A.S. Byatt

Let’s face it. One reason you like Byatt is because she’s so formidably smart, so unafraid to indulge her knowledge (or curiosity), that she makes you feel smart. Well, even if you won’t cop to that, we will. “The Stone Woman,” from her new collection, The Little Black Book of Stories (available April 20) had us spellbound when it ran last fall in the New Yorker. It’s a contemporary fairy tale involving a sixtyish Englishwoman whose flesh and insides gradually transform, through some perversion of alchemy, into stone, gems, and minerals; she absconds with a burly sculptor to the wild landscapes of his native Iceland. If Byatt reads like she writes, this promises to be a quietly ravishing evening. 2128 4th St. S., Minneapolis; (612) 624-2345