Eat, drink, discuss

The doorman at the Enormous Room in Cambridge is the first clue that Four Stories is the city's hippest reading series.

A DJ plays music beginning at 6 p.m. Arrive well before the readings start at 7 p.m. or the doorman may turn you away.

Tracy Slater, founder of the year-old literary salon, says, ``I want it to feel like a night out that has some kind of intellectual quotient without being heavy or pretentious."

Each evening has a theme and four writers. On Oct. 16, the theme is loneliness and unrequited love. The lineup includes Ellen Litman, whose fiction appears in ``Best New American Voices 2007."

On Oct. 30, PEN New England will co sponsor an evening of stories about crime and punishment. T.J. Parsell will read from his new book, ``Fish: A Memoir of a Boy in a Man's Prison," and Megan Sullivan will read from ``The Embezzler's Daughter," her memoir in progress .

Slater encourages attendees to eat, drink, mingle -- and question the writers. Those who ask the best questions, as judged by Slater, win a free drink.

Elisabeth Ogilvie, a novelist who vividly captured Maine island life, died Sept. 9 at the age of 89. Almost immediately, Ogilvie fans called Down East Books, said Terry Brega, sales representative. Down East has eight Ogilvie books in print and fans want more.

Many of Ogilvie's 46 books, beginning in 1944 with ``High Tide at Noon," were inspired by idyllic childhood summers on Criehaven, 25 miles off the Maine coast. With royalties from that first book, Ogilvie, a native of Quincy, bought a house on Gay's Island in Maine.

Among Ogilvie's devotees is Melissa Hayes, co-author of ``A Mug-Up With Elisabeth" and co-editor of a fan newsletter. Hayes had never visited a Maine island before she discovered Ogilvie's books in 1994. ``I fell in love from the first page," she said.

Michael Patrick Mac Donald, author of ``All Souls," tells more stories about growing up in South Boston in ``Easter Rising: An Irish American Coming Up From Under." He will speak at 5 p.m. Tuesday at the John F. Kennedy Library in Dorchester .

``Visual Shock: A History of Art Controversies in American Culture," by Michael Kammen (Knopf)

``Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome ," by Robert Harris (Simon & Schuster)

``The Art of Rough Travel: Advice From a 19th-Century Explorer," by Sir Francis Galton (Mountaineers)

Pick of the week

Ev VanWagner-Wilska of the Bookloft in Great Barrington recommends ``Every Day Counts: Lessons in Love, Faith, and Resilience From Children Facing Illness ," by Maria Sirois: ``In spare and lovely prose, with grace-filled humility and candor, Maria Sirois moves beyond the pain and grief that marked the days of her psychology internship at Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and explores the larger questions that resonate in all of our lives, whether or not we've been touched by cancer."

Jan Gardner can be reached at JanLGardner@yahoo.com.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.