Moving this up because the reading party starts in an hour and a half!

What's that? You haven't yet read Gary Shteyngart's very lovely description of the silent-reading party in the current issue of Travel + Leisure? Get on it!

And if you've never been, maybe tonight's your night?

The special guests tonight are Tara Atkinson and Willie Fitzgerald, curators of the upcoming APRIL festival. (It stands for Authors, Publishers, and Readers of Independent Literature. Slightly confusingly, it happens the last week of March. Conflict-of-interest time: One of the people reading at it is yours truly. Other readers include Rebecca Brown [!], Matthew Simmons, Summer Robinson, Ryan Call, Chelsea Martin, and Jackie Hell [!!]. Full schedule here.) Special guests at the silent-reading party don't do a damned thing, of course, except sit there and read to themselves like everyone else.

The musician tonight is cellist Sam Anderson of the band Hey Marseilles. If it's been a while since you sat around reading while someone in the corner played the cello, well, you're in luck. He's really good! And the drink special is a $5 Manhattan. And the whole thing is free. And it happens in the Fireside Room at the Sorrento. It starts at 6 pm, but it's wise to get there early to get a great seat.

Now do you want to see some drawings from Aaron Bagley's sketchbook of people reading and drinking at the silent-reading party in December? Okay!

• Aaron Bagley

Two more after the jump.

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The most relaxing three hours of the month are almost upon us! With Kyle O'Quin at the piano and Maker's Mark Manhattans on special for $5. As mentioned yesterday, tonight's special guests are theater-makers David Schmader and Sarah Rudinoff. Schmader says he will be reading the New York Times Magazine and an oral history of MTV. Rudinoff says she will be reading the script for Keri Healey's new play Torso because she's trying to memorize her lines (the show opens next month at Theatre Off Jackson). Stranger news editor Dominic Holden just mentioned that he's going to be there tonight, probably reading the printed edition of today's New York Times. I will be finishing up The Gardens of Democracy by Eric Liu and Nick Hanauer, and then probably The New Yorker.

And you? What will you be reading?

(For the uninitiated: This happens in the Fireside Room at the Sorrento Hotel from 6 pm to 9 pm, it's all ages, and it's free. What's it like? It's like this.)

Thankfully the reading party is tonight!! See you there.

Dan Savage says he will be reading Merle Miller's On Being Different and A Most Dangerous Book by Christopher Krebs. (Both at once? Or one and then the other? Come and spy and find out!) And Greg Lundgren says he's going to be finishing off A Confederacy of Dunces by John Toole, with William Gay's The Long Home as his backup.

Like you, the special guests don't read anything aloud. They just sit there and read silently and listen to the pretty music and drink. The music tomorrow will be provided by Kyle O'Quin (piano) and Sam Anderson (cello). Like always, it starts at 6 pm at the Sorrento Hotel, it's all ages, and it's free. More info here.

I'm bringing Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon—75 pages in, I'm kicking myself for not having read it sooner. And you? What will you be reading?

Mark ye calendars! At the next silent-reading party—Wednesday, January 4—the music accompanying your reading will once again be Kyle O'Quin on piano, and in an extra-special twist he'll be joined for one Beethoven sonata by cellist Sam Anderson. The special guests, who just sit and drink and read quietly to themselves like everyone else, will be Greg Lundgren (who won a Stranger Genius Award in 2003) and Dan Savage (who invented the Stranger Genius Awards).

The silent-reading party is the first Wednesday of every month (until summer) at the Sorrento Hotel, it starts at 6 pm, it's all ages, and it's free. It's been filling up fast lately, so get there before 6 for a good spot.

Looks relaxing, huh? If you've never come to the silent-reading party before, you ought to try it. It's my favorite night of the month. And it's perfect for a gloomy December night. (Or maybe it just seems gloomy because a bearded soloist is playing a saxophone out on the sidewalk under my office window as I type this.)

That's right! The Genius Award-winning author Lesley Hazleton, the artist Aaron Bagley, and the art critic Jen Graves will be in attendance at tomorrow night's silent-reading party. That means they will be sitting there in comfy chairs at the Sorrento Hotel's Fireside Room drinking and reading to themselves whatever they feel like reading while everyone else does the same.

Because a bunch of people reading in public is so much more fun than reading at home alone.

Other delights of the silent-reading party: an actual fire, a $5 Manhattan drink special (made with Woodford Reserve), and the musician Kyle O'Quin playing classical piano. In honor of tomorrow being the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Kyle's promised to play some gloomy tunes, including Chopin's funeral march.

Fun! As always: 900 Madison Street, 6 pm, all ages, free.

This post has been moved up since yesterday.

The special guests will be Slog favorites Cienna Madrid and Paul Constant, but just like you they'll be sitting there silently reading whatever they feel like reading while Kaia Chessen plays cello.

It must be noted: the silent-reading party Manhattan drink special is now $5, but you'll get a better Manhattan for your buck: They'll be made with Woodford Reserve. Starts at 6 pm, happens in the Fireside Room at the Sorrento, it's all ages, and it's free. More details here.

• What some of us will be reading tonight. To ourselves. While you read whatever you want to yourself.

This is your friendly programming reminder that the silent-reading party starts up again in three hours. For the people who keep asking: the silent-reading party is the first Wednesday of the month, October thru May, at the Sorrento's Fireside Room. Starts at 6 pm. What's it like? It's like this. Plus, $4 Manhattans, on special. Plus, tonight, live cello by Samuel Anderson of the band Hey Marseilles.

Having trouble deciding what to read? Want ideas? Our special guests tonight (they just sit there and read to themselves like everyone else) are the artists D.K. Pan and Ryan Mitchell. Pan says he will be reading Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin (a novel about that French guy who tightroped between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in the '70s). Mitchell says, "I will be finishing up Funeral Rites by Genet."

I'm gonna read Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad Gooch.

And you? What are you gonna read?

Slog reader Mandi writes:

Whatever happened to the silent reading party at the Sorrento? I was hoping it would come back last month, but heard nothing. Now we're coming up on the 1st Wednesday of October and it's not on SLOG, Line Out, or the Sorrento event cal. Is it gone forever?

No, no!! The silent reading party is back, starting this Wednesday—I've been meaning to crow this from the rooftops. We took a hiatus for the summer months, when it's so much nicer to just read outside, but summer is now long gone, as anyone who's been outside lately can tell you. This week, the special guests are two past Stranger Genius Award Winners: Ryan Mitchell (of Implied Violence and Saint Genet) and D.K. Pan, "Seattle's patron saint of collective art."

The musical guest on Wednesday will be Samuel Anderson of the band Hey Marseilles, playing cello.

Details: It starts at 6 pm, it happens in the Sorrento's Fireside Room, you bring whatever you feel like reading and sit there and read it to yourself while classical music plays, and the $4 Manhattan drink special is available until 9 pm. The silent reading party is a collaboration between The Stranger and Night School, curated by Michael Hebb. It's very relaxing. If you've never been, come.