There are a lot of readings tonight, including a book about Marco Polo up at Third Place Books and a book at the University Book Store that is described thusly: “New deities fight to join the formal pantheon of the Gods in this new Mazalan book.” There is also an open mic.

Chuck Klosterman reads at Elliott Bay Book Company tonight. He’s written a novel called Downtown Owl. I gave our copy of Downtown Owl to Eric Grandy to read during his recent trip to New York City. During his flight, he got about sixty pages into the book before being distracted by DirecTV, and then apparently he didn’t think about it again until I asked him about it this morning. That might be all you need to know about Downtown Owl.

At the University Book Store, Bernard-Henri Lévy reads from his newest book, Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism. This morning, I heard Mr. Lévy on NPR talk about the election and how it is imperative to vote for Obama. It occurred to me that if most of the people I went to high school with heard a man with a thick French accent talk on the radio about what was wrong with America and then endorse Obama, they’d probably vote for McCain out of spite. I’m so glad I don’t live in Maine anymore.

And at Town Hall, Dexter Filkins reads from The Forever War, which is about Iraq and Afghanistan. To hear the television networks tell it, Iraq has become a non-issue in this election, but you should still go to this reading: Iraq still matters, for reasons both obvious and not obvious. (And, as an aside, it’s lovely to see a book about current events with such a beautiful cover. Normally, they just slap a photo up there and call it a day, but you can tell that a designer actually thought about this book cover. Good job, nameless book designer!)

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