Martin Schneider writes:

There is a fantastic event coming up at the 92nd Street Y this month—New Yorker literary critic James Wood does a "First Read" of David Foster Wallace's adventurous, uneven, maddening, delightful, never-boring short story collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. The event is on Monday, March 22, at 8:15pm, and has a hipster-friendly pricing policy: $19 admission, but only $10 for those 35 and younger (ID will be checked, people, so no funny business).

I had the great pleasure of seeing Wood speak at the 2008 New Yorker Festival, and his intelligence, gentleness, and patience were extraordinary. As a longtime fan of Wallace, I'm genuinely excited to hear what Wood has to say about BIWHM (and by no means do I expect it to be entirely positive).

The announcement of this event induced me to discover that, in case you have not seen it already (I have not) and are a Netflix subscriber, John Krasinski's 2009 adaptation of the collection is currently available to be streamed on Netflix.

Expect a writeup of the event after it happens! And meanwhile, here's a lengthy account of the enthralling 92nd St. Y event with Frank Rich and Jane Mayer from last spring.