Results tagged “universitybookstore”

CRAZY RUGGED: Have you ever thought about walking to Canada? How about Alaska? Erin McKittrick and her husband Bretwood "Hig" Higman did just that, but instead took it one step further by making their way to the Aleutian Islands using only their feet, skis, and a raft. Not only did they live to tell about it in their new book A Long Trek Home: 4000 Miles by Boot, Raft and Ski, but the dynamic duo will be in Seattle tonight for a reading and discussion on their rugged, incredulous journey. We actually got to see this manuscript as a forthcoming work a couple years ago, and for all you hikers out there--this is one not-to-be-missed unbelievable tale. Talk about reducing your carbon footprint!

'CAUSE SARAH VOWELL'S INCREDIBLE: Much-loved favorite author, humorist, journalist, and sometimes Pixar character Sarah Vowell will be in town tonight to read from her latest novel, The Wordy Shipmates. For anyone who has yet to have read Vowell's work, we promise this will be an excellent opportunity to get acquainted not only with her latest, but as well with Vowell herself. To ensure a seat or standing spot we highly recommend getting there early--there's definitely a reason why this book has been on the bestseller's list for practically forever.

OCEAN JUNK: Saturday Curtis Ebbesmeyer reads from his new book Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How One Man's Obsession with Runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science at the Central Library. Ebbesmeyer is a very smart guy studying a very disturbing and very new topic: ocean-borne trash. If anyone can figure out where those severed feet that washed up around Puget Sound came from, it’s him. A must for anyone concerned about the state of the oceans.

TUILE BATTER AND PICKLE BRINE ANYONE?: Author Tod Davies reads from Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking with What You've Got at the University Book Store.

HOT NGONI NIGHT: All the way from Mali, ladies and gentlemen, Issa Bagayogo, the international dancefloor sensation! He's touring for his new album Mali Koura, which offers blues, world beat, reggae, funk...a lot of stuff. The mixture of West African music with house music dance tends to knock people over when they hear it. Stylus magazine called his previous album a contender for world music album of the year.

Forgetting English is a wonderfully written, powerful compilation of short stories. After reading it, we're not surprised at all that the collection was the winner of the prestigious Spokane Prize for Short Fiction in 2007. Raymond explains that Forgetting English was written over a period of five years. She says, "I began putting the collection together after noticing a theme emerging...that of Americans traveling abroad, discovering themselves in ways not possible while on their home turf."

Sarah Waters will be reading from and talking about The Little Stranger at the University Bookstore on Tuesday, May 5, at 7 p.m.

HAPPY WASHINGTON WINE HOUR: The Sorrento is marking the Washingtonization of The Hunt Club's previously Californicated wine list with a series of “Winemaker Happy Hours!” every Wednesday in March, with dueling winemakers, their wines, and appetizers--all for just $10. Tonight's guest vintners are Lantz Cellars (Yakima Valley, focus on Bordeaux and Rhone varietals) and Baer Winery (Woodinville, blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Malbec and Petit Verdot).

A Ballard woman died after injuries sustained in yesterday's head-on collision on the Fremont Bridge. West Seattle Blog has a photo of the White Center lotto-ticket bandit who may also be responsible for a Fauntleroy heist. If crime and death and taxes have you down, our hilarious college classmate Eugene Mirman is reading at the University Bookstore tonight from his faux self-help book, The Will to Whatevs.

SUB POP HEROES: The Murder City Devils are back, and they're probably not happy about it. But if ever the time was right for their post-punk gloom and doom, it's now. It's like when Warren Zevon was talking about having cancer and he was all, "This is the kind of thing I've been talking about." (He also said, "Enjoy every sandwich.") And just so you know, Sound on the Sound is "stoked" about this show.

MORE THAN CLOWNS: Two college friends who shared a love of making balloon animals blow the balloon world wide open with their film . This documentary shows how eight balloon twisters' lives have been changed by balloon animals. The opening night screening includes a balloon twisting workshop (get that dog you always wanted). Bonus: the film is at Central Cinema, so you can kick it with a beer and a pizza while you watch.

, Waters has been pushing the boundaries of the cinema for about 40 years, and has moved from the indie fringes to the mainstream with popular stage musicals of his classic films.

FREE BALLARD DAY: It's been over a century, but maybe today's the day that Ballard will finally secede from the city. Stranger things have happened. Anyway, in celebration of Free Ballard Day, the fine folks at Archie McPhee will be giving a free gift to anyone who enters their store saying the secret word: "lutefisk." They'd also like you to know that you'll get a free gift if you spend more than $25. So go get your free remote-controlled yodeling pickle. (We can't guarantee that your free gift will be a remote-controlled yodeling pickle. It's just our favorite thing at Archie McPhee, and we couldn't resist giving it a shout out.)

BOOKS: Local author (from Anacortes) William Dietrich will be making the rounds of local book stores, starting tonight at University Book Store. He'll be reading from his recent book, The Rosetta Key. The book sounds a little stressful, but full of Indiana Jones-style adventure.

We're not fools -- a lot of you will miss this, purposefully, because you don't care about rail-riding hobo culture. But that is your loss. When he was still under 40, the New Yorker called William T. Vollman "one of the twenty best writers in America under 40." He's been to Afghanistan, Cambodia, and Seattle.

After winning $3,022,700 from Jeopardy!, Ken Jennings could've retired to a Seattle suburb to roll around in piles of dollar bills. Instead, he became America's answer to Ben Schott, wroting about trivia: a book its history, a regular column in Mental_Floss, a popular weekly trivia quiz, and most recently a hu-frickin'-mungous collection of questions, the Trivia Almanac.

, is about a very different set of Chinese women trying to communicate their thoughts.

Last night Robert H. Frank, the author of 'The Economic Naturalist' and a professor of Economics from Cornell University, spoke at the University Bookstore about his new book You may, if you are widely-blog-read, recognize his name from recent excerpts posted to the Freakonomics blog.

tomorrow night. So excited, in fact, that we thought we'd go to the Google to find out what sorts of happenings are going to, well, happen tomorrow in celebration of the big release.

Lois McMaster Bujold is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy author. Her fans filled the top floor of the University Bookstore to overflowing Wednesday night - and a dedicated cadre they are. Bujold was peppered with questions and her answers were sprinkled with so many in-jokes that even though we were wearing our best science fiction themed t-shirt we started to feel a bit out of place.

BOOK CRUSH: Librarian Nancy Pearl´s latest book is Book Crush, a guide to books you loved when you were growing up. How does she know? Head over to the launch party and find out.

PREQUEL TO MCARTNEY'S WINGS: Richie Unterberger, the author of several books on the history of rock, shows some film footage and plays some music recordings of unreleased Beatles material. He´s promoting his latest book, The Unreleased Beatles -- Music and Film. We had no idea they were in jail! (Ha! Because of the "unreleased" -- see how...oh...sure, we can move on.)

THAT STARBUCKS "I WAS A CHILD SOLDIER" GUY: At twelve, Ishmael Beah found himself fleeing rebels, wandering from village to village. At thirteen, he was a soldier in Sierra Leone, hooked on drugs and capable of things he would never have imagined. Now, rehabilitated and living in the U.S., he tells his story in A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, in an attempt to raise awareness of the child soldier phenomenon.

FANTASTIC FICTION SALON: Novelist, nonfiction author, and short story writer Terry Bisson has swept every honor in the science fiction field as well as France's Grand Prix de l'Imaginaire. He joins Hugo House's Writing Fantastic Fiction workshop series, where he will teach "Who Likes Short Shorts? We Like Short Shorts!"

WOMEN & MONEY: Personal finance expert and author, Suze Orman talks about the complicated and dysfunctional relationship that women have with money in her book, Women & Money: Owning the Power to Control Your Destiny.

LESS IS MORE: In Trance of Scarcity: Stop Holding Your Breath and Start Living Your Life, Victoria Castle asks why we feel that nothing is ever enough. Castle's book shows us how to escape this malaise and become more relaxed and alive. Hopefully it doesn't involve crisscrossing the U.S. on a book tour.

TRIVIA: Tonight at the Old Pequilar. Seattlest David hosts. Guaranteed round: sesquipedalianism, or "addiction to unnecessarily long words." Also movies and geography.

SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror.