Cheryl Truman on books

Essayist David Sedaris — he of Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and When You Are Engulfed in Flames — is headed to the Singletary Center on Oct. 18. Tickets are $60 and available at www.singletarytickets.com.

Ronald Eller’s discussion of his new book Uneven Ground: Appalachia Since 1945 (University Press of Kentucky), will be taped to air on C-Span’s Book TV. Eller, a University of Kentucky professor and former director of the Appalachian Center, will speak on Oct. 22 at 7 p.m. at Joseph-Beth Booksellers. (Look for a Herald-Leader review by former host of Comment on Kentucky Al Smith on Oct. 19.)

Brian Jacques, author of the Redwall series, is coming to Joseph-Beth on Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. to promote his new book Doomwyte (Philomel Books, $23.99). I’ll be interviewing Jacques by phone next Tuesday, and I don’t know how to begin to express my gratitude for the Redwall series. The books include all manner of conflict and evildoing and bloodshed, and yet there’s a wonderful kind of curl-up-by-the-fire side in which the forest animals care for each other, establish elaborate celebratory rituals and stage sumptuous feasts.

I was rarely more truly at one with my children than when I was reading aloud from Jacques, and to this day we quote a Jacques character whenever the first brisk Kentucky frost blows in: “Brr, zurr!” Probably you had to be there. But Jacques’ Redwall books are much like Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth, pitched toward the elementary school set.