Paul Constant is on vacation. (Lazy.) Books, however, are not. Books never take a vacation. Always remember that books are here for you, unlike Paul Constant.

Tonight in books:

First of all, before I get to tonight’s old-fashioned ink-‘n’-paper readings, you MIGHT want to consider sitting down in front of that glowing electric movie-talkie book-box in the living room and ear-reading the final presidential debate. BUT! If you hate our freedoms (and/or John McCain’s facial scabbing), here’s what else is going on.

At the Douglass-Truth library (6:30 pm, free), Richard Farr reads from Emperors of the Ice: A True Story of Disaster and Survival in the Antarctic, 1910-13. Hey Richard Farr, maybe you should have called your book Emperors of the Spoiler Alert!: It Was Awful Cold but We Didn’t Die. I mean, really. Why do I even need to read the book now?

Up at the Bothell Third Place Books (7 pm, free) it’s Amy Duncan, with her book Salvage Studio: Sustainable Home Comforts to Organize, Entertain, and Inspire. Fuck that was a lot of syllables. Where am I? What day is it?

The University Bookstore is hosting a “cocktail party” to “celebrate” the release of a new Sandra Lee cookbook. Sandra Lee is that woman on the Food Network who makes canapes out of stale Pringles and Beanee Weenee. There are not enough cocktails in the world, Sandra Lee.

The Washington State Book Awards are going down at the Central Library (7 pm, free). And I’m not saying they’re going down in a threatening way like, “YOU’RE GOING DOWN, BOOK AWARDS!” And I don’t mean they’re performing oral sex, on you or anyone. I mean, they don’t technically even have a mouth. I just mean that they’re taking place tonight. Hhhhh. I should have said that in the first place. This is awkward now. Anyway, Paul Constant, before he abandoned us all, said that you should go.

At Town Hall (7:30 pm, free), Dave Zirin reads from A People’s History of Sports in the United States, which, one assumes, contains phrases like, “Back in the Depression, we didn’t have basketballs. You know what we used instead? MUD. Goddamn modern kids and their rubber shoes.”

And over at Elliott Bay, it’s Jonathan Carroll, who writes something called “hyper-fiction.” Paul Constant, a nerd, gave it a shiny gold star. It is probably delightful. (I would look it up but I have to go watch the PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE.)

(And of course I’m only kidding. You’re not unpatriotic or a terrorist if you decide to skip tonight’s debate and go listen to someone read out loud about when granddad used to play stickball down by the quarry with just a peach pit and a polio crutch. Or whatever. You’re just, like, borderline French or something.)