1. The Reading Party is tonight, with special super-smart literary guests.

2. University Book Store hosts local cartoonist Matthew Inman tonight. Even if you don't know Inman's name, you are probably familiar with his site, The Oatmeal. His book, 5 Very Good Reasons to Punch a Dolphin in the Mouth, is a collection of well over a hundred Oatmeal strips, 25 of which are new to this edition.

Some of Inman's strips are very, very funny. Some of them are so wince-inducing and full of fratty humor that I occasionally have to take long vacations from visiting his site. (Personally, I prefer his educational strips, especially the ones that illustrate the history of coffee and the proper use of a semicolon.) The book, for the most part, avoids these missteps (I think there's only one dead hooker joke, although I am of the opinion that one dead hooker joke is one too many) and runs some of the funnier strips Inman has published. There's a few too many jokes about caffeine and air travel, but his doughy, moronic characters have a certain undeniable appeal that pulls even the least-funny strips out of bad humor purgatory. This is your opportunity to meet the man behind the site, and remark on the fact that he looks nothing like the people he draws.

3. There are two other quality events tonight—musician-cum-novelist Wesley Stace at Elliott Bay Book Company and beloved author Tracy Kidder at Benaroya Hall—and you can read about those and everything else going on tonight in our reading calendar.