Reading Room

Thursday February 19

Kate Christensen will read and sign copies of her new book, “The Epicure’s Lament.” This is the story of a former gigolo, turned chain-smoking literature-reading hermit who lives alone in his wealthy family’s run down mansion over looking the Hudson River. When his brother and his estranged wife with her daughter return to the house, they interrupt the solitude of the the quirky protagonist. 7 p.m. at Housing Works Used Book Café.

Was the American cowboy gay? Christopher Packard will read from his book, “Queer Cowboys and Other Erotic Male Relationships in Nineteenth-Century Westerns.” After analyzing the earliest representations of cowboys and other frontier figures in popular literature, the answer is “yes.” 3 p.m. at NYU’s J. Edgar Bronfman Center for Jewish Life.

Friday February 20

Danyel Smith will read and sign copies of her debut novel, “More Like Wrestling,” the story of two sisters in the shaky Los Angeles of the 1980s. The teenage girls create a family of castoffs, dealers and drama queens and sink into a world of drugs. Smith is an accomplished journalist and brings a keen eye to the world of fiction. 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Greenwich Village.

Saturday February 21

Cuban born writer, Sonia Rivera-Valdes, will read from her book, “The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda,” a steamy tale of New York City’s recent arrivals from Cuba, Guatemala, and other Latin countries in a book of connected stories that reads like a novel. 7 p.m. at Bluestockings Bookstore.

Monday February 23

Paco Underhill will discuss and sign copies of his book, “Call of the Mall,” a funny and ironic look at the commercial, social and cultural meaning of America’s now aging town square. The book examines why the same coat costs twice as much in the women’s department as it does in the boys’. It’s about why shoes, handbags, and cosmetics are clustered, and why the movie theater is hard to find. 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Chelsea.

Tuesday February 24

Valerie Boyd will sign and discuss her book, “Wrapped in Rainbows,” a biography of Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston, literary foremother of many black female writers including Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, and Alice Walker, wrote “Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937. Boyd takes a look at Hurston’s history, friendships, sexuality and her mysterious interest with vodou. 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Chelsea.

Wednesday February 25

Graham Robb will discuss and sign copies of his book, “Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century.” The stories in this book, based on research of the Victorian Era, are both surprising and familiar. Robb second-guesses the assumption that homosexual culture of both men and women has existed for only a few decades. 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Chelsea.

Friday February 27

Ruth Vanita reads from “Same-Sex Love in India,” a surprising array of writings on same-sex love from over 2,000 years of Indian literature. Translated from more than a dozen languages and drawn from Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and modern fictional traditions, these writings testify to the presense of same-sex love in various forms since ancient times. 7 p.m. at the Center. $6 for members, $10 for nonmembers.

Saturday February 28

Larry Everest will read from his new book, “Oil, Power & Empire: Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda,” which exposes how the Bush administration used 9/11 to launch an unbounded war for greater empire, and examines why conquering Iraq is central to U.S. imperialism, and explains how the Bush juggernaut can be derailed. 7 p.m. at Bluestockings Bookstore.