Books
Mike Lawson
House Reckoning continues his Joe DeMarco series of thrillers. Seattle Mystery Bookshop, 117 Cherry St., Seattle, WA 98104 Free Thursday, July 3, 2014, 12 – 1pm
Above the East China Sea He reads from his translation of Xu Zechen’s novel Running Through Beijing, set in gritty, present-day China. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Thursday, July 3, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Yasmine Galenorn
Night’s End concludes her Indigo Court series. Seattle Mystery Bookshop, 117 Cherry St., Seattle, WA 98104 Free Saturday, July 5, 2014, 12 – 1pm
Larry Correia His new creature novel is Monster Hunter Nemesis. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Monday, July 7, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore Class tensions erupt during a college girl’s summer vacation in her novel Bittersweet. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Monday, July 7, 2014, 7 – 8pm
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Michael Waldman After the Newtown, Connecticut, school shooting in December 2012, President Obama tried to get some mild form of gun-control legislation through Congress-and we all know how that turned out. Given the forecast for this fall’s midterm elections, no further progress on that front can be expected. So how did we get into this muddle of guns versus public safety? That’s the subject NYU law professor Waldman addresses in The Second Amendment: A Biography (Simon & Schuster, $25). Why the curious subtitle? Because amendments, like laws, are living, breathing, mutable creatures. Since its birth in 1789, Waldman convincingly argues, the Second Amendment has grown into something quite different than the founders intended. All can agree we started with this: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed,” though scholars can debate the placement of a few commas. For the next two centuries, Waldman writes, bearing arms was understood not to be an individual right but a matter of public self-defense. Nor did the National Rifle Association consider it an individual right until 1977, when insurgent leadership began funding new legal theories and backing Republican politicians. Those politicians appointed judges sympathetic to those new theories, and all those forces precipitated the District of Columbia v. Heller decision, six months before Obama’s 2008 election. If there’s a positive takeaway from Waldman’s rather depressing account, it’s that the NRA got what it wanted in only 31 years. Old amendments can be redefined in a single generation. BRIAN MILLER Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., Seattle $5 Monday, July 7, 2014, 7:30 – 8:30pm
Clarion West Summer Reading Series Ian McDonald writes about artificial intelligence and the virtual realm. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 7 – 9pm
Diana Renn Her YA mystery Latitude Zero is set in the dirty world of professional cycling, reaching from Boston to Ecuador. (Also: Seattle Mystery Bookshop, noon, Mon., July 7.) Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., Seattle, 98115 Free Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Josh Weil He’ll discuss his new Russia-set novel The Great Glass Sea with local author Peter Mountford (The Dismal Science). Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Tuesday, July 8, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Peggy Kelsey She’ll discuss her photo/interview book Gathering Strength: Conversations with Afghan Women. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 12 – 1pm
Jennifer Murphy The local novelist’s I Love You More mixes murder and romance. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Shirley Showalter Her memoir is Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World. Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., Seattle, 98115 Free Wednesday, July 9, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Donald C. Lee
A Fool’s Discipline is his new fantasy tome. University Book Store (Bellevue), 990 102nd Ave. N.E., Bellevue, WA 98004 Free Thursday, July 10, 2014, 6 – 7pm
Andrew Smith He’ll discuss The Adderall Empire: A Life with ADHD and the Millennials’ Drug of Choice. Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., Seattle, 98115 Free Thursday, July 10, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Patricia Lockwood She collects new poetry in Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Thursday, July 10, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Terry Brooks The local sci-fi/fantasy author reads from The High Druid’s Blade: The Defenders of Shannara. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Thursday, July 10, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Paul Greenberg He helps analyze your salmon in American Catch: The Fight for Our Local Seafood. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., Seattle $5 Thursday, July 10, 2014, 7:30 – 8:30pm
Leslie Budewitz His culinary crime tale Crime Rib is set in Montana. Seattle Mystery Bookshop, 117 Cherry St., Seattle, WA 98104 Free Friday, July 11, 2014, 12 – 1pm
Carew Papritz In his novel The Legacy Letters, a dying man writes letters to his grown children. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Friday, July 11, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Yvonne Higgins Leach The local poet (Another Autumn) is joined by fellow verse-slinger Gerry McFarland. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Friday, July 11, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Food Authors Group Reading Discussing their books will be Sarah Ballantyne (The Paleo Approach), Russ Crandall (The Ancestral Table: Traditional Recipes for a Paleo Lifestyle) and Mickey Trescott (The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook). Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Saturday, July 12, 2014, 12 – 1pm
Randy Henderson His short story “Memories Bleed Beneath the Mask” is in the recent edition of the L. Ron Hubbard anthology Writers of the Future. Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., Seattle, 98115 Free Saturday, July 12, 2014, 6:30 – 7:30pm
Zachary Bonelli Appearing with the sci-fi writer (Voyage Embarkation) is Aubry Kae Anderson, whose The Winter, about a post-apocalyptic time of famine and plague. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Saturday, July 12, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Jeni Pulos The Bravo TV host shares from her self-help guide Grin and Bear It. Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., Seattle, 98115 Free Sunday, July 13, 2014, 2 – 3pm
Arleen Williams She continues her YA Alki series with Biking Uphill, about a friendship put to the test. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Sunday, July 13, 2014, 3 – 4pm
Dave Zirin He shares from Brazil’s Dance with the Devil: The World Cup, the Olympics, and the Fight for Democracy. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Monday, July 14, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Gordon H. Orians He’ll discuss Snakes, Sunrises, and Shakespeare: How Evolution Shapes Our Loves and Fears. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Monday, July 14, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Theo Pauline Nestor The local author’s writer’s guide is Writing is My Drink: A Writer’s Story of Finding Her Voice (and a Guide to How You Can, Too). University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 6 – 7pm
Celeste Ng A family comes undone in her debut novel Everything I Never Told You. Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle, WA 98122 Free Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 7 – 8pm
Clarion West Summer Reading Series Hiromi Goto is known for Kappa Child and Darkest Light. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., Seattle, WA 98105 Free Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 7 – 9pm
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Ian Doescher The idea was almost too good when this Portland author hatched it last year: a mash-up of Star Wars and Shakespeare, light sabers meet iambic pentameter, Wookies grunting in verse, R2-D2 given soliloquies in Elizabethan English rather than beeps and chirps. Doescher’s first volume was the first movie (or fourth, in George Lucas’ enumeration): William Shakespeare’s Star Wars. Now follow the inevitable William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back and William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return (Quirk Books, $14.95), both of which faithfully relate the movies’ key scenes, though with an emphasis for speech over action.
Thus when the gold-bikinied Leia slays Jabbba of the Hutt on his floating Tatooine desert barge, she describes the strangling: “Whilst Jabba worries o’er the battle, I/Shall throw the chains about his neck. Then, pull!” Space combat is generally related by the characters, not the chorus. The giant asteroid-dwelling worm, the Exogorth, even gets a soliloquy, lamenting that when his meal gets away (i.e., those onboard the Millennium Falcon), “I shall with weeping crawl back into my cave,/Which shall, sans food, belike become my grave.” Chewbacca sings (though, as usual, we have no idea what he’s saying). Doescher also often interjects paraphrases and wordplay alluding to Shakespeare (and even Sophocles), so Han Solo can diss his old friend with a casual aside, “This Lando doth protest too much, methinks.”
Then there’s the problem of Yoda’s unique diction. At first, his three-line stanzas didn’t scan for me: five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables-with iambs and trochees running rampant. WTF? But he’s like a Japanese sensei to Luke, so naturally he’s speaking in … but no, I’ll leave it to you to parse. If I were going to steer middle-school kids towards the Bard (and the J.J. Abrams Star Wars movies, with Episode VII due at Christmas of next year), this would be required reading: homework that is also hugely fun. (Also note that ReACT Theater will present scenes from Doescher’s trilogy at Elliott Bay Book Co., 6 p.m. Sun., July 20. Doescher also appears this week at Northgate Barnes & Noble, 2 p.m. Sun.) BRIAN MILLER Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., Seattle, 98115 Free Tuesday, July 15, 2014, 7 – 8pm
