Small packages

Opening the new literary journal Tuesday; An Art Project is like unwrapping a present -- except there's no tape.

With a clever sequence of folds, the ends of the journal tuck up into each other. Inside is a packet of creamy white cards with poems, photographs, and prints that are beautiful to behold. The letterpress printing, though, comes at a price: $13.

The editor of the biannual journal is Jennifer S. Flescher, a bookmaker, poet, and photographer living in Arlington.

Flescher will join editors from a dozen other local literary journals tomorrow for Brookline Booksmith's second annual Small Press Night.

The evening begins at 6 p.m. at Great Scott, 1222 Commonwealth Ave., Allston. Contributors will read from their work, and editors will discuss the dos and don'ts of getting published. Tickets are $5.

Even the manager of the new Barnes & Noble at Emerson College acknowledges that it's tiny.

The entire store is probably no bigger than the fiction section of its cousin across town, Barnes & Noble at Boston University, said Ted Fannon, manager of the new bookstore at 114 Boylston St.

Yet he hopes to satisfy tourists and neighborhood residents as well as Emerson faculty and students because he has more freedom to order titles than most of the other 600 college bookstores owned by Barnes & Noble College Booksellers.

The Emerson store held its grand opening last month and kicked off a reading series that will host Alice Quinn, poetry editor of The New Yorker, at 7 p.m. on March 22.

Irish-Americans from New England play a prominent role in "The Book of Irish American Poetry: From the Eighteenth Century to the Present," but editor Daniel Tobin also features poets of other ethnicities, such as African-American Paul Laurence Dunbar , who paid homage to John Boyle O'Reilly for memorializing Crispus Attucks, a black sailor who died in the 1770 Boston Massacre.

A dozen Irish-American poets will join Tobin, an Emerson faculty member, on St. Patrick's Day to celebrate the new collection. The readings begin at 8 p.m. at Emerson Umbrella, 40 Stow St., Concord, followed by a reception at the Walden Grille. Tickets are $10.

"Valentine: A Love Story," by Chet Raymo (Cowley)

"When the Light Goes," by Larry McMurtry (Simon & Schuster)

"Exile and the Kingdom," by Albert Camus ; new translation by Carol Cosman (Vintage)

Mary McHale of Fox Tale Books, in New Durham, N.H., recommends "Ignorance, Confidence and Filthy Rich Friends: The Business Adventures of Mark Twain, Chronic Speculator and Entrepreneur" (Wiley): "Peter Krass has written a fascinating book detailing a side of Twain few know about -- his aptitude for business. This one is reader-friendly and lots of fun." McHale's pick is being featured this month in independent bookstores as part of the Book Sense marketing campaign.

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com