Monday, August 6: Nothing Good Can Come From This Reading

The essay collection Nothing Good Can Come From This is a much-anticipated book by Kristi Coulter, whose essay about quitting drinking became a huge internet sensation. Now, she's being compared to writers like David Sedaris, which is hugely unfair but which publisher PR reps (and bad book reviewers) love to do to essayists who are funny. Third Place Books Lake Forest Park, 17171 Bothell Way NE, 366-3333, http://thirdplacebooks.com, 7 pm, free.

Tuesday, August 7: Terrarium Reading

See our Event of the Week column for more details. Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, http://elliottbaybook.com, 7 pm, free.

Wednesday August 8: A Terrible Country Reading

Keith Gessen is a journalist, an editor, and a damned fine novelist. You might know him as a driving force behind the magazine N+1, or as a brilliant cultural critic, or an early advocate of the Occupy movement. Tonight, he's in town to read from his new novel A Terrible Country, which is about a young man who returns to his home country of Russia in order to care for his ailing grandmother. After the reading, I'll be interviewing Gessen onstage. Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, http://elliottbaybook.com, 7 pm, free.

Thursday, August 9: Word Works

Ben Lerner is a MacArthur "Genius"-winning poet who draws parallels between science and poetry in his work. His work is brainy and it requires work. He is exactly the kind of writer who should be hosting one of Hugo House's Word Works series. Frye Art Museum. 704 Terry Ave., 622-9250, http://fryemuseum.org, 7 pm, $15.

Friday, August 10: Choose Your Own Disaster Reading

Dana Schwartz's Choose Your Own Disaster is a comedic memoir "about the millennial experience and modern feminism." It also is in the form of a personality test. Third Place Books Ravenna, 6504 20th Ave NE, 525-2347 http://thirdplacebooks.com, 7 pm, free.

Sunday, August 12: Prairie Fires Reading

Caroline Fraser's Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle award and it wound up on many year-end best-of lists. And now she's making a Sunday afternoon appearance at Elliott Bay Book Company. These readings are usually more intimate than the weeknight events, so you might have an opportunity to enjoy more time and attention from an award-winning author. Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, http://elliottbaybook.com, 3 pm, free.