It's an exceptional night for book events in Seattle.

The Central Library hosts a Pecha Kucha night with readers including Kathleen Flenniken, Lindsey Walker, Greg Stump, and Storme Webber. In case you're unfamiliar with the format, the FAQ describes Pecha Kucha as "a simple presentation format where you show 20 images, each for 20 seconds. The images advance automatically and you talk along to the images." Most of these readers are poets, although Stump is an excellent cartoonist who will presumably use the Pecha Kucha format to do something very interesting. Meanwhile, at the Hedreen Gallery, the popular Margin Shift poetry collective's monthly reading features Alicia Cohen, who has written two books of poetry and an opera, and Donato Mancini, who is a prolific poet and critic.

If you're not feeling like poetry, University Book Store is hosting Miriam Pawel. Her new book is titled The Crusades of Cesar Chavez: A Biography.

And the main event, as I've already Suggested, is Tom Spanbauer at Elliott Bay Book Company. I've written a few hundred words about why you should attend this one.

But if you're not in the mood for a reading at all, I'd encourage you to check out the Movable Type Literary Mixer at Vermillion. All you have to do is bring the book you're reading, buy a drink, and be ready to talk with strangers about books. (Learn more here.) Simple! Fun! Effective! What more do you want out of a book event?

Everything else you need to know is in our readings calendar, which has information about all the events coming up in the near future.