Welcome to Malvern Books!
Malvern Books is now closed. Malvern Books was a bookstore and community space in Austin, Texas. We specialized in visionary literature and poetry from independent publishers, with a focus on lesser-known and emerging voices.
An Update from the Manager of Malvern Books
Dear Friends,
We’ve had a wonderful time sharing our favorite books with you over the past nine years, and it’s been an honor to celebrate the work of so many brilliant writers through our readings and events.
Malvern Books is the realization of Joe Bratcher’s vision—Joe dreamt of a bookstore that would carry the books he loved, mostly poetry and fiction from small, independent presses. He wanted to promote writers and translators of books from other countries, while also championing the work of local writers.
When Joe first talked to me about opening Malvern Books, I must admit I was skeptical. I didn’t think we’d find an audience. It was 2012 and everyone was saying that bookstores were dead, Kindle and online shopping were the future. I anticipated many quiet sales days, with Joe and I just sitting there, looking at each other. He told me if that’s how it ended up, well, at least we’d have a chance to chat—and since we always seemed to laugh a lot when we talked, it sounded like a good way to spend some time. And so from then on, whenever we’d have a really slow sales day, with just a few people coming in, we’d look at each other and say, “We’re living the dream!” and we’d laugh.
But back to opening… in early 2013, with the help of our amazing architect, contractor, and interior designer, we created the space that Joe had in mind. We started posting on social media thanks to Tracey, our wonderful digital media manager and first Malvern hire. And we were so grateful to the many enthusiastic writers and readers who expressed their excitement at the imminent arrival of Malvern Books. From the very beginning it felt like we were building a community.
We opened our doors in October 2013, and we were shocked by how many people came by. You showed up and you loved what we had to offer! You constantly surprised and humbled us with your kind words and helpful suggestions. People from out of town would visit the store because a local friend had told them they had to come by, and we received much appreciated shout-outs from the Austin Chronicle and numerous other newspapers and journals.
And then 2020 hit—but even with the pandemic, we had loyal customers who came by for curbside pick ups, signed up for individual shopping appointments, and participated in our Zoom book clubs and events. If we didn’t say it enough, THANK YOU!
All along the way, we were lucky enough to have truly wonderful staff members who loved the books we carried and who helped us build the store we have now. Their work has been invaluable and we could not have done this without them.
On July 28th of this year, we lost Joe. I can’t tell you how hard it has been to try and carry on in this space without him. Our little Malvern world has not been the same since, and, as much as we love this store and our amazing customers, Malvern Books simply cannot continue without our Joe.
Malvern Books will be closing on December 31st, 2022. It has been a wonderful nine years and we thank each and every one of our cherished customers, friends, staff, and suppliers for helping us along the way.
As we move forward, we’ll be sharing our plans with you for sales and specials. For now, we just wanted to let you know this was coming. We hope you all continue to seek out works in translation and books published by small presses—there is so much great stuff out there—and that you continue to support our local independent bookstores, like our dear friends at BookWoman, among others. But, most importantly, we hope to see you in the store sometime soon, to say goodbye and to thank you, both for being the readers that you are and because you have come with us on this incredibly fulfilling journey in Joe’s world.
With heartfelt thanks and wishing you all the best,
Becky Garcia,
Manager, Malvern Books
| Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat | Sun |
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| Finnegans Wake Reading Group 7:00 pm Finnegans Wake Reading Group Jan 15 @ 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm  The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece. The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality … Continue reading | ||||||
| B & C Book Club 1:30 pm B & C Book Club Jan 24 @ 1:30 pm – 3:30 pm  “We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information. | ||||||
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we will be reading and discussing The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers, #17 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we will be reading and discussing Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, #19 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
Join us for a reading to celebrate the launch of the latest issue of Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review! The keynote poet is Celeste Guzman Mendoza, author of Beneath the Halo (Wings Press, 2013). This new issue also includes a special section by the CantoMundo Fellows.
An engaging photography series, ‘Wonder World’ by Rebecca Dietz, is showcased in Issue 42 and is on exhibit at Malvern Books from April 25th-May 9th.
Borderlands is supported in part by the Cultural Arts Division of the City of Austin Economic Development Department.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
It’s Bloomsday! Join us for a celebration of the life of writer James Joyce. Featuring live Irish music from Aidan, readings from Ulysses with an introduction by Joyce aficionado Peter Q, the moderator of the Finnegans Wake Reading Group, plus spirited discussion (audience participation welcome!)… and suitably Irish snacks.
Bloomsday, named for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, is observed around the world on June 16th, as this is the date during which the events of Ulysses are relived (16th June, 1904). Fun fact: Joyce apparently picked June 16th as it was the date of his first date with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we’ll be reading Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow, number 21 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Hosted by Lindsay DeWitt, The Modern Library Reading Group is a book club organized around the Modern Library’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. Usually, the book we read will be the lowest-numbered book that no one in the group has read. This month we’re reading Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara, #22 on the list.
Barring any unforeseen scheduling conflicts, The Modern Library Reading Group will meet every fourth Sunday at 1pm. All are welcome, though you are encouraged to finish the chosen book prior to the meeting.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Join us in celebrating Banned Books Week with The Freedom to Read Foundation!
This event will feature a “read out,” with special guests, including Tish Hinojosa, Sarah Bird, and Mark Smith (Director of the Texas State Library and Archives), reading from their favorite banned books. Audience members are also welcome to read. Attendance is free, but donations to The Freedom to Read Foundation will be gratefully accepted.
The Freedom to Read Foundation (FTRF) is a non-profit legal and educational organization that was founded in 1969 to protect and defend the First Amendment to the Constitution and support the right of libraries to collect—and individuals to access—information. The Foundation is devoted to the principle that the solution to offensive speech is more speech, and the suppression of speech on the grounds that it gives offense to some infringes on the rights of all to a free, open and robust marketplace of ideas.
October 7, 2015 marks the 60th anniversary of the first reading of Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl.” To honor the occasion, Malvern Books is hosting a crowd-sourced performance of the poem, featuring people from all over Austin. The event emphasizes the religious nature of the piece, combining elements of worship from various spiritual traditions into one magical night of community.
For more info and to sign up to read, email: whoppe@austincc.edu
Opening day seems like it was only yesterday, but in fact Malvern Books turns TWO this week. And we’re celebrating our second anniversary in fine style, with music, readings, and cake. Come on down and join the party!
* Also worth noting: there will be 25 % off everything in the store all day! *
At 2pm, you’re invited to join us for a communal reading of Kenneth Koch’s epic 104-stanza poem “When the Sun Tries to Go On” (from The Hasty Papers)… come and read a verse or two, and enjoy some birthday cake as your reward.
At 6pm, we’ll enjoy live music from Americana roots duo Mark Viator & Susan Maxey.
And at 7pm, we’ll rock out further with a little Poetry Karaoke. (It’s easy: you roll a lettered die and then select from our shelves a poem by a poet whose last name starts with the letter the die landed on—and then you read this poem aloud for everyone to enjoy!)
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. We’re starting with A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes, an unexpected, entertaining story of inept pirates and cruel children. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on November 7th.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our December selection is A Schoolboy’s Diary by Robert Walser, a collection of “strange and wonderful” stories. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on December 5th.
Join us for a poetry reading and birthday cake to celebrate the late, great poet laureate of Hyde Park: Albert Huffstickler.
Albert Huffstickler (December 17, 1927 – February 25, 2002) was born in Laredo, Texas, but he lived in Austin in his later years, and became a local literary legend. You could usually find him in a café in Hyde Park, decked out in suspenders, smoking, drinking coffee, and working on a poem. (Rumor has it he wrote a poem a day, and his impressive publication record—four full-length collections, plus hundreds of poems published in chapbooks and journals—lends veracity to the story.) He was a two-time winner of the Austin Book Awards, and in 1989 the state legislature formally honored him for his contribution to Texas poetry. In May 2013 a new Hyde Park green space at the corner of 38th and Duval Streets was named Huffstickler Green in his honor. Huff was a friend and inspiration to many, and everyone who knew him talks of his kindness, his honesty, and his passionate support for local literature. Austin Community College English professor W. Joe Hoppe, who will be reading tonight, describes his friend and mentor as “a great encourager of poetry.”
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our January selection is the novel Speedboat by Renata Adler, a wry, dreamlike investigation of contemporary life. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on January 2nd.
Join us in celebrating the release of Family Resemblance: An Anthology and Exploration of 8 Hybrid Literary Genres (Rose Metal Press), edited by Marcela Sulak and Jacqueline Kolosov. This event will feature readings from Marcela Sulak and contributors Katie Cortese, Joy Ladin, and Julio Ortega.
Family Resemblance explores hybrid literary genres in depth, providing craft essays and examples of hybrid forms by 43 distinguished authors, including Julie Marie Wade, Takashi Hiraide, Maggie Nelson, Joe Wenderoth, and Etgar Keret. In this study of eight hybrid genres—including lyric essay, epistolary, poetic memoir, prose poetry, performative, short-form nonfiction, flash fiction, and pictures made of words—the family tree of hybridity takes delightful shape, showcasing how cross-genre works blend features from multiple literary parents to create new entities, forms that feel more urgent than ever in today’s increasingly heterogeneous landscape.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our February selection is Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, a novel far more subversive and fascinating (and less sentimental) than the Disney film we’re so familiar with. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on February 6th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our March selection is The Door by Magda Szabó, an unsettling exploration of the relationship between two very different women. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on March 5th.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Austin Community Salutes Springtime and the Belle of Amherst. Hosted by W. Joe Hoppe and Brett Reeves.
In this crowd-sourced, participation-based event, we will resurrect the poems of Emily Dickinson, hauling them out of the schools and into the streets. This is church for people who don’t go to church. We will read aloud, sing aloud, and expound aloud, using Ms. D’s poems as our starting point. Participants draw poem numbers from a hat, or may choose their favorite Dickinson poem. When your number’s up, you stand and read.
Sponsored by Brett Reeves Educator and Malvern Books.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our April selection is The Big Clock by Kenneth Fearing, a masterpiece of American noir. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading!
If you enjoy top-drawer detective fiction … we can recommend this one with no reservations whatsoever.
— The New York Times
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on April 2nd.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Join us in celebrating the release of Becoming the Virgin, the debut poetry collection from Malvernite Taylor Jacob Pate. Featuring readings from Taylor and assorted Malvern staff members, including Fernando Flores, Schandra Madha, Matthew Hodges, and Stephanie Goehring.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our May selection is Great Granny Webster by Caroline Blackwood, a macabre, mordantly funny novel that reveals the gothic craziness behind the scenes in the great houses of the aristocracy, as witnessed through the unsparing eyes of an orphaned teenage girl. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
As gripping as a whodunit. There are passages like passages in a strange house: when they turn a corner, something unexpectedly shocking comes into sight. It is also very funny, and the characters are vividly eccentric—or just plain vivid: Blackwood’s writing never merely trundles along.
— The Times Literary Supplement
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on May 7th.
Join us in celebrating the release of the latest issue of Hothouse Literary Journal.
Hothouse Literary Journal is the official journal for the UT English Department. They publish poetry, nonfiction, and fiction stories from multiple genres every year. The release event consists of readings from the published authors and a chance to own a free copy of Hothouse.
Join us in celebrating the release of the latest issue of Analecta, the official Literary and Arts Journal at the University of Texas.
An entirely student-run publication, Analecta is produced by a small group of undergraduate students committed to finding exceptional work by both undergraduate and graduate students at UT. Analecta features a manifold collection of poetry, prose (both essays and fiction), dramatic works, and visual arts.
Join us in celebrating the release of the Spring 2016 edition of Austin Community College’s journal, The Rio Review. Students featured in this issue will share their fiction, nonfiction, and poetry with us.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Join us in celebrating the launch of two new books: Tony Burnett’s The Reckless Hope of Scoundrels – selected poems 1985-2015 and Carlotta Stankiewicz’s Haiku Austin (love song to Austin / in 17 syllables / wonderful and weird).
Educated at University of North Texas, Tony Burnett is an award-winning poet, journalist, activist, and songwriter. His poetry and short fiction have been published in national literary magazines and anthologies including Sixfold, Connotation Press, Short Story America, Frontier Tales, Texas Poetry Calendar, Poetry @ Round Top anthology, Tidal Basin Review, Red Dirt Review and Toucan Literary Magazine. He is Editor in Chief of Scribe, the online blog of the Writers’ League of Texas with over 6000 subscribers, and serves as Board President of the Writers’ League of Texas. He makes his home in rural central Texas near Temple with his trophy wife, Robin. His hobbies include poking wasp nests with short sticks and wandering aimlessly about.
Carlotta Eike Stankiewicz is an Austin-based writer and poet. She has performed in Austin’s Listen To Your Mother Show (2012) and recently read her piece “The Salon” at Austin’s One Page Salon on March 2, 2016. Her blog features both humorous rhyming verse and free verse. A single mom of two teenage daughters, she funds their activities by working as an advertising Creative Director, most recently at GSD&M, for national brands like Zales, AT&T, and John Deere. Haiku Austin is her first book, and features both her poetry and her photography.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations. Our June selection is In the Café of Lost Youth by Patrick Modiano, an absorbing evocation of a particular Paris of the 1950s, shadowy and shady, a secret world of writers, criminals, drinkers, and drifters. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
In the Café of Lost Youth is a kind of suspense story. It is a story about the many facets of a single woman but also, unquestionably, a story about the multiple worlds within Paris, a city that, as much as any individual human being, remains essentially unknowable. It casts a near hypnotic spell.
—Douglas Kennedy, L’Express
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on June 4th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
It’s Bloomsday! Join us for a celebration of the life of writer James Joyce. Featuring live Irish music from Serge Laîné and Larry Rone (pictured below, from Poor Man’s Fortune), readings from Ulysses with an introduction by Joyce aficionado Peter Q, the moderator of the Finnegans Wake Reading Group, plus spirited discussion (audience participation welcome!)… and suitably Irish snacks, including Guinness cake!
Bloomsday, named for Leopold Bloom, the protagonist of Ulysses, is observed around the world on June 16th, as this is the date during which the events of Ulysses are relived (16th June, 1904). Fun fact: Joyce apparently picked June 16th as it was the date of his first date with his wife-to-be, Nora Barnacle.
Poor Man’s Fortune combines Breton, Cajun, Scottish, French & Irish music with original tunes and even more original ideas. This is World Music in a world of its own. Jigs, reels, polkas, 2-steps and waltzes. Breton plinns, an dros, ridées & gavottes. Made-up folk dances, songs of joy, sadness and murder… all featuring an assemblage of traditional and modern instruments, including dulcitare, wooden flute, accordion, pennywhistle, bombarde, bagpipes & hurdy-gurdy. Poor Man’s Fortune is at their best live on a stage in front of a crowd of any manner of music lover. Folkies, punks, rockers, mods, mockers, your teenage son’s friends, and your in-laws, no one is immune to a PMF stage show. Rock and roll energy with the precision of a string quartet.On June 26th Malvern Books will join the world in observation of International Day in Support of Victims of Torture with presentations and discussion. Come join Celia VanDeGraaf, Joe Bratcher, Christopher Brown, Taylor Pate, and Matthew Hodges as we celebrate the survival of victims of torture and wonder in dismay that this practice continues. A significant portion of the event will center on discussion of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Torture.
The literary community at Malvern Books and the fine arts community at Bone Black Gallery are teaming up to welcome artist and author Kristina Hagman to Austin. Hagman will be presenting her new book, The Eternal Party, at Malvern Books on July 1st, 7pm. And at Bone Black Gallery on July 2nd, 7-9pm, there will be a reception and artist’s talk for 36 Views of Mt. Rainier, her suite of intricate woodblock prints.
In The Eternal Party Kristina recounts the multigenerational stories that led to huge stardom, not just once but twice, as both her grandmother Mary Martin (who played Peter in Peter Pan; Maria in The Sound of Music; and many more well-known roles) and her father, most famously known for two very different roles, first, as the comedic character of Tony Nelson in I Dream of Jeannie and later as the villainous J.R. in Dallas. The book is as much a spiritual search for truth as it is an exposé on celebrity life. At her father’s side on his deathbed, Kristina heard her father keep repeating “forgive me” before he passed. Searching for clues as to what he meant, Kristina delves into her father’s past and details life within fame. Determined to tell her story, Hagman overcame struggles with dyslexia and ADHD to complete the book.
Hagman’s life path veered from that of her father and grandmother and she became a successful visual artist, having honed her skills in the arts community of Santa Fe. Hagman’s work has been displayed at the Pacific Asia Museum (Pasadena, California), Cullom Gallery (Seattle, WA), Antioch University (Seattle, WA), The Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Ketchum, Idaho, KIWA Kyoto International Woodprint Association, Kyoto, Japan and many others. Her work has also been included in more than 40 multi-artist exhibits since 1985. Her suite of woodblock prints, 36 Views of Mt. Rainier, is inspired by Hokusai’s collection Thirty-six Views of Mount Fuji, of which the piece The Great Wave is most well known. Hagman utilizes Mt. Rainier as a point of entry into exploring landscape from many angles. Works like Dawn embody a sense of calm and natural beauty, showing Mt. Rainier as one of America’s purple mountain majesties. In Rainier From Queen Anne we see the mountain as just one peak amongst many in a crowded city scape. Hagman produces these works using a blend of traditional and modern woodblock techniques.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our July selection is Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis, a withering, eloquently misanthropic tale regarded by many as the finest comic novel of the twentieth century. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
Remarkably, Lucky Jim is as fresh and surprising today as it was in 1954. It is part of the landscape, and it defines academia in the eyes of much of the world as does no other book, yet if you are coming to it for the first time you will feel, as you glide happily through its pages, that you are traveling in a place where no one else has ever been. If you haven’t yet done so, you must.
—Jonathan Yardley, The Washington Post
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on July 2nd.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our August selection is Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns, a beguiling tale of marriage gone awry in 1930s London. If you want to take part in this lively literary adventure, stop by the store, sign up, buy yourself a copy, and get reading. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up!
[Comyns’s] capturing of youth is so fresh and accurate that nothing is lost in the passing of decades. There is a modern sensibility at play in her women and their experiences, their attitudes and reactions towards love and sex, marriage and having children . . . Comyns’s skill is subtle and surprising.
—Lauren Goldenberg, Music and Literature
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on August 6th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
The greatest authors of Ancient Greece and their modern counterparts have asked many of the same questions about the world; questions about death, beauty, politics, love, language, and God, for instance. This group will host parallel meetups to try to understand the answers (and further questions!) great thinkers have given us. With these big questions in mind, we will study works of Ancient Greek philosophy, history, and drama as well as modern works of fiction. All are welcome. Please come as you are, with or without experience reading these kinds of books. All Greek works will be available for free online and can be read in a translation of your choice. We will do our best to choose modern literature available for free online or accessible at Austin public libraries. More information is available on our Meetup Group page.
At this meeting we’re going to discuss Plato’s Protagoras. In the Protagoras, Socrates and a group of sophists discuss various related questions. As in the Meno, the nature of virtue and its teachability are emphasized, but here, Socrates is talking not to a young political upstart like Meno, but to older, cleverer interlocutors.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our September selection is Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliott Chaze, a hard-boiled story of doomed love that careens through a landscape of desperate passion and wild reversals. Bill Pronzini called this novel “an indisputable noir classic,” so be sure to come by the store and pick up a copy for a page-turning summer read. And if you’d like to receive reminders concerning our upcoming book club offerings, email us and we’ll sign you up.
The novel features everything we’ve come to love about noir crime fiction. The dialogue is crackling, stylized and often funny. . . . Chaze’s characters are more memorable than you often find in hard-boiled fiction. . . . Chaze’s gift with words, combined with a plot that moves quickly toward its brutal, startling conclusion, makes Black Wings Has My Angel a trip worth taking for anybody with a taste for the darker side of crime fiction.
—Michael Schaub, NPR Books
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on September 3rd.
The greatest authors of Ancient Greece and their modern counterparts have asked many of the same questions about the world; questions about death, beauty, politics, love, language, and God, for instance. This group will host parallel meetups to try to understand the answers (and further questions!) great thinkers have given us. With these big questions in mind, we will study works of Ancient Greek philosophy, history, and drama as well as modern works of fiction. All are welcome. Please come as you are, with or without experience reading these kinds of books. All Greek works will be available for free online and can be read in a translation of your choice. We will do our best to choose modern literature available for free online or accessible at Austin public libraries. More information is available on our Meetup Group page.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Join us in celebrating the 90th birthday of esteemed poet, translator, educator, and editor Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth. We’ll be rejoicing with music, cake, poetry, friends, readings, and assorted literary shenanigans. Everyone is welcome for what is sure to be a wonderful afternoon.
Dr. Miguel Gonzalez-Gerth is an acclaimed poet, translator, educator, and editor. He was born in Mexico City in 1926, the son of an army officer of Spanish descent and a musician mother of German descent. In 1940 he left Mexico for Texas, making the United States his permanent home. He received a B.A. from the University of Texas in 1950 and a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1973, and is professor emeritus of Spanish at The University of Texas at Austin, where he taught for more than thirty years. He has written numerous critical studies and has been published extensively in anthologies and magazines. He is the author of the poetry collections Looking for the Horse Latitudes (Host Publications) and Between Day and Night: New and Selected Poems, 1946-2010 (Tamu Press), and the translator of Natural Selection (Host Publications), the collected works of Uruguayan poet Enrique Fierro.
Join us in celebrating International Translation Day with a reading featuring renowned translators Kurt Heinzelman, Liliana Valenzuela, and Jamey Gambrell. And we’re also offering 20% off all books in translation on International Translation Day!
Poet, scholar, translator, and editor, Kurt Heinzelman is Editor-at-Large of Bat City Review and former Director of Creative Writing at the University of Texas. His latest book of poetry is Intimacies & Other Devices, and he is the translator of Jean Follain’s 1953 collection Territoires under the title Demarcations (Host Publications). He is also a member of the Cunda International Workshop for Translators of Turkish Literature in Istanbul and Honorary Professor at Swansea University (Wales).
Liliana Valenzuela is an award-winning literary translator, poet, essayist, and journalist. Her bilingual poetry chapbook Codex of Journeys: Bendito camino was published by Mouthfeel Press in 2012. Valenzuela is the acclaimed Spanish language translator of works by Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez, Denise Chávez, Nina Marie Martínez, Ana Castillo, Dagoberto Gilb, Richard Rodríguez, Rudolfo Anaya, Cristina García, Gloria Anzaldúa, and many other writers. Her translation of Sandra Cisneros’ A House of My Own is due out Fall 2016. A member of the Macondo Writers Workshop and an inaugural fellow of CantoMundo, she works for ¡Ahora Sí!, the Spanish weekly of the Austin American-Statesman.
Jamey Gambrell is a writer on Russian art and culture. She has translated works by Marina Tsvetaeva and Tatyana Tolstaya, in addition to Vladimir Sorokin’s three-volume Ice trilogy and his Day of the Oprichnik and, most recently, The Blizzard. This spring, the one-man show “Brodsky/Baryshnikov” premiered, featuring her translated surtitles of Joseph Brodsky’s poetry. Also this spring, Gambrell was awarded the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation, which recognizes “a significant contribution to the art of literary translation.”
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our October selection is The Black Spider by Jeremias Gotthelf (translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky), a riveting—and unforgettably creepy—tale set in a remote Swiss village. The Black Spider can be seen as a parable of evil at large in society (Thomas Mann saw it as foretelling the advent of Nazism, and noted, “There is scarcely a work in world literature that I admire more”), or as a vision of cosmic horror.
Gotthelf’s talent is to make his horror credible by the simplicity of his style and the acuteness of his psychological perception, particularly of the herd instinct among the villagers. His story is a homily, showing how the everyday moral weaknesses of men and women give an opening to the spirit of evil.
—Piers Paul Read, The Times (London)
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on October 1st.
Opening day seems like it was only yesterday, but in fact Malvern Books turns THREE this week. And we’re celebrating our third anniversary in fine style, with music, readings, and cake. Come on down and join the party!
* Also worth noting: there will be 25 % off everything in the store all day! *
At 5pm, you’re invited to join us for a communal reading of the entirety of Frank O’Hara’s 1964 Lunch Poems. Come read a verse or two, and enjoy some birthday cake as your reward.
At 6pm, we’ll serve up some tasty snacks. Come eat and be merry!
And at 7pm, we’ll tap our feet to live music from ComeDrumForFun… and eat more cake!
Join us for a reading celebrating the launch of Short Stories by Texas Authors Vol. 2.
Texas Authors have once again allowed their creative minds to open up and expand the Universe in which they live with short stories that captures one’s emotions through the everlasting aspect of storytelling.
In this, the second volume of award-winning short stories, the reader is taken on a personal ride of growth and understanding, then through history both factual and fictional as they explore each side of two wars. Then fear grabs hold of you and shakes you with terror before unleashing giggles and out-right laughs. Those are just a few of the emotions one will experience as they read these seventeen short stories from all parts of Texas.
Here are the winners from this year’s contest:
Join us in celebrating the launch of L.E. Kinzie’s first poetry collection, Ignite. With readings from L.E. and Robin Bradford.
“Kinzie walks the fine line between modern American life and spirituality like a tightrope walker in heels. Her voice is funny, blunt, and sublime.”
—Joe McDermott, internationally awarded songwriter and performer
Ignite celebrates the beauty and sacredness of American life. Kirkus Reviews says Ignite is “a compilation of verse that’s popular in the best sense of the word.”
L.E. Kinzie lives in Austin, Texas, with a ridiculous and ever-changing menagerie of pets and her family. A recovering ex-lawyer, she is a passionate observer of humanity and the common threads that bind us all together—beauty, creation, and creating art.
Robin Bradford is a poet, fiction writer and essayist. Her poetry has appeared most recently in Mudfish Review and the Texas Poetry Calendar and is forthcoming in The Texas Observer and Friends Journal: A Quaker Magazine. Her literary honors include the Dobie Paisano Fellowship for Texas Writers, O. Henry Award, Texas Literature Grant and a Community Sabbatical Grant from the University of Texas Humanities Institute. A Zen lay teacher, Bradford works as communications director at Austin Community Foundation.
Join us for a poetry reading from the late Max Ritvo’s first collection, Four Reincarnations (Milkweed Editions). Max’s poetry will be read by Sarah Matthes.
When Max Ritvo was diagnosed with terminal cancer at age sixteen, he became the chief war correspondent for his body. The poems of Four Reincarnations are dispatches from chemotherapy beds and hospitals and the loneliest spaces in the home. They are relentlessly embodied, communicating pain, violence, and loss. And yet they are also erotically, electrically attuned to possibility and desire, to “everything living / that won’t come with me / into this sunny afternoon.” Ritvo explores the prospect of death with singular sensitivity, but he is also a poet of life and of love—a cool-eyed assessor of mortality and a fervent champion for his body and its pleasures.
Ritvo writes to his wife, ex-lovers, therapists, fathers, and one mother. He finds something to love and something to lose in everything: Listerine PocketPak breath strips, Indian mythology, wool hats. But in these poems—from the humans that animate him to the inanimate hospital machines that remind him of death—it’s Ritvo’s vulnerable, aching pitch of intimacy that establishes him as one of our finest young poets.
Sarah Matthes is a poet, performer, and tall ship sailor from New Jersey. Her work can be found in Prodigal, the Feminist Utopia Project, the Bad Version, and His Majesty the Baby’s online zine. A graduate of Yale, she was a Frederick Mortimer Clapp Poetry fellow in 2013, and is a current fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, TX.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Join us in celebrating the launch of Joe Doerr’s third book, Tocayo: New & Selected Poems & Songs (Shearsman Books). With a reading from Joe, and a performance of the song lyrics from the book from Joe and his band Churchwood.
“By turns erudite and lyrical, esoteric and oracular, profane and ethereal—Joe Doerr’s Tocayo contains multitudes. This vast miscellany, a bravura poetic performance by every measure, signals the aborning of a new, necessary literary idiom for this mashed-up American age: the ineluctable punk sublime.” —John Phillip Santos
“Disturbs all the codes.” —John Kinsella
Joe Doerr is a poet, musician, and essayist whose first collection, Order of the Ordinary, was published by Salt in 2003. His poems, reviews, and criticism have appeared in numerous journals including Fifth Wednesday, Notre Dame Review, PN Review, and Stand. Doerr is also the singer and lyricist for the acclaimed dystopic blues band, Churchwood, and Adjunct Professor of English Writing & Rhetoric at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, where he lives with his wife Mary.
Churchwood is an avant-blues quintet from Austin, Texas known for its poetry-driven lyrics, high-energy performances, and eccentric approach to making blues-based rock and roll.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Join us in celebrating the launch of E. Kristin Anderson’s new chapbook, We’re Doing Witchcraft (Hermeneutic Chaos Press). With readings from E. Kristin, K.D. Lovgren, and Abe Louise Young.
We’re Doing Witchcraft is a collection of feminist poetry about adolescence, the female body, the female experience, poems of protest and poems of selkies. The title poem is about school dress codes and how shoulders and knees obviously bewitch male students…
E. Kristin Anderson is a poet and author living in Austin, Texas. She is the co-editor of Dear Teen Me, an anthology based on the popular website and her next anthology, Hysteria: Writing the female body, is forthcoming from Sable Books. She is currently curating Come as You Are, an anthology of writing on 90s pop culture for ELJ Publications. Kristin is the author of eight chapbooks of poetry including A Guide for the Practical Abductee (Red Bird Chapbooks), Pray, Pray, Pray: Poems I wrote to Prince in the middle of the night (Porkbelly Press), Fire in the Sky (Grey Book Press), She Witnesses (dancing girl press), and We’re Doing Witchcraft (Hermeneutic Chaos Press). Kristin recently took a position as Special Projects Manager for ELJ and is a poetry editor at Found Poetry Review. Once upon a time she worked at The New Yorker.
K.D. Lovgren is the author of novels Photographic and Sea Change and the novella Book of Light and Shadows. Photographic has been a bestseller in Suspense on Amazon Canada. Both novels are Awesome Indies Approved, awarded a place on the list of quality independent fiction. Her poetry manuscript, The Archeology of Us, is under submission. Lovgren is the recipient of a Brown Foundation Fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center and a graduate of the oldest women’s college in the U.S., Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. Lovgren resides in Austin, Texas.
Abe Louise Young is an independent writer, educator and social justice activist. Her work has won a Grolier Poetry Prize, the Hawai’i Review’s Nell Altizer Award, a Narrative Magazine Story Prize, and the Academy of American Poets Prize. Her writing is forthcoming or has appeared in The Nation, WITNESS, New Letters, Feminist Wire and many other journals. She’s the author of two chapbooks of poetry, Heaven to Me (Headmistress Press) and Ammonite (Magnolia Press Collective). A lifelong social justice advocate, she’s also the author/editor of numerous guides, including Queer Youth Advice for Educators: How to Respect and Protect Your LGBTQ Students; Hip Deep: Opinion, Essays, and Vision from American Teenagers; and an archive of oral histories with Hurricane Katrina survivors, Alive in Truth: The New Orleans Disaster Oral History Project. Young earned an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at Austin, where she was a James Michener Fellow, and holds a BA from Smith College.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our November selection is Fair Play by Tove Jansson (translated from the Swedish by Thomas Teal), a fascinating novel centered on the lives of two creative women.
Fairness and playfulness are at the heart of this delightful novel, which chronicles in 17 luminous snapshots a shared artistic life…. Jansson has a knack for packing a good deal of wit and wisdom into ostensibly simple tales. These deft and gentle stories are as refreshing as a dip in chilly Finnish seas. —The Guardian
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on November 5th.
“We read all types, we take all types. Aim to keep things light and fun.” Hosted by Jon Meador. Please visit Austin Book Club for more information.
Join us in celebrating the launch of Valerie Hsiung’s third full-length poetry collection, efg (exchange following and gene flow): a trilogy (Action Books). Joining Hsiung as co-headlining readers for the evening will be Lisa Olstein, Dalton Day, and Taisia Kitaiskaia.
Valerie Hsiung is the author of three full-length collections of poetry: efg (exchange following and gene flow): a trilogy (Action Books, 2016), incantation inarticulate (O Balthazar Press, 2013), and under your face (O Balthazar Press, 2013). Her writing can be found in many places such as American Letters & Commentary, Cosmonauts Avenue, Denver Quarterly, New Delta Review, PEN Poetry Series, Prelude, RealPoetik, and VOLT, among elsewhere. She currently serves as an editor for Poor Claudia.
Lisa Olstein is the author of three poetry collections, most recently, Little Stranger (Copper Canyon Press, 2013). A new book, Late Empire, is forthcoming in 2017. A winner of the Essay Press Prize, her chapbook, The Resemblance of the Enzymes of Grasses to those of Whales is a Family Resemblance was released this fall. She is a member of the poetry faculty at the University of Texas at Austin.
Dalton Day is an MFA candidate in the New Writers Project at UT Austin and the author of two collections of poetry, Actual Cloud and Exit, Pursued, as well as several chapbooks, including To Breathe I’m Too Thin. His poems have been featured in Hobart, PANK, Everyday Genius, and Shabby Doll House, among others. He has a dog named Dot, who is the opposite of the crushing emotional weight that comes with being alive.
Taisia Kitaiskaia is the author of Literary Witches, a collaboration with illustrator Katy Horan (Seal Press 2017). She received her MFA from the Michener Center for Writers. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in journals such as Crazyhorse, Pleiades, jubilat, Guernica, Gulf Coast, and Fence.
The Finnegans Wake Reading Group of Austin is a monthly get-together to dive into the depths of James Joyce’s greatest, weirdest, and most notorious masterpiece.
The process is to take turns reading aloud from the text, which allows its musicality to flow forth. Then we all discuss our interpretations and the many meanings and themes contained within the selection we’ve read.
We’ll read 2 or 3 pages of the book, depending on how many people are there and how much time we spend discussing the content.
This event is FREE and open to everyone. NO PRIOR KNOWLEDGE of Joyce or Finnegans Wake is required, just have an open mind—and be prepared to read aloud in front of strangers.
For more information, please visit the reading group’s website.
A representation of the book’s structure by Bauhaus artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy.
Join us for a reading to celebrate the launch of Dos Gatos Press’ most recent anthology, Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems, edited by Scott Wiggerman and Cindy Huyser with a foreword by Dr. Carmen Tafolla. With readings from Anjela Ratliff, C. Samuel Rees, Charlotte Renk, Christa Pandey, Cindy Huyser, Cyra Dumitru, Gloria Amescua, Gordon Magill, Katherine Oldmixon, Leticia Urieta, Lucy Griffith, Lyman Grant, Lynn Reynolds, Sandi Stromberg, Vanessa Zimmer-Powell, Barbara Randals Gregg, and Scott Wiggerman.
This reading will feature poets from Austin and across the state reading their own work and others’ from this acclaimed anthology. The second in a series of anthologies of poetry of the Southwest by Albuquerque-based Dos Gatos Press, Bearing the Mask presents a diverse collection of personae from before European contact to the present, from the historical to the mythical, and from the famous to the obscure, woven together to form a vibrant, complex history.
About Bearing the Mask:
To quote from the foreword by Texas Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla, “The range of voices here is as beautiful and translucent as a rainbow. From Cochise to Calamity Jane, Navaho Code Talkers to Japanese internees, Devil Girl and Old Man Gloom, slaves and stunt pilots, Paiutes and migrant mothers, Annie Oakley and Georgia O’Keeffe, security officers and French tourists, Gregorio Cortez, La Llorona, and Cynthia Ann Parker—all come to life here, speak their own truths and their own sacred space in these poems.”
Bearing the Mask offers rich perspectives on life in the Southwest, garnering praise in reader reviews that call it “fascinating” and “an amazing book for poetry and history lovers.”
Photo, L-R: Anjela Ratliff, C. Samuel Rees, Charlotte Renk, Christa Pandey, Cindy Huyser
Anjela Villarreal Ratliff’s poems have appeared in numerous anthologies and literary journals, including Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku & Haiga; The Enigmatist; Blue Hole; Texas Poetry Calendar; di-vêrsé-city; Australian Latino Press; Boundless 2016; Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems; Ribbons Anthology; and forthcoming in Chachalaca Review; Pilgrimage Magazine; and The Crafty Poet II: A Portable Workshop. Anjela is also a writing workshop presenter for youth and adults. A native Tejana, she was raised in southern California, but has resided in Austin since 1990.
C. Samuel Rees is an alumnus of Loyola University of Maryland’s writing program. He has been published in Fairy Tale Review, JMWW, Pithead Chapel, Permafrost, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and in the Texas Poetry Calendar. He lives in Austin, Texas where he writes poetry, fiction, and works as a high school teacher.
Charlotte Renk‘s poetry has appeared in journals such as Kalliope, Concho River Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Southwest Review, and Langdon Review of the Arts in Texas, as well as in anthologies such as The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume VIII: Texas, and Her Texas. She has also published three books of poetry— These Holy Hungers: Secret Yearnings from an Empty Cup, Solidago: An Altar to Weeds, and The Tenderest Petal Hears (co-winner, 2014 Blue Horse Press Chapbook Award).
Christa Pandey has been widely published since she moved to Austin. As German immigrant herself she became interested in the immigration saga of the 19th century. Her poems are collected in three chapbooks (Southern Seasons, Maya, and Hummingbird Wings), while individual poems can be found in the Texas Poetry Calendar, the Poetry@Round Top Anthology, Naugatuck River Review and online at Silver Birch Press.
Cindy Huyser has worked with Dos Gatos Press as an editor since 2008. Her chapbook, Burning Number Five: Power Plant Poems, was named co-winner of the 2014 Blue Horse Press Poetry Chapbook contest. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in a variety of journals and anthologies, including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, The Comstock Review, San Pedro River Review, The Nassau Review, Untameable City, and the Texas Poetry Calendar, which she co-edited from 2009 – 2014.
Photo, L-R: Cyra Dumitru, Gloria Amescua, Gordon Magill, Katherine Oldmixon, Leticia Urieta
Cyra S. Dumitru is a teacher of poetry writing, writing as healing and of college composition, and is certified in Poetic Medicine through The Institute of Poetic Medicine. She facilitates individual and small group healing through writing circles in a variety of community settings. She has three book-length collections of her poems: What the Body Knows, Listening to Light, and remains.
Gloria Amescua, a CantoMundo fellow and Hedgebrook alumna, is the author of two chapbooks, Windchimes and What Remains. Amescua has been published in a variety of journals and anthologies, including di-verse-city, Kweli Journal, the Texas Poetry Calendar, The Acentos Review, Toe Good Poetry, Pilgrimage Magazine, and Elsewhere Lit. She has also received the Austin Poetry Society Award and the Christina Sergeyenvna Award.
Gordon Magill is a journalist, writing teacher, exhibit writer, freelancer, and poet. He has worked at The Washington Evening Star and Washington Post in Washington DC, taught writing at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM, as well as in public high school, and has written about two hundred published articles and short stories. Recently Gordon’s poetry has been published in The Enigmatist and Blue Hole.
Katherine Durham Oldmixon’s recent poems appear in Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, Improbable Worlds: An Anthology of Texas and Louisiana Poets, Lifting the Sky, Texas Poetry Calendar, and in her chapbook Water Signs. Katherine co-directs the Poetry at Round Top festival, is a senior poetry editor for Tupelo Quarterly, and professor and chair of English at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin, TX.
Leticia Urieta is a Tejana writer from Austin, TX. She is a graduate of Agnes Scott College and a fiction candidate in the MFA program at Texas State University, where she is a graduate teaching assistant and the blog editor for Front Porch Journal. She is currently working as an educator in the community with a focus on equity in the pedagogy of writing. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Cleaver, Chicon Street Poets, St. Sucia Zine and BorderSenses. Leticia lives in Austin, Texas with her husband and two dogs. She is currently at work on a short story collection and her first novel about the role of Mexican soldaderas in Texas’ war with Mexico.
Photo, L-R: Lucy Griffith, Lyman Grant, Lynn Reynolds, Sandi Stromberg, Vanessa Zimmer-Powell
Lucy Griffith is a poet and essayist who lives on a ranch along the Guadalupe River near Comfort, Texas. She is a Certified Master Naturalist as well as a licensed psychologist.
She is a member of the Texas Writer’s League and has been published monthly in The Texas Star and various psychology journals. Her muse is a tractor named Ruby and a good day is one spent outside.
Lyman Grant teaches creative writing, English, and humanities at Austin Community College. He is married and the proud father of three sons. A poet since high school, he has a big pile of poems, some of them collected in four books and one chapbook. The most recent is Last Work: A Meditation on the Final Paintings of Neal Adams.
Lynn Reynolds wrote many poems while a member of the Houston Poetry Society, the Texas Poetry Society and Poets, Ink. She read at the 2012 Houston Poetry Fest and has now been published in From Hide and Horn: A Sesquicentennial Anthology of Texas Poets, the Texas Poetry Calendar, and Untameable City.
Sandi Stromberg was guest editor of Mutabilis Press’ latest poetry anthology, Untameable City: Poems on the Nature of Houston. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and appeared in the Texas Poetry Calendar, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Red River Review, Illya’s Honey, and Colere, among others, as well as in the anthologies TimeSlice, The Weight of Addition, and Improbable Worlds, Crossing Lines, Goodbye, Mexico, Civilized Beasts, and is upcoming in Texas Weather Anthology. She has been a juried poet in the Houston Poetry Fest eight times.
Vanessa Zimmer-Powell was the winner of a Rick Steves Haiku Award, and was a poetry award winner at the 2013 Austin International Poetry Fest. Recent work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Weekly Avocet, Avocet: A Journal of Nature Poems, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Ekphrasis, Untameable City, the Texas Poetry Calendar, San Pedro River Review, The Chaffey Review, and Copperfield Review.
Photo, L-R: Barbara Randals Gregg, Scott Wiggerman
Barbara Randals Gregg has poetry in di-verse-city, The Enigmatist, Blue Hole, the Austin Poetry Society’s Best Austin Poetry anthology, Wingbeats: Exercises and Practice in Poetry, Lifting the Sky: Southwestern Haiku and Haiga, and several editions of Texas Poetry Calendar. She currently serves as Austin Poetry Society President.
Scott Wiggerman is the author of three books of poetry, Leaf and Beak: Sonnets, Presence, and Vegetables and Other Relationships; and an editor of several volumes, including Wingbeats: Exercises & Practice in Poetry, Lifting the Sky, Wingbeats II, and Bearing the Mask: Southwestern Persona Poems. Recent poems have appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Red Earth Review, Pinyon Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, and the anthologies This Assignment Is So Gay, Forgetting Home: Poems about Alzheimer’s, and The Great Gatsby Anthology. He is an editor for Dos Gatos Press of Albuquerque, New Mexico.
We’re delighted to be hosting a reading to celebrate the launch of Small Packages, the debut anthology of stories, poetry and prose from Austin’s Writers Workshop. Readers include poets Kara Bell, Laurie Cosbey and A.M. Lewin, novelist Ron Seybold, plus Holly Lorka, Karen Hoffman, Merry Klonower, Hadley Hill, and Emily Weaver.
Welcome to Malvern Books’ Club: Reading Classics from New York Review Books, hosted (on most occasions) by Malvern’s own curmudgeon-in-chief, Dr. Joe. Everyone is invited to join us for what we’re sure will be a series of irreverent and insightful conversations.
Our December selection is Rock Crystal by Adalbert Stifter (translated from the German by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore), a Christmas story of almost unendurable suspense. Thomas Mann claimed Rock Crystal has “one of the most extraordinary, the most enigmatic, the most secretly daring and the most strangely gripping narrators in world literature.”
Two children—Conrad and his little sister, Sanna—set out from their village high up in the Alps to visit their grandparents in the neighboring valley. It is the day before Christmas but the weather is mild, though of course night falls early in December and the children are warned not to linger. The grandparents welcome the children with presents and pack them off with kisses. Then snow begins to fall, ever more thickly and steadily. Undaunted, the children press on, only to take a wrong turn. The snow rises higher and higher, time passes: it is deep night when the sky clears and Conrad and Sanna discover themselves out on a glacier, terrifying and beautiful, the heart of the void.
The NYRB Classics series started in 1999 with the publication of A High Wind in Jamaica and by the end of this year over 400 titles will be in print—so we have plenty of excellent reading material to choose from. The series includes nineteenth-century and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, established classics and cult favorites, and literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. Literature in translation also constitutes a major part of the NYRB Classics series, including new translations of canonical figures such as Euripides, Aeschylus, Dante, Balzac, Nietzsche, and Chekhov, as well as fresh translations of Stefan Zweig, Robert Walser, Alberto Moravia, and Curzio Malaparte, among others.
How it works:
Stop by Malvern Books to sign up and you’ll receive a 10% discount off the title! Read the book and then come to the meeting prepared with either a question or specific passage to discuss with the group. We’ll look forward to seeing you on December 3rd.