Whereas yesterday was totally packed with thrilling readings choices, tonight has a couple of reading choices that are not so hot, with a couple gems. And a poetry slam.

Jane Porter is at the University Book Store with Mrs. Perfect. Which is a novel about a woman who “gets jealous when her arch rival is named Head Room Mom” at her daughter’s school. I will speak of this book no more.

“Fly-fishing’s foremost scribe” is at Third Place Books. That’s enough of that one, too, unless you’re into fly-fishing, in which case: get to it.

At the Seattle Public Library, Alexandra Fuller, author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight, which is a memoir of growing up in Africa, reads from The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, which is a novel about a young man in Wyoming. Fuller’s first book was very popular with the book club crowd. Myself and other booksellers ascribed its success to the fact that it was about Africa, (exotic) but it was written by a white woman (familiar). I’ve always wanted Charles to review it.

At Third Place Books Ravenna, we have the author of Closing the Food Gap: Resetting the Table in the Land of Plenty. I told you this was the week of tons of books about food. This one is less about the actual food and more about its fair redistribution.

Simon Winchester, who wrote The Professor and the Madman, is at Kane Hall on the UW campus, reading from his new book The Man Who Loved China, which is about a man who helped open modern China to the west. I wasn’t crazy (har-har) about The Professor and the Madman, but Winchester is an author who is at least very talented in picking very interesting subjects for his books, which might be half the authorial battle right there.

And at Town Hall, Leonard Mlodinow reads from The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives. I haven’t read it yet, but it looks like a very Freakonomics-y type book. But this reading should be recommended if just for the author’s resume: he was “co-author with Stephen Hawking of A Briefer History of Time” and he wrote for Star Trek: The Next Generation and MacGyver. This is, needless to say, awesome.

Don’t forget to consult the full readings calendar for more information.