Just a reminder that the “Beatrice.com Presents @ The Merc” reading series begins tonight at 7 p.m. with special guests Ed Park (Personal Days) and Jane Kotapish (Salvage). These are two really excellent debut novels, and I’m looking forward to meeting the authors—and you, if you want to come. (We’re going to have wine, if that helps make up your mind.)
Of course, there’s always a ton of literary events going on in the city, and while I’m not encouraging you to go see Keith Gessen at McNally-Robinson or National Book Award winner Denis Johnson at the New School, I would certainly understand if that’s where you ended up. Heck, I’m actually sorta jealous I won’t get to go to “Futures of the Internet,” a panel discussion at NYU’s Information Law Institute with Clay Shirky and Jonathan Zittrain, the authors of two of the books about the Internet that are on top of my to-read list, Here Comes Everybody) and The Future of the Internet—And How to Stop It. I wonder who the “very special surprise guest” will be: David Perlmutter of BlogWars? Daniel J. Solove of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet? Maybe Lawrence Lessig is coming into town! (I thought he might be around, what with the Potter lawsuit, but while he’s on the legal team for RDR Books, he’s not arguing their case in court.)
Anyway, I just hope somebody is going to be podcasting that thing, so I can at least hear it later.