John Daniel and Ehud Havazelet for Comma

We're loving the Comma monthly reading series that local writer Kirsten Rian is hosting with Broadway Books on the third Thursday of each month. This month features John Daniel and Ehud Havazelet reading on Thursday, April  21, at 7 pm. Regional authors scheduled to join us for upcoming Comma readings include Barry Sanders, Bette Husted, Paulann Petersen, Paul Merchant, Molly Gloss, BT Shaw, and others. Comma readings offer an opportunity to hear two regional authors read from their work and engage in conversation about writing. You won't want to miss a one!

John Daniel's most recent book, The Far Corner: Northwestern Views on Land, Life, and Literature, is a finalist for the 2010/2011 Oregon Book Award in Creative Nonfiction. (Awards will be announced on Monday, April 25th.) The author of nine books of poetry, essays, and a memoir, Daniel won a 2006 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, as well as two Oregon Book Awards and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Ehud Havazelet is the author of two story collections and most recently the novel Bearing the Body, which won the Oregon Book Award for Fiction in 2008. Recent work has appeared in TriQuarterly, Ploughshares, Tin House, and The New York Times. He has been awarded fellowships from Stanford and the Guggenheim, Whiting, and Rockefeller Foundations. Havazelet teaches creative writing at the University of Oregon (but lives in Corvallis).

This is sure to be a great evening -- come early for a good seat!

Hooray for Smekday!

I just finished The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex about 2 seconds ago, and I immediately feel the need to blog about it. Technically, it's a Middle Reader/Young Adult novel, but, really, who needs labels? The truth of the matter is that Smekday is awesome regardless of how old you are.

The story is narrated by 11-year-old Gratuity Tucci (her friends call her "Tip"). Aliens (Boov) have invaded the earth, her mom has been abducted, and she has decided to drive by herself (with only her cat, Pig, for company) from Pennsylvania to Florida, where the humans are being corralled by the Boov. Luckily, she's been practicing her driving skills for months and has gotten pretty darn good. Along the way, she picks up a stray Boov named J-Lo, who has wicked alien mechanical skills and a quirky sense of humor. J-Lo's on the run from his fellow Boovs after having made one teensy little blunder while working on the radio antenna farm where he was stationed. That teensy mistake turns out to be a bit larger than he lets on, but that's something you'll come to understand when you come here, buy the book, find a sunny spot in the park, pop open a cold beverage, and enter Rex's unique, post-apocolyptic vision.

The thing is, this book is seriously funny. Like, chuckle-softly-to-yourself-so-onlookers-think-you're-a-little-weird funny; but also guffaw-out-loud-so-passersby-cross-the-street-to-avoid-you funny. It's also smart, cute, snarky, heartwarming, clever (both wordplay-wise and in the way it connects the alien invasion with the colonization of America and the subsequent oppression of Native Americans) and, I can't stress this enough, HILARIOUS!

Now I will have to spend the rest of my day searching for another book that is going to be as satisfying. Luckily, I work at a bookstore, so I should be able to find something...