Richard LeMieux’s memoir of homelessness, Breakfast at Sally’s (Skyhorse, $14.95), was written on a cast-off manual typewriter while the author was living in his van. “Sally’s” is street slang for The Salvation Army in Bremerton, a detail also noted by Danny Westneat in the Times. New in paperback, the book scored a review in The New York Times, which might inspire more local writers to toss their laptops and find an old Smith Corona. Though the homeless part is undoubtedly harder. LeMieux was once an Ohio sportswriter and later a GOP fundraiser in Kitsap County. The Internet (and depression) wiped out his medical and university directory publishing business in the late ’90s; he’s a forgotten man for the boomer generation, a guy whose skill sets became obsolete in the early part of this decade. Eventually he finds God, a dog, friends among his fellow outcasts, and an apartment. And the former “staunch Republican” reevaluates his allegiance to the party of bootstrapping and self-reliance, eventually becoming a Dem who advocates spending on social services. He’s scraping by now on Social Security and Medicare–two of those dreaded big government programs that Republicans so love to hate. BRIAN MILLER

Thu., March 25, 7 p.m., 2010