There’s a good chance for a meta moment Friday at Porter Square Books as Carrie Russell reads from her debut novel, “Drowning Cactus”: The novel includes scenes within Porter Square Books itself.

Poet Marilyn Nelson headlines a series of free evening readings that runs Jan. 2-9 at Lesley University.

Somerville’s Liz Prince put up with a lot as a girl who didn’t want to be girly. Hear about what went into her graphic novel “Tomboy” Thursday evening.

Somerville’s Raúl Gonzalez will be in Porter Square to introduce “Lowriders,” an introduction to science and a subculture with Oregon’s Cathy Camper.

A talk with author Andrea Davis Pinkney – such as tonight’s – is likely to be as inspiring a literary time as one could imagine.

The New Yorker’s George Packer talks about the new America in his ‘The Unwinding’ and at a free lecture Wednesday at Lesley University.

Boston reporter and thriller author Hank Phillippi Ryan is coming with the latest in her Jane Ryland and Jake Brogan series, and Kate Clark Flora is with her.

Too bad you’re not in Grades 1 through 3 at the Cambridgeport School. B.J. Novak sold out his Thursday reading in Harvard Square of “The Book With No Pictures.”

Ellen Cooney, a one-time Cambridge resident who has taught at Harvard and MIT, brings “The Mountaintop School for Dogs” and a Porter Square Books first.

The Dante Alighieri Society of Massachusetts’ free weekend lecture is particularly on point: It explores the moral systems of Dante and Dickens.