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Please note: due to unforseen circumstances, this event has been postponed. To be notified when this event is rescheduled, please write email@example.com.
The American legal system changed dramatically in 1994, when the O. J. Simpson trial became a television-ratings bonanza. Now it's all crime, all the time, on TV, from tabloid news to police procedurals on every network. Americans know more about the criminal justice system than ever before. Or do they? In Mistrial: An Inside Look at How the Criminal Justice System Works...and Sometimes Doesn't ($27.00), Mark Geragos and Pat Harris argue precisely the opposite: In pursuit of sensationalism, the media shows the public only a small, distorted sample of what really happens in our courtrooms. So, ironically, the more the public thinks it knows, the less informed it really is. Geragos and Harris debunk the myth of impartial American justice and draw the curtain on its ugly realities—from stealth jurors who secretly swing for a conviction to cops who regularly lie on the witness stand to defense attorneys terrified of going to trial. Ultimately, the authors question whether a justice system model drawn up two centuries before blogs, television, and O. J. Simpson is still viable today.
Mark Geragos is the head of Geragos & Geragos, a Los Angeles-based law firm that focuses on both criminal and civil trial work. He lives in Los Angeles, California, with his wife and two children.
Pat Harris is a leading criminal defense attorney and a partner at Geragos & Geragos. He is the coauthor of Susan McDougal's New York Times bestselling memoir, The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk. He and his wife live in Studio City, California.
Sponsored by Book Passage and WildNature Calendars and Cards
Just added: Tom Killion!
Author Elisabeth Ptak will be joined by Mountain Play Association Executive Director Sara Pearson to celebrate the release of Marin's Mountain Play: One Hundred Years of Theatre on Mount Tamalpais.
This year's musical is Sound of Music, so the afternoon will also feature a Sound of Music singalong with Mountain Play performers plus a variety of cookies from West Marin's own Bovine Bakery!
"Awakening is a living transmission of silence and freedom," writes Eli Jaxon-Bear, "granting final liberation to everyone." A teacher in the self-realization movements of Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Poonjaji, and Gangaji, Jaxon-Bear presents a unique map of egoic identification as a vehicle for self-inquiry and a final realization of freedom.
Sudden Awakening: Into Direct Realization puts spiritual awakening in a larger context: that it is humankind's next evolutionary leap. Based on ancient Indian teachings and years of contemplation, this book offers the key to the possibility of ending world destruction. The book is written in clear, beautiful prose, and readers can peruse each chapter as a meditation, or as a gateway into awakening the highest self-attainable. It offers insight into the nature of the true spiritual quest and shows the traps as well as the signs of confirmation along the journey.
Deborah Madison is the founding chef of the highly acclaimed Greens Restaurant in San Francisco. She's the author of nine cookbooks and award winner of the M.F.K. Fisher Award, the I.A.C.P. Julia Child cookbook of the year award, and a 3-time winner of the James Beard Award. In this ambitious new cookbook Vegetable Literacy, Madison celebrates the diversity of edible plants in over 300 recipes. Her cooking style is intuitive and inspired from a deep knowledge of food, flavors, markets, farming and time in the kitchen. Home chefs will discover this is more than a cookbook—it is an incredible resource of botanical, historical and horticultural information.
Meet and Greet!
Home Made and Home Made Winter blew readers away with their delicious recipes, and hand-drawn artwork. Now, in Home Made Summer ($35.00), Yvette van Boven takes the same signature approach and presents her absolute favorite recipes for spring and summer.
Please join us for soft drinks, wine, cheese, and refreshments, as we prepare for another wonderful World Book Night event. All local givers are invited in to meet other givers as we share in the good feeling of something shared and important.
RSVP Sam Barry at email@example.com.
About World Book Night
Each year, 30 books are chosen by an independent panel of librarians and booksellers. The authors of the books waive their royalties and the publishers agree to pay the costs of producing the specially-printed World Book Night U.S. editions. Book Passage has signed up to be community host locations for the volunteer book givers.
After the book titles are announced, members of the public apply to personally hand out copies of a particular title in their community. On World Book Night—April 23rd—we join together to give books to those who don't regularly read and/or people who don't normally have access to printed books, for reasons of means or access.
Learning to ride a bike is one of the most important milestones of childhood, and no one captures the emotional ups and downs of the experience better than Chris Raschka, who won the 2012 Caldecott Medal for A Ball for Daisy. In Everyone Can Learn to Ride a Bicycle ($16.99), a simple yet emotionally rich work, a father takes his daughter through all the steps in the process — from choosing the perfect bicycle to that triumphant first successful ride. Using very few words and lots of expressive pictures, here is a picture book that not only shows kids how to learn to ride, but captures what it feels like to fall . . . get up . . . fall again . . . and finally "by luck, grace, and determination" ride a bicycle.
Chris Raschka, the 2012 Caldecott Medalist, is an avid bike rider and wrote a 2010 New York Times op-ed piece, "Braking Away," about the importance of obeying the rules of the road while on a bicycle. He has written and/or illustrated over 30 books for children, including the 2012 Caldecott Medal winner A Ball for Daisy, which was also a New York Times Best Illustrated Book and described byThe Horn Book in a starred review as "noteworthy for both its artistry and its child appeal." His other books include the 2006 Caldecott Medal winner, The Hello, Goodbye Window by Norton Juster; the Caldecott Honor Book Yo? Yes!, and the ALA-ALSC Notable Children's Book Good Sports.
As the saying goes, it's not what happens to us but how we react to it. While some suffer and seem unable to move on, others grieve and heal. Bouncing Back ($15.95), by clinical therapist Linda Graham, offers clear exercises and examples that allow readers to rebuild their clarity, connection, competence, calm, and courage.
Please join us for another wonderful World Book Night event. Book givers will meet at Book Passage and will go to select locations such as Homeward Bound to distribute both English and Spanish language books.
About World Book Night
Each year, 30 books are chosen by an independent panel of librarians and booksellers. The authors of the books waive their royalties and the publishers agree to pay the costs of producing the specially-printed World Book Night U.S. editions. Book Passage has signed up to be community host locations for the volunteer book givers.
On World Book Night—April 23rd—we join together to give books to those who don't regularly read and/or people who don't normally have access to printed books, for reasons of means or access.
An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, Amity & Sorrow ($25.99) is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own. Peggy Riley's debut novel is centered around two sisters who escape their father's polygamous compound only to realize they know nothing of the world beyond it.
Why have we failed in our efforts to combat America's drug problem, our nation's single greatest problem which impacts almost every other issue you can name? Why are we so inept at preventing drug use and early use from progressing to addiction? Why can't we treat most of those who become addicted? Why has the War on Drugs worsened the problem it was meant to solve? In Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy ($25.00), David Sheff, the best-selling author of Beautiful Boy, addresses the crisis of these questions and offers a myth-shattering look at drug abuse and treatment, based on the latest scientific evidence and his own hard-won expertise as an investigative journalist who worked for over a decade to save his own son from addiction.
David Sheff is the author of the #1 New York Times best-selling memoir Beautiful Boy. Sheff's ongoing research and reporting on the science of addiction earned him a place on Time's list of the world's most influential people.
Rebecah Freeling is a master storyteller, experienced early childhood educator, and parent coach. New to California, she recently joined the faculty of Marin Mountain School Early Childhood Center in Corte Madera. For thirteen years she was owner, Director and Lead Teacher of Briar Rose Children's Center in her home state of Ohio. Her magical stories, both original and drawn from the folk and fairy tale traditions, are enhanced by handmade table puppets and simple marionettes. One often observes the children hearing her stories to be sitting on the edge of their seats, eyes wide and mouths open in anticipation!
Every love story has its time, place, and narrator—someone who puts together all the pieces and recounts the sequence of events. Charles Dubow's Indiscretion ($25.99) starts during an idyllic summer in the Hamptons where the parties are abuzz with an endless supply of flowing spirits, intellectual conversation, and warm hospitality, as only the glow of society could provide. It's at one such party that the young, vibrant Claire is introduced to the hosts Harry and Madeleine Winslow—an intoxicatingly glamorous couple who quickly welcome Claire into their inner circle. Harry and Madeleine's oldest friend Walter Gervais remembers the day Claire walked into all three of their lives, but could never have predicted all that was about to unfold. Dubow's debut novel is a deeply layered, addictive novel that explores the consequences of decisions made and promises broken.
Charles Dubow was born in New York City and spent his summers at his family's house on Georgica Pond in East Hampton. He was educated at Wesleyan University and New York University. He has worked as a roustabout, a lumberjack, a sheepherder in New Zealand, and a congressional aide, and was a founding editor of Forbes.com and later an editor at Businessweek.com. He lives in New York City with his wife, and two children.
Never. Say. Die.: The San Francisco Giants - 2012 World Series Champions ($29.95) features over 125 awe-inspiring photographs, providing a rare view of one team's championship season as seen through the lens of photographer Brad Mangin, with words by KNBR's Brian Murphy.
Listen to KNBR's Marty Lurie interview Brad Mangin and Brian Murphy here:
In The Golem and the Jinni ($26.99), a chance meeting between mythical beings takes readers on a dazzling journey through cultures in turn-of-the-century New York. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life to by a disgraced rabbi. Helene Wecker's debut novel is a fresh combination of vivid historical fiction and magical fable.
Point of View defines the choices available to the writer: omniscient versus character viewpoints (first person, the rarely used second person, third person, shifting viewpoints). Presenters will provide examples illustrating each type of viewpoint; discussion of the advantages of each viewpoint, the disadvantages, and what a writer must consider before making a choice. Q & A to follow.
Patricia Bracewell is a writer of historical fiction set in 11th century England. Her debut novel, Shadow on the Crown, is the first book in a trilogy about Emma of Normandy, whose marriage in A.D. 1002 to an English king set in motion a series of events that would lead, eventually, to the Norman Conquest of A.D. 1066.
Gillian Bagwell's novels include The Darling Strumpet, based on the life of Nell Gwynn, and The September Queen, the first fictional account of the perilous and romantic odyssey of Jane Lane, an ordinary English girl who risked her life to help the young Charles II escape after the disastrous Battle of Worcester in 1651 by disguising him as her servant.
The Marin branch of the California Writers Club meets monthly at Book Passage, except July, August and December, on the 4th Sunday of the month, unless a holiday. 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Meeting may feature a guest speaker, a workshop or a panel discussion along with networking, encouragement and writing news. All are welcome. www.cwcmarinwriters.com.
From legendary Hollywood director Chris Columbus (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets) and bestselling author Ned Vizzini (It's Kind of a Funny Story) comes House of Secrets ($17.99), the first book in an epic new fantasy series. Brendan, Eleanor, and Cordelia Walker once had everything: two loving parents, a beautiful house in San Francisco, and all the portable electronic devices they could want. But everything changed when Dr. Walker lost his job in the wake of a mysterious incident. Now in dire straits, the family must relocate to an old Victorian house that used to be the home of occult novelist Denver Kristoff—a house that feels simultaneously creepy and too good to be true. By the time the Walkers realize that one of their neighbors has sinister plans for them, they're banished to a primeval forest way off the grid. Their parents? Gone. Their friends? A world away. And they aren't alone. Bloodthirsty medieval warriors patrol the woods around them, supernatural pirates roam the neighboring seas, and a power-hungry queen rules the land. To survive, the siblings will have to be braver than they ever thought possible—and fight against their darkest impulses.
"A breakneck, jam-packed roller coaster of an adventure about the secret power of books, House of Secrets comes complete with three resourceful sibling heroes, a seriously creepy villainess, and barrel loads of fantasy and fear."
-J.K. Rowling
Chris Columbus has written, directed, and produced some of the most successful box-office hits in Hollywood history. He first made his name by writing several original scripts produced by Steven Spielberg, including the back-to-back hits Gremlins and The Goonies. As a director, Columbus has been at the helm of such iconic projects as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Home Alone, Stepmom, and Mrs. Doubtfire. As a producer, Columbus was also behind the hit films Night at the Museum and The Help. Chris lives in California with his family.
Praised by bestselling authors such as Dan Pink, Tony Hsieh, Dan Ariely, Susan Cain, Dan Gilbert, Gretchen Rubin, Bob Sutton, David Allen, Robert Cialdini, and Seth Godin - as well as senior leaders from Google, McKinsey, Merck, Estee Lauder, Nike, and NASA - Give and Take ($27.95) highlights what effective networking, collaboration, influence, negotiation, and leadership skills have in common. Adam Grant's landmark book opens up an approach to success that has the power to transform not just individuals and groups, but entire organizations and communities.
Adam Grant is the youngest tenured professor and single highest-rated teacher at The Wharton School. An award-winning researcher and teacher, his consulting and speaking clients include Google, the NFL, IBM, Citigroup, Merck, the World Economic Forum, the United Nations, and the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force. He has been honored as one of BusinessWeek's favorite professors and one of the world's top 40 business professors under 40. A leading expert in work and success, he has published more than fifty articles during the last five years in prominent psychology and management journals, including Harvard Business Review, and his studies have been highlighted in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, and USA Today. He holds a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Michigan and a B.A. from Harvard University. He is a former record-setting advertising director, junior Olympic springboard diver, and professional magician.
"A readable, richly detailed history of America's second city. A valuable contribution to the history of Chicago." – Kirkus
Co-sponsored by CUESA and Institute at the Golden Gate
Ferry Building • Commission Board Room
$5 donation requested
Click here to RSVP
Physician and author of The Jungle Effect, Daphne Miller had long suspected that farming and medicine were intimately linked. The product of her research is Farmacology: What Innovative Family Farming Can Teach Us About Health and Healing ($27.99).
The Dark ($16.99) is a book for kids (and for big, big kids) who appreciate the wicked wit of Lemony Snicket and the artistry of Jon Klassen. The dark lives in the same house as Laszlo. Mostly, though, the dark stays in the basement
and doesn't come into Lazslo's room. But one night, it does. ... Lemony Snicket (who sometimes answers to the name of Daniel Handler) is the author of the phenomenally successful A Series of Unfortunate Events. Jon Klassen just won the 2013 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations.
In the spirit of Dr. Strangelove and The Atomic Café, A Short History of Nuclear Folly ($26.00) is a blackly sardonic people's history of atomic blunders and near-misses revealing the hushed-up and forgotten episodes in which the great powers gambled with catastrophe. Rudolph Herzog, the acclaimed author of Dead Funny, presents a devastating account of history's most irresponsible uses of nuclear technology. From the rarely discussed nightmare of "Broken Arrows" (40 nuclear weapons lost during the Cold War) to "Operation Plowshare" (a proposal to use nuclear bombs for large engineering projects, such as the construction of a second Panama Canal using 300 H-Bombs), Herzog focuses in on long-forgotten nuclear projects that nearly led to disaster.
Rudolph Herzog is the author of Dead Funny: Humor in Hitler's Germany. His documentary on humor in the Third Reich, Laughing With Hitler, scored top audience ratings on German Channel 1 and was also broadcast on the BBC. He is the son of the celebrated filmmaker Werner Herzog.
In Conversation with Susanne Pari
Special book signing and food tasting!
Tickets: $38 per person, $45 per couple (both options include one signed book)
This luscious and contemporary take on the alluring cuisine of Iran from cookbook author Louisa Shafia features 75 recipes for both traditional Persian dishes and modern reinterpretations using Middle Eastern ingredients. Louisa Shafia, author of the award-winning Lucid Food, explores her heritage while bringing a healthy and vibrant perspective to Persian recipes that might otherwise rely too heavily on white sugar and heavy oils for flavor. The New Persian Kitchen ($24.99) demystifies unfamiliar ingredients like rosewater, dried limes, and sumac; provides a comprehensive resources section; and offers helpful substitutions. The recipes–such as Jeweled Rice, Pomegranate Soup, and Saffron Ice Cream–range from starters to sweets and employ simple techniques and preparations, making this exotic, beautiful, and ancient cuisine accessible to the home cook.
Louisa Shafia's unique style of fresh, Silk Road-inspired cooking has been featured in Yoga Journal, New York magazine, Whole Living, Every Day with Rachael Ray, the Washington Post, and Saveur. Her first cookbook, Lucid Food, was nominated for an IACP award. Look for Louisa on the Cooking Channel's Taste in Translation series, making Persian kebabs. Louisa lives in Brooklyn.
A moving tale of one young woman's life spinning out of the typical and into the extraordinary during one of the most politically and racially charged eras in America, Virgin Soul ($26.95) will resonate with readers of Monica Ali and Ntozake Shange. From lauded poet and playwright Judy Juanita comes this novel of a young woman's life with the Black Panthers in 1960s San Francisco.
Judy Juanita's poetry and fiction have been published widely, and her plays have been produced in the Bay Area and New York City. She has taught writing at Laney College in Oakland since 1993. This is her first novel. She lives in Oakland.
Dale Maharidge has been teaching at the Columbia Journalism School since 2001; before that, he was a visiting professor at Stanford University for ten years and spent fifteen years as a newspaperman. Several of his books are illustrated with the work of photographer Michael S. Williamson. The first book, Journey to Nowhere: The Saga of the New Underclass, later inspired Bruce Springsteen to write two songs. His second book, And Their Children After Them, won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 1990.
Fabio Viviani shares the best of Italian home cooking while telling the story of his hardscrabble childhood, his success as a chef in the United States, and the women in his family who inspired him. In more than 150 delicious recipes, Viviani takes us from his family home, where his great-grandmother taught him to make staples like Italian Apple Cake and Homemade Ricotta, to the kitchen of a local trattoria, where he honed his craft cooking restaurant favorites like Gnocchi and the Perfect Tiramisu, and then across Italy where he studied each region's finest recipes, from Piedmont's Braised Ossobuco to Emilia Romagna's Perfect Meat Sauce. A gorgeously illustrated cookbook, Fabio's Italian Kitchen ($24.99) is a celebration of food and family that brings all the joy, fun, and flair that Fabio Viviani embodies to your kitchen.
Fabio Viviani was born in Florence, Italy, and became a sous chef at Il Pallaio, a trattoria in Firenze, at the age of sixteen. He now works as the owner and executive chef of Cafe Firenze, a renowned Italian restaurant in Ventura County, California, and Osteria Firenze, a Los Angeles Italian eatery. He has appeared on Top Chef (season five), Top Chef All Stars, and Life After Top Chef.
Fit Quickies: 5-Minute Targeted Body-Shaping Workouts ($19.95) is an effective, research-driven collection of exercises by Lani Muelrath for functional fitness and body shaping that cuts through the confusion of trends and complicated weight loss routines. It minimizes the time investment needed to see results, yet is honest about what is needed to achieve fitness and body-shaping goals.
Award-winning Lani Muelrath, M.A., CGFI, CPBN, FNS, is a presenter and celebrity coach for the 21-Day PCRM Vegan Kickstart and VegRun Programs, and fitness adviser for the Dr. John McDougall Health and Medical Center discussion boards. She is the health and fitness expert for Vegan Mainstream and a contributing author for VegWorld Magazine. She is certified in Plant-Based Nutrition through Cornell University and holds a Fitness Nutrition Specialist Advanced Credential from the National Academy of Sports Medicine. Muelrath also Lani created and starred in her own CBS TV show, Lani's All-Heart Aerobics.
Rebecah Freeling is a master storyteller, experienced early childhood educator, and parent coach. New to California, she recently joined the faculty of Marin Mountain School Early Childhood Center in Corte Madera. For thirteen years she was owner, Director and Lead Teacher of Briar Rose Children's Center in her home state of Ohio. Her magical stories, both original and drawn from the folk and fairy tale traditions, are enhanced by handmade table puppets and simple marionettes. One often observes the children hearing her stories to be sitting on the edge of their seats, eyes wide and mouths open in anticipation!
Eric Maisel's prolific, multi-faceted career is a testament to his profound understanding of what it takes to live out one's creative ambitions. A therapist who is also a bestselling author, coach (and coach trainer), columnist for Professional Artist magazine, and featured blogger for Psychology Today and the Huffington Post, Maisel is an expert on all that "blocks" the creative. In Making Your Creative Mark,: Nine Keys to Achieving Your Artistic Goals ($15.95) Maisel turns his decades of coaching, teaching, listening and creating into nine key lessons. Each key, including Passion, Confidence, Empathy, Stress, and Relationship, helps creators implement real solutions to their individual challenges. Whether they are writers, painters, actors, composers, or some kind of craftsperson, readers will learn to "unlock" what has kept them from beginning, continuing, completing — and succeeding.
Eric Maisel, PhD, the author of forty books, is widely regarded as America's foremost creativity coach. Eric is a columnist for Professional Artist magazine and a featured blogger for Psychology Today and The Huffington Post. He reaches thousands through his website, workshops, and online courses. He is the founder of noimetic psychology, the new psychology of meaning, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Curran Galway's first novel, The Aquarians: Awakening the True Self, follows two young Americans in 1970 as they search to find deeper meaning in a chaotic world. At the height of anti-Vietnam War sentiment, with the dream that empowered a generation to unite against the corruption of "the Establishment," this story is a poignant journey of personal transformation.
Curran Galway was raised in the Pacific Northwest. She has a degree in Education and English, and a Master of Divinity degree in Transforming Spirituality.
Bestselling author, public theologian, and leading Christian activist Jim Wallis offers his definition of the spiritual compass we need to effect lasting change in our society in On God's Side: What Religion Forgets and Politics Hasn't Learned About Serving the Common Good ($21.99). He argues that by working together, we can reshape our society, politics, and economy. Wallis explores how reading the Bible as well as the culture can shape our lives for genuine transformation.
Former Los Angeles Times humor columnist Kathleen Buckstaff weaves together an unforgettable story using her own emails and columns about her journey with her mother through illness and beyond. The Tiffany Box ($14.99) is raw, humorous, heartbreaking and inspiring.
Sharon Socol's debut photographic compilation, Plus One: An Outsider's Photographic Journey Into the World of Fashion ($60.00), features 100 candid images from seminal moments at famed fashion shows and parties in New York and Paris between 2001 and 2010. The book's title and theme reflect Socol's status as a self-proclaimed 'plus one' for husband Howard Socol. Using her unique Everyman perspective, Socol was able to capture stunningly intimate moments not only of industry icons including supermodels and designers including Diane von Furstenberg, Alber Elbaz, Narciso Rodriguez, Zac Posen, Tommy Hilfiger and Giorgio Armani, but also of those who toiled behind the curtain – the dressmakers, dressers, choreographers, makeup and hair artists, bouncers and waiters who provided the backbone for those glamorous, fleeting moments.
Sharon Socol lives in Coral Gables, Florida, with her husband Howard. They have two daughters and four grandchildren. Sharon travels the world regularly and is always taking photographs. Sharon is the founder of Photographing Ourselves, a photography and creative writing program for children at risk, and Casa Valentina, safe and affordable housing and supportive services for girls leaving foster Care in Miami.
Driven by curiosity, wanderlust, and health crises David Downie and his wife set out from Paris to walk across France to the Pyrenees. Starting on the Rue Saint-Jacques then trekking 750 miles south to Roncesvalles, Spain, Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James ($27.95) follows their eccentric route: 72 days on Roman roads and pilgrimage paths--a 1,100-year-old network of trails leading to the sanctuary of Saint James the Greater. It is best known as El Camino de Santiago de Compostela-"The Way" for short.
The object of any pilgrimage is an inward journey manifested in a long, reflective walk. For Downie, the inward journey met the outer one: a combination of self-discovery and physical regeneration. More than 200,000 pilgrims take the highly commercialized Spanish route annually, but few cross France. Downie had a goal: to go from Paris to the Pyrenees on age-old trails, making the pilgrimage in his own maverick way.
Listen to David discuss his new book on NPR below:
Book Passage hosts monthly meetings of Left Coast Writers® at our Corte Madera store. The monthly meetings provide an evening of literary connections, support, counsel, readings, writing tips, literary chat, unabashed networking, and great fun. Each meeting also features a presentation by one of several Bay Area literary figures. LCW has its own lively newsletter and website at www.leftcoastwriters.com/.
From Broughton Coburn, author of the New York Times bestselling Everest: Mountain Without Mercy, comes a chronicle of the iconic first American expedition to Mt. Everest in May 1963 – published to coincide with the climb's 50th anniversary – combining riveting adventure, a perceptive analysis of the mountain's dark and terrifying historical context, and revelations about a secret mission that followed.
The Vast Unknown ($26.00) is, on one level, a harrowing, character-driven account of the climb itself and its legendary team of alternately inspiring, troubled, and tragic climbers who suffered injuries, a near mutiny, and death on the mountain. It is also an examination of the profound sway the expedition had over the American consciousness and sense of identity during a time when the country was floundering. And it is an investigation of the expedition's little-known outcome: the selection of a team to plant a CIA surveillance device on the Himalayan peak of Nanda Devi, to spy into China where Defense Intelligence learned that nuclear missile testing was underway.
Broughton Coburn, author or editor of seven books, including two national bestsellers, has worked in environmental conservation and development projects in the Himalaya for more than two of the past three decades. In addition he has directed projects for the World Bank, World Wildlife Fund, and American Himalayan Foundation.
Six years ago, an overweight, pre-diabetic Mark Bittman faced a medical directive: adopt a vegan diet or go on medication. As one whose professional and leisure time revolved around cooking, eating, and enjoying a wide variety of fine foods, neither choice was appealing, yet it was clear something had to give. His solution? Shift the focus of his diet to vegetables, fruits, and grains, following a strict vegan diet (no meat or dairy) and eliminating processed foods for most of the day, then eat the foods he simply couldn't give up forever only after 6 p.m.—and (mostly) in moderation. Beyond that, his eating plan involved no gimmicks, scales, calorie-counting, or point systems—and there were no so-called forbidden foods. Just wholesome, all-natural, mostly home-cooked meals that were as varied and satisfying as they were delicious. The results of this dietary recalibration are presented in Vb6: Eat Vegan Before 6:00pm to Lose Weight and Restore Your Health ($26.00), which reveals the lasting and sustainable value of this new, flexible and viable approach to eating.
Mark Bittman is one of the country's best-known and most widely respected food writers. His How to Cook Everything books, with one million copies in print, are a mainstay of the modern kitchen. Bittman writes for the Opinion section of the New York Times on food policy and cooking and is a columnist for the New York Times Magazine. His cooking show, The Minimalist, based on his popular New York Times column, can be seen on the Cooking Channel. He is also the author of Food Matters, Food Matters Cookbook, Fish, and Leafy Greens.
The long-awaited memoir from the Academy Award–winning director of such legendary films as The French Connection, The Exorcist, and To Live and Die in LA, The Friedkin Connection ($27.99) takes readers from the streets of Chicago to the suites of Hollywood and from the sixties to today, with autobiographical storytelling as fast-paced and intense as any of the auteur's films.
William Friedkin, maverick of American cinema, offers a candid look at Hollywood, when traditional storytelling gave way to the rebellious and alternative; when filmmakers like him captured the paranoia and fear of a nation undergoing a cultural nervous breakdown.
"The war tried to kill us in the spring." So begins the National Book Award-finalist The Yellow Birds ($14.99), a powerful account of friendship and loss. In Al Tafar, Iraq, twenty-one-year old Private Bartle and eighteen-year-old Private Murphy cling to life as their platoon launches a bloody battle for the city. Bound together since basic training when Bartle makes a promise to bring Murphy safely home, the two have been dropped into a war neither is prepared for.
With profound emotional insight, especially into the effects of a hidden war on mothers and families at home, Kevin Powers has written a groundbreaking novel that is destined to become a classic.
Kevin Powers was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia, graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University, and holds an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a Michener Fellow in Poetry. He served in the US Army in 2004 and 2005 in Iraq, where he was deployed as a machine gunner in Mosul and Tal Afar. This is his first novel.
Stegner Fellow, Iowa MFA, and winner of The Atlantic's Student Writing Contest, Anthony Marra has written a brilliant debut novel that brings to life an abandoned hospital where a tough-minded doctor decides to harbor a hunted young girl, with powerful consequences. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena ($26.00) begins in the final days of December 2004, in a small rural village in Chechnya, eight-year-old Havaa hides in the woods when her father is abducted by Russian forces. Fearing for her life, she flees with their neighbor Akhmed--a failed physician--to the bombed-out hospital, where Sonja, the one remaining doctor, treats a steady stream of wounded rebels and refugees and mourns her missing sister. Over the course of five dramatic days, Akhmed and Sonja reach back into their pasts to unravel the intricate mystery of coincidence, betrayal, and forgiveness that unexpectedly binds them and decides their fate. With The English Patient's dramatic sweep and The Tiger's Wife's expert sense of place, Marra gives us a searing debut about the transcendent power of love in wartime, and how it can cause us to become greater than we ever thought possible.
Anthony Marra is the winner of a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, The Atlantic's Student Writing Contest, and the Narrative Prize, and his work was anthologized in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He has lived and studied in Eastern Europe, and now resides in Oakland, CA.
In conversation with Sandra M. Gilbert
Driven by curiosity, wanderlust, and health crises David Downie and his wife set out from Paris to walk across France to the Pyrenees. Starting on the Rue Saint-Jacques then trekking 750 miles south to Roncesvalles, Spain, Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James ($27.95) follows their eccentric route: 72 days on Roman roads and pilgrimage paths--a 1,100-year-old network of trails leading to the sanctuary of Saint James the Greater. It is best known as El Camino de Santiago de Compostela-"The Way" for short.
The object of any pilgrimage is an inward journey manifested in a long, reflective walk. For Downie, the inward journey met the outer one: a combination of self-discovery and physical regeneration. More than 200,000 pilgrims take the highly commercialized Spanish route annually, but few cross France. Downie had a goal: to go from Paris to the Pyrenees on age-old trails, making the pilgrimage in his own maverick way.
Professor Emerita at the University of California, Davis, Berkeley resident Sandra M. Gilbert has published eight collections of poetry, most recently Aftermath. Among her prose books are the memoir Wrongful Death, the cultural study Death's Door: Modern Dying and the Ways We Grieve; and two essay collections, On Burning Ground, and Rereading Women.. With Susan Gubar, she is coauthor of The Madwoman in the Attic, No Man's Land (three volumes) and coeditor of The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women. She is currently at work on a book tentatively titled The Culinary Imagination along with an anthology of food writing. In 2013, Gilbert and Gubar were named winners of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Listen to David discuss his new book on NPR below:
Remember reading Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby in high school? How about Slaughterhouse-Five and Pride and Prejudice? Would you read them again now that no one's grading you, just for your own enjoyment? Practical Classics ($18.00) helps you do just that.
Author Kevin Smokler guides you through fifty books commonly assigned in high school English class and shows you why you'd probably enjoy rereading the same books as an adult. Smokler's essays on the classics—witty, down-to-earth, appreciative, and insightful—are divided into ten sections, each covering an archetypical stage of life—from youth and first love to family, loss, and the future. The author not only reminds you about the essential features of each great book but gives you a practical, real-world reason why revisiting it in adulthood is not only enjoyable but useful.
Kevin Smokler is the editor of Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times, a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book of 2005. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Fast Company, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the Believer. He can be found online at www.kevinsmokler.com or on Twitter at @weegee.
The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost ($15.95) shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America's newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past—memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity—is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. It plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself in the peculiar tics of a man with Tourette's Syndrome who struggles to deal with a profound tragedy. Andrew Lam's debut short story collection is an emotional tour de force, intricately rendering the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart.
Andrew Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, which won the 2006 PEN Open Book Award, and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. Lam is an editor and cofounder of New American Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets in America. He was a regular commentator on NPR's All Things Considered for many years, and was the subject of a 2004 PBS documentary called "My Journey Home". His essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Baltimore Sun, the Atlanta Journal, the Chicago Tribune, Mother Jones, and the Nation, among many others. His short stories have been widely taught and anthologized.
In 1994, Anchee Min made her literary debut with a memoir of growing up in China during the violent trauma of the Cultural Revolution. Red Azalea became an international bestseller and propelled her career as a successful, critically acclaimed author. Twenty years later, Min returns to the story of her own life to give us The Cooked Seed ($26.00), an immigrant story that takes her from the shocking deprivations of her homeland to the sudden bounty of the promised land of America, without language, money, or a clear path.
Anchee Min was born in Shanghai in 1957. At seventeen she was sent to a labor collective, where a talent scout for Madame Mao's Shanghai Film Studio recruited her to work as a movie actress. She moved to the United States in 1984. Her first memoir, Red Azalea, was an international bestseller, published in twenty countries. She has since published six novels, most recently Pearl of China.
50+ Writers, 3 Minutes Each!
Joins us for a fast-paced and irreverent evening, showcasing new work from the students of the San Francisco Writer's Grotto writing classes. On this Friday evening, both fiction and nonfiction writers will read their work — but only for 3 minutes each! Their instructors (Grotto authors) will enforce the time limit. Join us for wine, fun, and fresh new writing.
Terri Glass of Marin Poets in the Schools hosts a lively poetry reading of K-12 students from schools in the county. Lea Aschenas, Claire Blotter, Dana Lomax, Michele Rivers, and Kathy Evans will be on hand to introduce their students and speak about the impressive language of these young poets.
In Dad is Fat ($25.00), stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who's best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children—everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers' communication skills ("they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news"), to the eating habits of four year olds ("there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor"). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby's Fatherhood, Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.
Jim Gaffigan is a stand-up comedian and actor with numerous film, television, and stage credits. He lives in Manhattan with his wife, Jeannie, and their five children in a two-bedroom apartment.
Your family has a hankering--a yen for chicken tikka masala or queso fundido, for shrimp pad thai or a Philly cheesesteak--and they want it bad. So you decide to eat out at a local ethnic or roadside restaurant, or do take-out. It's expedient, but is the food really that good? Really really good? Because Lucinda Scala Quinn's versions of all those dishes families crave will knock your socks off and prove beyond a doubt that the foods you love can be made better, faster, tastier, cheaper, and more healthfully at home.
Lucinda Scala Quinn is all about smart strategies that simplify and make for great taste, so why outsource feeding our families when it takes less time, money, and effort to cook these favorite comfort foods ourselves? And why miss out on the untold gifts of sitting at home with your family around the dining room table? So next time there's a request for pulled pork or deep-dish pizza or chicken fettuccine Alfredo, or cold soba noodles or fried rice, forget about soggy takeout and overpriced restaurants--just crack open Mad Hungry Cravings ($27.95) and you'll find simple recipes for all those dishes your family wants to eat, right now.
In conversation with Don George
Driven by curiosity, wanderlust, and health crises David Downie and his wife set out from Paris to walk across France to the Pyrenees. Starting on the Rue Saint-Jacques then trekking 750 miles south to Roncesvalles, Spain, Paris to the Pyrenees: A Skeptic Pilgrim Walks the Way of Saint James ($27.95) follows their eccentric route: 72 days on Roman roads and pilgrimage paths--a 1,100-year-old network of trails leading to the sanctuary of Saint James the Greater. It is best known as El Camino de Santiago de Compostela-"The Way" for short.
The object of any pilgrimage is an inward journey manifested in a long, reflective walk. For Downie, the inward journey met the outer one: a combination of self-discovery and physical regeneration. More than 200,000 pilgrims take the highly commercialized Spanish route annually, but few cross France. Downie had a goal: to go from Paris to the Pyrenees on age-old trails, making the pilgrimage in his own maverick way.
Listen to David discuss his new book on NPR below:
Left Coast Writers Launch®
Enjoy a preview of Wandering in Paris, the next anthology from the editors of Wandering in Costa Rica.
Life for Alex Schrader has never involved girls. He goes to an all-boys prep school and spends most of his time goofing around with his friends. But all that changes the first time he meets Bijou Doucet, a Haitian girl recently relocated to Brooklyn after the earthquake-and he is determined to win her heart. For Bijou, change is the only constant, and she's surprised every day by how different life is in America, especially when a boy asks her out. Alex quickly learns that there are rules when it comes to girls-both in Haitian culture and with his own friends. And Bijou soon learns that she doesn't have to let go of her roots to find joy in her new life.
Told in alternating viewpoints against the vibrant backdrop of Haitian-American culture, A Song for Bijou ($16.99) is Josh Farrar's heartwarming story of Alex and Bijou's first steps toward love.
Josh Farrar is the author of Rules to Rock By.
Daphne Oz, cohost of ABC's hit lifestyle show The Chew, shares the concerns of women everywhere: How can I eat food that is delicious and nutritious, live in a home that feels like mine, develop my personal style, find purpose and love in my life, get out and see the world, and still have me time left over? In short, how do I start living a life worth relishing?
In Relish: An Adventure in Food, Style, and Everyday Fun ($27.50), Daphne shares her essential and practical advice for happy, healthy eating and delicious living--perfect for everyone who wants to start leading a better life right now. Filled with beautiful food and entertaining photos, real-world decorating ideas for achievable inspiration, and lots of creative lifestyle imagery, Relish offers easy ways to fill your life with fun.
Daphne Oz is a student at Princeton University. She grew up in Cliffside Park, New Jersey, with her three younger siblings, Arabella, Zoe, and Oliver. While still in high school she was a writer for ELLEgirl magazine, and she changed her school's lunch menu from processed cafeteria food to include whole grains and raw foods. She is the daughter of Lisa and Dr. Mehmet Oz, co-author of the bestsellers You: The Owner's Manual and You: The Smart Patient.
Left Coast Writers Launch®
Join us for a look at the books that are coming our next from our Left Coast Writers®.
Jaron Lanier is the bestselling author of You Are Not a Gadget, the father of virtual reality, and one of the most influential thinkers of our time. For decades, Lanier has drawn on his expertise and experience as a computer scientist, musician, and digital media pioneer to predict the revolutionary ways in which technology has transformed our culture. Who Owns the Future? ($26.99) is a visionary reckoning with the effects network technologies have had on our economy. Lanier asserts that the rise of digital networks led our economy into recession and decimated the middle class. Now, as technology flattens more and more industries—from media to medicine to manufacturing—we are facing even greater challenges to employment and personal wealth. But there is an alternative to allowing technology to own our future. In this ambitious and deeply humane book, Lanier charts the path toward a new information economy that will stabilize the middle class and allow it to grow. It is time for ordinary people to be rewarded for what they do and share on the web.
Jaron Lanier is a scientist and musician best known for his work in Virtual Reality research, a term he coined and popularized. He lives in Berkeley, California.
Have you ever wondered where the ideas for baking red velvet cupcakes, brownies, birthday cake, Girl Scout cookies, and other dessert recipes came from? Discover the history behind America's most popular and nostalgic desserts with popular CakeSpy blogger and self-proclaimed "dessert detective" Jessie Oleson Moore in The Secret Lives of Baked Goods: Sweet Stories & Recipes for America's Favorite Desserts ($24.95). Moore has put her sweet-sleuthing skills to work uncovering the fascinating histories and tastiest recipes for America's favorite sweets, including whoopee pies, chocolate chip cookies, Baked Alaska, and New York cheesecake. From romantic musings on how desserts got their names to sugar-fueled scandals, these classic recipes and photographs are guaranteed to offer food for thought and leave you with plenty of room for dessert.
Jessie Oleson is the founder of the uber-popular blog, CakeSpy.com, which bills itself as a Dessert Detective Agency dedicated to seeking sweetness (literally) in everyday life. An accomplished cake anthropologist, she documents bakery finds around the United States, conducts baking experiments, posts recipes, picks the brains of bakers and food artists in interviews, and generally explores the lure and lore of baked goods on her site. Oleson is a freelance writer and illustrator whose writing has appeared on DailyCandy.com, and she has a weekly column on Serious Eats. She has illustrated for various companies, including Microsoft, iPop, All-Mighty, Taylored Expressions, and is a regular contributor to Taste of Home. She is also the founder of CakeSpy Shop, a Seattle art boutique primarily featuring her greeting cards and artwork; she currently divides her time between the East and West coasts, and eats sweetly everywhere in-between.
San Geronimo Valley Elementary School is located in San Geronimo, CA and is one of two elementary schools in the Lagunitas Elementary School District. It is a public school that serves students in grades K-6.
Noted science writer Virginia Morell explores the frontiers of research on animal cognition and emotion, offering a surprising and moving exploration into the hearts and minds of wild and domesticated animals. Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures ($26.00) takes us on a dazzling odyssey into the inner world of animals, from ants to elephants to wolves, and from sharp-shooting archerfish to pods of dolphins that rumble like rival street gangs. With 30 years of experience covering the sciences, Morell uses her formidable gifts as a story-teller to transport us to field sites and laboratories around the world, introducing us to pioneering animal-cognition researchers and their surprisingly intelligent and sensitive subjects. She explores how this rapidly evolving, controversial field has only recently overturned old notions about why animals behave as they do. She probes the moral and ethical dilemmas of recognizing that even "lesser animals" have cognitive abilities such as memory, feelings, personality, and self-awareness--traits that many in the twentieth century felt were unique to human beings.
Virginia Morell is a prolific contributor to National Geographic, Science, and Smithsonian, among other publications. She is also the author of Ancestral Passions, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; Blue Nile; and coauthor with Richard Leakey of Wildlife Wars.
Plum Bistro, Seattle's wildly popular vegan restaurant, is known for its delicious and innovative vegan recipes using local ingredients. Sure to please both vegans and meat-eaters, Plum: Gratifying Vegan Dishes from Seattle's Plum Bistro ($29.95), features Plum's flavorful, comforting dishes for brunch, soups, salads, entrées, desserts, and more. This photo-filled book by Makini Howell
features 60 recipes, including Pesto Plum Pizza, Good Old-Fashioned French Toast, Barbecue Oyster-Mushroom Sliders, Fresh Blueberry Shortcake, homemade vegan pasta, and more. Bring home delicious vegan cuisine with the Plum cookbook!
Makini Howell has been passionate about creating a chic dining experience that appeals to vegans, foodies, and omnivores alike since her days of living in New York City working as a men's denim designer. In 2005 she moved back home to Seattle with the goals of redirecting her family's restaurant business and creating a new perception of veganism. Makini is focused on using organic and non-GMO seasonal produce and herbs from family-owned farms in combinations that are both comforting and unexpected. As an entrepreneur she has developed a sustainable business model using what the earth provides to supply wholesome, nourishing food.
Watch a book trailer for Plum below:
This event is now sold out
The price includes the meal, wine, tax, tip & a signed copy of the author's book.
Introduced by Guy Johnson
Walter Mosley's Easy Rawlins is back in Little Green ($25.95) and cruising the hippified streets of the Sunset Strip circa 1967, in search of a young black man who has gone missing—and maybe of his own rebirth.
Walter Mosley burst on the literary scene in 1990 with Devil in a Blue Dress (recently named one of the L.A. Times's best novels about L.A.), the first Easy Rawlins mystery, a combustible and irresistible mixture of Raymond Chandler and Richard Wright that future president Bill Clinton picked up on, as did hundreds of thousands of other readers. Eleven books later, Easy Rawlins is one of the small handful of private eyes in contemporary crime fiction who can be called immortal. So it is great news on every front that this major figure's new mystery features the return of his signature and most resonant character.
Co-Sponsored by GeoEx
In conversation with Don George
Travel writer and novelist Paul Theroux first came to Africa as a 22-year-old Peace Corps volunteer. Now in Last Train to Zona Verde ($27.00), he returns, after fifty years on the road, to explore the little-traveled territory of western Africa. His odyssey takes him overland from Cape Town through South Africa, then to Namibia, where he realizes an old dream of visiting the San People (Bushmen) in the far northeast. In Botswana he enjoys an elephant-back safari before venturing back through the north of Namibia into Angola, up to the Congo. After 2,500 arduous miles through the bush, he comes to the end of his journey in more ways than one, a decision he chronicles with typical irascible honesty in a chapter called "What Am I Doing Here?"
Paul Theroux is the author of many highly acclaimed books. His novels include The Lower River and The Mosquito Coast, and his renowned travel books include Ghost Train to the Eastern Star and Dark Star Safari. He lives in Hawaii and on Cape Cod.
Rebecah Freeling is a master storyteller, experienced early childhood educator, and parent coach. New to California, she recently joined the faculty of Marin Mountain School Early Childhood Center in Corte Madera. For thirteen years she was owner, Director and Lead Teacher of Briar Rose Children's Center in her home state of Ohio. Her magical stories, both original and drawn from the folk and fairy tale traditions, are enhanced by handmade table puppets and simple marionettes. One often observes the children hearing her stories to be sitting on the edge of their seats, eyes wide and mouths open in anticipation!
Susan C. Shea presents The King's Jar ($14.00). When the renowned archaeologist who authenticated the King s Jar turns up dead, and the invaluable relic vanishes, Dani suddenly finds herself trapped in a real-life game of Clue with a gallery of glittering suspects, and a killer who s playing for keeps. But drumming up donations from society swells is a far cry from matching wits with homicidal thieves. And juggling the amorous advances of a police detective, a TV celebrity, and her own playboy ex-husband while sparring with an African ambassador, an obsessed archaeologist-in-training, a millionaire and his trophy wife certainly doesn't make it any easier to figure out who's lying...or keep anyone else from dying.
Susan Shea spent more than two decades as a non-profit executive before beginning her best-selling mystery series featuring a professional fundraiser for a fictional museum. She loved her former work but admits to having much more fun hanging out with crime writers and inspired storytellers. She's a regular on The LadyKillers blog, is on the board of the Northern California chapter of Sisters in Crime and is a past board member of Norcal's chapter of Mystery Writers of America. She lives in Marin County, California, but hopes no one will hold it against her.
We've all seen the vegetable garden overflowing with corn, tomatoes, and zucchini that looks good for a short time, but then quickly turns straggly and unattractive (usually right before friends show up for a backyard barbecue). If you want to grow food but you don't want your yard to look like a farm, what can you do? The Beautiful Edible Garden ($19.99) shares how to not only grow organic fruits and vegetables, but also make your garden a place of year-round beauty that is appealing, enjoyable, and fits your personal style. Written by landscape design experts Leslie Bennett and Stefani Bittner this book will show you that it's possible for gardeners of all levels to reap the best of both worlds. Featuring a fresh approach to garden design, glorious photographs, and ideas for a range of spaces—from large yards to tiny patios—this guide is perfect for anyone who wants a gorgeous and productive garden.
Leslie Bennett and Stefani Bittner are co-founders of Star Apple Edible + Fine Gardening, a San Francisco Bay Area landscape design firm focusing on aesthetic edible gardening. At Star Apple, they bring together ecologically sound landscape design principles and small-scale urban agriculture, working with both ornamental and edible plants to create integrated landscapes. Visit www.StarAppleEdibleGardens.com.
Work With Me: The 8 Blind Spots Between Men and Women in Business ($27.00) is the timely collaboration of two of the world's foremost authorities on gender relations. Barbara Annis, world-renowned expert on gender issues in the workplace, and John Gray, author of the number one bestselling relationship book of all time, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, team up to resolve the most stressful and confusing challenges facing men and women at work. Readers will discover the Eight Gender Blind Spots, the false assumptions and opinions men and women have of each other, and in many ways, believe of themselves. Through research, science, and stories, Annis and Gray expose the blind spots that cause our misunderstandings, miscommunications, mistrust, resentment, and frustrations at work.
John Gray, PhD is the leading relationship expert in the world and bestselling relationship author of all time. His book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, is ranked by USA Today as one of the top ten most influential books over the last 25 years. His 17 books have been published in 50 different languages and he is a popular keynote speaker for international organizations and Fortune 500 companies. He is the founder of Mars Venus Coaching and has personally trained over 500 coaches in 27 countries to bridge the gender gap in business through gender smart leadership, sales, and team-building trainings.
Charles Darwin, William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), Linus Pauling, Fred Hoyle, and Albert Einstein were all brilliant scientists. Each made groundbreaking contributions to his field—but each also stumbled badly. These five scientists expanded our knowledge of life on earth, the evolution of the earth itself, and the evolution of the universe, despite and because of their errors. As Mario Livio luminously explains in Brilliant Blunders: From Darwin to Einstein ($26.00) that the scientific process advances through error, and why mistakes are essential to progress.
Mario Livio is an internationally known astrophysicist at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland. He is the author of The Golden Ratio, a highly acclaimed book about mathematics and art for which he received the International Pythagoras Prize and the Peano Prize; The Equation That Couldn't Be Solved; Is God a Mathematician?; and The Accelerating Universe. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
When author and newspaper columnist Amy Friedman walked into a federal penitentiary to research and write about prison life, she never expected to fall in love with a man serving a life sentence for second degree murder. No one, Friedman included, imagined she would ultimately marry him. Desperado's Wife ($25.95) follows the couple's love story, from their wedding in a prison chapel to struggles with prison officials and newspaper bosses, from the blossoming love for the daughters she helped to raise to conjugal visits with her husband in prison trailers and ultimately to her husband's release on parole and the dissolution of the marriage.
Amy Friedman is the author of the popular syndicated newspaper feature Tell Me A Story, as well as a former columnist in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. She has written several memoirs and hundreds of essays and short stories. She teaches creative writing at UCLA Extension. She is also an editor and ghostwriter. www.amyfriedman.net
Women Writing Their Lives
A conversation with three memoir writers
Join three award-winning memoir writers as they read from their new books and talk about their personal writing journeys. Topics will include writing about secrets and truth, family and identity, and the complex decisions that must be made when we write memoir. They will open the group to a lively discussion about memoir writing and answer questions about their books.
Linda Joy Myers
Founder and President of the National Association of Memoir Writers
Author of Don't Call Me Mother ($16.95)
Accompany Linda Joy Myers as she uncovers family secrets, finds solace in music, and begins her healing journey. Learn how she transcends the prison of childhood to discover light in the darkness of strife, abuse, and undiagnosed mental illness. Originally published in 2005, this revised edition includes a new introduction and afterword, with new insights about memoir writing.
Judith Newton
Author of Tasting Home: Coming of Age in the Kitchen ($16.95)
In this food memoir, Judith Newton shares the unforgettable story of a life on the front lines of activism and in the kitchen. Having discovered during a difficult childhood that food and cooking were sources of comfort and emotional sustenance, in the decades to come, through her marriage to a gay man, her discovery of feminism, her life in a commune, and her career in a university, she learned how deeply food is tied to identity, love, community, and political engagement.
Judy L. Mandel
Author of Replacement Child: A Memoir ($16.00)
Judy Mandel is the replacement child for her sister who was killed in a tragic accident. It would be years before she would understand how the event, that happened before she was born, shaped her life. In this powerful story of love and lies, hope and forgiveness, Mandel discovers the truth that changes her life forever and forces her to confront the complex layers of her relationships with her father, mother, and sister. When she has her own child, her epiphany comes full circle.
Sprague Theobald, an award-winning documentary filmmaker and expert sailor with over 40,000 offshore miles under his belt, always considered the Northwest Passage the sea route connecting the Atlantic to the Pacific the ultimate uncharted territory. Since Roald Amundsen completed the first successful crossing of the fabled Northwest Passage in 1906, only twenty-four pleasure craft have followed in his wake. Many more people have gone into space than have traversed the Passage, and a staggering number have died trying. From his home port of Newport, Rhode Island, through the Passage and around Alaska to Seattle, it would be an 8,500-mile trek filled with constant danger from ice, polar bears, and severe weather.
What Theobald couldn't have known was just how life-changing his journey through the Passage would be. Reuniting his children and stepchildren after a bad divorce more than fifteen years earlier, the family embarks with unanswered questions, untold hurts, and unspoken mistrusts hanging over their heads. Unrelenting cold, hungry polar bears, and a haunting landscape littered with sobering artifacts from the tragic Franklin Expedition of 1845, as well as personality clashes that threaten to tear the crew apart, make The Other Side of the Ice ($24.95) a harrowing story of survival, adventure, and, ultimately, redemption.
Worried about waning enrollment, the head counselor of the world's worst summer camp leads his campers on a series of increasingly dubious escapades in an effort to revive their esprit de corps. A young boy on a sailing vacation with his father comes face-to-face with a dangerous stranger, and witnesses a wrenching act of violence. Parents estranged from their disturbed son must gird themselves for his visit, even as they cannot face each other. And in the dazzling title story, the beleaguered crew of the first Confederate submarine embarks on their final, doomed mission during the closing days of the Civil War. Alternately funny, menacing, and deeply empathetic, the wildly inventive stories in Ethan Rutherford's The Peripatetic Coffin ($13.99) mark the debut of a powerful new voice in contemporary fiction.
Ethan Rutherford received his MFA in fiction from the University of Minnesota, and has taught creative writing at Macalester, the University of Minnesota, and the Loft Literary Center. A former bookseller at Three Lives & Co. as well as Magers & Quinn, he lives in Minneapolis, where he is the guitarist for the band Pennyroyal.
A bittersweet novel filled with longing and hope, Jennie Shortridge's Love Water Memory ($26.00) explores the raw, tender complexities of relationships and personal identity. Who is Lucie Walker? Even Lucie herself can't answer that question after she comes to, confused and up to her knees in the chilly San Francisco Bay. Back home in Seattle, she adjusts to life with amnesia, growing unsettled by the clues she finds to the selfish, carefully guarded person she used to be. Will she ever fall in love with her handsome, kindhearted fiancé, Grady? Can he devote himself to the vulnerable, easygoing Lucie 2.0, who is so unlike her controlling former self? When Lucie learns that Grady has been hiding some very painful secrets that could change the course of their relationship, she musters the courage to search for the shocking, long-repressed childhood memories that will finally set her free.
Jennie Shortridge has published five novels: Love Water Memory, When She Flew, Love and Biology at the Center of the Universe, Eating Heaven, and Riding with the Queen. When not writing, teaching writing workshops, or volunteering with kids, Jennie stays busy as a founding member of Seattle7Writers.org, a collective of Northwest authors devoted both to raising funds for community literacy projects and to raising awareness of Northwest literature.
Erica Bauermeister presents The Lost Art of Mixing ($25.95). In prose to be savored, Bauermeister brings back some of the most engaging characters from School and introduces intriguing new personalities as she follows them around the seasons of a year. At the heart of her story once again is Lillian, the chef and restaurant owner with a remarkable ability to bring out the hidden essence of people as well as ingredients, and to combine both in surprising, delightful new ways
Erica Bauermeister, the bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients and Joy for Beginners, is also the coauthor of 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader's Guide and Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. She has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Washington, from which she holds a Ph.D. in literature, and is a graduate of Occidental College.
Angelico Hall, Dominican University
Tickets: $35 (includes signed book)
Online registration is now closed. To register, call (415) 927-0960 ext. 1
In Cooked, Michael Pollan explores the previously uncharted territory of his own kitchen. Here, he discovers the enduring power of the four classical elements—fire, water, air, and earth—to transform the stuff of nature into delicious things to eat and drink. Apprenticing himself to a succession of culinary masters, Pollan learns how to grill with fire, cook with liquid, bake bread, and ferment everything from cheese to beer. In the course of his journey, he discovers that the cook occupies a special place in the world, standing squarely between nature and culture. Both realms are transformed by cooking, and so, in the process, is the cook.
Journalist Jon Mooallem has watched his little daughter's world overflow with animals—butterfly pajamas, appliquéd owls—while the actual world she's inheriting slides into a great storm of extinction. Half of all species could disappear by the end of the century, and scientists now concede that most of America's endangered animals will survive only if conservationists keep rigging the world around them in their favor. So Mooallem ventures into the field, often taking his daughter with him, to move beyond childlike fascination and make those creatures feel more real. Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story About Looking at People Looking at Animals in America ($27.95) is a tour through our environmental moment and the eccentric cultural history of people and wild animals in America that inflects it—from Thomas Jefferson's celebrations of early abundance to the turn-of-the-last-century origins of the teddy bear to the whale-loving hippies of the 1970s.
Jon Mooallem has been a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine since 2006 and is a writer at large for Pop Up, the "live magazine" in San Francisco. He's also contributed recently to the New Yorker, Harper's, Wired, Radiolab, and This American Life. His magazine stories have twice been included in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, and he's been interviewed about his work on a wide range of radio and television shows, including Fresh Air and The Colbert Report.
Introduction by Kelly Corrigan!
From the unique perspective of David Sedaris comes Let's Explore Diabetes With Owls ($26.99), a new book of essays taking his readers on a bizarre and stimulating world tour. From the perils of French dentistry to the eating habits of the Australian kookaburra, from the squat-style toilets of Beijing to the particular wilderness of a North Carolina Costco, we learn about the absurdity and delight of a curious traveler's experiences. Whether railing against the habits of litterers in the English countryside or marveling over a disembodied human arm in a taxidermist's shop, Sedaris takes us on side-splitting adventures that are not to be forgotten.
David Sedaris is the author of the books Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Holidays on Ice, Naked, and Barrel Fever. He is a regular contributor to the New Yorker and Public Radio International's This American Life. He lives in England.
Fairfax Library • Free & Open to the Public
Author Josh Hanagarne will be joined by Fairfax librarian Shereen Ash for a conversation about his new book, The World's Strongest Librarian: A Memoir of Tourette's, Faith, Strength, and the Power of Family ($26.00). Hanagarne's memoir traces his journey from being a teenager struggling with Tourette's syndrome to his current position as a popular blogger and a librarian for the Salt Lake City public library.
Join Josh Hanagarne and Book Passage's Calvin Crosby for a Twitter Interview on Monday, May 20 at 10:00 AM Pacific Time. Use hashtag @strengthandbooks to participate!
Nathaniel Philbrick, the bestselling author of In the Heart of the Sea and Mayflower, brings his prodigious talents to Bunker Hill: A City, a Siege, a Revolution ($29.95), the story of the Boston battle that ignited the American Revolution. Boston in 1775 is an island city occupied by British troops after a series of incendiary incidents by patriots who range from sober citizens to thuggish vigilantes. After the Boston Tea Party, British and American soldiers and Massachusetts residents have warily maneuvered around each other until April 19, when violence finally erupts at Lexington and Concord. In June, however, with the city cut off from supplies by a British blockade and Patriot militia poised in siege, skirmishes give way to outright war in the Battle of Bunker Hill. It would be the bloodiest battle of the Revolution to come, and the point of no return for the rebellious colonists.
Nathaniel Philbrick is the New York Times bestselling author of National Book Award winner In the Heart of the Sea, Pulitzer Prize finalist Mayflower, Sea of Glory, and The Last Stand. He is also the author of Why Read Moby-Dick? and Away Off Shore. He lives on Nantucket.
Tickets: $30 (includes signed book)
When a brutal rapist is murdered, a loving father stands accused of the crime. Defense attorney Dismas Hardy must defend his brother-in-law and old friend Moses McGuire in a thrilling case that hits far too close to home. For the first time since 2009, Dismas Hardy, the author's most beloved protagonist, returns in The Ophelia Cut ($26.99), a masterful novel that showcases John Lescroart's extraordinary story-telling gifts: a cast of flesh-and-blood characters, morally complex situations, and relentless, nail-biting suspense.
John Lescroart is the author of more than twenty previous novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Damage, Treasure Hunt, and The 13th Juror. He lives in Northern California.
Join Bitsy Bee as she journeys to a faraway land in Princess Bugs ($12.99), a touch-and-feel Bugs adventure!
Bitsy Bee loves reading about her favorite princesses in fairy tales. One night, Bitsy dreams that she has been transported to a magical land far away. Bitsy Bee has become part of her very own fairy tale! Join Bitsy as she discovers Flower Bugs, Unicorn Bugs, Cotton Candy Cloud Bugs, a handsome prince, and more in this interactive, touch-and-feel Bugs adventure!
David A. Carter is a master paper engineer and creator of the Bugs series, which has sold more than 6 million copies. Also the author and illustrator of the critically acclaimed Color series, featuring One Red Dot, Blue 2, 600 Black Spots, Yellow Square, and White Noise, he lives in Auburn, California, with his wife and two daughters.
Five Thurs.: May 23 - June 20 • 6:00-8:00 pm • $150
This course is for students who are interested in practicing their language skills by reading and reviewing a short, modern Italian novella in class. All lessons will be conducted in Italian and students must be conversant at an Intermediate-Advanced level.
Silvia Iannelli is a private Italian tutor who was born and raised in Rome. She creates a fun and welcoming environment for her students, motivating them through activities and exercises. Her personal quote is: "La traduzione della parola e' nel cuore ~ The translation of a word is in the heart."
Authors Joanna Hershon and Hilary Reyl come together to share their latest respective novels in an evening of readings and discussion.
Can a friendship define your view of the world? Spanning from the Cuban Missile Crisis to the present-day stock market collapse, with locations as diverse as Dar es Salaam, Boston, Shenzhen, and Fishers Island, Joanna Hershon's A Dual Inheritance ($26.00) asks this question, as it follows not only these two men, but the complicated women in their vastly different lives. And as Ed and Hugh grow farther and farther apart, they remain uniquely—even surprisingly—connected.
Joanna Hershon is the author of The German Bride, The Outside of August, and Swimming. She has received fellowships from Bread Loaf Writers' Conference and the Edward Albee Foundation. An adjunct assistant professor in the creative writing department at Columbia University, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the painter Derek Buckner, and their twin sons.
It's 1989, the Berlin Wall is coming down, and Kate has just graduated from Yale, eager to pursue her dreams as a fledgling painter. When she receives a job offer to work as the assistant to Lydia Schell, a famous American photographer in Paris, she immediately accepts. It's a chance not only to be at the center of it all, but also to return to France for the first time since she was a lonely nine-year-old girl, sent to the outskirts of Paris to live with cousins while her father was dying. In compelling and sympathetic prose, Hilary Reyl perfectly captures this portrait of a precocious, ambitious young woman struggling to define herself in a vibrant world that spirals out of her control. Lessons in French ($24.00) is at once a love letter to Paris and the story of a young woman finding herself, her moral compass, and, finally, her true family.
Hilary Reyl has a Ph.D. in French literature from NYU with a focus on the nineteenth century and has spent several years working and studying in France. She lives in New York City with her husband and three children.
San Francisco magazine celebrates its June "Authors Issue" with a mega-reading featuring some of the Bay Area's most exciting writing talent. Authors contributing to the issue include Dave Eggers, Daniel Handler, Michelle Tea, John Lescroart, Yiyun Lee, Andrew Sean Greer, Helene Wecker, Robin Sloan, Chinaka Hodge, Joshua Mohr, Jennifer Kahn, Doug McGray, Peter Orner, Leath Tonino, and Scott Hutchins, many of whom will be on hand to read selections from the magazine's writers-on-writers anthology.
Magazines will be available for purchase. Wine, soft drinks, and light snacks will be served.
As the host of the hugely popular "The Wendy Williams Show," Wendy Williams is not afraid to tackle tough issues. But life is filled with all kinds of drama, and there is only so much advice Wendy can dish out during her show's signature "Ask Wendy" segment. Wendy's latest book, Ask Wendy ($25.99) is a no-nonsense, guilt-free guide to life's ups and downs. Honest, vivacious, and full of Wendy's inimitable attitude, it covers important life topics such as relationships, body image, work, sex, parenting, style and beauty. Wendy also reveals for the first time never-before-heard stories from some of the challenges she's had to overcome in her own life. This is the perfect book for Wendy's fans and anyone who needs "a friend in their head."
After an enormously successful 23-year career in radio, mother, wife, and bestselling author Wendy Williams burst onto the national talk show scene in July 2009 with the launch of the nationally syndicated daytime talk show, "The Wendy Williams Show." Called a "breakthrough in daytime" by The New York Times, "The Wendy Williams Show" airs in 52 countries and has been renewed on Fox through 2014. Williams is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Wendy Williams Experience, as well as several novels including Ritz Harper Goes to Hollywood.
This event has been cancelled due to illness.
With 4,000 percent growth in just six months, 17 million users, and a record for more referral traffic than YouTube, Google+, and LinkedIn combined, Pinterest delivers an unbelievable opportunity for marketers . . . if they know how to effectively use it. In Ultimate Guide for Pinterest for Business ($21.95), Karen Leland acquaints business owners with the newest social media kid on the block.
Karen Leland is the best-selling author of seven books and a freelance writer who has been published in Self, Woman's Day, Spirituality & Health, Entrepreneur, the Los Angeles Times and others. In addition, she is the founder of Sterling Consulting and Marketing Group. Her clients have included Apple Computer, American Express, Marriott Hotels, Johnson & Johnson and others.
In conversation with David Corbett
The New York Times and internationally bestselling Danish crime writer Jussi Adler-Olsen returns with A Conspiracy of Faith ($26.95), the third thriller in his exhilarating Department Q series. Detective Carl Mørck has received a bottle that holds an old and decayed message written in blood. It's a cry for help from two young brothers, tied and bound in a boathouse by the sea. After floating in the ocean for years before turning up, the bottle sat forgotten, unopened, on a police department windowsill, before the seal was cracked and the gruesome message, written in Danish, was analyzed. Could it be real? Who are these boys, and why weren't they reported missing? Could they possibly still be alive? In this heart-pounding thriller, Carl and his colleagues Assad and Rose must use every resource available to uncover the horrifying truth set adrift in that bottle all those years ago.
Jussi Adler-Olsen is Denmark's #1 crime writer and a New York Times bestseller. His books routinely top the bestseller lists in Europe, and he's won many prestigious Nordic crime-writing awards, including the Glass Key Award—also won by Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø, Stieg Larsson, and Peter Høeg. He lives in Denmark.
Co-sponsored by The Brain Injury Network of the Bay Area
With refreshing candor, Maria Ross shares how the relentless pace of her life came to a screeching halt when a brain aneurysm ruptured and nearly killed her. Rebooting My Brain: How a Freak Aneurysm Reframed My Life ($14.95) describes her stubborn road back to health and the resulting cognitive and emotional challenges that forced Ross to reframe her life, work, and identity.
Maria Ross is a brand strategist, author, speaker and actress. She is the creator of Red Slice, a brand consultancy and business blog. Maria previosuly authored the marketing guide Branding Basics for Small Business. A dynamic speaker, Maria has appeared in numerous media outlets such as MSNBC, ABC News, NPR, Entrepreneur Magazine, the L.A. Times and locally on KGO Radio.
In Crafting Calm: Projects and Practices for Creativity and Contemplation ($16.95), Maggie Olman Shannon explored new forms of creative spiritual practice and the benefits they provide. Artisans and everyday crafters are finding a renewed satisfaction in making something with their own hands; some are even communicating about the inherent physical- and mental-health benefits found in handwork—and, even more than that, they are framing their handwork as meditation or spiritual practice. This book serves as an inspirational resource guide to a broad assortment of spiritual practices gathered from the global arts-and-crafts communities, as well as from people who don't consider themselves artists but who have adopted creatively expressive forms of spiritual practice.
Rev. Maggie Oman Shannon, M.A., is an interfaith minister, spiritual director, workshop and retreat facilitator, and author of five books. In 2000, Oman Shannon founded The New Story, a coaching and consulting business focused on helping people create deeper meaning in their lives.
A glorious debut that T.C. Boyle calls "powerful and deeply moving" that follows two young Mormon missionaries in Brazil and their tense, peculiar friendship. Elder McLeod—outspoken, surly, a brash American—is nearing the end of his mission in Brazil. For nearly two years he has spent his days studying the Bible and the Book of Mormon, knocking on doors, teaching missionary lessons—"experimenting on the word." His new partner is Elder Passos, a devout, ambitious Brazilian who found salvation and solace in the church after his mother's early death. The two men are at first suspicious of each other, and their work together is frustrating, fruitless. That changes when a beautiful woman and her husband offer the missionaries a chance to be heard, to put all of their practice to good use, to test the mettle of their faith. But before they can bring the couple to baptism, they must confront their own long-held beliefs and doubts, and the simmering tensions at the heart of their friendship. A novel of unsparing honesty and beauty, Elders ($26.00) announces Ryan McIlvain as a writer of enormous talent.
Ryan McIlvain grew up in the Mormon Church and resigned his membership from it in his mid-twenties. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in many journals, including The Paris Review. A Stegner Fellow at Stanford from 2009 to 2011, he currently lives with his wife in Los Angeles.
In Bee Ridgway's wonderfully imaginative debut novel The River of No Return ($27.95), a man and a woman travel through time in a quest to bring down a secret society that controls the past and, thus, the future. In 1815, Julia Percy mourns the death of her beloved grandfather, an earl who could play with time. On his deathbed he whispers in her ear: "Pretend!" Pretend what? When Nick returns home as if from the dead, older than he should be and battle scarred, Julia begins to suspect that her very life depends upon the secrets Grandfather never told her. Soon enough Julia and Nick are caught up in an adventure that stretches up and down the river of time. As their knowledge of the Guild and their feelings for each other grow, the fate of the future itself is hanging in the balance.
Bee Ridgway holds a PhD in literature from Cornell University and is a professor of English literature at Bryn Mawr College. She lived in England for several years and now makes her home in Philadelphia.
Rebecah Freeling is a master storyteller, experienced early childhood educator, and parent coach. New to California, she recently joined the faculty of Marin Mountain School Early Childhood Center in Corte Madera. For thirteen years she was owner, Director and Lead Teacher of Briar Rose Children's Center in her home state of Ohio. Her magical stories, both original and drawn from the folk and fairy tale traditions, are enhanced by handmade table puppets and simple marionettes. One often observes the children hearing her stories to be sitting on the edge of their seats, eyes wide and mouths open in anticipation!
A poignant and inspirational love story set in Burma, The Art of Hearing Heartbeats ($14.95) spans the decades between the 1950s and the present. When a successful New York lawyer suddenly disappears without a trace, neither his wife nor his daughter Julia has any idea where he might be…until they find a love letter he wrote many years ago, to a Burmese woman they have never heard of. Intent on solving the mystery and coming to terms with her father's past, Julia decides to travel to the village where the woman lived. There she uncovers a tale of unimaginable hardship, resilience, and passion that will reaffirm the reader's belief in the power of love to move mountains.
Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Great Wall, a nonfiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats is his first novel. He lives in Berlin with his family.
In the opening of Holding Silvan ($16.95), Monica Wesolowska gives birth to her first child, a healthy-seeming boy who is taken from her arms for "observation" when he won't stop crying. Within days, Monica and her husband have been given the grimmest of prognoses for Silvan. They must make a choice about his life. The story that follows is not of typical maternal heroism. There is no medical miracle here. Instead, we find the strangest of hopes. In clear and unflinching prose, this startling memoir bears witness not only to a son's brief life but to the evolution of the writer herself - from Catholic girl yearning after sainthood to maternal struggle to give her son the best she can. The result is a page-turning testimony to the power of love. By raising ethical questions about how a death can be good in the age of modern medicine, Wesolowska's memoir becomes a paean to what makes life itself good.
Monica Wesolowska has published both fiction and memoir in numerous literary journals and anthologies including Best New American Voices 2000, the Carolina Quarterly, Quarter After Eight, Literary Mama, and the New York Times bestseller My Little Red Book. A graduate of Reed College and a recipient of a fellowship from the Fine Arts Works Center in Provincetown, she has taught writing at UC Berkeley Extension for a decade. She lives with her family in Berkeley, California.
Meticulously researched and masterfully told, Operation Storm: Japan's Top Secret Submarines and Its Plan to Change the Course of World War II ($28.00) tells the harrowing story of the Sen Toku, their desperate push into Allied waters, and the dramatic chase of this juggernaut sub by the US navy. In 1941, the architects of Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor planned a bold follow-up: a potentially devastating air raid--this time against New York City and Washington, DC. The classified Japanese program required developing a squadron of top secret submarines--the Sen-toku or I-400 class--which were, by far, the largest and among the most deadly subs of World War II. Incredibly, the subs were designed as underwater aircraft carriers, each equipped with three Aichi M6A1 attack bombers painted to look like US aircraft. Author John Geoghegan's first person accounts from the last surviving members of both the I-401 crew and the US boarding party that captured her create a highly intimate portrait of this fascinating, and until now forgotten story of war in the Pacific.
John Geoghegan has written extensively about aviation history, underwater exploration and marine engineering for the New York Times science section, Smithsonian Air & Space, Wired, Popular Science, Aviation History, Military Heritage, Flight Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine.
When Laura Estreich is born, her appearance presents a puzzle: does the shape of her eyes indicate Down syndrome, or the fact that she has a Japanese grandmother? In The Shape of the Eye ($16.95), George Estreich, a poet and stay-at-home dad, tells his daughter's story, reflecting on her inheritance --- from the literal legacy of her genes, to the family history that precedes her, to the Victorian physician John Langdon Down's diagnostic error of "Mongolian idiocy." Against this backdrop, Laura takes her place in the Estreich family as a unique child, quirky and real, loved for everything ordinary and extraordinary about her.
George Estreich's collection of poems, Textbook Illustrations of the Human Body, won the Gorsline Prize and was published in 2004. A woodworker, fly-fisherman, and guitar player, he has taught composition, creative writing, and literature at several universities. He lives in Cornvallis, Oregon, with his wife Theresa, a research scientist, and his two daughters, Ellie and Laura.
Dad (and everyone else!) will travel in style this summer with a new vest or jacket from Scottevest! Join us on Sunday, June 2nd, from 2:00 - 4:00pm, as we celebrate everything Scottevest. Come find just the right jacket or vest to tote your gadgets in style, no matter where your journey takes you. Refreshments provided.
In Jungian analyst and activist Jean Shinoda Bolen's writing, symbol, archetype, soul work, and synchronicity come together with activism and the potential to change the world or save the planet when grassroots and enlightened leaders work together. In her latest book, Moving Toward the Millionth Circle ($18.95), Dr. Bolen inspires and enlists women to be millionth circle, heart-centered activists in order to energize a 5th World Conference on Women in the 21st Century. The conference is not a goal in and of itself, but a means toward valuing women and the feminine to bring about a tipping point.
Moving Toward the Millionth Circle is a sequel to Dr. Bolen's popular The Millionth Circle with a slightly different focus. Her first book describes how real change happens when a critical number of people adopt a new perspective with how-to sections on ways to create women's circles with a sacred center. While still about women's circles, her new book focuses more on activism and how these circles can help to sustain and support (and be a sanctuary for) women working for change in their lives and in the world.
Listen to George Packer on the Ronn Owens show discussing The Unwinding
Our American democracy is beset by a sense of crisis. Seismic shifts during a single generation have created a country of winners and losers, allowing unprecedented freedom while leaving the social contract in pieces, bringing the political system to the verge of breakdown, and setting citizens adrift to find new paths forward. In The Unwinding ($27.00), George Packer, author of The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of America over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives.
George Packer is a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of The Assassins' Gate: America in Iraq, which received several prizes and was named one of the ten best books of 2005 by the New York Times Book Review. He is also the author of two novels, The Half Man and Central Square, and two other works of nonfiction, The Village of Waiting and Blood of the Liberals, which won the 2001 Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. His play, Betrayed, ran in Off Broadway for five months in 2008 and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Play. His most recent book is Interesting Times: Writings from a Turbulent Decade. He lives in Brooklyn.
Fifteen-year-old Oksana Marafioti is a Gypsy. This means touring with the family band from the Mongolian deserts to the Siberian tundra. It means getting your hair cut in "the Lioness." It also means enduring sneering racism from every segment of Soviet society. Her father is determined that his girls lead a better, freer life. In America! Also, he wants to play guitar with B. B. King. And cure cancer with his personal magnetism. All of this he confides to the woman at the American embassy, who inexplicably allows the family entry. Soon they are living on the sketchier side of Hollywood.
In this affecting, hilarious memoir, Marafioti cracks open the secretive world of the Roma and brings the absurdities, miscommunications, and unpredictable victories of the immigrant experience to life. With unsentimentally perfect pitch, American Gypsy ($16.00) reveals how Marafioti adjusted to her new life in America, one slice of processed cheese at a time.
Book Passage hosts monthly meetings of Left Coast Writers® at our Corte Madera store. The monthly meetings provide an evening of literary connections, support, counsel, readings, writing tips, literary chat, unabashed networking, and great fun. Each meeting also features a presentation by one of several Bay Area literary figures. LCW has its own lively newsletter and website at www.leftcoastwriters.com/.
It's Christmas Eve in Manhattan. An eminent plastic surgeon slips on the ice, lands on his butt, and sprains his ankle. So far, so good. A woman such as he's never known yanks him to his feet and conjures the miracle of a taxi. Harrison recuperates with Franz Schubert, Bette Davis, and a foundling cat. Then it's back to rhinoplasties, liposuction, and the peccadilloes of his obnoxious colleagues. It is only when he collides again with that strangely helpful woman that things take a wild and revolutionary turn. Sparkling, polemical, irreverent, slippery, and sexy, Mimi ($16.00) is a love story, a call to arms, and Lucy Ellmann's most tender and dazzling book.
Lucy Ellmann was born in Evanston, Illinois, the daughter of esteemed literary critic and biographer Richard Ellmann. Her first novel, Sweet Desserts, won the Guardian Fiction Prize in 1988, and her novel Dot in the Universe was longlisted for the Orange Prize and shortlisted for both the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing and the Believer Book Award. She currently lives in Scotland.
Preserving the legacy of the pioneers of burlesque has long been a passion of author Leslie Zemeckis. Beginning with her critically-acclaimed 2012 documentary combined with her extensive research which she has accumulated on the subject, Zemeckis has delved into the often misunderstood world of burlesque. In Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America ($24.95), she has documented the definitive oral history of burlesque as told by the original stars themselves in this, her first book.
Filmmaker Leslie Zemeckis is a veteran of stage and film. A frequent contributor to Huffington Post and Stork Magazine among other publications, Zemeckis wrote, produced, and directed the critically acclaimed documentary Behind the Burly Q about old-time burlesque. Her recent documentary Bound by Flesh is the story of Siamese twins, Daisy and Violet Hilton, America's highest paid vaudeville act.
Scott C. Johnson was a Newsweek foreign correspondent for twelve years, often providing exclusive war reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other fronts in the Middle East. He is now a freelance journalist and writer living in Oakland, California.
Linda Kohanov is beloved for her groundbreaking articulation of "the way of the horse," an experiential wisdom known to riders for centuries but little studied or adapted to off-horse use. Now Kohanov takes those horse-inspired insights on exceptional communication and leadership into the realms of our workplaces and relationships in The Power of the Herd ($27.95). Kohanov explores the benefits of "nonpredatory power" in developing assertiveness, fostering creativity, dealing with conflict, and heightening mind-body awareness.
The author of the bestseller The Tao of Equus, Linda Kohanov speaks and teaches internationally. She established Eponaquest Worldwide to explore the healing potential of working with horses and to offer programs on everything from emotional and social intelligence, leadership, stress reduction, and parenting to consensus building and mindfulness. She lives near Tucson, Arizona.
Four Thursdays: June 6 - 27 • 6:30-8:30 • $120
Make space for your writing. Making commitments and setting goals is one way to find the consistency needed to get in the regular writing habit. The habit of writing is what helps us access our creativity. Use this supportive community of writers to get you going. Leslie provides guidance and techniques to keep moving forward.
Limited to ten participants
A new take on How to Win Friends and Influence People, Your Network Is Your Net Worth ($25.00) is an entertaining, straightforward guide filled with revealing case studies, practical tips, and original strategies for building your network. Using digital tools, this book teaches you how to harness social media to connect with your true passions. Author Porter Gale also outlines how to navigate many offline interactions, such as communicating in interviews or day-to-day conversations and working a party in order to connect with others who share your interests. Stories, illustrations, quizzes, checklists, and exercises will help you pinpoint your skills and interests and leverage them into not only building a bigger network, but finding the right career and life path.
Porter Gale is an internationally known public speaker, networker, and entrepreneur with more than twenty years of experience working in marketing, advertising, and independent filmmaking. From 2007 to 2011, Porter was Vice President of Marketing at Virgin America. Prior to Virgin America, Porter was a consultant and held the post of general manager at Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners San Francisco. She was awarded the Changing the Game Award by the Advertising Women of New York (AWNY), was on AdAge's Digital Hotlist, iMedia's Top 25-Digital Marketers, and named a Digital Passionista by The Huffington Post. She lives with her daughter in San Francisco. She is also a blogger for AdAge and The Huffington Post.
For the first 23 years of her life, Suzy Becker was sure she would have at least two babies. Then, it took her fifteen more years to decide to go ahead and have just one. One Good Egg ($25.00) is the funny, warmhearted story of her journey to fertility and becoming a mom, illustrated throughout with hundreds of her clever and charming cartoons.
"Suzy Becker is a wonderful writer, hilarious, touching, and sweet." — Anne Lamott, author of Help, Thanks, Wow
Author, artist, educator, and entrepreneur Suzy Becker began her career as an award-winning advertising copywriter, and then founded the Widget Factory, a greeting card company. She entered the world of books with what would become the internationally bestselling All I Need to Know I Learned from My Cat, and has since written and illustrated several award winning books for both children and adults including My Dog's the World's Best Dog; I Had Brain Surgery, What's Your Excuse?, Manny's Cows; Books Are for Reading; and Kids Make It Better. Her books, greeting cards, and works in print and TV advertising have earned her numerous design and writing awards. She lives with her family, a dog, and a formerly feral cat in central Massachusetts. Visit her Web site at www.suzybecker.com.
Caroline Paul was recovering from a bad accident and thought things couldn't get worse. But then her beloved cat Tibia disappeared. She and her partner, illustrator Wendy MacNaughton, mourned his loss. Yet weeks later, Tibia waltzed back into their lives. His owners were overjoyed. But they were also...jealous? Betrayed? Where had their sweet anxious cat disappeared to? Had he become a swashbuckling cat adventurer? Did he love someone else more? His owners were determined to find out.
Using GPS technology, cat cameras, psychics, the web, and animal communicators, the authors of Lost Cat embarked on a quest to discover what their cat did when they weren't around. Told through writer Caroline Paul's rich and warmly poignant narrative and illustrator Wendy MacNaughton's stunning and hilarious 4-color illustrations, Lost Cat ($20.00) is a book for animal lovers, pet owners, and anyone who has ever done anything desperate for love.
Caroline Paul is the author of East Wind, Rain and Fighting Fire. Wendy MacNaughton is the creator of the acclaimed Rumpus illustrated column, Meanwhile, and her work has appeared widely in publications including The New York Times, Print Magazine, GOOD Magazine, PEN America and Bon Appetit.
The ticket price of $55 includes lunch and a signed book
Call (415) 927-0960 ext. 1 or click the button below to register.
Please note: online registration is now closed. Please call (415) 927-0960 ext.1 to inquire about ticket availability.
In this luminous memoir, Rita Moreno shares her remarkable journey from a young girl with simple beginnings in Puerto Rico to Hollywood legend—and one of the few performers, and the only Hispanic, to win an Oscar, Grammy, Tony and two Emmys. Here, for the first time, Rita reflects on her struggles to break through Hollywood's racial and sexual barriers. She explores the wounded little girl behind the glamorous façade—and what it took to find her place in the world. She talks candidly about her relationship with Elvis Presley, her encounters with Howard Hughes, and the passionate romance with Marlon Brando that drove her to attempt suicide. And she shares the illusiveness of a "perfect" marriage and the incomparable joys of motherhood. Infused with Rita Moreno's quick wit and deep insight, Rita Moreno: A Memoir ($26.95) is the dazzling portrait of a stage and screen star who longed to become who she really is—and triumphed.
Rita Moreno is one of the few artists to win an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony. She has also received a Golden Globe Award and a National Medal of Honor. She recently concluded a sold-out run of her one-woman show, Life Without Makeup, at the Berkeley Repertory Theater in Berkeley, California, and regularly appears in the television show, Happily Divorced.
Book Passage hosts literary luncheons with celebrated authors at our Marin store. These events are catered by the outstanding Insalata's Restaurant of San Anselmo.
Kim Wong Keltner is a Tiger Baby all grown up with a daughter of her own . . . but is she a Tiger Mother? Heck, no. This book describes--in hilarious, and sometimes heartbreaking, detail--exactly why not.Traversing the choppy seas of American and Chinese traditions, Keltner dives into the difficulties facing women today--Chinese American and otherwise. At once deeply relevant and playfully honest, Tiger Babies Strike Back ($13.99) combines personal anecdotes and tough love advice for a humorous, provocative look at how our families shape--and sometimes shake--our personal foundations.
In the fourth grade, Kim Wong Keltner won a cutthroat spelling bee, which encouraged her aspirations as a writer. Over the years, she honed her ear for dialogue by listening to elderly Chinese women dish dirt over endless games of mahjong. She met her husband at a Chaucer seminar when she stretched out her hand and said, "Come with me if you want to live." They now reside in San Francisco's Sunset District, where all the other Chinese people live.
Left Coast Writers Launch®
Join us in a celebration of stories from the road as some of our favorite travel writers share their funny, daring, exciting, and outrageous travel tales.
Corte Madera store
Admission: $35 (includes signed copy of And the Mountains Echoed)
In conversation with Book Passage president Elaine Petrocelli
PLEASE NOTE: Online registration is now closed. Please call (415) 927-0960 ext. 1 to inquire about ticket availability.
Khaled Hosseini, the #1 New York Times–bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, has written a new novel about how we love, how we take care of one another, and how the choices we make resonate through generations. And the Mounains Echoed is a tale revolving around not just parents and children but brothers and sisters, cousins and caretakers, Hosseini explores the many ways in which families nurture, wound, betray, honor, and sacrifice for one another; and how often we are surprised by the actions of those closest to us, at the times that matter most. Following its characters and the ramifications of their lives and choices and loves around the globe—from Kabul to Paris to San Francisco to the Greek island of Tinos—the story expands gradually outward, becoming more emotionally complex and powerful with each turning page.
"And the Mountains Echoed is a masterwork. I loved every one of the characters. This is storytelling at its best. As Khaled Hosseini brilliantly weaves the lives of each of the diverse characters into a gorgeous quilt, we are transported to a different world, yet we feel a part of each character's experience. I cried in the beginning and again in the end but after I read the last page, I felt so fortunate to have spent several days in Afghanistan, Greece and the Bay Area with these people."—Elaine Petrocelli, Book Passage, Corte Madera, CA
A Q&A with Khaled Hosseini from Riverhead Books
What most excites you about meeting your readers across America?
Meeting the wide range and diversity of people who have responded to my books, people from all walks of life, all religions, races, cultures, from varsity wrestling team members to hipsters to CEOs to middle-aged accountants to octogenarians. It is always a reminder to me, when I meet these kaleidoscopic demographics, of the ability of fiction to connect people through the expression of basic, common human experiences.
You'll be on the road for five weeks—what are you planning to bring to read on your tour?
I have already bought a few books for just that purpose and they are now sitting on my desk! Some are new, some are older books that I have always meant to read and never got around to. They are:
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis
Dear Life by Alice Munro
American Pastoral by Philip Roth
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
Not sure I will get through all of them, but I will knock off a few.
What do you like to do with your downtime during your book tour?
I read. I exercise, if I can find the time. I watch parts of movies. I call home. I try to write but never can. I end up reading a lot.
What do you pack in your suitcase that might surprise us?
I always pack—though I never end up wearing it—my SF 49ers cap, which I consider my good luck hat. Also, I have started taking guitar lessons (as a show of solidarity, really, with my son), and sometimes I will pack a small travel guitar for practice on the road. (A bit of parental trickery is at work here, of course; i.e., if I can find time to practice on a national book tour, then my son can find twenty minutes in his day to do the same. Sometimes you have make people feel so bad that they'll do the right thing.)
What are your children reading right now?
My daughter, who is ten, is reading A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. My son, twelve, just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.
Keith Corcoran has spent his entire life preparing to be an astronaut. At the moment of his greatness, finally aboard the International Space Station, hundreds of miles above the earth's swirling blue surface, he receives word that his sixteen-year-old daughter has died in a car accident, and that his wife has left him. The Infinite Tides ($15.00) by Christian Kiefer follows his return back to earth, and to his now empty suburban home, where he finds himself alone with ghosts, memories and feelings he can barely acknowledge, let alone process. He is a mathematical genius, a brilliant engineer, a famous astronaut, but nothing in his life has readied him for this.
Christian Kiefer earned his Ph.D. in American literature from the University of California, Davis, and is on the English faculty of American River College in Sacramento. His poetry has appeared in various national journals including the Antioch Review and Santa Monica Review. He is also an accomplished songwriter and recording artist. He lives in the hill country north of Sacramento with his wife and five sons.
May Signed First Edition Club author Anthony Marra speaks with June Signed First Edition Club author NoViolet Bulawayo.
Bulawayo's debut novel, We Need New Names ($24.99) is set in Zimbabwe, where ten year-old Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of "before." Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad. But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few.
Anthony Marra is the winner of a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, The Atlantic's Student Writing Contest, and the Narrative Prize, and his work was anthologized in Best American Nonrequired Reading 2012. He holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and is currently a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena ($26.00) is his first novel.
On the day the Herath family moves in, Sal Mal Lane is still a quiet street, disturbed only by the cries of the children whose triumphs and tragedies sustain the families that live there. As the neighbors adapt to the newcomers in different ways, the children fill their days with cricket matches, romantic crushes, and small rivalries. But the tremors of civil war are mounting, and the conflict threatens to engulf them all. In a heartrending novel poised between the past and the future, the innocence of the children—a beloved sister and her overprotective siblings, a rejected son and his twin sisters, two very different brothers—contrasts sharply with the petty prejudices of the adults charged with their care. In Ru Freeman's masterful hands, On Sal Mal Lane ($26.00), a story of what was lost to a country and her people, becomes a resounding cry for reconciliation.
Ru Freeman is the author of A Disobedient Girl. She is an activist and journalist whose work appears internationally. She calls both Sri Lanka and America home.
Cinnamon and Gunpowder ($26.00) is a swashbuckling epicure's adventure simmered over a surprisingly touching love story—with a dash of the strangest, most delightful cookbook never written. Eli Brown has crafted a uniquely entertaining novel full of adventure: the Scheherazade story turned on its head, at sea, with food.
Eli Brown lives on an experimental urban farm in Alameda, California. His writing has appeared in the Cortland Review and Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader. His first novel, The Great Days, won the Fabri Literary Prize.
Super Pop!: Pop Culture Top Ten Lists to Help You Win at Trivia, Survive in the Wild, and Make It Through the Holidays ($16.99) is a wide-ranging collection of pop culture's greatest hits, including movies, books, comic books, songs, and podcasts, presented in hilarious, provocative, and weirdly edifying top ten lists.
Daniel Harmon is the editorial director at Zest Books, and a longtime editor of pop culture projects for a variety of publishers. He is a former staff writer at Brokelyn.com, and the author of an essay about Tommy Wiseau's film The Room, which was published in the anthology Cult Pop Culture.
How do we begin to recoup the losses of essential nutrients? By "eating on the wild side"--choosing present-day fruits and vegetables that come closest to the nutritional bounty of their wild ancestors. Jo Robinson explains that many of these jewels of nutrition are hiding in plain sight in our supermarkets, farmers markets, and U-pick orchards. Eating on the Wild Side ($26.99) provides the world's most extensive list of these superlative varieties. Drawing on her five-year review of recently published studies, Robinson introduces simple, scientifically proven methods of storage and preparation that will preserve and even enhance their health benefits.
Jo Robinson is the author or co-author of 14 books of nonfiction. Her research on pastured animals has been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Mother Jones, USA Today, Men's Health, the San Francisco Chronicle, Atlantic Monthly, and many other publications. She lives and works on Vashon Island, a rural island close to Seattle, WA.
An Eat, Pray, Love of the African Safari from the Jane Goodall of white lions, Linda Tucker's journal-style writing describes with unflinching honesty her fears, doubts, hopes, and dreams, all the while unfolding for us an unforgettable tale of adventure, romance, spirituality, and justice. Accompanied by dramatic photographs, Saving the White Lions ($19.95) shares how a life-threatening encounter with a pride of lions during a vacation in South Africa became a life-changing experience. Under the spiritual guidance of a wise medicine woman who saved her life in the African wilderness, Tucker abandoned her high-powered career to return to the pridelands and follow her destiny. As the appointed "keeper of the white lions," legend became reality, as she rescued a snowy white lion cub believed to be Africa's holiest animal, stood up against armed hunters, and ultimately even found her lion man.
Linda Tucker grew up in South Africa during Apartheid and attended the universities of Cape Town and Cambridge (UK). In 2002, she founded the Global White Lion Protection Trust, an organization that works not only to protect the white lions, but also the indigenous communities and knowledge of the Tsonga and Sepedi cultures, which celebrate the white lion as a sacred living heritage. She is invited as guest speaker at international conservation congresses, and her work has been featured in documentaries produced by National Geographic and Animal Planet. She lives in the protected area neighboring South Africa's Timbavati reserve with her partner, lion ecologist Jason A.Turner, together with the white lion prides they have reintroduced into the wild.
With three New York Times bestsellers and continued stardom on The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Teresa Giudice has more tasty recipes to share with her fans. Fabulicious On-the-Grill ($20.00) features Teresa's signature easy, no-fuss Italian cooking—but this time with 70 recipes you can make on the grill, including:
Foolproof sauces, rubs, and marinades
Hearty red meat & chicken recipes
Easy Seafood
Low-fat veggie grilling
Pizzas out-of-the-oven
Off-the-grill sides
Delicious desserts
And more tips on backyard entertaining
Including special "bikini" recipes for lite eating, fun fare for kids, as well as dozens of tips from husband "Juicy" Joe Giudice, this cookbook has everything you need to cook and dine al fresco!
Teresa Giudice is the star of Bravo's The Real Housewives of New Jersey, now in its fourth season. She has been a regular fixture in the national media, appearing on the Today show, Entertainment Tonight, as well as on the covers of InStyle and People. She lives in northern New Jersey with her husband and four daughters.
Read David's wonderful piece on John Horne Burns in the New York Times
American author John Horne Burns (1916-1953) led a brief and controversial life, and as a writer, transformed many of his darkest experiences into literature. Burns was born in Massachusetts, graduated from Andover and Harvard, and went on to teach English at the Loomis School, a boarding school for boys in Windsor, Connecticut. During World War II, he was stationed in Africa and Italy, and worked mainly in military intelligence. His first novel, The Gallery, based on his wartime experiences, is a critically acclaimed novel and one of the first to unflinchingly depict gay life in the military. The Gallery sold half a million copies upon publication, but never again would Burns receive that kind of critical or popular attention.
Dreadful ($28.95) follows Burns, from his education at the best schools to his final years of drinking and depression in Italy. With intelligence and insight, David Margolick examines Burns's moral ambivalence toward the behavior of American soldiers stationed with him in Naples, and the scandal surrounding his second novel, Lucifer with a Book, an unflattering portrayal of his experiences at Loomis.
David Margolick is the author of five books, including Strange Fruit: The Biography of a Song, Beyond Glory: Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink, and Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. He is a contributing editor at Vanity Fair.
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son ($27.99) is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim. Love, honor, even children are sacrificed in the name of ambition as the family becomes one of the richest powers in Texas, a ranching-and-oil dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege. Yet, like all empires, the McCulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices. Harrowing, panoramic, and vividly drawn, The Son is a masterful achievement from Philipp Meyer, a sublime young talent.
"A novelist worth celebrating and watching" (USA Today), Philipp Meyer was named in the New Yorker's "20 under 40," their once a decade list of writers under the age of 40 who are headed for great things. Meyer received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his work on American Rust. He is a graduate of Cornell University and has an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin. A native of Baltimore, he divides his time between Austin and New York City.
$20 per person (includes wine or other beverage and light appetizers)
Join us in the Book Passage Café for an evening of books, wine, music, and fun. Bring a favorite book to swap and meet like-minded people in a friendly, stimulating environment. There's no better place than a bookstore to meet someone new and start an interesting conversation!
Live music will be provided by Todd Swenson and Sam Barry.
For years, Daniel Smith suffered from bouts of acute anxiety, extended episodes without any apparent cause that seized control of his body and mind, leaving him an emotional wreck. Sleep was impossible and headaches and nausea haunted his days. Anxiety threatened his sanity and jeopardized his relationships. He had a prestigious job, a comfortable apartment, and caring friends—but, according to his therapists, nothing seemed to be wrong. Now in paperback, Monkey Mind ($15.00) is the story of how one man finally learned to live with—and laugh at—his own anxiety issues. Smith shares his own hilarious and heart-wrenching story from his first severe episode at age sixteen to his discovery of the author Philip Roth, who made anxiety seem noble, to his first job, which nearly drove him to distraction, to his struggle to give up the endless cycle of hand-wringing angst in order to keep the love of his life.
Daniel Smith is the author of Muses, Madmen, and Prophets and a contributor to the Atlantic, New York magazine, the New York Times magazine, and Slate. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Rebecah Freeling is a master storyteller, experienced early childhood educator, and parent coach. New to California, she recently joined the faculty of Marin Mountain School Early Childhood Center in Corte Madera. For thirteen years she was owner, Director and Lead Teacher of Briar Rose Children's Center in her home state of Ohio. Her magical stories, both original and drawn from the folk and fairy tale traditions, are enhanced by handmade table puppets and simple marionettes. One often observes the children hearing her stories to be sitting on the edge of their seats, eyes wide and mouths open in anticipation!
Octopus loves living on the busy reef under the sea. From her cozy cave, she can see clown fish, and sea turtles, and little butterflies swimming by. She especially loves watching the seahorses having fun, wiggling and twirling. Sometimes she will play with them, but occasionally Octopus just wants to be alone, somewhere quiet, and not so busy. So one day, she swims far, far beyond the reef and finds another cozy cave, only here she is perfectly, wonderfully alone. It is exactly what she wanted . . . until she's ready to go back home to be with her friends.As she did in Little Owl's Night, Divya Srinivasan shows children a wonderful part of the natural world in a very warm-hearted way with Octopus Alone ($16.99).
Divya Srinivasan is an illustrator and animator living in Austin, Texas. Her illustrations have appeared in New Yorker magazine, and she has done work for This American Life, They Might Be Giants, Sundance Channel, Sufjan Stevens, and Weird Al Yankovic, among others. Divya was also an animator on the film Waking Life. She is the author-illustrator of Little Owl's Night. More of her work can be seen at www.pupae.com.
Co-Sponsored by A Band of Wives
Admission: $45
(includes signed book, appetizers, wine and a donation to A Band of Wives)
The self-publishing revolution is in full swing, offering writers more opportunities than ever to control the publishing process and create a high-quality book that rivals traditional publishing. Former Apple chief evangelist and bestselling author Guy Kawasaki knows this first-hand. After publishing ten books with traditional publishers, he turned to self-publishing for his last two, including his most recent, APE: Author, Publisher, Entrepreneur–How to Publish a Book.
In this workshop, Guy will explain how to fill the critical roles of author, publisher, and entrepreneur in order to succeed as a self-publisher. Topics include:
• Writing for the right reasons
• How to tap "the crowd" during writing and marketing
• How to produce both ebooks and printed books
• How to use social media to build a fan base, create a brand, and sell books
• Recommendations on DIY vs. hiring out
Guy has written eleven other books, including the New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller Enchantment. He is the co-founder of Alltop.com, an "online magazine rack" of popular topics on the web, and was previously the chief evangelist of Apple. Guy has a BA from Stanford University, an MBA from UCLA, and an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
A Band of Wives is a new kind of sisterhood for all women-married, single and everything in between.
Matt Coyle presents Yesterday's Echo ($26.95). Rick Cahill was never convicted of his wife's murder, but he was never exonerated either. Not by the police. Not by the media. Not even by himself. Eight years later, police suspicion and his own guilt remain over his responsibility in his wife's death. Before Rick can save himself and bring down a murderer, he must confront the truth about his own past and untangle his feeling for a woman he can never fully trust.
Yesterday's Echo is Matt Coyle's first novel. He's drawn from his days in the restaurant business and his extended family's law enforcement background in creating this thriller. Matt lives in San Diego with his wife Deborah and their yellow lab, Angus.
Featuring "Bliss" Ananda Kenboya on conga drums!
Mama's Child ($15.00) is Joan Lester's story of an idealistic young white woman who travels to the American South as a civil rights worker, falls in love with an African American man, and starts a family in San Francisco, where the more liberal city embraces them—except when it doesn't. They raise a son and daughter, but the tensions surrounding them have a negative impact on their marriage, and they divorce when their children are still young. As the years pass, the chasm between mother and daughter widens, even as the mother attempts to hold on to the emotional chord that binds them. It isn't until the daughter, Ruby, herself becomes a wife and mother that she begins to develop compassion and understanding for the many ways that her own mother's love transcended race and questions of identity.
Joan Steinau Lester, Ed.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of four critically acclaimed books. Her writing has appeared in many newspapers and magazines, including Essence, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, and Cosmopolitan. She lives in Northern California.
At the height of World War II, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was home to 75,000 residents, consuming more electricity than New York City. But to most of the world, the town did not exist. Thousands of civilians—many of them young women from small towns across the South—were recruited to this secret city, enticed by solid wages and the promise of war-ending work. Kept very much in the dark, few would ever guess the true nature of the tasks they performed each day in the hulking factories in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. That is, until the end of the war—when Oak Ridge's secret was revealed.
Drawing on the voices of the women who lived it—women who are now in their eighties and nineties— The Girls of Atomic City ($27.00) rescues a remarkable, forgotten chapter of American history from obscurity. Denise Kiernan captures the spirit of the times through these women: their pluck, their desire to contribute, and their enduring courage. Combining the grand-scale human drama of The Worst Hard Time with the intimate biography and often troubling science of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, The Girls of Atomic City is a lasting and important addition to our country's history.
Denise Kiernan is the author of several books, including Signing Their Lives Away and Signing Their Rights Away. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Discover, Ms., and other national publications.
Since 1860, the world has warmed significantly and the ocean's climb has speeded. The sea level changes are cumulative and gradual; no one knows when they will end. The Attacking Ocean ($30.00), from celebrated author Brian Fagan, tells a tale of the rising complexity of the relationship between humans and the sea at their doorsteps, a complexity created not by the oceans, which have changed but little. What has changed is us, and the number of us on earth.
Brian Fagan is emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is the author of Beyond the Blue Horizon, Elixir, the Los Angeles Times bestseller Cro-Magnon, and the New York Times bestseller The Great Warming, and many other books, including Fish on Friday, The Long Summer, and The Little Ice Age. He has decades of experience at sea and is the author of several titles for sailors, including the widely praised Cruising Guide to Central and Southern California. He lives in Santa Barbara, CA.
In a gorgeous wine valley in northern California, the economic downturn has put a number of dreams on hold. But not so for wine critic Clyde Craven-Jones, a man whose ego nearly surpasses his substantial girth. During a routine tasting in advance of his eponymous publication's new issue, he blindly samples a selection of Cabernets. To his confounded delight, he discovers one bottle worthy of his highest score (a 20, on the Craven-Jones-on- Wine scale), an accolade he's never before awarded. But the bottle has no origin, no one seems to know how it appeared on his doorstep—and that's a problem for a critic who's supposed to know everything. An investigation into the mystery Cabernet commences, led by the Clyde's wife, Claire, and a couple of underdogs—one a determined throw-back to ancient viticulture, the other a wine-stained, Pygmalion-esque scribbler—who by wit and luck rise on incoming tides of money, notoriety, and, yes, love. James Conaway's Nose ($24.99) is a witty, delectable, and fast-paced novel that, like a good Cabernet, only grows truly enjoyable once opened.
James Conaway is the author of several books, including Napa: The Story of an American Eden, the nonfiction bestseller about the wine country and those responsible for California's winemaking triumphs, and its sequel, The Far Side of Eden. He is the author of two novels, The Big Easy and World's End. His most recent book is Vanishing America. Conaway has written for multiple magazines, among them Harper's, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Saveur, Gourmet, and National Geographic Traveler.
On November 28, 1979, accomplished Navy pilot Peter Rodrick died when his plane crashed in the Indian Ocean, leaving behind a devastated wife, two daughters, and a thirteen-year-old son. In The Magical Stranger, Stephen Rodrick explores the life and death of the man who indelibly shaped his life, even as he remained a mystery: brilliant but unknowable, sacred but absent-an apparition gone 200 days of the year for much of his young son's life-a born leader who gave his son little direction. Through adolescence and into adulthood, Rodrick struggled to fully grasp the reality of his father's death and its permanence. Peter's picture and memory haunted the family home, but his name was rarely mentioned.
Stephen Rodrick is a contributing writer at the New York Times Magazine and also a contributing editor at Men's Journal. His writing has been anthologized in The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Crime Reporting, and The Best American Political Writing. He lives in Brooklyn, New York.