RSVP to join us at events in May. Sign up now through the link in our bio!
Sunday (5/3) 10am at Tracksmith Trackhouse: May Run Club: Once a Runner
Monday (5/4) 7pm at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church: Kathryn Stockett presents The Calamity Club
Monday (5/4) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Morgan Radford presents Now Then, in conversation with Abby Phillip
Tuesday (5/5) 7pm at the Judson Memorial Church: Douglas Stuart presents John of John, in conversation with Ari Shapiro
Tuesday (5/5) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Miriam Horn presents Homesick for a World Unknown, in conversation with Kathleen Davis
Wednesday (5/6) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: ‘Pemi Aguda presents One Leg on Earth, in conversation with Diane Cook
Thursday (5/7) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Francine Prose presents Five Weeks in the Country, in conversation with Michael Cunningham
Friday (5/8) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Callie Garnett presents Shit Hike,in conversation with Noah Warren
Monday (5/11) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Sarah Wang presents New Skin
Tuesday (5/12) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Annie Baker presents Infinite Life, in conversation with Emily Stokes
Wednesday (5/13) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Memory House and the Legacy of Elaine Kraf, feat. Milena London, Jamie Hood, Violet Kupersmith, Greta Rainbow, & Stephanie Wambugu
Thursday (5/14) 6:30pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Formula, Fandom, and Fiery Passion: The Allure of the Sports Romance... presented by 831 Stories
Tuesday (5/19) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Ada Ferrer presents Keeper of My Kin, in conversation with Rich Benjamin
Wednesday (5/20) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Natalie Lemle presents Artifacts, in conversation with Bianca Bosker
Tuesday (5/26) 6:30pm at the Judson Memorial Church: Senator Chris Murphy presents Crisis of the Common Good
Tuesday (5/26) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Emily Labarge presents Dog Days, in conversation with Ed Park
Wednesday (5/27) 7pm at McNally Jackson Seaport: Naomi Kanakia presents What’s So Great About Great Books?, in conversation with Clare Frances
Our book clubs have great picks for you this June! From Janet Malcolm's In the Freud Archives to Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley to Nelio Biedermann's Lázár to Tia Williams—there is something for everyone.
Sign up now through the link in our bio.
We love nothing more than books, especially when their authors drop by to sign them.
Thank you to Belle Burden, Molly Crabapple, Wanda M. Morris, John Glynn, Julia Ainsley, and all the other authors who stopped in this week.
Stock fluctuates, so the best way to reserve a copy is by calling a location to ensure signed editions are still available.
In “A Domestic Animal” by Francis King, a successful middle-aged novelist named Dick Thompson falls for Antonio, the thirty-something Italian philosopher renting a room in his flat near a provincial English university. For the first time in years, Dick finds himself desperately, passionately in love, but Antonio’s games throw the older man’s life into chaos. Longlisted for the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010, this 1970 novel is a queer classic alongside the likes of E. M. Forster’s “Maurice” and James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room.”
Twice nominated for the Booker Prize and President of PEN International, Francis King was once one of Britain’s most admired novelists. Today, he’s an overlooked giant of literary life; during his lifetime, King published more than 50 books, and worked for the British Council for 15 years. We’re thrilled to reissue one of his most beloved novels, with a new introduction by @rumaanalam . Here, Rumaan shares how he connected with the novel.
*Giveaway incoming*
We’ve teamed up with our friends @mcnallyjackson to give you the chance to win a magical night out in NYC, a Letters Live tote bag AND $100 of McNally Jackson gift cards!
Letters Live, the star-studded celebration of the power of the written word, is back next Thursday May 14th @townhallnyc !
When you go to a Letters Live show, remarkable performers like Benedict Cumberbatch, Olivia Colman, Laurence Fishburne and Cate Blanchett (scroll for a flavour of the line-ups!) read real letters - leaving you howling with laughter one moment and moved to tears the next.
2 x winners will each receive a pair of tickets to Thursday’s NYC show, a Letters Live tote bag and a $50 McNally Jackson gift voucher. So what are you waiting for?
To enter, simply:
📚Like this post
📚 Make sure you’re following @mcnallyjackson + @letterslive
📚 Comment with who you’d like to see taking to the stage at Letters Live on Thursday night
*Competition closes midday EDT 05/12. Entrants must be 18+. If winners do not reply within 24 hours, we reserve the right to choose another winner. This giveaway is in no way associated with Instagram.
Join us Tuesday, May 26th at McNally Jackson Seaport as Emily Labarge presents Dog Days, in conversation with Ed Park.
In 2009, Emily LaBarge and her family were held hostage while on vacation. A crocheted blanket was placed over her head while Mrs. Doubtfire and “Agnus Dei” played on repeat. In the years that follow, a therapist encourages her to lie in exactly the same position, “just like how it happened, for as long as it happened, and for as long as it takes until the pain comes out”—otherwise it will never leave.
A high-voltage synthesis of memoir, criticism, and psychoanalytic theory—drawing upon film and writing from Mulholland Drive to It’s a Wonderful Life, Virginia Woolf to Janet Malcolm—Dog Days writes into this question.
Emily LaBarge is a Canadian writer based in London. Her essays and criticism have appeared in Granta, The London Review of Books, Artforum, Bookforum, Frieze, and The Paris Review, among others. She is a regular contributor to The New York Times and 4Columns. Dog Days is her first book.
Ed Park is the author of An Oral History of Atlantis, Personal Days, and Same Bed Different Dreams, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. His memoir Three Tenses: A Transmission From the Nineties, comes out this summer.
Our chosen Primers for the Opposition identify the many faces of authoritarianism, imperialism and resistance. Sontag, Solnit, Fanon, Afeni, and other grand minds are with us at this miserable time.
Find the full display at all of our locations, or at the link in our bio.
We’ll be highlighting some of our booksellers’ favorites from the display, such as Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag, recommended by Sarah.
“Putting my phone in my pocket makes me feel like an inattentive spectator to the suffering of others, and I have always considered it a moral duty to be attentive. This book is nuanced, rigorous, and helpful when thinking of what it means to watch the world’s many horrors.” — Sarah
We love nothing more than books, especially when their authors drop by to sign them.
Thank you to Caro Claire Burke, Avery Curran, Harrison Hill, and all the other authors who stopped in this week.
Stock fluctuates, so the best way to reserve a copy is by calling a location to ensure signed editions are still available.
Join us on Wednesday, May 13th at McNally Jackson Seaport for an evening celebrating Memory House and the legacy of Elaine Kraf, featuring Milena London, Jamie Hood, Violet Kupersmith, Greta Rainbow, and Stephanie Wambugu. RSVP through the link in our story.
Memory House, the never-before-published final novel by cult feminist author Elaine Kraf, explores what happens when a drained writer fakes her death and joins a mysterious club for failing artists.
Elaine Kraf (1936-2013) was a writer and painter. She was the author of four published works of fiction: I Am Clarence (1969), The House of Madelaine (1971), Find Him! (1977), and The Princess of 72nd Street (1979)—as well as several unpublished novels, plays, and poetry collections. She was the recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts awards, a 1971 fellowship at the Broad Loaf Writers’ Conference, and a 1977 residency at Yaddo. She was born and lived in New York City.
Does Tom Perrotta explain "The Leftovers"?
NO
But he does find one of his bucket list books in the stacks at @mcnallyjackson 's Rock Center store...
The acclaimed novelist and screenwriter - whose latest, "Ghost Town," is available now - takes a relaxed approach to build his perfect stack. But why hurry when you've got these honorifics...
“The Steinbeck of Suburbia” -Time
“Our Balzac of the burbs” -Chicago Sun-Times
“An American Chekhov” -The New York Times
Books seen and heard here:
🙇 "This Boy's Life" by Tobias Wolff
🇫🇷 "Swann's Way" by Marcel Proust
🫣 "Portnoy's Complaint" by Philip Roth
✒️ "A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker: 1925-2025"
📺 "Colored Television" by Danzy Senna
More Perrotta...
🚗 "Ghost Town"
💨 "The Leftovers"
🗳️ "Election" & "Tracy Flick Can't Win"
🤳 "Mrs. Fletcher"
💔 "Little Children"
