TUESDAY: Andrew O'Hagan and Claire Messud at Booksmith

Brookline Booksmith hosts a double bill with both ANDREW O’HAGAN and CLAIRE MESSUD reading from their fourth novels. The Scottish-born O’Hagan’s Be Near Me is narrated by David Anderton, an Oxford-educated Catholic priest who obtains a parish near his elderly mother in working-class Scotland. His “posh” behavior and cultural tastes alienate his parishioners, and then there’s his relationship with a young boy. The characters in Messud’s The Emperor’s Children don’t quite self-destruct the way Anderton does, but they’re living in post-9/11 New York City with career issues, broken dreams, and media obsessions. Religion and social satire rule at Brookline Booksmith, 279 Harvard St, Brookline | 7 pm | free | 617.566.6660.