance of Tomorrow, explores the aftermath of war as people return to their homes and rebuild their lives. Beah read from the novel at Greenlight Bookstore where he was joined by Dinaw Mengestu in conversation. Mengestu is an Ethiopian born, American novelist. His novel, All Our Names is forthcoming in March, and is the author of three other books.
Shovel Ready, the debut novel by Adam Sternbergh, is set in a future dystopian New York City featuring a trash collecting, hitman protagonist. BookCourt celebrated the release of his book by hosting Sternbergh for a reading. Sternbergh is the culture editor for the New York Times magazine and a former editor at New York Magazine.
Rachel Cantor sends readers into a near future controlled by fast food corporations with her debut novel A Highly Unlikely Scenario: Or, A Neetsa Pizza Employee’s Guide to Saving the World. Cantor celebrated the release of the novel at Greenlight Bookstore along Hannah Tinti, co-founder and editor of the single story per issue journal One Story.