Chef Vivian Howard will do a meet-greet Saturday in Manteo New and recent

The year’s been so rotten that I drove an hour to my dentist’s office last week and was grateful for the vacation. So imagine a jaunt to see chef/writer Vivian Howard in Manteo on Saturday — for people who like to cook, or just read about cooking ... or who love to read about Eastern North Carolina cooking and fell for her first cookbook, “Deep Run Roots: Stories and Recipes from My Corner of the South” … or who’ve watched her on PBS, or eaten at her restaurants in Kinston, N.C.

“This Will Make It Taste Good: A New Path to Simple Cooking” is the new book she’s promoting, via Downtown Books.

The details: This is a drivethru; tickets, including book and snack, are about $60. 1 to 3 p.m. at Outer Banks Distillery, 510 Budleigh St., Manteo, 27954.

Guests stay in their cars while getting to meet Howard and have a picture taken. Register via the Eventbrite link at duckscottage.com.

Norfolk’s Luisa Igloria was one of about 36 state poets laureate whose work was featured in a two-page giving-thanks spread in The New York Times. Her “Poem With Statues Falling” reads, in part, “It was the summer we took/ heads, toppled statues of despots/ & slaveholders .../ the summer we gave thanks/ for the thousand-thousand bodies/ marching in the hearts of grieving,/ inflamed cities...” She writes of binding hopes “together so we become our own/ living, breathing monuments.”

You Saw It Coming Dept. (too much and never enough):

President Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway has a multimillion-dollar deal for a book about her time working for him, The Daily Mail reported (via The Daily Beast). ... And from Bob Woodward, yet another book, this time with Robert Costa (a Washington Post reporter): on the last days of Trump’s presidency and the start of Biden’s, said Publishers Weekly.

But wait, there’s more! Melania Trump has been meeting with people about getting a deal for her own White House memoir, reported Page Six, citing anonymous sources. ... And the president’s estranged niece, Mary L. Trump (“Too Much and Never Enough”), has a deal for “The Reckoning,” due in July from St. Martin’s. The psychology Ph.D. looks at “what she describes as national trauma, rooted in our history but dramatically exacerbated by the impact of current events and the Trump administration’s corrupt and immoral policies and how an enormous amount of healing must be done to rebuild our faith in leadership, and our hope for this nation.” (Publishers Lunch)

James Patterson has been busy. His latest: “The Last Days of John Lennon,” which he describes as a true-crime story, juxtaposing Lennon’s days with those of his killer, Mark David Chapman. Written with Casey Sherman and Dave Wedge. Patterson also joined forces with Kwame Alexander, with whom he shares a commitment to kids’ reading; the two wrote a novel, “Becoming Muhammad Ali.” Alexander narrates the audiobook.

From Thomas Ricks, “First Principles: What America’s Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country” (Harper, 387 pp.). The military journalist and historian here looks at the major influences on the first four presidents — classical influences, including the concept of virtue: in Ricks’ words, “putting the common good before one’s own interests,” noted The Wall Street Journal. “My favorite book of the year! ... Tom Ricks reconnects us to the political genius of our founders without shying away from their personal faults,” said “Morning Joe” co-host

Joe Scarborough on Twitter.