Appearing locally with familiar traveling companions such as Peanut, José Jalapeño, Bubba J., Sweet Daddy Dee, and Achmed the Dead Terrorist, comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham brings his national “Passively Aggressive” tour to Moline's TaxSlayer Center on January 23, the performer's comic talent and audience rapport establishing why he holds the Guinness World Record for “Most Tickets Sold for a Stand-Up Comedy Tour.”

One of America's most popular comedians brings his latest touring event to Davenport's Adler Theatre on January 10, with Blue Collar Comedy Tour star Ron White sharing the humorous observations and quick-witted routines that have earned him three Grammy Award nominations and comedy-album sales of more than 10 million to date.

Praised by the Sunday Times as “extraordinary and brilliant,” and by the Seattle Times as “fierce and funny … a satire as sharp as it gets,” author Aravind Adiga's debut novel The White Tiger serves as the discussion point for the latest Get Lit event at the Bettendorf Public Library, with attendees exploring the work that earned Adiga the 40th Man Booker Prize and a New Yorker rave for "his appealingly sardonic voice and acute observations of the social order.”

With her debut novel Are You Sleeping described by CrimeByTheBook.com as a work that blends “the compulsively-readable style of authors like Ruth Ware and Clare Mackintosh with a plot that captures the engrossing, very particular style of true-crime podcasts,” Kathleen Barber appears at the Moline Public Library on December 28, an event that will find the author and Galesburg native speaking on her career, her book's success, and its forthcoming adaptation into a 10-episode TV series.