He's a living legend, with 1.5 million Twitter follows, a shelf full of major literary awards, and a new anniversary edition of American Gods coming out in a few weeks.  You can still get tickets to see Neil Himself at The Music Hall by calling 603-436-2400.    Can't make it to the show?  Call us at 603-431-2100 and arrange to have a signed copy of American Gods sent to you.

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 Our first event at the new Music Hall space is a roaring success!  Andre Dubus wowed the crowd, then stayed to chat with each and every person that wanted their book signed.  He was truly inspiring and a heap of fun at the same time.  Don't miss our next Loft event with Jennifer Egan.

 

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It's almost time for that stupid holiday again - Valentine's Day. In the past, I have always thought it was silly that a specific day was designated to show someone that you love them. Love is mushy - I think all the best books are the ones where people get their hearts stomped on, not where they happily ride off into the sunset.

This year, well, all I can say is "le sigh." Yep, how the mighty have fallen. HOWEVER, even with my new conversion to the Cult of Cupid, I am still going to come to RiverRun on Valentine's Day, to learn about really smart people who did poorly in the romance department. Our good friend Andrew Shaffer will be here to talk about his new book, Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love.
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In case you haven't heard me say it a million times already, I have the *best* job in the world. And one of the perks of this job is receiving advance reading copies. It's when publishers and authors send us copies of their books before they're released, in the hopes we will read them and get excited, and, in turn, get you excited to read them. And no other non-fiction book has gotten me so wound up in the last five years as John Vaillant's The Tiger. It is a phenomenal book! I read it back in March and then had to wait *five* whole months before I could start selling it. But that didn't stop me from talking about it to everyone in a ten-mile radius. I talked about it so much that it was driving my coworkers crazy. "Please" said Tom, "please tell people about other books, too. Books we can actually sell right now." I conceded - a little. And in August, when The Tiger was released, my enthusiasm was validated!read more

What are your five favorite bands of all time?  
Impossible question! Off the top of my head, five of my all time favorite bodies of music are:
    1.    Pretty much anything by the Rolling Stones
    2.    Beethoven’s piano sonatas
    3.    John Coltrane’s classic quartet
    4.    Sly Stone’s album, Fresh
    5.    Prince’s album, Dirty Mind
 
But that list already makes me feel very disloyal to a whole lot of musicians and composers…. 


What about your five favorite books of all time?

 Mostly, the usual suspects….
    1.    Moby Dick
    2.    War and Peace
    3.    Absalom, Absalom!
    4.    The Magic Mountain
    5.    Moby Dick, again….
 
This makes me feel disloyal, too…. 


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Note on the author: Lee Rourke is the author of the short story collection Everyday. He is also one of England's leading young literary critics, writing regularly for The Guardian, The Independent, TLS and the New Statesman, as well as leading book blogs such as Ready, Steady, Book. He is Contributing Editor at 3:AM Magazine and also blogs at Sponge! He lives in London. Lee will be reading at RiverRun Bookstore tonight at 7pm!

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It's true, thanks to Michael Lewis, I can now tell you what a Credit Default Swap is.  The only problem is, I get so angry talking about this topic that it's really best if you just ask me about my favorite novels instead.  The fact that Wall Street is back to business as usual while we here on Congress Street are still feeling the effects of the financial crisis makes me crazy.
 
The Big Short just hit number one on the New York Times bestseller list, and we are excited to be co-hosting Michael Lewis at The Music Hall on April 7th as part of the Writers On A New England Stage series.
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You can see more videos from our event with Alice Hoffman below: read more

A lot of you have mentioned how cool it would be if we could record our events, so people who couldn't make it get a chance to watch it afterwards. We recently filmed Alice Hoffman. Alice was here in June, and as you can tell from the footage, we had a lot of people in the store to hear the bestselling author!

Click here to see the first video. We'll be posting more of the talk, so check back.

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We occasionally have music concerts here at the bookstore after hours.  If you've never been to one, I encourage you to come this Saturday (that's April 11th) at 9pm to hear Hateful Little Cakes and Subject Bias.

Watching a show at RiverRun is a special experience.  Everyone is there to listen to the music-- there's no espresso machine chuggin in the background, nobody talking loudly and drunkenly into their cell phone.  Everyone is paying attention.

Both bands on Saturday night are great.  Hateful Little Cakes are from here in town, and are much nicer than their name suggests.  They play a kind of folk/electronic mix that I really like.  Subject Bias is out of Portland, Maine, and play well written alternative pop.  They've got great voices and are a really tight band.

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