Vendela Vida

(Literary Greatness) Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name is far from the usual overreaching or rut digging that typify sophomore novels. Vendela Vida takes the conceit of a woman searching for her biological father and expands it into wonderful, weird places—specifically, the permanent dusk of Lapland in winter. The sentences are warm with their own pulse, alive with ice hotels and reindeer, matchbook collections and hampering hampers. This is a book that echoes, and you should go and listen intently and be grateful that a human being can write something so gorgeous. (University Bookstore, 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400. 7 pm, free; also on Wed Jan 24 at Elliott Bay Book Company, 101 South Main St, 624-6600. 7:30 pm, free.) PAUL CONSTANT