All Hallow's Eve is approaching and local booksellers are getting in on the spooky action. Readings this week feature zombies, ghosts, and other things that go "bump" in the night.
Also, big name draws Dinaw Mengestu and Sara Paretsky are in town, promoting their latest novels, and Lois McMaster Bujold, creator of Miles Vorkosigan, one of the most unique and interesting characters in popular SF, is touring the latest tale of interplanetary derring-do by her congenitally disabled hero.
10/18/10 6 p.m. Pilot Books
Writer's Group
"New exercises every week. Come prepared to write and discuss." Aye, Cap'n!
10/18/10 7 p.m. Seattle Public Library
Dinaw Mengestu
How to Read the Air
The author of The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears returns to Seattle to read and sign his new novel.
10/18/10 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Dorie Greenspan
Around My French Table
Recipes! Greenspan promises that home chefs can master French cooking.
10/18/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Sam Howe Verhovek
Jet Age: The Comet, the 707, and the Race to Shrink the World
The Seattle journalist traces the history of the jetliner.
10/18/10 7:30 p.m. UW Bookstore
Roger Pielke
The Climate Fix: What Scientists and Politians Won't Tell You About Global Warming
Pielke explains why the Kyoto Protocol is an example of magical thinking. Presented as part of Seattle Science Lectures, with Pacific Science Center and University Book Store. Series sponsored by Microsoft. Series media sponsorship provided by KPLU.
10/19/10 12 p.m. Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Toby Ball
The Vaults
Author signing.
10/19/10 6 p.m. Borders
Valerie Tarico
Trusting Doubt
"A former evangelist looks at old beliefs in a new light." - Borders
10/19/10 6:30 p.m. Ballard Branch Library
James Gurley & Michael Spence
The Andersonville Quilt/Crush Depth
Poetry reading about war. Good god, y'all! What is it good for?
10/19/10 6:30 p.m. UW Kane Hally, Room 120
Marion Nestle
"Food Politics: Advocacy for Social Change"
Professor and author Nestle explains how to fix our food system, as part of the UW Graduate School public lecture series.
10/19/10 7 p.m. Pilot Books
James Yeary
Poetry reading.
10/19/10 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
John Lawton
A Lily of the Field
"This crime novel is anything but conventional. Split between two converging narratives—one historical, the other procedural—it begins in Vienna, finds itself in Auschwitz, and makes its way to the New Mexican desert where the A-bomb was first tested. It then returns to Inspector Troy , where the British detective must solve a murder that somehow involves an Auschwitz survivor from the first plotline. It’s a bold strategy, but one that pays off for readers." - UW Bookstore
10/19/10 7 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
John Medina
Brain Rules for Baby
Yet another expert on something or other explains how to warp the minds of impressionable children. For adults only. (I am not smirking. I'm not!)
10/19/10 7 p.m. Seattle Public Library
Leslie Marmon Silko
The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir
The writer of Ceremony, Storyteller, and Almanac of the Dead, joins Sherman Alexie to discuss her first book in 10 years.
10/19/10 7 p.m. Benaroya Hall
Sara Paretsky
Body Work
The creator of V.I. Warshawski speaks as part of SAL's Literary Arts Series.
10/19/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Simon LeVay
Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why
LeVay contends that sexuality is biological. This is a question? Are actual queers still having this conversation? I thought that only birthers and tea-partiers were still beating this horse.
10/19/10 8 p.m. Richard Hugo House
Castalia Reading Series
Grad students read aloud.
10/20/10 12 p.m. Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Gary Corby
The Pericles Commission
A mystery set in ancient Greece! W00t!
10/20/10 6 p.m. Richard Hugo House
Write Time
Weekly drop-in writing group for teens.
10/20/10 7 p.m. Seattle Public Library
Paul Harding
Tinkers
Harding won the fiction Pulitzer this year, for Tinkers, his debut novel.
10/20/10 7 p.m. Kinokuniya Bookstore
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
Hiroshima in the Morning
The Brooklyn-based author of Why She Left Us presents her second novel.
10/20/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Sam Harris
The Moral Landscape
Harris contends that morality is biological. This should be an interesting lecture.
10/21/10 11 a.m. Borders
Cecil Kedric
Wisdom from the Streets
"A family therapist reflects on a time when he was a teenage runaway on the streets of Seattle." - Borders
10/21/10 12 p.m. Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Michael Ayoob
In Search of Mercy
"Once abducted and tortured by deranged hockey fans, Dexter Bolzjak is spending his days now in a Pittsburg warehouse, doing little. One day he meets a terminally ill alcoholic who has wants to see the love of his life before he dies. This guy, Lou, offers Dexter a small fortune to go find Mercy, an actress who vanished decades before." - SMB
10/21/10 6 p.m. Barnes & Noble U-Village
Mark Raby
The Zombie Code: Keys to Unlocking Your Undead Destiny
Undeath after the zombie apocalypse. Are you ready?
10/21/10 6:45 p.m. UW Bookstore
Margaret Wilson
Dance Lest We All Fall Down: Breaking Cycles of Poverty in Brazil and Beyond
Featuring samba band VamoLa!
10/21/10 7 p.m. Seattle Public Library
Judy Bentley
Hiking Washington's History
Trail guide from UW Press.
10/21/10 7 p.m. UW Tower Auditorium
Noam Pianko
Zionism and the Roads Not Taken
Noam Pianko is Samuel and Althea Stroum Assistant Professor of Jewish Studies and International Studies in the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. His book examines the work of historian Simon Rawidowicz, religious thinker Mordecai Kaplan, and political theorist Hans Kohn to conceive of an ethical paradigm of nationalism that was not tied to statehood.
10/21/10 7 p.m. Fremont Place Book Company
Penelope Shambly Schott
Crow Mercies
“Penelope Scambly Schott's Crow Mercies celebrates the naming of small things in order to know basic truths. An accumulative momentum rises out of the mercy of an attentive eye: not for gazing at the surface of things but looking into the heart of what matters, what keeps us fully engaged as humans. There are no shortcuts in Crow Mercies.” - Yusef Komunyakaa, author of Warhorses: Poems and winner of the 1994 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry
10/21/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Rahna Reiko Rizzuto
Hiroshima in the Morning
The Brooklyn author of Why She Left Us presents her second novel.
10/21/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Seattle Journalists
Uncovering Family Homelessness
Part of an extended journalism project to study the issue of homeless families.
10/22/10 4 p.m. Sorrento Hotel
Nassim Assefi & Amy Wheeler
Authoring Change: Activism and the Artist
The two moderate a discussion with poets Susan Rich and Carletta Wilson, and novelists Erika Bauermeister and Bharti Kirchner.
10/22/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
David Abram
Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology
"Abrams shows brilliantly how this body brings us back to Earth in a series of acutely moving descriptions of its polysensory genius. An original work of primary philosophy, it is written with verve, passion, and poetry." - Edward S. Casey.
10/22/10 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Lois McMaster Bujold
Cryoburn
Vorkosigan is back!!! Miles escapes yet another fiendish interplanetary plot, foils the bad guys, and survives to be witty another day.
10/22/10 7 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Soliloquy
Timeless Language in the Present Tense
'In partnership with producer/provocateur Michael Hebb and director Wier Harman, Town Hall and City Arts offer Soliloquy, a 75-minute presentation of great texts delivered by notable local public figures, most of whom you wouldn't necessarily think of as "performers."' - Town Hall
10/22/10 7 p.m. Pilot Books
Washington Irving
The Devil and Tom Walker
Staged reading.
10/22/10 7:30 p.m. Open Books Poem Emporium
Elizabeth J. Colen & Shane McCrae
Money for Sunsets/Mule
Poetry reading.
10/22/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Jill Lepore
The Whites of Their Eyes: The Tea Party's Revolution and the Battle Over American History
"[Lepore] takes on the Tea Party's ahistorical, anti-intellectual, anti-pluralist version of American history, and tells real stories about American history. Jill Lepore is a professor of U.S. history at Harvard and a New Yorker staff writer." - EBBC
10/22/10 8 p.m. Moore Theatre
Mike Birbiglia
Sleepwalk With Me And Other Painfully True Stories
Tickets include a signed copy of the book.
10/23/10 12 p.m. Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Ann Rule
In the Still of the Night
The local true crime writer explores a local mystery.
10/23/10 2 p.m. Borders
Erik Korhel
A Tooth Fell in My Soup
"A collection of children's poems about significant childhood events." - Borders
10/23/10 2 p.m. Secret Garden Books
Seattle Children's Theatre
Morgan's Journey
Artists from SCT visit Secret Garden to bring this story to life with activities that include puppetry and French clowning techniques. Big fun!
10/23/10 4:30 p.m. Sorrento Hotel
The Death of Fiction
New York Times best-selling author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead and Dead Languages David Shields, poet and novelist Eileen Myles (who Bust magazine called "the rock star of modern poetry") and Ross Reynolds, host of KUOW's “The Conversation,” discuss the state of contemporary fiction - and the future of literary genre.
10/23/10 6 p.m. UW Bookstore
Creepy Tales!
StoryTime for Grown-ups
Every Saturday in October, UW Bookstore staff will read classic tales of terror. And yes, of course Shirley Jackson is on the list. Sheesh.
10/23/10 6 p.m. UW Bookstore
Creepy Tales!
Every Saturday in October, UW Bookstore staff will read classic tales of terror. And yes, of course Shirley Jackson is on the list. Sheesh.
10/23/10 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Elizabeth Austen
Where Current Meet/The Girl Who Goes Alone
Austen was the 2007 Washington road show poet.
10/23/10 8 p.m. Paramount Theatre
Rainn Wilson
Soul Pancake
www.soulpancake.com - You be the judge.
10/23/10 9:30 a.m. SAAM
Christian Novetzke
The Sacred Site of the Self in Hinduism: Temple, Society, and the Yoga Body.'
Saturday University Sacred Sites of Asia Lecture Series. Grab a mocha and a croissant beforehand.
10/24/10 2 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Ken Armstrong & Nick Perry
Scoreboard, Baby: A Story of College Football, Crime, and Complicity
The Seattle Times reporters air the 2000 UW Husky program's dirty laundry.
10/24/10 3 p.m. Queen Anne Books
Book Fair
to Benefit St. Anne School
Queen Anne Books will donate 20% of every purchase to the school.
10/24/10 5 p.m. Barnes & Noble Downtown
Neil McNeill
Stranger Than Fiction: Exploring the Paranormal
Who ya gonna call?
10/24/10 7:30 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Steven Rattner
Overhaul: An Insider's Account of the Obama Administration's Emergency Rescue of the Auto Industry
Rattner tells what was going on behind the scenes, from the perspective of an insider.
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