THURSDAY: Ben Greenman at the Booksmith

WHAT IS THIS THING?

A Circle Is a Balloon and Compass Both: Stories About Human Love is BEN GREENMAN’s third book, and this New Yorker staffer has chosen the most wonderful and infuriating of human emotions for his muse. The current editor of “Goings On About Town,” Greenman has a taste for both the profoundly cultural and the inherently quirky, and the tales he tells in Circle share these themes: romance, sentiment, sex, and heartbreak are extolled with humor and several dips into experimental form. Love conquers all when he reads and signs at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline| 7 pm | free | 617.566.6660.