Writer Jeff Lacey and illustrator Calvin Banks will be at the Bookworm at 87th and Pacific this Friday at 6 p.m. to sign copies of their book, Flushed During Play: 51 Pet Rodent Deaths. I’m not kidding. “In this age of excessive materialism, pet rodents have perhaps paid the greatest price, having become too often victims of negligence, amateur decision making, or what George Orwell called ‘those wild, almost lunatic misunderstandings which are part of the daily experience of childhood,’” the press materials read. If you’ve had a hamster, gerbil or other rodent that met an unseemly end, this is the signing for you. If not, a signed copy would be a unique Christmas present, wouldn’t it?
Author Colleen Bradford Krantz will be at the Bookworm on Sunday at 1 p.m. to sign her book, Train to Nowhere: Inside an Immigrant Death Investigation. A companion to the public television documentary, the book recounts the horrific 2002 tale of 11 undocumented immigrants who were locked inside a railcar by smugglers and left to die when no one came to release them. The bodies were discovered when the car arrived in Denison, Iowa.