Authorpalooza!

There's a running joke in the Coen brothers' Burn After Reading about Seattle being such a great town for indie bookstores. (Our overly harsh review, written from New York, didn't mention the gag.) And as the weather turns dark and wet outside, tonight's array of visiting authors supports that proposition. On the menu: brains, surfing, and blasphemy! Thus, in order:

John Hodgman Everyone’s favorite Mac pitchman and Daily Show guest started out in book publishing. In a volume whose pagination begins where The Areas of My Experience left off, his new More Information Than You Require (Dutton, $25) allows Hodgman to indulge his love for footnotes, text boxes, tables, oversize print, the occasional chart and timeline, and sundry historical arcana. All of which, of course, is completely fatuous and informed by Hodgman’s love for almanacs, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and Irving Wallace’s The Book of Lists—the latter having apparently been a ’70s childhood consolation for a lonely, studious kid who, you know how it goes, was always picked last for sports teams. But payback is sweet for nerds. Hodgman has become a nerd-celeb on par with his buddies Jon Stewart and Sarah Vowell. In addition to his obsession here with mole-men, sextants, zeppelins, Battlestar Galactica, Emo Phillips, hoboes, etc., there are biographical insights about his newfound yet awkward status as media darling. Conveniently, he’s grouped them into a chapter, How to Be Famous, in which he struggles with the etiquette of meeting Jerry Stiller and Justin Timberlake (don’t say “Good morning”), the indignity of being Gawker Stalked on the subway (don’t wear brown jeans), and the pandemonium he accidentally causes at the SoHo Apple store while shopping for a computer cable. At that moment, Hodgman realizes, “I am like a mascot waking around a theme park.” Fellow Yalie and recovering Whiffenpoof Jonathan Coulton opens with clever songs, abetted by SW columnist and musician John Roderick. Town Hall, 1119 Eighth Ave., 624-6600, www.elliottbaybook.com. $5. $7:30 p.m.

Laird Hamilton Dude! The famed pro surfer, AmEx poster boy, and all-around lifesytle model dispenses advice from his Force of Nature: Mind, Body, Soul and, of Course, Surfing. So maybe we can all marry pro volleyball players and raise adorable kids on the white sandy beaches of Hawaii? Or, at least, we can buy the book and ask Hamilton to sign it. Third Place Books, 17171 Bothell Way N.E., 366-3333, www.thirdplacebooks.com, Thu., Nov. 6, 7 p.m.

Sherry Jones The Spokane writer whose book has caused alarm in some quarters, along with publishers pressured not to publish, reads from her Islamic history romance Jewel of Medina. University Book Store, 4326 University Way N.E., 634-3400, www.bookstore.washington.edu, Thu., Nov. 6, 7 p.m.