Photographer Richard Benjamin will be discussing his new book Narragansett Bay this afternoon at Books on the Square.  This work is a collaboration with John Torgan, Baykeeper for Save the Bay, who provided the text. Benjamin will be signing after the talk. (No indication that Torgan will be part of this event which is too bad because he totally rocks.)

2pm, Books on the Square, 471 Angell Street, 331-9097

Today’s the first day of the Providence Public Library’s annual book sale.  If you want the best books, you can pay $15 to get there at 1 this afternoon, but then it opens to the public at 4.  (nb: I have a feeling the $15 might be worth it, actually, because the books are priced to move and you know what those book dealers are like…)  Tomorrow and Saturday it runs 10-5, and then Sunday it’s only open to non-profits and charities.  Last year I picked up some cool German Agatha Christie translations, as well as a bunch of other things that I’m completely incapable of reading.  Yay!

We’re still not at the point where we can say, unequivocally, that our potential vps know that Africa is a continent and not a country, but at least we have a local university president who is interested in bringing scholars and artists from all over said continent to our fair city. Brown’s Department of Africana Studies, along with The Office of The President, have kept esteemed novelist Ngügï wa Thiong’o in Providence for the better part of a week, hosting several forums for the community. Today at 6pm Professor Ngügï, as he likes to be called, will read from his sensational new book, The Wizard of the Crow. The reading, which takes place at 324 Brook St. in MacMillan Hall’s Starr Auditorium, is FREE and open to the public.

Ada Books, which recently moved from Dean Street (around the corner from White Electric) to Westminster (a couple of doors over from White Electric), hosts a weekly-ish poetry series organized by the great Kate Schapira.  It’s called Publicly Complex and it does wonders to patch the massive black hole in Providence where readings ought to be.

At the Dean Street location, the events were often full, to the point where one would occasionally find oneself standing on one leg with arms crossed, hoping not to tip over.  I had also seen people sitting in the showcasey windows to listen.  Now that the new location’s got more room, hopefully people can spread out a little bit and not trip over each other to get to the wine and cookies.

On tonight’s tomorrow night’s agenda, Adam Golaski (Worse Than Myself, Oh One Arrow) & Ken Rumble (Key Bridge).  Golaski’s the horror editor of New Genre magazine and is currently presenting his own translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.  Rumble, meanwhile, is a poet and author of Key Bridge, a collection of poems about Washington, DC.

[Rumble, incidentally, is the one on the far left of this picture, which I found Google Image Searching him; it's sixteen years old and probably is not representative of his poetry (if it's even a picture of the same Ken Rumble), but I never turn down an opportunity to showcase quality flower girl dresses.]

Publicly Complex
Ada Books
717 Westminster St
7 pm
Free!

I just announced the winner of Not About The Buildings’ first-ever fiction prize over at the website. (Actually, I posted the winner on the website on Monday, then got too busy to send the e-mail announcement, and then didn’t want to announce it yesterday because I figured all of America was thinking about the election. So, belatedly, I’m announcing it now.) The winner is Providence’s own Emily Brown, a children’s librarian whose story, How To Kill A Rattlesnake, beat about forty other entrants for the award. Judge Rachel Cohn called it a great story with an original voice.

The story’s going to be published and sold around town for the holidays, and everyone you know would reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally love getting it for the holidays. Well, up to fifty people you know, anyway, because it’s a super-limited edition that I’m hand-pressing myself. The cover may or may not look like the picture on the right there.

So, I don’t know how well-known this fact is, but Roald Dahl was a World War 2 spy!

The author of James and the Giant Peach and Matilda was one of a group of agents sent to Washington before the US entered the war in order to gain American sympathy. Jennet Conant’s new book, The Irrregulars details Dahl’s story and includes a number of other well-known names:

The “Irregulars” in the book’s title refers to the group of young, debonair Englishmen sent to Washington by Winston Churchill to pressure the U.S. to support England in the war effort. Under the aegis of spymaster William Stephenson, amateurs Roald Dahl, David Ogilvy, Ian Fleming, and Noel Coward employed intrigue, social skills, and a few dirty tricks.

In her book, Ms. Conant details their efforts for British Security Coordination: “They planted propaganda in American newspapers, radio stations, wire services; co-opted leading columnists from Drew Pearson to Walter Lippmann and Walter Winchell; harassed prominent isolationists and anti-New Dealers; exposed Nazi sympathizers and fifth columnists; and plotted against corporations that were working against British interests.”

Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming and Noel Coward? Talk about three people you’d like to invite to a dinner party. No word on whether any of them hung out at fancy state dinners with Julia Child, though.

Oh my God, cracked-out old people.  SHUT UP.  So your kids are trampy!  We get it.  You don’t need to tell the whole effing library about it…

Anyway,  David Macaulay’s going to be at the RISD Auditorium at 6:15 tonight.  Get there early if you want an aisle seat (which, if you’re taller than 5′2″, you will.)  I’ve never heard the man speak, but learning a little bit about his meticulous process would surely be worth it.

An Oregon woman now says that she’ll give back The Book of Bunny Suicides, a book that her thirteen-year old son had checked out of his school library.  Taffey (Taffey?!) Anderson announced that she wasn’t going to return the book and was, in fact, going to burn it.  The book, which isn’t actually very funny, shows an animated rabbit attempting suicide in all kinds of ways.  It’s silly, not gruesome, but the book, which comes recommended by the American Library Association, is nevertheless very popular with teenagers.  I’m not sure how I feel about the fact that this made international news; I mean, it’s good that gung ho book banners aren’t being tolerated these days, but on the other hand come on.

In other news, Jeff Koons is now in Versailles and it’s reeeeeeeeeally cool.

And, this isn’t actually news per se, but I really like this picture.  Oh, and now there’s a lady rapper from Brooklyn named Bunny Rabbit.  I kinda like her, I think.

The American Library Association just released its list of the ten most challenged books of 2007.  These are books that parents and other nosebags thought inappropriate their children and/or society at large; the main reason, not surprisingly, is because characters in these books often have genitals and sometimes use them in un-Christian ways, though the fact that racism exists also tends to twist people’s chastity belts.

In 2007, the ALA logged 420 requests to have books removed from libraries (though the actual number of complaints was probably a lot higher, since people generally tend not to report these things to national agencies, either removing the books so as to avoid a fuss or keeping the books there so as to avoid a different kind of fuss.)

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After an ill-fitting DH Lawrence/sangria pairing at AS220 the other night–because yes, I do brings books with me when I go out, sometimes–I was glad to see that Michelle Kerns’ guide to book/booze pairings that work.  After all, she reasons, lots of great writers are drunk all the time; why not enjoy a cocktail while you’re reading, too.

Her choices aren’t especially inspired (I think white wine/chick lit goes without saying), but her list did make me want to buy some sherry and spend an evening with Miss Marple, something I haven’t done in a very long time.  And I like her pairing of Guinness with intensely detailed biographies of rock bands; I wouldn’t have thought of that one.

What about you guys?  Any reading/drinking suggestions?  (Vodka gimlets are great with trashy teen novels like The Straight Road To Kylie, a book whose plot hinges on the wardrobe of Madonna’s American Life video.)

[via Bookslut]

The Sunday NYT’s Book Review has a very favorable review (”funny, moving … greater than the sum of its excellent parts…”) of State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America, a compilation of 50 essays.  I immediately scanned the piece to see if Rhode Island got mentioned and in what way. Who did we get?  What is the angle? Jhumpa Lahiri! Wow! Well, this ain’t gonna be about clamcakes and license plates.  So, what is it about?

Jhumpa Lahiri, in her reminiscence about Rhode Island, relates a sad episode in which her mother received a series of anonymous, hateful letters.

*sigh*

At Providence College:

Banned Books Discussion and Reading

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
7:30 PM
In Lower Davis Hall on the
Providence College Campus

In recognition of the American Library Association’s Banned Books week (September 27th – October 4th) members of the Providence College community will be holding a presentation on the critical issue of literary censorship. Scheduled to speak are Shannon Berndtson and Chris Landry of the Phillips Memorial Library and Dr. John Scanlan of the English Department. The presentation will be followed by a reading of Shel Silverstein’s “A Light in the Attic“ and a discussion of the topic at hand. We encourage everyone to join us for this event.

Okay, so she committed suicide sixty-six years ago, but still.

I remember Mrs. Murphy at Glen Hills Elementary reading Anne of Green Gables (and its first sequel, Anne of Avonlea) to my sixth-grade class.  And, because I was an eleven-year old boy, I hated it and probably spent the whole time making boob and fart jokes.  Also, I resented the fact that my entire childhood was spent reading stories about people that lived on farms.  But a lot of the girls in my class liked the Anne books (and the Disney Channel adaptations that were running around that time), so I figured I’d mention that its author, Lucy Maud Montgomery, committed suicide in 1942.

In a letter this week to Canada’s Globe and Mail, Montgomery’s granddaughter revealed for the first time that her grandmother had given herself an overdose after years of depression.  She says she is optimistic that the shame surrounding depression will soon be lifted.  “I hope that by writing about my grandmother now,” she says, “there might be less secrecy and more awareness that will ease the unnecessary suffering so many people experience as a result of such depressions.”

Joyce Raskin, author of Aching To Be will be at the Books on the Square this evening.  Aching to Be is the true story of the band Scarce, as told by bass player Raskin.  Scarce seemed poised for success in 1994 when their lead singer became critically ill and the band’s future looked pretty bleak.  Tonight’s event includes an acoustic performance by Scarce.  (And, as mentioned below, Scarce will be playing the Blackstone later tonight in Pawtucket.) More in ProJo.

friday/7pm/Books on the Square/471 Angell Street/331.9097

There’s a really interesting profile in yesterday’s New York Times about Maurice Sendak, the author/illustrator responsible for Where The Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen, along with dozens of other books.

The piece, which describes Sendak as a square-shaped gnome, dives deeper into the reclusive artist’s life than anything else I’ve ever read, or thought to read, about him.  Did you know that he’s gay, for instance?  Or that he had a heart attack when he was thirty-nine and didn’t tell anybody because his mother was dying at the time? Or that he admires people like Emily Dickinson for their ability to be alone?  Or that he claims to hate people?

I didn’t even know that Spike Jonze was adapting Where The Wild Things Are into a movie, let alone one with Catherine Keener and James Gandolfini and Paul Dano as Alexander.

Okay everybody, now is your chance to go up to Massachusetts, sell some stuff, and bring back some of that tax-holiday money that left the state a few weeks ago. This is pretty much the same deal that you saw and loved downtown this summer at the IndieArts Festival, only in Somerville. The Daltrys (of What Cheer Antiques & Vintage fame) have been organizing these things for about 5 years now and know how to do it right. Contact Jen or Chris at 401.862.9647 or go to providencerockandrollyardsale.  There will also be live music by Costarr, The ‘mericans, The Blind King (oooh they’re good, I heard them once somewhere) and Chris Monti.

THE SOMERVILLE ROCK & ROLL YARD SALE

3pm to 7pm/saturday september 6/ (raindate sunday the 7th)/Union Square Plaza/90 Union Square/Somerville, MA

~ What is a ROCK & ROLL yard sale? It’s a free outdoor music-oriented sale of VINYL RECORDS, compact discs, POSTERS, tapes, T-SHIRTS, music and stereo equipment, great DIY handmade things,VEGAN FOOD, vintage clothing and much much more.