Book Drives New York

Manhattan Smutty Book Club - Choosing Her Alpha by Isoellen

The book for this month is **[Choosing Her Alpha by Isoellen](https://www.romance.io/books/683d894ffb3d3e0f67364a01/choosing-her-alpha-isoellen)**. The book is a little hard to find, here is a link: [https://readsonlinefree.com/isoellen/page,2,579164-choosing_her_alpha](https://readsonlinefree.com/isoellen/page,2,579164-choosing_her_alpha) Quick housekeeping note: Scammers have been using the name of Smutty Book Club and its organizers to invite people to for-profit events. **If you receive any solicitation for an event or receive communication outside of Meetup asking for money, then it is a scam.** Please let us know if you see anything suspicious. Fun housekeeping note: Our annual trip to the **Renaissance Festival** will be on **Saturday, September 26th**. See Meetup for details. Remember we leave early - we want to be on the first bus.... breakfast beers are waiting. **[Back to Choosing Her Alpha](https://www.romance.io/books/683d894ffb3d3e0f67364a01/choosing-her-alpha-isoellen)**[ - here's what the publisher says: ](https://www.romance.io/books/683d894ffb3d3e0f67364a01/choosing-her-alpha-isoellen) *. Sasha's situation has reached critical mass.* *. Her mother is dying, and her step-father Merrick is a jackal waiting to stake his claim the second she is legal. In her world, Sasha is promised a choice. But if Merrick gets his way she will be married before anyone can protest against it.* *. Desperate to secure the futures of herself and her workers, Sasha makes a dangerous gamble... She seeks out Constantine Kane, the most feared and respected man in the 12 Sectors.* *. Sasha has made her choice... Will it be one she lives to regret?* ***Warning: This dystopian romance explores 18+ themes including scenes of violence, sexual content and power exchange.*** Please join us at **Cornerstone Tavern**, 961 2nd Ave, New York, NY (51st and 2nd) for great conversation, laughs, and friendship. Look for our signs, and listen for the laughter. We are often in the back of Cornerstone behind the curtain, which is actually a different restaurant called the Stags Head. We start at 7pm, but feel free to come early before happy hour ends at 7. People usually start to drift in by 6:30pm.

Book Swap @ Fort Tryon Park

***The Meetup guest limit is 10 because of the free event limit, but we have unlimited space for people to join us.*** Book swap 11am-2pm at Billings Lawn in Fort Tryon Park. Look for books and the sign. This is a drop-in/drop-out event, meaning you don't have to stay the entire time. All genres, all sizes, and all conditions welcome. Leftover books will be recycled at future book swaps. **Don't have a book to contribute?** We'll have plenty of extras for you. **Not a big reader?** Come hang out anyway!

Saturday Afternoon at Brooklyn Public Library

Spend an afternoon reading with us at a jewel of Kings County — **[Brooklyn Public Library’s Central Library](https://www.bklynlibrary.org/locations/central)!** Bring a book or choose one of the many titles at the main branch of the library. We’ll socialize and read in the **Info Commons Training Lab** which **seats 50 people available on a first-come basis**. This month's Silent Book Club is part of **Love Your Library Day at Brooklyn Public Library**. Celebrate falling in love with reading by dropping by your local branch, signing up for a library card (or renewing an old one), exploring the library's book collections, and attending programs. **[Find more programs happening near you October 2-4.](https://discover.bklynlibrary.org/?event=true&eventtags=Love+Your+Library+Day)**

"Empire of AI" by Karen Hao

When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined, the organization was meant to act as a check against more purely mercantile forces. What could go wrong? Over time, Hao wrestled with that question. Increasingly, she realized that this disruptive sector’s vision of success requires an unprecedented amount of resources: the “compute” power of high-end chips and the processing capacity to create massive large language models, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans “cleaning up” that data for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the usage of energy and water underlying it all. We have entered a new age of empire where only a handful of globally scaled companies can enter the field of play. Armed with billions, pushing on trillions, OpenAI is setting a breakneck pace—toward what end, not even they can define. All this time, Hao has maintained deep sourcing within the company and the industry, keeping in intimate contact with the story that shocked the entire tech industry—Altman’s sudden firing and triumphant return. The behind-the-scenes of what happened is revelatory of who the people controlling this technology really are. But this isn’t just the story of a single company. As Hao shows through intrepid global reporting, the enormous wheels of extraction grind on. An astonishing eyewitness view from both the command capsule of the new economy and where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era. Support your local bookstore in Queens: [Astoria Bookshop](http://astoriabookshop.com/) (Astoria) [Topos Bookstore](https://www.toposbookstore.com/) (Ridgewood) [The World's Borough Bookstore](https://www.theworldsboroughbookshop.com/) (Jackson Heights) [Kew & Willow Books](https://www.kewandwillow.com/) (Kew Gardens) [Book Culture](https://www.bookculture.com/) (Long Island City)

October Book Club!

All the Beauty in the World discussion

We will discuss *All the Beauty in the World: The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Me* by Patrick Bringley on Wed., Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. at Tikka n Talk, 70-11 Austin Street, Forest Hills. It's between 70th Rd. and 70th Ave. (a block and a half west of 71st/Continental), on the lower level. Closest subway is E/F/R/M to 71st/Continental. You can see the menu at https://www.tikkantalkny.com/menu/.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico

A 2025 International Booker Prize Shortlist Nominee A scathing, provocative novel about contemporary existence by a rising star in Italian literature. Anna and Tom, an expat couple, have fashioned a dream life for themselves in Berlin. They are young digital "creatives" exploring the excitements of the city, freelancers without too many constraints, who spend their free time cultivating house plants and their images online. At first, they reasonably deduce that they've turned their passion for aesthetics into a viable, even enviable career, but the years go by, and Anna and Tom grow bored. As their friends move back home or move on, so their own work and sex life—and the life of Berlin itself—begin to lose their luster. An attempt to put their politics into action fizzles in embarrassed self-doubt. Edging closer to forty, they try living as digital nomads only to discover that, wherever they go, "the brand of oat milk in their flat whites was the same." Perfection—Vincenzo Latronico's first book to be translated into English—is a scathing novel about contemporary existence, a tale of two people gradually waking up to find themselves in various traps, wondering how it all came to be. Was it a lack of foresight, or were they just born too late?

Book to be discussed: "Before We Hit the Ground” by Selali Fiamanya

"‘Love was a tightrope between freedom and control. He didn’t know how others seemed to walk it with ease.’ This is the challenge Elom and his family face in the years before his unexpected death. Caught between his well-meaning yet misapprehending family, his boisterous friends, and his self-assured partner Ben, Elom struggles to fit in. All he ever wants is to feel understood – but what does it mean to live authentically when the only thing changing faster than the world around you is the world within? **Moving between Accra, Glasgow and London, Selali Fiamanya’s extraordinary debut asks what it means to love and be loved in return. *Before We Hit the Ground* is an intimate portrait of a family, and one man’s struggle to find his place.**" — [goodreads.com](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/216922096-before-we-hit-the-ground?ref=nav_sb_ss_1_44) After the meeting, we head over to Julius' (one of the oldest operating gay bars in NYC) to chat about things other than books. Julius' is at 159 West 10th Street (on the corner of Waverly Place, about a block from the library). www.juliusbarny.com

📚🍽️ Book Club & Bites: The Road to Tender Hearts

Book Club

**THE BOOK YOU SHOULD HAVE FINISHED READING BY THIS MONTH IS** **LINK IN THE DESCRIPTION!** **PLEASE NOTE: THIS EVENT IS ADVERTISED ON MULTIPLE PAGES, THERE WILL BE MORE PEOPLE THERE.** Hello everyone, Ready to rediscover the joy of reading or diversify your bookshelf? Look no further! We gather once a month on Zoom to explore a wide array of genres, exchange perspectives, and foster connections through our shared love of literature. The idea is to read one book a month (up to 400 pages). There will be the opportunity to discuss how you have found the book at our monthly online event. All book lovers are welcome to join us on this enriching journey. You need to login into a Zoom account to join the event. To join the event, please click here: [https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83080762071?pwd=cWZjNEhzTlVJcmdQclpyT1dMYWtkZz09](https://us06web.zoom.us/j/83080762071?pwd=cWZjNEhzTlVJcmdQclpyT1dMYWtkZz09) Meeting ID: 830 8076 2071 Passcode:909864

October Book Club: Sunburn, by Chloe Michelle Howarth (fiction, 288 pages)

Reading of Samuel D. Hunter's Little Bear Ridge Road

Hi! For this reading, we will be reading Little Bear Ridge Road by Samuel D. Hunter. The full script can be found online [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/19bo0KWWfJHNRrI1hqqrpNqXt-Gwod79P/view?usp=sharing). Feel free to read from a physical or digital copy of the script. We suggest bringing a digital device to read the play on, as we may change the play depending on the number of attendees. We will meet at the Public Atrium at 875 3rd Ave on the top floor above the Starbucks. I will put what I am wearing the day of in the event comments so you can find us if you are running late. This reading is going to be super casual and relaxed. We hope you enjoy being a part of a live reading! MSP is committed to enuring participation at all levels is attractive, safe, and enjoyable for all. By signing up for any of our events you agree to abide by our [code of conduct](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LfJc8EjngTX2uaaMZMPNhmE6wtQYYFXlUqOxk3VIpHw/edit?usp=sharing).