Book It: The Five Best Literary Events This Week

This might be the traditional week of the April Fool — but not in this literary calendar, where every event will make your week a little wiser. Want to better understand the history of America’s troubled relationship with Russia? Care to be inspired by some poetry, or some award-winning genre fiction? How about doing something educational and fun with the family, or learning how to better serve the veteran population that so generously served our country? It’s all right here, in your back yard, waiting for your patronage.

(It’s not actually in your back yard. April Fool’s.)
Sherry & Jenny Thompson, The Kremlinologist
Tuesday, April 3, 7 p.m.
Tattered Cover
2526 East Colfax Avenue
Free, books for sale
Sherry and Jenny Thompson are the daughters of Cold War-era diplomat Llewellyn E. Thompson — so who better to write the unique and monumental biography of his life and work? The Kremlinologist: Llewellyn E. Thompson, America’s Man in Cold War Moscow traces the career of Thompson as he navigates the dangerous waters of the Cold War — something that’s all too pertinent to the fraught U.S.-Russia relationship that exists today.

Tarfia Faizullah, Registers of Illuminated Villages
Thursday, April 5, 6:30 p.m.
CU Denver Creative Writing
1201 Larimer Street, Tivoli 640
Free
Award-winning Brooklyn-born poet Tarfia Faizullah comes to the Auraria campus to read from her new collection of poetry, Registers of Illuminated Villages. Her first book, Sear, won both accolades and multiple honors, and Faizullah has been praised by two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey as “a poet of brave and unflinching vision.” This is the Creative Writing Program at the University of Denver's fifth annual Jake Adam York Memorial Reading, which seeks to spotlight poetry that engages with history or issues of social importance.

Colorado Book Award Finalist Readings: Mystery, Thriller, and Science-Fiction
Friday, April 6, 7 to 9 p.m.
BookBar
4280 Tennyson Street
Free
The Colorado Book Awards are among the state’s most prestigious honors for those who write in or about colorful Colorado. And BookBar has once again agreed to host a weekly night of readings to celebrate the finalists from each of two or three categories. In this inaugural event, selected authors in the categories of Mysteries, Thrillers and Science-Fiction appear, all ready to puzzle, thrill and/or knock your socks off in a sci-fi sense.

Jules Miles, Mineral Maniacs and the Magic Hardhat
Saturday, April 7, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
National Mining Hall of Fame and Museum
120 West 9th Street, Leadville
As part of the Mining Hall of Fame’s Family Day, kids can join Jules Miles, author of Mineral Maniacs and the Magic Hardhat, in a day full of puzzles, games and reading. Just like the fifth-grade characters from the book, visitors will work to solve a mystery having to do with minerals, mining and (one can only presume) enchanted protective headwear.

Donna Bryson, Home of the Brave
Sunday, April 8, 2 p.m.
Mercury Cafe
2199 California Street
Free
Former AP reporter Donna Bryson offers a look inside the lives of residents of Montrose as they revitalized their community by helping veterans find a place to call home. Home of the Brave: A Small Town, Its Veterans, and the Community They Built Together is the success story brought about by partnerships between citizens and veterans, and it could serve as a model for other similar communities across the country. Spend the afternoon at the Mercury Cafe and get a little inspiration with your whole-grain hotcakes.

Know of an event that might fit on this calendar? Send information to [email protected].