Set against the landscape of Riverside Park and Manhattan, Laura Jacobs’ The Bird-Catcher (St. Martins, 2009) is the “compulsively readable story” (Elizabeth Kendall) of Margret Snow, who finds that birding and memory are intertwined as she struggles with an unexpected loss. Jacobs is the author of Women About Town and an award-winning journalist for Vanity Fair.

In The Family Man (Houghton, 2009), a screwball New York comedy from Elinor Lipman, “an Austen-like stylist” (Washington Post Book World), a man reconnects with his long-lost stepdaughter and finds his life turned upside down. Lipman is the author of eight novels, including Then She Found Me, later made into a movie.

Mad. Sq. Reads is Madison Square Park's free outdoor reading series featuring novelists, memoirists and non-fiction writers. The program runs Thursday evenings at the Farragut Monument, mid-park at 25th Street. Each program lasts about one hour with a question and answer session and book signings.

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