McNally Jackson presents new books and events for this month

The New York-based bookstore is hosting several events this month. Read details about each of them in its newsletter, that also features books recently released as well as an open invitation to the Spanish Language Discussion Group, every Saturday at 1 p.m.

Every Saturday at 1pm
SPANISH LANGUAGE DISCUSSION GROUP
Practice your Spanish with Javier Molea. Javier owned a bookstore in Montevido, Uruguay, where people gathered on Saturdays to discuss literature. He has brought that tradition to our store. No preparatory reading is required: Borges, Cortázar, Fuentes and all of the greatest Latin American writers are discussed. Email Javier atjavier@mcnallyjackson.com about the Spanish Language Discussion Group. You can also now find out about Spanish events on our McNally Jackson en Español Facebook page.

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Febrero 2013: eventos, libros y un extenso Onetti

Un jinete muy bienvenido
Juan Carlos Onetti

Hace un par de años envié al Ministerio de Cultura mi lista de tres candidatos para el Premio Cervantes. Siempre creí que las votaciones estaban amparadas por el secreto y que no se hacía público quién votó a quién. Aunque quizá resultara a la vez lastimoso y divertido que no existiera en este caso el secreto del voto. Pero esto que acabo de escribir es una expresión de egoísmo. En ese supuesto, estoy seguro de que yo me divertiría mucho. Nada me importa que se divulguen mis opiniones literarias porque son exclusivamente mías, limpias de influencias de generaciones, de cofradías, de amiguismos y amistades coterráneas y hasta de compañerismo en tertulias de café.Alguien afirma que hay tertulias donde concurren personas que leen en voz alta sus creaciones literarias. Y que hay personas que escuchan y festejan. Sobre esto escribía Hemingway: "En aquellos días llegué hasta lo más bajo a que puede caer un escritor: leer en voz alta ante un grupo de personas fragmentos de la obra que está escribiendo".
Lo de cofradía va porque recuerdo que hace unos años actué como jurado en un concurso novelístico bonaerense que patrocinaba el diario La Opinión y la Editorial Sudamericana. Los jueces fuimos la muy querida María Rosa Oliver, Severo Sarduy y un servidor. Como estábamos alojados en el, mismo hotel, me pareció útil charlar con Sarduy respecto a las treinta o cuarenta obras presentadas. Fui a visitarlo y le pregunté si había encontrado algún inédito valioso. Y no había descubierto ninguno hasta el momento. Y no hubo conversación porque mi compañero de jurado me dijo: "No pienso leer ni uno. Vine sólo para votar el libro de Manuel Puig".
Ya se ha dicho que uno vuelve siempre al primer párrafo. Es lo que hago.
Como decía, envié al Ministerio de Cultura una lista de mis candidatos para el Premio Cervantes. Claro está que el señor ministro no podía evitar la asombrosa agilidad de la burocracia a sus órdenes. Agilidad que es intrínseca a todas las burocracias del mundo. Y así fue como un tinterillo ministerial filtró mi voto a un tinterillo periodístico y éste pudo aliviar un poco de amargura publicando un comentario que presumió burlón.
En un brillante artículo, el periodista atribuía a mi senilidad el haber propuesto para el Cervantes a tres escritores jóvenes españoles sin tener en cuenta que había muchos otros, ya maduros y con una obra literaria que podría considerarse extensa y valiosa. Afirmo haber considerado todo esto antes de enviar mi voto. Y, como consecuencia, pensé en la necesidad de que se produjera una renovación de la literatura de España. También influyó en mí el recuerdo de un consejo de Cyril Connolly, que consideraba como ideal que a un escritor joven y talentoso se le diera un montón de dinero y se le dijera: "Vete donde quieras y trae de regreso algo hermoso". La lista de mis tres candidatos estaba encabezada por Antonio Muñoz Molina, que hoy, en uno de sus regresos, nos ha hecho el favor de publicar una novela que es admirable sin discusión.
Ignoro los comentarios críticos que haya tenido El jinete polaco porque me es imposible adquirir todos los diarios y semanarios que se editan en este país. He leído un solo comentario que me reavivó la vieja constatación de que el crítico persiste en la creencia de que sabe más de literatura que el propio autor. Como, repito, El jinete polaco me pareció, tal vez por no ser crítico pero sí lector apasionado, una novela extraordinaria y que ojalá marque nuevos rumbos y tendencias para beneficio de todos aquellos que escribimos en España. La única crítica que he podido leer pone en práctica, con sabiduría y vigor, la ya conocida técnica de dar una de cal y otra de arena. Destaco, porque es un aspecto de la novelística que mucho me interesa, que este crítico dice que A. M. M. ha cometido errores en el plano de la composición del libro, sin ocurrírsele que el autor compuso la obra de acuerdo con sus propios y exclusivos conceptos. Me permito sospechar que el crítico puede haber escrito una novela respetando sus personales criterios constructivos y tal vez la haya presentado a algún concurso.
Para terminar y para tranquilidad de mi familia, declaro que mi médico de cabecera no me ha visto ningún síntoma de senilidad por el hecho de haber propuesto para el Premio Cervantes el nombre del gran escritor que hoy me ocupa.



Nuevas editoriales y largamente esperados



La Opera Fantasma, de M. Roffé (Vaso Roto)   Tata Vasco, de E. Cardenal (Vaso Roto)    El Común Olvido y Poses de fin de siglo,  de Sylvia Molloy (Eterna Cadencia)   Viajes Virales, de Lina Meruane (FCE)


Sexto Piso - Book Club el 1o. de Marzo Arrecife, de Juan Villoro (Anagrama)   Papyrus, de Osdany Morales (Sudaquia Editorial)     Cuando éramos jóvenes, de Francisco Díaz Klaassen (Sudaquia Editorial)
Viernes 15 de Febrero, 7 PM

Diorama, de Rocío Cerón (México) - Presentación a cargo de José Manuel Prieto 
Un libro de Díaz Grey Editores

Plegarias a la Reina Mosca, de Gaspar Orozco (México)




Rocío Ceron´s most recent book will be launch on this event, she will also talk with novelist José Manuel Prieto about the process of writing it and the multidisciplinary pieces created from the poems.

A diorama is a fragment, a woven texture, a vision that condenses, cuts, segments, and halts. This book emerges from a collector's path. It is a traveling poem, an interchangeable poem, where powers are interconnected; its verses do not die but are transformed. Diorama is also sound, loop and jumble, convergence of syllables. Diorama is breath. Air unfolding over a scenic landscape; a linguistic taxidermy. Poetics inscribed on the border of recounting and delirium. Collecting and phrasing driven by desire. Questioning in its purest form.The professor, poet, novelist and literary critic Julio Ortega, has said, “Diorama places the reader in a camera obscura where his gaze is refracted; reader, sight and camera turned into a language miracle (which implies seeing beyond).  This book expects everything from the reader. It convenes us to recover the word within the poem’s action.  It tells us that poetry is the place made of words for the reader, words evicted here from their rigour and radicalism against a profuse and redundant world. Such a projected book and reader make of poetry an instrument to forge a new re-habilitated syntax. “The offering: mother tongue is one’s own land”, is set in an emotional and brilliant materiality, that the poem reorganizes with the clarity of a new beginning, one where the smooth enumeration recuperates the primary force of naming. Pain and celebration of language, this sparkling book deploys a horizon of freedom to be made: a real faith in that margin of humanity.”



Gaspar Orozco

Plegarias a la Reina Mosca

Meditación sobre el tiempo y el vacío, oficios de fulgor y de silencio, oraciones dirigidas 
a la nada, Plegarias a la Reina Mosca es una colección  de poemas que giran alrededor de
la mímima belleza de la mosca.  Belleza terrible e inabarcable que lo mismo se posa en
la cúspide de la luz que desciende a los abismos más oscuros del alma.  
Estas plegarias son una nítida liturgia sobre el misterio sagrado e inextinguible
de la mosca.

A book that presents an accessible Conceptualism without diluting its clarity of concept, Plegarias a la Reina Mosca is the most exciting book of Mexican poetry that I’ve read this year - David Shook
Un poemario de escalofriante belleza- Ramón Dachs
Sunday, February 17th, 6pm

Poetry and Translation

stuart cooke and urayoán noel


A translation by Stuart Cooke 'Yankeeland' by Pablo de Rokha

Stuart was born and bred in Australia. His poetry, essays and translations have been published widely in Australia, the USA and the UK. He is the winner of the 2012 Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize, and the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships, including a 2012 Asialink Writing Fellowship to the Philippines. He completed a PhD in Poetics at Macquarie University, Sydney, in 2010.
His first full-length collection, Edge Music was published in 2011. He has also published a chapbook, Corrosions and a selection of his newer work, 'Approach', appears in Triptych Poets 2. A critical work, Speaking the Earth's Languages: a theory for postcolonial Australian-Chilean poetics, is forthcoming in 2013.
Urayoán Noel is a poet, performer, scholar, and translator who is currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University at Albany, SUNY. His works include the books of poetry Hi-Density Politics(BlazeVOX, 2010), Boringkén (Ediciones Callejón/La Tertulia, 2008), and Kool Logic/La lógica kool(Bilingual Press, 2005), the performance DVD Kool Logic Sessions (Bilingual Press, 2005), and, as translator, the chapbook ILUSOS by Edwin Torres (Atarraya Cartonera, 2010). He is currently a Bronx Council on the Arts fellow in poetry as well as a Ford Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Puerto Rican Studies at Hunter College, where he is completing a book-length study of Nuyorican poetry and its performance from the 1960s to the present.A contributing editor of Mandorla, Noel’s creative and critical writings have appeared in Latino Studies,Contemporary Literature, Centro, Fence, BOMB, New York Quarterly, and Diasporic Avant-Gardes(Palgrave, 2009) and he is featured in such anthologies as Malditos latinos, malditos sudacas. Poesía hispanoamericana made in USA (México, D.F., El billar de Lucrecia, 2009) and The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry (Univ. of Arizona Press, 2007).Originally from San Juan, Puerto Rico, Urayoán Noel earned his B.A. from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras, his M.A. from Stanford, and his Ph.D. from NYU. He lives in the Bronx.

http://mcnallyjackson.com/event/stuart-cooke-and-urayo%C3%A1n-noel

Friday, February 22nd, 7pm

Enrique Enriquez EN TEREX IT - EX ITENT ER


In these 2 volumes Enrique gathers fresh voices and sharp tongues to speak of the art of Tarot as the art of living magically. Forty-seven tarot luminaries (readers, historians, philosophers, magicians, and scientists alike) gather here to offer unique perspectives on what we can think of as divination with bones, human bones. Artists, deck creators, and modern-day neo-platonists follow Enrique's lead, letting themselves be enchanted by the piper at the gate of games. Some of the central questions that Enrique deals with are: do we read for the symbol, or the image? Do we read for the narrative that the cards create or their potential for transformation? Do we read for the plot, the poetry, or the formal properties? We find Enrique holding the torch and asking everybody the same questions: how do we experience the tarot? Through symbolic readings or through interacting with the image? While it is clear that he goes with the latter, he gives everyone a chance to state their preferences. But he doesn't stop there. He wants to see what the argument is for such preferences. What are the motivations in considering where images take us? How do the images do that? Why do we go to fortunetellers? My own contribution to this is to suggest that we read cards for the magic of narrative. We go to fortunetellers to see others play with our lives. Here are 47 of them. -- CAMELIA ELIAS, "HE RECO ME: ENRIQUE ENRIQUEZ'S POETICS OF DIVINATION" .

http://tarology.wordpress.com/




Wednesday, February 20th

REAL CHARACTERS

Comedian Andy Ross’s monthly showcase invites writers, actors and stand-ups to read funny essays or perform their latest laughable stage creations. Past performers include writers, journalists, actors, and stand-ups who have appeared on the Moth Mainstage, This American Life, BBC’s The World, HBO’s Funny or Die and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. This month's line-up features Lauren Sharpe, Tim Manley, Natasha Rothwell.

Upcoming Discussions and Book Clubs

INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE: Led by Sarah McNally, this discussion group meets downstairs in the history section the first Monday of every month, at 7pm. On Monday, March 4th, the group will discuss Javier Marías Bad Nature, Or With Elvis in Mexico.
ESSAYS: Co-led by Sarah Gerard and Rachel Hurn, our Essays Book Group meets in the travel section the first Wednesday of every month, at 7pm.
POETRY: Led by Brigid Brine, the Poetry Book Group meets in the travel section the third Wednesday of every month, at 7pm. On Wednesday, February 20th, the book club will be discussing Into the Deep Street: Seven Modern French Poets 1938-2008, edited and translated by Jennie Feldman and Stephen Romer. Read the poems by the first poet in the book, Jean Follain. Compare them with the Mallarmé poems discussed in the group so far: Hérodiade (Collected Poems, p. 25) and The Afternoon of a Faun (p.36).
SPANISH BOOKCLUB: Led by Javier Molea, this discussion group meets once a month at 7pm downstairs. On Friday, March 1st, the book club will be discussingEl Libro Uruguayo de los Muertos, de Mario Bellatín (México). See the Español page for more details.
SMALL BUSINESS BOOKCLUB: Led by Holly Howard, our Small Business Reading Group meets in the travel section the second Tuesday of every month, at 7pm. 

PHILOSOPHY BOOKCLUB: Led by Kevin Cassem and Matthew Wagstaffe, the Philosophy Book Club meets in the travel section the first Tuesday of every month, at 7pm. On Tuesday, March 5th, the book club will be discussing Revolution: A Reader, compiled and annotated by Lisa Robertson and Matthew Stadler. Read the introduction, and the five essays between p. 69 and p. 178.
Storytime

Baby Storytime (Ages 0 to 2): Friday at 4pm
Kid's Storytime (Ages 3 to 8): Saturday at 11:30am
Young book lovers are invited to listen to stories from our favorite picture books.
On Fridays, McNally Jackson's Baby Storytellers, Sandeep Bhuller and Sarah Gerard, read picture books and sing songs with babies and kids up to age 2 and their grown-ups. Email Sarah atgerard@mcnallyjackson.com about Baby Storytime.
On Saturdays, author and resident storyteller Yvonne Brooks creates themed storytimes followed by guided crafts and activities for kids ages 3 to 8. Email Yvonne atyvonne@mcnallyjackson.com about Kids' Storytime.
PUPPET SHOW: Each month, McNally Jackson pairs a live puppet show with a classic picture book and singalong hour. Afterwards, kids and their parents are welcome to participate in a singalong and meet the puppet performers. Puppet shows are free and held in the history section every first Wednesday at 4:30 pm. On Wednesday, February 6th, the puppet show will be an original production of Cinderella, paired with Cinderella, retold by C.S Evans and illustrated by Arthur Rackham.

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