Book Notes: For 99 cents, read Walter’s ‘Don’t Eat Cat’

As you may have heard by now, Jess Walter has a new book coming out in June. If you really can’t wait that long, the National Book Award finalist has a new tidbit available to whet your appetite.

“Don’t Eat Cat” is a work of short fiction. Best part? It’ll set ya back a whopping 99 cents and is formatted for your e-reader of choice: iPad, Nook or Kindle. And if you’re not married to an e-reading device, you can get it through Indie Bound as a Google eBook.

And calling all “Walking Dead” fans. It’s about zombies. In Seattle. It’s a breezy read full of lively details about a dystopian society where “Starbucks Financial” keeps the economy afloat. Oh, and there are the zombies, but you’re not supposed to call them that.

Walter’s forthcoming novel is “Beautiful Ruins,” a story that crosses decades and continents, from 1960s Rome to contemporary Sandpoint. He will read from “Beautiful Ruins” on Friday at the Bing Crosby Theater, as part of the Get Lit! Festival. Then he kicks off his “Beautiful Ruins” book tour in Spokane with a reading at Auntie’s Bookstore in downtown Spokane on June 12, the book’s release date.

Hoop dreams

The HooPalousa II lit-flavored basketball game is set for 7 p.m. Monday at Whitworth University, to kick off Get Lit! in grand style. There’s been a lineup change. Sherman Alexie had to bow out. But fear not. Local writers Walter, Shann Ray and Tod Marshall will be among those offering themselves up to the basketball gods, along with ex-Zags Corey Violette and David Pendergraft.

Donations collected will support the American Indian Graduate Fellowship in Creative Writing at the University of Idaho.