Reading, Signings, and Other Literary Events for the Week of February 28, 2011

This week, Nancy Pearl wins everything and Elliott Bay Books celebrates; Patrick Rothfuss is in town to sign his highly anticipated sequel The Wise Man’s Fear; geeks and freaks descend en masse for Comicon; and foreign affairs and policy dominate, with conversations about Afghanistan, China, and Muslim-Americans, among other topics, on the schedule.

2/28/2011 12:05 p.m. Seattle Public Library
Thrilling Tales
Story Time for Grown-Ups
Monday lunch hour series at the Central Library.

2/28/2011 6 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Nancy Pearl
Awards Celebration
The celebrity librarian (!) has recently won Library Journal’s Librarian of the Year, as well as a lifetime achievement award from the PNW Booksellers Association (PNBA), because she is amazing and wonderful. Join Elliott Bay and her publisher, Sasquatch Books, for adult beverages and edibles. Ms. Pearl will also speak.

2/28/2011 6 p.m. Pilot Books
Writer’s Group
  New exercises every week. Come prepared to write and discuss. Aye, Cap’n!

2/28/2011 7 p.m. Northwest African American Museum
Dolen Perkins-Valdez
Wench
“A heartbreaker, full of understated tragedy and lyrical prose … Perkins-Valdez has woven a devastatingly beautiful account of a cruel past.” – People

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2/28/2011 7 p.m. UW Johnson Hall, Room 102
Tim Johnson
Tragedy in Crimson: How the Dalai Lama Conquered the World but Lost the Battle with China
“As the Dalai Lama enters the twilight of his life, what is the future for Tibetan leadership, the Tibetan people, and the Free Tibet movement? What does China’s rise on the global stage mean for the Tibetan people and the future of Tibetan culture? As China rapidly emerges as the world’s newest superpower, what can we learn from China’s approach to Tibet?” – UW

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3/1/2011 6:30 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Li Miao Lovett
In the Lap of the Gods
Book club meeting. “A moving farewell to the old, more humane way of life as China and all the world become technologized and globalized. An invaluable book.” – Maxine Hong Kingston

3/1/2011 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Patrick Rothfuss & Nathan Taylor
The Wise Man’s Fear
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! The Name of the Wind, Rothfuss’s debut novel, is a fabulously entertaining tome of epic fantasy. The sequel releases tomorrow and I’m so excited to read it that I probably won’t sleep for as long as it takes me to finish. I read his first novel twice, starting over immediately after finishing it. The wait for the third and final volume will probably kill me.

3/1/2011 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Susan Conley
The Foremost Good Fortune
“A story of resilience, told with grace and humor, and with Chinese accents.” – James Fallows

3/1/2011 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
T.C. Boyle
When the Killing’s Done
“[A] dramatic showdown between two factions of environmentalists, each utterly convinced of their beliefs in preserving the islands and the natural world.” – UW

3/1/2011 7:30 p TS McHugh’s
Thea Cooper
Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle
Field trip! More information available at http://www.pacsci.org/sciencecafe/.

3/1/2011 8:30 p.m. Rebar
Seattle Slam
Poetry Reading
Competitive poetry open mic.

3/2/2011 5 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Sonya Renee Taylor
A Little Truth on Your Shirt
Part of a Seattle visit highlighted by her midday appearance at Seattle Central Community College’s Women’s Program Noon Lecture Series.

3/2/2011 6 p.m. Richard Hugo House
Write Time
Weekly Series
A drop-in writing circle for teens, facilitated by the Hugo House writer-in-residence, Karen Finneyfrock.

3/2/2011 6:15 p.m. Ballard Branch Library
Great Decisions 2011
The Horn of Africa
The fourth of six talks sponsored by the Foreign Policy Association.

3/2/2011 6:30 p.m. Museum of History and Industry
Wendy Kopp
One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way
Truth in advertising.

3/2/2011 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Matthew Inman
Five Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth (and Other Useful Guides)
Another book from a blog, TheOatMeal.com leaps into print.

3/2/2011 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Wesley Stace
Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer
“A tremendously imaginative novel that’s really several novels in one, for beneath its sparkling surface there are some very murky depths. A wonderfully disquieting read.” – Sarah Waters

3/2/2011 7:30 p.m. Benaroya Hall
Tracy Kidder
Seattle Arts and Lectures
Seattle Arts and Lectures presents Tracy Kidder, the Pulitzer Prize- and National Book Award-winning author of numerous books.

3/3/2011 12 p.m. Seattle Mystery Bookshop
Chelsea Cain
The Night Season
A series of drownings linked to flooding are discovered to be murder, not accidents.

3/3/2011 5 p.m. Barnes & Noble Downtown
Alice Ripley
Next to Normal
Music in a bookstore, what a novel idea!

3/3/2011 5 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Talk of the Town
Wine, Dine, and Fine Conversation
Nothing at all to do with the New Yorker, this is Town Hall’s seventh annual fundraiser. “10 intimate dinner parties prepared by 10 renowned chefs in 10 wonderful homes filled with notable local personalities. After a cocktail reception and brief program at Town Hall beginning at 5 pm, guests depart for simultaneous dinner parties beginning at 7 pm in exclusive homes throughout the city. Each dinner features a pair of celebrity Seattleites whose accomplishments inspire stimulating and provocative conversation around the “Talk of the Town”—a single topic discussed at each party.” – Town Hall Seattle

3/3/2011 7 p.m. Broadway Performance Hall
Bing West
The Wrong War: Grit, Strategy, and the Way Out of Afghanistan
“West offers a bleak assessment of the war in Afghanistan … Combining policy analysis with on-the-ground accounts of fighting observed during three extended visits in Afghanistan during the past three years, West argues that U.S. military leaders have been wrongheaded and continually failed to face realities … A devastating critique of U.S. foreign policy regarding a seemingly endless war.” – Kirkus Reviews

3/3/2011 7 p.m. UW Bookstore
Susan Glenn & Naomi Sokoloff
Boundaries of Jewish Identity
A discussion of short fiction by celebrated Arab-Israeli writer Sayed Kashua.

3/4/2011 10 a.m. Washington State Convention Center
Emerald City Comicon
runs through 03/06/2011
Comics fans descend on the Emerald City, once more.

3/4/2011 7 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Chiwan Choi & Don Mee Choi
The Flood / The Morning News is Exciting
Joint reading.

3/4/2011 7 p.m. Pilot Books
Jamie Iredell & Mike Young
The Book of Freaks / Look Look! Feathers
Pilot Books has a new events page, which makes me very happy. Go check it out.

3/4/2011 7:30 p.m. Open Books Poem Emporium
Frances McCue & Friends
“The Lilt, the Toppling Over”
Look, a sandwich. I’m eating it.
I pick it up and put it down.
And then: Here is a car.
I fold my legs into it,
pull the wheel to my chest.
Farther, there is a shop.
There will be reason to speak.
Think of a seizure.
Between gasps, just flashes.
I pressed the sandwich
to the roof of my mouth.
I touched the car’s velvet
ceiling. Up ceiling.
I’m underneath. I keep it up.

3/5/2011 9:30 a.m. SAAM
Ali Igmen
“Crafting Culture in Soviet Central Asia: Writers, Actors and Ordinary People.”
Saturday University World Little Known: Central Asia, Its Histories and Place in Today’s World Lecture Series

3/5/2011 2 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Jennifer Hahn
Pacific Feast: A Cook’s Guide to West Coast Foraging and Cuisine
Sixty recipes and the author is expected to bring samples.

3/5/2011 4 p.m. Green Lake Branch
PoetsWest
Open Mic
Open mics the first three Saturdays in March.

3/5/2011 5 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Robert Bringhurst
Selected Poems & A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World
“Once in a while a book appears that changes the way we see things. This is such a book. Bringhurst reclaims an extraordinary body of literature and teaches us to hear its sinewy, haunting music. In the process, he rewrites North American literary history and lays a depth charge in the assumptions of cultural anthropology. Rigorous and enchanting, A Story as Sharp as a Knife is a superb adventure of the mind and imagination.” – Dennis Lee

3/5/2011 7 p.m. Pilot Books
Jeremy Halinen
What Other Choice

3/5/2011 8 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company 
Ron Tanner & Jessica Anya Blau 
Drinking Closer to Home
A joint reading by two visiting novelists.

3/6/2011 2 p.m. Elliott Bay Book Company
Jack Remick
Blood
“Blood does not read so much as it pours forth, lava-hot, like a force of nature. Mitch the killer, collector of ears, Mitch the lover, writing in prison on toilet paper, opens an artery in the American psyche.” – Priscilla Long

3/6/2011 5 p.m. Town Hall Seattle
Muslims for Loyalty
“Muslims stand up for Loyalty to America”
A conference hosted by Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA — the oldest American-Muslim organization — which seeks to spread the message of loyalty to the U.S., debunking the myth that Muslims cannot pledge allegiance to their faith as well as to America.