National Poetry Month may be over, but that doesn't mean it's time for you to put away the books. It's dreary out right now, but warmer weather should be just around the corner, enabling you to crack a book in the great outdoors. Our lovely local bookstores are bringing us bunches of great readings in May. Big names like Fareed Zakaria, Mike Gravel, and Howard Zinn will discuss politics, while Brookline native BabaWawa returns to her native land for a book signing. Read on for an overview of what's booked in May. As always, our picks have asterisks by them.

Monday, May 5th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Tony Horwitz, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World

Monday, May 5th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Mameve Medwed, Of Men and Their Mothers

Tuesday, May 6th, 7pm, Barker Center
sponsored by Harvard Book Store
Michael Eric Dyson, April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Death and How It Changed America

Tuesday, May 6th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Ellis Avery, The Teahouse Fire

Tuesday, May 6, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Margot Livesey, The House on Fortune Street

*Tuesday, May 6th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
George Johnson, The Ten Most Beautiful Experiments

Wednesday, May 7th, 6pm, Brattle Theatre, $5
sponsored by Harvard Book Store
Howard Fineman, The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country

Wednesday, May 7, 6pm, Porter Square Books
Rose Moss, the Hotel Marlowe, In Court

Wednesday, May 7, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Reeve Lindbergh, Forward from Here: Leaving Middle Age--and other Unexpected Adventures

Thursday, May 8th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Alice Hoffman, The Third Angel

*Thursday, May 8th, 7pm, First Parish Church Meetinghouse, $5
sponsored by Harvard Book Store
Fareed Zakaria, The Post-American World
In conversation with Harvard historian Niall Ferguson

Friday, May 9th, 3pm, Harvard Book Store
Robert H. Bates, When Things Fell Apart: State Failure in Late Century Africa

Friday, May 9, 6:30pm, Porter Square Books
Laura and Leo Espinosa, Otis and Rae and the Grumbling Splunk

Friday, May 9th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Michael T. Klare, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy

Saturday, May 10th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Chris Bohjalian, Skeletons at the Feast

*Sunday, May 11, 5:30pm, Porter Square Books
Henry Winkler, The Life of Me: Enter, Your Own Risk

Monday, May 12th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Elizabeth George, Careless in Red

*Monday, May 12, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project

Monday, May 12th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
David Samuels, Only Love Can Break Your Heart and The Runner

Tuesday, May 13th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Rachel Sontag, House Rules: A Memoir

Tuesday, May 13, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Jeff Talarigo, The Ginseng Hunter

*Tuesday, May 13th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Preeta Samarasan, Evening Is The Whole Day
V. V. Ganeshananthan, Love Marriage
A conversation on political identity in literature will follow.

Wednesday, May 14th, 6:30pm, UpStairs on the Square, $38
sponsored by Harvard Book Store
Neal I. Rosenthal, Reflections of a Wine Merchant: On a Lifetime in the Vineyards and Cellars of France and Italy

Wednesday, May 14th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Penny Vincenzi, Sheer Abandon

Wednesday, May 14, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Linda Bamber and David Rivard, Metropolitan Tang and Sugartown

Thursday, May 15th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Mark Sarvas, Harry, Revised

Thursday, May 15, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Deborah Weisgall, The World Before Her

*Friday, May 16th, 3pm, Harvard Book Store
Martha Nussbaum, Liberty of Conscience: In Defense of America's Tradition of Religious Equality

Friday, May 16th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Carl Zimmer, Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life

*Monday, May 19th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Simon Winchester, The Man Who Loved China : The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom

Monday, May 19, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Katherine Hall Page and Peter Abrahams, Body in the Gallery and Delusion

Monday, May 19th, 6pm, Brattle Theatre, $5
sponsored by Harvard Book Store
Alexandra Fuller, The Legend of Colton H. Bryant

Tuesday, May 20th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
John Harwood and Gerald F. Seib, Pennsylvania Avenue: Profiles in Backroom Power

Tuesday, May 20, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Ellen Cooney, Lambrusco

*Wednesday, May 21st, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
James Tate, The Ghost Soldiers: Poems

Wednesday, May 21st 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Gil Adamson, The Outlander: A Novel

Wednesday, May 21, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Will Allen, The War on Bugs

Thursday, May 22nd, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Book Signing Only
Barbara Walters, Audition: A Memoir

Thursday, May 22, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Taking Back Childhood

Thursday, May 22nd 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Kenn Kaufman, Flights Against The Sunset: Stories That Reunited A Mother and Son
Tim Gallagher, Falcon Fever: A Falconer in the Twenty-First Century

Monday, May 26th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Franz Wright, God’s Silence

Tuesday, May 27th, 6pm, Brattle Theatre, $5
sponsored by Harvard Book Store
Ted Sorensen, Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History

Tuesday, May 27, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Leif Enger, So Brave, Young, and Handsome

Tuesday, May 27th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Nam Le, The Boat

Wednesday, May 28th, 6pm, Coolidge Corner Theatre, Tickets $5
James Frey, Bright Shiny Morning: A Novel
Sponsored by Brookline Booksmith

Wednesday, May 28th, 7pm, Harvard Book Store
Margot Livesey, The House on Fortune Street: A Novel

*Thursday, May 29, 7pm, Porter Square Books
Jared Bernstein, Crunch: Why Do I Feel So Squeezed?

Thursday, May 29th, 7pm, Brookline Booksmith
Kathleen Spivack, Moments of Past Happiness

*Thursday, May 29th, 6pm, Brattle Theatre, $5
sponsored by Harvard Book Store
Russell Banks, Mike Gravel, and Howard Zinn
"A Conversation on American Identity"

Thursday, May 29, 6:30pm, Florian Hall, Dorchester
Raise the Roof II, a benefit for renovations to Interim House
Readings by Michael Patrick MacDonald, George Pelecanos, Joe Pernice, Tom Perrotta, Warren Zanes

If you've read all that, here's a heads up for June: 6pm on 6/6/08 presents a conundrum, as funnymen Lewis Black and David Sedaris will both be in town hamming it up at that time. Whom should you see? Decide fast, because tickets will surely go even faster.