Have you seen this not-very-scientific nature short about the Honey Badger? more ›

Austin icon Leslie Cochran faces a long road back to being his old, sassy-ass self. His prognosis is uncertain, making it impossible to predict how long he'll need help or what kind of help he'll need. Housing and medical bills are a pressing concern. more ›

On tour promoting and reading from her first book The Underside of Joy, debut novelist Seré Prince Halverson is hitting BookPeople tonight. Described as "an exploration of the complex relationship of two mothers," this book sets the desires of two mothers against one another in a complex battle over the custody of two children. more ›

You have an idea for the next Great American Novel, one you like to describe at cocktail parties as a sort of Jack Kerouac-meets-Jack London-meets-Jack Handey picaresque, even though you’re not exactly sure what that even means because, well, you haven’t gotten around to writing the thing yet. And who can blame you? Between life at the office and raising babies toddlers teenagers, who can find the time to write an entire book? You can barely finish a memo. more ›

Who was it that said love and death were the only things worth writing about? While stories about death might be a bit morose for a Saturday night, love rather fits into the whole Valentine's Day theme that’s been popping up—for better or for worse— in retail stores lately.

Don’t bother fighting it; there’s no use. Go ahead and order that carton of chocolate-covered strawberries and while you’re at it, stop by BookPeople tonight to hear author Dave Isay read from his latest book All There Is: Love Stories from StoryCorps. more ›

Find out who, out of all 567 entries, stood out the most in this year's contest at the Winners’ Party tonight at BookPeople (losers also welcome). Stay to hear first, second and third place read their winning pieces; afterwards, shmooze with local literati and enjoy free snacks. more ›

If you’re wondering what to do with your Saturday night, why not make good on your New Year's resolution (the one that says: Read more, Facebook less) and get thee to a local bookstore. ZZ Packer makes an appearance at BookPeople tonight at 7 pm, thanks to American Short Fiction, where she'll be talking with writer Jacqueline Luckett about Luckett’s second novel, Passing Love more ›

What is wrong with kids these days? In Ben Marcus' new book The Flame Alphabet their words have become toxic to just about anyone who would utter such a question. The epidemic has spread across the country, and found it's way into the Upstate New York community of our narrator, Sam, through his 14 year-old daughter Ester. His wife Claire and he have become very ill over the past few weeks. Their daughter laughs at their frailty, off-put by how meek and quiet they are. more ›

If you were wondering what ever happened to that chick from The Blair Witch Project, the one who really screwed it up for everybody out there in the woods (Jo-osh? Josh? JOSH?), you'll be glad to know actress-now-author Heather Donahue is alive and well and headed to BookPeople tonight at 7 p.m. to read from her new memoir Growgirl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot. The book follows her life after the unexpected success of Blair Witch, a low budget horror film that grossed over 200 million dollars and spawned books, comics and computer games. more ›

Note: This post is by new contributor Andrew Hilbert. Tonight, award-winning Texas poet Naomi Shihab Nye will be speaking and signing her latest collection of stories There is No Long Distance, Now. more ›

The Australian born, Michener graduate Domnic Smith's third book jumps back to the 19th Century, just as he did in him amazing debut, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. In Bright and Distant Shores, Smith weaves an elegant story of Chicago on the eve of modernity, and on the other side of the world, post-colonial Melanesia and the a man who wavers between them both. more ›

With an event entitled See a Little Light With Bob Mould: An Evening of Music and Reading, this is clearly not a typical Bob Mould show - or even a typical concert. That’s because the veteran singer/songwriter/guitarist (still best known for his stint in Hüsker Dü, despite that band having been defunct for nearly a quarter of a century and Mould having built a catalog every bit as strong since, both solo and with Sugar) isn’t promoting a new album on this trek. Instead, he’s hitting the road with both guitar and reading glasses in tow in celebration of <em>See a Little Light: The Trail of Rage and Melody, a frank, powerful autobiography that is as compulsive a read as his records are a listen. As such Mould will treat the audience to passages from his book as often as test the tolerance of the sound ordinance. (Mould is one of the few performers whose audience requires earplugs even when he’s playing acoustically.) Given the general brilliance of both the musical and prose sides of Mould’s pen, this gig is likely to be something special. more ›

Anyone who pays attention to environmental news today probably feels equal parts hopeless and desperate. Small-scale lifestyle changes like using totes at the grocery store or becoming a vegetarian might assuage guilt, but does anybody really feel like they are doing something about global warming and mass extinction? Very much unlike most of us, author, activist, Texan, Eco-Outlaw and shrimper Diane Wilson was first moved to political action when shrimp, her livelihood, were threatened by chemicals in the water in Seadrift, TX, and then took up the Bhopal Disaster of 1984 as her major cause. She joined forces with the world famous anti-war organization CodePink and raised her activist profile to world class. You might have heard about her pouring oil on herself at senate energy hearings and BP shareholders’ meetings. more ›

New word: paraprosdokian! Wikipedia says it "is a figure of speech in which the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected in a way that causes the reader or listener to reframe or reinterpret the first part." Wikipedia also says it is a part of Demetri Martin's comedy and if we had anything witty to add to that, it would most certainly be a surprise. So, we'll leave the comedy to Demetri and his new book This Is A Book which he'll be signing tonight at BookPeople. more ›

Lemony Snicket finally seems to be remorseful for the sincerely upsetting novels in the Series of Unfortunate Events series. First: his new book, 13 Words, is a charming (upon first glance) picture book about words like goat, hat, convertible, bird, baby, cake and the lonely adjective, despondent. Although Lemony Snicket could almost certainly make these words morose, Maira Kalman’s bright illustrations promise a very different disposition than Unfortunate Events. Second: cake. more ›

We might be able to sum up how great the event taking place tonight at St. Edward's University by just saying that it is going to be great, but for extra enthusiasm we'll say its going to be superb, a word that means it is going to be great but also has a phat dose of talent in it, audible in its 'erb' ending - a sound not many words can pull off without sounding like they're high. It's also a perfect word to describe the author featured at said event, someone you probably already know and love. more ›

For someone who grew up in the Midwest and has long made his home in New York, Calvin Trillin has had a lot to say about Texas over the years. But to hear Trillin tell it, even he didn't realize just how often Texas had figured into his writing until approached by the University of Texas Press about compiling what would become Trillin on Texas. more ›

On paper, Sarah Vowell is an unlikely literary star. As a historical writer, she admits that it’s hard to get people interested in her work. Typical Americans kind of don’t know and/or don’t care about history until Hollywood finds a historical character Russell Crowe can play. It is the fact that she can make Americans buy, read and enjoy books about history that easily explains her fame and success. more ›

Tonight, Bookpeople will host three local authors whose desire to see their ideas published lead them to utilize independent and open-publishing outlets, a path often chosen however rarely discussed in the literary world. Axe, Roberta Grimes and Matthew Hinsley have each been published through either a small genre-specific press or an open-publishing (sometimes referred to as self-publishing) system which has allowed their unique voices to reach a larger audience. Join them tonight to discuss their work and the choices writers have today when it comes to seeing their work through. more ›

In the spirit of revolution and domestic upheaval, join John McMillian tonight at Bookpeople for a reading, discussion and signing of his book Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in America, which chronicles the rise of the New Left in the sixties with the help of the underground press. The book focuses heavily on the underground press organization Liberation News Service and its editors Raymond Mungo and Marshall Bloom, two men who brought many anxieties about war, politics, the environment and art to their papers' front pages, spurring a nationwide trend of alternative news sources. more ›

For your weekend entertainment, might we suggest an afternoon reading at BookPeople by Abigail DeWitt, author of Dogs, a novel that begins in our lovely Austin, TX and then travels East to Massachusetts and then on to North Carolina. more ›

Singer-songwriter Rodney Crowell comes to BookPeople tonight, touring in support of his new memoir, Chinaberry Sidewalks. Foregoing tales of Nashville success and excess, Crowell instead ventures back to his rough and tumble childhood in the '50s and '60s. more ›

Several years ago, faced with the end of our reading pile, we borrowed a copy of Colm Tóibín's The Blackwater Lightship. The novel, which was shortlisted for the 1999 Booker Prize, made us fans for life. And, no, we never returned the book. It has stayed with us over the course of moves from Manhattan to Hoboken to Austin, in much the same way that the characters Tóibín brings to life linger long after their stories have ended. more ›

Sure, Austin is lucky to get all the big-time authors as they cross the country doing the book tour thing, but we're doubly blessed in that we've got plenty of homegrown talent as well. Two of these local literary luminaries, Sidney W. Frost and Jennifer Hritz, will be making appearances this Saturday at BookPeople for the store's Local Author Night. more ›

Holy crap, Patton Oswalt is coming to BookPeople tomorrow. BookPeople? What? That’s right, ye near-illiterate fans of comedy, Oswalt has written a BOOK of comedy, mostly! You have to read it! Or more accurately you did have to read it, before we found out that PATTON OSWALT IS READING HIS NEW BOOK AT BOOK PEOPLE. It’s hard to tell if this enthusiasm is infectious or obnoxious, but it CANNOT BE CONTAINED PATTON OSWALT IS COMING! more ›

It describes itself as a "scientific approach to highlight and explain stuff white people like." One commenter calls its author "the textbook definition of a racist white American," and you probably don't even have to keep reading to know that we're talking about the blog Stuff White People Like because you read it back in 2008 and yeah, it's still around, 77,000,000 hits and counting. Appearing at BookPeople tomorrow night to promote his blog-inspired book "Whiter Shades of Pale: The Stuff White People Like, Coast to Coast, from Seattle's Sweaters to Maine's Microbrews", author Christian Lander might even dissect his infamous list and provide insight into how he deals with the love and hate he receives from all around the globe. more ›

If you have ever wondered what is so alluring about Jack Sparrow (any gay guy can tell you: we’re remembering how fly Depp looked in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?) or Lord Byron (hint: not his poetry winkwinknudgenudge), then maybe The Rogue’s Handbook: A Concise Guide to Conduct for the Aspiring Gentleman Rogue has some answers for you! Jeff Metzger legitimately demystifies the vanishing Gentleman Rogue archetype (his friend coined the term "g-rogue," thankfully) and also provides advice to help today's men reach their goals of becoming g-rogues. This Austinite's tips for hetero dudez who aspire to a more modern shade of the rakish fellow we cannot help but love will make you laugh; it will not make you cry. more ›

What do an outlaw hunter turned game warden, an editorial cartoonist, and an Austin ecotourism consultant have in common? For starters, their stories are all featured in The Texas Legacy Project: Stories of Courage and Conservation. more ›

Jonesing for cake and balloons, but your own birthday is still months away? Contemplating crashing a five-year-old's party just so you can get your face painted? Well, don't do anything rash, because BookPeople has just the event for you. more ›