And then there’s this: William T. Vollmann at Skylight Books tonight

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William T. Vollmann, the prolific and powerful writer, is touring the west coast in support of his just-released book ‘Imperial.’ Tonight he reads at Skylight Books in Los Feliz at 7:30p.m.

‘Imperial’ -- and its companion volume of photographs -- focuses on California’s Imperial County, which borders Mexico. It’s a place where the desert meets agriculture, where the California dream smashes up against an often-harsh reality.

In 2008, reviewing Vollman’s book ‘Riding Toward Everywhere’ in our pages, Marc Weingarten wrote:

Vollmann thinks a lot about savagery and the human capacity for suffering. It’s a major preoccupation of his numerous novels and volumes of reportage.... The author, as he explains near the beginning [of ‘Riding Toward Everywhere’], is a man given to frequent reflection -- even self-recrimination at times -- about his place in the world.

‘All I know is that although I live a freer life than many people, I want to be freer still,’ he writes. ‘I’m sometimes positively dazzled with longing for a better way of being.’

As Vollman has a tendency to report right from the center of things, his book -- and his reading -- should be interesting. Although odds are against it, he may have found a better way of being in Imperial County.

-- Carolyn Kellogg