Thursday, October 29th: Jonathan LethemWhen acclaimed author Jonathan Lethem reads at Moe's Books in Berkeley Thursday, October 29 th it will be a homecoming of sorts. Lethem worked at the historic Telegraph Avenue store for five years, while writing his first novel. He stops in at Moe's with each tour, where he is greeted by a store full of fans and former co-workers. These readings seem especially inspired. They offer him an opportunity to visit with old friends and catch up with store gossip. Lethem is on tour to promote his new novel, Chronic City, a multi-layered story centered in Manhattan. In his Publishers Weekly review Arthur Nersesian calls Chronic City "a luxuriously stylized paean to Gotham City's great fountain of culture." Kirkus Review called the book his "most ambitious to date." During the twelve city tour he will read and sign almost exclusively at independent bookstores. Although known as a New Yorker, his readers in Berkeley also lay some claim. Portions of Lethem's early novels took place in the East Bay, where he also worked at Pegasus Books. Of Moe's he writes: "The last five years I worked at one of the best bookstores in the country. I was becoming an expert in the books I cared about most, modern first editions and rare paperbacks. In, say, another fifteen years of apprenticeship--a trifle in antiquariania, as with any serious guild--I might have been one of the top rare lit men in the country." Like actors who wait on tables, writers have always staffed bookstores. This is especially true for Moe's. The store has been a haven for independent scholars, writers, and poets. For some, like Jonathan Lethem, the store provides a home away from home, a meeting place for workers in words.
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