WELCOME TO BOOK-LYN

Celebrating its fifth anniversary, the Brooklyn Book Festival has grown into something that even Manhattan has to be more than a little jealous of. This year’s festival features the new “Bookend” series, with more author events spread out at various venues all weekend long. Besides getting to hear all your favorite literary fiction authors (Mary Gaitskill, Colson Whitehead, Salman Rushdie, Paul Auster, and Gary Shteyngart, to name just a few), you’ll also get to see starry names from the worlds of sports (Venus Williams), comedy (Sarah Silverman), and music (Rosanne Cash). Today’s panel discussions offer a range of topics, from the economy (“The Economic Crisis and What to Do About It” with Nobel Prize–winning New York Times journalist Paul Krugman), to the music business (“Culture vs. Cash” with Greg Tate), to food writing (“Eating Our Words” with cookbook author Ted Lee).

Sun., Sept. 12, noon, 2010