March is now Ideful and Friday has been Freaked and there are lots of readings to attend, so let’s get down to it. There are two open mics and a thriller and more.

Exelizabeth wrote about Amy Sutherland in a much more entertaining (and also forgiving) way than I ever could, and so follow the link if you’d like to read more about a self-help book that’s on the topics of marriage lessons from a killer whale. Sutherland is at Queen Anne Books today.

Exelizabeth also paid considerable homage to Lois Lowry, a young adult writer that I will always adore. Apparently, Lowry’s reading at Town Hall isn’t sold out yet, but you should probably get tickets before you go.

Warren Read is at Elliott Bay Book Company, reading from The Lyncher In Me, which is about coming to terms with the sins of a favorite great-grandfather. This is one of those “If I had all the time in the world…” books that gets ignored for other, more pressing books. But that’s one of the reasons we have readings, right? To see if the book’s worth the purchase?

Finally, there’s a reading going on that’s kind of a special case: local author Jefferson Elliott is reading from Suicide Diary, a novel that looks, frankly, pretty bad in the preview pages up at Lulu.com. But it’s also a grand opening for a new bookstore, called The Bottom Shelf. A new bookstore is always exciting, right? Here’s what the owner, Ben Corey, told me about it in an e-mail:

…what we are working towards is essentially an information shop. its a small place so we are going to specialize generally in non-fiction and more specifically in science, travel and social commentary. We will always have a selection of fiction as well, but I am trying to weed out all but the classics and the best of the contemporary. We also have art from a number of local artists and a small selection of music from local bands and musicians.

I might not make it there today, but I will make it there in the near future.

Full readings calendar, including more information about these readings, here.