Slog

There’s an open mic and two readings going on today.

The readings couldn’t be more different. Alexander McCall Smith, who wrote the Number One Ladies’ Detective Agency, reads in Bellevue. I have tried to read his books—he puts out maybe three or four a year—and I just can’t. They feel like outlines for real books to be written at a later date by a competent writer.

And at Elliott Bay Book Company, Arthur Nersesian reads. He wrote a very good novel called The Fuck-Up, about a man in his twenties who is a fuck-up. He has just embarked on a five-part series of novels about a fictional New York that has been significantly changed by an urban designer. The first book was The Swing Voter of Staten Island, and the newest one in the series is The Sacrificial Circumcision of the Bronx. I haven’t read this particular series, but it looks fascinating and Nersesian writes about New York in a really interesting way. He’ll be joined onstage by Curt Colbert, who is editing the forthcoming Seattle Noir anthology. You should attend the latter and not the former.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here.