Newbery Award-winning author Rebecca Stead reads Wednesday from her latest novel, “Liar & Spy,” as part of Lesley University’s MFA in Creative Writing Winter Residency.

What are the odds you get to hang out with Harvard grad Amram Shapiro, one-third author of “The Book of Odds,” on the very day HarperCollins publishes it? Really good.

Much of David Beckett’s “The Cana Mystery” will be familiar to fans of “The Da Vinci Code,” and some of it will be even more familiar to Cantabrigians, especially those intimate with Harvard Square.

With its debut Thursday, Story Club Boston becomes the latest chapter in a storytelling renaissance, and one you need to stick with to the end to see how it comes out.

The blogger who caused a kerfuffle in March by declaring Somerville the hippest city in America is back with her first novel, set – where else? In Somerville – and a free teaser prequel in e-book formats.

As the James “Whitey” Bulger trial churns on in U.S. District Court in Boston, this is the ideal time to catch up on the history behind it – all three centuries of it.

The essayist’s newest work looks at who we decide is a villain, with individual pieces putting microscopes on phenomena ranging from Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky to “Star Wars,” Bernhard Goetz and Batman, the Eagles and O.J. Simpson., Muhammad Ali and Joe Paterno.

Lesley University’s summer series of free readings and presentations starts tonight at 7:15 with the screening of a film written by Barry Brodsky and a reading by Sara Zarr, who specializes in writing for young people. It runs through June 28.

Three acclaimed suspense novelists, including Boston reporter and award-winning author Hank Phillippi Ryan comes to the Cambridge Main Library next week.

Cambridge comes in fourth behind Alexandria, Va.; Knoxville, Tenn.; and Miami. Is an Amazon-centric, Kindle-centric list to be trusted?