Peter Carey

I do love reading Peter Carey. The Australian fiction writer has published eleven novels and three volumes of short stories, and to a one they are all compulsively readable. Unlike so many "giant" contemporary writers whose careers begins with passion and lose inspiration as they gain renown, Carey remains a writer with an amazing ear for language and an instinctive sense of what makes human relationships so strange and fascinating. His stories are sharp, funny and ingenious, and his characters are perverse, unpredictable and very human.

Carey’s newest book is called “The Chemistry of Tears” and is billed as mystery focusing on the life of "a mysterious, visionary clockmaker." I bet it's great. He reads from and signs his new novel at Elliot Bay Book Co. on May 24. Tickets are free and available at the door.