This week’s literary landscape is for the birds...and also Egyptian history, suspenseful sisterhood, a poetic panoply, and an awards ceremony for the best Colorado books of 2018. Here are the five best bets for the third week in May.

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Penguin/Random House

Ted Floyd, How to Know the Birds
Tuesday, May 14, 7:30 p.m.
Boulder Book Store
1107 Pearl Street, Boulder
$5
Colorado birdman Ted Floyd’s How to Know the Birds: The Art and Adventure of Bird Watching introduces a new, holistic approach to bird-watching by noting how behaviors, settings and seasonal cycles connect with shape, song, color, gender, age and other features used to traditionally identify species. It’s a celebration of the art, science and delights of bird-watching. Tickets to the event are $5, and are good for $5 off the purchase of this or any other book on the day of the event.

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Penguin Press

Peter Hessler, The Buried
Wednesday, May 15, 7 p.m.
Tattered Cover
2526 East Colfax Avenue
Free
Colorado author Peter Hessler (contributing writer for National Geographic and correspondent for the New Yorker) brings his new book, The Buried: The Archaeology of the Egyptian Revolution, to the Tattered Cover for a discussion and signing. The book is an intimate excavation of one of the world’s oldest civilizations at a time of convulsive cultural change, told through the lens of ordinary people in extraordinary times.

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Harper

Alafair Burke, The Better Sister
Friday, May 17, 7 p.m.
Tattered Cover Aspen Grove
7301 South Santa Fe Drive, Littleton
Free
Alafair Burke is the New York Times best-selling author of the thrillers The Ex, Long Gone and If You Were Here. Her newest novel, The Better Sister, centers on two estranged sisters suddenly caught up in a mysterious murder — and in each other's lives once again. Burke brings this tale of suspense to the Tattered Cover Aspen Grove location for a reading and signing.

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At the Inkwell: Night of Poetry
Saturday, May 18, 4 p.m.
Book Bar
4280 Tennyson Street
Free
Join organizer Hillary Leftwich and the good folks at BookBar for the third At the Inkwell event of 2019 — this time presenting five phenomenal poets: Tameca L. Coleman, Ashley Cornelius, Ian D, Piper Mullins, and S. V Yu. Get there early this time around, poetry lovers, because with a line up like this, it’s going to be standing room only. If you don’t like crowds…well, it’s okay, because this is BookBar, which means there’s wine — and wine helps everything.

Colorado Book Awards Ceremony
Saturday, May 18, 4:30 p.m.
Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities
6901 Wadsworth Boulevard, Arvada
$25
Join Colorado Humanities and the Center for the Book in celebrating the best in Colorado literature. The Colorado Book Award celebration will be held at the Arvada Center for the Arts and Humanities, and includes short readings from the winners of each category, including fiction, poetry, non-fiction, genre, YA and much more. A reception, included in the price of the ticket, will follow.

Have a literary event you think should be included on this list? Send details to editorial@westword.com.

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