Last week, I talked with Craig Fehrman about his wonderful historical account of presidential memoirs, Author in Chief. The book was delightful from start to finish, a guide to both American literature that's still revered today (Nathaniel Hawthorne and Mark Twain) and American literature that was loved and immediately forgotten (one bestselling historian's history of the United States was the biggest seller of his time in the 19th century; you probably have never heard his name.)

Fehrman is a great guide to the writing of presidents both good and bad. (Calvin Coolidge, it turns out, was a fantastic prose stylist.) But my favorite part of Author in Chief is the way it walks the reader through an overview of literary history, and shows the way it shapes (and is shaped by) power. As Fehrman said to me:

I think the thing that surprised me the most, and maybe this shouldn't have surprised me, was just how much prominent authors ended up interacting with presidents. You can really stack up the examples: You've got Emerson as a young man visiting John Adams as an old man. Or you have Herman Melville going to the White House and shaking hands with Abraham Lincoln. Or you have Edith Wharton go into the White House to have lunch with Theodore Roosevelt.

Wednesday's book launch event for Author in Chief should be fascinating time. Fehrman, who worked on the book for a solid decade, has a great grasp of the history of the presidency and he can offer some much-needed context for our current times.

Elliott Bay Book Company, 1521 10th Ave, 624-6600, http://elliottbaybook.com, 7 pm, free.