Franz Nicolay (of The Hold Steady, World/Inferno Friendship Society, and Guignol, and co-founder of the Anti-Social Music Collective) reflects on five years touring post-communist Eastern Europe in The Humorless Ladies of Border Control: Touring the Punk Underground from Belgrade to Ulaanbaatar (The New Press). This was recently included in the New York Times list of the "Season’s Best Travel Books." Sometimes traveling with his Russian musician/scholar wife and sometimes solo, he explores some of the links between politics and punk rock while revisiting some of the territory visited by Rebecca West during a similar period of unrest. Essential reading about a less explored part of the world. And, yes, we think he’ll do a little performing during his onstage conversation with Seattle’s Eric Cash.