Talk with us! Virtual Book Post conversation next Thursday

April Bernard, Elizabeth Bishop, poetry, and reading together

Elizabeth Bishop and April Bernard, drawings by Nicholson Baker, from photographs by, respectively, the publisher James Laughlin and the poet Mary Jo Bang. Nicholson Baker’s book Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art, was published this spring.

Next Thursday, August 29, at 6 pm, under the auspices of our dear partner bookseller, Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, and Saratoga Springs, NY, April Bernard, Book Post editor Ann Kjellberg, and readers will gather virtually to talk about Elizabeth Bishop, poetry, and reading together. Join us so we can meet face to face! No need to have followed our Summer Reading series of Bishop’s poems with April, but we encourage you to do so in any case. You can still catch up here and buy Bishop’s Poems from Northshire. Don’t worry if you don’t consider yourself a poetry aficionado: April’s readings draw out the delight and wonder of these poems for all readers. Sign up here.

April Bernard is the author of seven books of poetry, most recently The World Behind the World. She is also author of the novels Pirate Jenny and Miss Fuller. She has written for Book Post on Colette, Elizabeth Hardwick, Hilary Mantel, Patricia Highsmith, Wallace Stevens, Janet Malcolm, and Angela Carter, among others.

We will be joined on Thursday by Book Post contributor Anthony Domestico, who interviewed April on the occasion of her most recent book The World Behind the World, for Commonweal (“Something Greater”).

If you’d like to do some light advance reading, Matthew Bevis reviewed Thomas Travisano’s recent biography of Bishop for Book Post when it came out and Christopher Benfey reflected on Bishop’s oceanside poem “The End of March,” a propos of kites, for Book Post last summer.

Thanks so much for those of you who have followed Summer Reading and joined us in the comments! Summer Reading will conclude this Sunday with a consideration of three poems from Bishop’s last years, “Poem,” “Crusoe in England,” and “Sonnet.” We’d love to see you there! And if reading along with a great writer appeals to you, you can still find our previous readings, of Middlemarch with

Mona Simpson

and My Antonía with

Chris Benfey

, under Summer Readings.

Meanwhile, a last reminder that our “Summer Extravaganza” is on through the end of August, offering a discount for new subscribers, a mug with our cute logo for givers of gifts, and a bouquet of subscriber-only reviews, opened up to give the curious a taste. Please visit, share, and help us grow.

Book Post is a by-subscription book review delivery service, bringing snack-sized book reviews by distinguished and engaging writers direct to our paying subscribers’ in-boxes, as well as free posts like this one from time to time to those who follow us. 

Book Post aspires to grow a shared reading life in a divided world. Become a paying subscriber to support our work and receive our straight-to-you book posts. Recently in Book Post for subscribers: Adrian Nicole LeBlanc on “Hacks” and female solitude; J. S. Marcus on how we got the Germany of today; David Alff on the Port of Los Angeles and the promise and peril of infrastructure.

Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, Vermont, and Saratoga Springs, New York, is Book Post’s Summer 2024 partner bookstore! We partner with independent booksellers to link to their books, support their work, and bring you news of local book life across the land. Read our portrait of Northshire here. We send a free three-month subscription to any reader who spends more than $100 at our partner bookstore during our partnership. To claim your subscription send your receipt to info@bookpostusa.com.

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Note: Substack below invites you to subscribe to April, but she does not currently have a newsletter. She is a guest-poster here at Book Post.