Once again it is Christmas in October for book lovers, as Madison hosts the annual Wisconsin Book Festival, running Oct. 10-14 in venues throughout the University of Wisconsin campus and downtown area. Whether you're planning your entire weekend around the event or are just required to go for a class, the amount of events offered can be daunting. Highlighting a few of the most promising events, however, should save us all some anxiety. Wednesday starts things off calm and introspective with "Entering the Mind of Poetry: Presenting Jane Hirshfield" (Promenade Hall in Overture, 5-6:30 p.m.). A frequent collaborator in translations of woman poets, especially from Japan, as well as a full-fledged poet herself, Hirshfield attempts to get at the deep, essential things that make us human, and her reading should be an enlightening experience. Afterward, "Tranquility and Open Space" (Capital Theater in Overture, 7-8:30 p.m.), led by award-winning environmentalists Terry Tempest Williams and Rick Bass, will teach how to humanely interact with the natural world and how that interaction is not just domestic in nature but also inherently political. First thing Thursday, you should make your way to the biannual Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries book sale (Memorial Library, 10:30 a.m.-7:30 p.m.) and nab up all the diamonds in the rough before they're gone. Once your bag is about ten pounds heavier, you'll have to make a tough decision. If you have a fever and the only prescription is more poetry, head over to Rae Armantrout's "The Poetic Dance of Consciousness" (Sixth Floor, Helen C. White, 7-8:30 p.m.), where many rhetorical hairs are sure to be split to thrilling effect. If you're interested in hip-hop's developing role in education, you may want to check out "Spoken Word and Hip-Hop Education in the Academy" (Wisconsin Historical Society, 7-9 p.m.), featuring HBO Def Poets and a member of our First Wave program. The most provocative event of the night, however, is sure to be "The Terror Dream: Susan Faludi on Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America" (Promenade Hall in Overture, 7-8:30 p.m.). Faludi, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, links our national reaction to Sept. 11 to our cultural beliefs about gender and violence. Expect an emotionally charged Q&A. Friday gets a bit hectic, so choose carefully. "Voices from a Changing Africa: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Zakes Mda" (Promenade Hall in Overture, 5-6:45 p.m.) will weave tales about war-torn Nigeria and racially divided 19th century America. "Trinidad meets El Barrio: Nuyorican Poets Bring the Noise" (Wisconsin Historical Society, 7-8:30 p.m.) should get things hopping with the acclaimed bilingual spoken-word artists Willie Perdomo and Roger Bonair-Agard. Following it, the sixth consecutive "FOUND Magazine Event" (Orpheum Stage Door, 9-11 p.m.) will bring the roof down by showcasing the weird and wonderful things that people just leave lying around. On Saturday, Alan Weisman examines how peaceful the world would be without people screwing it up in his novel "The World Without Us" (Promenade Hall in Overture, 10-11:30 a.m.). In counterpoint, "Stories from Untranquil Territory: Susan Abulhawa and Margot Singer" (Promenade Hall in Overture, 12-1:45 p.m.) presents us with people trying to find peace amid chaos, from Palestinians in Israel to American Jews in Manhattan. If you still aren't satisfied by the festival come its last day Sunday, you might want to attend "Rabbi Harold Kushner: Overcoming Life’s Disappointments" (Orpheum Main Theatre, 4-5:45p.m.), who uses Moses as a prime example for how life can, well, disappoint us. However, Michael Cunningham (Orpheum, 6-7:30 p.m.), the writer of Pulitzer prize-winning novel "The Hours", should not leave us disappointed as he officially brings the festival to a close. For a full listing of events and presenter biographies, check out www.wisconsinbookfestival.org.