We’ve always known that Buffalo Street Books’ resident dog, Little Girl, was destined for stardom. But she proved it this weekend during the reading of How Many Jellybeans? While author/illustrator team Andrea Menotti and Yancey Labat read from the book, Little Girl did a stunning rendition of the book’s dog. We do believe she may be Hollywood bound!

This Friday at 6pm, Amy Monticello, Jon Chopan and KC Wolfe will be here for an Upstate-tastic reading to celebrate the release of Amy’s essay collection, Close Quarters. Here’s some biography on the matter:

Tonight at 6pm, local author and all around dynamo Leslie Daniels will be here to celebrate the paperback release of her debut novel, Cleaning Nabokov’s House.

Before she hits the road! Please join us for the paperback launch of Leslie Daniels’ funny and celebrated first novel. Wine, bread, & thou. Cheese, too.

Tomorrow night, the Dickens reading group will be meeting at 6pm to discuss Book Two of Great Expectations. Even if you missed the first meeting, we’d still love to have you here. And be sure to check out these other Dickens-related events all around town in the next couple of months.

And Sunday at 4pm, we’ll be hosting another installment of our Works in Progress series, a non-juried reading series of local authors reading from unfinished work. This installment’s readers will include:

Martha Stettinius: I am a writer, editor, and writing workshop instructor with a master’s in English Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. I’m also a “sandwich generation” mom-a wife and mother of two teenagers, and, for the past seven years, the primary caregiver for my mother. An advocate for the needs of family caregivers, I serve as a volunteer representative for New York State for the National Family Caregivers Association.

Mary Lorson feels like a work-in-progress herself these days. She will read a short piece about being in the middle of a big project.

Orion Gesslein: I’ve been homeschooled until this year and am now in 7th grade at DeWitt Middle School. When I was HSed my mom forced me to write every day and since I’ve been in school I’ve been working on a writing portfolio with 12 pieces per school year. I did NAtionalNOvelWRItingMOnth in November and I’ll be reading part of that 20,000 word novel.

Conrad Alan Istock has taught and done research at four universities-Illinois, Rochester, Michigan, Arizona. He is a Fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Cornell. His novel, Sabasa, Fourth Planet from the Sunstar, Earth’s Alter Ego was published in 2007. He has written short stories, children’s stories, and a paper titled “Life on Earth and Other Planets” solicited and published by the journalofcosmolgy.com in 2010. “Mothers’s Dreadful Choice,” his reading, will be on his website (sornea.com) at the time of the Works in Progress.

Werner Sun is a physicist and visual artist, and he will read from a series of personal essays on randomness, uncertainty, and data.

Ezra Dan Feldman grew up in Cambridge, MA. He graduated from Harvard in 2002, and received his M.F.A. in Poetry from Cornell in 2007. His first book manuscript, The Body as One, was a finalist for the 2011 Kinereth Gensler Awards and the 2011 NFSPS Stevens Poetry Manuscript Competition.

Finally, we have a few signed first editions of the new books by Rachel Maddow (Drift) and Anne Lamott (Some Assembly Required) coming in for sale at the end of the month. We have very limited quantities of these that haven’t yet been spoken for. If you are interested in reserving a copy of either one, please contact me at this email and I will put you on the list. Again, I should stress that we have only a limited number, so there are no guarantees we can fill all requests, although we will do our best.

That’s it for now! More stuff to come in the coming weeks including a really fun children’s event next weekend. Watch this space for more information!

Hope to see you all soon.

A great interview with New York Times and NPR poetry critic David Orr, who will be here to discuss his book, Beautiful & Pointless on Tuesday, March 18th at 6:30 pm. You can read the entire article here.

Also, the Ides of March are upon us and an old soothsayer came and prophesized a couple of crazy weeks for our little book store – filled with author readings, a storytelling competition, art, more author readings, folk songs and a book drive – so I thought I’d let you in on the scoop.

Kicking off March with Cornell’s Shimon Edelman this Thursday March 8th at 6 pm, she’ll be reading from his book The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About The Good Life. His book has been deemed “an elegant tour de force that combines neuropsychology with liberal references to Shakespeare and Homer” – so you know its gonna be good.

And if that wasn’t enough, also on March 8th at 7 pm, Buffalo Street Books is hosting its first ever story-telling competition, Trampoline at Lot 10 (former Lost Dog/Deliliah’s), hosted by our own Bob. Life is tough when you have to choose between different literary events, but we think you’ll survive. Also co-hosting is Ithaca College’s Buzzsaw Magazine so it should be a roaring fine time.

Continuing with the trend of doing something different, Cornell M.F.A. graduate and Visiting Professor, Gilliam Pederson-krag is giving an artist talk at the store on March 9th at 6 pm, on her paintings and prints.

All before the Ides of March, we will have three authors – Amy Reading, David Orr, and Leslie Daniels – all here to share their respective books with us.

On March 10th at 6pm, Amy Reading will be reading from her new book on con artistry in America, The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con.

March 13th at 6:30, award-winning critic David Orr will be reading from Beautiful and Pointless, a riveting tour of poetry as it actually exists today.

Celebrating the paperback release of her debut novel, Cleaning Nabokov’s House, Leslie Daniels will be joining us March 14th at 6 pm for a “meet the author” with a discussion and book signing.

And as if all of that wasn’t enough, we’ve got our monthly Folk Song Swap on March 11th at 2 pm and our Works In Progress Reading on March 18th at 4 pm. Like we said, life is tough. What can we say? There are just too many opportunities to expand your mind and enrich your soul in Ithaca.

A final note on enriching your soul – currently the Books 4 Boynton Book Drive is happening. With the economy down and budget cuts for schools, Buffalo Street is doing its part in the drive by offering a 30% discount for any books purchased for Boynton Middle School during March. We’ll even deliver them for you!

For more information on the Books 4 Boynton Book Drive check out http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/boynton/library/bookdrive.html to see their wish list and get more information.

That’s all for now -

Happy March people!

Erika Lundahl

Buffalo Street Books Intern

A gifted poet and provocateur, Sparrow has been called “one of the funniest men in Manhattan” (by Robert Christgau), “a cult hero” (by Publishers Weekly) and “the poet laureate of comic relief” (by Philadelphia City Paper). Buffalo Street Books is proud to bring Sparrow to Ithaca for what we think is the first time. At least it’ll be the first time he’s told anyone he was here.

To kick off his visit, Sparrow will be performing as half of Violet Snow & Sparrow (he’s the Sparrow half) as an opening act for the Atomic Forces at Lot 10 on Thursday February 23^rd at 9:30pm. Two members of the legendary anti-Plutarch pop group Foamola will sing quiet and secret American anthems of their own composition, with crumpling percussion, flute, kazoo, mountain harmonica and (possibly) toy xylophone. With proper encouragement, they may perform the Foamola hit “Balzac Prozac.” Plus at least one Russian folk song. This show is free and is a 21 and over event.

On Friday February 24^th at 6pm, Sparrow will give a reading at Buffalo Street Books. The reading will probably include material from America: A Prophecy: The Sparrow Reader. But then again it might not.

To celebrate the release of Roald Hoffmann on the Philosophy, Art & Science of Chemistry, a collection of Professor Hoffmann’s essays, Professor Hoffmann will be speaking at Buffalo Street Books on Friday February 17th at 6pm. As far as what he’s going to talk about, we figure that’s pretty much his call. I mean, who are we to tell a Nobel Prize-winner what to do?

The following day is one of my favorite Ithaca events, the Chili Cookoff on the Commons. Perhaps ethnography and chili don’t seem like a natural pairing, but if you need a reason to step in from the cold during the cookoff, Stacey Langwick will be here to discuss her book, Bodies, Politics and African Healing on Saturday at 3pm.

Bodies, Politics, and African Healing is a subtle and powerful ethnography, which examines African healing and its relationship to medical science. Langwick investigates the practices of healers in Tanzania who confront the most intractable illnesses in the region, including AIDS and malaria. She reveals how healers generate new therapies and shape the bodies of their patients as they address devils and parasites, anti-witchcraft medicine, and child immunization.

Also this week, on Thursday the 16th at 6pm, we’ll be kicking off our discussion of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. I’m happy to say it sounds like we’ve converted at least a few new Dickens fans. Starting Friday, Winter Recess Teachers Week begins, and anyone with a VIT (that’s Very Important Teacher) pass will get 10% off their purchases.

And last but not least, we’re now selling the Guide to Being Local. It’s full of discounts and coupons for local businesses, as well as photos and stories. Plus it’s cute. Check it out next time you’re in.

Next week, NYC poet and four-time presidential candidate Sparrow will be here to read some of his poems (Friday 2/24, 6pm), and on Sunday February 26 at 2pm, Burmese Monk Ashin Pyinnyar Nanda and Maura Stephens will read from Notes from Behind the Iron Bars, a collection of testimonies by eleven peaceful Burmese monks who were incarcerated and tortured over many years by the military junta that rules Burma.

That’s just not the kind of bookstore we are.

But if we were to mention that one of those authors, Eleanor Henderson, was going to be reading here this Friday at 6pm to celebrate the paperback release of Ten Thousand Saints, that wouldn’t be bragging, per se. It’d just be sharing information.

It wouldn’t be exaggerating to say that Ten Thousand Saints was one of my favorite books of 2011. The story of three kids (a term that here embraces the late teens and early twenties) involved in the straight-edge punk scene in New York’s Lower East Side in the late eighties, Ten Thousand Saints expands its scope to create a picture of a moment in American life, as one generation struggles to define its values in opposition to the exhausted values of its predecessor. The straight-edge punk movement eschewed drugs, drinking and sex associated with rock and roll in favor of an often violent commitment to punk music and the scene surrounding it. Henderson’s examination of the movement is unflinching, and as her characters move through their stories, propelled by writing that summons up the energetic drive of the music it describes, the reader is left smitten and breathless.

At least I was

I hope you can be here for the reading. Coming up soon, there are still spots available for the Writing Your Non-Fiction Book Proposal Workshop this Saturday from 10am to 1pm. There will be a Folk Song Swap on Sunday from 2 to 5pm. Our Big Read group for Great Expectations will have its first meeting on Thursday, February 16th at 6pm. We’ve got Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann giving a talk on Friday February 17th at 6pm. And Stacey Langwick will be here to discuss her book, Bodies, Politics and African Healing on Saturday, February 18th at 3pm.

Hope to see you all soon!

We are proud to announce that Buffalo Street Books will be re-opening its doors this Saturday April 23rd at 10am!

I’d just like to point out to all of you how amazing what we’ve all accomplished has been. I’m not being hyperbolic when I say that this effort has gotten national attention within the bookselling and publishing communities. This morning I got a call from Nashville, Tennessee asking about what we’re doing, and last week I fielded an email from Moscow, Idaho. And once you’re big in Moscow, Idaho, you really know you’ve made it.

The work and support of the community on this project has been nothing short of astounding and I am very happy to say that this Saturday, we’ll be able to give you all, our new owners, the thank you gift you deserve: a community owned bookstore, freshly cleaned and ready for business (okay, the cleaning hasn’t happened just yet, but we’ve got a couple days still).

To celebrate our reopening, we’ll have food and beverages available and in the evening, we’ll have music from Doug Robinson, Eric Aceto and Brian Earle at 5pm and the Catherine Joy Band at 6:30pm.

I hope you’ll be able to join us. I look forward to seeing all of your faces and shaking all of your hands (or just one of each of your hands, forgive my grammatical confusion) and welcoming you back to Buffalo Street Books.

yours,
bob