Weekend reading, pre-festival edition

PEN.org and Words Without Borders have made several works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by World Voices authors available online. So start reading now; then, next week, you can introduce yourself to the authors whose work you especially loved.

Read fiction and essays by Sofi Oksanen, Atiq Rahimi, Andrzej Stasiuk, and Miguel Syjuco before going to “Readings from around the Globe” (Wednesday, 8 pm, 92nd Street Y) which also features Mohsin Hamid, Yiyun Li, Salman Rushdie, Patti Smith, and others.

Before Thursday’s conversation about Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Elizabeth Hardwick (“New York Stories,” 7 pm, Morgan Library), you’ll want to read an excerpt from Quim Monzó’s book, Gasoline, which is set in New York; Monzo is participating in the conversation along with Darryl Pinckney, Roxana Robinson, Colm Tóibín, and Edwin Frank. (You might also check out Robinson’s short story “The Trade” in PEN America 11: Make Believe.)

If you choose instead to attend Eshkol Nevo’s conversation with Michael Orthofer (also Thursday at 7 pm, Center for Jewish History) read an excerpt from Nevo’s Homesick. Or, if you’re headed to “Weather Report,” Thursday’s conversation about global warming (8 pm at the Metropolitan Museum), you can read pieces on the subject by participants James Hansen and Bill McKibben.

Finally, before you go to Saturday’s conversation about war, read Deborah Amos on “The Eclipse of the Sunnis.”