Our top 3 books of 2017 in Children’s, Teen, Fiction, and Nonfiction literature. Enjoy them yourself or share with a loved one. We hope they bring you as much joy and insight as they have for us WORDies all year. 

We’re excited to bring you our first bit of #kidlit recommended by #jerseycity customer Jordan who reads along with our #WokeReads book group and has finished every Jason Reynolds and Kwame Alexander book before our staff! We agree that Ta-Nehisi Coates’ #BlackPanther strikes the imagination!

“ I like graphic novels, but sometimes they are really boring and don’t let you imagine enough. In the graphic novel, Black Panther, I was really able to get a good idea for how everything was without the pictures telling the whole story.” -Jordan Rivers, age 

Ace Hotel & WORD Present: Chuck Klosterman X Book Launch on May 16, 2017

This event takes place at Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel  20 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001 WORD Bookstores & Ace Hotel New York are extremely excited to join forces once more to kick off Chuck Klosterman's book tour for CHUCK KLOSTERMAN X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century, in grand style at Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel. Where:  Liberty Hall at the Ace Hotel  20 W 29th St, New York, NY 10001 Doors: 7 pm Presentation / Q&A: 8 pm Signing: 9 pm Tickets: $30 Chuck Klosterman has created an incomparable body of work in books, magazines, newspapers, and on the Web. His writing spans the realms of culture and sports, while also addressing interpersonal issues, social quandaries, and ethical boundaries. Klosterman has written nine previous books, helped found and establish Grantland, served as the New York Times Magazine Ethicist, and worked on film and television productions, all while maintaining a consistent stream of writing in outlets such as GQ, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and The Guardian. Chuck Klosterman's tenth book CHUCK KLOSTERMAN X collects his most intriguing pieces from the past decade, accompanied by fresh introductions and new footnotes throughout. Klosterman presents many of the articles in their original form, featuring previously unpublished passages and digressions. Subjects include Breaking Bad, Lou Reed, zombies, KISS, Jimmy Page, Stephen Malkmus, steroids, Mountain Dew, Chinese Democracy, The Beatles, Jonathan Franzen, Taylor Swift, Tim Tebow, Kobe Bryant, Usain Bolt, Eddie Van Halen, Charlie Brown, the Cleveland Browns, and many more cultural figures and pop phenomena. This is a tour of the past decade from one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times. CHUCK KLOSTERMAN is the bestselling author of seven nonfiction books (including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and I Wear the Black Hat) and two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man). He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons. Klosterman is a native of North Dakota and currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Entertainment Weekly TV critic Melissa Maerz. You must buy a ticket in order to attend this event and the ticketing policy is one ticket per person. Each ticket also includes 1 copy of CHUCK KLOSTERMAN X.

Purchase tickets here: http://www.wordbookstores.com/ChuckKlostermanX

Find WORD This Week!

Looking for literary events in NYC to attend this week? Look for WORD booksellers at these offsite events: 

Tuesday April 18, 2017 6:30pm

St. Jordi in New York: "Beauty and the Beast" at  Deutsches Haus at NYU 

Wednesday April 19, 2017

7pm Fantastic Fiction at KGB:  Seth Dickinson and  Laura Anne Gilman

7pm Kristen Radtke’s IMAGINE WANTING ONLY THIS Launch Event at Housing Works Bookstore  

Thursday April 20, 2017

7pm Pete’s Reading Series:  Melissa Febos,  Sarah Gerard,  Chloe Caldwell

If you need a bookseller at your NYC/NJ offsite event, you can get in touch with [email protected]

WORD is 10! + Expanding

We’re celebrating a big anniversary, and expanding in Brooklyn!

So we’ve been in the bookstore business since 2001, but it wasn't until 2007 that we learned to spread (bookselling) love the Brooklyn way. We are so excited and proud to be celebrating 10 YEARS as Greenpoint's community bookstore. Thanks to those in our community here and IRL who’ve followed along on this wild ride, and cheers to so many more memories.

And! Just like an awkward pre-teen, we are growing and need more space. Coming this spring we will take over a storefront two doors down from our existing Brooklyn store and introduce WORD KIDS, a space dedicated solely to kids' books, toys, crafts, clothing, storytimes and other events, and lots of fun for Greenpoint's youth. Stay tuned for more!

Take a trip down memory lane with us. This one’s for the #books.

#WORDis10

Our first author event, for Mo Willems’ KNUFFLE BUNNY.

WORD Bookstores founder Christine (thumbs up!) and her earliest original staff.

Breaking ground in our event space!

The earliest days in our Brooklyn store.

Thanks to our beloved Greenpoint community for welcoming us with open arms 10 years ago, and all those who have been with us since day one. Here’s to our next chapter of independent bookselling!

We decided to answer a few questions that @roxanegay was asked ourselves with a few book recommendations. Here. Learn about the human body.

Are you the parent of a new reader?

The first meeting of our Beginning Reader Book Club (ages 4-7), will take place on Sat. April 1st,11 am at our Brooklyn store. And yeah that's right...We're readin' Dory.

Women’s History Month is upon us. And thank goodness. Some inspiring reads for young readers; why don’t you visit them in our Brooklyn store this weekend? 

Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday and the Power of a Protest Song by Gary Golio

For the Right to Learn: Malala Yousafzai's Story by Rebecca Langston-George

Fly High! The Story of Bessie Coleman by Louise Borden & Mary Kroeger

Hillary by Jonah Winter & Raul Colon

That's a sweet looking collection of new releases. Readers, what looks best to you?

Read with Barack

The 44th President of America was our first black president, a pioneer in his “pivot to Asia” and already missed by many. But to us at WORD he will primarily be our book bea, reader in chief, and the coolest lit lover to ever helm the nation.

As he looks to having leisure for the first time in years, our booksellers look at his reading recs from the past eight and revel in our overlap and new additions to our TBR piles.

Christopher, Bookseller/ Cafe

I would love to recommend my personal hero Junot Diaz, it came out recently that Obama read Junot during some difficult times in his presidency. I'd recommend the books Drown and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to start with!

Lydia, Book Fair Coordinator

I would definitely recommend the book he wrote for his daughters: Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters. It's a beautiful picture book that is a tribute to 13 Americans that shaped our nation but is also about how he sees the traits those Americans had within his own children and all American children.

Steven, Inventory Coordinator

I love Denis Johnson. He's in my top 3 favorite writers. That's one of the authors that I was pretty surprised by and happy to see the president reading. The Laughing Monsters is on top of my to read list.

Brian, Events Coordinator

I'll be reading all of Phil Klay's Redeployment because the title story is one of my favorites and our military engagement is so hidden from the population in general... plus Klay is a literary hunk. [Note the bookseller’s of WORD do not take responsibility for Brian’s man crush, though they do encourage it]

Hannah, Operations Director

One of my top five books ever is Helen Macdonald's H is for Hawk, a book I am currently gingerly rereading in the face of personal loss and the loss of our solid moral leader in our President. The fear between the hawk and Macdonald, and the peace they come to is incredibly detailed. Her dovetailed investigation into one of the unsung literary genius' of the World War II era is a wonderful tale of the dangers of secluding yourself and the saviors of nature. The fact that Obama enjoyed a beautifully crafted book so centered on empathy is one of the many things I love about him!

I'm also going to read Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind because understanding our history as a grouped species seems deeply important at the moment.

Aubrey, Children’s Manager and Katelyn, Operations Supervisor:

We’re happy to see that Obama enjoyed Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff, a super-addicting modern fairy tale, which features one of the most fascinating female characters I have ever encountered. This book is a beautiful meditation on love and marriage but also the personal struggle of womanhood in the public realm. I wonder if he saw all of the twists coming, or if the second half of the book left his jaw agape too.

Dan, Shift Supervisor

Elizabeth Kolbert, a staff-writer for the New Yorker, is one of my go-to experts of the science and politics of global climate change. The Sixth Extinction is a book looks at the broad impact that humans have had on the world, specifically on the sharp decline in species diversity. This book is a must-read for readers who follow the work of E. O. Wilson, Bill McKibben, and George Monbiot.

Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon features a debate between characters Guitar in Freddie in Tommy's Barbershop over the real-life murder of Emmett Till. This scene stopped me in my tracks when I first read it in mid-2012, as protests around the country were mounting over the murder of Trayvon Martin. This book is a must-read to understand the times we're living in.

Kristina, Cafe Manager

Where the Wild Things Are - This was a favorite for me as a child and re-reading it as an adult I've realized how many important things Sendak was portraying. This story teaches that things shouldn't be judged by their appearance and that it is okay and encouraged to have a great and wild imagination. I would recommend this for any age because sometimes as we get older we need those reminders.

Chazz, Shift Supervisor

Looking at Obama’s list I am gonna read One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez because I enjoy magical realism and literature that's representative of different cultures from different authors and this novel is supposed to be the mac daddy of those two features.

I’d also recommend a favorite classic of mine, Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I feel we live in a time period where we're ONLY taught how to win and how to be winners so much so that when inevitable failure occurs, especially with our dreams, it's hard for us to both accept and process.

Ashanti, Inventory Director

As booksellers we get the lucky privilege of reading soon-to-be-published works sometimes months in advance of the publication date. The frustrating flip side of this is you can talk about it as much as you want, but you can't put in people's hands until it actually, y'know, publishes. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn was one of those titles that as soon as I picked it up, I knew I had something special in my hands. So rarely does a book absolutely floor me with it's "twist" AND speak to existing in a female body in contemporary society. Flynn's notion of "the cool girl" has radically shaped how I interact with other people.

The best kind of armchair travel, Finnegan's biography Barbarian Days is so compelling that even if you've never thought of dropping everything else in life to go surf, you'll at least understand the allure. Not only do we get beautiful locales, we get a narrator sensitive to exoticism and othering, questioning what his interactions mean to the people with whom he visits. Besides that, the prose is lush and carries you through the counter-cultural spike of the 60's, 70's, 80's with aplomb.

Camille, Events Director

A few Obama-recommended books dear to my heart belong to the still-developing African American literary tradition, and because they grapple so fearlessly with our American experiment they feel especially important now. Whenever someone in our community wants to read the electric, absurdist Invisible Man (Ralph Ellison, 1952) — a piece of the larger American cannon — I want to point them to Souls of Black Folk (W.E.B. Du Bois, 1903) to better understand Ellison's references, and after they've digested it I want them to follow up with the meditative coming-to-terms arrived at in The Fire Next Time (James Baldwin, 1963). Some of the most noteworthy contemporary authors in the tradition are still responding to these compasses.

Alison Gore, Operations Supervisor

Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is a beautiful novel about three generations of a religious midwestern family and the various joys, griefs, and hurdles they face.

Activism at WORD

“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” - Martin Luther King Jr.

Drop by WORD Bookstores to write a letter to your senator or congressman and make your voice heard!

We will have letter writing stations available with stationery, stamps, and wine! Find us at WORD on these days: 

WORD Brooklyn - every Sunday 12pm-2pm

WORD Jersey City - every Friday 5pm-7pm

Join us Tuesday, February 7th at 7:30pm celebrate the release of Elan Mastai's book All Our Wrong Todays in conversation with Jonathan Tropper.

You know the future that people in the 1950s imagined we'd have? Well, it happened. In Tom Barren's 2016, humanity thrives in a techno-utopian paradise of flying cars, moving sidewalks, and moon bases, where avocados never go bad and punk rock never existed . . . because it wasn't necessary. Except Tom just can't seem to find his place in this dazzling, idealistic world, and that s before his life gets turned upside down. Utterly blindsided by an accident of fate, Tom makes a rash decision that drastically changes not only his own life but the very fabric of the universe itself. In a time-travel mishap, Tom finds himself stranded in our 2016, what we think of as the real world. For Tom, our normal reality seems like a dystopian wasteland. But when he discovers wonderfully unexpected versions of his family, his career, and maybe, just maybe his soul mate, Tom has a decision to make. Does he fix the flow of history, bringing his utopian universe back into existence, or does he try to forge a new life in our messy, unpredictable reality? Tom's search for the answer takes him across countries, continents, and timelines in a quest to figure out, finally, who he really is and what his future our future is supposed to be.

Elan Mastai was born in Vancouver and lives in Toronto with his wife and children. He has had five films produced from his screenplays, most recently What If, which starred Daniel Radcliffe, Zoe Kazan, and Adam Driver. In 2013, “Variety” named Elan one of its Ten Screenwriters to Watch. Upcoming film projects include Get Over It, based on an episode of the Peabody-winning radio show “This American Life” and produced by Ira Glass. All Our Wrong Todays is his first novel.

Our annual Galentine’s Day party is BACK with romance superstars Sarah MacLean, Maya Rodale, Damon Suede, and Suleikha Snyder. Once more there will be a panel discussion, raffles, and games (by which we mean, drinking games) moderated by your one and only WORD Romance Book Group leader Madeline Caldwell. 

Oh, did we mention OPEN BAR?

Get your tickets now and come drink as much as your heart desires during the 2-hour open bar at one of our favorite Williamsburg venues, Villain.

Tickets: $20

See each and every one of you on Monday, February 13th! Remember that this event takes place NOT at our bookstore but at Villain in Williamsburg, where the spirits shall flow from 7-9pm.

Groundhogs Day!

Bill Murray would be thrilled that the groundhog saw his shadow today (probs not)! 6 more weeks of winter so bundle up, we’ve got snow and cold to come still! Definitely, time to grab a good book and settle in, spring is still far away. 

JC: Jerome Buting Presents ILLUSION OF JUSTICE on March 1st

Purchase tickets here.

This event takes place in our Jersey City location and is ticketed. 

Event starts 7:30pm

Tickets: $10.00 (redeemable as a $10 gift card which can be used against any purchase at WORD Bookstores)

Interweaving his account of the Steven Avery trial at the heart of Making a Murderer with other high profile cases from his criminal defense career, attorney Jerome F. Buting explains the flaws in America’s criminal justice system and lays out a provocative, persuasive blue-print for reform. Over his career, Jerome F. Buting has spent hundreds of hours in courtrooms representing defendants in criminal trials. When he agreed to join Dean Strang as co-counsel for the defense in Steven A. Avery vs. State of Wisconsin, he knew a tough fight lay ahead. But, as he reveals in Illusion of Justice, no-one could have predicted just how tough and twisted that fight would be—or that it would become the center of the documentary Making a Murderer, which made Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey household names and thrust Buting into the spotlight. Buting’s powerful, riveting boots-on-the-ground narrative of Avery’s and Dassey’s cases becomes a springboard to examine the shaky integrity of law enforcement and justice in the United States, which Buting has witnessed firsthand for more than 35 years. From his early career as a public defender to his success overturning wrongful convictions working with the Innocence Project, his story provides a compelling expert view into the high-stakes arena of criminal defense law; the difficulties of forensic science; and a horrifying reality of biased interrogations, coerced or false confessions, faulty eyewitness testimony, official misconduct, and more. Combining narrative reportage with critical commentary and personal reflection, Buting explores his professional and personal motivations, career-defining cases—including his shocking fifteen-year-long fight to clear the name of another man wrongly accused and convicted of murder—and what must happen if our broken system is to be saved. Taking a place beside Just Mercy and The New Jim Crow, Illusion of Justice is a tour-de-force from a relentless and eloquent advocate for justice who is determined to fulfill his professional responsibility and, in the face of overwhelming odds, make America’s judicial system work as it is designed to do.

Moderator: Robert Kolker is the New York Times bestselling author of Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, a narrative-nonfiction chronicle of unsolved murder that was named one of the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books and one of Publisher's Weekly’s Top Ten Books of the year. An award-winning investigative journalist, he currently is a Projects & Investigations reporter for Bloomberg News. Jerome F. Buting, author of Illusion of Justice: Jerome F. Buting is a shareholder in the Brookfield, Wisconsin law firm of Buting, Williams & Stilling, S.C. He received his undergraduate degree in Forensic Studies from Indiana University and his law degree from the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill. He is a past board director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, a past president of the Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, and chair of the Wisconsin State Bar Criminal Law Section from 2005 to 2007. His present private practice is entirely criminal defense, both trials and appeals. He has defended the citizen accused in many serious high profile trial cases, including the Steven Avery case, and he obtained the reversal of convictions in State of Wisconsin v. Ted Oswald and State of Wisconsin v. Ralph Armstrong (reversing a 25 year old murder conviction). He lectures worldwide and is frequently sought after for his knowledge in the use of expert witnesses and DNA evidence. He is also the 2016 recipient of the Fierce Advocate Award from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Jersey City January 2017 Events

Gay Talese presents High Notes

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Join Gay Talese for a celebration of his newest book, High Notes!  High Notes draws from six decades of Talese's work, from his long-form pieces for Esquire to his more autobiographical writings of the eighties and nineties to his twenty-first century reflections on New York, New Yorkers, and the institution of which he is the longtime chronicler, the New York Times.

The History of the Black Panther Movement: A Book Launch and Conversation w/ Professor Robyn Spencer

Thursday, January 19, 2017

Join us in Jersey City for a book launch/discussion to celebrate Professor Robyn C. Spencer's new book The Revolution Has Come. Professor Spencer will be in conversation with a special guest, to be announced.

Storytime | M. Earl Smith Presents Little Karl

Saturday, January 21, 2017

Join us for a special edition of our regular Saturday storytime in which Martin Smith reads from his book, LITTLE KARL. Have you ever wondered how to talk to your kids about socialism? In this colorfully illustrated book, the core thoughts of Marxist theory are presented through the voice of a young Karl Marx. In a narrative both educational and fun (as well as tongue-in-cheek), LITTLE KARL allows a new generation to explore Marx's concepts in picture book form.

Brooklyn January 2017 Events

Kris D’Agostino presents The Antiques

Tuesday, January 10th, 7 pm

A full house for hometown boy and Kris D’Agostino’s second book!

Geoffrey Cobb presents The King of Greenpoint

Tuesday, January 17th, 7 pm

Join us for a talk with Greenpoint resident and historian Geoffrey Cobb on his new book The King of Greenpoint Peter McGuinness.  

Group Reading with Jason Diamond, Chloe Caldwell, Morgan Jerkins, Danielle Henderson and Kat Kinsman

Thursday, January 26th, 7 pm

Join us for a celebration of new books and fantastic memoir/essay/literary nonfiction writers!

*SAINT VITUS* CLRVYNT, Lesser Gods, & WORD Present: FINDING JOSEPH I: AN ORAL HISTORY OF H.R. FROM BAD BRAINS

Tuesday, January 24th, 7:30 pm at Saint Vitus Bar

An Evening in Celebration of FINDING JOSEPH I: AN ORAL HISTORY OF H.R. FROM BAD BRAINS

Book Signing, Film Screening plus Q&A with H.R., author Howie Abrams and filmmaker James Lathos

Kayla Rae Whitaker Presents THE ANIMATORS with Maris Kreizman

Tuesday, January 31st, 7 pm

A great conversation with debut author Kayla Rae Whitaker and WORD BFF Maris Kreizman