The Harvard Book Store has some lovely events and readings scheduled for early June -- the main one we're excited about is David Sedaris on June 6, though we just found out it was sold out! Oi. Obvs the HBS would have hosted the former Christmas elf at a larger venue -- like, say, the Orpheum?!? -- but due to the literary rock star's contractual obligations he can only read from his new book of pseduo-memoirish stories, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, in small locations. Lucky ticket holders are in for an intimate and exciting event. We are exceedingly jealous and, as usual, scold ourselves for not being more timely with the ticket-buying. Whenever we read essays about things like how his mom gave him cigarettes in his Easter basket in The New Yorker, the voice inside our head actually reads them IN SEDARIS'S VOICE, which sounds like a talking baby kitten on speed. We heart him so. And yet! The HBS understands our needs and yours. We've been told:

However, we will have an audio feed for folks outside, and anyone wishing to wait can have their books signed by Mr. Sedaris after the ticket-holding folks inside the store are taken care of. Anyone who was unable to purchase a ticket is welcome to join the signing line outside of the store on the night of the event. We will have an audio feed for these folks, and we hope to have video as well. Once the audience inside has had its books signed, we'll let the patient people into the store from the signing line outside. 

It's worth noting that tickets ARE still available for Lewis Black (Me of Little Faith) on June 7 at the First Parish Church, as well as our beloved Andre Dubus III (The Garden of Last Days) on June 9 at the Brattle. Not to mention Barbara Ehrenreich's  discussion of her latest tome, This Land is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation. Tickets for that go on sale June 9, so begin with the mental-planning...now!

A little over a week ago, the Phoenix's own Peter Kadzis chatted with Michael Palin over at the First Unitarian Church. They discussed Palin's new memoir, Diaries 1969-1979: The Python Years, Saturday Night Live, and why writers should always pose with beer and a cigarette in publicity photos. Just kidding about that last part. Watch the magical Boston Phoenix Video here.

Word Up has many inexplicable literary crushes: Mr. Darcy, Ira Glass, Laurie Laurence, John Galt, Walter Burns in His Girl Friday. You know.

Then there's Alan Alda. Seriously, how can you not LOVE Alan Alda? Look at him!

Timed to our Alda reverie, the marketing mavens at Harvard Book Store just alerted us to a couple upcoming fall events, which includes this little gem:

Monday, September 10 @ 6:00 p.m.
Alan Alda
Things I Overheard While Talking To Myself
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum

He'll be chatting with former Globe columnist Tom Oliphant. Tickets are available by lottery only (we kid you not), so register now.

A regular on NPR’s news and comedy quiz show Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me, writer ROY BLOUNT is the uninformed liberal’s worst nightmare. He was born in the South, has left-leaning beliefs, now lives in the Northeast, and finds it extremely irksome when Yankees assume anyone based below the Mason-Dixon line is a simpleton who voted for Dubya. Blount’s wry satire gives our old love Andy Rooney a bit of friendly sardonic competition in Long Time Leaving: Dispatches from Up South. Topics range from music to race relations to food — but, for your own safety, we recommend against asking Blount what grits are during the Q&A portion of his reading and signing at the First Unitarian Church, 3 Church St, Cambridge | 7:30 pm | $5 | 617.495.2727.

Damn Yankees: Blount

Girl on the Verge

We’ll admit to being a little jealous of VENDELA VIDA’s charmed writer’s life. She co-edits the Believer magazine, she co-founded the non-profit children’s writing center 826 Valencia, and she lives in San Francisco with her literary-hero husband, David Eggers. Even better, she isn’t afraid to address those huge, ambiguous questions nobody knows the answer to. Her second novel, Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, follows a young girl’s search for answers when she realizes that nothing she believes is real. Vida blends truth and myth at the Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 6:30 pm | free | 800.542.READ.

Check out our Nina's interview with Vendela -- they talk reindeer blood, writer's block, and violence.

"Read late Amis -- maniacally alert, secular in timbre but religious in the fidelity of his observations -- and stay on your toes," writes James Parker in reference to Martin Amis's latest novel, House of Meetings, set in the deep, dark of Stalin's Russia. Amis came to Cambridge to read from the book, with our own Peter Kadzis giving the introduction. Click below to hear Amis's Brattle Theatre reading.

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In his introduction to Paul Auster's reading at the Brattle Theatre last night, poet and Phoenix contributor William Corbett compares Auster's lastest novel, Travels in the Scriptorium, to an episode of the Twilight Zone. In the opening of the book, Mr. Blank finds himself in an empty room, and begins to be interrogated by people, people who turn out to be characters he's created. Click on the download link, below, to listen to Auster read.

LISTEN: Paul Auster, January 30 at the Brattle Theatre
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The choice is yours, friends.

British novelist MARTIN AMIS told the Guardian that he has “a god-like relationship with the world I’ve created.” — and he is indeed a literary deity when it comes to inspiring a troop of stylistic disciples (Will Self, Zadie Smith) and traitorous critics (John Updike). In House of Meetings, he returns to life during the gulag, with Soviet Russia as his setting and two half-brothers and the woman they adore as his main players. It’s a slim volume that Publisher’s Weekly decided has a “bullying tone”; one would hope Amis doesn’t throw any punches when he demonstrates his command of the English language (again) at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

Did that Radar exposé about the naughty behind-the-scenes antics among Mickeys and Minnies at Disney theme parks make you feel a bit funny? Well, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination may not reinstill your faith in the Disney ideal. Fairy-tale prince he was not, but NEAL GABLER’s comprehensive biography (hailed as “the definitive Disney bio” by Newsweek) will tell you the good stuff, too — the astonishing innovations and creative breakthroughs that made Disney the Dream King. Wish upon a star at the First Unitarian Church, 3 Church St, Cambridge | 7:30 pm | $3 | 800.542.READ.

In her mouthful of a new novel — American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott*, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work — SUSAN CHEEVER explores the scholarly atmosphere brewing in mid-19th-century Concord, back when Alcott, Emerson, et al. lived as neighbors, muses, platonic pals, and, of course, lovers. There’s triumph and tragedy to be gleaned from these authors as well as their books, and Cheever feeds the rumor mill at the Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 6:30 pm | free | 800.542.READ.

*We'd just like to note that Little Women totally saved our life, but in a much more meaningful way than the Shins did for Zac Braff. Cannot friggin' believe he let Mandy Moore slip away. Idiot.

SHE'S ELECTRIC: Calvin and Alice

We were caught staring, weepy-eyed, at the above photo of CALVIN TRILLIN and his wife, Alice, in which they look like the happiest, you-wish-you-had-their-relationship couple we’ve seen since the glory days of Adam Brody and Rachel Bilson. But really, we couldn’t help ourselves. Neither can Trillin — he’s written about his life with Alice throughout his career at the New Yorker. After her death, he wrote the short yet sweet About Alice, which offers even more insight into her creativity, smarts, wit, and beauty; it’s tender and funny stuff, minus the sap. Trillin pays tribute to his lady love with Christopher Lydon at the First Unitarian Church, 3 Church St, Cambridge | 6:30 pm | $14.95 [includes a book] | 617.661.READ.

SPORTS GUY

How did Tom Brady go from being a sixth-round draft pick to the Patriots’ star quarterback and one of football’s most celebrated players? Ah, the warm-fuzzy story of the underdog. Sports journalist, former Phoenix staffer, and NPR’s “Only A Game” contributor CHARLES P. PIERCE tells the tale of Brady’s rise in Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything.

Pierce may be a fan boy, but he profiles the Patriot past his team’s third Super Bowl win in 2004 and on into their disappointing 2005 season in order to highlight the athlete’s talent and skill under any circumstances. And did we mention he's a totally funny guy? He'll read as part of the Phoenix's Author Series tonight. Chat with Chuck, eat, drink, buy books, go home, read your face off. That's at Hong Kong (in conjunction with the Harvard Book Store), 1236 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 6:30 pm | Free | 800.542.READ.

ALICE MCDERMOTT is a rare writer, the sort who keeps her work focused on one type of person (Irish Catholics) in one setting (Long Island), and never tell the same story twice. Her latest, After This, is a Vietnam novel full of the political and social chaos of the ’60s and ’70s as well as the tumultuous inner turmoil surrounding the six members of the Keane family. McDermott boils their history down into a poetic epic; she’ll read tomorrow at the Harvard Book Store, 1256 Mass Ave, Cambridge | 6 pm | free | 800.542.READ.

The novelist Kiran Desai won the 2006 Man Booker Prize on Tuesday for The Inheritance of Loss, which examines identity and the bonds of family, and is set in both India and Manhattan. Desai is the youngest female winner at 35, and the only one whose mom (Anita Desai) has also been nominated.  The Guardian UK has got all the dirt, of course. There's also a sweet contest in which you can win every Booker novel in print. Live it up.

Pink is the new Bitch

Chuck Klosterman:
We want to punch you in the Sasquatch

Oh you! Go do what the Harvard Book Store says:

I. You can throw:

   1. Shiny beads
   2. Dusty post-feminist texts
   3. Prescription-only coke bottle glasses

II. You can go:

1. The Ultimate Indie-Yuppie is in town, and what a nasty piece of work he is:

   a. Chuck Klosterman's latest, Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas, collects his previously printed profiles and trend stories from the past decade as well as more recent opinions on the new shit he deems relevant. But the real surprise to us is that, in the third section, the Chuckster tries his hand at fiction writing. Remember, that deals with actual emotions and character psychology, not just the finer points of the history of The Real World. Ask Klosterman why he really quit Spin when he reads tonight.

   b. It's a Harvard Book Store–sponsored event at the Brattle Theatre, 40 Brattle St, Cambridge | 6 pm | $3 | 617.661.1515.

2. Remember when you read The Women's Room and either threw up and burned it or got really inspired?

   a. We were tried-and-true Sassy fans back in the day, and now we’re utterly devoted Jane subscribers (whether you care or not, now you know), but we can give it up to Bitch for cornering the post-femmy backlash niche. The publication’s founding editors (it’s gone from stapled ’zine to a full-scale mag), Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler, celebrate the anti-Cosmo’s tenth anniversary with Bitchfest: Ten Years of Cultural Criticism from the Pages of Bitch Magazine, a collection of essays, rants, and raves — some pre-published, others specially commissioned — that probe into pop-culture from a feminist, modern-girl perspective, with pieces ranging from a rundown of sex scenes in lesbian YA novels to a stand-up discussion of female urination.

   b. It’s girl — er, women — power, with a panel discussion titled “Pop Goes the Feminist,” tomorrow night at Harvard Hillel, Beren Hall, 52 Mount Auburn St, Cambridge | free | 800.542.READ.

III. Report back to us via email or comments. We're too busy watching Degrassi: TNG to participate in anything bookish. OMG thanks.

Just a friendly reminder from the Word Up crew that Al Gore will be signing copies of An Inconvenient Truth at noon today at the Harvard Book Store. You want to know why it's so freaking hot out? He may tell you, if it doesn't hold up the line too much. But no pushing. You'll all get your face time in.

He's all business now. Why so serious, Al? Oh, it must be because we're killing the planet. I totally forgot because I was having a heart attack over the Carmen Electra & Dave Navarro split. Sigh.