An average of ten times a week we are proud to present contemporary authors in the intimate yet casual setting of our reading room, a book-lined room that accommodates a pleasantly sized audience, next to the Elliott Bay Café.
Information
- Location:
- Seattle, WA, 98104
- Phone:
- (206) 624-6600
- Mon - Sat:
- 9:30 am - 9:30 pm
- Sun:
- 11:00 am - 7:00 pm
Events
11 upcoming eventsSee All
- GORDON L. MILLER
In Store
Tomorrow, November 16 at 7:00pm - ELLIE KRIEGER
Town Hall Seattle
Tomorrow, November 16 at 7:30pm - SPECULATIONS - ELLIOTT BAY SCI...
In Store - Travel Loft
Tuesday, November 17 at 6:30pm - MICHAEL SPECTER
Kane Hall 110
Tuesday, November 17 at 7:00pm - HANNAH PAKULA
Seattle Asian Art Museum
Tuesday, November 17 at 7:00pm - MADELINE DeFREES: Celebrating ...
In Store
Wednesday, November 18 at 7:00pm - ANTHONY D. BARNOSKY
Town Hall Seattle
Wednesday, November 18 at 7:30pm - ISABELLA ROSSELLINI
Benaroya Hall
Wednesday, November 18 at 7:30pm - MARILYN CHIN
In Store
Thursday, November 19 at 7:00pm - MARY KARR
In Store
Friday, November 20 at 7:00pm
Elliott Bay Book Company
The second evening in Richard Hugo House's Hugo Literary Series features all-original work on the theme of "Visiting Hours." Those on tap tonight include Seattle poet ELIZABETH AUSTEN; novelist BENJAMIN PARZYBOK, author of the popular novel, Couch (Small Beer Press); actor/performer MATT SMITH, and singer/songwriter MO...LLY ROSE. Tickets ($15 - $25) are available via www.brownpapertickets.com. Richard Hugo House is at 1634 Eleventh Avenue. For more information, please call (206) 322-7030 or see www.hugohouse.org.Read More
"VISITING HOURS" with ELIZABETH AUSTEN, BENJAMIN PARZUBOK, MATT SMITH & music by MOLLY ROSE
Time:7:30PM Friday, November 20th
Location:Richard Hugo House
Elliott Bay Book Company
One of this country's most acclaimed poets (Sinners Welcome, Viper Rum) and essayists, Mary Karr has also been known for telling memoirs, The Liars' Club and Cherry. She makes this welcome Elliott Bay return this evening for her most recent of these accounts, the autobiographical Lit (HarperCollins). "Karr deftly cover...s a vast stretch of her life—age 17 to her present 50. The author picks up where her 2000 memoir Cherry left off ... Karr ... writes with a singular combination of poetic grace and Texan verve, which allows her to present the experiences as fresh, but also brigs a potent, self-condemning honesty and a palpable sense of responsibility and regret to the narrative ... Will ring true in American-lit classrooms as in church support groups—an absolute gem that secures Karr's place as one of the best memoirists of her generation." - Kirkus Reviews. Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
It has been too long since we have a visit by award-winning poet—and now, fiction writer—Marilyn Chin. Tonight, at last, is occasioned by the publication of her debut novel, Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen (W.W. Norton). "Wildly profane and funny riffs on folklore, chronicling the adventures of two very modern Chinese-Am...erican sisters. Meil Ling and Moonie Wong may live in contemporary California, but their iron-willed grandmother will not let the twins forget their ancestral land, or the wrongs done to it ... In this loosely knit series of short stories, many of which are based on Buddhist and Taoist parables as well as Chinese ghost stories, poet Chin spins out two young lives with outrageous humor. Multifaceted rather than linear, magical rather than literal, these tales tend to focus on the twins' childhood and adolescence, often presenting contrasting views of such similar rites of passages as dating and the loss of virginity. A fresh, chaotic and sexy updating of the cross-cultural experience." - Kirkus Reviews. Also on hand is the reissues of Marilyn Chin's award-winning 1993 collection of poems, The Phoenix Gone, The Terrace Empty (Milkweed). "Reading her, our sense of the possibilities of poetry is opened further, and we feel again what an active, powerful art it can be." - Adrienne Rich.Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
Co-presented with the TOWN HALL CENTER FOR CIVIC LIFE AND ISLAND PRESS, in association with ISLANDWOOD. The third in this Town Hall-based Island Press lecture series brings University of California, Berkeley biologist Anthony Barnosky here with his recent book, Heatstroke: Nature in an Age of Global Warming (Island Pre...ss). "This fascinating and frightening book begins where others on global warming leave off. Anthony Barnosky shows that we're not just heating up the planet, but changing its basic character. Today's familiar animals and wild places may not be here tomorrow. For anyone who has grown attached to nature as we know it, this is an essential, eye-opening read." - Paul R. Ehrlich. Island Press is a leading, independent, non-profit Washington, D.C. publisher devoted to environmental and sustainability issues (www.islandpress.com). $5 tickets are available at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. or via www.brownpapettickets.com (of 1-800-838-3006). Preferred seating for Town Hall members. Town Hall Seattle is at 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca). For more information, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600, Town Hall at (206) 652-4255, or see www.townhallseattle.org.Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
Presented by SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES. The surprising and unexpected are likely in store this evening as renowned film performer, filmmaker, and writer Isabella Rossellini takes the stage. Expected to be the center of attention this evening are the eye-opening films she has been making—Green Porno—and now the book, Gree...n Porno (Harper Studio), which depicts what they're about. Namely, how the animals do it. Fun and informative it all is—and this evening should be. It is expected that some pre-signed copies of Green Porno will be available that evening. For tickets and information, please see www.lectures.org or call (206) 621-2230. Benaroya Hall is at 200 University Street.Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
Co-presented with COPPER CANYON PRESS. Back in the mid-1980s, when we began presenting poets and writers here, one of the first willing to read here was poet Madeline DeFrees—who had then moved back to Seattle in retirement. These many years, she is still going strong—reading, writing, getting out and about. This eveni...ng, her 90th birthday, we celebrate the esteemed and much-loved author of eight collections of poems—most recently 2006's Spectral Waves (Copper Canyon). She will be honored with readings and tributes—poets Thomas Aslin and Susan Rich among them. And Madeline herself—in and around the cutting of cake—will show she is still very much at it, reading some of her own work. "Like Dickinson, like the saints whose lives were personal expressions of divine energy, DeFrees is acutely aware of her mortality, but what we experience above all here is a fierce celebration of life in all its difficulty." - Prairie Schooner. Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
Presented by the WORLD AFFAIRS COUNCIL. A New Yorker staff writer on global public health, technology, and science since 1998, Michael Specter does an in-depth, big-picture take on the deep-seated fear of science in this country—and its consequences—in his new book, Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific... Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives (Penguin Press). "We are bombarded with information and misinformation about the foods we eat, the medicines we take, the water we drink, the very air we breathe. Michael Specter shows us how to accurately assess the impact of science on these and other essential elements of our daily lives. Written in clear and accessible language, this uniquely valuable book explains an often confusing world." - Jerome Groopman, M.D. "Michael Specter has written a lucid and insightful book about a very frightening and irrational phenomena—the fear and superstition that threaten human science and progress. A superb and convincing work." - Malcolm Gladwell. Tickets are $15 ($10 for World Affairs Council members.) For more information, please see www.world-affairs.org, or call (206) 441-5910.Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
Co-presented with the GARDNER CENTER FOR ASIAN ART & IDEAS, SEATTLE ASIAN ART MUSEUM and the EAST ASIA STUDIES CENTER, JACKSON SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON. Noted biographer Hannah Pakula visits with her major new biographical work, The Last Empress: Madame Chiang Kai-shek and the Birth of ...Modern China (Simon & Schuster)—an apt subject for this co-presented evening at the Seattle Asian Art Museum. "An ambitious, timely biography of Soong May-ling (1897 - 2003), better known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek. To tell this complex story, Pakula steps back and patiently recounts the twilight of the Manchu Dynasty, when May-long's father was educated by Methodist missionaries, studied in American universities and achieved business success in thriving Hong Kong ... Pakula portrays May-ling from an evenhanded sampling of correspondence, memoir and public record ... A winning combination of measured, balanced research, and critical evaluation—the definitive account of an important figure in 20th-century Chinese politics." - Kirkus Reviews. Free admission. The Seattle Asian Art Museum is at 1400 E. Prospect St. in Volunteer Park on Capitol Hill. For more information, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600—or see www.seattleartmuseum.org.Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
As the literature of ideas and imagination, Science Fiction and Fantasy simply demands discussion. Hugo and Locus Award-winning Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge is our read this month. World-famous poet Robert Gu missed twenty years of progress while he nearly died from Alzheimer's. Now, when he awakens in San Diego, in th...e year 2025, with his mind and health restored, reality's a shock. Books are just about gone. Computers are old news, replaced by "smart" contact lenses that connect him to the Internet via his clothes and wireless nodes just about everywhere. Buildings look low-rent—unless you're wearing. Then they look like whatever you want. Even he is different. He's Seventy-five, but his treatment has made him look almost like a teen. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in the new Digital age. As Gu tries to catch up with his future, a mysterious stranger draws him and other innocents into a conspiracy that could have disastrous consequences. Before he knows it, he's in so deep that even his high-ranking military son and daughter-in-law are clueless. His only hope—the world's only hope—is that his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Miri and her secret friend, Mr. Rabbit, might be able to keep the worst from happening...Read More
Time:6:30PM Tuesday, November 17th
Location:In Store - Travel Loft
Elliott Bay Book Company
Presented by FRIENDS HEALTH CONNECTION. Whether you're anticipating, or dreading the season of holiday (over)eating, Ellie Krieger has an encouraging message for you: You can eat delicious food and maintain your health even when life is really hectic. A dietician, host of Food Network's acclaimed Healthy Appetite, and ...author of So Easy: Luscious, Healthy Meals for Every Day of the Week (Wiley), Ellie Krieger specializes in offering real advice about food and healthy habits, without gimmicks or crash diets. In a manner at once easygoing and direct, she says that with the right tools and knowledge, anyone can have a healthy, conscious approach to nutrition without sacrificing a pure love of food. $15 tickets are available at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. or in advance through www.brownpapertickets.com (also 1-800-838-3006). Town Hall Seattle is at 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca). For more information, please see www.friendshealthconnection.org.Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
It's not every evening that we get to feature discussion of a new book by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832), but that is what we get to do this evening—in the person of Seattle University professor and Director of the interdisciplinary Environmental Studies Program there. He has written the introduction and take...n the stunning photographs that more than illustrate Goethe's The Metamorphosis of Plants (MIT). "Goethe would be delighted with this edition ... It does what he hoped would eventually become possible and provides pictures situated in the text of all the plants to which he refers ... Reading it, I felt that here at last is the complete book, compared to which all previous publications of it seem only like a skeleton. Thanks to Gordon Miller's wonderful photography and careful selection of images, as well as his perceptive introduction, we can now all appreciate the extraordinary nature of Goethe's achievement." - Henri Bortoft. Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
From one pop culture realm to another we go with this visit by esteemed Gothicist Jillian Venters, who will be joined by her friend, Lambda Award-finalist author (Cottonmouth Kisses) and spoken word artist Clint Catalyst, for some lessons from Ms. Venters' enlightening book, Gothic Charm School: An Essential Guide for ...Goths and Those Who Love Them (HarperCollins). AKA "The Lady of the Manners," Jillian Venters is an expert, informed authority on things Goth. Together with Clint Catalyst (clintcatalyst.com)—who has received numerous awards for his writing and performing—we're talking good fun. For these first darker days of the year, this should be apt ... gothically engaging. Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
Come commune with your inner fantasy fan, or gaming geek, with journalist and pop culture maven Ethan Gilsdorf, author of the travel memoir/pop culture narrative Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms (Globe Pequot). This expl...oration and celebration of fantasy and gaming subcultures begins in his own geeky teenage past and ends in our online gaming future as he asks game-players and fantasy fans—old, young, male, female, able-bodied, disabled—what attracts them to fantasy worlds. We'll start with a 'geek trivia contest'—with prizes—to test the audience's knowledge of things Tolkien, Harry Potter, D&D, and more. Prizes will also be given to anyone arriving in costume as their favorite fantasy character/creature. "Gilsdorf is an engaging and personable guide. Like many who will pick up his book, he's got one foot squarely in the real world, the other in the fantasy one. This is a journey well worth taking." - Booklist. Read More
Elliott Bay Book Company
Publisher and editor of the nonfiction magazine Morbid Curiosity from 1997 to 2006, Loren Rhoads has been a cemetery columnist for Gothic.Net, and is here with a delectable anthology of writings from her old 'zine, Morbid Curiosity Cures the Blues: True Stories of the Unsavory, Unwise, Unorthodox, and Unusual (Scribner...). "A confessional where Americans reveal their deepest, darkest secrets ... It was also frequently gross, disquieting, perverse—and very funny if you prefer your humor to come in a decidedly dark hue." - The Washington Post. "It's like a Reader's Digest of the dark side." - San Francisco Weekly. Read More
