Third Place Books: Paul Theroux visits the border, Artificial Intelligence, tribal police, Vietnam and the spotted owl

It's a contentious week in the world of books at Third Place Books. Our future with Artificial Intelligence, our past with Vietnam, a shoot out on the Colville Reservation, and the spotted owl / logging conflicts - and our present with Paul Theroux's visit to the Mexican side of the border.

Third Place Books, upper level Town Center, intersection Bothell and Ballinger Way NE, LFP.

Monday, October 14 at 7pm
Flynn Coleman
A Human Algorithm: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining Who We Are

A groundbreaking narrative on the urgency of ethically designed AI and a guidebook to reimagining life in the era of intelligent technology, A Human Algorithm is a clarion call for building a more humane future and moving conscientiously into a new frontier of our own design. Flynn Coleman is a writer, international human rights attorney, public speaker, professor, and social innovator.

Thursday, October 17 at 7pm
Paul Theroux
On the Plain of Snakes: A Mexican Journey

Paul Theroux has spent his life crisscrossing the globe in search of the histories and peoples that give life to the places they call home. 

Now, as immigration debates boil around the world, Theroux has set out to explore a country key to understanding our current discourse: Mexico. Just south of the Arizona border, in the desert region of Sonora, he finds a place brimming with vitality, yet visibly marked by both the US Border Patrol looming to the north and mounting discord from within. 

With the same humanizing sensibility he employed in Deep South, Theroux stops to talk with residents, visits Zapotec mill workers in the highlands, and attends a Zapatista party meeting, communing with people of all stripes who remain south of the border even as their families brave the journey north.

Friday, October 18 at 6pm
Richard Alumbaugh
Elmer’s Tribal War

In the early morning hours of August 27, 1986, tensions between Elmer McGinnis and the Colville Tribal Police escalated to the point that a beam of light triggered a tragic shootout. Richard

Alumbagh’s late wife was the presiding judge in the ensuing murder case. Elmer’s Tribal War is a factual account of these events, and an investigation into who was truly responsible.

Saturday, October 19 at 6pm
Alice K. Boatwright
Collateral Damage

How many years does it take for a war to end? Marking the 50th anniversary of the divisive Vietnam era, this new edition of the award-winning Collateral Damage brings together stories from the perspectives of those who fought, those who resisted, and the family and friends caught in the crossfire between them. Alice K. Boatwright is an award-winning author of both literary fiction and mysteries.

Sunday, October 20 at 6pm
Deborah Nedelman
What We Take for Truth

At its height, the world of logging in the Pacific Northwest was both brutal and beautiful. When the conservation movement sent protestors into the woods and the government began to place the needs of a small, shy bird above those of families who had lived for generations off the harvest of those woods, the conflicts that erupted were fierce and heartbreaking. What We Take for Truth tells the story of both a dying way of life and a landscape that is being lost.