Non-Fiction: Rock, Bananas, and Love Letters

KGB Non-Fiction Night: Rock, Bananas and Love Letters night with Dan Kennedy, author of Rock On, Dan Koeppel, author of Banana and Bill Shapiro, editor of Other People's Love Letters

When he’s hired by a major label, McSweeney's contributor Dan Kennedy thinks he has landed a pass to the secret kingdom of rock and roll. The problem is, he's basically walked into an episode of The Office. Whether he's creating an ad campaign celebrating 25 years of love songs by Phil Collins or trying to grasp the rationale behind cross-promoting a ladies' razor with Jewel's new single about not selling out, Kennedy's in way over his head. And from the looks of those sitting around the boardroom, he's not alone. Rock On is a hilarious power ballad to rock and roll, office life, and all the working stiffs who've done their damndest to hide from human resources when the ax falls.

Dan Koeppel’s Banana combines a pop-science journey around the globe, a fascinating tale of an iconic American business enterprise, and a look into the alternately tragic and hilarious banana subculture (one does exist)—ultimately taking us to the high-tech labs where new bananas are literally being built in test tubes, in a race to save the world’s most beloved fruit.

In Other People's Love Letters, Bill Shapiro has searched America’s attics, closets, and cigar boxes and found actual letters–unflinchingly honest missives full of lust, provocation, guilt, and vulnerability–written only for a lover’s eyes. Modern love, of course, is not all bliss, and in these pages you’ll find the full range of a relationship, with its whispered promises as well as its heartache. But what at first appears to be a deliciously voyeuristic peek into other people’s most passionate moments, will ultimately reawaken your own desires and tenderness…because when you read these letters, you’ll find the heart you’re looking into is actually your own. Bill Shapiro is the former editor of LIFE magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.