As Sarah Vowell has demonstrated, nothing is sexier than an obsession with long-dead presidents. And Andrew Jackson, the subject of Jon Meacham's new book American Lion, is perhaps the most obsession-worthy commander in chief not named Obama. He was feisty (Jackson's inauguration party resulted in a drunken trashing of the White House and he threatened to kill his own vice president), and he was an evil sonofabitch too (both the forcible annexation of Florida and the Trail of Tears took place under Jackson's reign). (Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 800-838-3006. 7:30 pm, $5.)