AC Institute Launch Party @ 16 East 48th Street, 4th Floor / September 23, 2015 / 6:30 p.m.
AC Institute christens its new space in midtown Manhattan. The event will feature a short reading
by The Z Collection author Jan Herman followed by music from accomplished cellist Hamilton Berry.
Publisher’s note:
The Z Collection, a “time capsule made of words,” is a fascinating and thoroughly entertaining collection of 21 short vignettes. It shines a personal and penetrating light on a score of mainstream and countercultural figures, among them William Burroughs, Norman Mailer, Mary Welsh Hemingway, Paul Theroux, John Cheever, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, William Styron, James Michener, Abbie Hoffman, Frederick Forsyth, E.L. Doctorow, and Nelson Algren. As someone enviably close to the originators of the Beat Generation as well as post-Beat and Fluxus writers and artists, author Jan Herman offers invaluable insights and historic perspective gained from his involvement in the avant-garde underground of the 1960s. Including an essay on his own life titled “My Adventures in Fugitive Literature Or, How I got to San Francisco, clerked at City Lights, started a little magazine, published William Burroughs, and landed in Vermont as Editor of Something Else Press.” The book’s title refers to Harvard’s so-called Z closet, where treasures like Charles Dickens’s weaponized walking stick and Emily Dickinson’s entire writing room are stored.
Postscript: Nov. 8 — The Z Collection is available from the U.S. distributor RAM, and from the European distributor Idea Books. In San Francisco, City Lights Books carries it in its store at 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94133. (Tel: 415.362.8193) In Manhattan, the Strand Bookstore carries it at 828 Broadway, NY 10003. (Tel: 212.473.1452) In Los Angeles, Skylight Books carries it at 1818 N. Vermont Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90027. (Tel: 323.66.1175) Amazon has it listed (as temporarily out of stock to be delivered when available). If you prefer to order online via Amazon, from book sellers who actually have it in stock, you can do so by clicking this link.
On display at the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan.
On display at City Lights Books in San Francisco.
