90s Bitch: ALLISON YARROW in conversation with STEVE ALMOND
Harvard Bookstore welcomes ALLISON YARROW, author of 90s Bitch: Media, Culture, and the Failed Promise of Gender Equality.
90s Bitch tells the real story of women and girls in the 1990s, exploring how they were maligned by the media, vilified by popular culture, and objectified in the marketplace. Trailblazing women like Hillary Clinton, Anita Hill, and Marcia Clark were undermined. Newsmakers like Monica Lewinsky, Tonya Harding, and Lorena Bobbitt were shamed and misunderstood. The advent of the 24-hour news cycle reinforced society’s deeply entrenched sexism. Meanwhile, marketers hijacked feminism and poisoned girlhood for a generation of young women.
Yarrow’s timely examination is a must-read for anyone trying to understand 21st-century sexism and end it for the next generation.
Award-Winning Poet/Critic KEVIN YOUNG on the History of “Bunk”
Harvard Book Store welcomes award-winning poet and critic KEVIN YOUNG for a discussion of his latest book, Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News. This event is co-sponsored by Mass Humanities.
This event is free and open to the public!
About Bunk
Bunk traces the history of the hoax as a peculiarly American phenomenon, examining what motivates hucksters and makes the rest of us so gullible. Disturbingly, Young finds that fakery is woven from stereotype and suspicion, race being the most insidious American hoax of all. He chronicles how Barnum came to fame by displaying figures like Joice Heth, a black woman whom he pretended was the 161-year-old nursemaid to George Washington, and What Is It?, an African American man Barnum professed was a newly discovered missing link in evolution.
Bunk then turns to the hoaxing of history and the ways that forgers, plagiarists, and journalistic fakers invent backstories and falsehoods to sell us lies about themselves and about the world in our own time, from pretend Native Americans Grey Owl and Nasdijj to the deadly imposture of Clark Rockefeller, from the made-up memoirs of James Frey to the identity theft of Rachel Dolezal. In this brilliant and timely work, Young asks what it means to live in a post-factual world of “truthiness” where everything is up for interpretation and everyone is subject to a pervasive cynicism that damages our ideas of reality, fact, and art.
KHIZR KHAN at Harvard Book Store
Harvard Book Store welcomes KHIZR KHAN—the Muslim American Gold Star father well known for his 2016 Democratic National Convention speech—for a discussion of his debut memoir An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice. He will be joined in conversation by writer, Harvard Law School professor, and human rights expert MARTHA MINOW.
About An American Family
In fewer than three hundred words, KHIZR KHAN electrified viewers around the world when he took the stage at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. And when he offered to lend Donald Trump his own much-read and dog-eared pocket Constitution, his gesture perfectly encapsulated the feelings of millions. But who was that man, standing beside his wife, extolling the promises and virtues of the U.S. Constitution?
In this urgent and timeless immigrant story, we learn that KHIZR KHAN has been many things. He was the oldest of ten children born to farmers in Pakistan and a curious and thoughtful boy who listened raptly as his grandfather recited Rumi beneath the moonlight. He was a university student who read the Declaration of Independence and was awestruck by what might be possible in life. He was a hopeful suitor, awkwardly but earnestly trying to win the heart of a woman far out of his league. He was a brilliant and diligent young family man who worked two jobs to save enough money to put himself through Harvard Law School. He was a loving father who, having instilled in his children the ideals that brought him and his wife to America—the sense of shared dignity and mutual responsibility—tragically lost his son, an Army captain killed while protecting his base camp in Iraq. He was and is a patriot, and a fierce advocate for the rights, dignities, and values enshrined in the American system.
An American Family shows us who KHIZR KHAN and millions of other American immigrants are, and why—especially in these tumultuous times—we must not be afraid to step forward for what we believe in when it matters most.
DARYL GREGORY reads his newest novel: Spoonbenders
Harvard Book Store welcomes DARYL GREGORY—author of Afterparty, The Devil’s Alphabet, and the Shirley Jackson Award–winning novella We Are All Completely Fine—for a discussion of his new novel, Spoonbenders.
Teddy Telemachus is a charming con man with a gift for sleight of hand and some shady underground associates. In need of cash, he tricks his way into a classified government study about telekinesis and its possible role in intelligence gathering. There he meets Maureen McKinnon, and it’s not just her piercing blue eyes that leave Teddy forever charmed, but her mind—Maureen is a genuine psychic of immense and mysterious power. After a whirlwind courtship, they marry, have three gifted children, and become the Amazing Telemachus Family, performing astounding feats across the country.
This book will be for sale at the event for 20% off. There will also be a signing after the event.
No tickets required for attendance.
Harvard Book Store and GrubStreet present debut author ANGELICA BAKER
Harvard Book Store and GrubStreet welcome debut author ANGELICA BAKER and Boston College’s STUART NADLER—acclaimed author of Wise Men, The Book of Life, and The Inseparables—for a discussion of BAKER’s new novel, Our Little Racket, the story of five women whose lives are dramatically changed by the downfall of a financial titan.
This event is not ticketed.
A Night of Poetry at Harvard Book Store
Harvard Book Store welcomes prize-winning poet ADRIENNE RAPHEL and Catenary Press co-editor DANIEL POPPICK for readings from their debut poetry collections, What Was It For and The Police.
In her debut collection What Was It For, Adrienne Raphel revitalizes the topsy-turvy lyric and its evergreen sagacity.
Charged with an electric syntax, haunted by lyric history, and “gripped in gravity’s mood,” the poems in The Police ask: How do we navigate the miasma that we call a common language?
This event is not ticketed.
ALEXANDRA FULLER reads from her novel, Quiet Until the Thaw
Harvard Book Store welcomes the bestselling author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight and Leaving Before the Rains Come ALEXANDRA FULLER for a reading from her first novel, Quiet Until the Thaw.
In Lakota Oglala Sioux Nation, South Dakota, two Native American cousins, Rick Overlooking Horse and You Choose Watson, though bound by blood and by land, find themselves at odds as they grapple with the implications of their shared heritage. When escalating anger toward the injustices, historical and current, inflicted upon the Lakota people by the federal government leads to tribal divisions and infighting. The cousins go in separate directions: Rick chooses the path of peace; You Choose, violence.
This event is not ticketed.
NYTBR Editor PAMELA PAUL On Her “Book of Books”
Harvard Book Store welcomes The New York Times Book Review editor PAMELA PAUL for a discussion of her latest book, My Life with Bob: Flawed Heroine Keeps Book of Books, Plot Ensues—a memoir about the stories that have shaped her life.
Imagine keeping a record of every book you’ve ever read. What would this reading trajectory say about you? With passion, humor, and insight, the editor of The New York Times Book Review shares the stories that have shaped her life.
This event is not ticketed.
