Book reading tour rider.

Ben Greenman’s going out on tour to support his new album book Please Step Back, which I’m reading currently.  I would like to see if I can get more information about posters by typing it here:  more information about posters.  Stay tuned!

An excerpt from Greenman’s rider:

Bookstore agrees to provide and maintain three (3) backstage preparation rooms. They shall be comfortable, well lit, and entirely free of books other than the Author’s books. Rooms must be climate-controlled to dry heat so that the Author’s reading voice (which will henceforth be referred to as his “instrument”) does not get scratchy or phlegmy. Employees of the Bookstore must never use the word “phlegmy” in the presence of the Author, as it may make him vomit, which would damage his instrument. The same goes for the word “vomit.”

I enjoy laughing, and so enjoy Ben Greenman’s writing.

First I came solo, but now I’ve got a team.

I haven’t mentioned anything about my new gig: I’m working with Michele Filgate (of the Reading is Breathing blog) as a Book Reviews Editor for Identity Theory.   Condalmo will continue (and may be in for some changes) but I’ll also be working there, editing, reviewing, and blogging.  Please stop by and say hello.

(We’re also getting in touch with publishers and folks interested in reviewing books.   If you fall into one of those categories, drop me a line: condalmo on Google Talk, or condalmo at gmail dot com, or through the Identity Theory site.)

“Manual of Detection” reading in Portsmouth.

Via FoC Michele at Reading is Breathing comes this welcome news:

Tuesday, March 10, 2009 – 7:00pm

RiverRun Bookstore and The Red Door present Jedediah Berry reading from The Manual of Detection

Join RiverRun at The Red Door (107 State Street in Portsmouth) for our new literary series featuring some of today’s best contemporary writers. Enjoy a drink at the martini bar while listening to an imaginative novelist read from his debut novel.

“Berry’s ambitious debut reverberates with echoes of Kafka and Paul Auster….This cerebral novel, with its sly winks at traditional whodunits and inspired portrait of the bureaucratic and paranoid Agency, will appeal to mystery readers and non-genre fans alike.”

─ Publishers Weekly

“In his first novel, Berry has created a wonderful and fantastic world, a vintage mystery seen through a hall of fun-house mirrors….”

─Kirkus Reviews

A night out, with other grown-ups, a frosty beverage and a reading: now that’s a wonderful and fantastic Kafkaesque idea.

Tobias Wolff stories in theatrical production.

A San Francisco theater group called Word for Word stages performances of short stories. The name reflects the fact that they literally–and literarily–”perform every word the author has written.” (I suppose without adding any of their own.)
That’s the kind of reverence a writer can get behind. In fact, several have. Julia Alvarez, Sandra Cisneros, Richard Ford, Ellen Gilchrist, Daniel Handler, Barbara Kingsolver, Amy Tan, and Tobias Wolff are on the company’s Authors Council.

Word for Word’s current production is “More Stories from Tobias Wolff,” which consists of performances of: “Sanity,” “Down to Bone,” and “Firelight” (pictured above). All three stories are included in Our Story Begins, one of the three story collections that are finalists for The Story Prize.

More here.

Nabokov reads from Lolita.

He starts this in French and moves to English.

(via)

Portsmouth Literary Festival 2008.

I don’t think I’ll be going; still no forward movement on putting the garlic to bed.  Although, if it rains, who knows.

Paging Matt Cheney:

Event: NH Writers Trail 2008: Portsmouth Literary Festival!
What: Festival
Host: RiverRun Bookstore
Start Time: Today, October 23 at 12:00pm
End Time: Saturday, October 25 at 12:00am

Where: Various venues in Portsmouth, NH
At 3:30pm, Hannah Tinti, editor of OneStory magazine, will read from her novel “The Good Thief”, a book highly praised by Pulitzer-prize winning author Junot Diaz and by major bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert. “The Good Thief” is a richly imagined, gothically spooky tale of a young orphan who embarks on a journey through New England trying to solve the mystery of his past. Diaz calls it a “lightning strike of a novel–beautiful and haunting and ever so bright.”
To see more details and RSVP, follow the link below:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?event.php&eid=32363196218

They’ve also got Tom Perrotta.

Reading: “Personal Days” at Google.

(via Scott)

Sarvas is ill.

As in a sinus infection:

Folks, I am laid up with a fairly severe sinus infection which, in
addition to making me completely miserable, is keeping me off planes.
Therefore, I am genuinely heartbroken to have to cancel this week’s two
appearances, the first in Washington, D.C. and the second in
Portsmouth, N.H.  I’m a “the show must go on” kind of guy but this
grounding is doctor’s orders, so I hope you will understand.

No N.H. appearance?  Damn it, I had my outfit already picked out.  I knew I should have rented it instead of buying it.  For sale, unused barely used, B.O. or ARC of the forthcoming Chris Adrian story collection: