Schwalbe and Maxey celebrate WE SHOULD NOT BE FRIENDS at B&N Union Square

**PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THESE GUIDELINES ARE SUBJECT TO CHANGE DUE TO CHANGING COVID-19 REQUIREMENTS**

Join on Wednesday, February 22, 2023, as we welcome bestselling author of , with Chris Maxey, as they discuss his book for a live taping of B&N's podcast. This warm, funny, irresistible memoir follows an improbable and life-changing college friendship with Maxey over the course of forty years.

Will Schwalbe and Chris Maxey will be in conversation with B&N Editorial Director and host of B&N's podcast, Miwa Messer, for this special event.

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**If you are not vaccinated, masks are strongly recommended.**

To make this event safe and enjoyable for all attendees, please read the below guidelines ahead of buying a ticket, so you know what to expect on the day. To avoid disappointment, we must stress that there will be no access to the event for non-ticketholders.

• Barnes & Noble reserves the right to make new rules and orders in its sole discretion with regard to COVID-19 at any time and any person not abiding by the Barnes & Noble directives will be refused entrance or directed to leave the premises.

• Book Admission - $31.62 (Admission + one copy of + ): **LIMITED QUANTITY AVAILABLE**: A ticket PER PERSON includes:

• • One signed, personalized copy of
  • Admission to the event space for the live podcast taping and the signing line with , Chris Maxey and 's Miwa Messer.

• $5 Gift Card Admission - $5.00 (Admission + one $5 B&N Gift Card): **LIMITED QUANTITY AVAILABLE**: A ticket PER PERSON includes:

• • One $5 B&N Gift Card.

• • Admission to the event space for the live podcast taping and the signing line with , Chris Maxey and 's Miwa Messer.

• Socially distanced photos with Will are allowed at the event.

• Masks are strongly recommended if you are not vaccinated.

• Any gifts for the author will be collected prior to the signing line.

• Due to health and safety and space limitations, those without a ticket will not be permitted into the event space.

• Please arrive by 7:00 PM in order to secure your seat in the event space. Late arrivals may only have access to standing room and may not have the opportunity to meet the author.

• No large bags will be permitted into the event.

• Ticket holders will be admitted into the event beginning at 6:30 PM the day of the event. Please have a copy of your ticket available (either printed out or on your phone) for check in.

• In order to attend this event, ticket holders should:

• • Have not had any contact in the last 14 days with a confirmed COVID-19 patient.
  • Not be subject to a quarantine order.
  • Not traveled in the past 14 days to any state or country that New York has designated as an area requiring isolation upon returning to the state.
  • At the time of the event, have not experienced in the last 72 hours any body temperature above 100 degrees Fahrenheit or any new symptoms associated with COVID-19. People with COVID-19 have had a wide range of symptoms reported – ranging from mild symptoms to severe illness. Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure to the virus. People with these symptoms may have COVID-19: fever or chills; cough; shortness of breath or difficulty breathing; fatigue; muscle or body aches; headache; new loss of taste or smell; sore throat; congestion or runny nose; nausea or vomiting; and/or diarrhea.

• Due to health and safety and space limitations, those without a ticket will not be permitted into the event space.

• All event guidelines are subject to change.

• If you have any additional questions, please call the store directly at: 212-253-0810.

Please note that Eventbrite is the only authorized dealer for this event. Each person must have a ticket to enter.

Attendees can receive refunds up to 1 day before your event start date.

If you are unable to attend the event, Barnes & Noble - Union Square will hold your book for seven days after the event. Please contact the store to arrange your pickup.

Should this event be canceled due to changing COVID-19 concerns, all customers will be refunded their ticket price to the original method of payment per Eventbrite's refund policy.

Event guidelines are subject to change.

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ABOUT WE SHOULD NOT BE FRIENDS:

By the time Will Schwalbe was a junior at college, he had already met everyone he cared to know: the theater people, writers, visual artists and comp lit majors, and various other quirky characters including the handful of students who shared his own major, Latin and Greek. He also knew exactly who he wanted to avoid: the jocks. The jocks wore baseball caps and moved in packs, filling boisterous tables in the dining hall, and on the whole seemed to be another species entirely, one Will might encounter only at his own peril.

All this changed dramatically when Will collided with Chris Maxey, known to just about everyone as Maxey. Maxey was physically imposing, loud, and a star wrestler who was determined to become a Navy SEAL (where he would later serve for six years). Thanks to the strangely liberating circumstances of a little-known secret society at Yale, the two forged a bond that would become a mainstay of each other’s lives as they repeatedly lost and found each other and themselves in the years after graduation.

From New Haven to New York City, from Hong Kong and Panama to a remarkable school on an island in the Bahamas—through marriages and a divorce, triumphs and devastating losses—We Should Not Be Friends tracks an extraordinary friendship over decades of challenge and change. Schwalbe’s marvelous new work is, at its heart, a joyful testament to the miracle of human connection—and how if we can just get past our preconceptions, we may find some of our greatest friends.

ABOUT WILL SCHWALBE:

WILL SCHWALBE has worked in book publishing (currently as an editor at Macmillan); in digital media; and as a journalist, writing for various publications, including The New York Times and the South China Morning Post. He is the author of Books for Living, The End of Your Life Book Club, and coauthor, with David Shipley, of Send. He lives in New York.

ABOUT CHRIS MAXEY:

Chris Maxey is the founder of The Island School, which he started in 1999. After graduating with a BA in history from Yale University, Chris served six years as an officer in the US Navy SEAL community. He holds an M.A. degree in Marine Studies from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. His friendship with Will Schwalbe is the subject of Will’s memoir, WE SHOULD NOT BE FRIENDS, published by Knopf.

ABOUT POURED OVER:

Poured Over is a show for readers who pore over details, obsess over sentences and ideas and stories and characters; readers who ask a lot of questions, just like Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer, a career bookseller who’s always reading. Join us here for surprising riffs, candid conversations, a few laughs, and lots of great book recommendations from big name authors and authors on their way to being big names.

Our show downloads can run as high as 17K per episode. We distribute the show via Apple, Spotify and Stitcher among other platforms, and promote via B&N national social accounts. We'll start releasing a video edition of every episode 6/4/22.

We feature a mix of authors on the show, from Pulitzer winners and other bestsellers to celebrities like Michelle Zauner, Viola Davis and Selma Blair, and debut writers. The complete show archives is here. New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional bonus episodes on Saturdays).

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