Bonnie Garmus at First Parish Church

Harvard Book Store welcomes Bonnie Garmus—New York Times bestselling author of the global sensation Lessons in Chemistry, honored with sixteen international literary awards and made into an Apple TV limited series—for a discussion of her latest novel, Peck & Peck. She will be joined in conversation by Daphne Kalotay—award-winning author of the story collection The Archivists.

Tickets include admission for one and one hardcover copy of Peck & Peck, pre-signed by Bonnie Garmus. Following the presentation, the author will personalize books (first names only).

Additional copies of Peck & Peck will be available for purchase at the event, as well as copies of Lessons in Chemistry.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FOR COUNTRY LIVING AND BOOKPAGE

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of global sensation Lessons in Chemistry returns with an irresistible, delightful, and tender literary novel set in the publishing world of 1980s New York City about a young man whose life turns upside down when he is hired by the most prestigious, secretive, and dysfunctional poetry journal in the world: the renowned Peck & Peck.

Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest.

It’s 1982, New York City. Crime is on the rise, muggings are in the streets, and Batter Gray, recent college graduate with a skill that no one wants—an “ear” for poetry—is worried about his future. While all of his friends have real jobs, he’s folding T-shirts at the Gap. As for love? No. Not unless you count Sallie Mae, the student loan tyrant. He hears from Sallie all the time.

But when Batter gets a dream job at Peck & Peck, the most prestigious poetry quarterly in the world, his life moves into the literary fast lane. Soon Batter is knee-deep in the secret war between the two Editors in Chief, the famous Peck brothers—twins and enemies—as well as being privy to the private affairs of their thirty-nine editors, whose professed mission is the same: Find originality. Reward creativity. Burn the rest.

And by burn, they mean incinerate. Because at Peck & Peck, “good” isn’t good enough, “interesting” doesn’t cut it, plagiarists aren’t tolerated, and parolees run the mailroom. Still want to submit your poem? Go with God.

Welcome to another dazzling and unforgettable novel from Bonnie Garmus. If you loved Lessons in Chemistry, you will love Peck & Peck.

Bonnie Garmus is a coffee-dependent American novelist. Her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry, was a Good Morning America Book Club Pick, a Goodreads Choice Best Book of the Year, spent nearly two years on the New York Times bestseller list and was named by Times readers as one of the top 100 books of the 21st century. Translated into over forty languages, Lessons in Chemistry was honored with sixteen international literary awards and made into an Apple TV limited series. Peck & Peck is her second novel. Photo Credit: Moya Nolan

Daphne Kalotay is the author of the fiction collections Calamity and Other Stories, shortlisted for the Story Prize, and The Archivists, winner of 2021 The Grace Paley Prize, as well as three award-winning novels: the national and international bestseller Russian Winter, which won the Writers' League of Texas Fiction Award; Sight Reading, winner of the New England Society Book Award in Fiction, and Blue Hours, a Massachusetts Book Awards "Must Read." Daphne received her M.F.A. from Boston University's Creative Writing Program, where her stories won the Florence Engel Randall Fiction Prize and a Transatlantic Review Award from the Henfield Foundation, before earning her Ph.D. in Modern and Contemporary Literature. She has received fellowships from the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, Yaddo, Bogliasco, and MacDowell and has taught literature and creative writing at Princeton University, Middlebury College, Boston University, and Harvard University. She lives in Somerville, Massachusetts. Photo Credit: Sasha Pedro