The Brooklyn Paper has the story of Lethem's final reading of his new book, Chronic City, which was selected by the NY Times as one of the ten best books of the year. Here's an excerpt (from the BP story not from Chornic City).

Only 13 were left — and certainly not standing — when the all-out
war between Jonathan Lethem and his new novel ended at 4:11 am on
Saturday.

It might never have come to this — a nine-hour marathon reading — had the Bard of Boerum Hill not failed so dismally in
his promise read the entirety of his new 467-page book, “Chronic City,”
on eight successive nights between Oct. 16 and Dec. 4 at BookCourt —
his home turf.

Even after adding an extra session last week at Word bookshop in Greenpoint, Lethem still had roughly half of the doorstopper to go.

Still, he started promptly at 7 pm, gleam in his eye and a few jokes
up his sleeve. He said he timed the reading himself — though he was
smart enough to not reveal the estimated time of completion.

By 7:40 pm, he was already pouring sweat like Jerry Lewis on Labor Day — and he was losing fans fast…