Pair free drinks or some food with a concert, screening, book-reading, really any good-lookin’ free event, and we’ll likely tell you to check it out. But when the whole thing’s about drinks in the food? Well, two words: Rum. Cupcakes. Tonight, Jun. 22, at WORD bookstore, food writer and recipe tester Lucy Baker will read from her new book (a must-read, we say), The Boozy Baker: 75 Recipes for Spirited Sweets. The eponymous Baker will share tips, tricks and, yes, tastes, from her collection of classic desserts made all the better “with a healthy dose of alcohol.” (more…)

The Community Bookstore. Photo by Annie Wang.

Back in the day, you knew your neighborhood used bookstore. Some of us knew all three of them. Now, these dusty, quirky, often-malodorous treasure troves of recycled literature are a rare, but hearty, Brooklyn breed. But if you know where to look, you can still find a home—and even make a little cash—for your boxes of yellowed, dog-eared pages. Or you can pick up a few of someone else’s. Here’s our guide to Brooklyn’s used bookstores—from dust to dollar-value. (more…)

Author Laura Lee may have well written the Brokelyn manifesto, the recession-victims’ King James Bible and the brokester I Ching all wrapped into one. Her new book, Broke is Beautiful, is a vast, thoughtful and intensely researched tome on the value of living the cash-strapped life. We talked with Lee, a former pizza delivery-girl, fast-food worker and author of several books, about things like the distraction of plutolatry (the worship of wealth), our throw-away culture and how brokeness has always been cool. (more…)

The days of used books a-plenty in the Slope are long gone, but this weekend’s your chance to wade through low-priced dusty covers and lovingly-dog-eared pages once again. The 17th annual Park Slope Book Sale is on this Saturday and Sunday at the Park Slope United Methodist Church (493 8th St. at Sixth Ave). The sale will be huge—it really does look like a mini-Strand moves into the church’s basement for a weekend—with all books going for $0.50 to $2. There’ll also be DVDs, CDs, records, cassette tapes, audio books, games and puzzles for $4 or less. All proceeds go to the church, which, last year, made $15,000 from the sale—that’s how many books are at this thing. Hours are 8:30 to 4:30 Saturday and 12:30 to 4:30 Sunday. Donations are still being accepted until 9 p.m. tonight. More info here.

Remember when you had to wrap schoolbooks in brown paper bags to protect them (and give you a place to etch your love for HazMat/Bel Biv Devoe/Lance Bass?) You won’t be tempted to doodle on the arty covers created by the Wiliamsburg-based Book City Jackets crew for the devoted pre-Kindler in your life. They come in sets of three; limited-run Artists Editions are $15, while the type-based Reading List and Bookshelf trios are $11. We like them because 1) a well-dressed bookshelf is a sign of refined readerliness and 2) you can cleverly disguise titles like this. Buy online and get free domestic shipping on orders of $25 or more, or $5 off of orders of $50 or more (with discount code BCJ2009). Or buy them at Blue Ribbon General in Boerum Hill, or the Gifted Market in Manhattan.

Read about our new $25-and-under gift series here, and if you’re a merchant, local craftsperson or a reader with a great find for this daily post, please send photos and descriptions to faye [at] brokelyn [dot] com.

Recently, I’ve had to cut my  book buying from a few new ones a month to just a few a year. Then I  came across a new web site called www.paperbackswap.com—and it’s great. Basically, you sign up and post books you are willing to send out. For each book you send out, you get a credit you can exchange for a book from another member.  To start, if you list 10 books, you even get two “free credits.” Your only cost is the postage for the book you send out  (so don’t list the Oxford English Dictionary!) (more…)