Books

It’s spring, it’s National Poetry Month, it’s time for something different — a new poetry reading and open mike, that is, at the South­ampton Cultural Center Friday night.

Nelson Algren, champion of the hard-luck cases and the losers, was one of the most famous authors of the mid-20th century. What happened? Colin Asher has written a reappraisal.

Amy Hempel’s stories are like artifacts, every word is meticulously chosen, every sentence matters. They cannot be easily summarized, so be prepared to connect the dots.

Susan Van Scoy, an art history professor at St. Joseph’s College, is just out with “The Big Duck and Eastern Long Island’s Duck Farming Industry,” a tale told in photographs.

Fresh from publication in The New Yorker, Gary J. Whitehead reads at Stony Brook Southampton for Writers Speak.

With “Golden Child,” Claire Adam’s gripping novel set in Trinidad, Sarah Jessica Parker’s imprint has its second success in introducing a new voice.

A thriller that at first seems cynically executed is in fact solidly entertaining.

Stony Brook Southampton faculty consider the “art and craft of the redraft” Wednesday in the return of the M.F.A. program’s Writers Speak series for the spring.

Bob Zellner’s civil rights memoir reissued in paperback, plus an African-American Read-In in Sag Harbor.

Books and signings and drinks, oh my! (And don't forget the choice meal.) The Baker House 1650 hits back against the winter doldrums.

The good folks of East Hampton still held their share of medieval beliefs in the second half of the 17th century.

A.J. Jacobs wanted a mental makeover to alleviate his perpetual annoyance. He chose to thank every person he could think of even remotely connected to producing his morning cup of joe.

Speaking with Paul Harding, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for his debut novel, “Tinkers,” is like reading one of his books. He presents a lot of detail and many opinions about time, art, and the slippery nature of success.

“Untrue” attempts to shatter the central fallacy that women find monogamy easier than men. In fact, the opposite is true, Wednesday Martin argues.

If war is hell, should not reading war reporting be a bit hellish too? Nick McDonell weighs in from the bloody field.

The magician and author Allan Zola Kronzek will is out with a new guide to tricks, tabletop entertainments, and oldster-youngster bonding.

David Margolick visits the American Hotel for the John Jermain Memorial Library’s author’s lunch, while a poetry reading pipes up at the old Rogers Memorial Library on Job’s Lane in Southampton.

Andrew Luck, Joe Flacco, Alex Smith, Ryan Fitzpatrick, and Doug Williams are apt choices to spotlight because of the different footholds they occupy on the N.F.L. quarterback spectrum.

 “No news is good news” is not a credo generally favored by journalists and the publishers of books they produce. But there is remarkable resonance in “A Private War: Marie Colvin and Other Tales of Heroes, Scoundrels, and Renegades” because Marie Brenner’s collection of previously published magazine stories touches on so many subjects still demanding our attention.

Neil deGrasse Tyson lays out in overwhelming detail how scientific progress has from time immemorial been prompted, funded, commandeered, and co-opted by mankind’s warriors, their political leaders, and policymakers.

Bill Cunningham, New York’s original street-fashion photographer, democratized fashion by showing that style wasn’t dependent on money or status. His posthumous memoir details his early hat-making days and even his shop in Southampton.

“Fred W. McDarrah: New York Scenes” is a fitting and compelling visual epitaph for a photographer, publication, and ultimately a city that no longer exists.

Paul Harding, first up in the series, won a Pulitzer Prize for “Tinkers,” his 2009 novel. Now he teaches in Stony Brook Southampton's M.F.A. program in creative writing and literature.

An American author, Flynn Berry, fictitiously resolves the real-life story of a murderous British lord's disappearance in her astute new thriller, “A Double Life.”

Jill Bialosky, Philip Schultz, and Grace Schulman — poets who have written memoirs as well as poetry collections that have acted as memoir — will talk it over.

One’s a picture book promoting kid wellness, another’s a book of line drawings of historical structures ripe for coloring.

Carole Stone and Virginia Walker take to the lectern at 6 tonight for an en plein air poetry series in Southampton.

Authors Night has landed at the old Principi farm — you know, the controversial 555 address? So read on, book lovers . . .

Forget “full-service” advertising, now the game is selling access to your day-to-day life and altering your behavior for profit.

A dark graphic tale of revenge and recrimination, pinkos and private detectives in the Hollywood blacklist days of the early 1950s.