Literary Events for the Week of Sept. 20th

Another terrific week for readings and signings, but there are three events that I would give four stars or five fuzzy kittens or three bookworms up, if I did that sort of thing: Jonathan Safran Foer, author of Everything is Illuminated, is in town to promote Eating Animals; writer Charles Yu is touring How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, his brilliant, genre-bending novel; and the Seattle Public Library’s annual fall sale, also known as the day I need to be tranquilized in order to avoid bankruptcy, is this weekend.

09/20/10 5 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Tamam Kahn
Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad
“In a sustained act of spirited research and imagination, Tamam Kahn brings Muhammad’s wives and daughters out of the shadows and into the light. The women of Untold have at last found their perfect teller, in voices so gemlike and clear that one wants to chant them aloud.” -Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet

09/20/10 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Ken Armstrong
Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime and Complicity
I am not qualified to comment on books about football.

09/20/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Mae Ngai
The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America
The historian and author of Impossible Subjects presents her new book on the Chinese-American immigrant experience.

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09/20/10 7 p.m. Seattle Public Library
Susan Casey
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean
The editor-in-chief of O magazine (yes, that’s right, O as in Oprah) writes about surfing. The mind, it boggles. Her last book, The Devil’s Teeth, was about great white sharks. There’s a joke in that–I leave it to the reader to fill in.

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09/20/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Jonathan Safran Foer
Eating Animals
The acclaimed author of Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close will discuss his new book, a brilliant investigative memoir about food, ethics, and the environment. I am looking forward to this like whoa. 

09/20/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Judith Simon Prager
Verbal First Aid: Help Your Kids Heal from Fear and Pain–and Come Out Strong
Downstairs, for those who can’t get in to see Jonathan Safran Foer. No offense to Ms. Prager intended, of course, although I could tell you what my mother said when I was six and accidentally harpooned my foot with a pair of pruning shears– which, now that I think about it, proves Prager’s thesis. Damn.

09/21/10 4 p.m. Barnes & Noble U-Village
Justin Somper
Empire of Night: Vampirates Series #5
Author reading and signing.

09/21/10 6 p.m. Northeast Branch Library
Shanna Stevenson
Women’s Suffrage in Washington State
Did you know that women in Washington could vote in the 19th century? We’ve been progressive for over a hundred years. Score!

09/21/10 6:30 p.m. Eckstein Middle School
Eoin Colfer
Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex
Yes, Virginia, Disney does publish books.

09/21/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Tom McCarthy
C
“C is for carbon and cocaine, Cairo and CQ, and many other things besides. Under the elegant curve of the letter lies a fantastically detailed landscape of tiny pen-strokes that, if seen from high enough above, coalesce into a face, laughing uproariously. Tom McCarthy’s latest is terrifically stylish, acrobatic, and insidious.” – Luc Sante

09/21/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
David Gregory
Journalist, anchor, Meet the Press moderator, and all-around media guy, Gregory will discuss politics. Moderated by Jean Enersen, King 5 news anchor and apparent Immortal. There can be only one.

09/21/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Peter Fox-Penner
Smart Power
Fox-Penner is an optimist. I won’t have an opinion about this book until his “coming energy revolution” is proven to be either wishful thinking or incredible foresight.

09/22/10 4 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Charles Yu
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
The author promotes his super-terrific debut novel. Learn the meaning of “chronodiegetics” and then share with the rest of the class. I.e. Go, buy the book, get it signed before Yu is too incredibly famous and misanthropic to mingle among us plebes. Buy two, read them both. Buy a copy for everyone on your Christmas list, for your future children, for time capsules. Hug it, kiss it, and name it George.

09/22/10 6:30 p.m. Secret Garden Books
Lauren Marshall
My Beautiful Bow: An Adoption Story
Adopting Chinese babies seems to be a thing right now. Marshall presents a children’s story on the theme, which actually got me a little verklempt. “Your birth mother gave you a lovely singing voice, her Mommy tells her. I give you songs to sing.” I’m not made of stone, people.

09/22/10 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Charles Yu
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
The brilliant author crosses town for his second appearance in one day. It’s not stalking if you’re practically invited, right?

09/22/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
John Vaillant
The Tiger: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival
Annie Proulx loved this book. For some, that may qualify as sufficient recommendation. Others, not so much. I’m ambivalent about her celebrity status, a feeling which Ms. Proulx evidently shares, and that makes me think better of her than I might otherwise. None of which has anything to do with Mr. Vaillant’s book, unfortunately, but does illustrate the complex rationalizations a person might construct in order to justify skipping this reading in order to follow Yu around.

09/22/10 7 p.m. Barnes & Noble U-Village
Koren Zailckas
Fury
The second memoir from the author of Smashed.

09/22/10 7 p.m. SAM
Seattle Arts and Lectures’ Writers in the Schools
You Will Not Come Back Unchanged
SAL presents the annual anthology of the best poetry and prose from the previous year’s Writers in the Schools (WITS) program. This year’s anthology “features more than 100 students from 21 schools and hospitals in the 2009-10 WITS program, including the new program locations at Lummi Nation School in Bellingham, Blue Heron Middle School in Port Townsend, and Children’s Hospital in Seattle, in addition to students from Seattle, Kent and Shoreline.” Awesome on toast.

09/22/10 7:30 p.m. Fremont Abbey
Kate Lebo
 72 Days of Summer
A performance of poems written this summer. Wait, did we have a summer this year?

09/22/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
John Casti
Mood Matters
Professor Casti will discuss “How Our Mood Affects Our Future,” which is not as woo-woo as it sounds. Think less The Secret, and more Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. Dude, that guy knew everything.

09/23/10 5 p.m. Queen Anne Farmer’s Market
Jennifer Worick
Simple Gifts: 50 Little Luxuries to Craft, Sew & Knit
For when you spend all your money on books and are thus too poor to buy gifts and too greedy to give your books as gifts, even to people who you love dearly, despite what you told your significant other when you bought two copies of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe.

09/23/10 6 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Jasmine Alinder
Moving Images: Photography and the Japanese American Incarceration
Presented in collaboration with Densho, the Seattle-based Japanese-American history project. Includes photos by Toyo Miyatake, a camp inmate who secretly built his own camera in order to document life in an internment camp.

09/23/10 6:30 p.m. Secret Garden Books
Rita Golden Gelman
Female Nomad and Friends: Tales of Breaking Free and Breaking Bread Around the World
An essay collection from the author of Tales of a Female Nomad: Living at Large in the World. Includes recipes!

09/23/10 7 p.m. Super Jock ‘n Jill
Jason Lester
Running on Faith
Lester, a professional athlete who lost his right arm, will be reading and signing. One assumes he’s a southpaw.

09/23/10 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Rowan Jacobsen
American Terroir: Savoring the Flavors of Our Woods, Waters, and Fields
UW Bookstore promises an apple tasting at this reading and signing.

09/23/10 7 p.m. Pilot Books
Susan Rich
The Alchemist’s Kitchen
Poetry reading.

09/23/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Terry McMillan
Getting to Happy
The author of Waiting to Exhale visits Seattle to promote her new book, which features the same cast of characters as the last book.

09/24/10 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Alexandra MacKenzie
Immortal Quest
An immortal burglar, an evil mage, and the end of humankind.

09/24/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Elizabeth Rosner
Blue Nude
“Rosner’s multilayered composition is rendered in beautiful, spare prose and will resonate long after the last page.” – Publishers Weekly

09/24/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Isabel Wilkerson
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration
Held at the Northwest African American Museum, 2300 S. Massachussetts Ave. Wilkerson received the Pulitzer in 1994, while working for the New York Times.

09/25/10 10 a.m. Seattle Center Exhibition Hall
Jet City Comic Show
  Featuring work by Peter Bagge, Greg Rucka, and Jim Woodring.

09/25/10 11 a.m. Historic Seattle Bungalow Fair
Daniel Lees
Leather of the Arts and Crafts Era
Presented by Historic Seattle and Elliott Bay Book Company, it’s a pretty safe bet that the words “safe, sane, and consensual” will not be used, more’s the pity.

09/25/10 12 p.m. Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Karianne Larsen
Liar, Liar
Debut novel by three sisters. Karianne lives in the Seattle area, so will be in to sign, with at least one of her other sibs.

09/25/10 2 p.m. Seattle Public Library
Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird
Celebrate the 50th anniversary of Lee’s classic novel with a program including remarks from Seattle author and actress Stephanie Kallos and an excerpt from Scout, Atticus and Boo, a documentary by Mary McDonaugh Murphy, author of the book Scout, Atticus and Boo: A Celebration of Fifty Years of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ A complete screening of the 1962 film, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, will also be shown.

09/25/10 2 p.m. Ballard Branch Library
Laura Cooper & Kiyo Marsh
The Fishes and Dishes Cookbook: Seafood Recipes and Salty Stories from Alaska’s Commercial Fisherwomen
Recipes!

09/25/10 4 p.m. Barnes & Noble Downtown
Erik Korhel
My Tooth Fell in My Soup
Performance and author signing.

09/25/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Steven Roby & Brad Schreiber
Becoming Jimi Hendrix: From Southern Crossroads to Psychedelic London, the Untold Story of a Musical Genius
The music journalists focus on 1962-1966 in their new book.

09/25/10 9 a.m. Magnuson Park
SPL Fall Book Sale
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! There’ll be scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of libraries long, long ago. Yes, it’s the happiest time of the year.

09/26/10 3 p.m. Open Books Poem Emporium
A.J. Rathbun
In Their Cups: Poems about Drinking Places, Drinks, and Drinkers
“An anthology that sets out to be ‘a cocktail party where poets from throughout the centuries gather around the bar to spin stories, odes, and songs of sorrow and happiness, surrounded by bottles, ice, you, and your friends.’ The poets represented range from Catullus, Li Po, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Guillaume Apollinaire, John Clare, Emily Dickinson, and Paul Laurence Dunbar to Richard Hugo, Stephen Dunn, Amy Fleury, Mark Halliday, Gerald Stern, and Chase Twichell. Mr. Rathbun will be joined by several contributors, including, but not limited to, Emily Bedard, Allen Braden, and James Gurley. – Open Books

09/26/10 5 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Tao Lin
Richard Yates
A novel that is not, in fact, about Richard Yates.

09/26/10 7 p.m. Pilot Books
Debrah Morkun
Projection Machine
Poetry reading.