20 Must-See Events at the Brooklyn Book Festival!
6) Yeah, LA is the worst. But that’s only if you’re there in real life. Reading about it can be amazing, especially when it’s the LA of the Hollywood Golden Age, not the current LA of the Hollywood Plastic Age.
1:00 P.M. The Other Coast: Stories from L.A.
Emma Straub (Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures) Seth Greenland (The Angry Buddhist) and Karolina Waclawiak (How to Get Into the Twin Palms) read and discuss their books that bring to life the golden-age of Hollywood stars, politicking in the California desert and hidden life in the private clubs of L.A. Moderated by David Ulin (The Lost Art of Reading). Brooklyn Borough Hall Courtroom (209 Joralemon Street)”
7) Tony Danza! He’s so boss.
1:00 P.M. Tony Danza in Conversation with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. Main Stage (Borough Hall Plaza)”
8) Everyone’s been talking about Naomi Wolf’s “Vagina” lately. Go hear Wolf talk about it firsthand.
2:00 P.M. Let’s Talk About Sex: Grappling with Gender in the 21st Century.
Is biology destiny? What does it mean today to be a man, a woman, or to feel somewhere in between? Naomi Wolf (Vagina: A New Biography), Carlos Andres Gomez (Man Up: Cracking the Code of Modern Manhood) and Kate Bornstein (A Queer and Pleasant Danger) consider the role of sex and gender in culture today, how it makes us, and how we react to the trappings of gender put upon us by society at large. Moderated by Hanna Rosin (The End of Men). Main Stage (Borough Hall Plaza)”
9) Secrets! Learn how to tell and get rich off of all your friends’ and family members’ secrets without having them hate you forever!
2:00 P.M. Secrets Secrets Are Some Fun.
How does a writer decide what to keep from the characters, narrator, or audience? Elizabeth Crane (We Only Know So Much), John Burnham Schwartz (Northwest Corner) and Kurt Andersen (True Believers) discuss how they tell secrets, but they won’t tell them all! Moderated by Ben Greenman (What He’s Poised to Do) St. Francis McCardle (180 Remsen Street)”
10) Hosted by Johnny Temple,who runs the whole damn show that is the Brooklyn Book Fest, this is a great opportunity to hear some of Brooklyn’s best authors all at once.
2:00 P.M. Literary Lions.
Readings by award winning authors Pete Hamill (Tabloid City), Edwidge Danticat (Create Dangerously) and Paul Auster (Winter Journal). Whether their point of view is a palimpsest of Brooklyn fiction or set in other places, they have each lived in Brooklyn and been influenced by it. Followed by Q & A. Introduced by Johnny Temple, Publisher, Akashic Books and Chair of the Brooklyn Literary Council. Saint Ann and the Holy Trinity Church (157 Montague Street)”
Photo Allison Michael Orenstein