There is a lot going on tonight.

Dava Sobel, who has written extensively about Galileo, including a book called Galileo's Daughter, discusses Galileo and astronomy at Kane Hall. Nearby, at the University branch of the library, Molly Gloss reads from her newest novel, The Hearts of Horses. I'm not so crazy about Molly Gloss, but if you like novels about frontier days and tomboys and horses, you'll probably love the hell out of Molly Gloss. She's a pretty good writer.

At the Pan Pacific Hotel, Steven Johnson, who has discussed The Invention of Air a whole bunch of times in the last couple days, discusses it again, as part of the Words and Wine series. $45 covers a copy of the book, a seat to an interview between Johnson and local interviewer Warren Etheridge, and ALL THE WINE YOU CAN DRINK. Plus, appetizers!

If you're feeling bad about all the pain and financial distress that the new year has brought on, you might want to head up to Lake Forest Park, where Geshe Kelsan Gyatso reads from Introduction to Buddhism. Or if, instead of spirituality, you like super-light chick lit, you should go to Elliott Bay, where Jayne Anne Phillips reads from her novel Lark & Termite, which is about females who are friends. I bet it has a happy ending.

But the reading of the night tonight is at Open Books. Poets Jenny Browne and Matthew Dickman will read. Here is part of a poem by Jenny Browne: "In the backyard, the children pretend to build a fire,/started in the minds. On our skin. To the sky./Piling twigs and stones atop more twigs and stones./We can feel it from here, the fire/They are not yet old enough to read or remember." Here is part of a poem by Matthew Dickman: "When grief comes to you as a purple gorilla/you must count yourself lucky./You must offer her what's left/of your dinner, the book you were trying to finish/you must put aside/and make her a place to sit at the foot of your bed,/her eyes moving from the clock/to the television and back again."

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