MADISON SQUARE PARK HOSTS FREE OUTDOOR LITERARY TALKS WITH NOTABLE AUTHORS THURSDAY EVENINGS IN JULY

Mad. Sq. Reads’ Moderated Discussions Co-Presented by WNYC Get New Yorkers Talking

Madison Square Park Conservancy announces the sixth season of Mad. Sq. Reads, a free literary series held each Thursday evening in July at 6.30pm. Mad. Sq. Reads takes place on the steps of the picturesque Augustus Saint-Gaudens Farragut Monument in the Northern end of Madison Square Park. This year, Mad. Sq. Reads is joined by media partners WNYC and Time Out New York, and will once again present prominent literary figures engaging audiences on a variety of engrossing topics. The four evenings feature New York Times bestselling author Sam Lipsyte; the work of acclaimed poet Elizabeth Bishop; an exploration of our relationship with our four-legged best friends; and the unavoidable and often hilarious merging of identities adopted while living in the city. Each program lasts about an hour and is hosted by Matthew Love, Time Out New York Books editor and contributing writer for TONY, The Village Voice, and The Onion AV Club. All books discussed are available at the event by Idlewild Books, a local independent bookshop. Mad. Sq. Reads is supported by the New York Council for the Humanities.

Thursday, July 7, 6:30 PM

Sam Lipsyte | The Ask

Sam Lipsyte’s New York Times bestselling book, The Ask, follows Milo Burke—husband, father, development officer at a third-tier university—joining the burgeoning class of the newly unemployed. Grasping after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is relieved to get another chance from his former boss. All he has to do is reel in a potential donor who, mysteriously, has requested Milo’s involvement. Exploring such themes as work, war, class, child rearing, romantic comedies, and Benjamin Franklin, The Ask is a hilarious tour de force from a writer who has already shown that the deepest fictions are often the funniest.

Thursday, July 14, 6:30 PM

Elizabeth Bishop’s Letters to N.Y.

In celebration of the centenary of the seminal American poet and National Book Award winner Elizabeth Bishop, the National Book Foundation presents a discussion of Bishop’s life and legacy with Joelle Biele, Tina Chang, Alice Quinn, and Vijay Seshadri.

Joelle Biele is the editor of Elizabeth Bishop and The New Yorker: The Complete Correspondence and the author of White Summer. A Fulbright scholar in Germany and Poland, she has received awards from the Poetry Society of America and the Maryland State Arts Council. Her works appear in numerous publications including The American Poetry Review and the Harvard Review.

Tina Chang, poet laureate of Brooklyn, is the author of Half-Lit Houses and co-editor of the anthology Language for a New Century: Contemporary Poetry from the Middle East, Asia, and Beyond. Her new collection of poetry, Of Gods & Strangers, is forthcoming this fall from Four Way Books.

Alice Quinn is Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America and a professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. Quinn served as poetry editor at The New Yorker from 1987 to 2007 and is the editor of Edgar Allan Poe & The Jukebox: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop.

Vijay Seshadri is the author of Wild Kingdom and The Long Meadow (Graywolf Press) and The Disappearances (Harper-Collins India). He lives in Brooklyn and teaches at Sarah Lawrence College.

Thursday, July 21, 6:30 PM

Alexandra Horowitz | Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know

In this fascinating book, Alexandra Horowitz explores the world from the perspective of man’s best friend. By interweaving the science of dog cognition and perception with personal reflections on her own dog’s behavior, Horowitz discovers such things as whether dogs are able to smell sadness in humans and why some dogs relentlessly pursue bicycles or balls. Inside of a Dog gives anyone who lives with, deals with, or admires dogs a nuanced interpretation of their behavior and an appreciation of their canine minds. It turns out that “dogs know us better than we know them.” (Publishers’ Weekly)

Thursday, July 28, 6:30 PM

Jane Borden | I Totally Meant to Do That

Not many people know both the number of albums in Guided by Voices’ discography and the number of prongs on a shrimp fork, but Jane Borden does. She is both a Brooklyn hipster and a North Carolina debutante. I Totally Meant to Do That explores the fine line she walks between both identities and reveals the odd and hilarious culture clash between two very different worlds—the South and New York City.

About Madison Square Park Conservancy

The Madison Square Park Conservancy is the not-for-profit organization dedicated to keeping historic Madison Square Park a bright, beautiful and lively public park. The Conservancy works in partnership with the City of New York/Parks & Recreation to operate Madison Square Park and is responsible for raising all funds necessary to operate the park, including horticulture, park maintenance, sanitation, security and free cultural programs for park visitors of all ages. madisonsquarepark.org

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