Newburyport Literary Festival offers a full weekend of events for book lovers
This year’s Newburyport Literary Festival opens on Friday, April 28, and runs — with both in-person and virtual events — through Sunday, April 29. Opening night begins with Peter Orner in conversation with Andre Dubus III, followed by drinks with the authors (tickets for this portion are $25). Saturday is jammed with readings and discussions. A smattering: Namrata Patel, Amy Poeppel, and Jenny Jackson will discuss the House as Character; bestselling author Kamila Shamsie will be in conversation with literary light Liberty Hardy; Grace Talusan will lead a discussion with Margaret A. Burnham, Caleb Gayle, and Donald Yacovone on Dismantling Institutional Oppressions; KJ Dell’Antonia, Henriette Lazaridis, and Ben Berman will lift the veil on the Writing Life; Kate Bolick and Maggie Doherty will discuss Nancy Hale; Alan Lightman will wax on Science and Spirituality; and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Megan Marshall will talk about how tragedy altered the lives of Emerson, Thoreau, and William James. Sunday’s events unfold over Zoom, including panels on the hidden history of America’s cemeteries; a discussion with Rebecca Makkai and Kate Tuttle; and the coming-of-age novel. This is all just a taste; for more information and a complete schedule, visit newburyportliteraryfestival.org.
Celebrating Independent Bookstore Day in Boston
Across the country, independent bookstores put on their party hats and toot the horns of their indie spirit on the last Saturday in April for Independent Bookstore Day — this year celebrating its tenth anniversary — and Boston area bookstores are ready for the party. Porter Square Books in Cambridge will have a bake-off and M. T. Anderson will be in conversation with Nancy Werlin. Harvard Bookstore will be collecting your love letters to bookstores. All She Wrote Books will have a Drag Story Hour, and an IBD sale with everything 10% off. Picture book author Jamie Michalak and illustrator Kelly Murphy will make a visit to Brookline Booksmith. Belmont Books will have a visit from authors and illustrators including Heather Lang, Jamie Harper, and Ryan T. Higgins, with music by Sam Taber. Bookstores will also be offering a smattering of IBD swag, including puzzles, water bottles, totes, Blackwing pencils, bookmarks, exclusive editions of books and prints, among other temptations for bibliophiles and bookstore enthusiasts.
Books bridge the distance between Italy and the United States
The Multipli Forti literary festival started last year in New York City with the aim of strengthening the literary bridge that joins the United States with Italy. This year, the festival is expanding to Boston, in collaboration with the North End’s I AM Books and the Italian General Consulate in Boston. The festival opens this Friday, with a conversation — in Italian — between Antonio Franchini and Walter Siti at the Italian Consulate General of Italy, with Sara Freeman receiving the Bridge Literary Award. On Saturday, authors Valeria Parrella and Claudia Durastanti will be in conversation with Paola Servino at 10:30 am at the Boston Public Library; and at 6 p.m. at the Chilton Club, Andrea Malaguti will lead a conversation with Ubah Cristina Ali Farah, Simona Vinci, and Mercello Fois. (The Saturday events will take place in English.) The authors will be exploring a number of themes, including “Italianness”; individual and collective destiny; political engagement; history and myth; the relationship between power and the body; and “Genius loci,” the “thin line that separates the familiar from the unknown.” For more information and to register, visit iambooksboston.com/events
Coming out
“Ordinary Notes” by Christina Sharpe (FSG)
“The Ugly History of Beautiful Things: Essays on Desire and Consumption” by Katy Kelleher (Simon & Schuster)
“Affinities: On Art and Fascination” by Brian Dillon (NYRB)
Pick of the week
Rebecca Stimpson at Wellesley Books recommends “Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta” by James Hannaham (Little Brown): “What a book! This is the story of Carlotta, possessed of an uncanny gift for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, recently out of prison on parole, trying to make sense of a Brooklyn that’s very different from the one she left 20 years ago. The story is told in the third person, as if Carlotta is trying to make a more-or-less traditional narrative out of her life — but her own first-person consciousness keeps barging in, acting as a commentary and a (sometimes bitterly hilarious) disruption. It was hard not to quote passages of this book aloud to whoever happened to be around as I was reading!”