~ John Dennis

* Seattle native Mary Daheim will be flogging Vi Agra Falls, #24 in her “Bed-and-Breakfast” series of cozy mysteries, at Queen Anne Books tonight, September 10th, at 6:30 PM. Queen Anne promises cookies. Cookies! Once again the awesome power of free pastry is pressed into service, this time to distract attendees from the wretched title.

* Lawney Reyes discusses and signs B Street: The Notorious Playground of Coulee Dam at the U-District UW Bookstore, Wednesday, 7:00 PM. Primarily Reyes’ personal reminiscences of the boomtown that sprang up to supply and entertain the dam’s white workers, the book also explores the Native diaspora that predated Coulee and the destruction of the local Native villages drowned by completion of the dam.

* Storytellers: The Process, & Their Latest Books: Fremont Place Books joins the party this week, hosting Garth Stein, Jennie Shortridge, and Thor Hanson. The Washington authors discuss the craft of writing, read from their work, and answer questions. 7:00 PM tonight.

* Investigative journalist Nena Baker appears at Town Hall Seattle, 7:30 – 9:00 PM tonight, to discuss her book, The Body Toxic, and explain how business and government are conspiring to KILL US ALL. Tickets are $5, as usual– a bargain at twice the price. Go learn about endocrine disruptors, atrazine, phthalates, and perfluorooctanoic acid, and get your paranoid on.

* Also at 7:30 PM tonight, famed former prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi makes the case for The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder at Elliott Bay Books . Described as “a searing indictment of the President and his administration” (Amazon.com), The Prosecution is one of the most frustrating books of the summer: there is no doubt it deserved to be written, and there is no one better than Bugliosi to write it, but—for the time being, at least—The Prosecution seems to be preaching to the choir and the case is unlikely to go to court. Still, hope springs eternal.

* If you missed Slavoj Zizek at Town Hall on Monday night, you can listen to a podcast of his Monday morning appearance on KUOW’s Weekday here.