Bellevue residents will spend this fall reading and discussing Intemperance, a novel by Seattle University professor Sonora Jha that reimagines an ancient Indian marriage custom in modern-day Seattle.
The King County Library System announced Friday, July 31 that Jha's 2025 novel is the selection for One Bellevue, One Book 2026, the annual program that draws readers from across the city's neighborhoods into shared conversations about a single title. All events are free.
The book centers on an unnamed, twice-divorced, 55-year-old Indian-American intellectual who announces she will hold a swayamvar, an ancient custom in which suitors compete for a woman's hand, as a birthday celebration.
Jha, who lives in Seattle and holds the Loyola Endowed Professorship at Seattle University, drew on her own experience with post-polio syndrome to write the protagonist's disability.
"The word 'Intemperance' fit perfectly the practice of living unabashedly as a woman, living past the cautions of moderation and temperance," Jha said in an October 2025 interview about the novel.
Intemperance was named a Best Book of 2025 by the Chicago Review of Books, Library Journal, the Los Angeles Public Library, and BookPage. It is longlisted for the 2026 Aspen Words Literary Prize. Jha's previous novel, The Laughter, won the 2024 Washington Book Award for Fiction.
What's on the calendar
The program's marquee event is Jha's author talk, titled "The Storyteller's Map to Rivers and Apartments," on Saturday, Oct. 3, from 3 to 5 p.m. at Bellevue Library.
A simultaneous sensory-friendly watch party will stream the talk at Newport Way Library for community members who need a quieter environment.
A Quiet Reading Party follows on Tuesday, Oct. 13, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at Bellevue Library.
Two additional book discussions at Bellevue Library (one daytime, one evening) are planned but dates have not yet been set. A Kathak dance demonstration at Crossroads Community Center (16000 NE 10th St) and an adaptive dance event with AIM Seattle at Bellevue Library are also in the works, with details still to come.
AIM Seattle is a nonprofit that provides adaptive arts and dance classes for disabled and neurodivergent community members, typically based at Magnuson Park but running off-site programming on the Eastside.
Sponsors and details
The program is sponsored by Bellevue Friends of the Library and the Newport Way Library Association. Readers can check kcls.org for updated event dates as they're confirmed.
