Book Notes: ‘Ice Age Floods’ authors set to party

Bruce Bjornstad and Eugene Kiver will celebrate the release of their geological guidebook “On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods: The Northern Reaches,” with a series of parties this summer.

The first event will be from 2 to 4 p.m. June 23 in the Eastern Washington University Science Building, on Washington Street across from Roos Field. The second event, hosted by Kiver’s employer, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, will be from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. July 16 in the Battelle Auditorium on PNNL campus, 902 Battelle Blvd. in Richland.

And on July 11, Bjornstad will be at Auntie’s Bookstore, 402 W. Main Ave., for a slide show and book signing at 7 p.m.

After Bjornstad’s first book, “On the Trail of the Ice Age Floods: A geological field guide to the Mid-Columbia Basin,” he teamed up with Kiver, his former professor at EWU, for a look at how the Ice Age floods carved out the Channeled Scablands and left a mark in North Idaho.

Bjornstad, who graduated from EWU, now lives in Richland. Kiver retired from Eastern in 2002 and divides his time between Cheney and Anacortes, Wash.

You didn’t ‘Ruin’ your chances

If you missed the Jess Walter reading at Auntie’s last week, you have another chance to hear the Spokane author read from his new novel “Beautiful Ruins.”

Walter will be at the Spokane Valley Barnes & Noble, 15310 E. Indiana Ave., at 7 p.m. July 11.

“Beautiful Ruins,” by the way, is getting some glowing reviews from around the country. Entertainment Weekly gave it an A-. The Boston Globe called it “audacious,” and a “page-turner that doubles as an elegant meditation on fame, desire, duty, and fate.” Kirkus Reviews gives us a blurb suitable for a book jacket – “A superb romp.” It also has this to say: “Simply put, Walter’s prose is a joy – funny, brash, witty and rich with ironic twists. He’s taken all the tricks of the postmodern novel and scoured out the cynicism, making for a novel that’s life-affirming but never saccharine.”