Elliott Bay Bookstore

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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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). ... (more)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.

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 ... (more)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.

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 ... (more)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 ... (more)... 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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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) ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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). ... (more)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. ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)(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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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).