Skylight Books Podcast Series

Rookie Yearbook Two (Drawn + Quarterly)"Rookie" is an independent online magazine made by and for teenage girls. It was created by Tavi Gevinson in 2011, when she was just fourteen years old; today, about a third of the magazine's staff are teenage writers, photographers, and illustrators. Rookie Yearbook Two features exclusive content from Lena Dunham, Judy Blume, Grimes and Mindy Kaling. The books collects interviews and contributions from notable adults including Morrissey, Emma Watson, Molly Ringwald, Carrie Brownstein, the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, award-winning cartoonist Chris Ware, and Museum of Jurassic Technology founder David Wilson. Like the website itself, the "Rookie" yearbooks combine personal essays by young girls; advice about style, sex, friends, and school; fashion; gorgeous photo albums; humor and pathos--in other words, everything a teenage girl thinks and cares about. On its second birthday, "Rookie" averages more than 450,000 unique visitors, and 1.2 million visits per month (and counting) with 205,000 Tumblr followers. The "Rookie" yearbooks reach that audience and beyond, spanning a diverse group who may have found "Rookie""Yearbook One" on the shelves of their local library or been given the book as a gift from an adult who laments not having "Rookie" around when they were a teenager. Praise for Rookie Yearbook: "Irreverent, honest, and wholly affirming, this is a book that teen girls will cherish." --School Library Journal "Many books for teenagers encourage independence and self-awareness, but few do so with this much honesty, humor, and style . . . It's a lucky teen who receives this book as a gift, and a smart one who picks it up for herself." --Publishers Weekly"To say that ["Rookie Yearbook One"] is the essential companion to navigating your teen years, is an understatement."--Hello Giggles"In short: ["Rookie Yearbook One"] rules."--Bust"Yearbook" is as impressive as it is inspiring and entertaining."--Vice

Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive On Ideas Alone (Grand Central Publishing) Bo Burnham, one of America's most popular young comedians (chosen by Vulture as one of the “50 Comedians You Should and Will Know”) has accomplished quite a lot -- considering he’s only 23-years-old.  With three Comedy Central Records albums and an MTV series under his belt, Bo is no doubt a rising star -- and tonight he brings his award-winning brand of brainy word play to Skylight Books with EGGHEAD: Or, You Can’t Survive on Ideas Alone. Teaming up with his longtime friend, artist, and illustrator Chance Bone (yes, that is his real name), Bo takes on everything from painful breakups to bald barbers to farts in EGGHEAD. Showcasing Bo’s utterly original voice, this collection of off-kilter writings, poems, and thoughts makes you think, laugh, and then think, “why did I just laugh?” And like his stand-up and music, EGGHEAD displays surprisingly mature insights. Praise for Egghead: Or, You Can't Survive On Ideas Alone: "You have to be brave to be this hilarious, and this sweetly romantic. And of course, a lot of talent helps. Egghead is a remarkable piece of writing!"--Jack Handey, author of The Stench of Honolulu and the Deep Thoughts series. "Like Walt Whitman, Bo Burnham has made the transition from an internet comedy sensation to a soulful poet. No, not that Walt Whitman. A different guy."--Conan O'Brien "I would love Bo Burnham's hilarious book even if he weren't my son."--Judd Apatow Bo Burnham was a precocious teenager living in his parents’ attic when he started posting material on YouTube. One hundred million people viewed those videos, turning Bo into an online sensation with a huge and dedicated following. Bo taped his first of two Comedy Central specials four days after his 18th birthday, making him the youngest to do so in the channel’s history (and his new album entitled what. will be released later this year). His MTV series "Zach Stone Is Gonna Be Famous," a mockumentary which Bo created, wrote, directed, and starred in, premiered in May 2013 to rave reviews. THIS EVENT WAS RECORDED LIVE AT SKYLIGHT BOOKS OCTOBER 5, 2014.

White Girls (McSweeney's)  White Girls, Hilton Als's first book since The Women fourteen years ago, finds one of "The New Yorker's" boldest cultural critics deftly weaving together his brilliant analyses of literature, art, and music with fearless insights on race, gender, and history. The result is an extraordinary, complex portrait of "white girls," as Als dubs them--an expansive but precise category that encompasses figures as diverse as Truman Capote and Louise Brooks, Malcolm X and Flannery O'Connor. In pieces that hairpin between critique and meditation, fiction and nonfiction, high culture and low, the theoretical and the deeply personal, Als presents a stunning portrait of a writer by way of his subjects, and an invaluable guide to the culture of our time. Praise for White Girls “I read Als not only because he is utterly extraordinary, which he is, but for the reason one is often drawn to the best writers—because one has a sense that one’s life might depend on them. White Girls is a book, a dream, an enemy, a friend, and, yes, the read of the year.” —Junot Díaz “Hilton Als takes the reader on a wild ride through the complex, often rough, terrain of art, music, sexuality, race. What he writes—especially about Michael Jackson, Eminem, Louise Brooks, Richard Pryor, Gone With the Wind—is riveting.” —Elaine Pagels “Effortless, honest and fearless” ––Rich Benjamin, The New York Times Book Review “Captivating.” —Entertainment Weekly “Als is one of the most consistently unpredictable and surprising essayists out there, an author who confounds our expectations virtually every time he writes.” —Los Angeles Times “A comprehensive and utterly lovely collection of one of the best writers around.” —Boston Globe “Als’ work is so much more than simply writing about being black or gay or smart. It’s about being human.” —Kirkus (Starred Review) “Mesmerizing.” —Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) “Als is pyrotechnic, lifting off the page in a blast of stinging light and concussive booms that somehow coalesce into profound cultural and psychological illuminations.” —Booklist “Incisive cultural criticism.” —Roxane Gay, The Nation “[Hilton] Als interweaves personal revelation with cultural touchstones, sometimes hopping from topic to topic at a breakneck speed, other times examining concepts so strategically and methodically his words become scalpels, flaying open unacknowledged bias, privilege, and conflict where he sees it.” —The A.V. Club Hilton Als became a staff writer at The New Yorker in October, 1994, and a theatre critic in 2002. He began contributing to the magazine in 1989, writing pieces for The Talk of the Town. Before coming to The New Yorker, Als was a staff writer for the Village Voice and an editor-at-large at Vibe. He has also written articles for The Nation

Traveling Sprinkler (Blue Rider Press) We're very excited to host acclaimed and best-selling novelist Nicholson Baker (The Mezzanine, The Anthologist, House of Holes) at Skylight for his new novel, Traveling Sprinkler!  Baker will be in conversation with Los Angeles Times book critic (and author himself) David Ulin. As with all Skylight Books events, this discussion is free and open to the public (first come, first served).  But, because we're expecting a large crowd at this event, we'll be giving out numbered tickets to the signing line to keep things organized.  To get a ticket, you must purchase a copy of Traveling Sprinkler here at Skylight Books.  The tickets will be available starting Tuesday, September 17, when the book goes on sale.  They will be available in-store, or you can order on our website and leave a note in the "Order Comments" field.  We will also hold a ticket for you if you order and pay for a book over the phone.  There's no limit on the number of copies of Traveling Sprinker you can get signed, but we are limiting the number of backlist titles to three per ticket holder.  Thank you for your cooperation! Paul Chowder, the poet protagonist of Nicholson Baker’s widely acclaimed novel The Anthologist, is turning fifty-five and missing his ex-girlfriend Roz rather desperately. As he approaches the dreaded birthday, Paul is uninspired by his usual artistic outlet (although he’s pleased that his poetry anthology, Only Rhyme, is selling “fairly well in a steady sort of way”).  Putting aside poetry in favor of music, and drawing on his classical bassoon training, Paul turns instead to his new acoustic guitar with one goal in mind: to learn songwriting. As he struggles to come to terms with the horror of America’s drone wars and Roz’s recent relationship with a doctor whose voice can often be heard on a local NPR station, Paul fills his days with Quaker meetings, Planet Fitness workouts, and some experiments with tobacco.  Written in Baker’s beautifully unconventional prose, and scored with musical influences from Debussy to Tracy Chapman to Paul himself, Traveling Sprinkler is an enchanting, hilarious—and very necessary—novel by one of the most beloved and influential writers today. The author has recorded an album of songs in the style of his protagonist.  Check one out here!   Nicholson Baker was born in New York City in 1957 and grew up in Rochester, where he played bassoon in high school and spent a year at the Eastman School of Music before transferring to Haverford College. His first novel, The Mezzanine, was about a man riding an escalator.  His second novel, Room Temperature, was about a man feeding a bottle to his baby.  In his many other works of fiction and nonfiction, he has written about John Updike, about getting up early in the morning, about the inner life of a nine-year-old girl, about the beginnings of the Second World War, and about sex. His book Double Fold, about libraries shedding their paper holdings, won a National Book Critics Circle Award.  His poet protagonist Paul Chowder, who first appeared in The Anthologist, is reintroduced in the forthcoming Traveling Sprinkler, his tenth novel, and fifteenth book overall.  He lives in Maine with his family.

The Color Master (Doubleday) One of Skylight Books' favorite authors returns with a fabulous new short story collection! You're not going to want to miss this reading. Truly beloved by readers and critics alike, Aimee Bender has become known as something of an enchantress whose lush prose is “moving, fanciful, and gorgeously strange” (People), “richly imagined and bittersweet” (Vanity Fair), and “full of provocative ideas” (The Boston Globe). In her deft hands, “relationships and mundane activities take on mythic qualities” (The Wall Street Journal). In this collection, Bender’s unique talents sparkle brilliantly in stories about people searching for connection through love, sex, and family—while navigating the often painful realities of their lives. A traumatic event unfolds when a girl with flowing hair of golden wheat appears in an apple orchard, where a group of people await her. A woman plays out a prostitution fantasy with her husband and finds she cannot go back to her old sex life. An ugly woman marries an ogre and struggles to decide if she should stay with him after he mistakenly eats their children. Two sisters travel deep into Malaysia, where one learns the art of mending tigers who have been ripped to shreds. In these deeply resonant stories—evocative, funny, beautiful, and sad—we see ourselves reflected as if in a funhouse mirror. Aimee Bender has once again proven herself to be among the most imaginative, exciting, and intelligent writers of our time. Praise for Aimee Bender "Marvelous. . . . Few writers are as adept as Bender at mingling magical elements so seamlessly with the ordinary." "--San Francisco Chronicle AIMEE BENDER is the author of the novels The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake—a New York Times bestseller—and An Invisible Sign of My Own, and of the collections The Girl in the Flammable Skirt and Willful Creatures. Her works have been widely anthologized and have been translated into sixteen languages. She lives in Los Angeles.

The Silver Birch Press Bukowski Anthology is a 200+ page collection of poetry, essays, stories, and memoirs about Charles Bukowski, along with portraits of Bukowski by over seventy authors and artists from around the world.  S.A. Griffin, co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, progenitor of The Poetry Bomb and the Carma Bums, lives, loves and works in Los Angeles. Joan Jobe Smith, founding editor of Pearl Magazine and the Bukowski Review, has published 25 books, most recently the literary profile Charles Bukowski Epic Glottis: His Art & His Women (& me) (Silver Birch Press, 2012). Fred Voss, a machinist for 35 years, has been published internationally in hundreds of literary journals and has done seven reading tours of the UK to promote his books published by Bloodaxe: Goodstone (1991, Carnegie Hall with Tin Walls(1998), and 2008's Hearts and Hammers of the Gods. He was a 2013 winner of the Nerve Cowboy chapbook competition.

Fairy Tale Comics: Classic Tales Told By Extraordinary Cartoonists (First Second Books) Join us as Vanessa Davis ("Puss in Boots"), Gigi D.G. ("Little Red Riding Hood") and Bobby London ("Sweet Porridge") discuss their contributions to this fantastic guide to some of your favorite fairy tales. From favorites like "Puss in Boots" and "Goldilocks" to obscure gems like "The Boy Who Drew Cats," this volume has something to offer every reader. Seventeen fairy tales are wonderfully adapted and illustrated in comics format by such noted artists as Raina Telgemeier, Brett Helquist, Cherise Harper, and others. Edited by Nursery Rhyme Comics' Chris Duffy, this jacketed hardcover is a beautiful gift and an instant classic. Praise for Fairy Tale Comics: "A quirky and vibrant mix of visually reinterpreted fairy tales compiled by the editor of the Eisner-nominated Nursery Rhyme Comics."-- Kirkus Reviews "Nineteen cartoonists re-envision the world of “once upon a time” in this collection of 17 fairy tales . . .These adaptations are sure to enchant devotees of comics and those who like a fresh and distinctive approach to fairy tales." -- School Library Journal Vanessa Davis' first book, Spaniel Rage was published by Buenaventura Press in 2005. Her newest book, Make Me A Woman, was published by Drawn & Quarterly. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Psychology Today, Dissent, The Jewish Daily Forward, Saveur, Lucky Peach, Vice, Spongebob Comics, Seven Stories Press, Chronicle Books, and First Second. She is also a contributing editor over at Tablet. Gigi D.G. is the writer/illustrator of Cucumber Quest. She lives in California and her passions are colors, sweets and cute video games. Bobby London is the creator of the comic strip character Dirty Duck. He was a founding contributor for National Lampoonfrom 1972-1980. His illustrations have appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone, New York Times, Punk Magazine, Village Voice and many more. He was nominated for a grammy in 2005 for his comic book insert in the Rhino Records box set, "Weird Tales of the Ramones."

No Regrets, Coyote (W.W. Norton)No Regrets, Coyote, the latest offering from acclaimed novelist John Dufresne, is a crime story, but Wylie “Coyote” Melville is no detective. A therapist by trade, the highly observant and analytical Wylie becomes a volunteer forensic consultant late one Christmas Eve when he receives a phone call from his friend Detective Sergeant Carlos O’Brien of the Eden Police Department, requesting his immediate assistance on a fresh homicide case. Wylie has an innate ability to take in a scene and provide it with narrative structure—Carlos calls him a mind reader, but that’s not exactly right. “I read faces and furniture,” Wylie explains. “I can look at a person, at his expressions, his gestures, his clothing, his home, and his possessions, and tell you what he thinks, if not always what he’s thinking.” Wylie arrives at the scene of the crime, the Halliday home, to discover that all five members of the Halliday family have been brutally killed. Krysia Halliday is found on the kitchen floor with her head against the open oven door, apparently shot while baking cookies; her three pajama-clad children lie in the den amid a pile of partially opened Christmas gifts, each with a blindfold over the eyes and a bullet hole in the forehead; and the patriarch, restaurateur Chafin Halliday, his face nearly blown apart, is slumped nearby, not far from the murder weapon. A typed suicide note alluding to unnamed failures rests ominously on the kitchen table. The cops have it pegged as a murder-suicide at the hands of a desperate Chafin, but that explanation doesn’t quite add up for Wylie. Who types a signature on a suicide note? Why wrap expensive Christmas gifts for a family you’re about to dispatch? And why are there so few family photographs in the Halliday household? In this smart and utterly absorbing thriller, Dufresne masterfully introduces a host of quirky, realistic, three-dimensional characters. The effect is a carefully crafted character study of Wylie himself, as we get to know his motivations, his thought processes, and his limitations. No Regrets, Coyote is a dazzlingly intricate mystery that elevates the genre with its pointed insights into the workings of the human mind. Praise for No Regrets, Coyote: “No Regrets, Coyote is a very cool ride. If Raymond Chandler was reincarnated as a novelist in South Florida, he couldn’t nail it any better than John Dufresne.” —Carl Hiaasen “No Regrets, Coyote is a novel so good you want to throw a party for it. It’s tense, unnerving, fearless, and funny as hell. Beautifully rendered on every page, it may be a crime novel in name but it’s literature for the ages.” —Dennis Lehane “If anyone has a vision of the world as compellingly particular and compassionate as John Dufresne’s, I don't know who. No Regrets, Coyote takes noir fiction and slivers it with shards of humor, ironic insight, and an almost hallucinogenic specificity. This is lean and honest storytelling that is as moving as it is engaging. Read this book. Believe me, you’ll have no regrets!” —Andre Dubus III “Genuinely funny, genuinely suspenseful crime novels are rare, but No Regrets, Coyote succeeds on both counts. John Dufresne’s hilariously dark vision of South Florida brings to mind the work of such masters as Donald Westlake and Elmore Leonard. It’s a lurid pleasure from beginning to end.” —Tom Perrotta “Get ready to read this one twice, people—once to see what happens, and again to savor the sentences. Here, American treasure John Dufresne has written a noir, but instead of playing by the rules of noir, he makes noir play by the Rules of Dufresne. And we are the beneficiaries. So sit back, put a cooler of beer by your chair, and settle in, you’ll be here awhile:No Regrets, Coyote is impossible to close.” —Tom Franklin “John Dufresne has turned his considerable artistic gifts to the crime novel, and the result, No Regrets, Coyote, is touching, nervy, richly detailed, and populated with a cast of characters who are utterly unique and terrifyingly real. Its humor is abundant and warm-hearted, and its detective hero is unlike any we’ve ever met before. American crime fiction has just gotten a lot more interesting.” —James W. Hall “The ordinary crime novel narrows as it goes, the possibilities limited by deductive reasoning. But John Dufresne’s No Regrets, Coyote is an extraordinary novel, expanding until anything seems possible and everyone connects. Steeped in place, wholly original, it is, line by line, one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.” —Laura Lippman John Dufresne is the author of seven books, including New York Times Notable Books Love Warps the Mind a Little andLouisiana Power & Light. He lives in Dania Beach and teaches creative writing at Florida International University.

Saving the Season (Knopf Publishing Group)  A stylish, richly illustrated, practical guide for home cooks and preserving enthusiasts, the first cookbook from journalist Kevin West, author of the popular blog Savingtheseason.com.  Incorporating classic favorites and new flavors, West gives us more than one hundred recipes, organized by season, for sweet preserves and savory pickles; easy-to-can vegetables and fruits; condiments such as relishes, chutneys, and salsas; and cordials, candies, and cocktails. Interspersed with the recipes are chronicles of West's travels and the history of American preserving traditions from California to New Mexico to Long Island. A witty and erudite culinary companion, West makes a rich and entertaining story of the introductions to the recipes. Also included is a primer on preserving techniques that addresses issues of food safety and nutrition.  KEVIN WEST is from rural Blount County in eastern Tennessee. He attended Deep Springs, an experimental college in the White Mountains of California, and Sewanee: The University of the South. For 13 years he was on staff at W magazine, with postings in New York, Paris, and Los Angeles, where he was West Coast editor and where he still lives. He runs the blog SavingtheSeason.com; writes about food, culture, and travel; and produces a retail collection of jams and marmalades. He is certified as a Master Food Preserver by the University of California Cooperative Extension.

Join us tonight for a reading from the latest issue of Santa Monica Review, one of Southern California's most revered literary journals. SMR editor Andrew Tonkovich will be introducing three of the contributors to the 2013 fall issue.  Andrew Nicholls began writing for radio, stage, syndicated cartoonists and TV in high school in Ontario, Canada. In his twenties he staffed The Tonight Show for six years, four of them as Johnny Carson's head writer and, with his writing partner Darrell Vickers, has created or staffed over 100 sitcoms, children's and animated series, thanks to which he has a 2005 memoir, Valuable Lessons, about failed television. He has recent humor in McSweeney's Internet Tendency and Los Angeles Review of Books and short fiction upcoming in Black Clock, Kugelmass and the teacher's resource site Literature For Life. g. c. cunningham, a UCLA graduate, lives in Los Angeles, sometimes working in film post-production, other times in Birmingham, Alabama, state of origin. His fiction is printed in Bat City Review, Cutbank, Denver Quarterly, Fiction International, Portland Review, Texas Review and  Western Humanities Review. Google him for selections online at Eclectica, Fringe, Potomac Review and McSweeney's. "My First Marine Corps Essay" won 2nd place in Fringe's 2012 flash fiction contest judged by Steve Almond. Ryan Ridgeis the author of the story collection Hunters & Gamblers, the poetry collection Ox, as well as the chapbooks Hey, it's American and 22nd Century Man. His work has appeared in Tin House, McSweeney's Small Chair, The Southern California Review, The Mississippi Review, The Los Angeles Review, Hobart, Consequence, and elsewhere. Managing editor at Juked Magazine, he writes and teaches in Southern California.