The Bookshop welcomes award-winning lyric poet and essayist Diane Mehta to read from her two books of poetry and to celebrate the release of her new essay collection, "Happier Far." She will be in conversation with author/illustrator/editor Emily Nemens, former editor of The Paris Review.
Diane Mehta's poetry has won numerous awards and has been published in The New Yorker, The Kenyon Review, and the American Poetry Review. Her essays have appeared in the NY Times, Paris Review, and the Times Literary Supplement. Her poems are "thrilling" (former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky) and "move like jazz" (Publishers Weekly) over a sweeping landscape of topics. Her new book of essays, "Happier Far," is a witty and engaging journey from her childhood in Bombay to her attempts to fit into an unwelcoming New Jersey suburb, to her marriage, divorce, and single parenthood. Vivian Gornick called the book "deeply moving."
Emily Nemens is a novelist (her second, "Clutch," will be published next year), an essayist and short-story writer (Esquire, Southern Review, Iowa Review), and illustrator (The New Yorker, and a chapter with Harvey Pekar in the graphic adaptation of Studs Terkel's "Working"). From 2018 to 2021, she was the editor of The Paris Review, having previously co-edited The Southern Review.
This reading is free and all are welcome. Join us for a glass of Prosecco to toast this new book.