Events
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Start: 7:00 pm
Seattle native son Michael Byers, author of a much-praised first book of stories, The Coast of Good Intentions, and a terrific Seattle-set novel, Long for This World, is back in his hometown with a new novel, Percival's Planet (Henry Holt). "... a gloriously expansive view of Depression-era America, from the easy extravagance of the Boston Brahmins to hardscrabble rural life. At its core, this is the story of Clyde Tombaugh, an unassuming Kansas farm kid who achieves international fame for his discovery of Pluto ... Byers connects Clyde's story with a number of riveting and eventually interlinking subplots ... Between the faultless storytelling and the juicy historical hook, this looks like a hit." – Publishers Weekly. "Fascinating ... fresh and astonishing ... Brilliant observations about human nature—obsessiveness, laziness, duplicity, and violence, but also creativity, faithfulness, integrity, selflessness, and courage—are all illustrated by unique yet believable, likable characters ... This insightful, witty novel grabs the heart and tickles the mind." – Booklist. | 4
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Start: 7:00 pm
Another native of Seattle (following Michael Byers) who's moved away but makes visits back such as this is nonfiction prose writer Colette Brooks. She first read at Elliott Bay for her PEN-Jerard Fund Award-winning meditation on cities, In the City: Random Acts of Awareness. She's here now with a new book on another form of awareness, Lost in Wonder: Imagining Science and Other Mysteries (Counterpoint). This is a readerly and writerly bridge between the casually informed layperson and the 'expert'—the latter a category to which so much scientific weight in the culture has been assigned (or allowed)—as if others don't have a serious stake in participating and perceiving. Again, awareness, which includes wariness within it, along with much deep pleasure. Billy Collins comments for In the City seems apt for Lost in Wonder: "A lively mix of narrative, reportage, memoir, and meditative essay. This is an engaging book, so fraught with self-consciousness as to bring into question our notions of writing and literary structure." | 6
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Start: 2:00 pm
After over ten years of paying storage fees for their late mother's possessions, Lisa Tracy and her sister finally sat down to the task of preparing for an auction. The process of uncovering the history of objects as varied as mismatched cake plates, an old Chinese trunk, and a chair in which our first president might have rested, is the tale she tells in The Objects of Our Affection: Uncovering My Family's Past, One Chair, Pistol and Pickle Fork at a Time (Bantam). "Lisa Tracy's Objects of Our Affection is a lovely and loving book, revealing the life of her well-traveled military family not just through the furniture they chose to keep, but through what they lost and surrendered along the way. Moving from the heights of San Juan Hill to the courtyards of China's Forbidden City, this book shows us why the possessions of our ancestors exert a profound influence upon our modern lives." – Jeff Gammage. Lisa Tracy's previous books include Muddy Waters: The Legacy of Katrina and Rita and The Gradual Vegetarian. |
