See also: Daniel Levitin: The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload
Josh Weil, The Great Glass Sea Mike Harvkey, In the Course of Human Events Tattered Cover Colfax Avenue 7 p.m. Tuesday, August 26
A pair of young authors with ties to Columbia University are in the spotlight on Tuesday night at Tattered. Josh Weil, a National Book Award 5 Under 35 author, will read from and sign The Great Glass, a novel where twin bothers take different paths in modern Russia, with a plot that twists and turns to skewer the corporate world in fantastical ways, while indie novelist Mike Harvkey will introduce In the Course of Human Events, a hard-edged tale planted in the American Midwest.
Peter Van Buren, Ghosts of Tom Joad: A Story of the #99 Percent Tattered Cover LoDo 7 p.m. Friday, August 29
Peter Van Buren, a former state department Foreign Service officer, switches gears from commentary to fiction in Ghosts of Tom Joad, a novel that posits the fall of industrial America as the root of a nation's economic downfall. Protagonist Earl is a modern-day version of Steinbeck's Okie migrant Tom Joad, wandering through a promised land where he has no place, in a story that's creative journalism in disguise.
Denver Mercury IWPS Last Chance Slam, with Jamaal St. John Mercury Cafe 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. Sunday, August 31 $5 donation
Local slam poets find themselves in the final qualifying contests for a chance to represent Denver at the Individual World Poetry Slam in October in Phoenix, and this is the precursor to next Sunday's final slam-off, as a second round of poets bring their best while earning qualifying points. And to top it all off, featured guest Jamaal St. John, a well-known star of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, will share some hip-hop-inspired spoken word with the audience.
What's on the next page in Denver's literary world? Visit Westword's Literary Event listings for this week.
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