Kevin O'Brien signs at Seattle Mystery Bookshop today at noon. Vicious is a book about an abduction. According to press materials for this book, the author occasionally frightens himself, causing him to check his own house for intruders, a meat-tenderizing hammer in hand. This is the ugliest jacket cover I've seen on a mainstream title in a good long while.

The reading of the day is at Pilot Books. It's time for Big Pelt IV; Pilot Books explains, "Big Pelt Talkies are a series of readings and comissioned essays by poets." Tonight's readers and poets are Chris Daniels, David Abel, and Sam Lohmann, who is the editor of a zine called Peaches and Bats.

If you're on Vashon, there's a four-day free book festival going on. Information about that is here.

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.