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A worthy night of readings before the madness and mayhem of this weekend’s Printers Row Lit Fest, this event features author Jean Thompson, whose thrilling work with 2007 collection “Throw Like a Girl” and novel “City Boy” makes the upcoming release of “Do Not Deny Me” all the more exciting. (Her 1999 book of short stories, “Who Do You Love,” was a National Book Award finalist.) It’s difficult not to compare Thompson’s work to that of Alice Munro, to give you a better idea of what to expect, if you’re unfamiliar. Also reading tonight is local scribe Lindsay Hunter, co-founder of the charming Quickies! reading series and author of the forthcoming novel “My Brother,” plus author J. Adams Oaks, whose first novel, “Why I Fight,” was released last month via Simon and Schuster. (Tom Lynch)

June 5 at Book Cellar, 4736 N. Lincoln, (773)293-2665, at 7:30pm. Free.

The newest installment from Chicago- and Aspen-based author Catherine O’Connell is “Well Read and Dead,” a continuation from the story of heroine Pauline Cook in “Well Bred and Dead.” Pauline experiences new locales and people in the second novel, while still upholding her persona O’Connell affectionately refers to as “a snob with a heart.” O’Connell’s main inspirations for “Well Read” include her experience in wine trade, her friendship with David Grafton (whose death influenced her first novel) and her life in Aspen. “Well Read and Dead” is no flake piece of chick lit. “The novel gives me the opportunity to write a murder mystery while underneath the surface it is also a satirical piece,” O’Connell says. Elements of high society are present; however there are issues that stray from glitz and glamour. “I always have messages [in my writing] if readers want to find them.” O’Connell touches on societal issues in “Well Read” and the concept that there is “‘no one better than I, and no one lesser than I.’ I like to show that they’re all the same.” She reads from the book Thursday at Book Cellar.

The Book Cellar is packed, with room only left to stand, for comedian Eugene Mirman’s first-ever book reading. His book, “The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life,” is something that spawned from an advice column that he has had on his Web site for the past six years. “I made little books out of that [advice column]. I printed little books and took them on tour. I would sell lots of them,” says Mirman. “I sort of pitched it as answering questions, but then it turned into really what this is, which is sort of ephemeral self-helpish.”

Just after 7pm he rushes in, grabs a beer and quickly sets up. He begins with a PowerPoint presentation. The video, similar to those simple Web-cam videos that have made Mirman something of an Internet sensation, shows his advice on how to get a husband, with one possible suggestion to conduct the ceremony while the man is still in bed half asleep and will agree to anything. Read the rest of this entry »

The immensely popular blog Stuff White People Like, created by LA-based writer Christian Lander, was spawned from a Internet-conversation he had with a friend about “The Wire.” Only a short time later Lander’s satiric site had thousands of hits, presumably attracting the liberal white people that Lander was so cleverly, and at times hysterically, dissecting. Read the rest of this entry »

With echoes of Chappaquiddick and the career of Bill Clinton, Ethan Canin’s fictional chronicle of the end of the era of liberal politics in the US, “America, America” is an epic worthy of comparison to “All the King’s Men.” Fluid, thoughtful prose whisks the reader through the tragic story of the Meteray dynasty of upstate New York, and the man they almost made president, Senator Henry Bonwiller. It’s a sorrowful and poignant journey through politics in the early seventies, with special resonance in these days of the audacity of hope. About two decades ago, Canin exploded on the scene with his debut story collection, “Emperor of the Air,” turned out while he was in Harvard Medical School. He pursued dual careers in medicine and writing for more than a decade; writing eventually won out. Based on the accomplishment of “America, America,” he appears to have made the right choice. (Brian Hieggelke)

Ethan Canin reads from “America, America” July 17 at Book Cellar, 4736 North Lincoln, (773)293-2665, at 7pm. Free.

There’s a bizarre poetry in my Internet access going down for a couple of hours as I was writing this (Comcastic!), since technology contributes quite a bit to the dysfunction of the fictional New York office that provides the setting for Ed Park’s masterful satire of end-of-empire corporate America, “Personal Days.” Self-Googling, eBaying, time-wasting emailing and plain old tech problems fill the days of the group of youngish co-workers, who are otherwise preoccupied with the Kremlinesque downsizing machinations of management, prodded by a mysterious new ownership in California. Park’s novel, short on plot but long on laughs, sits comfortably within the growing body of workplace send-ups, and will find an audience among fans of “The Office” and “Office Space.” But how did Park, who spends his time as an editor at the decidedly non-corporate The Believer magazine and the Poetry Foundation, develop such spot-on insights into corporate malaise? He spent ten years at the Village Voice until it was taken over by New Times, a media chain from the West, which wasted little time in cutting Park and other key creators loose in its cost-cutting and cookie-cutting zeal. Revenge served cold indeed. (Brian Hieggelke)

Ed Park reads from “Personal Days” at the Book Cellar, 4736-38 North Lincoln, on June 5 at 7pm.

The one-two punch of Hand and Sharpe reading from their respective works should make for a fine evening of literary muscle. Hand’s “Generation Loss,” a clenched fist of a novel about a punk photographer engulfed in a Maine mystery, broods with atmospheric tenseness and flies right by. To give you an idea of Sharpe’s “Jamestown,” it is a fantasy-like telling of the settlers at the Virginia colony, featuring a protagonist in Pocahantas who spouts Ebonics and Elizabethan English. (That’s when, of course, she’s not going all-out Valley Girl, reminiscent of those early nineties “Saturday Night Live” sketches.) Both books are batshit crazy in their own ways, and both authors, despite some pretty dark material, find ways to involve some enlightened humor. (Tom Lynch)

Elizabeth Hand and Matthew Sharpe discuss their books May 12 at Book Cellar, 4736 North Lincoln, (773)293-2665, at 7:30pm. Free.

Rookie Chicago crime-fiction writer Sean Chercover is having the best “Killer Week” ever. On Thursday, both newly published authors will be promoting their newest contribution to the printed page of murder, madness and mayhem at the Book Cellar. The book, titled “Killer Year: Stories to Die For,” is a collaborative anthology put together by thirteen writers—all of whom unleashed their first novels just last year. Chercover worked as a private investigator in Chicago for four and a half years, an experience that spawned his story included in the book, “One Serving of Bad Luck.” “It’s not like on TV—you find the information you need to serve your client and the bad guys don’t always come to justice,” Chercover says about his days as a gumshoe. Today, he enjoys the artistic freedom in fiction writing to explore, corrupt and create his characters. “You do spend a lot of time in the heads of the characters you created and you are exploring the darker traits of human beings,” he says. “You go to the dark place, but you do come out the other side.”