Lots of events tonight including a poetry slam, a book about gorillas, a book about wishing, and a book about birdwatching.

Also, at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop at noon, Craig Johnson will sign his thriller about a crime-fighting Vietnam veteran and Stella Rimington will sign her book about a counterspy trying to protetct Vladimir Putin.

At the University Book Store, Molly Blaisdell will sign her new children’s book Rembrandt and the Boy Who Drew Dogs. It is about the painter. And a boy. Who likes to draw dogs. And that is all I have to say about the matter.

At Elliott Bay Book Company, David Young signs from his new collection of poetry, Black Lab,the cover of which is just up and to the left, here. Let’s take a moment to admire the cover. It’s impressive that the book jacket designer was given a book titled Black Lab and didn’t make the whole book black, or prominently feature a photograph of a dog. Instead, the cover is yellow, and it’s a photograph taken from the ground looking up at a man with a dog on a leash. I don’t know Young’s poetry, but I’m really fond of how this cover has avoided both the black-in-the-title cliché and the dog-in-the-title cliché. Good work, anonymous cover-making person!

Natan Sharansky is at Town Hall, reading from Defending Identity. The presser says that this is book “argues that it is better to have hostile identities framed by democracy than democrats indifferent to identity.” Touché, sir, touché.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is on our books page.