Co-presented with the Northwest African American Museum. Taking place at the Northwest African American Museum, which has its wonderful exhibit on Ethiopians in the Northwest, "East by Northwest," on display, is this reading by Addis Ababa-born debut novelist Maaza Mengiste. Beneath the Lion's Gaze (W.W. Norton) is a powerful novel set in motion by Ethiopia's wrenching 1974 revolution. " ... Beneath the Lion's Gaze is an extraordinary novel, which ... tells stories nobody can want to hear, in such a way that we cannot stop listening. Although set more than thirty years ago, Mengiste's novel is timely and vital: Its illumination of a world unfamiliar to most Americans shows us how individuals will fight to retain their humanity in the face of atrocity." - Claire Messud, Bookforum. "With words that make 'a faint, tender bruise' on the page, and a compassionate imagination that transforms everything it touches on, Maaza Mengiste delivers an important story from a part of Africa too long silent in the World Republic of Letters." - Chris Abani. Free admission. The Northwest African American Museum (www.naamnw.org) is at 2300 South Massachusetts Street in Seattle's Rainier Valley.
Also, following at 9 p.m.: Debut Lit, a national organization (www.debutlit.com) dedicated to promoting new authors, hosts a gathering with Maaza Mengiste at Hidmo (www.hidmo.org), the popular Eritrean café/club at 2000 South Jackson (quite near the reading at NAAM).

Whatever activity the new year has borne so far, it bursts into true bustle, hard choices, etc., this evening. At Elliott Bay, Elizabeth Kostova, who captivated readers everywhere five years ago with her compelling debut novel, The Historian, makes this welcome return with her much-anticipated second novel, The Swan Thieves (Little, Brown). Ranging over a century in time (late 19th century to late 20th) and from museums and cities in the U.S. to the Normandy coast, this new book is rich in art, ardor, and obsession. An art-loving psychiatrist takes as a patient an eminent artist who has seemingly lost himself in attacking a painting at the National Gallery of Art. " ... [an] extravagantly ] romantic novel about love, madness, and art ... [Kostova's] writing about painting is frequently stunning, both in her meticulous descriptions of the techniques of the craft and her cinematic portrayals of the paintings themselves ... fans of other novels about painters ... are sure to love this one." - Joanne Wilkinson, Booklist.

Presented by SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES. She has cast herself powerfully—on stage and page—for over thirty years. Music, writing, performance, sheer driven energy—a cultural force. All of that and Patti Smith has never put herself down on paper as she has with her luminous new memoir, Just Kids (Ecco). "Musician, poet and visual artist Smith chronicles her intense life with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe during the 1960s and 70s, when both artists came of age in downtown New York ... Writing with wonderful immediacy, Smith tells the affecting story of their entwined young lives as lovers, friends and muses to one another ... Riveting and exquisitely crafted." - Kirkus Reviews. Tickets and information via Seattle Arts & Lectures at www.lectures.org, (206) 621-2230. Benaroya Hall is at 200 University Street.