around-town2

October 29-November 15  Superheroes in Gotham

New York Historical Societysuperman
170 Central Park W.
New York, NY  10024
212-485-9205

Time: 10:00 am

Cost:
Adult Ticket: $20
College Student: $12

Heroes are all around us: Daredevil prowls Hell’s Kitchen, Harley Quinn calls Coney Island home, and the new Doctor Fate guards Brooklyn. The proliferation of local heroes is a function of the adage “write what you know”: Until DC Comics’ L.A. move this spring, both major superhero publishers operated out of Manhattan. The exhibition “Superheroes in Gotham” follows the genre’s inception in the Thirties through the modern explosion of fandom, with artifacts from radio, television, film, and comics on display. It’s like the Batcave trophy room, but less musty.

Learn more and purchase your tickers here.

November 2nd- Pass the Mic: Garth Risk Hallberg 

Fridman Gallery
hallberg_author_photo 287 Spring Street  
New York, NY 10013

Time: 7:00 pm

Cost: Free!

Garth Risk Hallberg’s City on Fire — a 900-plus-page debut novel set in New York City during the 1970s — caused quite a stir in 2013, when the famous movie producer Scott Rudin scooped up the film rights and Knopf, as reported in the New York Times, “[paid] close to $2 million” for publishing privileges. The book is now finally hitting shelves, allowing hungry readers to delve into its mysterious plot, which circles around a parade of characters and their connection to a New Year’s Eve shooting in Central Park. Hopefully, too, we’ll start learning a little bit more about the 36-year-old, Louisiana-born man behind the work — and there’s no better place to start than with this Pass the Mic author event with Mic‘s Scott Bixby.

November 2nd- Ada Calhoun: St.Marks Is Dead

Cooper Union, Great Hall
7 E. 7th St.
New York, NY 10003ada_calhoun_glasses

Time: 6:00 pm

Cost: Free!

Jay Ruttenberg’s cover story for the Voice‘s October 28, 2015, issue profiles the East Village native Ada Calhoun, author of the new book St. Marks Is Dead. “In examining the street’s three blocks,” writes Ruttenberg, “St. Marks Is Deadpans out to survey the East Village and, effectively, American iconoclasm.” At one point in the piece, Ruttenberg draws a witty and somehow moving parallel between two moments that occurred near the Cooper Union Great Hall: Abraham Lincoln’s 1860 declaration (“Let us have faith that right makes might”) and a minor street fight in 2015 (“Get off the fucking stoop!”). Tonight, Calhoun discusses the book at that very spot.

November 3rd- David Mitchell: Slade House

92nd Street Yslade_house_david_mitchell
1395 Lexington Ave.
New York, NY 10128

Time: 8:00 pm

Cost: $25

Who says 140 characters isn’t enough to create something meaningful? For sci-fi superstar David Mitchell, it was only the beginning. Slade House, his latest and maybe most accessible novel, started as a Twitter story and morphed into 256 pages of what Mitchell does best: freewheeling time travel (e.g., Cloud Atlas) and paranormal horror (e.g., The Bone Clocks) all rolled into one genre-bending tale. The title refers to a dubious, only sometimes corporeal British residence — think a really evil Platform 9 3/4 — that appears every nine years to beckon an individual who is different or lonely. Its creepy-twin custodians maintain the house, from which visitors learn they can never leave. Tonight, David Ebershoff (The Danish Girl) introduces Mitchell, reading from the decades-spanning work.

November 4th-Mary Gaitskill’s THE MARE, presented by Electric Literature

Housing Works Bookstore Cafe
126 Crosby Street New York, NY 10012

Time:  7:00 pm

Cost: Free

Mary Gaitskill 
launches her newest novel The Mare with a reading, a conversation with Andy Hunter (Electric Literature), and a musical performance by Peg Simone.

Following her National Book Award-nominated Veronica, here is Mary Gaitskill’s most poignant and powerful work yet—the story of a Dominican girl, the Anglo woman who introduces her to riding, and the horse who changes everything for her.

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November 5th- James Franco

Strand’s Main FloorMM cover page.thumbnail
828 Broadway at 12th Street 

Time: 7:30 pm-9:30 pm

Cost: A copy of Magic Mountain/Home Movies

Part poetry, part photography, part collage, Magic Mountain/Home Movies is all James Franco. Containing new work as well as reworked elements of his RISD thesis in visual art, it’s an unclassifiable post-modernist workout that takes fame and photography (specifically of the paparazzi variety) among its subjects. James will be at the Strand once again to sign copies of the work and meet his fans.

Buy a copy of Magic Mountain/Home Movies to attend this event. Please note that payment is required for all online event orders at the time of checkout. This event will be held on Strand’s main floor at 828 Broadway. The line for the signing will form beginning at 5:30 PM on the day of the event in front of Strand on Broadway.