× Expand Nancy Pearl

Whether you prefer the wildest sci-fi or the realest human stories, the intimate terrain of the South or the sweep of geopolitics, the Triangle's independent bookstores, libraries, and points outlying are overflowing with readings and signings for everybody this fall.

ANNALEE NEWITZ

Sep. 22, Flyleaf Books

As the founder of io9 and, later, an editor at Gizmodo and Ars Technica, Annalee Newitz knows tech and sci-fi. In her debut novel, Autonomous, a military agent and a robot form a strange bond while pursuing a "pharmaceutical Robin Hood" whose cheap scrips for the poor are having terrible unintended consequences.

RICK RIORDAN

Oct. 4, N.C. State's Mc–Kimmon Center

Quail Ridge Books tried to batten down the hatches for children's book juggernaut Rick Riordan, author of the mythology-besotted Percy Jackson series, by booking him at this roomier venue. It promptly sold out anyway, but you can still get on the waiting list or have a book signed.

ARMISTEAD MAUPIN

Oct. 6, Quail Ridge Books

Did you know that before he became a definitive San Francisco author with his Tales of the City novels, Armistead Maupin grew up in Raleigh? You would if you'd read his new memoir, Logical Family, which chronicles his flight from the South, through the Vietnam War, and into modern history. No less a storyteller than Neil Gaiman calls it "a book for any of us, gay or straight, who have had to find our family."

JEFFERY BEAM

Oct. 8, Orange County Public Library

The lyrical Hillsborough-based poet Jeffery Beam is co-editor of Jonathan Williams: The Lord of Orchards, a new critical anthology on the Black Mountain College poet who founded the groundbreaking small press The Jargon Society. The contributors include North Carolinians like Neal Hutcheson, Elizabeth Matheson, and Michael McFee; some will be on hand to help celebrate the release.

TYREE DAYE & BIANCA STONE

Oct. 12, CAM Raleigh

So & So, our most stalwart curated poetry reading series, fetes the release of N.C. State MFA student Tyree Daye's River Hymns, which recently won the American Poetry Review's first-book prize. Day is joined by Vermont's Bianca Stone, who has published collections with Tin House, Octopus, and Pleiades and contributed gorgeous art to the special edition of Anne Carson's Antigonick.

WILEY CASH

Oct. 21, McIntyre's Books

North Carolina native and Wilmington resident Wiley Cash announced himself as a major new voice in Southern fiction with his New York Times best-selling debut, A Land More Kind Than Home. His new novel, The Last Ballad, is a hymn of worker's rights and textile mills, set in the Appalachian foothills in 1929.

JOSEPH FINK & JEFFREY CRANOR

Oct. 25, Flyleaf Books

The creators of the cultish Welcome to Night Vale podcast have a wide audience, in the Triangle as in the nation, especially for such a niche product. Now they return in support of It Devours!, a mystery novel set in the podcast's inimitable Lynch-meets-Keillor world.

JOHN HODGMAN

Oct. 30, N.C. State's Hunt Library

American satirist John Hodgman's twenty-first-century tall tales have always drawn well on his frequent visits to the Triangle (his Daily Show appearances surely help). Quail Ridge is installing him at Hunt Library on his tour for his book Vacationland: True Stories from Painful Beaches, in conversation with a special guest to be announced.

KHIZR KHAN

Nov. 7, Pullen Memorial Baptist Church

Pakistani-American couple Khizr and Ghazala Khan, who lost their son in the Iraq War, fired a shot across the bow of Donald Trump's xenophobic, racist platform by brandishing the Constitution during an emotional speech at the 2016 Democratic National Convention. In An American Family: A Memoir of Hope and Sacrifice, Khizr Khan tells the story of the hard-won patriotism behind the couple's public stand.

NANCY PEARL

Nov. 17, McIntyre's Books

As NPR's books correspondent, Nancy Pearl is known as "America's librarian." So it's high time she added something of her own to the stacks. George & Lizzie, her first novel, asks with empathy and humor whether the imperfections in a marriage between a happy husband and an unfulfilled wife are the result of their joined present or their private pasts.