Lots of great new books in the store this month, including the one in the photo above: I Lego N.Y. You may remember Christoph Niemann's fantastic homage to the many details of our fair city on the NYT's Abstract City blog in February, but if not, you can view it here.

If you've been reading our picks of the week at Largehearted Boy, you know that one of our favorite books of the last month has been debut novel Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes. This is just one of the best novels you'll read this year. It's long and grim (much like its setting, the Vietnam War) and absolutely worth reading to the end. It took thirty years of work and a bizarre set of coincidences for the book to reach publication, so think of it as the book equivalent of a finely-aged whiskey. We hope you'll read it soon.

We also hope you'll buy it from us so that you can help us join a campaign that our fellow booksellers (and lovers-of-Matterhorn) at Maria's Bookshop in Durango, Colorado, began. They've challenged bookstores across the country to donate a portion of the sale of each copy of Matterhorn to their local chapter of Disabled American Veterans, and we're taking them up on that challenge. Whether you buy it in the store or online, we will donate $2 for each copy of Matterhorn we sell. Spread the word!

Did you know it's National Poetry Month? Of course you should celebrate with some poetry. But if you prefer the familiarity of prose, we recommend checking out Poems Out Loud, which will be serializing a chapter from the new novel Nothing Happened and Then It Did by Jake Silverstein in eight parts in April. (The chapter is about a poetry contest in Reno, and if that's not enough to pique your interest, then what would be?)

Finally, we've got a contest for all of you, from fashionista readers to those who wear the same pair of jeans every day. We've been reminding you for the last few months that thanks to our new website, you can shop WORD whenever you want---and wearing whatever you want, with no regard for social convention. So now we want to know: What do you wear when you shop WORD online?

Thanks to our friends at Scribner, we have two copies of the just-released book The Thoughtful Dresser: The Art of Adornment, The Pleasures of Shopping, and Why Clothes Matter, by Linda Grant, to give to our favorite submissions! We'll give one book and one of our fashionable new green jute tote bags to the best answers to our question. All photos must be PG-13. Bonus points will be given to those who manage to incorporate the wares of Greenpoint businesses into their pictures. Send jpegs to info@wordbrooklyn.com by 4/23 to be entered.

Don't forget this month's book club, Sunday morning running group and new Monday evening writers' group. All our events are listed here and you can RSVP for many of them on Facebook here. RSVPs are encouraged but not required. See you this month at the store!

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