Now that fall has arrived in Seattle again — I type this while wearing the first sweater of the season — it's time to start planning your literary autumn. And there's a lot going on this year; your schedule will be packed before you know it.

So I just wanted to draw your attention to a special event: The Cascadia Poetry Festival happens from November 3rd to November 6th at the Spring Street Center. There will be readings, workshops, a book fair, and plenty of discussions about Cascadian literature, Cascadian poetic identity, and the importance of regionalism in the age of the internet. Some other special guests and events:

Daphne Marlatt, Brenda Hillman, Sam Hamill, Marilyn Stablein, Judith Roche, Janie Miller and Peter Munro are among the confirmed performers. The festival will honor the memory of Denise Levertov and there will be a ritual walk to her grave on Sunday morning.

I wrote about the importance of Denise Levertov to Seattle (and vice versa) for Literary Hub. This celebration of her memory alone makes the Festival a must-attend event. Visit Cascadiapoetryfestival.org for more details.

Sponsor Maria Semple has a new book coming out, and people are really, really excited about it. For good reason! Everybody in Seattle read her last novel Where'd You Go, Bernadette, and we want more.

Well, the Elliott Bay Book Company is hosting Semple on October 8th at Town Hall to launch her new novel Today Will Be Different. If you've seen Semple speak before, then you're probably alaredy clicking through to get tickets. But if you haven't, you're in for a treat — and each ticket is good for two entries, plus a copy of the book that you can get signed that evening. Find out more information on our Sponsor's page.

It's thanks to sponsors like Maria Semple, and readers like you, that we're able to keep the pixels lit up here at the Seattle Review of Books. We've just released our next block of sponsorship opportunities. Check them out on the sponsorship page, and grab your date before they're gone.

David welcomed me with a booming, melodic voice the second my foot crossed the threshold. He sings greetings to every visitor who enters Lion Heart Book Store. The space is crammed but tidy, with tables by the entrance and narrow spaces between the shelves. Laminated handwritten signs label the main sections, starting with children’s and YA books by the front door. As you move toward the back the signs take you to literature/poetry/plays and end in the $2 pocket mysteries section, always full of worn paperbacks. Racks of postcards, notebooks, and pocket poetry editions stand throughout the store, which has been tucked in the lower level of Pike Place Market since 1961. David is now the fifth caretaker of the store, having taken over in 2001 and renaming it, just as those before him did.
"And that’s what we are," he explains, "caretakers. We take care of people." This philosophy really manifested itself during my first visit to the shop as David reacted to what smelled like a gas leak. As customers sniffed the air and glanced around, he ran to switch off the lights in the emptying store, called maintenance, shook my hand, and thanked me by name in the dim front of the store, telling me to visit again soon.

Before taking on Lion Heart Book Store, David used to own a little store in Lake City that sold books and antiques. He stopped by the bookstore in Pike Place one day, then Mr. E’s Books, and talked to the owner about his need for a better location. He went back that night and signed the paperwork to take over the store. Besides caring for people, David cares immensely for the store and the Market that houses it. He shared another philosophy of his: “Instead of complaining about the problem, be the problem. Get involved to solve it.” It is because of this mindset that the community elected him to be on the Pike Place Market Preservation & Development Authority (PDA) council. With a caretaker that believes wealth comes from love, the store and its surroundings are undoubtedly in good hands.

Those who feel his energy brighten their day or simply appreciate Lion Heart Book Store as the highlight of their trip send David notes and cards. A heavy binder sits on the counter, filled with postcards from customers’ homes and travels. There are long notes and short ones; some thanking him for a recommendation and some just saying hello; some from Indonesia, Finland, Australia, Italy, and Mexico. With dreams and plans of travel, David experiences various parts of the world through his customers' thoughtfulness, which in turn reveal the special friendship he develops with his visitors.

On any given visit, David sits behind the counter telling jokes and personal tales. He exudes charisma and a genuine interest in his customers, asking where they’re from and recommending titles. His electric demeanor is peppered by moments of seriousness during which he imparts lines of wisdom left and right to anyone who might be listening. "What is the secret of the universe? Anyone? The secret is to make someone happyyy," he sings. "Wake up in the morning and make your parents happy."

Just a short visit to the store reveals how important the shop’s visitors are. An incredible number and variety of people wander in and out at any time of day, milling around as they discover new corners of the Market. Visitors range in ages and come from across the lake, across the country, and across the world — and every one is welcomed and cheerfully received.

Inside the Federal Bureau Of Way Too Many Guns

There are a lot of guns in this country. And obviously a lot of shootings. And the only way to trace a gun, as Jeanne Marie Laskas uncovers, is through an amazingly inefficient system reliant on thousands upon thousands of boxes filled with records. Also, computers and searchable digital files are not allowed. Laskas’ interviews with Charlie Houser and his team at ATF show the fascinating and overlooked side of gun tracing.

We have more gun retailers in America than we do supermarkets, more than 55,000 of them. We're talking nearly four times the number of McDonald's. Nobody knows how many guns that equals, but in 2013, U.S. gun manufacturers rolled out 10,844,792 guns, and we imported an additional 5,539,539. The numbers were equally astounding the year before, and the year before that, and the year before that.

By law, the system must remain intricate, thorny, and all but impenetrable. Matching a firearm to a person — tracing a gun — is therefore a needle-in-a-haystack proposition that depends on Form 4473. To the people at the tracing center, locating that document is the whole object of the game. It's the holy grail. The form has the gun purchaser's signature on it, his or her address, place and date of birth, height, weight, gender, ethnicity, race, and, sometimes, Social Security number (“Optional, but will help prevent misidentification,” says box 8).

The Revenge of Roger’s Angels

Roger Ailes is paranoid, ultra-surveillant, and power-abusing. With about 12 self-admitted career train wrecks, this one is the biggest one yet, and Gabriel Sherman details it extensively. There are dozens of allegations dating back to the 60s from women who Ailes has sexually harassed. It’s about time someone called him out on his predatory behavior and the misogynistic atmosphere he created in and beyond the Fox News offices.

Off-camera, Carlson is a Stanford- and Oxford-educated feminist who chafed at the culture of Fox News. When Ailes made harassing comments to her about her legs and suggested she wear tight-fitting outfits after she joined the network in 2005, she tried to ignore him. But eventually he pushed her too far. When Carlson complained to her supervisor in 2009 about her co-host Steve Doocy, who she said condescended to her on and off the air, Ailes responded that she was “a man hater” and a “killer” who “needed to get along with the boys.” After this conversation, Carlson says, her role on the show diminished. In September 2013, Ailes demoted her from the morning show Fox & Friends to the lower-rated 2 p.m. time slot.

Hardworking, ticked off, ‘driven by rage and anxiety’: The Oatmeal isn’t who you think he is

Matthew Inman, aka The Oatmeal, is a local known for his online comics. Susan Kelleher discovers that the force behind these incredibly successful comics sits and creates for 12 hours, fundraises to spite attorneys, and organizes weird races around Seattle — among other talents.

Inman’s comics have won an Eisner Award, the Pulitzer Prize of the comics industry (he’s nominated again this year). Where other cartoonists struggle to eat, Inman owns a million-dollar home in Seattle with a captain’s view of Puget Sound.

In a different time and place, the trajectory of Inman’s life thus far would be positively freakish. But the former computer programmer occupies a rare intersection of art and technology, a social space where he can sit at home in his pajamas and watch in real time as his comics connect with millions of people around the world.

Would that it were so simple

A short and nerdy piece about the subjunctive “were” and a few cases against it. It’s worth a read if, like me, you’re the snob in your friend group who corrects people’s grammar (and should maybe reconsider). Would that English weren’t so weird.

The English “were” is the runt of the subjunctive litter, used on just one verb, just some of the time, and not by everyone. And some experts reckon this is not a subjunctive at all. “The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language”, by Geoffrey Pullum and Rodney Huddleston, calls counterfactual “were” the “irrealis”, rather than the subjunctive, and says that it is an unstable remnant of an earlier system.

Bridging the language divide in Thailand's strife-torn deep south

The issues that plague Thai education — especially surrounding language — reflect the more general underlying conflicts between various identities, as Adam Ramsey investigates and points out.

In an exhaustive 2012 report into the conflict in southern Thailand, the International Crisis Group highlighted the “marginalisation of [deep south] culture, history, religion and language” as a major force fuelling the violence.

The education policy has long embittered the majority Patani-Malay speaking community of Thailand’s four southernmost provinces. As well as consistently producing some of the poorest literacy scores in the country, families in the south see the enforced Thai-language curriculum as an attempt to further marginalise a key facet of their own identity: their own language.

Every week, the Seattle Review of Books backs a Kickstarter, and writes up why we picked that particular project. Read more about the project here. Suggest a project by writing to kickstarter at this domain, or by using our contact form.

What's the project this week?

Drive Hardcover. We've put $20 in as a non-reward backer

Who is the Creator?

Small Fish Studios.

What do they have to say about the project?

A hardcover collection of DRIVE: 200+ pages of the full Act One! (And now that we're in stretch goals, the page count is growing!)

What caught your eye?

Dave Kellett is an industrious dude. He co-directed the ambitious, and successful, Kickstarter to create the great documentary Stripped: the comics documentary, about comic strips (really, if you love comic strips, it's worth watching), writes the comic Sheldon, and he's also the force behind Drive, a humorous sci-fi strip he's now collecting into a hardback edition.

Maybe all you need to know is that he named one of his characters Captain Taneel (that was enough for me), but if you need a bit more convincing, go read the entire comic online for free. Talk about knowing beforehand if you're going to be happy or not.

Why should I back it?

Because you like sci-fi comics, or funny comics (or both), and because you like supporting indie comics creators, or perhaps, like me, you were a backer of the original Stripped Kickstarter and you want to see Dave succeed.

How's the project doing?

Totally rocking it. 113% pleged with 25 days to go, and a bunch of stretch goals in sight.

Do they have a video?

Kickstarter Fund Stats

• Projects backed: 35
• Funds pledged: $700
• Funds collected: $600
• Unsuccessful pledges: 2
• Fund balance: $340

• Thinking about moving to Tacoma to save on rent? Wondering if you should wear the polka dots or the stripes? Curious about whether you'll be alone for the rest of your life? If you have a question you'd like to have answered on stage at Bumbershoot, you should tweet it at Hugo House with the hashtag "#Oracle". Your question might be addressed by Garth Stein, Ijeoma Oluo, or Kristiana Kahakauwila; they will be divining responses from their published writings.

Have a question for @IjeomaOluo, @garthstein, or Kristiana Kahakauwila? Tweet it to us @HugoHouse using #Oracle! https://t.co/xOUIHFZmzh

— Hugo House (@HugoHouse) August 31, 2016

• The children's book world is in turmoil right now over a controversial new book for kids that focuses on German suffering during World War II. Gabriela Geselowitz at Jewcy first notes the similarity to the kid's book from earlier this year which made light of slavery, and then she writes:

Part of what is disturbing about the reception of the book is the unexplored idea of the mother’s brief attempt to seat the slave laborers at the kitchen table as a great act of bravery and resistance, a sufficient antidote to the evil which is not even alluded to in the rest of the story.

• Seth Grahame Smith, the author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, is being sued by his publisher for breach of contract because he reportedly turned in a remixed public-domain work and they expected an all-new work.

• This bomb-throwing story at comics news and commentary site The Outhousers is certainly a little aggro, but it makes a good point: it's very weird that the comic book industry entirely relies on pre-orders. No other industry builds their entire business model on the idea that customers pre-order their products, sight unseen. Books can live and die before readers even get to check out the first issue. There must be a better way to run the industry, right?

Wednesday August 31: I Will Send Rain

Rae Meadows’ fourth novel, I Will Send Rain, is set against the backdrop of the mid-1930s dustbowl. It’s the kind of impressive, intensely researched work that reinvigorates an author’s career. Meadows shares the stage tonight with Seattle author Martha Brockenbrough, author of The Game of Love and Death. Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, elliottbaybook.com . Free. All ages. 7 p.m.

Thursday September 1: Wintering and The Gunnywolf

It takes some poets years to put out a single collection of poetry. This year, Seattle poet Megan Snyder-Camp has published two: Wintering is based on the journals of Lewis and Clark, while The Gunnywolf examines racial tensions in America through the lens of a mythological creature.

Hugo House, 1021 Columbia St., 322-7030, hugohouse.org. Free. All ages. 7 p.m.

Saturday September 3rd: Loop Day Party

This fall will see a movie adaptation of Ransom Riggs’s debut book for young readers, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. Today, University Book Store’s Mill Creek location celebrates the release of a new book in the series, Tales of the Peculiar, with a black-and-white costume party, a photo booth, and writing contests. University Book Store Mill Creek, 15311 Main St., 425-385-3530. ubookstore.com. Free. All ages. 4 p.m.

Labor Day Weekend: Bumbershoot Literary Stage

See our Literary Event of the Week column for more details. Seattle Center, http://bumbershoot.org

Tuesday September 6: Everfair

Sci-fi author and book reviewer Nisi Shawl has long been a terrific supporter of Seattle’s literary scene. Tonight, Shawl debuts her novel Everfair, a steampunk recasting of the colonization of the Belgian Congo, providing Seattle an opportunity to return the favor. Shawl is one of the best sci-fi writers in town, and she deserves to be celebrated University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, http://www2.bookstore.washington.edu/. Free. All ages. 7 p.m.

During all the hoopla over Paul Allen’s Upstream Music Festival coming to Pioneer Square next year, I had to wonder why Allen didn’t just invest in Bumbershoot instead. Two years ago, Bumbershoot found itself in real financial trouble, and One Reel, the non-profit organizer of the festival, had to partner with AEG Live, the (decidedly for-profit) concert promoter, to keep the festival afloat. This pairing has caused a lot of consternation from Bumbershoot fans. Many of the complaints you hear every year are silly (sorry, nobody cares that you can remember when Bumbershoot was free) but people also worry that under AEG Live’s leadership the non-music arts side of Bumbershoot is getting short shrift.

Frankly, it would’ve made more sense for Allen to partner with One Reel, rather than create another festival out of nothing. Why drag a South By Southwest to the Northwest, when Allen’s money could have remade Bumbershoot—particularly if he invested heavily in the visual and literary arts side of things? (Hell, Allen could have saved himself the outlay in funding the Seattle Art Fair a couple years ago if he’d incorporated both of his festival plans into Bumbershoot.)

But that’s all in the past now; Allen doesn’t like to share a marquee with anyone, and AEG Live seems to be sticking with the festival. So when you go to Bumbershoot this year, it’s important that you remember to support the literary arts side of the festival. If you want Bumbershoot to remain a truly cross-disciplinary arts festival, you should vote with your attendance; nothing sends a message to promoters like butts in seats. And the literary side of Bumbershoot this year—under the auspices of their “Words and Ideas” stage—looks good.

Things kick off on Friday night with “Battle of the Word,” a mega-slam combining five local poetry competitions into one huge literary battle royale. Also on Friday, Hugo House brings their Ask the Oracle reading series—wherein authors answer audience questions with selections chosen at random from their books—to Bumbershoot with a tantalizing trio of Seattle authors: bestselling novelist Garth Stein, short story writer Kristiana Kahakauwila, and outstanding cultural critic Ijeoma Oluo.

Saturday at Bumbershoot brings two great literary-minded events. The writers of the TV show Transparent will take part in a panel discussion. Bumbershoot has been bringing TV writers to the show for a while now — I hosted the Parks and Recreation writers a while back — and nothing will convince you that writing for television is as much a craft as novel-writing as hearing about all the coordination, collaboration, and inspiration that happens in a television writers’ room.

Sunday night’s headliner is a reading presented by myself and my partner at the Seattle Review of Books, Martin McClellan. We’re bringing three of the most riveting Seattle-area readers we’ve ever seen—poets EJ Koh, Robert Lashley, and Sherman Alexie—together on one stage for the very first time. If you ever needed convincing that literary programming is an essential part of Bumbershoot, any one of these four events should provide all the proof you need.

• Just a reminder that we are very excited about the Seattle Review of Books showcase happening at Bumbershoot this Sunday at 7:30 pm. We'll be presenting poets EJ Koh and Robert Lashley onstage with poet, novelist, short story author, and all-around Seattle literary lion Sherman Alexie. We hope to see you there.

• Wallingford's wonderful Open Books closed yesterday and will remain closed for about two weeks because it's "transition time," which means old owner John Marshall will be officially handing over ownership to Billie Swift. Expect the store to reopen in mid-September under Swift's command.

• You have two days to submit to the Tahoma Literary Review's eighth issue.

• So happy that Ursula Le Guin is getting her own Library of America edition but it's a little sad that she prickles so much at the mention of genre: "'I don’t want to be reduced to being "the sci-fi writer." People are always trying to push me off the literary scene, and to hell with it,'" she tells the New York Times. This is very likely a generational thing — Vonnegut hated being referred to as a sci-fi writer, too — and in the long run, it's not a big deal. Still, it's a shame that Le Guin can't take pleasure in raising the bar for an entire genre.

• Amazon's newest brick-and-mortar Amazon Books store will open in Chicago in 2017.

• Since the internet is currently (and rightly) aghast at a dumb blog's "how to talk to a woman wearing headphones" article, let's just take this opportunity to remind men how to talk to women reading books in public. Step one: don't. Every step after that: seriously, don't. This has been a public service announcement from the Seattle Review of Books.

Sponsor Humanities Washignton is here to tell you that their annual Bedtime Stories fundraiser is opening registration on September 1st. Be sure to grab a table and fill it with your friends, for an amazing night of stories, music, wine, and cheer.

Not only is Humanities Washington a vital resources to our arts, but they know how to throw a fun party. This three course meal, at the Fairmont Olympic hotel, is going to one for the books. You'll hear original stories all based on this years theme: "Wildest Dreams."

It's thanks to sponsors like Humanities Washington, and readers like you, that we're able to keep the pixels lit up here at the Seattle Review of Books. We've just released our next block of sponsorship opportunities. Check them out on the sponsorship page, and grab your date before they're gone.

If you're at all like me, you've stood in a record store and felt a sick pang in your gut as you realized that you don't own a CD player anymore. Somehow — I blame hypnosis — computer manufacturers tricked us into giving up physical media in exchange for a few millimeters of laptop thinness. We're not buying CDs anymore, we're downloading our audio entertainment. And that goes for audio books, too.

Until recently, your options for buying audio books were limited — you could give your money to an ethically problematic online retailer, or you could buy an enormous brick of multiple CDs at your local independent bookseller.

Happily, a local business has been selling audio books online, and they've recently started partnering with independent booksellers, so you can buy your audio books directly from your favorite local bookstore. Libro.fm is an independent online audio book retailer that sells their audio books through an online portal and from apps. You can download the books as DRM-free mp3 audio files.

Best of all, though, are the independent bookstore storefronts created in partnership with Libro.fm, which have personalized staff recommendations to help you choose your next audio book. Here are the local stores you can buy audio books from through Libro.fm:

• Eagle Harbor Books

• Elliott Bay Book Company

• Phinney Books

• Third Place Books

• University Book Store

If you'd like to try the service out, this month Libro is offering a free 43-minute excerpt of The Boys in the Boat, the hugely popular story of the 1936 University of Washington rowing team's Olympic quest. Maybe give it a shot, and see if ethically sound, independently purchased audio books are right for you?

The Most Exclusive Restaurant In America

Though exciting at first, this basement restaurant with a supposed years-long waitlist becomes gradually less legitimate the more you try to learn about it. Journalists can’t confirm celebrity visits and numbers don’t add up. Nick Paumgarten writes about his fifteen course meal with a stubbornly self reliant and secretive chef.

If Damon Baehrel is in some measure a fairy tale, what, exactly, isn’t true? And, if it isn’t entirely on the level, what’s the hustle? What’s he up to, out there in the woods? The perception of exclusivity and privileged access enables him to charge big-city prices, but if he were serving only a handful of diners each week it wouldn’t add up to a huge haul. For what, then?

Baehrel has concocted a canny fulfillment of a particular foodie fantasy: an eccentric hermit wrings strange masterpieces from the woods and his scrabbly back yard. The extreme locavore, pure of spade and larder. The toughest ticket in town. Stir in opacity, inaccessibility, and exclusivity, then powder it with lichen: It’s delicious. You can’t get enough. You can’t even get in.

Yes, political parties can die

It’s not a hypothetical — Argentina and Venezuela have already experienced this. And as Seth Masket points out, “Democracies, it seems, are surprisingly fragile in the absence of functional parties.” A lack of parties can lead to violence, such as the American Civil War after the last death of a major political party. As the 2016 elections approach, people are wondering if the death of the Republican Party is imminent. And if so, what will it bring?

What makes a party die? The answer, Lupu argues, is an interaction of forces. It's not just when the economy goes sour while one party is in charge. That will certainly hurt a party, but its most ardent supporters will stick with it even in tough times. Nor is it when a party suddenly changes its brand.

But a combination of those two can be fatal. If a party radically shifts its policy positions, it can alienate its most ardent supporters, who won't be there the next time the party is blamed for something that goes wrong.

Why ‘Maus’ remains ‘the greatest graphic novel ever written,’ 30 years later

From its inception to its completion, Maus took Art Spiegelman 13 years, and this month marks the first volume’s 30th anniversary. The two-part graphic novel is arguably as wide-read as Elie Wiesel’s Night — at least in schools, where it’s become a common item on reading lists.

Today, amid the massive boom in graphic novels, it can be easy to forget how much of a game-changer "Maus" was.

The comic installments ran in serial form in RAW, the indie "graphix" magazine launched in 1980 by Spiegelman and his editor-wife, Francoise Mouly, now art editor at the New Yorker. That’s where rock-star cartoonist Chris Ware ("Building Stories") first read it. "Probably more than any other single comic, it made me see not only the potential for complex, moving and intelligent storytelling in comics, but also galvanized my own resolve to become a graphic novelist," he says.

A Public-School Paradox

According to Alia Wong, DC ties with Hawaii for the nation’s lowest public school attendance rate. That’s why almost every president sent the first kids to private school — except Jimmy Carter, whose decision to enroll his daughter in a predominantly black DC public school carries significant symbolic weight.

Scrutinizing where Malia and Chelsea and Amy went to school as first kids is a reminder that even presidents face the kinds of decisions that everyday parents have to make in an increasingly heterogenous school landscape. Perhaps more importantly, though, it’s a reminder of the disconnect that often separates public-school classrooms from the people who decide what happens in them: Given how much power the president of the United States wields over the nation’s public schools, it’s noteworthy how few of the country’s soon-to-be 45 commanders-in-chief actually had real, personal stakes in the public-education systems they helped—or will soon help—shape.

I Decided Not To Read Books By White Authors For A Year. Conservatives Lost Their Damn Minds.

The responses to Chloe Angyal’s tweet about not reading any white authors in 2016 are hardly surprising, but still rather shocking. Her article perfectly describes the realities reflected in the abusive replies and underscores the importance of her project.

I don’t imagine that merely reading differently and hoping that others will do the same will end racism or sexism. It’s going to take 500,000 things — big and small, public and private, individual and systemic — to do that. I also don’t think it’s showy or superficial to, as a member of a dominant group, make it known to other members of that group when you’re actively working to correct inequities. To hold yourself, and other members of that group, accountable. That’s not going to instantly transport us to a better future — no one thing will — but it is, hopefully, a stop along the road.