This list is the best of what's coming. Unless somebody dies. Or falls off the stage. Or just has a shitty day. What can we say? Sue us if you don't end up liking this stuff. TRY IT, BITCHEZ.

Sam Lipsyte

With Home Land, Sam Lipsyte became the funniest living American fiction author. His new novel, The Ask, is just as funny and twice as affecting. After unleashing an unprintable tirade on a student, a tiny university's development officer finds his job in danger unless he can get an old friend—now a tech mogul—to donate a disgusting amount of money to his school. Home Land made you laugh until your sides hurt. The Ask's beautifully written comedic tragedy makes you laugh, punches out your heart, and makes you fall in love with language all over again. March 25, Neptune Coffee, 8415 Greenwood Ave N, 634-3400, 7 pm, free. PAUL CONSTANT

Frances McCue

From his namesake institution on Capitol Hill to former students like David Waggoner who still shape Seattle's poetry scene, the late Richard Hugo looms large over Northwest literature. So poet Frances McCue, a founder and former director at Hugo House, signed up for a daunting task when she decided to follow the memory of Hugo through small towns of the Northwest. As she wandered around the beautiful wrecks hidden in the mountains of Washington and Montana, she fell in love with Hugo's ghost; The Car That Brought You Here Still Runs documents their phantom relationship. April 6, University Book Store, 4326 University Way NE, 634-3400, 7 pm, free. PC

Elliott Bay Grand Reopening Block Party

On March 31, we'll say good-bye forever to the creaky floors and heavy stone walls of Elliott Bay Book Company's Pioneer Square location. And on April 15, Elliott Bay's new neighbors will welcome the store to its newly bustling new neighborhood on Capitol Hill, closing down 10th Avenue for book-loving pedestrians, serenading the bookstore with bands, and welcoming book lovers to their new home away from home. This will be one of those auspicious occasions when you'll remember exactly what you were doing when a new chapter began. April 15, Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, 10 am–10 pm, free. PC

David Remnick

America's whirlwind romance with Barack Obama is still very new; we got swept up in our adoration, and now we're eyeing each other, trying to figure out what we got ourselves into. If there's any man who can help us determine who we woke up with, it's New Yorker editor David Remnick, whose The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama charts our president's ascension to power. Remnick's jeweler's eye and steady hand, when applied to that guy whose logo we all wore unquestioningly a few months back, should be revelatory. April 19, Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255, 7:30 pm, $15. PC

David Sedaris

I don't know if it's because of his best-selling books or his frequent appearances on NPR, but we had an essay contest to give away David Sedaris tickets on Slog last year, and it was a virtual stampede: gay men, lesbians, pregnant women, straight dudes, teachers, teenagers, and at least one creepy contender who seemed to fit the "none of the above" category a little too well. The point is this: Everybody loves Sedaris. He filled Benaroya Hall twice-over last year and killed on both nights. This year, he's doing a one-night-only appearance, and tickets are already going fast; join the stampede and enjoy the trampling. May 9, Benaroya Hall, 200 University St, 215-4747, 7 pm, $38–$47. PC

Cory Doctorow, Pillow Army

Cory Doctorow is perhaps best known for his blogging at Boing Boing, but he's also a wildly popular science-fiction author, and he's making a name for himself with informed, passionate anticopyright activism, too. He manages to combine all three things into one cohesive career: He's a literary futurist with a strong opinion about what's coming next. Doctorow will celebrate the release of his new young adult novel, Makers, with a reading, a Q&A with some douchebag named Paul Constant, and a full set of rock and roll from on-their-way-to-huge lit-minded rock band Pillow Army. May 14, Sunset Tavern, 5433 Ballard Ave NW, 634-3400, 7 pm, $5. PC

Sebastian Junger

Sebastian Junger is the kind of reporter who almost never writes books anymore. Just from reading The Perfect Storm, about fishermen who wound up on the wrong end of badass weather, you can tell that Junger is a man's man from his granite jaw down to his brass balls. His newest, War, is about Junger's 15-month tour with a platoon of American soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. It's the kind of up-close, exciting, bare-knuckle journalism that Wolf Blitzer wouldn't be able to even think about without melting into a puddle of tears, and it threatens to cause America to rethink what we're doing in Afghanistan in the first place. May 27, Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave, 652-4255, 7:30 pm, $5. PC