At the Great Nabob, it's time for a reading to celebrate the release of Fail Nation: A Visual Romp through the World of Epic Fails. I think Failblog is hilarious, but—and I sound like a broken record here—it's available for free on the internet. So enjoy Failblog, but if you buy the book, that's kind of a fail right there.

Sara Paretsky reads from Hardball. a new V.I. Warshawski novel, today at University Book Store. I read one V.I. Warshawski novel about a decade ago, and it involved the Holocaust. It was so distasteful that I've never read another one. Elliott Bay Book Company hosts Honor Moore tonight. Moore is a memoirist and anthologist. She reads from new work she has written in her residency at Hedgbrook.

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? asks all kinds of questions like should the rich be taxed to help the poor and what are our obligations to others as people in a free society? The answers are "yes" and "more than you're doing right now." Michael J. Sandel, the author of Justice, reads at Town Hall tonight.

Hugo House is hosting an event titled "So a Magician, a Blonde and a Donkey Walk into a Bar..." Three poets "explore...the mythical and spiritual dimensions of archetypes that include the blonde, the magician, the donkey, the circus freak and the virgin." Is a donkey an archetype?

But the reading of the night is a cookbook reading. Ruth Reichl is at Third Place Books. This time, Reichl is in town to celebrate the release of the new cookbook from Gourmet Magazine. Gourmet Today: More Than 1,000 All-New Recipes for the Contemporary Kitchen is a pretty great new cookbook that makes gourmet cooking look easy. It would be a great Christmas present, especially if that Christmas present was signed by Ruth Reichl. I'm just sayin'.

The full readings calendar, including the next week or so, is here. And if you're planning on staying in and you're looking for personalized book recommendations, feel free to tell me the books you like and ask me what to read next over at Questionland.