A Poetry Slam, a book about hiking Snohomish County, a discussion about evangelicals and liberals, and a group reading sponsored by Jack Straw Productions, as well as other readings that I am going to show you about right now.

Up at Third Place Books, Rick Bragg, author of All Over but the Shoutin’, reads from the third book in his memoir trilogy, The Prince of Frogtown. Shoutin’ was pretty good, but I haven’t read the others. But I believe that Bragg is a good reader and should be entertaining.

At Parkplace Books out in Kirkland, John Straley, Alaska’s writer laureate, reads from his new mystery, The Big Both Ways, which is a mystery set in the Northwest in the 1930s and involves Wobblies. Wobblies!

At the Central Branch of the Library, Firoozeh Dumas discusses Laughing Without an Accent: Adventures of an Iranian American, at Home and Abroad. It is about the power of laughter.

And at the Sunset Tavern, Mike Edison performs, with a band, from I Have Fun Everywhere I Go: Savage Tales of Pot, Porn, Punk Rock, Pro Wrestling, Talking Apes, Evil Bosses, Dirty Blues, American Heroes, and the Most Notorious Magazines in the World. Ari Spool is reading this at the moment and she said that the book reads the way that a bar band sounds. I am right now, even as I type, listening to the audio version of the book, which was produced by Jon Spencer and features the Rocket Train Delta Science Arkestra. It sounds like a bar band. There’s even harmonica. In talking about working at Screw magazine, Edison even says that he wanted something “the way that Chief Wiggum wants a jelly donut.” If you’re into porn or wrestling or illicit drugs, this could be your thing, and it’s at a bar, and it’s free.

Look! It’s the full readings calendar!