http://www.themillions.com Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:46:49 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Millions Contributor Sonya Chung will read from her just-released novel Long for This World at McNally Jackson Books, 52 Prince Street, NYC, on March 10 at 7pm. http://www.themillions.com/2010/03/sonya-chung-at-mcnally-jackson-310.html "What turns out to matter most is that you write as truthfully as possible" -- Jonathan Franzen In Germany to deliver a talk on fiction, Jonathan Franzen couldn’t be more American. He is friendly and informal, casual and comfortable, approaching the podium of a University of Tübingen auditorium so packed that ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/12/jonathan-franzen-honesty-and-the-lines-of-literature.html Downtown Brooklyn was awash in tents and stages on Sunday, with publishers, authors, and bookish types swarming the plaza like ants feasting at a picnic. Colson Whitehead walked down the sidewalk pseudo incognito with shades on, while Wallace Shawn stood by to sign copies of his new book, Essays. Thomas ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/09/fear-imagination-and-making-things-peculiar-at-the-brooklyn-book-festival.html Jonathan Richman, along with his long-time drummer Tommy Larkins, took the stage, strummed his acoustic guitar and began to sing. Nothing. The mikes weren't working. Where other performers, and indeed lesser legends, might have turned diva, Jonathan simply announced - loudly, to make up for the microphone - that he ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/07/torch-ballads-jukebox-music-4-serenaded_24.html When I first began living in Toronto, I used to book off the week of the Film Festival. In those days it seemed much less schmoozy, more communal and low-key. Going from cinema to cinema, seeing multiple films each day, chatting with fellow movie buffs while waiting in lines. It ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/07/notes-from-fringe_22.html In the darkened Anglican church, separated from a looming early-Victorian tower by an idyllic garden, we summoned the spirits and welcomed the macabre into our tell-tale hearts.Nestled at the bottom of Grange Park, the city's bustle was a two-minute walk away, but it could have been two-hundred years away as ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/06/toronto-tell-tale-heart_11.html The Met Museum's Rogers Auditorium last Thursday night resembled one of Rush Limbaugh's paranoid fantasies come to life; if a bomb had gone off, much of the braintrust of American liberalism would have been wiped out. To explore "The Economic Crisis and How to Deal With It," The New York ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/05/pen-world-voices-report-neo-keynsian_08.html It was raining last Thursday (because it is always raining in New York) when I went to the CUNY Graduate Center to hear a panel called "Language in New Forms: The Work of Andrey Platonov." I'm glad I braved the weather, however. The panel featured four of the most mellifluous ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/05/pen-world-voices-report-strange-beauty_07.html Readings and panel discussions generally serve as excuses to go see our favorite writers in person. By contrast, the great virtue of the PEN World Voices Festival is the range of discoveries it affords. Now in its fifth year, the festival brings writers from all over the globe to Manhattan ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/04/highlights-from-pen-world-voices_02.html Millions readers in the Toronto area should check out the Lit City exhibit at the Market Gallery (second floor of the St. Lawrence Market, on now through the spring, free).As part of the ongoing festivities marking Toronto's 175th birthday, the Market Gallery, occupying a room that served as council chambers ... http://www.themillions.com/2009/03/context-is-everything-lit-city-in_11.html