Tina Brown, Harold Evans, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux hosted a party on Wednesday for Jonathan Mahler’s book “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning: 1977, Baseball, Politics, and the Battle for the Soul of a City” (FSG). Seen were Candace Bushnell, author Jonathan Rosen, Molly Jong-Fast, Leonard Lopate, nonfiction writer Ed Epstein, businessman Alan Patricof, Susan Cheever, New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus, comedian Joe Franklin, Commissioner Raymond Kelly, novelist Kevin Baker, and FSG president Jonathan Galassi.

Looking around at the relatively young crowd, Mr. Evans wondered if many of those present were alive in 1977. He joked about 1970s figures such as Reggie Jackson and Bella Abzug RSVPing to the party but not in attendance.

Peering into the past, Mr. Mahler told the crowd about some notable events on that day in 1977: There had been a big protest in Times Square against the many porn theaters, one of which was playing “Teenage Masseuse.” The Concorde had been recently introduced and was trying to land at John F. Kennedy International Airport. It faced a large protest in Queens from backyard barbecuers who objected to the noise, Mr. Mahler said. Reflecting on the present moment, Mr. Mahler said the Concorde has been grounded and Time Square was no longer an erogenous zone, so those angry New Yorkers seemed to have gotten their wish.

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CARNAHAN AND CARNY LIFE

Joy and Jonathan Santlofer co-hosted a party downtown on Friday with Yaddo, the artists’ retreat, for Matthew Carnahan’s book “Serpent Girl: A Novel” (Villard), which explores the dark depths of carnival life. Mr. Carnahan said the novel was about broken things and broken people having the opportunity to become whole.

Random House Publishing Group executive editor in chief Daniel Menaker told The New York Sun that the language of Mr. Carnahan’s first novel is “severe and controlled” but its “subject is so extreme.” Mr. Menaker said the book title was almost published as “Sex With the Serpent Girl.”

The author and others read brief selections from the book. Actor Mike Myers reprised his Shrek impersonation. (And will do so again in 2007, when the good-natured ogre will appear in “Shrek 3”.) Mr. Myers proceeded to read a section of the book on peyote.

In addition to writing another novel, Mr. Carnahan is working on two television pilots, one about beauty and identity, and another for FX network called “Dirt,” about an unholy alliance between a schizophrenic paparazzo and an actor on the skids, he said.

Others at the party included Yaddo president Elaina Richardson, a former editor in chief of Elle, and author Susan Cheever. Co-host Mr. Santlofer’s next book is called “The Killing Art: A Novel of Suspense” (William Morrow).

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QUIXOTIC EVENING

The state of our culture is not so bad, said the director of public programs at the New York Public Library, Paul Holdengraber, when 500 people come out on a warm Saturday night for a celebration of the 400th anniversary of Cervantes’ “Don Quixote.” Writers came to pay tribute from as far as Trieste (Claudio Magris) and as close as Brooklyn (Paul Auster), inaugurating the first evening of the New York Festival of International Literature, sponsored by PEN American Center.

The evening was co-sponsored by the Instituto Cervantes and the Centenario del Quijote de Castilla La Mancha.

“I’m in the position of having to make the Oscar speech,” PEN American Center president Salman Rushdie said, proceeding to thank the various sponsors and individuals who made the evening possible. “They do the work,” he said. “I’m just the pretty face.”

Mr. Rushdie spoke about how eager people were to help with the New York Festival of International Literature. Everyone, he said, wanted such a festival to take place. Referring to the movie “Field of Dreams,” Mr. Rushdie said, “In the immortal words of Kevin Costner: ‘If you build it, they will come.'” He then added, to audience mirth, “That’s a first for me, quoting Kevin Costner.”

Speaking on “Don Quixote and the Real Thing,” Colombian writer Laura Restrepo talked about “Don Quixote” and “Hamlet” having protagonists who were both crazy or pretended to be so. Discussing how the concept of the madman had become a hallmark of modernity, Ms. Restrepo asked, “Why should modern man end up recognizing himself in the words of a lunatic?”

Margaret Atwood spoke on the centuries-long afterlife of “Don Quixote.” She likened the legacy of Elvis (“his appearances in parking lots and so forth”) to that of Don Quixote, who has been the subject of refrigerator magnets, posters, and even ladies’ cowboy boots.

Antonio Munoz Molina said that among other things, “Don Quixote” has taught us: “you should have the courage to desire, but also the shrewdness to look very carefully at things so as not to get lost among the mirrors of your imagination.”

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LITERARY LIGHTS

Dutch author Cees Nooteboom, author of “Roads to Santiago: A Modern-Day Pilgrimage Through Spain” (Harcourt) was seated Saturday evening in the Algonquin Hotel main lobby, having recently arrived in New York for the New York Festival of International Literature.

Closer toward the front of the room, the Dorothy Parker Society of New York hosted their invitational cocktail party with Benchley and Fitzgerald devotees. Seen were blogger Brian Diedrick; Angel Jaranillo, who has translated Robert Benchley’s writing into Spanish; and Colette Silvestri, who is working on a musical about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda.

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KNICKKNACKS

Songwriter Denise Rich hosted a book party last week at her house for Erin Zammett, cancer survivor and author of “My (So-Called) Normal Life: How I Learned to Balance Love, Work, Family, Friends … and Cancer at 23” (Overlook). At the event, cosponsored by Glamour magazine, Ms. Zammett said, “I’m someone who has always dreamed of her book party. I never thought my book would be about cancer, but a book is a book. And Denise, in my dreams my book party was never this nice!”