Your Monday in Readings: Just a couple of Steves, talking at Town Hall

Your Week in Readings, our weekly column highlighting one amazing event per day, is moving to Wednesdays. But we don't want to leave you without events for two days, so here's a special supplementary listing for today:

Really, who doesn't stare out at Mount Rainier every once in a while with a sense of foreboding? After all, the eruption of Mount St. Helens is recent enough — in geological terms, it's barely been a matter of seconds — that we all understand what happens when a mountain decides to blow its metaphorical and literal top.

Seattle writer Steve Olson's brand-new book, Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens is a historical account of the biggest volcanic eruption we've seen in decades. Olson discusses the geology of the eruption, of course, but he also looks deeply at the people affected by Mount St. Helens: the 57 people who died, the economic reasons why certain people were affected more than others, the choices businesses made before and after the eruption, the history of humanity's relationship with the area.

Tonight, Olson will be in discussion with Steve Scher at Town Hall. Tickets are $5. You should go.