14 July 2010

As it is with everything else in New York, space is at a premium for authors wanting to snag a chain-bookstore slot for signings, according to the Wall Street Journal. I've been to all the Barnes & Nobles mentioned in the article except 86th and Lex, and Union Square really is the big 'get.' On the other hand, if you have 40 people there to see you, you'll feel like a loser rattling around in that space. What isn't explicitly spelled out, though, is that 82nd and Broadway is kind of a lame store overall, not just the afterthought-y event space. (I realize this is all inside baseball for people who don't live here.)

If I were an author who got to pick (and largely, they don't), I would want to go indie; the array of options is much larger. For a smaller crowd, McNally Jackson is one of the cutest, but you'd have to be a Beautiful Person to book it, I imagine. Have you been to a really good reading recently?

2 comments:

Peter Knox said...

Got to the 86 & Lex one. It's new and nice and the downstairs reading area has an academic feel to it, but has a small stage, podium, and streaming tvs outside it if it's too crowded to get in to, but the inside space is set off behind doors that make it not too unwieldy if it's not a sell out.
But yeah, McNally readings are awesome if just for that space with Prince st. behind it and books hanging from the ceiling.

Wade Garrett said...

McNally Jackson is a beautiful building; if Wes Anderson ever makes a movie with a scene set in a bookstore and doesn't film it there, I would be pissed off. And it takes a lot to make me pissed off at Wes Anderson.

My recommendation would be BookCourt, on Court Street in Cobble Hill. Lots of room, attractive space, and a nice legacy of writers who have read there, with Don DeLillo and Peter Hedges being two recent examples.