Chan Poling is playing the Central Library tonight. Libraries aren’t quite the hush-and-shush institutions they once were, but still, to see the ex-Suburb/New Standards singer play this bookish venue is, well, novel. The occasion is Arthur Phillips’ Talk of the Stacks appearance, although the Minneapolis-reared writer (he now lives in New York) might feel a little upstaged once the music starts — and he’d be just fine with that.

"Anyone who knows me knows what my favorite band was, going back to high school," he says. " 'Favorite' doesn't really do justice to my feelings for the Suburbs, especially for Chan's playing and singing. And that's continued into his solo work and The New Standards [Poling’s jazz trio]. That I get to appear on stage with him is really the stuff of childhood dreams."

Phillips, whose last book was the bestseller "Prague," pays homage to many of his favorite musicians (and offers plenty of shout-outs to Minneapolis) in "The Song Is You," a book whose most important character may actually be an iPod, a device the book’s main human, a middle-aged music fanboy named Julian, describes as "that greatest of all human inventions."

"I can only speak for me, but mp3 players are what I've been waiting for, for 25 or 30 years," says Phillips. "The entirety of music history in the palm of your hand, the entirety of your collection, of all the memories attached to these songs. I would have invented the iPod when I was a kid, if I had known anything at all about electronics."

Instead, he wrote a book about it. Like Nick Hornby’s "High Fidelity," the book captures the way music can direct our destinies, amplify our experiences, and conjure lost memories with a note or two. The tale centers on Julian’s obsession with a musician. After the death of his only child and the loss of his marriage, he’s floundering until he hears Cait, a young Irish singer in a bar. Julian’s smitten; he stalks her, photographing and phoning and recording her from afar, and then she gets a restraining order — no, wait, that’s what a sensible rock goddess would do.

But here, Cait is fully receptive to her stalker. Is she daft? Naw, this book, like so much great rock music, is distilled and stylish male fantasy (Julian’s day job? He directs beautiful women in TV commercials, although he’s unimpressed with all but the very youngest models). When music isn’t reflecting our realities, it makes a great soundtrack to the could-have been. After all, what would we be without wishful thinking?

Talk of the Stacks. Doors open at 6:15 p.m., words and music at 7 p.m. The Current’s Steve Seel will host the event. Pohlad Hall in Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis. Free.