What happens when a lipstick-mad, wine-and-pasta-slurping, bride-to-be, cartoonist finds a lump in her breast? That question sets a poignant, graphic memoir in motion. In vivid color, and with vivid humor, Marisa Acocella Marchetto tells the story of her triumphant bout with breast cancer. But CANCER VIXEN is about more than surviving, it’s a portrait of a supercharged life, and a wonderful love story. Marisa’s wit and courage are an inspiration-she’s a cancer vixen, not victim.

81 years after the Scopes trial creationism is alive and well. Through school boards, politics, and the courts, a powerful movement promotes the teaching of intelligent design alongside evolution. NOT IN OUR CLASSROOMS gives the history of an idea that lacks any scientific support, and brings religious, legal, and pedagogical problems when proposed in public schools. Eugenie Scott is the director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization defending the teaching of evolution in public schools.

Trapped miners from cave-ins long ago still call for help. Ghostly women lurk in the shadows of city streets. Spectral holy men and outlaws from America’s Spanish past make appearances in our modern age. In HAUNTED HEARTLAND, Michael Norman has gathered together spectral events of all kinds—even from the haunted crime scenes of Chicago. From a haunted castle in Alaska to mysterious lights on the East Coast, these are the places, the people, and the things that belong to the earthbound realm of the fantastic.

Everybody is happy when local boys make good. Join the 2nd Hand ’zine’s editor, Todd Dills, as he reads from his amazing debut work, SONS OF THE RAPTURE, a novel of about restlessness, youth and the divisions that haunt our country. Also appearing with Todd will be his fellow 2nd Hander Jeb Gleason-Allured, reading from SHOOTING MUSIC (part of the Featherproof Press Light Reading Series, available for free on featherproof.com).

If dogs could drive, where would they go and what would they do? Author and photographer Mark Asher sets out to answer these yet-pondered canine queries with BARK & RIDE. With its full-color pictures, storytelling, and canine road signs, this collection of photographic creativity captures man’s best friend in countless vehicles and comical situations.

On the far side of town in a big dark house lives a brave little witch. She has heard lots and lots about that very human holiday Halloween, and even though she thinks she knows what humans are like, she has never, ever seen Halloween for herself. Until one very special Halloween comes along ... Illustrator Harry Bliss comes to share this seasonal story of A VERY BRAVE WITCH.

Sunday 10.15 3:00pm at Molly Malone’s, 7652 Madison St., Forest Park

Barbara’s Bookstore and Molly Malone’s Irish Pub invite you for an afternoon with Michael Patrick MacDonald as he reads from and signs EASTER RISING: An Irish American Coming Up From Under, the sequel to his best-seller, All Souls: A Family Story from Southie. Please call Barbara’s at 708.848.9140 for further details.

Katherine Lanpher, essayist and radio personality, moved on a leap day, transferring from the Midwest to a new job, a new city, and a new sense of who she was. But reinvention is tricky and starting over in mid-life isn’t for the faint of heart. LEAP DAYS chronicles, with startling insight, how her past prepared her for discoveries in her new life and learns how beauty is defined in New York, how the landscape differs, and how good food and books are constants in her life.

At 26, Alpana Singh became the youngest woman to be inducted into the world’s most exclusive sommelier organization, Court of Master Sommeliers, then spent five years as sommelier at Everest of Chicago. ALPANA POURS is a book not just about wine, but about the kind of wisdom that can only be learned after years of watching social interactions between women and men at all stages of their relationships. Call 708.848.9140 for further details. This event is cosponsored by the Marion Street Cheese Shop.

Barbara’s Bookstore is excited to host a reading with Geraldine McCaughrean, author of the first official sequel to Peter Pan, PETER PAN IN SCARLET! Set in the 1920s, the new story of Peter Pan in Scarlet is a closely guarded secret but readers are promised high adventure, dramatic tension and all the swashbuckling, danger and derring-do they can handle. Call 312.413.2665 for details.