In their quest to take over New York, Bowery Presents is opening yet another venue! Ask just about anyone (and we have) and they'll say that the Bowery Ballroom is their favorite place to see and/or play music - so who better to open even more spaces than the creators of that one? more ›

This May filmmaker/musician/actress/performing artist/writer Miranda July is going to unleash her book, "No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories", upon the world. She'll have several events lined up in New York, one with her biggest fan - David Byrne. more ›

. The Club is at 15 Gramercy Park and the event is free, and open to the public, starting at 8PM. more ›

It's a packed week for the bookish types, with a couple of our favorite love-to-hate-them New York novelists on the readings circuit. Yeah, we're talking about the Jonathans. On Wednesday (2/22) Lethem is hosting a short-story evening at Symphony Space (W. 92nd St. and Broadway), with stories by James Thurber, Italo Calvino, and Jorge Luis Borges read by Malachy McCourt, Maria Tucci and Isaiah Sheffer. The show starts at 8PM and costs $21/25. more ›

by John Willoughby, Zanne Early Stewart, Ruth Reichl (Houghton Mifflin, 2005) more ›

by Myra Kornfeld (Simon and Schuster, 2005) more ›

by David Rosengarten (Little, Brown, 2003) more ›

Earlier this week, the Daily News ran a story about people looking to lose their New York accents. Sam Chwat, who founded New York Speech Improvement Services - and has worked with Julia Roberts and Andie MacDowell, and is even working with the cast of Glengarry Glen Ross for their Chicago accents - says many of his clients are trying to rid themselves of the "streetwise image of fast-talking New Yorkers."

"If you spend your life in a particular community, like New York's Irish, Jewish or Chinese communities, then there's no reason to speak any differently. But if you cross the border into new communities, then you sound different. People listen to how you speak, and they make judgments from that."

Arthur Schwartz's New York City Food: An Opinionated History and More Than 100 Legendary Recipes, by Arthur Schwartz (Stewart, Tabori and Chang, 2004) more ›

The Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook: More Than 80 Recipes for Irresistible, Old-Fashioned Treats, by Jennifer Appel (Simon & Schuster, 2001) more ›

This is the other end of the "rich are crazy" spectrum - being too stupid to realize your assistant is embezzling thousands to millions of dollars from you. When a Trusted Secretary Takes More Than a Letter more ›