For those in NYC area: The New Yorker Festival

For anyone who's going to be in the New York City area September 30-October 2 and has 30 or 60 bucks to spare, I highly recommend taking in a session of The New Yorker Festival. In previous years I only noticed tickets going on sale too late. But last year I had the chance to see Michael Chabon and Zadie Smith do a reading and Q&A session together, then saw a discussion between David Remnick and Ian Frazier. Both events were tremendously entertaining, even though I had to exit the Chabon-Smith event for a brief time as I choked on my own saliva, only to walk past a dude who was being carried out after fainting because Chabon's reading of a childbirth gone wrong was so vivid this guy passed out. True story.

Anyway, tickets for this year's are on sale starting Friday, September 9 at noon. The whole schedule can be found at: http://www.newyorker.com/festival

Some of the ones that caught my eye, although I won't be able to take in Friday's stuff:

FRIDAY (FICTION NIGHT)
WAR
With Chang-rae Lee, Tim O'Brien (Double Down...you're wanted) and ZZ Packer
Moderated by Cressida Leyshon

WRITING ABOUT AMERICA
With Junot Diaz, Jennifer Egan and Yiyun Li
Moderated by Lee Ellis

IN CONVERSATION
Peter Schjeldahl talks with Steve Martin

SATURDAY
IN CONVERSATION
Jonathan Franzen talks with David Remnick (hope to get tix for this one)

Janet Malcolm talks with Ian Frazier (would love to see this as I'm a Frazier groupie, but not sure if I can handle listening to Malcolm talk for an hour about how horrible journalists are as people)

David Cronenberg talks with David Denby

Atul Gawande - Do Surgeons Need Coaches?

PANELS
COVERING CONFLICT (this looks really compelling)
With Linsey Addario, Jon Lee Anderson, Dexter Filkins and Wendell Steavenson. Moderated by Dorothy Wickenden

BRAVURA TELEVISION
With Laura Dern, Edie Falco, William H. Macy and Jeremy Irons. Moderated by Tad Friend.

LATE SHIFT
Zach Galifianakis talks with Andy Borowitz

Owen Wilson talks with Michael Specter

SUNDAY
Malcolm Gladwell - The Virtues of Obnoxiousness (and the full-court press?)

Rebecca Mead - Middlemarch and Me


And many more.

 

Of course, John Lee Anderson will be appearing live via satellite from a tent in Horns, Syria, where he is having coffee with Mohammed Adnan al-Bakkour