Monday November 23 @ 7:30pm

The Modernist Book Club discusses The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares with a special guest: the editor of the NYRB Classics series, Edwin Frank

About the book:

“Jorge Luis Borges declared The Invention of Morel a masterpiece of plotting, comparable to The Turn of the Screw.  This fantastic exploration of virtual realities also bears comparison with the sharpest work of Philip K. Dick.  It is both a story of suspense and a bizarre romance, in which every detail is at once crystal clear and deeply mysterious.” –Publisher review

About the book club:

The Modernist Book Club is a lively group of people who delight in a “modern” book and await the opportunity to discuss it in an informal setting at the back of the store, near the garden. Sometimes 8, other times 18, hardy readers gather to discuss the latest selection. Newcomers and drop-ins are always welcome! No reservations necessary.

About the celebrity guest lecturer:

Edwin Frank was born in Boulder, Colorado and studied at Harvard College and Columbia University. He is the author of two small books of poetry, The Further Adventures of Pinocchio andStack, and has been the editor of the NYRB Classics series since its beginning ten years ago.

*Note: The Modernist Book Club ordinarily meets on Wednesday evenings, but rescheduled to Monday Nov. 23^rd due to Thanksgiving.

Thursday November 19

Jonathan Safran Foer reads from

Eating Animals

Suggested $10 donation.

Reading @ 6:30pm, Old First Reformed Church (just across the street, at 7^th Avenue and Carroll)

Wine & cheese reception @ 8:00pm at Community Bookstore

Everyone is talking about this book*.  As well they should be; we’re all aware by now that our food choices have enormous environmental, health, and economic consequences, and Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything Is Illuminated, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close)’s essays are an exceptionally human exploration of the issues.

We hereby invite you to join us for one of the more intimate stops on this nation-wide tour, which takes place in the author’s own neighborhood.  The reading is at Old First, and Jonathan will be joining us for a reception and signing afterwards, here at the bookstore.

More about the book:

Jonathan Safran Foer spent much of his teenage and college years oscillating between omnivore and vegetarian. But on the brink of fatherhood-facing the prospect of having to make dietary choices on a child’s behalf-his casual questioning took on an urgency His quest for answers ultimately required him to visit factory farms in the middle of the night, dissect the emotional ingredients of meals from his childhood, and probe some of his most primal instincts about right and wrong. Brilliantly synthesizing philosophy, literature, science, memoir and his own detective work, Eating Animals explores the many fictions we use to justify our eating habits-from folklore to pop culture to family traditions and national myth-and how such tales can lull us into a brutal forgetting.

Jonathan Safran Foer is one of the most acclaimed young writers of his generation, a “certified wunderkind” (Time) whose work has appeared in The Paris Review, The New York Times, and The New Yorker. He has earned a National Jewish Book Award, a Guardian First Book Award, and remarkable praise for his first two novels, Everything Is Illuminated (adapted for film in 2005) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. EATING ANIMALS is his first work of nonfiction.

*To name just a few… Paste Magazine, PETA, CNN, Salon, The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York Magazine, NPR, Flavor Pill, Epicurious.com, Vanity Fair… pick a news source; they’ve covered it. Even Natalie Portman has weighed in (in a Huffington Post article, she credits this book for her switch from a vegetarian to a vegan diet).  And I’ve yet to find an even lukewarm review.  What will YOU think?

Tuesday November 17 @ 7pm

Matthea Harvey reads from

The Little General and the Giant Snowflake

Matthea Harvey –professor of poetry at Sarah Lawrence, Kingsly Tufts Poetry Prize-winner, and poetic inspiration/intellectual heartthrob of several members of our staff—will be reading from her allegorical children’s book, published by Tin House (again, be still my heart), and illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel (Is There A Mouse in the Baby’s Room?).  The book is suitable for all ages, but the free wine is just for grown-ups.

More about the book:

In this compelling tale, there is a little general who heads an army called the Realists. Every day he and his troops practice battle formations while the Dreamers, the opposing army, play strange, peaceful games. The little general’s soldiers include Sergeant Samantha, who is very tall and wishes the general would pay more attention to her, and Lieutenant Lyle, an imaginative fellow who always seems to get into trouble.

One day the little general sees a giant snowflake hovering in his garden and realizes he is suffering from a disease of the imagination. He is ashamed and pretends not to see it, but eventually he discovers that everyone in his army has a similar problem. What magical message is the snowflake trying to bring to the general, and to the world? In a time of violent military solutions to global problems, this illustrated allegory by a leading poet has a particular, powerful  resonance.

Matthea Harvey’s books of poetry include Modern Life (Graywolf, 2007), Little Breathing Machine (Graywolf, 2004), and Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form (Alice James Books, 2000).  Modern Life was a finalist for the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the winner of the prestigious Kingsly Tufts Poetry Prize for 2009. Harvey has served as the poetry editor of American Letters & Commentary, as well as a contributing editor to jubilat and BOMB. She teaches poetry at Sarah Lawrence and lives in Brooklyn.

bussaco
RESTAURANT WINE BAR
Presents

Spectrum Squared
4 Painters on Color and Abstraction
Carla Aurich
Julie Gross
Jenifer Kobylarz
Gary Petersen

Arts at Bussaco is pleased to present Spectrum Squared, a journey through the color wheel with abstract painters Carla Aurich, Julie Gross, Jenifer Kobylarz and Gary Petersen. These contemporary artists employ color as anindependent element and tap into formalist, op-art and minimalist painting traditions. Curvilinear, rectilinear and organic compositional strategies are set up as a means to engage color contrasts. What at first glance seems to be structured and logical gives way to rhythm, flow and tension in composition and color relationships.

November 3 @7pm

Climate Change: Picturing the Science

With editors Gavin Schmidt and Joshua Wolfe, and author Frank Zeman

The first book anyone seeking a layman’s understanding of the science of global warming should read…one of the most reasonable, unflappable, pleasantly humorous and least stuffy experts in any subject that we’ve met. ––Popular Mechanics

[A] masterful account of the science of climate change…It will leave you both in awe of the Earth we inhabit and of the science itself, with all of its uncertainties and incomplete answers. ––Seed Magazine

Schmidt, a climate scientist at NASA, and photographer Wolfe seek to advance public education about human-induced climate change in a combination of arresting images and lucid explanations of the science of global warming and the pursuit of global cooperation in adopting new, sustainable ways of living. With contributions by 16 scientists, engineers, writers, activists, and photographers, Schmidt and Wolfe address a host of observable changes, from the melting of ice and permafrost at the poles to the rising of sea levels in cities such as Venice and Miami. From discussions of increasing drought, forest fires, and extreme storms to the deadly buildup of industrial and agriculture chemicals, the coverage is clear and bracing. And it’s inspiring to learn about the work of these cutting-edge experts as they marvel over the finely calibrated checks and balances of  the earth’s systems, elucidate the ways human-induced climate change is making the planet less conducive to life, and chronicle inventive approaches to averting environmental catastrophe. In the midst of sobering reportage, the authors manage to appeal to our fascination with epic challenges. –Donna Seaman

Frank Zeman, Ph.D., director of the Center for Metropolitan Sustainability, authored the chapter, “Getting Our Technological Fix.”