Je Suis Odysseus
DATEBOOK July 28–August 3
Welcome back to Datebook, the weekly guide to literary events in New York, London, and LA. All events listed in local time.
If you have an event you’d like me to include in DATEBOOK, email me.
The last I spoke to you, I was swimming through the New Orleans air. Since then, I’ve O Brother Where Art Thou’d my way through the South and across Appalachia to the Heartland: Mississippi, where my tire blew out on the highway and where I drank an ice cold Coke in the ultramarine tire shop office while the men replaced it; Alabama, where I got sunburnt paddle boarding with egrets and night herons and great blues, (which in case you didn’t know, really do sound like dinosaurs when they fly); Tennessee and Kentucky, losing service between the sheer limestone cliffs of the western edge of the Smokies; and now Ohio, eating the most delicious chicken salad of my life and getting caught in Biblical rainstorms. And this week, it’s a return to Empire. Whatever shall I find…?
In other news, the 2026 Booker Prize longlist has been announced! And the overwhelming response from the SRBPRU (Scremes Report Booker Prize Reporting Unit) to the announcement video they dropped is… WOW!
What have you read so far? Which picks are you going for first?
Tuesday, July 28 (TONIGHT!)
7 pm // BKLN: A Night of Poetry, feat. Daryl Gussin, Giulia Bencivenga, Morgan Boyle, James Norman, and Gaby Gignoux-Wolfsohn. | Sea & Soil Co-Op (388 Atlantic Ave). Free.
Thursday, July 30
7 pm // LDN: London launch of Four Terrible Parents by Calla Henkel, feat. additional readings by Andrew Durbin and Lily McMenamy. | TRAMPS (N1 7TB). Free.
7 pm // BKLN: Roasting House Reading Series, feat. Malcolm Tariq, Cecilia Beard, Gauri Awasthi, Kai Mason, and Jaden Schapiro. Hosted by Noa and Madeleine. | Kos Kaffe (Park Slope). Free. This is a special one! Last RH before Madeleine leaves for the West Coast. Don’t miss it.
Friday, July 31
7 pm // LA: Hesse Press is having a reading, feat. Matthew Goldin, Hedi El Kholti, Molly Lambert, and Johnathan Mills. | Stories. Free.
Sunday, August 2
7 pm // NYC: Nico Lou Monheim Carrasquillo and India Rose Timpani present “The East River Amphitheater,” a marathon reading feat. Ada Wickens, Bronwen Lam, Daisaku Rei Hidaka, Henry Bohan, Kelly Karivalis, Riley Mac, Tasneem Sarkez, Weston Priest, and many, many more. | KGB (Private Curtain). Free.
