Book It: The Five Best Literary Events This Week

The literary scene in Denver is exactly like the rest of the city at the close of July, which is to say red-hot. From sci-fi thrillers to intimate fiction collections, from warnings about the fate of the Western wilds to invitations to drink wine and eat cheese at a library-sponsored soirée, it’s all here for you this week, in these five best bets for your reading pleasure.

Chuck Wendig, Wanderers
Tuesday, July 23, 7 p.m.
Tattered Cover
2526 East Colfax Avenue
Free
Writer Chuck Wendig (Star Wars: Aftermath) brings his new sci-fi thriller, Wanderers, to the Tattered Cover for a reading and signing. The “magnum opus story about survival” deals with a terrifying sleepwalking phenomenon that sweeps across America in an epidemic. The secret hidden within the mystery of exactly how and why it began promises to either tear the nation apart or bring the survivors together to remake a shattered world.

R.L. Maizes, We Love Anderson Cooper
Tuesday, July 23, 7:30 p.m.
Boulder Book Store
1107 Pearl Street, Boulder
$5
Join the Boulder Book Store in helping to launch Boulder writer R.L. Maizes’s new book, We Love Anderson Cooper, which reminds us that even if we're outsiders, even if we're fiercely independent, even if we're a little off, we're also never truly alone. Kirkus calls this collection of short stories “genuinely witty,” “vaguely weird” and, most important, “worth reading.” The $5 entry fee is good for $5 off the purchase of this book or any other on the day of the reading and signing.

Christopher Ketcham, This Land
Wednesday, July 24, 7 p.m.
Tattered Cover LoDo
1628 16th Street
Free
Christopher Ketcham has written for many notable publications: Harper’s, National Geographic, New Republic and others, reporting on the west side of the Mississippi for more than a decade. Now he brings his book This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption Are Ruining the American West to the Tattered Cover LoDo for a discussion and signing. The book is a hard-hitting and honest look at the battle now being waged over the fate of public lands in the American West; it’s also a plea for protection for these last wild places.


Get Lit Pop-Up Book Club
Thursday, July 25, 5:30 p.m.
Bonacquisti Wine Company
4640 Pecos Street
Free
The Denver Public Library loves books and book clubs, but realizes that sometimes even book-loving folks just want to go to happy hour. So they created Get Lit, which combines the two into a raucous and informative hour of both lit love and alcohol admiration. Join DPL at the Bonacquisti Wine Company to discuss Cheese, Beer, Wine, Cider: A Field Guide to 75 Perfect Pairings and sip on wine “perfectly paired” with cheeses from local cheese shop So Damn Gouda. Tour the winery at 5:30 p.m.; discussion and imbibing begin at 6 p.m.

Mark Pleiss, April Warnings
Saturday, July 27, 4 p.m.
BookBar
4280 Tennyson Street
Free
Denver writer Mark Pleiss debuts April Warnings at BookBar with a reading and signing. The new book is both a collection of short stories and a work that can be read as a cohesive whole. The stories center around the Midwestern ritual of going into an underground tornado shelter, the disappearance of a young boy, and the mythic cultural undercurrent of aliens and cultists near the railroad tracks in the so-called American Heartland.

Have a literary event you think should be included on this list? Send details to [email protected].