In the coming weeks, book stores all over Manhattan will be lavished with visual arts inspired by pop culture. From the performance art of Laurie Anderson to life as art by Gilbert & George to the Project Runway stardom of fashion Professor Tim Gunn, the city offers big ideas in book form. Blended into the eye-storm is PEN World Voices, a four day mind-storm of talks by international writers who create mental pictures about Home and Away. Feast on, and please check links for details.

April 19, 7:00 pm. Performance artist, musician and writer Laurie Anderson on Night Life, her diary of a year of dreams. Its pages re-create each night's mental show as a work of art, to investigate the workings of her mind in the languages of dreams, drawings and narratives. 192 Books, 192 Tenth Avenue at 21^st Street. Please call 212-255-4022 for reservations. See also April 27.

April 21, 6 - 8 pm. Cecilia Jurado on Madame Frankie Stein. Inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly's Frankenstein, Peruvian artist Cecilia Jurado created a story in which a female scientist seeks to understand similarities between the disintegration of beauty and death. The book signing and reception is in conjunction with an exhibition that runs through April 21^st. Point of View Gallery, 638 West 28^th Street. 212-964-3936.

April 23, 7.00 pm. Nick Bertozzi on The Salon, a graphic novel. A murder-mystery ride through the art world of post-World-War I Paris, The Salon pulls readers into the minds and adventures of modern art innovators Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude and Leo Stein, Alice B. Toklas, Guillaume Apollinaire, and Paul Gaugin. McNally-Robinson Booksellers, 50 Prince St. between Lafayette & Mulberry. 212.274.1160. Illustrations, top to bottom: Frankie Stein © Cecilia Jurado; The Salon, © Nick Bertozzi; Brick Lane, © Gilbert & George, courtesy of Sonnabend Gallery.

April 26 - 29. PEN World Voices presents Home & Away
For this year's Festival, PEN World Voices brings together writers from around the world to discuss their relationships to their own and each others' homes; the political and social implications of concepts like homelands; and how literature helps us negotiate the divide between the familiar and the strange, the mundane and the exotic. Please visit the website for details about authors and events.

April 27, 7:00 pm. Performance artist, musician and writer Laurie Anderson on Night Life, her diary of a year of dreams. Its pages re-create each night's mental show as a work of art to investigate the workings of her mind in the languages of dreams, drawings and narratives. Barnes & Noble Chelsea, 675 Avenue of the Americas at 21st St. 212.727.1227.

May 1, 7:00 pm. Tim Gunn, star of Bravo's reality show, Project Runway, former Chair of the Fashion Design Department at Parsons The New School for Design and currently Chief Creative officer of Liz Claiborne, Inc., on Tim Gunn: A Guide to Quality, Taste and Style (which he co-wrote with Kate Moloney, Assistant Chair of Fashion at Parsons, and which will serve as the model for an upcoming Bravo spinoff of Runway). Barnes & Noble Chelsea, 675 Avenue of the Americas, at 21st St. 212.727.1227.

May 2, 5:30 pm. Cathie Bleck on Elemental Stories at Rizzoli Bookstore, 31 West 57^th Street. 212-759-2424. On May 3, 6 - 8 pm, there will be an opening reception for an exhibition of her work at Show Walls, The Durst Organization gallery, 1133 Avenue of the Americas at 43^rd Street.

May 7, 7:00 pm. Kim Deitch on Alias the Cat, a graphic novel; and Chip Kidd on Chip Kidd, Book One: Work 1986 - 2006. Strand Bookstore, 828 Broadway at 12th St. 212.473.1452.

May 8, 6:30 pm. Matthew Montieth on Czech Eden. Talk and book signing by photographer Matthew Montieth at Aperture Gallery, 547 West 27^th Street, 4^th floor. 212-505-5555.

May 9, 7:00 pm. Gilbert & George. The legendary British duo Gilbert & George will discuss their remarkable artistic and personal collaboration over the last thirty-five years, from their early performance pieces to their large-scale photomontages, which have attracted both fierce controversy and enormous acclaim. The event coincides with the publication of Gilbert & George: The Complete Pictures, 1971-2005 by Tate Publishing, London, and Aperture Foundation. The Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12^th Street. 212-229-5353. Free and open to the public. Also see May 12.

May 10, 6 - 8 pm Gillian Laub on Testimony. Book signing and opening reception for an exhibition of Laub's documentary study of victims of terror in Israel and Palestine at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery, 41 East 57th Street, 13th Floor. 212-888-6007.

May 12, noon - 3 pm. Gilbert & George on Gilbert & George: The Complete Pictures, 1971 - 2005. Aperture will host a book signing in conjunction with the most thorough and extensive publication on the artists' work ever assembled, published by Tate Publishing, London, and Aperture Foundation. This is a rare chance to meet these living legends and have them sign a book for you. Aperture Gallery, 547 West 27^th Street, 4^th Floort. 212-505-5555.

May 17, 5 - 7 pm. General Idea Editions 1967 - 1995. Book launch and opening reception for an exhibition of a selection of works from a major retrospective of General Idea Editions organized by the Blackwood Gallery at the University of Toronto at Mississauga. At Printed Matter, Inc., 195 Tenth Avenue at 21^st Street. 212-925-0325.