Elliott Bay Bookstore

The weekend's readings continue with another fine poet (and novelist), Steven Nightingale, who returns to Elliott Bay to read from his third collection of sonnets, Cinnamon Theologies (Black Rock Press, the Book Arts Press at the University of Nevada, Reno).

"No matter what you do, at age forty ... The Wheels Come Off!" writes humorist Sandra Tsing Loh, who is here and making a welcome return for her newest, Mother on Fire: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting! (Crown), originally a hit, one-woman comedy performance. A familiar voice from National Public ... (mere)Radio (once fired for accidentally using the F word while on the air) and from her articles in Atlantic Monthly and The Washington Post, Sandra Loh's take on finding a school for her kindergartner and transforming herself into a community activist is both smart and hilarious.

Seattle is a good part of the setting and action for Juneau author Stuart Archer Cohen's intense, politically-charged new novel, The Army of the Republic (St. Martin's). Said Army of the Republic is a guerilla-based coalition working to save the U.S. from a corporate oligarchy manifesting itself as a ... (mere)police state. It's not unlike what's happened in countries to the south. Now, it's here ...

One of this country's most celebrated attorneys and authors, Vincent Bugliosi makes this welcome visit for his compelling and timely new book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder (Vanguard). This venerable prosecutor, first and most widely known for bringing the case against Charles Manson to ... (mere)court—written of in his acclaimed Helter Skelter—here holds George W. Bush to criminal account for the murder of 4,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq, to say nothing of the innocent Iraqi women, men, and children murdered, estimated to be at least 100,000. This is a riveting, non-partisan, no-election-axe-to-grind case, put forth plainly and in depth. It should make for a most engaging evening. Vincent Bugliosi's other books include And the Sea Will Tell, Outrage, and Reclaiming History (recently released as a shorter version paperback as Four Days in November).

We are delighted to present this evening with renowned storyteller, teacher, and scholar of mythology Michael Meade. From his Vashon Island home, and from Seattle-based non-profit organization Mosaic, he has long worked a rarely-worked line, that of working with the intimate and immediate (as simple ... (mere)as a room with a few people and a story), and, at the same time, with mythological or cosmological material that would seem to transcend time and place, at least in measure we are used to reckoning in the day-to-day. With his evenings of stories and workshops—often with particular groups such as at-risk youth, veterans, the incarcerated—he has long done this orally. (Mosaic has a great assortment of cd recordings.) Earlier this year saw the publication of a long-awaited second book, The World Behind the World: Living at the Ends of Time (GreenFire). Coming fifteen years after The Water of Life (recently revised, re-titled, reissued), this is original work in the truest sense—new and harkening to origins at the same time. Stories and myths: language, imagination, presence, attention. Kernels of awakening are in this remarkable book. "Michael Meade is a master-storyteller and story-teacher of the soul's unfolding. He addresses the mess we're in and helps us each discover the unique threads, the poetic DNA we must live out.

Guitarist Brian Welch, a founding member of the rock band Korn, struggled for years with meth addiction until, with the help of his embrace of a higher power, he was able to start living a clean and sober life. He's here today to talk about his story, told in the bestselling memoir, Save Me from Myself: ... (mere)How I Found God, Kicked Drugs, Quit Korn, and Lived to Tell My Story (newly in paper, HarperOne), and to meet his fans. He'll also be celebrating the release of a new CD.

A New York Times reporter discovers a diary hidden away in an old steamer trunk in a dumpster and, with the help of a private investigator, finds its owner, ninety-year-old Florence Wolfson, in Lily Koppel's captivating book, The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal ... (mere)(HarperCollins). Based on interviews and on diary entries, which span the years 1929 - 1934, The Red Leather Diary brings to light a delightful, nearly forgotten world.

U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, one of Congress' most vocal opponents to the Iraq War and a longstanding proponent for social justice, makes several appearances in Seattle this weekend, including this free public talk and booksigning to celebrate the publication of her book, Renegade for Peace & Justice: Congresswoman ... (mere)Barbara Lee Speaks for Me (Rowman & Littlefield). First elected to represent California's ninth congressional district in 1998, Rep. Lee was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, along with women from 150 countries as part of the international project, 1000 Women for Peace.

Up from Eugene where he teaches at the University of Oregon and edits Northwest Review is poet John Witte. He'll be reading from Second Nature (University of Washington Press), the newest (eighth) volume in the Pacific Northwest Poetry Series (selected by Linda Bierds). John Witte's third book, Second ... (mere)Nature is a book of lyric richness, much of it meditations, narratives, or monologues based on such people as Janis Joplin, and Ovid. Flora and fauna also have a central place. Our lives do, too. John Witte's poems have appeared in The American Poetry Review, Paris Review, The New Yorker, other major publications, and numerous anthologies.

A New York Times journalist and author of several major books on the internet and emergent computer issues (Cyberpunk, The Well), Katie Hafner is also an abiding music lover. In Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano (Bloomsbury), she tells the story of a particular, ... (mere)rare unique piano, the nearly blind man who tuned it (for twenty years), and the particular, rare, unique man who played it, the one and only Glenn Gould.

Helene Cooper and her family, descendents of two Liberian dynasties originating with freed slaves who left New York in 1820 to found Monrovia), fled Liberia during the violence that came in the wake of the 1980 coup d'État Her marvelous book, The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood ... (mere)(Simon & Schuster), is her family story, as well as her country's. Both stories intersect particularly as the author tries to find out what has happened to her foster sister, left behind during the conflict.

A scientist mesmerized by his erotic dancer mistress learns that she can lead him to the discoverer of a nanotechnology breakthrough in Marc Lecard's comic mystery, Tiny Little Troubles (St. Martin's/Minotaur).

From Austin, Texas, Sarah Bird pays a visit with her sharp-witted, wry new novel, How Perfect Is That (Knopf).

One of the remarkable women in the world, Somaly Mam, makes this special Seattle visit. A native of Cambodia who now divides her time between there and France, she writes of the horrific years of her early life, story which leaves one wondering at how it was survived, much less transcended and turned ... (mere)around for the vital, life-saving work she does today. In The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine (Spiegel & Grau), a book that's been a critically-acclaimed bestseller wherever in the world it's been published, she tells of an early life of sexual slavery—a life countless girls and young women in southeast Asia have been forced into. The book tells riveting stories—and itself is part of the work that Somaly Mam has put herself to, as cofounder and president of AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances) in Cambodia, and the Somaly Mam Foundation here in the U.S.

For over twenty-five years, Seattle resident and merchant (of high technology) Harry Rutstein, has studied and written about, and literally followed in the footsteps of the 13th-century traveler Marco Polo. He is here today with his sumptuous new book, The Marco Polo Odyssey: In the Footsteps of a Merchant ... (mere)Who Changed the World (Marco Polo Foundation/Bennett & Hastings). Rich with maps, illustrations, and DVD, this book is perhaps the fullest yet in retracing the amazing journey undertaken by Marco Polo almost 800 years ago—and making it pertinent, vivid, and relevant for people today.

A missing manuscript holds the key to the mysterious murder of an atheist professor but it's going to take a Jewish defense attorney and a born-again Christian detective to find it and exonerate the falsely-accused Muslim scholarship student in Larry Beinhart's politically-enlivened thriller, Salvation ... (mere)Boulevard (Nation Books). A regular Huffington Post contributor and novelist, Larry Beinhart reads from his latest foray into fiction, which has been praised by everyone from Vincent Bugliosi to Michael Lerner.

A popular author of books on pop culture whose books and regular appearances in recent years have been lively ones, Chuck Klosterman makes this welcome return with his first novel, Downtown Owl (Scribner).

New York City-based writer and former New Yorker staffer Daphne Beal reads in her debut novel, In the Land of No Right Angles (Anchor), of a young American woman making her way through Nepal.

Here from Toronto, making his way about the U.S., literally, by motorcycle is Toronto Star journalist Mark Richardson with a book about a book that countless readers have read and felt their lives changed for the reading. Zen and Now: On the Trail of Robert Pirsig and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ... (mere)(Knopf) celebrates Robert Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—published forty years ago and going strongly in readers' hands all the years—and offers its own seeking and questing. This includes some biographical tracking of Pirsig himself and then, memorably, a retracing of the same 2,700-mile journey undertaken that helped give shape and form to Pirsig's book. This includes the northern plains, the Pacific Northwest, on down to California. Along the way—years later as it is—are many of the same people encountered by Pirsig ... and the same questions he pondered, here in Mark Richardson's own evocative words.

Keeping this evening lively—wherever we are—and entirely with authors from out of the U.S., is Irvine Welsh. A terrific reader of his work—and even more, a terrific novelist, whatever he delves into—he makes this welcome return from over the Atlantic (Ireland, Scotland) to read from his newest ... (mere)novel, Crime (W.W. Norton).

Please join us for the early evening visit by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein, aka The Philosophy Guys. Friends for over fifty years, their 'crash course' in the basic concepts of western philosophy as told through jokes, has been bestseller and national phenomenon. That book, Plato and Platypus Walk ... (mere)into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes (newly in an expanded paperback, Penguin), is one part of the occasion for this appearance, with a subsequently published follow-up, Aristotle and Aardvark Go to Washington (Abrams), being the other.

Rinku Sen, founder and director of the Applied Research Center, publisher of ColorLines magazine, and a writer/activist, among other vital things, gives shape and context to the story of Morocco-born restaurant worker and activist Fekkak Mamdouh in their timely book, The Accidental American: Immigration ... (mere)and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization (Berrett-Koehler). Fekkak Mamdouh was a waiter at the Windows of the World Restaurant at the World Trade Center—he went from a victim of the 9/11 attack (losing friends and loved ones) to becoming generally suspect in the charged political climate that followed.

Steve Reifenberg, director of the regional office of Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, speaks this evening about his work in international education, and his book, Santiago's Children: What I Learned About Life at an Orphanage in Chile (University of Texas). Santiago's ... (mere)Children is based on his experience volunteering at Hogar Domingo Savio, a small Chilean orphanage. Seattle writer Lora-Ellen McKinney will facilitate the discussion.

Seattle poet Emily Warn makes this welcome return appearance to read from her beautiful, third collection of poetry, Shadow Architect (Copper Canyon). Shadow Architect is a moving, searching meditation on and through the twenty-two characters of the Hebrew alphabet, an alphabet 'mystics have long considered ... (mere)a key to divine intent, believing that God brought the world into being through speech.' Emily Warn works lucidly and allusively in her approach.

This afternoon brings another in a series of touring groups of authors published by Brooklyn-based independent publisher, Akashic Press—this time in conjunction Seven Stories Press. Seattle mystery writer Curt Colbert is currently editing a much-anticipated anthology, Seattle Noir, a forthcoming selection ... (mere)for Akashic's popular series of noir fictions set in various cities. He will read, to then be followed by Arthur Nersesian, last seen here in a popular, joint reading with Lydia Lunch. He'll read from his new book, The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx (Akashic), second in his Five Books of Moses series. Edgy, dark, and perfect this all should be for what's likely to be a rainy, weekend afternoon. The darkness is coming ...

One of our very favorite books of this past year—Seattle (part of the year) writer and journalist Kathleen Flinn's The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry: Love, Laughter, and Tears at the World's Most Famous Cooking School—has its paperback edition (Penguin) celebrated with this evening of talk, ... (mere)signing, and certain delectables.

Robert Kull, a veteran of 45 years of exploring the wild edges of North and South America, lived alone in the Patagonia wilderness for an entire year. Now ... he has written and is talking about it. He is here with his examination of the effects of deep solitude on mind and body, his thoughtfully ruminative ... (mere)book, Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes (New World Library).

This lively month comes to an eventful close with longtime BusinessWeek writer and much-read blogger (Blogspotting.net) Stephen Baker here to talk about his provocative, vital new book, The Numerati (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

The Elliott Bay Book Club meets once a month where members read and discuss contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in.

Elliott Bay is delighted to welcome DANIEL SCHORR as he presents the Seattle Public Library's 2008 A. Scott Bullitt Lecture in American History. Mr. Schorr will be discussing and signing his fascinating new book... Come to Think of It Monday, March 17 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall Seattle --FREE ADVANCED ... (mere)TICKETS ARE REQUIRED!-- This program is free and open to the public. Advanced tickets are available beginning February 15 only at Brown Paper Tickets or by calling 1-800-838-3006.

Out from Boston and making a welcome Elliott Bay return is Scott Heim, most known heretofore for his novel, Mysterious Skin, as well as another novel and a book of poetry. He reads tonight from his taut, new novel, We Disappear (HarperPerennial). This is about disappearances, missing children, present ... (mere)... and past, perhaps ... "Strange and luminous, this fascinating psychological thriller tackles questions of identity, illness and trauma ... Beautifully clear, the writing at times recalls that of Paul Auster ..." - Publishers Weekly. Scott Heim has also written for The Advocate, Village Voice, and Nerve.com.

The Translator was a LibraryThing Early Review selection.

Belgian pro cyclist Johan Bruyneel survived a near-death crash to ride again and to direct the U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team (later the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team) to eight victories with Lance Armstrong. Now working with Armstrong on the Kazakh-sponsored Astana team, Johan Bruyneel visits ... (mere)Seattle to talk about his new book, We Might as Well Win: On the Road to Success with the Mastermind Behind the Eight Tour de France Victories (Houghton Mifflin). "Johan is the Vince Lombardi of cycling." - Thomas Weisel, founder and chair, USA Cycling Development Foundation.

One of the year's big fiction debuts, in more ways than one, is that of David Wroblewski with his extraordinary coming-of-age (and more) novel, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (Ecco). "In this beautifully written novel, David Wroblewski creates a remarkable hero who lives in a world populated as much by ... (mere)dogs as by humans, governed as much by the past as by the present. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a passionate, absorbing and deeply surprising debut." - Margot Livesey. "I flat-out loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle ... Dog-lovers in particular will find themselves riveted by this story, because the canine world has never been explored with such imagination and emotional resonance. Yet in the end, this isn't a novel about dogs or heartland America—although it is a deeply American work of literature. It's a novel about the human heart, and the mysteries that live there, understood but impossible to articulate. Yet in the person of Edgar Sawtelle, a mute boy who takes three of his dogs on a brave and dangerous odyssey, Wroblewski does articulate them, and splendidly ... Wonderful, mysterious, long, and satisfying: readers who pick up this novel are going to enter a richer world." - Stephen King.

Seattle plant and tree expert (without peer, in the opinion of many) Arthur Lee Jacobson visits us today to talk about hard-to-plant areas and your plant samples for identification. Wild Plants of Greater Seattle (2nd Edition) and Trees of Seattle (both self-published) are wonderful books off seeing ... (mere)and identifying growing things in the whole of the city. Trees of Seattle provides comprehensive information about over 1400 trees that grow in our region, along with locations of thriving specimens in local neighborhoods.

Rayo Casablanca, grand prize winner in Chuck Palahniuk's 2007 "Oral History" writing contest, travels here today to read from his novel, 6 Sick Hipsters (Kensington), which is set in his hometown of Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In 6 Sick Hipsters, a heavy metal musician-turned-guidance counselor (and dealer) ... (mere)enlists his crew to stop a serial killer who is dispatching Brooklyn's uber-hipsters. "6 Sick Hipsters will stand as a testament to this pop culture moment, a period piece commemorating the golden age of subgenre-subscribing, faux-bohemian hipsterdom." - Mystery Scene Magazine.

Susanna Sonnenberg was born in London, grew up in New York, and lives now in Montana. Much happened on the way, especially in growing up as daughter to her mother. Her Last Death: A Memoir (Scribner) is an autobiographical chronicle like few others. "All mothers are con artists on occasion. But what ... (mere)if yours is a compulsive liar and a serial charmer who accuses you of seducing her boyfriend and who seduces you with cocaine—when you're twelve? Susanna Sonnenberg's was a booby-trapped childhood, of which she writes unnervingly, and with crisp control. Her pages are remarkable as much for their style as for their intelligence; the portrait is indelible." - Stacy Schiff. "An irresistible book that is shimmering with life and the portrait of a glorious, frenzied, seductive woman who of necessity has been left, along with Susanna Sonnenberg's young womanhood, behind. Her mother." - James Salter.

As the literature of ideas and imagination, Science Fiction and Fantasy simply demands discussion. Our selection this month is The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing by M.T. Anderson. Young Octavian is being raised by a group of rational philosophers known only by numbers. After he opens a forbidden ... (mere)door he learns the hideous nature of their experiments and his own chilling role in them. Set in Revolutionary Boston, M.T. Anderson's mesmerizing novel takes place at a time when Patriots battled to win liberty while African slaves were entreated to risk their own lives for a freedom they would never claim. This deeply provocative novel reimagines the past as an eerie place that has startling resonance for readers today.

Los Angeles-based art critic (Art Forum) and writer Rachel Kushner has written a wondrous debut novel, Telex from Cuba (Scribner), for which she makes this welcome first visit tonight.

Nationally-acclaimed poet, translator, and editor David Young is out from his Oberlin, Ohio base to read from his work. His nine books of poetry include, most recently, Black Lab (Knopf). David Young's translations include poets Eugenio Montale, Petrarch, with a volume of Du Fu forthcoming from Knopf ... (mere)this fall. He is also editor of the prestigious Field Poetry Series at Oberlin College Press.

Co-presented with the WASHINGTON CENTER FOR THE BOOK AT THE SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY. One of this country's most engaged—and engaging—social and political critics, Barbara Ehrenreich makes this most welcome Seattle return for her new, timely, skewering book, This Land is Their Land (Metropolitan/Holt). ... (mere)Yes, a certain class is taken to task. "Feisty, fearlessly progressive Ehrenreich offers laughter on the way to tears in 62 previously published essays that show 'the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer' ... Ehrenreich's reach is capacious, encompassing not only unemployment, health insurance, and inflation, but corporate spying, cancer studies, marriage education, 'the abstinence training business,' and 'Disney's Princess products.' Her passion, compassion and wit keep these excursions lively ... Entertaining Ehrenreich certainly is, but she raises a hard, serious question: 'How many wake-up calls do we need, people?'" - Publishers Weekly. Free admission is on a first-come, first-serve basis (no tickets). The Seattle Public Central Library is at 1000 Fourth Avenue (between Madison & Spring). Special $5 parking coupons are available for the Central Library garage on a limited basis for those attending the program. For more information, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600, the library at (206) 386-4636, or see www.spl.org.

A writer whose books include A Grief Out of Season and The Eros of Parenthood and whose taught writing in northern California, Noelle Oxenhandler, upon turning fifty, set about to find lasting love, a home to call her own, and some sort of inner tranquility. She set about this most centrally via wishing. ... (mere)In The Wishing Year: An Experiment in Desire (Random House), she chronicles a year of wishing, and how wishing seems to work in the universe.

Co-presented with EL CENTRO DE LA RAZA, with support from POETS & WRITERS. Thanks to our friends at El Centro de la Raza, we are pleased to help host this reading with highly regarded poet and professor Adrián Arancibia. Originally from Inquique, Chile, he has been writing, teaching and living in the ... (mere)U.S. A key part of the Taco Shop Poets spoken-word collective, he has also put some good words down on the page. Atacama Poems (City Works Press) is a new book of prose and poems that looks at the generations of a family working mines in Chile—the passing of life, the legacy, the weight of the past on the present. It is moving, lyrical work. This should be a good, spirited evening. For more information on El Centro de la Raza, please see www.elcentrodelaraza.org.

Maine Search and Rescue chaplain Kate Braestrup's memoir of her life as a young widow and mother, and her ordination as a Unitarian Universalist minister, Here If You Need Me: A True Story (Little, Brown), was a Booksense pick, and a favorite of Elliott Bay customers and booksellers. We're thrilled that ... (mere)she is now here with the paperback release of her luminous book.

Minnesota poet John Caddy, whose daily Earth Journal poetry and photos are enjoyed by thousands of poetry lovers on five continents, reads from a collection of poetry drawn over three decades of writing. With Mouths Wide Open: New and Selected Poems (Milkweed) also includes poems written as the poet ... (mere)recovered from a stroke.

According to Dagmar Herzog, professor of history at CUNY, there is a war on sex in America, and the Religious Right is winning. Her book, Sex in Crisis: The New Sexual Revolution and the Future of American Politics (Basic), takes on abstinence—based sex education, the evangelical 'hot monogamy' movement ... (mere)(for married heterosexuals only), and discusses the ascendance of what she terms 'the second sexual revolution.'

Elliott Bay's Drama Book Group, Stages, meets once a month to read, enjoy and discuss great plays and dramatic works, contemporary and classic, from the U.S. and around the world. Our selection this month is Defiance by John Patrick Shanley. The second in a planned trilogy of plays which he started with ... (mere)the Pulitzer Prize-winning Doubt...Defiance is set in 1971 at a military base where a lieutenant colonel and his reluctant protegé, a young African-American captain, clash over issues of race and authority within the Marine Corps, as the civil rights movement and Vienam divide the world outside. "Defiance is a tightly woven parable. It is a very rich and satisfying piece." - Village Voice. Please join us for this thoughtful discussion of Shanley's new play which will premiere in Seattle later this September at the Ethnic Cultural Theatre.

A late-night radio host discovers a disturbing secret about his stepsister in Bainbridge Island-based writer Jonathan Evison's comic novel, All About Lulu (Soft Skull Press). This is Jonathan Evison's first novel. He was previously the host of the acclaimed comedy show, Shaken Not Stirred, which twice ... (mere)was nominated for Peabody Awards.

Poet and Wallace Stegner Fellow Monica Ferrell's debut novel, The Answer is Always Yes (Dell), is a coming-of-age story of a young outcast who, in transforming himself into the promoter of the hottest club in town, becomes the obsession of an incarnated German novelist.

Co-presented with the NORTHWEST AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM. We are delighted to help present and promote this appearance by distinguished Seattle author Andrew Ward. His books have covered much terrain, but his most recent—Dark Midnight When I Rise: The Story of the Fisk Jubilee Singers and River Run ... (mere)Red: The Fort Pillow Massacre in the American Civil War—have focused on aspects of U.S. history. He is at the new Northwest African American Museum tonight with his newest, The Slaves' War: The Civil War in the Words of Former Slaves (Houghton Mifflin). "A riveting book about the most important event in our history, from the perspective of those most affected by its outcome. In this most readable and compelling of narratives, the most neglected of participants, and their ancient and honorable struggle, are in the foreground where they should be—an antidote to all the mythologizing that has over the years smothered this moral tale." - Ken Burns. Free, with admission to the Museum ($6 adults/$4 seniors & students/members free). If you have not yet visited this new museum, this is an excellent opportunity. The Northwest African American Museum is located at 2300 South Massachusetts. For more information, please see www.naamnw.org, call (206) 518-6000 or call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600.

Women vote more, volunteer more, donate twice as much to chairities, and control over half of America's total wealth, write Lisa Witter and co-author Lisa Chen. Lisa Witter is here this evening to talk about how nonprofit and advocacy organizations can improve their outreach to women without resorting ... (mere)to so-called "pink" marketing approaches, the subject of their book, The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for the Changing World—and How to Reach Them (Berrett-Koehler).

Most known for his two memoirs, The Boy He Left Behind and Sex Death Enlightenment, Mark Matousek, who's here with his new book, When You're Falling, Dive: Lessons in the Art of Living (Bloomsbury), looks at people who have endured some of life's hardest tests—and explores what they have drawn upon ... (mere)in order to survive, and even derive meaning and insight.

We are most delighted to have back over this way, from the beautiful, rugged corner of Montana that holds the Yaak Valley, one of this country's most acclaimed writers, Rick Bass. He makes this welcome return, as he has for the better part of two decades now, for an extraordinary series of works of both ... (mere)fiction and nonfiction. Tonight is occasioned by his newest book, one of the latter, Why I Came West (Houghton Mifflin).

Some good literate fun—very literate fun—is in store this evening as Jess Winfield, co-founder of the Reduced Shakespeare Company and the central figure in his own full-length show, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), reads from his rollicking debut novel, My Name is Will (12). ... (mere)Any wondering as to who might be the Will in question?

Doug Dorst's northern California-set debut novel, Alive in Necropolis (Riverhead) offers some imaginative re-presentation of what could be a formula story, taking as it does the perspective of a young police officer. But what an officer, what a town, what a story.

This month features a few authors who've made names and reputations on the stage before turning their hand to fiction (see also Amanda Boyden, August 14). With the bestselling, Edgar Award-winning author of the psychological thriller, In the Woods, Tana French steps over from her artistry as an actress ... (mere)trained at Trinity College in Dublin. Ireland, Italy, Malwai, and the U.S. have been other stops along the way. Wherever, readers are the better for her turn to fiction. This evening, Tana French is here with her newest novel, The Likeness (Viking).

J. Edward Chamberlin, a breeder of horses and professor of English at the University of Toronto, draws from archeology, biology, art, literature, and ethnography in his continuing examination of the equine/human relationship. His book, Horse: How the Horse Has Shaped Civilizations, now out in a paperback ... (mere)edition from BlueBridge Press, tells of horses both wild and domesticated, working in rodeos and expanding empires, inspiring art and providing sustenance.

San Francisco-based New York Times correspondent Matt Richtel's debut thriller, Hooked (Twelve), was first published to praise and a strong reader response a year ago. He makes this welcome visit with its paperback edition in hand, a great one for summer.

Sadia Shepard's extraordinary odyssey began with her childhood discovery of a pin bearing the name "Rachel Jacobs" in her grandmother's jewelry box, and the revelation that her devout Muslim grandmother began life as a Jewish girl, a descendent of the Bene Israel, a tiny Bombay community with roots in ... (mere)the Israel of two thousand years ago. The Girl from Foreign (Penguin Press) is the result of years of research into the history of her family and of the Bene Israel, a project made possible in part by a Fulbright scholarship.

On the road from Savannah in search of cooler climes and to read from his work is Adam Davies, here this evening with his thoroughly engaging third novel, Mine All Mine (Riverhead).

Amanda Boyden has performed as few other writers (or people on their way to becoming writers) have: as a circus trapeze artist and contortionist. The author of a much-praised first novel, Pretty Little Dirty, Amanda Boyden also performs powerfully and movingly with her newest novel, Babylon Rolling (Pantheon).

Up from northern California is jack-of-most-trades Sean Carswell, who has also been working variously in the literary fields. He is a co-founder of Gorsky Press, and regular contributor to Razorcake, and now is the author of the novel, Train Wreck Girl (Manic D). Running from Arizona across to Florida, ... (mere)this book has a bit of the haunted, and much charm as it tells the story of a bartender who goes home to face some old music, realizing, along the way, that he is older than he ever thought he would be. Also reading tonight is Mickey Hess, here from Philadelphia with his newly released memoir, Big Wheel at the Cracker Factory (Garrett County Press).

Highly regarded for her nonfiction books and the travels they chronicle—The Cruelest Journey, Four Corners—Kira Salak makes this welcome first appearance here to read from her debut novel, The White Mary (Henry Holt).

Need some inspiration, especially politically? Or wondering if anything ever changes? Come down to Elliott Bay tonight to swap stories with progressive populist writer/activist Jim Hightower. His new book, Swim Against the Current: Even a Dead Fish Can Go with the Flow (Wiley), tells the stories of activists ... (mere)who are making a difference: an 89-year-old whose walk across America kept the issue of clean elections in the public eye, a real estate developer focusing on housing for working class families, a health care organizer whose new health care system revitalized a rural community.

Among the summer releases garnering a lot of early attention, acclaimed novelist (Fierce People) and screenwriter Dirk Wittenborn's new Pharmakon (Viking) is among the foremost.

We are delighted to welcome noted novelist, poet, and essayist Linda Hogan back to Elliott Bay this evening. She is here from her Colorado home with a much-anticipated—and regionally germane—new novel, People of the Whale (W.W. Norton).

Internationally renowned photojournalist Alison Wright—three books of photography to her credit, and work published in the major magazines that publish photos—was critically injured in a bus accident in Laos. Not expected to survive, much less 'recover,' she set herself a seemingly impossible goal: ... (mere)to be well enough again to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. Learning to Breathe: One Woman's Journey of Spirit & Survival (Hudson Street) is the insightful, inspiring account of what sustained her in recovering and rebuilding her life.

Novelist (famine), screenwriter, and director Todd Komarnicki visits from New York with his newest novel, the tough, allusive War (Arcade).

n Nature Ethics: An Ecofeminist Perspective (Rowman and Littlefield), Marti Kheel explores the underlying worldview of nature ethics, offering an alternative ecofeminist approach. Seeking to heal the divisions between the seemingly disparate movements and philosophies of feminism, animal advocacy, environmental ... (mere)ethics, and holistic health, Kheel proposes an ecofeminist philosophy that underscores the importance of empathy and care for individual beings as well as larger wholes.

Carly Milne's story of recovery from incest and rape, and the rebirth of her sexual self are at the heart of her memoir, Sexography: One Woman's Journey from Ignorance to Bliss (Phoenix Books). Working to counteract the fear and shame that many survivors fear, she has served on the Rape and Incest National ... (mere)Network speakers' bureau, encouraging other women to share their experiences and find peace. Carly Milne's writing has appeared in Glamour, Bitch, Maxim, and Best American Sex Essays. For more on her work, see www.carlymilne.com.

An engaging evening is at hand as Seattle playwright, teacher, and writer Pamela Sackett hosts the publication of her newest volume of audition monologues, Two Minutes to Shine, Book 5 (Samuel French). As has happened with past such evenings, a number of Seattle performing luminaries will be on hand ... (mere)to show what these monologues are made of. Among those expected this evening are: David Silverman, Jacqueline Moscou, Michael J. Loggins, Molly Lyons, Sue Ellen Katz, NS Frederick Molitch, with others possibly on tap. $5 recommended donation at the door (proceeds going to the performers). This should once again be fun.

From Montreal, where he runs the Laboratory for Musical Perception, Cognition, and Expertise at McGill University, we are delighted to welcome bestselling author, research scientist, and former record producer/musician Daniel J. Levitin. His hugely popular This Is Your Brain on Music is now followed ... (mere)by The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (Dutton).