If you’re able to tear yourself away from your books this summer, here are some visiting authors who might be worth leaving the house for:
Neal Stephenson
Though he lives here, it’s rare for Stephenson to make a public appearance, so fans of “Seveneves,” “Anathem” and his other best-selling works of speculative fiction will want to secure their tickets ASAP. He’ll be speaking about his latest novel, “Fall; or, Dodge in Hell,” in which a billionaire’s brain is scanned and uploaded for use in the future.
7:30 p.m. Monday, June 3; Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., Seattle; $5-$35 (higher price includes copy of book); 206-652-4255, townhallseattle.org
Edgar Martinez
The recent Hall of Famer will be signing copies of “Edgar: An Autobiography,” in which he tells of his childhood in Puerto Rico, a fateful tryout with the Seattle Mariners at the age of 20, and spending 18 seasons — an entire career — with the team. Co-author and Seattle Times sports columnist Larry Stone will also be on hand.
6 p.m. Wednesday, June 5; Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle; $28 (includes copy of book, admits one person to signing line); 206-624-6600, elliottbaybook.com
Imbolo Mbue
Here as part of Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Women You Need To Know series, Mbue is the author of “Behold the Dreamers,” a best-selling debut novel about a young Cameroonian couple in New York. The book, described by The New York Times as “a capacious, big-hearted novel,” won Mbue the 2017 PEN/Faulkner Award, and was an Oprah’s Book Club selection.
7:30 p.m. Friday, June 7; Benaroya Hall, 200 University St., Seattle; $35-$80; 206-621-2230, lectures.org
Eve Ensler
The author of “The Vagina Monologues” will read from and discuss her latest work, which examines how to begin to heal the wounds of sexual abuse. Written from the imagined point of view of her late, abusive father, Ensler creates for herself in “The Apology” the words that will help her move forward.
7 p.m. Friday, June 14; Hugo House, 1634 11th Ave., Seattle; free; 206-322-7030, hugohouse.org
James Ellroy
Nothing like a little noir on an early-summer evening, right? Ellroy, author of “The Black Dahlia,” “L.A. Confidential” and numerous other works of crime fiction, will discuss his latest thriller “This Storm,” set in 1942 Los Angeles and involving a wartime murder whose investigation uncovers rising fascism and xenophobia.
7:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 19; Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., Seattle; $5-$32 (higher price includes copy of book); 206-652-4255, townhallseattle.org
Ted Chiang
The latest book from Hugo and Nebula award-winning author Chiang, the short-story collection “Exhalation,” has been receiving rapturous reviews; Joyce Carol Oates, in The New Yorker, described the stories as “likely to linger in the memory the way riddles may linger — teasing, tormenting, illuminating, thrilling.” Chiang, who lives in the Seattle area, is the author of the previous collection “Stories of Your Life and Others,” the title story of which became the basis for the movie “Arrival.”
1 p.m. Tuesday, June 25; Ravenna Third Place Books, 6504 20th Ave. N.E., Seattle; $45 (includes lunch and copy of the book); 206-525-2347, thirdplacebooks.com. Also at 7 p.m. Wednesday, June 26; Third Place Books at Seward Park, 5041 Wilson Ave. S., Seattle; free; 206-474-2200, thirdplacebooks.com
Ocean Vuong
Vuong, author of the prizewinning poetry collection “Night Sky with Exit Wounds,” is here with his highly anticipated debut novel, “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.” Written as a letter from a Vietnamese son to a mother who cannot read, the novel was described in a starred Kirkus review as “an uncategorizable hybrid of what reads like memoir, bildungsroman, and book-length poem” and “a raw and incandescently written foray into fiction by one of our most gifted poets.”
7 p.m. Thursday, June 20; Seattle Public Library’s Central Library, 1000 Fourth Ave., Seattle; free; 206-386-4636, spl.org
Lisa Taddeo
Taddeo, a journalist and Pushcart Prize-winning author, spent years researching this nonfiction book, which examines the sex lives of three real American women: a young woman seduced by her high-school teacher; a wife who reconnects with an old crush; a woman whose husband chooses her sexual partners. O, the Oprah Magazine called it an “instant feminist classic.”
7 p.m. Friday, July 12; Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle; free; 206-624-6600, elliottbaybook.com
Téa Obreht
Winner of the Orange Prize for Fiction for the best-selling novel “The Tiger’s Wife,” Obreht is here with its follow-up, “Inland,” in which two stories intertwine in the 1890s American West: a frontierswoman awaiting her husband’s return, and a former outlaw haunted by ghosts.
7 p.m. Monday, Aug. 19; Elliott Bay Book Co., 1521 10th Ave., Seattle; free; 206-624-6600, elliottbaybook.com
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