Chelsea Logan and Leah Wickman are two recent high school grads from California, who travelled across the country to New York City to be the first in line to purchase the final volume of J.K. Rowlings' Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The Daily News talked to the two girls a day after they purchased their books. They identify themselves as part of a parallel Potter Generation. The teens first dreamed up......

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Jack Kerouac's On the Road (you can see him reading from the novel on The Steve Allen Show, here). Of course, with the celebration comes some controversy. The NY Sun reports: The author of a noted Kerouac biography, Memory Babe, Gerald Nicosia, is holding a press conference in Manhattan today, where he will claim that Viking Penguin has been removing his name from books it publishes on......

NY Mag made note of The Strand Bookstore's birthday over the weekend. The shop, which boasts 18 miles of books, turned 80 on June 2nd, proving it's a mainstay even amongst the Barnes and Noble and Borders book stores popping up around town. The store was founded by Ben Bass on what was known as Book Row, which at the time housed 48 bookstores. Today it's run by Fred and Nancy Bass. When asked......

The NY Sun reports that members of Community Board 6 have spoken, and they want the late Kurt Vonnegut to have a street named after him. The Manhattan block where he spent most of his writing career (East 48th Street and Second Avenue) may be named "Kurt Vonnegut Way." A decision should be made by October. Why that block (which, incidentally, he shared with another famous writer, E.B. White)?: "Vonnegut, who for 40 years lived......

If it's exam time, it must mean that kids are settling down and studying for finals. Or, if they are Columbia freshman, they just might be using a review sheet that essentially gives all the answers to a big exam. A few days ago, Columbia blog The Bwog broke news that a professor had given her students much of what would be on the Literature Humanities final in the form of a review sheet. Hilariously,......

"It was a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York. I'm stupid about executions. The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers - goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner and at the fusty, peanut-smelling mouth of every subway. It had nothing to do with me, but I......

February 17-18: Year of the Pig at The Spotted Pig The good folks at The Spotted Pig are ringing in the Year of the Pig with, you guessed it, a pig roast. 314 W. 11th Street at Greenwich. Call 212-620-0393 for details. Feburary 18: Year of the Pig at LeNell's LeNell's brings on the swine with free tastings of pork-related booze, including Wild Hog pinot noir and Pig Nose Scotch. 416 Van Brunt St between......

Neal Pollack, author of Never Mind the Pollacks and The Neal Pollack Anthology of Literature discusses his latest book, Alternadad, his childhood, and his foray into the world of screen writing. What are some of your earliest memories of seeing or hearing things that made you laugh? I have a very vivid memory of watching Mel Brooks's Silent Movie with my dad. I must have been eight years old or even younger. I remember sitting......

It's been announced that Angelina Jolie will play the role of Dagny Taggart in the film adaptation of Ayn Rand's novel Atlas Shrugged. Braveheart writer, Randall Wallace, will adapt the novel. Taggart is the most powerful female character in any of Rand's books, and someone that Jolie was apparently eager to portray. During one of the many times the film was going to be made in the past, Faye Dunaway was brought up to play......

Rumor has it that Spike Lee is taking a class at Columbia this fall. Ivy Leak says he may be at a Tuesday/Thursday night class in Hamilton, and BWOG thinks he could be taking a Literature Humanities, "brushing up on his dead white men." Oh, we suppose Spike couldn't be content reading David Denby's Great Books, which is about Columbia's humanities classes - or attending a class at his alma mater, NYU (is he still......

Tomorrow is Bloomsday, the day chronicled in James Joyce's Ulysses. And for the 25th year, Symphony Space has a full Bloomsday on Broadway celebration, focusing on "on Mr. Leopold Bloom's spiritual son, Stephen Dedelus (aka James Joyce), with readings from Ulysses, Portrait of the Artist and Dubliners." The events start at noon tomorrow, and the final performance is the inimitable Fionnula Flanagan reading Molly Bloom's monologue (aka, "The Fully Molly") at 10PM till whenever she......

Unless you are in Sonic Youth...you probably love the Pixies. At the very least, you loved the song Where Is My Mind? after hearing it in the movie Fight Club. This Thursday author Ben Sisario will be reading from his new book called "Doolittle," as part of the acclaimed 33 1/3 series. The book takes a look at the 1989 release of the Pixies sonic masterpiece of the same name, gaining insight from the band......

The New York Public Library announced that it bought the archive of writer William S. Burroughs, including his letters and drafts of Naked Lunch. This makes the NYPL's collection of Bea-era materials the most comprehensive, since it already holds the Jack Kerouac archive. The NY Times story about the acquisition had the interesting sidenote about how Allen Ginsberg wanted the NYPL to buy his collection, but since he wanted to sell it quickly, the NYPL......

We usually associate reading with sleeping. When we were younger we were read to before going to bed, or taking a nap. Now, thanks to Lindsay Robertson, Alex Balk and Jon Friedman...we can associate reading with pills. Last month Ritalin Readings returned, with a sold out crowd in attendance. Tonight they're back at Mo Pitkins and you better buy your tickets online if you wanna catch it. With each reader only speaking for 4 minutes,......

One of our favorite guilty pleasure blogs, the Social Cavity, points us in the direction of Mr. Beller's Neighborhood. Who is this Mr. Beller you ask, and why is claiming NYC as his neighborhood? According to the site, it is a way of using the "familiar landscape of New York City as a way of organizing the wildly internal, often unfamiliar emotional landscapes of the city dweller. We publish reportage, personal essays, urban sketches-- any......

Whether you're celebrating Christmas or compiling Best of 2005 lists for your blog this weekend, if you're sticking around the city there will be plenty to do. And of course the subways are now back to take you where you need to go...it's a Chrismukkah miracle! ART & BOOKS: About Glamour is going to explore the art of books with a kickoff reception tonight. Not what you typically see at Border's, the exhibit will be......

We're sure you're all busy with office parties and hiding from the cold, cold weather. But it's one of the last weekends of 2005, so try to get out there (besides, who knows if we'll have subways after the weekend is over!) THEATER: When a beleaguered last-minute shopper is desperately trying to find the hottest toy of the season at All-Mart - a good 'ol fashioned holiday shopping brawl knocks her unconscious and catapults her......

ART: papermag.com celebrates it's 10th year with Manhattan! We recently had a chance to stop by this group exhibition which features over 75 Big Apple-based artists from past to present, and have never enjoyed a gallery show more (of course, it was the opening and they were passing out champagne with Red Bull in it.) The loose theme of the show is "People of New York." To the right is the Yeah Yeah Yeah's Nick......

ART: Brooklyn Fire Proof will be presenting the final installment of curator Marc Gartman's series of exhibitions featuring successful contemporary independent musicians who are also visual artists. Previous series included the work of, among others, Bill Callahan (Smog), Devendra Banhart and David Pajo (Slint). This series (the fourth) will include artwork from DC Berman (Silver Jews), John Darnielle (The Mountain Goats), Pall Jenkins (The Black Heart Procession), Jason Molina (Magnolia Electric Co.) and Archer Prewitt......

Garrison Keillor noted during his opening speech for last night's National Book Awards that this week is the opening of another Harry Potter film. He said, "Most of us have stood in Barnes & Noble and opened a Harry Potter book, read a few pages and said: 'I could have done that. I could have done that while doing all the other things that I do. Why didn't I?'" An always curmudgeonly and brilliant Norman......

Last month a book visually and textually depicting Lennon's New York City years came out, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of his death and the 65th anniversary of his birth. We've been meaning to mention this book, but we're still trying to watch the rest of Dylan's No Direction Home and got a little sidetracked. Most photographs in the book were never before published, and all of them were taken by the world's best rock......

The first hints of summer still make us think of final exams as much as ice cream and sundresses. Lingering anxiety would have us believe that before you give in to sunnier amusements, you must put your intellect through its paces (the better to enjoy afternoons spent snoozing in the park with a copy of the Styles section spread over your face). Whether this is true or we’re just neurotic, there has been some lively......

In a city full of struggling artists, the last thing we need to hear is Julia Roberts doing an AOL voiceover that could have paid for our dinner. It just isn't fair when too much is never enough for some people. The ubiquitous celebrity author would be another example of this phenomena. Why, WHY?! Fortunately the Lit Lite Lousy Literature Reading Series exists. The series continues its celebration of the worst books ever written this......

Gothamist Wants You! Yes, you. We are looking to add some contributors to the ever-expanding Arts & Events section. More specifically we need people who can write two posts a week in one of the following areas: -Fine Arts (photography and other art exhibits, gallery openings, etc - to coordinate with our other Fine Arts contributor) -Theater (Broadway and Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broaday!) -Literature (New York authors, New York themed books, NY-centric art books) -Movies......

Almost a decade ago, Gothamist had to tackle reading Boccacio's The Decameron for Columbia's Literature Humanities class in the Core Curriculum. And now, we realize that nothing is sacred as we hear that Mischa Barton is going to be the new movie adaptation of The Decameron, playing Pampinea. The Decameron involves bawdy tales of young, beautiful and wealthy people right after the Black Death, and we understand why producer Dino De Laurentiis wants to adapt......

Today kicks off the New Yorker Festival and if you haven't snagged your tickets for some of the events yet, here's our list of last minute events we think are more than worthwhile...that still have seats left! Friday (night) Seymour M. Hersh interviewed by David Remnick Hersh has been writing about foreign policy and politics for decades and will be discussing the aftermath of 9/11 and the Bush administrations actions since then. Saturday (day) Literature......

Jay Brida, Publisher/Copywriter...

Above: Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Kurt Vonnegut, Salman Rushdie, Laurie Anderson. Involver (media and entertainment activist community) and PEN (national organization of writers) present State of Emergency: Unconventional Readings this Wednesday, August 4 at 7:00pm. An incredible lineup of literary legends convene to address contemporary political threats to freedom of expression. Scheduled to apprear: Laurie Anderson, Paul Auster, Russell Banks, Michael Cunningham, Don DeLillo, Joan Didion, Ariel Dorfman, Eve Ensler, Jonathan Safran Foer, Barbara......

826NYC has had some good events in the past, and they keep on comin'. Up next... Tin House and McSweeney's team up for an evening of reading and music to benefit 826NYC, with music by David Byrne and David Gates and His Enablers, and readings by Robert Coover, Susan Choi, Dave Eggers, Elissa Schappell, Rick Moody and host Jonathan Ames. Tickets can be purchased in advance by calling (718) 499-9884 during business hours. June......