The road is shut down for more than mile between Jones Bridge Road and Pooks Hill Road.

MONDAY When Elizabeth Berg titled her novel We Are All Welcome Here, she wasn’t kidding—just about every Southern-fried device and pre-Vietnam social concern is stuffed into its pages. Polio, single-parent striving, racial prejudice, nosy Southern biddies, miraculous monetary windfalls, Elvis Presley, and, of course, plucky Southern Belles that survive as if they were…maybe some sort of tree made out of some sort of metal. Anyway, Berg will be on hand at the Rockville Barnes and…

MONDAY The enormous efforts undertaken by naturalists to save the California condor are documented by John Nielsen in his book, Condor: To the Brink and Back—The Life and Times of One Giant Bird. Nielsen will be at the Audubon Naturalist Society to sign and discuss his book, bringing with him the hope that the condor will one day again fly with ubiquity across the western skies, and that my special recipe for crème brulee—which calls…

Christmas and Hanukkah both drop on 12/25 this year, and as we get closer to that date, retailers of fine books begin to put their energy behind that last big sales push of the year. This means a dearth of author events until we clear Epiphany. All the same, we got the hook-up with what’s out there. MONDAY There are those that say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Yet most of the people…

MONDAY: >> We’ve been hearing an awful lot about certain journalists who’ve spent superfluous time in jail for ideals they supposedly believe in — but, before you make any contributions to that gravy train, why not hear from Marie-Helene Carleton, who’ll be in town discussing the travails of her filmmaker partner Micah Garen, who was taken hostage in Iraq in 2003. Even if you’re an avid news junkie, there’s still a lot you don’t know…