BOOK: Reasons For And Advantages of Breathing

Nashvillian (via Virginia, via Boston) Lydia Peelle reads tomorrow (7/29) afternoon (12:30PM - 1:45PM) at Bryant Park Reading Room.

"Reasons for and Advantages of Breathing conveys an almost Faulknerian ache for the pre-modern South, for a landscape and a way of life lost to the ravages of money and technology.....'Mule Killers' evokes the end of an era and of a grandfather's dreams when he decides to replace animal power on his farm with tractors. Two restless young girls in 'Sweethearts of the Rodeo' live out their last summer of innocence, riding ponies recklessly and spying on their boss and the wealthy women who visit him. In 'Phantom Pain,' the Tennessee woods are a sliver of what they once were, men now hunt with GPS and cell phones, and the rumor of a dangerous panther on the loose stirs up a small town." (source)

BONUS: The Bryant Park Reading Room has a really cool history: "The original Reading Room began in August of 1935 as a public response to the Depression Era job losses in New York. Many people did not have anywhere to go during the day, and no prospects for jobs. The New York Public Library opened the “Open Air Library” to give these out-of-work businessmen and intellectuals a place to go where they did not need money, a valid address, a library card, or any identification to enjoy the reading materials."