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Bonnie Garmus, "Peck & Peck"

Wed Oct 14, 2026 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 67 Church Street, Montclair, 07042

Bonnie Garmus, "Peck & Peck"

Wed Oct 14, 2026 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 67 Church Street, Montclair, 07042

Watchung Booksellers welcomes Bonnie Garmus, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller and global sensation Lessons in Chemistry, for the launch of her irresistible, delightful, and tender literary novel, Peck & Peck. Ms. Garmus will be in conversation with New York Times journalist Kate Zernike, author of The Exceptions.

This event will be held at UUCM, 67 Church Street, Montclair, NJ 07042. Tickets are $40 and include a signed copy of Peck & Peck. Ms. Garmus will personalize copies after the event.

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Set in the publishing world of 1980s New York City, a young man's 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.

Location

Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 67 Church Street, Montclair, 07042