Ben Marcus will read from his new novel The Flame Alphabet at City Lights Bookstore. Tonight, 7 p.m.

“The Flame Alphabet invites the question: What is left of civilization when we lose the ability to communicate with those we love? Both morally engaged and wickedly entertaining, a gripping page-turner as strange as it is moving, this intellectual horror story ensures Ben Marcus’s position in the first rank of American novelists.”