The NYRB Reading Week

It is my pleasure to announce The NYRB Reading Week, to be held on November 7-13, 2010! From the 7th to the 13th of November, we're inviting you to join us as we read, review, and relish books from the NYRB Classics, NYRB Collections, or New York Review Children's Collection.

This event is actually the brainchild of Mrs. B from The Literary Stew. A few weeks ago, she asked on Twitter whether anyone was interested in doing an NYRB Reading Week. I immediately said yes, and because I was the first one to respond, I was granted the honor of being co-host. It's my first time to do this kind of thing, so I hope you all can be patient with me.

Anyway, we're very excited about this, thus we're announcing the event a month in advance. That way, those of you who'd like to participate can sign up right away (no frills--just leave a comment here or in Mrs. B's announcement post) and start getting your reading list ready. We shall eventually summarize everyone who's going to participate, but you can still join in during the week itself. And if you're not a blogger, you can also participate, as long as you're able to post reviews in bookish social networking sites like Shelfari, Goodreads, or LibraryThing.

We'd like to keep this event simple, so, during the Reading Week itself, all the participants need to do is read at least one NYRB book and post a review. Then, once you post your review, just leave a comment on the Welcome Post in either of our blogs. Mrs. B and I will then collate and blog about all of your reviews, so we can all see what books everyone else is reading. By the way, feel free to get this button below, should you want to spread the word.

But wait, there's more! As an added treat, we're going to give out a few NYRB books! Fully Booked, a local bookstore, has kindly agreed to support this event by giving us a couple of NYRB Classics to give away. Very generous of them; thank you so much, Fully Booked!

We'll give more details about the giveaways as the date nears, but what I can tell you is that my co-host and I agreed that we'd give one away to the "best review" and another in a raffle.

Finally, in case you're wondering, "What is NYRB?" or "Why NYRB?", let me answer with a few quotes from the NYRB website itself.

The NYRB Classics series is designedly and determinedly exploratory and eclectic, a mix of fiction and non-fiction from different eras and times and of various sorts. The series includes nineteenth century novels and experimental novels, reportage and belles lettres, tell-all memoirs and learned studies, established classics and cult favorites, literature high, low, unsuspected, and unheard of. NYRB Classics are, to a large degree, discoveries, the kind of books that people typically run into outside of the classroom and then remember for life. (emphasis mine)

I think anyone who's read an NYRB book will understand the attraction. NYRB publishes truly diverse and quality books, a lot of which are forgotten classics. So, they're not in the popular memory, but they deserve to be. In case this intrigues you and you haven't read an NYRB before, then I suggest you pick one up now. Or come and join us for this reading week.:)