Your Week in Readings: The best literary events from November 23 - 29

MONDAY Elliott Bay Book Company kicks off your week in readings with an event that might improve your Thanksgiving dinner: Sommelier Madeline Puckette reads from her book Wine Folly: The Essential Guide to Wine tonight. If you ask nicely, she will probably tell you what wine goes best with turkey and stuffing.

TUESDAY At Town Hall Seattle, neuroscientist David Eagleman, who you most likely know from his PBS series about the brain, will be reading and discussing his new book The Brain: The Story of You, which aspires to “explore why we think and feel the way we do, and how the brain shapes nearly every aspect of who we are and what we perceive as reality.”

WEDNESDAY No readings happening tonight, but Ravenna Third Place Books is hosting a book club discussing the great John Scalzi’s sci-fi novel Old Man’s War. It’s about a widower in his 70s who joins a space army.

THURSDAY It’s Thanksgiving day. We suggest you stay home and read in the morning. Pick a good short book — Jim Dodge’s Fup, say, or We Should All Be Feminists — and sit down and read it in its entirety, from front to back. It’ll give you something to talk about over dinner, and it will calm and center your mind. If you can’t take a holiday to do something special for yourself, what’s the point of holidays? And what could be more special than carving out the time to read a whole book in one sitting?

FRIDAY Just as there are no readings on Thanksgiving day, there are no readings on Black Friday, either. If you’re not out supporting your local independent bookstore, you should know that the Central Library is hosting fall crafts for kids from 1 to 5 pm today. That sounds like a nice way to dodge all the holiday shopping craziness.

SATURDAY The book event of the week is happening at Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery in Georgetown, where cartoonist Colleen Frakes signs her comic book memoir Prison Island, which I reviewed when it was released back in September. It’s about growing up on McNeil Island, a prison island in Washington state.

(Saturday, I must mention, is also Small Business Saturday, which is the day when you’re supposed to leave the mall behind and visit your local inependent shops. University Book Store is hosting events all day, including three readings and two panels — one on YA and one on sci-fi. Most other bookstores in your area are having events, too. Go give them your support. This city would be a terrible place without independently owned businesses.)

SUNDAY It’s time for “Bow Wows and Books” at the Greenlake branch of the Library. Here’s the description: “Practice reading with a new friend who is warm, friendly and a perfect listener! Certified therapy dogs and their handlers join young readers to read one-on-one in a relaxing and nonjudgmental environment.” This simply could not be any more adorable.