Some people are just not "people" people. Some people are dog people, some are cat people and some are just plain animal people. Throughout history, animals have played a major role in human culture. Aesop and Disney come to mind. If you are an animal person, or would like to learn more about them, here is the event for you. Alison Hawthorne Deming will discuss her new book, Zoologies: On Animals and the Human Spirit. In this collection of linked essays, Deming asks, and seeks to answer: what does the disappearance of animals mean for human imagination and existence? Moving from mammoth hunts to dying house cats, she explores profound questions about what it means to be animal. What is inherent in animals that lead us to destroy, and what that leads us toward peace? As human animals, how does art both define us as a species and how does it emerge primarily from our relationship with other species? If this sounds like altogether too much intellectual mumbo-jumbo for you, don't worry. She will have her books on hand, so you can just follow along with the pictures.

ALISON HAWTHORNE DEMING ZOOLOGIES, 7 p.m., Orca Books, 509 Fourth Ave. E., Olympia, free admission, 360.352.0123