Elliott Bay Bookstore

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).

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.

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 ... (more)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 ... (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.

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 ... (more)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, ... (more)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 ... (more)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: ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)by The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature (Dutton).

An African American journalist wit roots both in Minnesota and the Black Panthers, Frank Wilderson III was also one of only two black American members of the African National Congress. He helped the ANC coordinate propaganda and launch psychological warfare, while also teaching in South African universities. ... (more)He talks this evening about his book, Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid (South End).

After over two decades of serving as a chaplain to cancer patients and families, Debra Jarvis was diagnosed with Stage II breast cancer. She shares her insights and those of many of her patients and colleagues in her memoir, It's Not About the Hair: And Other Certainties of Life and Cancer (newly in ... (more)paper, Sasquatch). Debra Jarvis, an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, is the general oncology chaplain for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.

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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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: ... (more)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 ... (more)(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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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, ... (more)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 ... (more)(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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)(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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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 ... (more)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, ... (more)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 ... (more)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).

Benjamin Parzybok's delightful novel, Couch (Small Beer Press), was a book passed from hand to hand by Elliott Bay booksellers this fall, and we're thrilled that the author is making his way here tonight. In Couch, a computer geek and a clairvoyant are stuck with a huge, orange couch that they can't ... (more)seem to get rid of, not even when it's hit by a train or falls into the ocean. Sound familiar?

It has been a full decade since Wally Lamb, author of the acclaimed, bestselling novels She's Come Undone and I Know This Much is True, has written a book of his own. The wait and anticipation are over, as he is here with the just-released The Hour I First Believed (HarperCollins). Set mostly in Colorado ... (more)and of a recent time, this is a book that tells a big family story, but in doing so also takes readers through one of the more tragic, harrowing occurrences of the past twenty years. It does so with telling, moving effect.

We are delighted to welcome back a true bardic presence to Elliott Bay, this in the form of Icelandic American and Minnesotan American poet, memoirist, traveler, and musician Bill Holm. He is here with the paperback of his most recent book, The Windows of Brimnes: An American in Iceland (Milkweed), a ... (more)delightful account of life and adventures spent at a cabin kept near Hofsós, Iceland.

Seattle poet, editor and publisher (Wood Works) Paul Hunter has long been one of the essential poets at work in the Pacific Northwest. Author of eight collections of his own poetry over a period spanning back almost forty years, he is here tonight to read from his newest, Come the Harvest (Silverfish ... (more)Review).

The Dog House, Rosellini's 4-10, Ruby Chow's, Twin Tepepees, and the Merchant's Café are just some of the many restaurants, cafés, and watering holes fondly remembered in Robin Shannon's Seattle's Historic Restaurants (Arcadia Publishing). Some—like Canlis, Ivar's, and Merchant's Café—are still ... (more)with us, but most are fond memories. Robin Shannon speaks today and shares some of the over 200 historic images from postcards, photographs, advertising and the author's historic collection of menus and other restaurant ephemera.

Novelist, translator (from the Arabic), and blogger (randajarrar.com) Randa Jarrar makes this welcome first appearance here to read from her debut novel, A Map of Home (Other Press). This lively coming of age story ranges from childhood in Kuwait, adolescence in Egypt (after fleeing Iraq's 1990 invasion), ... (more)and then Texas, telling tales both humorous and harrowing along the way.

One of this country's foremost novelists and poets, and an artist of note, Rikki Ducornet has recently taken up residence here in the Pacific Northwest. She makes this welcome return to Elliott Bay—now only a ferry ride and short drive from home—to read from her new book of stories, The One Marvelous ... (more)Thing (Dalkey Archive). Illustrated by T. Motley, this volume is the winner of a prestigious Academy Award, given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

A writer who has been visiting and delighting Elliott Bay audiences for almost twenty years now, Lawrence Weschler makes this welcome return this evening. Anything he has written and held forth about has been fascinating—few in nonfiction annals have written as variously and widely as Ren Weschler ... (more)has. The 2007 recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism for Everything That Rises: A Book of Convergences, he is here with two books on art and artists. Seeing is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees is an expanded edition of an earlier work on artist Robert Irwin (first published in 1982). That initial book led to an exchange and dialogue with artist David Hockney, and that talk now leads to publication of the new book, True to Life: Twenty-Five Years of Conversations with David Hockney (both books, University of California Press).

A powerful debut novel that has traces of its author's own story is Miles from Nowhere (Riverhead) by Nami Mun—who like her novel's protagonist was born in Seoul, South Korea, then grew up in New York City.

Two fine Seattle poets—Thomas Aslin and Laurie Blauner—give this joint reading from newly published books. For Tom Aslin, it's a much anticipated first, book-length collection, A Moon Over Wings (Clark City Press—beautifully done). Laurie Blauner, who also writes and publishes fiction, is here ... (more)tonight with Wrong (Cherry Grove Collections).

A poet who debut collection, Shells, was selected by W.S. Merwin for the Yale Younger Poets series, Craig Arnold makes this welcome return from his present home of Laramie, Wyoming, where he teaches in the University of Wyoming's MFA program. He visits with a second volume, Made Flesh (Ausable).

A keen observer and chronicler of the world, Leslie Carol Roberts comes north from her San Francisco home, and really far north from the place she has written luminously in her first book, The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica (University of Nebraska).

Acclaimed science author Steven Johnson, whose previous books, including Everything Bad Is Good For You, and The Ghost Map, have been bestselling works over an extended period, makes this welcome appearance, the first of a few on this swing through Seattle, to discuss his newest book, The Invention of ... (more)Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution, and the Birth of America (Riverhead). This book's publication is especially timely as a momentous presidential inauguration approaches, one whose import has people paying more heed to history. This book will help with aspects of that.

From across Lake Washington, we are delighted to welcome back Indu Sundaresan. The author of three internationally-acclaimed, bestselling, historically-set (Mughal India) novels—The Twentieth Wife, The Feast of Roses, The Splendor of Silence—she is here with a terrific first book of stories, In the ... (more)Convent of Little Flowers (Atria). And of note, these stories are set in the here and now of India today, with some Pacific Northwest connections.

Thirty years after her acclaimed, classic first book, the story collection Black Tickets was published, Jayne Anne Phillips makes this welcome Elliott Bay return for her new, much-anticipated fourth novel, Lark & Termite (Knopf).

Co-presented with HEDGEBROOK. Longtime Seattle theatre artist Stephanie Kallos made a memorable debut for near and far with her captivating Seattle-set novel, Broken for You, a few years ago. She makes this welcome return for her eagerly-awaited second novel, Sing Them Home (Atlantic Monthly)—set in ... (more)her home state of Nebraska.

The subtitle of longtime Seattle journalist Knute Berger's first book Pugetopolis (Sasquatch) doesn't necessarily say it all—A Mossback Takes on Growth Addicts, Weather Wimps, and the Myth of Seattle Nice—but does say a good part of what makes up his delightful and insightful take on life here in ... (more)Grayville.

As the 15th-century was becoming the 16th, Venice was one of the world capitals—in the center of trade, commerce, and exchange with much of the world. The ambitions and intrigues that go with being such a place figure in Elle Newmark's enjoyably captivating novel, The Book of Unholy Mischief (Atria). ... (more)Alchemy plays a part, too.

Sicilian American writer and tango dancer extraordinaire Camille Cusumano visits today, en route to a mini-Tango festival in Port Townsend. Her book, Tango: An Argentine Love Story (Seal Press), tells the story of how an initial, brief tango vacation brought her to a deep appreciation of Argentina, and ... (more)an intense engagement with what she calls the "parallel practices" of tango and Zen. Camille Cusumano's work has been published in The New York Times, Washington Post, and Country Living. She is also known for her food writing (www.camillecusumano.com) and her video work, Tango Around the World, shot in Buenos Aires with Martin Jacovella.

Critic, translator, and novelist Brenda Webster reads this evening from her new novel, Vienna Triangle (Wings Press), which brings to life Dr. Helen Deutsch, Lou-Andreas-Salome, Viktor Tausk, and their mentor and leader, Sigmund Freud.

Economic uncertainty and a commitment to simpler, more meaningful, and connected lives have lead many to embrace the work of Vicki Robin (and the late Joe Dominguez). She returns today with a new version of their classic book, Your Money or Your Life: Nine Steps to Transforming Your Relationship with ... (more)Money and Achieving Financial Independence: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century (Penguin), co-written with Monique Tilford and the late Joe Dominguez.

By the time this evening begins, the United States will have inaugurated its 44th president into office. A day that commences on that high note continues with Scratch Beginnings: Me, $25 and the Search for the American Dream (Collins), Adam Shepard's quest to prove that someone can start with nothing ... (more)(but a bed in a homeless shelter, $25, and a degree from Merrimack College). His goal was to save $2500, buy a car, and have a place to live within one year's time. He achieved all of this and much more. Originally self-published, Scratch Beginnings sold thousands of copies and is now in a new, national edition from Collins.

Special midday at Elliott Bay program. Making for even more of a reason to partake of the wonderfully re-born Elliott Bay Café at lunchtime today is this midday talk by renowned scholars Gar Alperovitz and Lew Daly. Both affiliated with Demos: A Network for Ideas and Action, they xplore the history ... (more)and future of wealth distribution in the U.S., and make the case that reforms to change income distribution could be used for the common good. Their book, Unjust Deserts: How the Rich Are Taking Our Common Inheritance and Why We Should Take It Back (The New Press), provides analysis and proposes that new income could be used to institute universal health care, rebuild our country's decaying infrastructure and support other programs. Lew Daly, a Senior Fellow at Demos, and previously a fellow of the Schumann Center for Media and Democracy, is also the author of God and the Welfare State. Gar Alperovitz is Bauman Professor of Political Economy at Maryland, and a founder of the Democracy Collaborative. His books include America Beyond Capitalism.

In America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life (Simon & Schuster), journalist Benoit Denizet-Lewis by closely telling the stories of eight people and their struggles with addiction, tells a far larger and compelling story.

From Seattle's esteemed Black Heron Press comes a brand-new novel and a newly-released paperback by Ron Dakron, a Seattle writer whose work Black Heron has long published to internationally-recognized ends (Ron Dakron has made more than a few reading visits to Paris.) Tonight is occasioned by the paperback ... (more)of his (1998) third novel, Hammers, and by his newest novel, Mantids. As usual with Ron Dakron, there are connections beyond the usual. Cast as a millennia-later update of Petronius' Satyricon, this novel takes on desire, Viagra, and mutant female praying mantis.

A writer born and raised in Hong Kong, and living there today (with time in the U.S. for education and work as a magazine editor), Janice Y.K. Lee makes this welcome appearance here for her exquisite, historically-set debut novel, The Piano Teacher (Viking).

We're pleased to welcome Seattle's Erica Bauermeister back today. After years of promoting the work of women writers in such books as 500 Great Books for Women, she is here with her own debut novel, The School of Essential Ingredients (Putnam).

Sociologist Luke Bergmann's account of the effects of urban poverty, white flight, the loss of manufacturing jobs, and the "War on Drugs" on two young African American men from Detroit began when he was doing work at a juvenile detention center. His book, Getting Ghost: Two Young Lives and the Struggle ... (more)for the Soul of an American City (The New Press), follows their stories as they try to leave the drug trade.

This evening features three women poets who live, write and teach in the Pacific Northwest. Carol Guess, whose books include the novel Switch, reads from her most recent volume of prose poems, Tinderbox Lawn (Rosemetal Press). Joining her this evening is Vancouver poet Jen Currin, who reads from her ... (more)second collection, Hagiography (Coach House). A late addition to the evening's reading is an appearance by Vancouver-based poet Kim Minkus, who'll read from her new collection, 9 Freight (Linebooks).

Up from his Bay Area base is award-winning photojournalist David Bacon with a timely, powerful new book, Illegal People: How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants (Beacon).

Co-presented with the NORTHWEST AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSEUM. We are delighted to be helping with what should be a fascinating discussion presented at the wonderful, still-new Northwest African American Museum. Authors have worked off of family connections before, but few have been as extended and as remarkable ... (more)as Regina E. Mason's are in being here for a talk about the landmark book, Life of William Grimes, Runaway Slave (Oxford). When this book initially came out in the mid-19th century, it was the first fugitive slave narrative published in this country. For this recently released edition, scholar William L. Andrews and Ms. Mason have drawn on the book itself, but also years of research and paper trails, including familial ones. Regina Mason is the great-great-great-granddaughter of William Grimes.

With his work in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, and his book Municipal Bondage, Henry Alford is mostly known for writing funny things. A sense of humor as part of a sense of perspective is part of what he finds in the quest underlying his newest book, How to Live: A Search for Wisdom ... (more)from Old People (While They Are Still On This Earth) (Twelve).

Science journalist and author (The Secret Life of Dust) Hannah Holmes looks at the context in which human beings find themselves relative to the rest of animaldom in her intriguing new book, The Well-Dressed Ape: A Natural History of Myself (Random House).

Photographer Scott Squire and writer William Emery visit today with their inspiring story of guerilla farmers, butchers, beekeepers and other food entrepreneurs—all modern-day visionaries maintaining a commitment to well-produced, local food sold by small-scale providers. In their work, they focus ... (more)on people working the edges of California's Central Valley agribusiness hub. Their book, Edges of Bounty: Adventures in the Edible Valley (Heyday) documents some of these stories.

Integral practitioner and teacher Terry Patten speaks today about Integral Life Practice (ILP), a user-friendly approach to spiritual practice which includes meditation, prayer, and exercises for body, mind, and 'shadow,' the repressed part of the self. His book, Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century ... (more)Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening (Shambhala), co-authored with Ken Wilber, Marco Morelli, and Adam Leonard, is a guidebook to Ken Wilber's Integral Approach, and helps users design a personal program of transformational practice.

Special midday at Elliott Bay reading. We are totally delighted to welcome back Calvin Trillin, long one of this country's most acclaimed and beloved journalists and versifiers. He is here at noon, 13 days along in the new Obama administration with his most recent poetic accounting of the historic 2008 ... (more)campaign, Deciding the Next Decider: The 2008 Presidential Race in Rhyme (Random House). We won't go anywhere near what Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times did in a lavish verse review, paying tribute to what Calvin Trillin has done, week-in and week-out, over the years, with many of these telling (usually humorous) poems appearing in a "Deadline Poet" column in The Nation. Two popular previous volumes precede this, A Heckuva Job and Obliviously On He Sails. The author of twenty-five other books, Calvin Trillin in visiting here today will be here for the first time since his lovely, moving memoir of life with his late wife, Alice, About Alice. A great opportunity for a lunchtime stimulus package. Attendees interested in lunch are invited to pre-order through our café: Box Lunch option: Choice of Roast Beef Sandwich, St. Jude's Albacore Tuna Sandwich OR Classic Egg Salad Sandwich served with chips and cookie, $10 including tax. Call (206) 682-6664 for more information or to preorder this (and other items available on The Elliott Bay Cafe's menu) for pick up at the reading. Please join us.

Jonathan Rosen lives in New York City, has written two well-received novels, a much-praised first non-fiction book, The Talmud and the Internet. He is also editorial director of Nextbook. All of which would lead one to expect that his most recent book would be about birdwatching, yes? Yes is the fortunate ... (more)answer for birdwatching readers wherever they may be, and thoughtful readers in general as he visits with the paperback of his terrific, highly-praised book, The Life of the Skies: Birding at the End of Nature (new in paper, Picador).

Down from Lopez Island come photographer Summer Moon Scriver and writer Iris Graville with a striking, most unique book, Hands at Work: Portraits & Profiles of People Who Work with Their Hands (Heron Moon Press). Every photograph (with accompanying text) in this book has to do with hands—and the work ... (more)hands do. Subjects range from midwifery to instrument maker to sign language interpreter to auto technician, reef net fisherman, boat builder, chef, and more.

Jim Shultz, founder and executive director of the Democracy Center, talks tonight about his work chronicling grassroots movements to control exploitation of Bolivia's water, oil, and natural gas resources, stories told in his recent book, Dignity and Defiance: Stories from Bolivia's Challenge to Globalization ... (more)(University of California).

Sponsored by SEATTLE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY AND MINISTRY, ELLIOTT BAY BOOK COMPANY, and SEATTLE UNIVERSITY BOOKSTORE. Search for Meaning provides an opportunity to meet international, national, and local authors writing on issues of spirituality, faith, church-state matters, and theology, and ... (more)to meet others who are also committed to search for meaning in their spiritual lives. Keynote speakers are poet/novelist/filmmaker Sherman Alexie and University of Washington professor James Wellman. Among Sherman Alexie's many books are the National Book Award-winning The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian (Little, Brown), Flight, and The Business of Fancydancing. James Wellman is the author of Evangelical vs Liberal: The Clash of Cultures in the Pacific Northwest (Oxford University). Other guest speakers scheduled are: Patricia O'Connell Killen, Daryl Grigsby, Paul Anderson, David Domke, Maliha Masood, Sharon Daloz Parks, Brenda Peterson, Lesley Hazleton, Jamal Rahman, and Judy Pigott, as well as STM and Seattle University faculty Dan Dombrowski, Wesley Howard-Brook, Marianne LaBarre, Gary Chamberlain, Ted Fortier, Rev. Flora Wilson Bridges, Fr. Mike Raschko, and many others. All events are free and open to the public. No tickets necessary but an RSVP is suggested. For more information, including RSVPing, please see www.seattleu.edu/stm or call (206) 296-5330.

Seattle poet, editor, and publisher David Horowitz makes a welcome return this evening, here with his fourth and newest collection of poems, Stars Beyond the Battlesmoke (Rose Alley).

Internationally recognized Seattle artist Ginny Ruffner makes this welcome return. An artist who works imaginatively with a variety of materials and in different scales, she is here this evening with her newest pop-up book, The Imagination Cycle (Museum of Northwest Art).

In association with MONKEY PARADOX PRODUCTIONS. We take advantage of this Seattle visit by poet/translator/editors Huichun (Amy) Liang and Steven Schroeder for this special 5:30 reading. Also reading at "SAM Word" at the Seattle Art Museum on Thursday, February 12 (see www.seattleartmuseum.org), they ... (more)will read from and discuss their bilingual anthology of poetry, Two Southwests (Visual Artists Collective). The "Two Southwests" in this smartly-done pairing are the southwest U.S. and southwest China. Over twenty-five poets' work is included. This reading should be engaging in its own right, and also serve as a nice segue for another reading on and of China to come: Bill Porter.

As Red Pine, Bill Porter has become one of the most eminent translators of ancient Chinese poetry and Buddhist texts. This remarkable body of work includes Poems of the Masters, The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain, The Platform Sutra, The Heart Sutra, The Diamond Sutra, Lao-tzu's Taoteching, and many ... (more)more. We hope to have him here as Red Pine later in the year for a forthcoming translation, In Such Hard Times: The Poetry of Wei Ting-wu (Copper Canyon) and a reissue of The Zen Works of Stonehouse. But it is as Bill Porter he is primarily here tonight, regaling readers with his luminous, often wry new account of travels in remote China, Zen Baggage: A Pilgrimage to China (Counterpoint). This is an account of a journey undertaken in 2006 to visit sites associated with the first patriarchs of Zen. It's a story rich with the past, and even more rich and revealing in what it says of the present.

Guess what February 15 is? The day after Valentine's Day. Here as part of a national group of programs happening on this same day-after day—actually billed as "Come to Your Senses" Day—are expected to be Seattle TV writer/producer Jeanne Romano and other area contributors to the book, What Was I ... (more)Thinking? 58 Bad Boyfriend Stories (St. Martin's). Edited by Barbara Davilman and Liz Dubelman, this collection of essays is funny and knowing. Some of the better-known contributors include Carrie Fisher, Rachel Resnick, Maira Kalman, Francesca Lia Block, and Nicole Hollander.

Presented with the assistance of the CENTRAL DISTRICT FORUM FOR ARTS & IDEAS. An evening that should be great fun is in store, as Larry Wilmore, "senior black correspondent" to The Daily Show and an award-winning TV producer, writer, actor, and comedian for more than thirty years (that is senior) visits ... (more)to comment on why black people get the shortest month and many, many other observations, visits with his new book, I'd Rather We Got Casinos, and Other Black Thoughts (Hyperion). While the evening should be laughter (laughter sometimes based in some real-world wondering), it is worth noting, on the serious, credentialed side, that Larry Wilmore has received an Emmy and Peabody Award for his writing work on The Bernie Mac Show. Other shows he's written for include In Living Color, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and The Office.

A special midday at Elliott Bay talk and booksigning. A number of enjoyable things may happen to liven up the day, among them most certainly that France-based wine journalist Robert V. Camuto is here to discuss his delightful new book, Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country (At Table/University ... (more)of Nebraska).

As the literature of ideas and imagination, Science Fiction and Fantasy simply demands discussion. Our selection for February is Rudy Rucker's Mathematicians in Love Reality is never more unpredictable than when two mathematicians are in love with the same girl, and can change the world to get her. Bela ... (more)and Paul, two wild young mathematicians, are friends and roommates, and both are in love with Alma, Bela's girlfriend. They fight it out by changing reality using cutting-edge math. The contemporary world they live in is not quite this one, but much like Berkeley, California, and the two graduate students are trying to finish their degrees and get jobs. It doesn't help that their unpredictable advisor Roland is a mad mathematical genius who has figured out a way to predict specific bits of the future that can cause a lot of trouble...and that he's starting to see monsters in mirrors.

Long one of the Northwest's most prominent journalists, Eugene-based Debra Gwartney ended up telling a story more personal and compelling than any she'd ever written in work for Newsweek, and numerous regional publications, in her extraordinary book, Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters ... (more)and Reclaimed Love (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).

A favorite author of many readers—both for his books and his lively reading appearances—E. Lynn Harris makes this most welcome Seattle return. His visit for his newest novel, Basketball Jones (Doubleday), serves as both a reminder of how wonderful a storyteller he is, and that NBA basketball isn't ... (more)here anymore. On the other hand, the NBA powers that be probably wouldn't be too keen on this story being played out for real. Basketball Jones is NBA star Dray Jones, eventually wooed and wed to a woman determined to win him, but with another love interest, one Aldridge James 'AJ' Richardson, already there in place.

Members and former members of the Seattle band, The Long Winters, are everywhere these days! Sean Nelson and John Roderick joined us at John Hodgman's Town Hall performance this past November. Now, former Winters' drummer Michael Shilling, a self-described "recovering rock musician," joins us to read ... (more)from his newly-released novel, Rock Bottom (Little, Brown). This tells the tale of Blood Orphans, a once red-hot rock band that falls from grace during a doomed tour.

The recent passage of Initiative 1000, the Washington Death with Dignity Act, legalized physician-assisted suicide in our state. While for many this issue is still hypothetical, some of us have had to face the legal, emotional, and ethical dilemmas presented when the end of a loved one's life is not ... (more)simple or easy. When John West's father and mother, acclaimed psychiatrists and psychologists respectively, came to him with new of their impending deaths from cancer, he didn't anticipate they also would ask him for help with their dying—assistance he was legally prohibited from giving. The Last Goodnights: Assisting My Parents with Their Suicides (Counterpoint) tells the story of a loving son's struggle to respect his parents' wishes to maintain their autonomy and dignity even as they faced pain, illness, and death. Formerly of Seattle, John West is now an attorney and writer based in Los Angeles.

We are delighted to present this first-ever Elliott Bay visit by acclaimed fiction writer Yiyun Li. With two books—her debut book of stories, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, received the PEN/Hemingway, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story, and Guardian First Book Awards, and now her first ... (more)novel, The Vagrants (Random House)—she is clearly a writer making her mark. Ms. Li came to the U.S. from Beijing in 1996 to study medicine—and received a master's in immunology—but then turned to fiction writing. Granta cited her as one of the Best Young American Novelists under thirty-five.

Presented as part of the SEATTLE ART MUSEUM's "Pivotal Perspectives: Conversations on Art and Culture" series. In conjunction with SAM's special exhibition, "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness: American Art from the Yale University Art Gallery," eminent historian Garry Wills makes this welcome ... (more)Seattle visit. An astute historian of both secular and nonsecular U.S. (and Christian) history, among the noteworthy works of his on the secular side are Inventing America, Explaining America, and Lincoln at Gettysburg. Tickets ($4 SAM members/$8 adults/$6 students & seniors) are available at the SAM Ticketing Desk or by phone at (206) 654-3121. The Seattle Art Museum is located at 1300 First Avenue. For more information, please see www.seattleartmuseum.org.

One of our favorite writers on the basis of two extraordinary nonfiction books—My Own Country and The Tennis Partner—Abraham Verghese makes this long-awaited return visit for his remarkable, globe-spanning first novel, Cutting for Stone (Knopf).

What is a "green" business? How can businesses committed to green principles differentiate themselves from the "greenwashed" masses? Richard Seireeni, brand consultant and co-creative director of Enterprise IG, draws from the experiences of eco-capitalists such as Gary Hirschberg (Stonyfield Farms), ... (more)Jeffrey Hollander (Seventh Generation), Dr. Bronner's grandsons and others from a broad range of industries in addressing these issues in his book, The Gort Cloud: How Ecopreneuers and Their Customers are Building Brands for the Age of Sustainability (Chelsea Green).

Making a welcome return to Seattle nearly three years after giving a spirited reading at The Seattle Public Library for her debut book, Lipstick Jihad, U.S.-born Iranian-American journalist Azadeh Moaveni is here this evening with a new memoir, Honeymoon in Tehran: Two Years of Love and Danger in Iran ... (more)(Random House).

A poet, writer, and translator who has read here many times from an extraordinary range of work, Stephen Mitchell is makes this welcome return for a return to old Chinese texts, as he is here with The Second Book of the Tao (Penguin). His Tao te Ching has long been among the most popular. This personally-created ... (more)volume draws from the work of Chuang-tzu and Chung Yung, and features Stephen Mitchell�s commentaries on the various translations. His many other books include numerous translations of Rilke, The Gospel According to Jesus, The Bhagavad Gita, The Book of Job, Gilgamesh, and more. He's also co-authored books with Byron Katie, Loving What Is and A Thousand Names for Joy.

We are delighted to welcome back internationally-acclaimed Chinese writer Xinran. Author of both fiction (Sky Burial) and nonfiction (The Good Women of China), and presently living in London, she is here today with an important new nonfiction work, China Witness: Voices from a Silent Generation (Pantheon).

Making a most welcome Seattle—and Elliott Bay—return is one of the leading novelists at work in China, and the world, the award-winning Yu Hua. He is here as part of a U.S. tour for the publication of his major new work, Brothers (Pantheon, translated by Eileen Cheng-yin Chow and Carlos Rojas). Shortlisted ... (more)for the Man Asian Literary Prize, recipient of France's Prix Courrier International, and a bestseller in his home country (Yu Hua lives in Beijing), this sweeping, dazzling novel tells the story of two step-brothers and the different courses they navigate in living through forty years of almost unfathomable change. It is expected that this reading will be bilingual, with the author reading in Chinese, and translation provided—a special treat this is for all attending.

Co-presented with COPPER CANYON PRESS. Two esteemed poets, both published by Copper Canyon Press, read here this evening for what should be a most delightful night. Joseph Stroud visits from northern California with his fifth full collection of poems, Of This World: New and Selected Poems. Also reading ... (more)tonight, playing Seattle host as it were, is living poetic treasure Madeline DeFrees. With an award-winning body of published work ranging back to 1951, she continues to write, read, and attend many nights such as this, in this, the year that will later see her celebrate her 90th birthday. Spectral Waves, published in 2006, is her most recent collection. Among her prizes and honors are the Lenore Marshall Prize and the Washington State Book Award.

Each month, the Elliott Bay Book Club reads and discusses the best in contemporary fiction with the occasional classic thrown in for good measure. In March, we look at Fools of Fortune by William Trevor. When an informer's body is found shortly after the First World War on the estate of the Quintons, ... (more)a wealthy Irish family, an appalling cycle of revenge is set in motion. Led by a zealous sergeant, the Black and Tans fire the family home, and only young Willie and his mother Evie escape alive. Fatherless, Willie grows into manhood while his alcoholic mother's bitter resentment festers. And though he finds love, Willie is unable to leave the terrible injuries of the past behind. No less than Graham Greene said, "To my mind Trevor's best novel and a very fine one." It was the Winner of the Whitbread Novel of the Year Award.

ctive dreaming pioneer Robert Moss explores the role of dreams, coincidence, and imagination in healing, religion, science, war, an other human activities in his book, The Secret History of Dreaming (New World Library). Host of The Way of the Dreamer radio program, Robert Moss is also the author of Conscious ... (more)Dreaming, and other books.

Salvatore Scibona's debut novel, The End (Graywolf), set in Ohio during the early 1950s, was a finalist for this past year's National Book Award. Which is only the beginning of it: "A masterful novel set amid racial upheaval in 1950s America during the flight of second-generation immigrants from their ... (more)once-necessary ghettos.

Here from his home on a farm in Pakistan's Punjab is Daniyal Mueenuddin with a marvelous debut book of linked stories, In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton).

In August 2007, thousands participated in blockades and protests against the SuperFerry, a joint project of global corporate and military interests, which threatened to further damage the environment for both human and marine inhabitants of the Hawaiian islands and their waters. The story of the ongoing ... (more)fight, as told by local activists, legislators, and journalists (including Haunan-Kay Trask and New York Times Washington bureau chief Philip Taubman) appears in The Superferry Chronicles: Hawaii's Uprising Against Militarism, Commercialism and the Desecration of the Earth (KOA Books), edited and co-written by award-winning Kauai-based filmmaker Koohan Paik and activist/writer Jerry Mander. Jerry Mander has been here in the past, quite notably as one of the organizing principals around the Seattle anti-WTO/globalization campaign of November 1999. Books he's written/had a hand in include Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, In the Absence of the Sacred, and The Case Against the Global Economy.

For some of us, "Yes, we can," rallying cry from the past election, echoed an earlier call familiar from United Farm Worker organizing: "Si! Se Puede" is its Spanish equivalent. Activist Randy Shaw makes the case that the UFW's broad coalition-building and on-the-ground training also inspired and prepared ... (more)a generation of young activists working now in electoral politics and labor organizing. These subjects, and more, he discusses in his new book, Beyond the Fields: Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the Struggle for Justice in the 21st Century (University of California Press). Randy Shaw is the director of San Francisco's Tenderloin Housing Clinic, and is editor of the online daily paper, BeyondChron.org. His previous books are The Activist's Handbook and Reclaiming America.

A writer who once called Seattle home—as a graduate of the University of Washington's MFA program—Brian Evenson returns to Elliott Bay to read from a newly-published edition of a novel that's had something of a cult following since its original publication in a limited edition. Last Days is one of ... (more)the first releases by Portland's Underland Press Books. Murky doings in an underground religious cult are the way of the day here, in this big novel of condensed, intense content. Brian Evenson is the author of eight books of fiction. The Open Curtain, his previous most recent, was a finalist for an Edgar an for the International Horror Guild Award.

Atrocities committed during the ongoing, twenty-year-long war in northern Uganda rival those in Darfur and Sudan, but are much less well known in the west. Peter Eichstaedt, Africa editor for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting, talks about Ugandan child soldiers, 'child brides,' and ongoing attempts ... (more)of the Ugandan people to survive and stop the violence, as drawn from his strong new book, First Kill Your Family: Child Soldiers of Uganda and the Lord's Resistance Army (Lawrence Hill).

Our Global Issues & Ethics Book Group is devoted to discussing books that cover the most relevant topics of our everyday lives. This month we turn to The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein. A detail alternate history of the dominant ideology of our time, Milton Friedman's ... (more)free-market economic revolution, Klein challenges the myth that has grown around the Friedmanite ideology.

In I'm Sorry You Feel That Way: The Astonishing But True Story of a Daughter, Sister, Slut, Wife, Mother and Friend to Man and Dog (Amy Einhorn/G.P. Putnam's Sons), Kentucky native Diana Joseph puts to the page an unflinching memoir—her life lived in relation to her father, common-law husband, son, ... (more)and other men from along the way.

Patrick deWitt's debut novel, Ablutions (Houghton Mifflin), is the story of a bartender working in a bleak Hollywood bar, who in time loses his way and much of the way his life has been constructed. What he has served to others, he has too much served to himself. Is there a clear way through?

Up from the Bay Area is Christina Sunley with The Tricking of Freya (St.Martin's), a strong debut novel that draws from family stories—and thus by extension, the rich lore of Icelandic stories and sagas.

A few years ago, Robert Bly, to a full house at a Seattle Arts & Lectures poetry reading, almost stole the thunder from his own work, by reading poems from a newly published debut collection by a poet named Jay Leeming. People were running out to John and Christine of Open Books: what is this book? Where ... (more)is it? This evening, Jay Lemming visits to read from that book, Dynamite on a China Plate (Backwaters Press).

The interconnected stories of a group of high-achieving New Yorkers, all mothers who have left their careers to become full-time mothers, is at the heart of Meg Wolitzer's most recent novel, The Ten-Year Nap (Riverhead, newly in paper).

David Korten's very timely new book, The Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth (Berrett-Koehler) began as articles written for Tikkun and Yes! Magazine during the financial collapse of 2008. The Agenda for a New Economy offers an alternative to the wealth creation systems that ... (more)have lead to the erosion of our economic, social and natural capital.

Co-presented with BALLE-SEATTLE. Could there ever be an alternative stock exchange dedicated to slow, small and local? What if you invest 50 percent of your assets within 50 miles of where you live? Woody Tasch, founder of Investor's Circle and founding chairman of the Community Development Venture Capital ... (more)Alliance, proposes these questions and others as the next step on our path to a new economy and a new culture, and discusses progress made in these directions in his vital new book, Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money: Investing as if Food, Farms and Fertility Mattered (Chelsea Green). Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money presents the path for bringing money back down to earth—philosophically, strategically and pragmatically, an with an entrepreneurial spirit that is informed by the work of thousands of CEOs, investors, grant-makers, food producers and consumers who are seeding the restorative economy. Also on hand today to help discuss Buy Local and Slow Money efforts in the area are members of BALLE-Seattle—the Seattle/King County-based affiliate of the national Business Alliance of Local Living Economies (63 national chapters), and representatives of local businesses and lenders. For more information on BALLE, please see www.balleseattle.org.

Jacqueline Novogratz, founder and CEO of Acumen Fund (a nonprofit venture capital firm for the poor that invests in sustainable enterprises bringing healthcare, safe water, alternative energy, and housing to low-income people in the developing world), began her career as an analyst for Chase Manhattan ... (more)Bank. Her subsequent move to the microfinance pioneering Grameen Bank, and her work with entrepreneurs in Rwanda are just some of the stories she shares in The Blue Sweater: Bridging the Gap Between Rich and Poor in an Interconnected World (Rodale).

As the literature of ideas and imagination, Science Fiction and Fantasy simply demands discussion. Our March selection is Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar. While teenage werewolf Kalix MacRinnalch is being pursued through the streets of London by murderous hunters, her sister, the Werewolf Enchantress, ... (more)is busy designing clothes for the Fire Queen. Meanwhile, in the Scottish Highlands, the MacRinnalch Clan is plotting and feuding after the head of the clan suddenly dies. As the court intrigue threatens to escalate into all-out civil war, the competing factions determine that Kalix's vote is critical to assume leadership of the clan. Unfortunately, Kalix isn't really into clan politics—laudanum's more her thing. Even more unfortuanately, Kalix is the reason the head of the clan ended up dead, which is why she's now on the run in London.

Noted literary biographer Blake Bailey, whose earlier book A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates, was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, makes this welcome visit for Cheever: A Life (Knopf), one of the big ones in a year that is also seeing/will see books coming on Flannery ... (more)O'Connor, Raymond Carver, and others.

Cass Dalglish—a poet, scholar and associate professor of English at Augsburg College—reads here this evening from her poetry collection, Humming the Blues (Calyx Books). This book includes translations of poems composed by Enheduanna, the first identifiable poet to sign her work. (Enheduanna lived ... (more)in Ur, near modern-day Baghdad, over two millennia ago.)

Co-presented with COPPER CANYON PRESS. The first of two nights to especially not be missed unfolds here with this joint reading by the Dickman brothers—twins Matthew and Michael—here from their Portland homes with debut volumes each has written. With Matthew Dickman's All-American Poem (The American ... (more)Poetry Review/Copper Canyon Press) and Michael Dickman's The End of the West (Copper Canyon Press), two compelling new voices leap onto the stage of poetry in this country. Not that others haven't noticed along the way: each has garnered numerous honors and awards.

One extraordinary evening of writers paired and aligned yet distinct and singular is followed by one possibly even more extraordinary. In having Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky over here for this first visit from the British Columbia islands north and west of here, we will only be able to scratch the ... (more)surface, in one mere evening, of distinguished, award-winning bodies of work that include poetry, essay, myth, translation, philosophy, typography, and more. With both writers, we are talking re-arranging the mental furniture. You see, you imagine differently after reading these books. With Robert Bringhurst, it is the US publication of two recent essay collections—The Tree of Meaning: Language, Mind and Ecology and Everywhere Being is Dancing: Twenty Pieces of Thinking (both from Counterpoint Press) that helps occasion this long-anticipated visit. These two books, along with recent works such as the essay The Solid Form of Language and A Story as Sharp as a Knife: The Classical Haida Mythtellers and Their World, have stirred, informed, provoked, and engaged readers at a deep level as few other writing today. No less an honor to have here tonight is poet-philosopher-musician Jan Zwicky. A professor of philosophy at the University of Victoria, she has received Canada's prestigious Governor General's Award for her poetry collection, Songs for Relinquishing the Earth, and been a Governor General's Award finalist for another book of poetry, Robinson's Crossing, and her most recent philosophic work, the beautiful (in all ways) Wisdom & Metaphor (Gaspereau Press). Her most recent book of poems is Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences (Gaspereau). A pleasure and honor it will be to have Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky here—individually and collectively—this evening, one not to be missed.

The number of Americans facing uncertainty as to their ability to adequately feed themselves and their families is now at over 36.2 million people, and rising, according to a 2007 US Department of Agriculture report. Joel Berg, current director of New York City's Coalition of Hunger, is here to discuss ... (more)his book, All You Can Eat: How Hungry is America? (Seven Stories Press), as part of an area visit that also includes speaking at the Food Line Agency Conference in Shoreline. A lifelong hunger activist, Joel Berg not only documents the reality of the US hunger crisis, but also presents a blueprint to end child hunger here by 2015 as a starting point in ending domestic hunger. Find out how to join this national effort and join the national conversation about hunger.

The author of such highly regarded novels as Failure to Zigzag and The Physics of Sunset, Jane Vandenburgh makes this welcome return to read from her remarkable new autobiographical work, A Pocket History of Sex in the Twentieth Century: A Memoir (Counterpoint Press). This "pocket history" tells the ... (more)story of a white, Protestant family in southern California, presumably set for the American Dream. Much goes asunder along the way (a father arrested for hanging out in gay bars, suicide, growing up with another family, sexual experimentation, trangressions youthful and otherwise), both with Jane Vandenburgh's parents, the family she grew up within, but also as she comes of age, and goes on to make her way in the world. The perspective throughout is both revelatory and knowing—in telling stories of her family and herself, the author tells some larger stories of the country and culture we inhabit.

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 play selection is God's Ear by Jenny Schwartz. Recently produced by Seattle's Washington Ensemble Theatre, brilliant ... (more)new playwright Jenny Schwartz twists and warps the narrative of a couple mourning the death of their son to expose the underlying beauty of their shattered reality, enlisting the help of alcoholics, cross-dressing airline stewardesses, the Toothfairy and a life-size GI Joe along the way. Lyrical and cyclical, this "arrestingly odd new play" (New York Times) is nothing short of a postmodern masterpiece. Quirky and surreal, it is an unfolding of the human heart told through a poignant and hilarous look at the language we use when we cannot bear to speak. Please join us for this lively discussion!

Kris Saknussemm's first appearance at Elliott Bay, for his debut novel Zanesville, was a memorable one. We are pleased to welcome him back this evening to read from his newly released second novel, Private Midnight (Overlook), in which a police detective investigating a suspected suicide becomes obsessed ... (more)with a woman who knows more about the case (and the detective's proclivities) than seems proper.

Parisian detective Aimée LeDuc's surprise encounter with a woman claiming to be her long-lost sister takes a sinister turn when this mystery woman disappears—a situation that leads, inevitably, to murder. Murder in the Latin Quarter (Soho) is the ninth installment in Cara Black's gripping and highly ... (more)enjoyable series.

Noted art critic (Parkett, Flash Art, Spex, plus museum catalogs from Tokyo to New York) Mark von Schlegell is also a highly regarded writer of science fiction His 2005 debut novel, Venusia, was variously praised in sci-fi reviews as a "heady kaleidoscopic trip," and a "breathtaking excursion." He is ... (more)here this evening with Mercury Station (Native Agents/Semiotext(e)), a sequel to Venusia in the author's System Series. Set in 2150, there is lots of inner and outer space activity going on, civilizations on grand scale collapsing, people still doing their small human bit to keep it going ... and do so, with a dazzling story cast in the future that also harkens to a deep past.

On what is the actual publication date of her newest book, The Girl with Brown Fur: Tales & Stories (MacAdam/Cage), Seattle writer Stacey Levine makes this welcome return to the Elliott Bay stage. These stories start on the seemingly mundane surface of everyday, contemporary life—then set off in surprising, ... (more)sometimes jarring ways. Underlying is the thread of longing for connection in a world that often seems disjointed, at best.

In conjunction with a must-see exhibit at LaConner's Museum of Northwest Art (March 14 - June 14, see www.museumofnwart.org), Seattle sculptor Phillip Levine will discuss his work, which is also the subject of a striking catalogue retrospective of his work, Phillip Levine: Myth Memory, and Image: Sculpture ... (more)and Drawings (Musuem of Northwest Art/University of Washington Press). The book and exhibit commemorate what is now a fifty-year career of making art, including many iconic pieces. Making this evening even more of a treat will be having painter and University of Washington professor Norman Lundin and Chimacum-based poet/sculptor Tom Jay on hand. Together with Phillip Levine they have carried on (with others) conversations now almost two decades and going, on art, creativity, culture, and more.

Seattle native Janna Cawrse Esarey will read from her travel memoir, The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, & a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife (Touchstone 2009). It's the humorous, true story of a couple that honeymoons for two years on a beat-up, old sailboat, only to find ... (more)that sailing across the Pacific is easier than keeping their relationship off the rocks.