Alexander McCall Smith read from "The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party" on April 1, 2011 at The Seattle Public Library. Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the international phenomenon, "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series, the "Isabel Dalhousie Series," the "Portuguese Irregular Verbs" series, and the "44 Scotland Street" series.

Ursula K. Le Guin read poems and Roger Dorband showed photographs from "Out Here" on March 23, 2011 at The Seattle Public Library. Le Guin is an award-winning poet and author. Dorband is a Northwest photographer.

"Jean-ah Poquelin" by George Washington Cable. Laissez les bon temps rouler! In this gothic tale set in New Orleans, raucous revelers throw a party fit to raise the dead.

Seattle-native Mark O'Connor, a world-renowned jazz violinist/folk fiddler and Grammy-winning composer, played modern classical music and talked about his craft on Jan. 28, 2011 at The Seattle Public Library. Widely and well known as one of America's more inventive and innovative composers, Mark O'Connor discussed and demonstrated his American style of string playing, his improvisational abilities and the process of composition.

T.C. Boyle read from "When the Killing's Done" on March 1, 2011 at The Seattle Public Library. In Boyle's latest novel, California's Galapagos, the wild Northern Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara, become the setting for a dramatic showdown between two factions of environmentalists, each utterly convinced of their beliefs in preserving the islands and the natural world. T.C. Boyle is the author of 12 novels including most recently, "The Women," a New York Times bestseller, and nine collections of short stories.

Librarians Misha and David are joined by author Jennifer Worick to discuss publishing, and "Publish Your Passion," an upcoming program at the Library, for everyone who has a book inside them longing to get out. They also share what they've been reading, including Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time," "A Discovery of Witches," by Deborah Harkness, and "The Chronology of Water," by Lidia Yuknavitch.

Graham Salisbury, Global Reading Challenge guest author, spoke to students from seven Global Reading Challenge schools about growing up in Hawaii and being a writer on Thursday, February 17, 2011 at The Seattle Public Library. His Calvin Coconut books (five in the series so far) are based on his childhood. He talks of all the "stupid" things he did and why he did them, "because I am a boy!" Graham has written many other books including "Night of the Howling Dogs" based on a true story of a 1974 earthquake and tsunami that strikes while 11 Boy Scouts and their leaders are camping at Halape, Hawaii.

Hojoong (Mike) Kim, M.D., acting, assistant professor, department of Neurology, discussed new studies and treatments that involve pharmaceutics, gene therapy and stem cell transplantation. If you have Parkinson disease or are caring for someone who does, there are new treatments on the horizon that may provide real hope. This event series was co-sponsored with UW Medicine.

Jamie Ford read from his bestselling novel, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet," on Feb. 6, 2011 at The Seattle Public Library. Alternating between the present and the past, "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet" tells a poignant story about fathers and sons, memory and regret, identity and racism, and how events in history affect the course of real people's lives.

Award-winning journalist Jack Hamann discussed "On American Soil: How Justice Became a Casualty of World War II" on Feb. 13, 2011 at The Seattle Public Library. On the night of Aug. 14, 1944, African-American soldiers from segregated units attacked Italian prisoners of war at Seattle's Fort Lawton. The riot resulted in the death of one of the Italian POWs, whose body was found hanging from a rope the morning after. Researching the story, Jack Hamann came to believe that the U.S. Army had bungled the investigation of the riot, destroyed and withheld key evidence from the defense during the trial, and covered it up by railroading the black soldiers.