Photo by murkiv

MUSIC: The Silver Jews make a rare appearance at the Black Cat tonight, with Tel Aviv-based Monotonix, $13, 8 p.m.

READING: Josh Frank, author of Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies, and Charlie Buckholtz will be at the Olsson’s in Dupont Circle to discuss In Heaven Everything Is Fine: The Unsolved Life of Peter Ivers and the Lost History of New Wave Theatre. Ivers, who was the host of an underground music and sketch-comedy cable show called New Wave Theatre, was found bludgeoned to death in his loft in downtown Los Angeles. 7 p.m.

MUSIC: Over at the 9:30 Club, folk songstress Martha Wainwright headlines a show with Freedy Johnston and Elysian Fields. $15, 7 p.m.

READING: In Junot Diaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Oscar — a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd from New Jersey — dreams of becoming the Dominican J.R.R. Tolkien. Pulitzer Prize-winning author Diaz will be at Politics and Prose to talk about and sign copies of the novel. 7 p.m.

MOVIE: Busboys and Poets in D.C. is hosting a screening of Rebuilding Hope, another entry in the ever-expanding “lost boys of Sudan” documentary genre. Director Jen Marlowe will on hand for a q&a after the film. 6 p.m., free, though donations will accepted.