Literary Events Search
Norman Calmese
Tue., May 21, 5 p.m.Literary Events
Calmese, the cartoonist and author, discusses his graphic novel The Sports Kid.
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Tue., May 21, 6 p.m.Literary Events
Poets Adams and Wilson read selections of their work.
Story Club
Tue., May 21, 8 p.m.Literary Events
Open mike for stories, with featured readers Monte LeMonte, Lily Be, and Valentine Soposky.
Alice Kaplan
Wed., May 22, 6 p.m.Literary Events
One of the strangest side effects of studying a foreign language is the desire not just to immerse yourself in a new culture but to become a part of it, indistinguishable from a native speaker. Few writers have chronicled this phenomenon better than Alice Kaplan, in her 1993 memoir French Lessons and last year's Dreaming in French, a triptych of portraits of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis, each of whom spent a year in Paris in her early 20s. In both books, Kaplan demonstrates how a youthful love affair with French can produce lifelong aftershocks, even beyond nightmares arising from trauma induced by irregular verbs. It can shape you into a professor or a film critic or a first lady whose elegance intimidates and terrifies a nation. It can also, as in the case of Davis, turn you into a revolutionary. As a writer, Kaplan is extraordinarily persuasive. She even manages to render Jackie Kennedy interesting, a feat unequaled by any of Kennedy's other biographers. If you had the misfortune to study Spanish or German, you will be consumed by regret after reading her books. Or maybe amazement: Can the mere act of learning a language turn you into a sharper, more thoughtful, sophisticated citizen of the world? —Aimee Levitt
George Anastaplo
Wed., May 22, 6 p.m.Literary Events
Anastaplo discusses his book, Reflections on Slavery and the Constitution.
George Anastaplo
Wed., May 22, 6 p.m.Literary Events
Anastaplo discusses his book, Reflections on Slavery and the Constitution.
Dean Strang
Thu., May 23, 6 p.m.Literary Events
Strang discusses his book Worse than the Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror.
