Karin Slaughter, "Unseen." 7 p.m. July 8. Talk and signing. $10, reservations requested. Margaret Mitchell House & Museum, 990 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-814-4150, www.margaretmitchellhouse.com. Also appearing: 7 p.m. July 18. Talk and signing. Free. Appleton Auditorium, Athens-Clarke County Library, 2025 Baxter St., Athens. 706-613-3650, www.athenslibrary.org/athens. Best-selling author Slaughter sets the latest volume of her long-running Georgia-based series in Macon, where GBI agent Will Trent goes undercover to infiltrate a crime ring, not realizing his girlfriend Sarah Linton is involved in the same case.
Jingle Davis and Benjamin Galland, "Island Time: An Illustrated History of St. Simons Island, Georgia." 7:15 p.m. July 8. Talk and signing. Free. Decatur Library Auditorium, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur. 404-370-8450, Ext. 2225; www.georgiacenterforthebook.org. Written by third-generation islander Davis and illustrated with more than 170 color photographs by Galland, a first-generation native, this lavish look at St. Simons chronicles its history and stunning beauty.
George Ciccariello-Maher, "We Created Chávez." 7 p.m. July 9. Reading and signing. Free. Jimmy Carter Presidential Library & Museum Theater, 441 Freedom Parkway, Atlanta. 404-865-7100, www.jimmycarterlibrary.gov. After he was elected president in 1998, Hugo Chávez became the face of contemporary Venezuela and anti-capitalist revolution. By examining social movements and revolutionary groups active before and during the Chávez era, Ciccariello-Maher provides a nuanced account of his rise to power.
Matthew Guinn, "The Resurrectionist." 6:30 p.m. July 10. Signing. Free. SCAD's Ivy Hall Writers Series, Ivy Hall, 179 Ponce de Leon Ave. N.E., Atlanta. 404-253-3324, www.artofrestoration.org/events/calendar.cfm. Civil War–era "resurrectionists" were responsible for procuring human corpses for doctors' anatomy training. More than a century later, a young medical resident on probation for Xanax abuse faces a moral dilemma when a campus renovation unearths the bones of dissected slaves — a potential PR disaster for the school. Atlanta native and first-time novelist Guinn deftly weaves historical and fictional truth into a tale of shocking crimes and exquisite revenge.
Mary Louise Kelly, "Anonymous Sources." 7 p.m. July 10. Talk and signing. $10, reservations requested. Margaret Mitchell House & Museum, 990 Peachtree St. N.E., Atlanta. 404-814-4150, www.margaretmitchellhouse.com. When a beautiful, troubled reporter is assigned to investigate the murder of a man who had it all, her reporting takes her to the cobbled courtyards of Cambridge, England, inside a network of nuclear terrorists, the corridors of the CIA, and, finally, to the terrorists' target itself. Kelly, a Georgia native who worked at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, has traveled the world as a reporter for NPR and the BBC.
Open mic poetry night. 8 p.m. July 10. Reading. $5. Tickets sold at the door (cash or check only). Callanwolde Fine Arts Center, 980 Briarcliff Road N.E., Atlanta. 404-872-5338, Ext. 228; www.callanwolde.org/events/index.html. Readings are open to the first 10 poets who sign up to share their original work.
