Independent bookstore Little City Books will host its 2nd Annual Hoboken Literary Weekend April 3-5, 2020. The event will feature several award-winning authors, artists, performers, and journalists at Little City Books as well as partner venues throughout Hoboken.
“Since this year is an election year, with everyone shouting at each other, we are featuring talks and performances that are pure entertainment,” said Kate Jacobs, co-owner of Little City Books.
The 2nd Annual Hoboken Literary Weekend kicks off on Friday April 3rd with New Yorker writer Patty Marx and New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast — and their ukuleles — in conversation about their new book You Can Only Be Mad At Me For One Thing At a Time: Rules for Couples. The two have been playing sold-out events across the country, and their talk will include live music, refreshments, cartoons, and a signed copy of the book.
“We opened a second bookstore in uptown Hoboken in January,” said Little City co-owner Donna Garban. “Our uptown neighbor, Mile Square Theatre, is partnering with us to host Patty and Roz, our opening event for the Hoboken Literary Weekend. It’s a fun adventure being part of a developing neighborhood that includes an Equity house, movie theater, gorgeous cafe, biergarten, and climbing wall.”
Obie-winning theater group Elevator Repair Service will perform at Little City Books on Saturday April 4th. The ensemble’s production of Gatz (a word-for-word retelling of the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald) won multiple awards and was called “the most remarkable achievement in theater of the decade” by New York Times critic Ben Brantley. At this year’s Hoboken Literary Weekend, they will workshop a new play, Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge, a verbatim account of the 1965 debate between author James Baldwin and William F. Buckley at Cambridge University on the topic “The American Dream is at the Expense of the American Negro.” Included in the event is a conversation with the director and actors.
On Sunday April 5th, the bookstore will host celebrated painter, writer, and set designer Maira Kalman talking about her new book, an illustrated edition of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein. The book depicts life in Paris in the 1920s, and New Yorker writer and former Paris Correspondent, Adam Gopnik, will be on hand to discuss the Parisian literary and social scene at the time of the book’s writing. Tickets to the event include a glass of wine and a signed copy of the book, and a short film will also be shown.
Other events during the Hoboken Literary Weekend 2020 include:
– Sisters Tish and Snooky Bellomo, who sang backup in Blondie in the 70s before launching their world-famous beauty line, Manic Panic. The brand is an iconic punk fashion touchstone — cruelty-free and charity-driven from its inception. They’ll talk about their recent memoir and beauty guide Manic Panic Living in Color: A Rebellious Guide to Hair Color and Life — and the event will include a hair color demonstration and refreshments.
– Pulitzer-Prize-winning Wall Street Journal reporter, national baseball writer, and Jersey City resident Jared Diamond will launch his new book Swing Kings: The Inside Story of Baseball’s Home Run Revolution.
– Adam Wade, record-holding 20-time Moth Storytelling SLAM Champion, seen on HBO’s Girls and Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer, and host of the Audible original You Ought to Know Adam Wade, will tell stories about the great people he’s met while living in Hoboken, including Walter the fireman, Jeff the cop, Pat the bartender, and of course Dominick the barber.
“Our first Hoboken Literary Weekend last year was very ambitious — 12 events in three days. It was a ton of work and madly successful,” said Jacobs. “People stopped us on the street for months afterward to thank us, so we knew we wanted to do it again. It is so much fun being part of this community and throwing parties for all our adventurous, literary, curious neighbors.”
Events are still being added to the weekend’s schedule. For full details including locations, times and tickets, please see the Hoboken Literary Weekend’s website at www.hobokenliteraryweekend.com and follow Little City Books on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. You can also call the store at 201-626-READ for details.
