Originally published September 15, 2005 at 12:00 AM | Page modified September 15, 2005 at 10:00 AM

Fall Arts Guide

Critic's picks: Books

Seattle Arts & Lectures gets off to a heady start with this rare appearance by the New York writer...

Seattle Times book critic

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Cynthia Ozick. Seattle Arts & Lectures gets off to a heady start with this rare appearance by the New York writer ("The Puttermesser Papers," "Heir to the Glimmering World"). Ozick's fiction takes the wildest flights of fancy, but her essays are as acerbic and trenchant as they come. The title of her talk: "What Is the Germ of the Story?" Sept. 21, 7:30 p.m., Benaroya Hall, presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures, 206-621-2230 or www.lectures.org.

Zadie Smith. The British author made a huge splash with her debut novel, "White Teeth," but less of an impression with her sophomore effort, "The Autograph Man." Advance word is good, however, on her third novel, "On Beauty." Set on both sides of the Atlantic, it portrays two families — one liberal, one right-wing — engaged in "a cultural and personal war against the background of real wars that they barely register." Oct. 7, two readings: 4 p.m. at Elliott Bay Book Co., and 8 p.m. at Neumo's, 925 E. Pike St., presented by The Stranger and Elliott Bay Book Co., 206-624-6600 or www.elliottbaybook.com.

ONE TO WATCH

Jim Lynch, first-time novelist

Former Seattle Times and Oregonian reporter Jim Lynch has switched gears and turned into a novelist — one whose debut is making considerable waves ... especially for someone who lives at the more tranquil and ripply end of Puget Sound.

"The Highest Tide" (Bloomsbury, 246 pp., $23.95) is the tale of 13-year-old Miles O'Malley, a precocious, Rachel Carson-worshipping beachcomber who lives, as Lynch does, on shores of our inland sea. One night Miles stumbles across a giant squid where no giant squid has been sighted before — the first in a string of unusual beach finds. As Miles spots one oddity after another, he becomes a news story that gets entirely out of hand, and the book becomes the tale of "one freakish summer" in which he finds himself "ambushed by science, fame and suggestions of the divine."

Lynch gets Miles' thoughtful-worried voice just right. (The audiobook, read by raspy-voiced Chicago-born actor Fisher Stevens, feels completely at odds with the quiet Pacific Northwest voices of the novel, so lovingly rendered by Lynch.) Robert Olen Butler, Katherine Dunn and Martha McPhee have all blurbed the novel generously, and writer Skye K. Moody called it a "classic coming-of-age tale" in her Seattle Times review last week.

Oct. 6, Tacoma Main Library, 253-591-5666; Oct. 10, Third Place Books, Lake Forest Park, 206-366-3333.

— Michael Upchurch

John Berendt. It's been 11 years since John Berendt put Savannah, Ga., on the literary map with "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil." His long-awaited follow-up, "The City of Falling Angels," takes on another port city — Venice, Italy — and delves into its secrets and eccentricities, delivering tales of "stool pigeons, scapegoats, hustlers, sleepwalkers, believers in Martians" and other odd types. Oct. 17, 7:30 p.m., Town Hall, presented by Elliott Bay Book Co., 206-624-6600 or www.elliottbaybook.com.

Simon Winchester. The author of "The Professor and the Madman" takes on a topic close to many Seattleites' hearts in his new book: plate tectonics. "A Crack in the Earth: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906" doesn't just recount the great temblor that destroyed San Francisco a century ago, but ranges from Iceland to Alaska as Winchester explains what's going on with our juddering (at this end) North American continental plate. Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m., Benaroya Hall, presented by Seattle Arts & Lectures, 206-621-2230 or www.lectures.org.

Tab Hunter. Had enough of highbrow fare? The 1950s movie star ("Damn Yankees") who became an icon of gay camp in the 1980s ("Polyester," "Lust in the Dust") has written a memoir, "Tab Hunter Confidential," about the ups and downs of his career and his personal life. His two-year affair with Anthony Perkins ("Psycho"), his scramble for work after his star faded in the 1960s, his finding of happiness with his partner of the past 20 years — it's all here. Nov. 3, 6 p.m., Elliott Bay Book Co., 206-624-6600 or www.elliottbaybook.com.

E.L. Doctorow. The author of "Ragtime" and "Billy Bathgate" drops into town to read from "The March," his novel about Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman's destructive march through the South toward the end of the Civil War. As far as I can tell, it's been more than 10 years since Doctorow gave a reading here. Nov. 18, 7 p.m., Seattle Central Library, 206-386-4636 orwww.spl.org.

Cheap thrills

Impecunious book lovers and author gawkers: This is one town where you're in luck. In the coming months you can see novelists Walter Mosley, Louise Erdrich, Ha Jin and Alison Lurie absolutely gratis. The same is true of Joan Didion, Craig Lesley, Vikram Seth and film legend Tab Hunter, who will all have new nonfiction books out. And for just $5 (or for free, with the purchase of their books), you can add Barbara Ehrenreich, Dava Sobel, Jane Smiley and poet Mary Oliver to the list.