June 11 was the birthday of Betty Jean Lifton, author of Taka-chan and I: A Dog’s Journey to Japan by Runcible. This remarkable book, with photographs by the great japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe, tells the story of Runcible the Weimaraner, who digs a tunnel from Cape Cod to Japan, where the mets a young girl and helps her defeat a dragon. In addition to writing for children, Lifton was a dedicated advocate for adoption reform.

On June 14 we celebrate the birthday of Penelope Farmer, the author of Charlotte Sometimes. The book—a striking tale of time travel and coming of age—is vivid and alluring, mixing a fantastical premise with attention to authentic emotions. Farmer, an author of books for adults and children, is a recipient of a Carnegie Medal commendation.

May 20th marks the birthday of Honoré de Balzac, the inventor of the modern realistic novel. With his keen eye for detail and his unflinching assessment of character, Balzac has been considered a literary forbearer of Flaubert, Proust, and James. NYRB Classics offers one of Balzac’s most celebrated tales, The Unknown Masterpiece, and will be publishing a collection of newly translated stories from The Human Comedy in January 2014.

On May 22nd we celebrate the birthday of the multitalented Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Doyle graduated from Edinburgh University with a medical degree in 1881 and worked both in a conventional private practice, and as a ship’s doctor. Best known for his Sherlock Holmes stories, Doyle also wrote historical fiction including the epic tales in The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard. The NYRB Classics edition includes an introduction by George MacDonald Fraser.

Unnameable Books and NYRB Poets will celebrate the publication of Alexander Vvedensky’s An Invitation for Me to Think with translators Eugene Ostashevsky and Matvei Yankelevich. In addition, Eugene Ostashevsky will present The Pirate Who Does Not Know the Value of Pi, Part I, his new chapbook with the artist Eugene Timerman. The reading, which will be followed by a reception, will take place at Unnameable Books in Brooklyn on Friday, May 17, at 7pm.

Mostly overlooked during his lifetime, Vvedensky is now recognized as one of the most influential poets and thinkers of 20th-century Russia. From the closing statement at Pussy Riot’s August 2012 trial:

“Pussy Riot are Vvedensky’s disciples and his heirs. … His principle of ‘bad rhythm’ is our own. He wrote: ‘It happens that two rhythms will come into your head, a good one and a bad one and I choose the bad one. It will be the right one.’ …It is believed that the OBERIU dissidents are dead, but they live on. They are persecuted but they do not die.”—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova

An Invitation for Me to Think is the first collection of Vvedensky’s work to appear in English.

For more information about the event, click here.

On Monday, May 6th writers Lev Grossman, Nathaniel Adams, and Jen Vafidis will discuss Kingsley Amis’s newly reissued works of genre fiction, the science fiction/alternative world novel The Alteration and the ghost story The Green Man. Join us at 7pm at the Half King Bar & Restaurant at 505 W 23rd Street in New York City.

On April 11th at 6pm, an all-star line-up of Richard Sieburth, Michael Kunichika, Eugene Ostashevsky, and Matvei Yankelevich will convene at NYU Humanities Initiative to celebrate the publication of Alexander Vvedensky’s An Invitation For Me to Think (translated by Eugene Ostashevsky, with additional translations by Matvei Yankelevich). The evening will include a conversation on the “end of the avant-garde.” A reception will follow.

An Invitation For Me to Think, with poems selected by Eugene Ostashevsky, is the first of two volumes in the new NYRB Poets series, and the first book of Vvedensky’s to appear in English.

For more information about the event, click here.

On April 9th at 7pm, Poetry magazine senior editor Don Share will read from and discuss his translation of Miguel Hernández’s poems, published this month in the new NYRB Poets series, at Poets House.

Miguel Hernández, selected and translated by Don Share, has already been credited in the United States with “bringing readers closer to the poet’s sense of language and meaning” (Huffington Post). It is a wrenching, luminous volume by a great Spanish poet revered by Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz, and Robert Bly, among others.

For more information about the April 9th event, click here.