Book It: The Five Best Literary Events This Week

It’s a short week (thank you, New Year's Day), and most of us will be heading back to work and our regular lives, trudging through the snow without an excuse to down an eggnog latte, without a seasonal reason to inspire goodwill toward our fellow humans, without presents or twinkles or pies or fruitcake. Well, maybe the fruitcake is still around, lingering on the counter like cloying maraschino guilt. Good thing Manitou Springs has some plans for how to get rid of it.

You know what will help the January blues? Resolve to read more books. Crack one open — both a book and a beer, if possible — and let’s get started on a literary 2018.


Drag Queen Story Time
Thursday, January 4, 4 p.m.
BookBar
4280 Tennyson Street
For those of us who enjoy a little demonstrable diversity with our book reading, local wunderkind BookBar (which was just named one of the Most Unique Bookstores in the World by Fodors) offers up Drag Queen Story Time, featuring a local wunderkind in her own right, Shirley Delta Blow, who started at Hamburger Mary's and worked her way up to the Clocktower Cabaret (and teaching third grade). Shirley’s stories celebrate diversity, acceptance and kindness — a pretty solid way to start the New Year.

David Barsamian, Global Discontents
Friday, January 5, 7 p.m.
Tattered Cover
2526 East Colfax Avenue
Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy is a compelling set of interviews with noted political philosopher and social critic Noam Chomsky, focused on the “dry kindling” of discontent around the world that could soon catch fire. Longtime Chomsky interlocutor and Boulder liberal voice David Barsamian will speak about his series of ten discussions with Chomsky, spanning the years 2013 through 2016, all about the fate of the “world we are leaving to our grandchildren.”

12-Hour Write-a-Thon
Saturday, January 6, 8 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Lighthouse Writers Workshop
1515 Race Street
Members and non-members are welcome (though RSVPing is mandatory!) at this writing fest hosted by Lighthouse Writers Workshop, one of Denver’s best literary resources and supporter of all things bookish. No lectures, no readings, no networking, just write, write, write. Well, and snack, so bring something potlucky to share.
Deb Brandon, But My Brain Had Other Ideas
Saturday, January 6, 2 p.m.
Tattered Cover
2526 East Colfax Avenue
Carnegie Mellon professor of mathematics Deb Brandon comes to Tattered Cover Colfax to discuss and sign her book But My Brain Had Other Ideas: A Memoir of Recovery From Brain Injury. Kirkus called it “at turns harrowing and inspiring,” and this personal and exacting history — recorded without sugarcoating or sentimentality — is sure to affect your own thinking.

Jonathan Raab and Thomas C. Mavroudis, Terror in 16 Bits
Saturday, January 6, 7:30 p.m.
BookBar
4280 Tennyson Street
Join BookBar, Muzzleland Press, and local writers Jonathan Raab (Flight of the Blue Falcon) and Thomas C. Mavroudis (saturdaymorningserial.net) to launch the video-game-inspired horror anthology Terror in 16 Bits. Told in “15 Spooky Levels,” this collection of short fiction will take you from bytes to bites…and the type of terror that Simon Belmont and Pitfall Harry could only dream about.