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Friends,

San Francisco (1955 Cinemascope film) [Free Download]

below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)

LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
book signing for Poetry as Insurgent Art Tue., October 9 at 7 pm

From the groundbreaking A Coney Island of the Mind to the "personal epic" of Americus, Book I, Lawrence Ferlinghetti has, in more than 30 books over 50 years, been the poetic conscience of America. Now in the just released Poetry As Insurgent Art, he offers in prose his primer of what poetry is, could be, and should be. The result is by turns tender and furious, personal and political. If you are a reader of poetry, find out what is missing from the usual fare; if you are a poet, read at your own risk. Lawrence Ferlinghetti is not only a major American poet - he is an international icon. In 1998 he was named Poet Laureate of San Francisco. In 2005, he received the National Book Award's first Literarian Award (recognizing an individual whose life's work has enhanced the literary world as a whole). In 2006, he was named a Commander in the French Order of Arts and Letters. Ferlinghetti has read his poetry and shown his art around the world.

ROBERT ALTMAN
talk, slide show and book signing for The Sixties Wednesday, Oct 10 at 7 pm

altmanphoto.com

Timothy Leary. Allen Ginsberg. Jim Morrison. Neil Young. Abbie Hoffman. Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead. Janis Joplin. Ram Dass. Dennis Hopper. Jane Fonda. Ken Kesey. Hippies on Mt. Tam. The March on Washington. Anti-war demonstrations. People's Park. Berkeley. Haight Ashbury. Robert Altman's just published book, The Sixties, brings together photographs of the people, events, culture, rock stars, writers, and political figures who made the sixties the most influential decade of the century.

Robert Altman is an internationally acclaimed
photographer who studied with Ansel Adams. He is best known today as a photojournalist for Rolling Stone magazine - Cameron Crowe used many of his images in the film Almost Famous. A leader in embracing digital photography, Altman's recent work appeared in numerous publications including Entertainment Weekly, Mojo, New York Times, People, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

From: Publishers Weekly Review

Those nostalgic for the free love era will revel in this handsome, oversized collection of photographs by celebrated photographer Altman. A master at catching his subjects at the moment of emotional overload-whether they be mischief makers, war protestors or musicians-the black and white photographs collected here are pure nostalgia, making a powerful you-are-there impression that simultaneously highlights the era's distance-chronologically and otherwise-from the current moment.

In addition to period luminaries like Ken Kesey, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and Mick Jagger, the compendium highlights lesser-known players on the scene, as well as average attendees at rallies, "be-ins" and festivals.

Altman's particular genius is best showcased in his legendary crowd scenes; what these photos occasionally lack in technical precision, they more than make up in the raw, wild feelings they've miraculously captured. Despite the book's title, images straddle the period from the late 60's to the early 70's (though none of the subjects seem to make much of the distinction), and a fun introduction by longtime Rolling Stone editor Fong-Torres reveals that Altman has always felt his purpose was to depict "the life and times that the Sixties inspired"; he succeeds beautifully with this, an impressive social document and a powerful remembrance (Oct).

WESLEY STACE
reading, a bit of ventriloquism, & booksigning for By George Thursday, October 11 at 7 pm

By George is the new novel from Wesley Stace (aka the singer-songwriter John Wesley Harding), which tells the story of two boys named George Fisher, one flesh, one wood. Weaving the boy's tale and the "memoirs" of a ventriloquist's dummy, Staces' second novel unveils the secrets of four generations of entertainers. Exquisitely tender, By George also tells the story of two boys separated by years but driven by the same desires: to find a voice, and to be loved.

Educated at Cambridge, Wesley Stace (also known as John Wesley Harding) cut short his Ph.D. studies to pursue a music career. He has released 8 solo albums and toured as the opening act for Michelle Shocked, The Mighty Lemon Drops, and Bruce Springsteen. His bestselling novel, Misfortune, was published to great acclaim in 2004.

HARRY SHEARER
reading & booksigning for Not Enough Indians Wednesday, October 17 at 8 pm The Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco

Harry Shearer - the voice of the Simpson's - is an actor as well as a satirist, musician, radio host, playwright, and now author. His first novel, Not Enough Indians, is a bitingly funny satire about a down and out town that tempts fate by having themselves declared a sovereign Indian nation - and opening a casino. Funny, smart, antic and scathing, Not Enough Indians is also a hilarious send-up of the American dream. Don't miss this special event.

Harry Shearer is first and foremost an actor - as well as an author, director, satirist, musician, radio host, playwright, and multi-media artist. For nineteen years, he has enjoyed enormous success with his voice work on The Simpsons, where he plays a stable of characters including Mr. Burns, Smithers, Ned Flanders, and Rev. Lovejoy. He is the host of the nationally syndicated NPR program, Le Show, and helped create and also appeared in such films as This Is Spinal Tap and A Mighty Wind.

HOOKER'S BALL
Pier 23 on the Embarcadero a benefit for St. James Infirmary - Margo

PAUL DRUMMOND
reading & booksigning for Eye Mind Wednesday, October 31 at 7 pm The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, S.F.

The 13th Floor Elevators (who for a time resided in San Francisco) released the first "psychedelic" rock album in America - and helped transform pop culture in the 1960s and beyond. Eye Mind: The Saga of Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators, The Pioneers of Psychedelic Sound tells the remarkable and at times tragic story of this trailblazing band. Join us for a special Halloween event with author Paul Drummond and secret special guests.

The 13th Floor Elevators - incidentally, one of Thomas Pynchon's favorite bands - are revered as a formative influence on Janis Joplin, Led Zeppelin, Patti Smith, Primal Scream, R.E.M, and Z.Z. Top, among others. Musician Julian Cope called Eye Mind "One of the most exhilarating and important rock 'n' roll stories ever told." Paul Drummond is a British journalist, set designer and art director. He can be seen in the documentary, You're Gonna Miss Me: A Film About Roky Erickson.

MICK ROCK
talk, slideshow & booksigning for Psychedelic Renegades, Thursday, November 1 at 7 pm

By the time he passed permanently into the next dimension, Syd Barrett’s life had developed into something far more significant than he could ever have imagined. The man who turned his back on fame, fortune, Pink Floyd, and the entire rock music scene over thirty years ago became an involuntary legend. Was he a genius or just a madman? Mick Rock’s new book about his long-time friend, Psychedelic Renegades attempts to unravel the enigma that was Syd Barrett.

Mick Rock is one of the most widely recognized and prolific music photographers working today. His list of subjects is a virtual history of rock music. Rock’s earlier books include the just released Classic Queen, Glam! an Eyewitness Account, Raw Power: Iggy & The Stooges, and Moonage Daydream: The Life & Times of Ziggy Stardust.

3 NORTH BEACH ARTISTS: AGNETA FALK, GEORGE LONG, JAMES REDO

FINE PRINTING SALON, 225 7th ST (Between Howard & Folsom) MAKING IMPRESSIONS (415-621-5999) FRI. NOV 2nd OPENING RECEPTION FOR SAT: NOV. 3rd OPEN 12 TO 12 WITH MUSIC BY RENOWNED GUITARIST JONATHAN RICHMAN

THE SUMMER OF LOVE 40th ANNIVERSARY CONCERT SPECIAL KBWB-TV20 - Channel 20 - Cable 13 - San Francisco 8:00 PM Pacific Time SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 4th

KHALIL BENDIB
talk, slideshow & booksigning for Mission Accomplished: Wicked Cartoons by America's Most Wanted Political Cartoonist Thursday, November 8 at 7 pm

In an increasingly Manichean geopolitical world, Khalil Bendib happens to be both "Us" and "Them," American and Muslim, a walking oxymoron - a "Clash of Civilizations" made flesh. He is - by many accounts - the only American political cartoonist with an in-your-face non-Eurocentric perspective. Bendib is a voice of the voiceless. Join us for a discussion and slide show for Mission Accomplished: Wicked Cartoons by America's Most Wanted Political Cartoonist

The son of survivors of the Algerian war of independence, Khalil Bendib was born in Paris during the Algerian revolution and grew up in Morocco and Algeria before coming to California at the age of 20. After an eight-year stint with Gannett Newspapers, Khalil resigned over increasing censorship of his work. His cartoons have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, USA Today, San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere.

PAUL MYERS
talk & booksigning for It Ain't Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues Friday, November 9 at 7 pm

Long John Baldry is one of the little-known legends of rock n roll. Considered the father of British blues, Baldry knew, influenced, and worked with Elton John, Rod Stewart, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, John Mayall, Mick Fleetwood and others. Drawing on intimate anecdotes from Baldry's legendary friends and lovers, Paul Myers uncovers the man behind the myth. It Ain't Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues traces the musician's extraordinary life from birth during the London Blitz to the musical, social and sexual upheaval of the 60s and 70s. Paul Myers' presentation will include rare film clips of Long John Baldry and other musicians.

Paul Myers is the author of Barenaked Ladies: Public Stunts, Private Stories. As a broadcaster, he has appeared on American and Canadian television. His journalism has appeared in publications in the United States, Canada and England.

"COUSIN BRUCIE" MORROW
talk & booksigning for Doo Wop: The Music, the Times, the Era Monday, November 12 at 7 pm

Join us for a special evening with the legendary NYC disc jockey "Cousin Brucie" Morrow - who will be on hand to discuss Doo Wop: The Music, the Times, the Era. This new book, which takes a look back at the tail-finned 50's and early 60's, captures the spirit of the times through spectacular visuals and informative text. Few know the subject as well as Morrow, one of the pioneering radio personalities behind doo-wop and rock n roll.

"Cousin Brucie" Morrow has been one of the most famous names in broadcasting for almost half a century. In August of 1965, he had the distinction of introducing the Beatles during their historic Shea Stadium concert. Morrow was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame and the National Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame, among others. In 1994, part of West 52nd Street was named "Cousin Brucie Way." Today, he can be heard on Sirius Satellite Radio.

BRYAN RAY TURCOTTE
talk & booksigning for Punk Is Dead: Punk Is Everything! Friday, November 30 at 7 pm

Sure to be as successful as his 1999 bestseller, Fucked Up + Photocopied, Bryan Ray Turcotte's just published Punk Is Dead: Punk Is Everything! (hardback, $40.00) broadens its scope to expose the lasting impact of "punk" on visual culture worldwide. Described as the "last organically incubated oppositional youth movement" of the pre-MTV era, punk slipped quietly under the cultural radar before rising again to inspire new generations of creative and idealistic artists and musicians.

Bryan Ray Turcotte is a music producer and author. His Fucked Up + Photocopied is considered one of the definitive reference books on the North American Punk scene. In 2000, it won the Firecracker Alternative Book Award for Music.

SAN FRANCISCO SILENT FILM FESTIVAL
author booksignings, Saturday, December 1

Join The Booksmith at the historic Castro Theater as we celebrate the art of silent film. In between the day's three programs, we will be hosting booksignings with Anthony Slide, author of Incorrect Entertainment and Now Playing: Hand Painted Poster Art, Matthew Kennedy, author of Joan Blondell, and others. More information, including a schedule of films, is available at www.silentfilm.org

ANTHONY LAPPE & DAN GOLDMAN
talk, slideshow & booksigning for Shooting War
Monday, December 3 at 7 pm

Shooting War is the "scary-smart," "must read" online graphic novel (a bold, irreverent, unflinching spoof of the network news, the war in Iraq, and the burgeoning "citizen journalism" movement set in the near future) started by Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman at www.smithmag.net, where it generated fantastic attention from Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, etc…. At its peak, Shooting War received over a million unique visitors a day, and was nominated for a 2007 Eisner Award for "Best Digital Comic." Now it's a book. Anthony Lappé, an executive editor at Guerilla News Network, is a journalist who produced a documentary with footage he shot while he covered the war in Iraq. Dan Goldman, artist and designer, is a founding member of the daily online comics anthology Act-i-vate, and the coauthor of the political fiction graphic novel, Everyman: Be the People.

JAMES GURNEY
talk, slideshow & booksigning for Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara Tuesday, December 4 at 7 pm

In the spirit of Marco Polo and Gulliver's Travels, James Gurney's new book Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara recounts the adventures of explorer Arthur Denison and dinosaur Bix through the exotic eastern realm of the imaginary land of Dinotopia. "I thought the first two books in the Dinotopia series could not be topped, but I was proved wrong. Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara takes the adventure to a whole new level and new dimensions." – Ray Harryhausen James Gurney's fantasy art has appeared on the covers of more than 70 books, and his art has appeared in National Geographic and other magazines. He is the author and illustrator of the various Dinotopia books, each of which has become a bestseller. The original, Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, was a publishing sensation as a New York Times bestseller, with more than two million copies sold in eighteen languages in more than thirty countries.

DANIEL MERRIAM
talk, slideshow & booksigning for The Art of Daniel Merriam: The Eye of a Dreamer
Thursday, December 6 at 7 pm

From the brush of acclaimed artist Daniel Merriam comes The Art of Daniel Merriam: The Eye of a Dreamer, a new collection of paintings where dreams in color invite the viewer to join a journey into the imagination . . . where worlds of reality and fantasy collide in an explosion of shapes and symbolism. For more about this fantastic artist, visit www.danielmerriam.com - Born in 1963, Daniel Merriam is a much loved and much collected San Francisco artist. His work is included in the public collections of The Riverside Museum of Art in California, The Gesundheit Institute in Virginia, and the Manhattan Club in New York. His work has also been featured in The World & I, Art News, Arts & Antiques, and New Art International.

JASON BROWN
reading & booksigning for Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work
JERRY STAHL
reading & booksigning for Love Without, Friday, December 7 at 7 pm

Jason Brown's exquisitely crafted second collection of short stories, Why the Devil Chose New England for His Work, will certainly establish him as one of the most important new voices in American fiction. From Jerry Stahl, the bestselling author of the memoir Permanent Midnight and the novel I, Fatty comes Love Without, a long-awaited collection of short stories. Join us at the Booksmith as these two remarkable authors come together for a singular night of short fiction. Jerry Stahl's 1995 memoir, Permanent Midnight (detailing his life as a drug-addicted TV writer), and three novels (I, Fatty is the most recent), have won him a fan base that shares his glee for the comically deviant. Jason Brown was a Stegner Fellow and Capote Fellow at Stanford University, where he now teaches. He has been published in Best American Short Stories, 25 and Under/Fiction, Mississippi Review, Georgia Review, Story, Epoch, TriQuarterly, and DoubleTake.

LEMONY SNICKET & LISA BROWN
talk & booksigning for The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming Tuesday, December 11 at 6 pm**

Latkes are potato pancakes served at Hanukkah, and Lemony Snicket is an alleged children's author. For the first time in literary history, these two elements are combined in one book (with illustrations by Lisa Brown). A particularly irate latke is the star of The Latke Who Couldn't Stop Screaming, but many other holiday icons appear and even speak: flashing colored lights, cane-shaped candy, a pine tree. Santa Claus is briefly discussed as well. The ending is happy, at least for some. Unfortunately, elusive author Lemony Snicket is the author of a series of books whose joining title is "A Series of Unfortunate Events." Lisa Brown is an illustrator and author. Her books include How to Be and the popular "Baby Be of Use" series from McSweeney's. - **Please note special start time!

Dear friends and neighbors,

We hope that you will be able to attend:

3rd Monthly Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Peace Vigil

Place: San Francisco: Masonic between Oak and Fell

Time: Friday Dec. 21st, 6:00-8:00PM

One issue focus - end the war in Iraq. Support our troops and the Iraqi people by ending the war now.

Everybody welcome. Bring candles and signs if you have them, they will also be provided, along with cookies.

Peace, love, and cookies

TODD MCCAFFREY
reading & booksigning for Dragon Harper Tuesday, January 8 at 7 pm

Bestselling author Anne McCaffrey has dazzled audiences with her tales of the Dragonriders of Pern, one of the most popular science fiction series of all time. Recently, her son Todd McCaffrey has delved into the Pern universe with his own Pern novel and through two collaborations with his mother. Now, in Dragon Harper, Anne and Todd spin a tale of a mysterious illness that may succeed in doing what centuries of Threadfall could not: kill every last human on Pern.

Todd McCaffrey is the bestselling author of the Dragonsblood, as well as Dragon's Kin and Dragon's Fire, which he co-wrote with his mother, the legendary fantasy author Anne McCaffrey. A computer engineer, Todd currently lives in Los Angeles. Having grown up in Ireland with the epic of the Dragonriders of Pern, he is bursting with ideas for new stories of that world and its people.

ROBERT ALTMAN,
HEATHER MARX GALLERY

FORMER PHOTOGRAPHER ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE, BOOK SIGNING, 77 GEARY 2nd FLOOR, SAN FRANCISCO, 415-627-9111 JAN 10th 5:30 p,m. to 7:30 p.m.

LLOYD DANGLE
talk & booksigning for Troubletown Told You So Friday, January 11 at 7 pm

Troubletown Told You So: Comics that Could've Saved Us from this Mess is the new collection of comics from Lloyd Dangle, the nationally syndicated cartoonist whose work appears in the San Francisco Bay Guardian and other alternative newsweeklies and lefty political magazines. What’s it all about? In his introduction, columnist Dan Savage says, “Thank God there’s at least one person out there who can clearly see the lies and the malice - and he’s still got a sense of humor! This is no small comfort in Bush’s America."

Oakland, California cartoonist Lloyd Dangle grew up in Michigan, where he drew cartoons for Michael Moore’s muckraking newspaper, the Michigan Voice. He has also worked for the Village Voice, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, Mother Jones, The Nation, Utne Reader, and Wired. Lloyd was also the first cartoonist assigned to cover the Republican National Convention in New York City.

FRAY
reading & booksigning for Busted: True Stories of Getting Caught in the Act Friday, January 18 at 7 pm

Fray began as a storytelling website. Since 1996, it has presented true first-person stories. Eventually, the website evolved into a series of live storytelling events. And now, Fray is evolving again this time into a quarterly series of independently produced books. Just out is Busted: True Stories of Getting Caught in the Act. Guest readers to be announced.

Fray (located at http://www.fray.com) is about true, personal stories and original art. They plan to publish a themed book four times a year.

Dear friends and neighbors,

We hope that you will be able to attend:

4th Monthly Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Peace Vigil

Place: San Francisco: Masonic between Oak and Fell

Time: Friday Jan. 18th, 6-8 PM

One issue focus - end the war in Iraq. Support our troops and the Iraqi people by ending the war now.

Everybody welcome. Bring candles and signs if you have them, they will also be provided, along with cookies.

Peace, love, and cookies

ROBERT HASS
reading & booksigning for Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 Tuesday, January 22 at 7 pm

RESCHEDULED FROM NOVEMBER: Robert Hass is a poet of great eloquence, clarity, and force whose work is rooted in the landscapes of his native Northern California. Widely read and much honored, he has brought the kind of energy in his poetry to his work as an essayist, translator, and activist. Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005 - his first new collection in a decade - is grounded in the beauty and dynamics of the physical world, and in the bafflement of the present moment in American culture.

Robert Hass was born in San Francisco and lives in Berkeley, where he teaches at the University of California. Hass served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. A MacArthur Fellow , a two-time winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the recent winner of the National Book Award, he has published poems, literary essays, and translations.

HEIDI JULAVITS
reading & booksigning for The Uses of Enchantment Friday, January 25 at 7 pm

In late afternoon on November 7, 1985, sixteen-year-old Mary Veal was abducted after field hockey practice at her all-girl New England prep school. Or was she? Heidi Julavits' new novel, The Uses of Enchantment which is just out in paperback, weaves a provocative spell in which the reader sees how the extraordinary power of a young woman's sexuality, and the desire to wield it, have a devastating effect on all involved.

Heidi Julavits is the author of two previous novels, The Mineral Palace and The Effect of Living Backwards, as well as a collaborative book, Hotel Andromeda. She is a founding editor of The Believer, and her writings have appeared in The New York Times, Esquire, Time, and McSweeney's. She lives in Manhattan and Maine.

WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN
reading & booksigning for Riding Toward Everywhere Thursday, February 7 at 7 pm

William T. Vollmann has investigated humanity's obsession with violence (Rising Up and Rising Down), taken a personal look into the hearts and minds of the poor (Poor People), and now turns his attentions to America, to our romanticizing of "freedom" and the ways in which we restrict the very liberties we profess to admire. Riding Toward Everywhere is the new book from the National Book Award winning author of Europe Central.

William T. Vollmann is the author of seven novels; three collections of stories; a seven-volume critique of violence, Rising Up and Rising Down (finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award); and Poor People, an examination of poverty. His most recent novel, Europe Central, won the National Book Award in 2005. He has also won the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, a Shiva Naipaul Memorial Prize, and a Whiting Writers' Award. No other writer has appeared more often at The Booksmith as has this acclaimed California author

DINAW MENGESTU
talk & booksigning for The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears Wednesday, February 13 at 7 pm

The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, by Dinaw Mengestu, is a deeply affecting novel about what it means to lose a family and a country - and what it takes to create a new home. "This first novel, by an Ethiopian-American, sings of the immigrant experience, an old American story that people renew every generation, but it sings in an existential key...His straightforward language and his low-key voice combine to make a compelling narrative." - Alan Cheuse

Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980, he immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister, joining his father, who had fled Ethiopia during the Red Terror. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University's MFA program in fiction and the recipient of a 2006 fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts

BETH LISICK
reading & booksigning for Helping Me Help Myself Tuesday, February 19 at 7 pm

From Bay Area favorite Beth Lisick, author of Everybody into the Pool, comes Helping Me Help Myself - the engaging and often-humorous story of one skeptic (the author), ten self-help gurus (John Gray, Richard Simmons, Stephen R. Covey, Jack Canfield, etc….), and a year spent trying to improve one's self. The author doesn't think of herself as a victim of the self-help movement. But is she?

Beth Lisick, author of the New York Times bestselling book Everybody into the Pool, is also a performer and odd-jobs enthusiast. Her writing has appeared in numerous publications and anthologies including Best American Poetry, the Christian Science Monitor, and Word Warriors: 35 Women Leaders in the Spoken Word Movement. She has contributed to public radio's This American Life and is the cofounder of the monthly Porchlight storytelling series in San Francisco

CHARLES BOCK
reading & booksigning for Beautiful Children Wednesday, February 20 at 7 pm

In his debut novel, Charles Bock mixes incandescent prose with devious humor in capturing life in contemporary Las Vegas. And in doing so, the author provides a glimpse into a microcosm of modern America. Beautiful Children is an odyssey of heartache and redemption - heralding the arrival of a major new writer. "Beautiful Children careens from the seedy to the beautiful, the domestic to the epic, all with huge and exacting heart." - Jonathan Safran Foer

Charles Bock was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. He has an MFA from Bennington College and has received fellowships from Yaddo, UCross, and the Vermont Studio Center. He lives in New York City. Visit the author's website at:
beautifulchildren.net

CHARLES BAXTER
reading & booksigning for The Soul Thief Thursday, February 21 at 7 pm

Charles Baxter - the acclaimed author of The Feast of Love - now gives us one of his most beautifully wrought and unexpected novels. The Soul Thief is a work of fiction at once lyrical and eerie, acutely observant in its sensual and emotional detail, and audaciously metaphysical in its underpinnings. The Soul Thief is a brilliant novel - one that is certain to expand both his already-stellar reputation and ever-growing readership.

Charles Baxter is the author of eight previous works of fiction, including Saul and Patsy, The Feast of Love (nominated for the National Book Award and recently released as a film), Through the Safety Net, and Believers. He has also authored books of poetry and the art of writing.

PHILIP FRADKIN
reading & booksigning for Wallace Stegner and the American West Tuesday, February 26 at 7 pm

As a writer and novelist, as the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning Angle of Repose and National Book Award winning The Spectator Bird, as a teacher and founder of the Stanford Creative Writing Program, and as an advocate of the Western landscape, Wallace Stegner has few equals. Philip Fradkin's new biography, Wallace Stegner and the American West, is the definitive account of one of the most acclaimed and admired writers, teachers, and conservationists of our time.

Philip L. Fradkin shared the Pulitzer Prize as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times and was western editor of Audubon magazine. He is the author of ten previous books, including The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself and Stagecoach: Wells Fargo and the American West. He lives on the coast north of San Francisco.

Dear Friends,

Hear are photos from the Haight [Ashbury] from a friend of a friend of mine.

Enjoy

Cheers, Marliese

http://haight.tribe.net/photos

CARYL FLINN
talk & booksigning for Brass Diva
Thursday, March 6 at 7 pm

Brass Diva: The Life and Legends of Ethel Merman tells the story of how a stenographer from Queens became the queen of the Broadway musical. Mining official and unofficial sources, including interviews with Merman's family as well as her personal scrapbooks, film historian Caryl Flinn unearths new details about Merman's life and finds that behind the high-octane personality was a remarkably pragmatic woman who never lost sight of her roots.

Caryl Flinn lives and works in Tucson, where she is a Professor at the University of Arizona. She is the author of The New German Cinema, Strains of Utopia, and Music and Cinema (co-edited).

CARA BLACK
reading & booksigning for Murder in the Rue de Paradis
Wednesday, March 12 at 7 pm

Murder in the Rue de Paradis is the vivid new novel from San Francisco writer Cara Black. In this eighth Aimée Leduc story, the intrepid investigator is determined to avenge the murder of her one-time lover, an investigative journalist. Leduc's investigation embroils her in Turkish and Kurdish politics and leads to a sleeper jihadist. "She makes Paris come alive as no one else has since Georges Simenon." - Stuart Kaminsky

Cara Black lives in San Francisco with her bookseller husband. She is the author of an acclaimed series of novels set in Paris, including Murder in the Marais, Murder in the Bastille, Murder in Belleville, Murder in the Sentier, and Murder in Clichy. The most recent book in the series, Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis, was a #1 bestseller last year.

DAVID SMAY
talk & booksigning for Swordfishtrombones
Friday, March 14 at 7 pm

Swordfishtrombones, the now legendary 1983 album by Tom Waits, was a watershed recording for the idiosyncratic artist. It not only revived his career, but signaled a significant change in the artist's personal life as well. David Smay's new book, Swordfishtrombones which is part of the 33 1/3 series, tells the story of the making of this remarkable album, once named the second best of all-time.

David Smay is a San Francisco music writer and longtime Booksmith customer whose earlier books include Bubblegum Music Is the Naked Truth: The Dark History of Prepubescent Pop, from the Banana Splits to Britney Spears and Lost in the Grooves: Scram's Capricious Guide to the Music You Missed.

MAESTRO
JAMES REDO'S ART EXHIBIT
MARCH 14th, 15th & 16th
RECEPTION SAT. MARCH 15th 7p.m.
AT - LIVE WORMS ART GALLERY
1345 GRANT STREET
BETWEEN VALLEJO & GREEN
NORTH BEACH, SAN FRANCISCO

Hora Vacuui Exhibit scheduled for Live Worms Gallery

Recent work by one of San Francisco’s most prolific iconic artists, James Redo, will be on display March 14 thru 16 at Live Worm Gallery, at 1345 Grant Avenue, between Vallejo and Green.

Called Hora Vacuui, hich translates to “fear of space,” the exhibition of four works is sponsored by the North Beach Arts Group. The exhibit will be launched with a reception, March 15, beginning at 7:00 pm.

Included in the exhibit will be Redo’s Maya Vision, Ancient Ancestors and Fusion Frisco Dreaming , which express his penchant for rendering dense, muralistic representations of the vibrant life of distant cultures evoked in his Classic and Contemporary forms.

Best known for his thoughtful and emotive work as well as the volume of his output of drawings, paintings and sculptures in various media, Redo is also a published poet, whose universal themes in various media reflects his extensive travel and his fascination with ancient cultures.

Maya Vision honors both the end and beginning of time as interpreted by the Mayan calendar, as it anticipates momentous cosmic change in 2012. Fusion Frisco is a blended anthology of Redo’s daily renderings incorporating a variety of monochromatic drawings that deal with both traditional and contemporary-technological themes.

The North Beach Arts Group has, as its mission, the celebration and promotion of the long tradition of creative expression associated with San Francisco’s legendary district.

AL YOUNG
reading & booksigning for Something About the Blues
Tuesday, March 18 at 7 pm

Like Harlem renaissance poet Langston Hughes, who first popularized the blues as a poetic form, California Poet Laureate Al Young has written about the blues, played the blues and drawn inspiration from the blues. Something About the Blues uses the form as a theme throughout 100 new and previously-published poems. These works evoke the cold, hard city, love gone wrong and blues music itself.

California Poet Laureate Al Young is the author of more than 20 books including Heaven: Collected Poems 1956-1990; Mingus Mingus: Two Memoirs (with Janet Coleman); Drowning in the Sea of Love: Musical Memoirs; and the novels Snakes, Who Is Angelina?, and Sitting Pretty. A popular reader and performer, Young lectures worldwide on literature, music, creativity, and African American culture.

STEPHEN ELLIOTT & CO.
reading & booksigning for Sex For America: Politically Inspired Erotica
Tuesday, March 25 at 7 pm

From Monica Lewinsky's stained dress to Larry Craig's bathroom tendencies, its fair to say sex and politics are inextricably commingled. In the just released anthology, Sex For America: Politically Inspired Erotica, Stephen Elliott brings together writers who explore the intersection of sexual desire and political belief. Along with editor Elliott, joining us for this special event will be contributors Nick Flynn, Anthony Swofford, and Michelle Richmond.

Stephen Elliott, in addition to being a former stripper, is the author of six books including Happy Baby, a finalist for the New York Public Library's Young Lion Award. Originally from Chicago, Elliott was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford, where he now teaches, and is a member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. He is also the founder of the Progressive Reading Series, which helps authors raise money for and participate on behalf of progressive candidates across the country.

ANNE LAMOTT **
reading & booksigning for Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith
Wednesday, March 26 at 7 pm

Through Anne Lamott's many books (including six novels, a best selling parenting memoir, and a popular guide to writing), the subject the author keeps returning to is faith, her deeply personal - "erratic" at times, she says - journey in Christianity. Her latest book, Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith, which is just out in paperback, is her third collection of funny, smart, and prayerful essays-to-live-by.

Anne Lamott is a past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the bestselling author of Bird by Bird, Operating Instructions, Traveling Mercies, and other books. She is a former columnist for Salon and lives in Northern California.

** This Booksmith sponsored event will take place at the All Saints Church (1350 Waller St) in San Francisco. Copies of Anne Lamott's books will be available for purchase at the Booksmith table.

EDWARD DOCX
reading & booksigning for Pravda
Friday, March 28 at 7 pm

Edward Docx, the acclaimed British author of The Calligrapher, has now written Pravda, a saga of secrets and lies in a single family across the generations. Set in London, New York, Paris, and Saint Petersburg - and inspired by the author's own family history, Pravda is a haunting chronicle of suspicion and loss, love and loyalty, and the destructive legacy of deceit.

Born in England, Edward Docx has been literary editor, columnist, and associate editor of the London Express. He is the author of an earlier novel, The Calligrapher, which was named a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. (It was also long-listed for the Mann Booker Prize.) Docx is now a freelance journalist - his work appears in the London Times, Spectator, and other periodicals.

VINCENT CARRELLA
talk & booksigning for Serpent Box
Thursday, April 3 at 7 pm

Serpent Box, a debut novel by northern California writer Vincent Carrella, brings to mind Flannery O'Connor's Wise Blood. Set in post-WWII Appalachia, Serpent Box unfolds against a backdrop of snake handlers, tent revivalists, folk healers, sinners and skeptics. Powerful, compelling, and ambitiously historic, Serpent Box is a vividly rendered, uplifting coming-of-age novel.

Vincent Carrella is a writer and designer of interactive digital media who has created original adventure games and animated web serials as well as characters for DreamWorks, Warner Bros., SaturdayNightLive.com, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and Darkhorse Comics. He lives in northern California.

Writer's Voices for Breast Cancer Action
Thursday, April 3, 2008 - 6:00pm - 7:30 pm

Join Breast Cancer Action and pulitzer-prize winning author Michael Chabon, internationally recognized authors Peggy Orenstein, and Ayelet Waldman, as well as Lambda award-winning novelist Jewelle Gomez as Master of Ceremonies, in BCA's biggest fundraiser of the year.

Authors will read excerpts from their current works and discuss BCA's critical role in the effort to end the breast cancer epidemic. The Booksmith will be selling the participating authors books at the event with proceeds to benefit Breast Cancer Action.

6:00 pm - 7:30 pm - War Memorial and Performing Arts Center - Green Room - 401 Van Ness Avenue - San Francisco - http://bcaction.org/index.php?page=writers-voices

1st Annual Benefit For Haight Ashbury Psychological Services
Friday, April 4, 2008, 5:00-8:00 PM (Dr. Zimbardo will speak at 6:30 PM)
The Women's Building, 3543 18th St. at Valencia, San Francisco

Guest speaker will be Dr. Philip Zimbardo, author of the best selling The Lucifer Effect: How Good People Turn Evil. Dr. Zimbardo hosts the PBS-TV series, Discovering Psychology and is the man behind the famous Stanford Prison Experiment. Dr. Zimbardo will be signing copies of his new book after his talk. Books will be available at the event from The Booksmith. -Reception with wine and hors d'oeuvres -Live Jazz Music -Raffle & Auction

LEWIS BUZBEE & DAVE TILTON
reading & booksigning for first to leave before the sun
Monday, April 7 at 7 pm

Long-time friends Lewis Buzbee and Dave Tilton join together in first to leave before the sun, a collection of two novellas set in California's Central Valley. Buzbee contributes "First to Leave," a fictional account of his family's move from Oklahoma to Modesto in the first years of the Dust Bowl. Dave Tilton contributes "Before the Sun," a tale of growing up in Manteca in the 1960s. first to leave before the sun explores the betrayal of emigration and the emigration of betrayal through the lens of the promise of the Golden State.

Lewis Buzbee is the author of The Yellow Lighted Bookshop (a local bestseller), Fliegelman's Desire, and After the Gold Rush. He lives in San Francisco. Dave Tilton is a writer as well as a solo recording artist, and along with Jason Peri, a member of folk-jazz duo Seventh Triangle.

MARY ROACH
talk & booksigning for Bonk
Tuesday, April 8 at 7 pm

In Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, the best-selling author of Stiff and Spook turns her curiosity and wit to the most alluring subject of all: sex. Mary Roach - "the funniest science writer in the country" -- examines such varied subjects as the penis-camera, coital-imaging, transplants, implants, masturbation, the immaculate orgasm, and the eternal question can a woman find happiness with a machine."

Mary Roach is the author of the national bestsellers Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers and Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. Her writing has appeared in such publications as Salon, GQ, Vogue, and the New York Times magazine. She lives in Oakland.

SLOANE CROSLEY
reading & booksigning for I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Saturday, April 12 at 1 pm

Wry, hilarious, and profoundly genuine, this debut collection of literary essays is a celebration of fallibility and haplessness in all their glory. From despoiling an exhibit at the Natural History Museum to provoking the ire of her first boss to siccing the cops on her mysterious neighbor, Sloane Crosley can do no right despite the best of intentions - or perhaps because of them. Together, the essays in I Was Told There'd Be Cake, introduces a strikingly original voice, chronicling the struggles and unexpected beauty of modern urban life.

Sloane Crosley's essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, New York Observer, the Village Voice, Playboy, Teen Vogue, Salon, Maxim, and The Believer. She is the Associate Director of Publicity at Vintage/Anchor Books in New York.

** This Booksmith co-sponsored event will take place at Orson, 508 4th Street in San Francisco.

SUSAN GRIFFIN
reading & booksigning for Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy
Wednesday, April 16 at 7 pm

In Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy: On Being an American Citizen, Susan Griffin -- poet, feminist, public intellectual -- blends history, cultural criticism, and memoir to discover the essence of democracy -- the essence of our democracy. From the Declaration of Independence to the war in Iraq, from Thomas Jefferson to Jelly Roll Morton, Griffin reflects upon the rise and fall of the American vision of freedom and equality

Susan Griffin has won dozens of awards for her work as a feminist writer, poet, essayist, playwright, and filmmaker. She is the author of more than twenty books including A Chorus of Stones, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award. She is the recipient of an Emmy, a MacArthur grant, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. A resident of Berkeley, she is a frequent contributor to Ms. magazine, the New York Times Book Review, and numerous other publications.

NATHANIEL RICH
reading & booksigning for The Mayor's Tongue
Friday, April 18 at 7 pm

"I read The Mayor's Tongue with ever-increasing delight, rooting with all my heart for the young protagonist on his near-mythic quest. This is an elegantly-structured, brilliantly-told novel, by turns terrifying, touching, and wildly funny, and always generous and magical. The Mayor's Tongue, is about how we talk to each other and how make-believe helps us get on with our lives; most of all, it's about love. Kudos to Nathaniel Rich, who has created a brave book, a novel brimming with brio." - Stephen King

Nathaniel Rich has published essays and criticism in The New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Book Review, The Los Angeles Times Book Review, The Nation, The New Republic, and Slate. He is an editor at The Paris Review and author of San Francisco Noir.

You are cordially invited to join the monthly Haight-Ashbury Peace Vigil, this Friday night, April 18, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. We will be on Masonic, between Fell and Oak, San Francisco. We have a one-issue focus--end the war in Iraq. Although our purpose is serious, our crowd has been lively. We will have signs and candles for you, but you are welcome to bring your own. Pictures from our previous vigils can be seen here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/haightpeacevigil/

PATRICK MCGRATH
reading & booksigning for Trauma
Monday, April 21 at 7 pm

Admirers of Patrick McGrath's work know what to expect from his fiction. The grotesque and the macabre dominate his work. Trauma -- his new novel -- is no exception. In an unreliable first person narrative, this disturbing new novel includes aspects of mental illness and sexual obsession, and in general, a distressing ambiance. All in all, it's highly recommended and jolly good fun.

Patrick McGrath was born in London and grew up near Broadmoor Hospital, where for many years his father was medical superintendent. McGrath's work is described by some as gothic. He is the author of six novels including Spider, which was adapted for the screen in 2002; Dr Haggard's Disease; and Asylum, which was shortlisted for the 1996 Guardian Fiction Prize and is currently being made into a feature film. McGrath is the co-editor, with Bradford Morrow, of The New Gothic. He lives in New York City and London, and is married to British actress Maria Aitken.

MELANIE ABRAMS
reading & booksigning for Playing
Tuesday, April 22 at 7 pm

Melanie Abrams's debut novel is a provocative tale of love, betrayal, and how one young woman's unconventional sexual reawakening uncovers the most guarded parts of her past. Rapturous, illuminating, and emotionally charged, Playing is also an unflinching look at the irrevocable consequences of giving in to our most secret passions, and the freedom that comes with self-knowledge.

Melanie Abrams received her MFA from UNC Greensboro and teaches writing at UC Berkley. She is married to the novelist Vikram Chandra.

SUSAN JACOBY
reading & booksigning for The Age of American Unreason
Thursday, April 24 at 7 pm

Americans are dumb. We are a lazy and credulous public, prone to following ignorant political and religious leaders. In The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby dissects a culture at odds with both its heritage of Enlightenment reason and with contemporary secular knowledge and science. With wit, Jacoby surveys an anti-rationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought." This provocative new book challenges Americans to face a painful truth about what our flight from reason has cost us as individuals and as a nation.

Susan Jacoby is the author of seven previous books, including Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, which was named a Notable Book of 2004 by the Washington Post and Times Literary Supplement. Jacoby is a frequent contributor to many publications including The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.

KEITH GESSEN
reading & booksigning for All the Sad Young Literary Men
Tuesday, April 29 at 7 pm

All the Sad Young Literary Men is a charming, yet scathing portrait of young adulthood at the opening of the twenty-first century. Keith Gessen's debut novel charts the lives of Sam, Mark, and Keith as they over-think their college years, under-think their love lives, and struggle through the encouragement of the women who love and despise them to find a semblance of maturity, responsibility, and even literary fame.

Keith Gessen was born in Russia and raised in Massachusetts. A contributor to The New Yorker, New York Times Book Review, and New York magazine, he is a founding editor of the literary magazine n+1. Gessen is the translator of the NBCC Award-winning Voices from Chernobyl, the forthcoming Penguin Classics edition of Ludmila Petruskevskaya's Scary Fairy Tales, and is writing the introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Mikail Bulgakov's A Dead Man's Memoir.

MARK ENGLER
talk & booksigning for "How to Rule the World"
Monday, May 5 at 7 pm

"As the world readies to heave a collective sigh of relief upon George W. Bush's exit from the White House, "How to Rule the World" is a caution against complacency. Mark Engler offers a timely reminder that before Bush's boots and bombs there was Clinton's corporate 'consensus' - more soothing perhaps but no more sustainable than the neocons' disastrous militarism. He then makes a case that there lies a third choice: democracy. Impressively researched and sharply argued, How to Rule the World is an essential handbook not for the few who do rule the world but for the many who should." - Greg Grandin, author of Empire's Workshop

Mark Engler is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. He is also a New York City-based journalist. His articles have appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, Newsday, Dissent, In These Times, Salon.com, and MotherJones.com.

CATHLEEN SCHINE
reading & booksigning for "The New Yorkers"
Tuesday, May 6 at 7 pm

Inspired by Cathleen Schine's adoption of a profoundly troubled dog named Buster, "The New Yorkers" is a novel of love, longing, and overcoming the shyness that leashes us. On a quiet block near Central Park, compelled to meet by their canine companions, five lonely city dwellers find one another. Over the course of four seasons, they emerge from their apartments in snow, rain, or glorious sunshine to make friends and sometimes even fall in love. A love letter to a city full of surprises, The New Yorkers is an enchanting comedy of manners (with dogs!) from one of our most beloved writers.

Cathleen Schine is the author of "The Love Letter" and "Rameau's Niece," among other novels. She has contributed to The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine, and The New York Times Book Review.

FELICIA SULLIVAN
talk & booksigning for "The Sky Isn't Visible from Here"
Wednesday, May 7 at 7 pm

Felicia Sullivan's volatile, beautiful, drug-addicted mother disappeared the night she graduated from college. In "The Sky Isn't Visible from Here" Sullivan, who grew up on the streets of Brooklyn, now looks back on her childhood lived among drug dealers, users, and substitute fathers. She became her mother's keeper, taking her to the hospital when she overdosed, withstanding her narcissistic rages, succumbing to the abuse of so-called stepfathers, and always wondering why her mother would never reveal the truth about the father she'd never met. This is a memoir brave and beautiful.

Felicia C. Sullivan is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best American Essays notable. Her work has appeared in the Huffington Post, Mississippi Review, and Pindeldyboz - and in such anthologies as Homewrecker: An Atlas of Illicit Loves and Money Changes Everything. Sullivan was the recipient of the 2005 Tin House memoir fellowship, and in 2001, she founded the critically acclaimed literary journal Small Spiral Notebook. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

DALE PENDELL
reading & booksigning for "Walking with Nobby"
Tuesday, May 13 at 7 pm

Norman O. Brown (1913-2002) was an American intellectual, academic, and author of wide-ranging interests and influence. In "Walking with Nobby: Conversations with Norman O. Brown," the teacher's one time student - the acclaimed ethnobotanist Dale Pendell - records a series of conversations on such topics as paganism and world religions, psychoanalysis, modern and ancient cultures, Dionysus, Marx, and Freud.

Dale Pendell is a poet, software engineer, longtime student of ethnobotany and the author of the acclaimed Pharmako trilogy - a literary, shamanic, and pharmacological study of psychoactive plants. He has led workshops on ethnobotany and ethnopoetics for the Naropa Institute and the Botanical Preservation Corps.

FARHAD MANJOO
reading & booksigning for "True Enough"
Wednesday, May 14 at 7 pm

In 2005, Stephen Colbert catapulted the word "truthiness" - the notion of an idea feeling true without any backup evidence - into the public consciousness. Salon.com writer Farhad Manjoo expands upon this concept in "True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society", a perceptive analysis of the status of truth in the digital age - as well as an exploration of how biases push both liberals and conservatives to interpret news in a way that accords with their personal versions of "reality."

Farhad Manjoo manages Machinist, a daily technology news blog at Salon.com, where he also writes frequently on journalism, politics, and new media.

CHUCK PALAHNIUK **
talk & booksigning for "Snuff"
Wednesday, May 28 at 7 pm

Chuck Palahniuk's new novel, "Snuff", is the story of a gargantuan gangbang. It tells the tale of an aging porn queen who intends to put an exclamation point on her career by having sex on film with 600 men in one day. The story begins with Mr. 600. The perspective then shifts to Mr. 72, before we encounter Mr. 137. Wild, funny, and thoroughly researched - Snuff goes where no literary novel has gone before. Who else but Chuck Palahniuk would dare do such a thing?

Chuck Palahniuk is the bestselling author of seven novels: "Haunted," " Lullaby," "Fight Club" - which was made into a popular film by director David Fincher - "Diary," "Survivor," "Invisible Monsters," and "Choke" - which will be released later this year as a film starring Sam Rockwell and Angelica Houston.

** This Booksmith sponsored event will take place at the Sundance Kabuki Theater (1881 Post Street) in San Francisco. Tickets are on sale at The Booksmith.

TIM WINTON
reading & booksigning for "Breath"
Saturday, May 31 at 7 pm

Tim Winton is Australia's best-loved novelist. His new work, "Breath", is an extraordinary evocation of an adolescence spent resisting complacency, testing one's limits against nature, finding like-minded souls, and discovering just how far one breath will take you. It's a story of extremes sport and extreme emotions. "Breath is a coming-of-age novel written with Tim Winton's customary tenderness and vivid sense of place and psychological truth." - Colm Toibin

Tim Winton was born in Perth, Western Australia, and is the preeminent Australian novelist of his generation. He has written twenty books, including the bestselling novels "Cloudstreet," "The Riders" (shortlisted for the Booker Prize), and "Dirt Music."

MIKE FARRELL
talk & booksigning for "Just Call Me Mike"
Tuesday, June 10 at 7 pm

After gaining renown for his role in the much-loved television series M*A*S*H, actor Mike Farrell embarked upon a more arduous path as a human rights advocate. "Just Call Me Mike: A Journey to Actor and Activist" is his story. As amply demonstrated in this memoir, Farrell's celebrity has put him in the unique position to witness and participate in the efforts of peace-workers both at home and throughout the world.

Best known as an actor and for his eight years on M*A*S*H and five seasons on Providence, Mike Farrell is also a writer, director and producer. Farrell has served on human rights and peace delegations to many countries around the world. As President of Death Penalty Focus, he speaks, writes, and coordinates efforts to stop executions.

ANDREW SEAN GREER
reading & booksigning for "The Story of a Marriage"
Thursday, June 12 at 7 pm

As he demonstrated in "The Confessions of Max Tivoli," Andrew Sean Greer can spin a touching narrative based on an intriguing premise. His new book - set in San Francisco in the early 1950s - is "The Story of a Marriage". "This is a haunting book of breathtaking beauty and restraint. Greer's tone-perfect prose conjures an unforgettable woman who exists both within and somehow above the stifling class, racial and sexual constraints of 1950s America." - Dave Eggers

Andrew Sean Greer is the acclaimed, best-selling author of "The Confessions of Max Tivoli," the story collection "How It Was for Me," and the novel "The Path of Minor Planets." He lives in San Francisco, California, not far from The Booksmith.

ELLEN SUSSMAN & Co. **
talk & booksigning for "Dirty Words"
Thursday, June 12 at 7 pm

"Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex" is a witty reference, a playful take on bedroom talk, and a smart and often funny compendium of entries written by notable contemporary writers. From sexual relationships (monogamy, one-night stand, manage-a-trois) to sexual positions (doggie style, 69), from age-old practices (prostitution) to contemporary twists (cybersex), this alphabetical encyclopedia includes everything you need to know about the language of love and lust.

** Join us for an adults only evening with editor Ellen Sussman and local contributors Michelle Richmond, Meredith Maran, Helena Echlin, Stephen Elliott, and Katharine Noel. This Booksmith sponsored event will take place at the Edinburgh Castle (950 Geary Street).

RUSSELL TARG
reading & booksigning for "Do You See What I See?"
Friday, June 13 at 7 pm

"Do You See What I See?: Memoirs of a Blind Biker" is the story of a visually impaired physicist, Russell Targ, who sees beyond perception to help readers find meaning. Targ has been visually handicapped since childhood and yet has performed groundbreaking research in lasers and optics. He is grounded in the world of science and yet helped created the Cold War program that became the real X-Files - the CIA and NASA-sponsored work in "remote viewing" that has only recently been declassified. This remarkable memoir reads like a cultural history of the last half of the twentieth century as Targ befriends the likes of Ayn Rand, Alan Greenspan, Alan Alda, and brother-in-law chess champion Bobby Fisher!

Russell Targ is an American physicist and author, an ESP researcher, and pioneer in the earliest development of the laser. Currently retired, Targ enjoys motorcycling in the desert (even though legally blind) and studying Dzogchen Buddhism. He lives in Palo Alto, California.

DONNA GEORGE STOREY & LIZA DALBY
reading & booksigning
Tuesday, June 17 at 7 pm

Join us for an evening of Japanese-inspired sensual literature with local authors Donna George Storey and Liza Dalby. Inspired by Ihara Saikaku's 17th-century satiric novel of the pleasure quarters, Storey's "Amorous Woman" is the tale of an American woman's love affair with Japan that gives readers a rather intimate view of the country that few Westerners ever see. Dalby, author of "Geisha" and other books on Japanese culture, is the author most recently of "East Wind Melts the Ice: A Memoir through the Seasons".

Donna George Storey holds a Ph.D in Japanese literature from Stanford. She is the translator of "Child of Darkness: Yoko and Other Stories," by Furui Yoshikichi. Her erotic fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies including Best American Erotica and Best Women's Erotica. Liza Dalby is a writer and anthropologist specializing in Japanese culture. She is the acclaimed author of "Geisha" and other books, and was a consultant for Rob Marshall's film "Memoirs of a Geisha."

ED PARK
talk & booksigning for "Personal Days"
Wednesday, June 18 at 7 pm

In an unnamed company, the employees are getting restless as everything around them unravels. There's Pru, the former grad student turned spreadsheet drone; Laars, the hysteric whose work anxiety stalks him in teeth-grinding dreams; and Jack II, who distributes unwanted backrubs; a.k.a., jackrubs to his co-workers. Then, the firings begin. Rich with Orwellian doublespeak, filled with sabotage and romance, Ed Park's literary debut, "Personal Days", is a comic delight and a narrative tour de force, not to mention the Great American Novel (office edition 2008).

Ed Park is a founding editor of The Believer and a former editor of the Voice Literary Supplement. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review and many other publications. He lives in Manhattan, where he publishes The New-York Ghost.

PETER HEEHS
reading & booksigning for "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo"
Thursday, June 19 at 7 pm

Since his death in 1950, Sri Aurobindo has been known primarily as a yogi and a philosopher of spiritual evolution. His years spent in yogic retirement were preceded by nearly four decades of rich public and intellectual work. Peter Heehs, one of the founders of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, is the first to relate all the aspects of the yogi's life. The result is "The Lives of Sri Aurobindo", the most comprehensive, thorough, and balanced study to date of Sri Aurobindo Ghose's remarkable life and thought. This special event will be introduced by Esalen co-founder Michael Murphy.

Peter Heehs was born and educated in the United States but has lived in India since 1971. One of the founders of the Sri Aurobindo Ashram Archives, he is currently a member of the editorial board of the Complete Works of Sri Aurobindo, and has published many books and articles.

SASA STANISIC
reading & booksigning for "How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone"
Friday, June 20 at 7 pm

Sasa Stanisic's sensational debut novel, "How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone", is the moving story of a young child caught up in the Bosnian conflict who finds the secret to survival in language and stories. This European bestseller thrums with the joy of storytelling. "A great rattlebag of a book that's funny and heartfelt and brazen and true. Find some space on your shelf beside Aleksandar Hemon, Jonathan Safran Foer, William Vollmann, and David Foster Wallace." - Colum McCann

Sasa Stanisic was born in Visegard in Bosnia, but escaped to Germany at the age of 14 after the Serbian army invaded the city. He is the offspring of a mixed family - his mother is Muslim and his father is Serbian. His short stories have been published in anthologies and literary magazines and he won the German Ingeborg Bachmann competition for new authors.

KIARA BRINKMAN
reading & booksigning for "Up High in the Trees"
Monday, June 23 at 7 pm

Told in brief, poetic vignettes of luminious prose, "Up High in the Trees" is a moving evocation of the inner life of a most unusual boy, Sebby Lane. This remarkable debut novel (just out in softcover) also introduces an original and quietly powerful new writer, Kiara Brinkman. " . . . captures, pitch-perfectly, the voice of one eight-year old boy. That the story is also compelling, beautifully written, humorous, and heartbreaking makes it necessary reading." - Cristina Garcia.

Kiara Brinkman grew up in the Midwest and in California. Her writing has appeared in McSweeney's, Pindeldyboyz, and other publications. She has been working with children and books her whole life.

JENNIFER SEY
reading & booksigning for "Chalked Up"
Tuesday, June 24 at 7 pm

Jennifer Sey began competing in gymnastics at the age of six, and went on to become 1986 National Gymnastics Champion and seven-time national team member. Now, she has authored a cautionary tale, " Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams". This is the remarkably candid true story of a gymnastics champion whose lifelong dream was to compete in the Olympics, until anorexia, injuries, and coaching abuses nearly destroyed her.

Jennifer Sey is a graduate of Stanford University, Sey was named one of the "Top 40 Marketers under 40" by Advertising Age in 2006 for her work at Levi Strauss & Co. She has also written and produced two short films. She lives with her husband and two sons in San Francisco.

SAN FRANCISCO TAPE MUSIC CENTER **
reading & booksigning for "The San Francisco Tape Music Center"
Wednesday, June 25 at 7 pm

"The San Francisco Tape Music Center: 1960s Counterculture and the Avant-Garde" tells the story of an influential group of creative artists who connected music to technology during a legendary time in California's cultural history. As an integral part of the San Francisco "scene," the San Francisco Tape Music Center developed new art forms through collaborations between composers and the San Francisco Actor's Workshop, San Francisco Mime Troupe, Ann Halprin Dancers' Workshop, Canyon Cinema, and others. Told through vivid personal accounts, interviews, and retrospective essays by leading scholars and artists, this work - capturing the heady experimental milieu of the sixties - is the first comprehensive history of the San Francisco Tape Music Center.

** Don't miss this historic event, which will take place at the Park Branch Library (1863 Page Street). Planned are a panel discussion, demonstration of the Tape Music Center's original Buchla Box, and a brief nostaligic performance of the "Riley Delay." Participants include Morton Subotnick, Terry Riley, Ramon Sender, Bill Maginnis, David Bernstein, and Maggi Payne. Stu Dempster will dijeridu the room. A booksigning will follow.

TODD KOMARNICKI
reading & booksigning for "War: A Novel"
Thursday, June 26 at 7 pm

A soldier is alone. He doesn't know where he is or how he got here. All he does know is that he is at war. But who is the enemy? Surrounded by a ruined city, without a compass to guide him or a clear mission to fulfill, the soldier must rely on what he has left to survive. Using only memory, his warrior's skills, and his own, suddenly fierce humanity, he will construct a map to lead him toward what he desperately hopes will be his escape. "War", the new novel by Todd Komnarnicki, is the story of one man's journey deep into the heart of violence.

Todd Komarnicki is a screenwriter, producer, director, and novelist, and the author of the "Famine." Active in Hollywood, Komarnicki was the producer of "Elf," the 2003 Will Ferrell comedy. This event marks his second appearance at The Booksmith.

MONICA FERRELL
talk & booksigning for The Answer Is Always Yes
Tuesday, July 8 at 7:30 pm

Monica Ferrell’s exuberant new novel - described as a pyrotechnic debut whose prose recalls Tom Robbins - is The Answer Is Always Yes. By turns a fierce, funny coming-of-age story and a teasing work of literary suspense this just published work traces the precipitous rise and fall of a teenage impresario at the zenith of the recent New York club scene. Will social outcast Magic Matt the Jay Gatsby of his set achieve his ambition to be accepted?

Monica Ferrell’s poems have appeared in the New York Review of Books, Paris Review, and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn and is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

KATIE HAFNER
reading & booksigning for A Romance on Three Legs
Wednesday, July 9 at 7:30 pm

Glenn Gould was one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century as well as a musician famous for his many eccentric habits. A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano tells the story of the Gould’s greatest obsession of all, a Steinway concert grand known as CD 318. Katie Hafner’s fascinating and detailed new book is a must-read for classical music buffs, armchair musicologists, Gould fanatics, and even those rare few who never heard a note Gould played.

Katie Hafner is a correspondent for the New York Times and the author or coauthor of four books, including Where Wizards Stay Up Late, Cyberpunk, The Well, and The House at the Bridge. She lives in the Bay Area.

MICHELLE RICHMOND
talk & booksigning for No One You Know
Tuesday, July 15 at 7:30 pm

Michelle Richmond dazzled readers and critics alike with her luminous novel The Year of Fog. Now, Richmond returns with an intensely emotional, multi-layered family drama - a woman’s search for her sister’s killer that spirals into a journey of secrets, revelations, and damaged lives. No One You Know is a novel about the stories and lies that strangers, lovers and families tell - and the secrets we keep even from ourselves.

Michelle Richmond is the author of The Year of Fog, Dream of the Blue Room, and The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress. Her stories and essays have appeared in Glimmer Train, Playboy, The Oxford American, and elsewhere. She has been a James Michener Fellow, and her fiction has received the Associated Writing Programs Award and the Mississippi Review Prize. A native of Mobile, Alabama, Richmond lives in San Francisco.

JENNIFER TRAIG
reading & booksigning for Well Enough Alone
Wednesday, July 16 at 7:30 pm

From Bay Area writer Jennifer Traig, the critically acclaimed author of Devil in the Details, comes a hilarious new book, Well Enough Alone. Both a first-person account of life as a hypochondriac as well as a literary tour of hypochondria past and present, Well Enough Alone is a singular book on being worried sick oops, we mean worried well, in all of its anxious, gruesome, hysterical and ultimately life-changing detail.

Jennifer Traig is the author of Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood as well as numerous craft and children's books. She is also a contributor to The Forward and McSweeney’s. Traig holds a Ph.D. in literature.

DAPHNE GOTTLIEB
reading & booksigning for Kissing Dead Girls & Fucking Daphne
Thursday, July 17 at 7:30 pm

Fusing pornography and postfeminist theory, transcript and tell-all - the playful, penetrating poems and stories found in Daphne Gottlieb’s Kissing Dead Girls reach off the page in search of what it is to be known, both to the masses and to the "other." Similarly, the author’s just published Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories and Fictions, an edited collection with work about the author, blurs the lines between reality and fiction and begs the question "who is the real Daphne?"

Daphne Gottlieb is a San Francisco-based performance poet and author. She is the editor of "Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader," as well as the author of the poetry book "Final Girl" (winner of the Audre Lorde Award in Poetry in 2003), "Why Things Burn" (winner of a 2001 Firecracker Alternative Book Award), and "Pelt," and the graphic novel "Jokes and the Unconscious" with artist Diane DiMassa. Her work has been translated into Turkish and Greek, and has inspired theatrical adaptations and DJ-remixes.

MICHELLE GAGNON & SIMON WOOD
talk & booksigning for Boneyard & We All Fall Down
Friday, July 18 at 7:30 pm

The Booksmith welcomes two local crime fiction writers. Michelle Gagnon is the author of Boneyard, the riveting story of the hunt for a serial killer and their copycat nemesis. Simon Wood is the author of We All Fall Down, a clever page-turner set among high-tech workers in the Bay Area. Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your seats.

Michelle Gagnon is a former modern dancer, dog walker, bartender, freelance journalist, personal trainer, model, and Russian supper club performer. To the delight of her parents, she eventually gave up all these jobs for an infinitely more stable and lucrative position as a crime fiction writer. Simon Wood was born in England and was an engineer by training. He now lives in San Francisco and writes full time. Wood is the author of four previous novels.

DEBORAH GRABIEN
reading & booksigning for Rock & Roll Never Forgets
Tuesday, July 22 at 7:30 pm

JP Kinkaid, aging guitarist for a long-lived rock band, has got more than a few things to deal with including the fact that a ruthless tabloid biographer is planning a tell-all history of his group. Murder, malfeasance and music ensue in Rock & Roll Never Forgets, the ultimate rock music mystery. Deborah Grabien San Francisco crime fiction author and rock music insider - offers readers an all-access, back-stage pass into the lives and loves of musicians in this, her latest book.

Deborah Grabien is a cook, guitar player, cat rescuer, traveler, and all-around rocker chick. She also writes a little. Grabien is the author of the Haunted Ballad mystery series and five stand-alone novels. Additionally, many of her short stories and essays have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Grabien lives in San Francisco, heads back to London and Paris whenever she can, and honestly believes you’re never too old to rock and roll.

JACK HIRSCHMAN
reading & booksigning for All That's Left
Wednesday, July 23 at 7:30 pm

The most recent volume in the San Francisco Poet Laureate Series, All That's Left, is a powerful collection of poems by street poet turned city laureate Jack Hirschman. The volume opens with the poet’s autobiographical inaugural address, which traces his career as a poet, editor, translator, and agitator for political and social causes. Along with more personal poems, All That's Left includes a homage to fallen comrades like Bob Kaufman and Jack Kerouac.

Jack Hirschman is a poet and social activist who has written more than 50 volumes of poetry. Dismissed from teaching at UCLA for anti-war activities in 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1973, and at present is the city's poet laureate. Hirschman translates nine languages and edited the seminal Artuad Anthology.

ALAN BLACK
reading & booksigning for Kick the Balls: An Offensive Suburban Odyssey
Thursday, July 24 at 7:30 pm

When Alan Black was a child growing up in Glasgow, Scotland, soccer - or what he called fitba’ - was the be all and end all. His experience was not the little league, boys-of-summer stuff. For Black, it was life and death. Now middle-aged and living in California, the ex-pat manager of the Edinburgh Castle finds himself coaching a team of eight-year-olds in his beloved sport -and nothing is going right. Kick the Balls: An Offensive Suburban Odyssey tells the story.

Alan Black is the literary manager of San Francisco’s famous bookish venue, the Edinburgh Castle Pub. His work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon.com, and The Christian Science Monitor. Black is cofounder of the Scottish Cultural and Arts Foundation and coeditor of Public House, an anthology. This is his first book.

JESS WINFIELD
reading & booksigning for My Name Is Will
Tuesday, July 29 at 7:30 pm

Original, witty, and often laugh out loud hilarious Jess Winfield’s My Name Is Will is the tale of two Shakespeares. Separated in time and place, the lives of William and Willie begin to intersect in curious ways, from harrowing encounters with the law (and a few ex-girlfriends) to dubious experiments with mind-altering substances. Their misadventures might be dismissed as youthful folly. But wise or foolish, the choices they make will shape the Shakespeare each is destined to become.

As a founding member of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, Jess Winfield co-created the full-length show" The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)," which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1987 and became an international sensation, leading to multiple world tours and engagements. After leaving the Reduced Shakespeare Company, Winfield spent ten years writing and producing award-winning cartoons for the Walt Disney Company. He left Disney to write this, his first novel.

BROKE-ASS STUART
talk & booksigning for Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco
Friday, August 1 at 7:30 pm

In Broke-Ass Stuart's Guide to Living Cheaply in San Francisco, thrifty local and cult fave Broke-Ass Stuart uncovers city secrets for the young, the beautiful, and the broke. This gritty, anecdotal and often funny guide shows locals and tourists what to do and where to stay, eat, and drink without breaking the bank. " . . . a fun read for anyone on a budget . . . both amusing and wise." - SF Bay Guardian.

Broke-Ass Stuart has been called "an SF cult hero" (SF Bay Guardian), "Best Local Writer" (SF Weekly) and "the pimp daddy of budget travel" (Everywhere magazine). He is the publisher of a popular zine, has written for Lonely Planet, and is the author of the forthcoming Broke-Ass Stuart's Guide to Living Cheaply in New York.

JONATHAN EVISON
reading & booksigning for All About Lulu
Tuesday, August 5 at 7:30 pm

"Anyone who has ever experienced obsessive love - or wanted to experience obsessive love - will find themselves at home in Jonathan Evison's All About Lulu. The voice is fresh as this morning's rain, the emotions are universal. Read this book and realize you aren't the only one knocked stupid for love." - Tim Sandlin

Jonathan Evison has worked in a wide variety of jobs - from rotten tomato server to syndicated radio talk show host. His comedy show, Shaken Not Stirred, was nominated for two Peabody Awards. He has received two Silver Microphones, and two Communicators, and was frequently nominated for the Soundie Award.

SHAWN TAYLOR
talk & booksigning for Big Black Penis
Friday, August 8 at 7:30 pm

Being black and male is serious business, but its many absurd contradictions are often laugh-out loud. In Big Black Penis: Misadventures in Race and Masculinity, Bay Area writer Shawn Taylor deftly leads us on a no-holds-barred tour of his masculine development, while acknowledging some deep but often hilarious truths about black men. Unapologetic and sharply critical, Taylor brings the subject of black masculinity into the 21st century.

Shawn Taylor is the author of People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. He is a spoken-word performer and writer whose focus is gender, cultural identity, folklore, ancestry, and ritual. His solo performance, "Slower than a Speeding Bullet," was selected as the AOL.com pick of the week.

ANNA WINGER
reading & booksigning for This Must Be the Place
Thursday, August 21 at 7:30 pm

Anna Winger's debut novel, This Must Be the Place, is the moving story of friendship between neighbors in a Berlin apartment building. Walter is a fading actor and Hope is a young married woman; both are coming to terms with the past. "As smart and cosmopolitan as the twenty-first-century Berlin she chronicles so well . . . an essential love story for our confused and difficult times. Funny, touching, and unforgettable." - Gary Shteyngart

Anna Winger grew up in Kenya, Massachusetts, and Mexico as the daughter of Harvard University anthropologists. Today, she is a professional photographer and the producer of the "Berlin Stories," which is heard on NPR Worldwide. Her journalism has been published in The New York Times Magazine, and other publications.

THORINA ROSE
reading & booksigning for The Heartbreak Diet
Friday, August 22 at 7:30 pm

Thorina Rose's beautifully illustrated memoir (akin to a graphic novel) charts the unexpected dissolution of her marriage and the struggles and adventures of single life. With humor and insight, The Heartbreak Diet: A Story of Family, Fidelity, and Starting Over blossoms into a moving and entertaining meditation on fidelity, family, and finding one's way. " . . . funny, poignant, and wise." - Laura Fraser

Thorina Rose is a San Francisco-based artist whose work has been featured in the books Office Kama Sutra and Lovers' Yoga, as well as Travel & Leisure and numerous other publications. She lives not far from The Booksmith.

JOE NICK PATOSKI
talk & booksigning for Willie Nelson: An Epic Life
Tuesday, September 2 at 7:30 pm

Join Joe Nick Patoski (and special guests& outlaws*) as he discusses his exceptional new biography Willie Nelson: An Epic Life. Drawing on over 100 interviews with Willie and his family, friends and band, Patoski tells the country music icon's story from humble Depression-era roots to his musical education in Texas honky-tonks and his flirtations with whiskey, women, and weed. "Patoski has here conjured a biography . . . a book whose evocations of time, place, and spirit are as masterful as they are enthralling." - Nick Tosches

Joe Nick Patoski has written about Willie Nelson for publications including No Depression, Texas Monthly, Rolling Stone, TV Guide, and the Austin American-Statesman. The co-author and author of biographies of Stevie Ray Vaughan and Selena and a contributor to the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, Patoski lives in the Texas Hill Country. [Among those joining us for this special event will be Willie Nelson's harmonica player, Mickey Raphael aka "The Reader in the Band," who will talk about Willie, music and the charms of the road.]

MARC LECARD
reading & booksigning for Tiny Little Troubles
Monday, September 8 at 7:30 pm

From Marc Lecard, the critically acclaimed author of Vinnie's Head, comes a fast-paced crime story about an eccentric thug chasing after a piece of nano-technology and the scientist that created it. Set locally, Tiny Little Troubles is a fast-paced crime story (recalling Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen) in which the protagonist, a brilliant San Francisco scientist, encounters a whole world of trouble from the smallest of sources.

Marc Lecard is the author of an earlier novel, Vinnie's Head, as well as short stories published in various anthologies. He lives in Oakland, California with his wife, 3,000 books (at last count), a roomful of musical instruments, and a growing collection of obsolete computers.

JANIS IAN
talk & booksigning for Society's Child: My Autobiography
Tuesday, September 9 at 7:30 pm

Janis Ian has inspired generations of fans, and in Society's Child: My Autobiography, the Grammy Award winner shares the fascinating story of her life in music. In this moving memoir, Ian tells the story behind her controversial 1966 hit "Society's Child" (written when the musician was just 15 years old) and the equally acclaimed 1975 smash "At Seventeen," which earned two Grammys and five nominations.

Janis Ian is a Grammy Award-winning songwriter, singer, multi-instrumental musician, columnist, and science fiction fan-turned-author. She had a highly successful singing career in the 1960s and 1970s, and has continued recording into the 21st century. Ian has been a regular columnist for and continuing contributor to the LGBT magazine The Advocate.

NEAL STEPHENSON
multimedia event for Anathem
Tuesday, September 9

New York Times best-selling author Neal Stephenson's new book, Anathem, is being released at a singular event in San Francisco on September 9, 2008. Presented by The Long Now Foundation, whose 10,000 Year Clock project inspired Stephenson's new work, this evening with the author will include live performances of music created for the book, readings by Neal Stephenson, conversations with Stewart Brand and Danny Hillis (founders of The Long Now Foundation), a demonstration of shovel-fu, and a chance to celebrate this new work in the Gothic splendor of The Regency. Please note: this is a ticketed event which will take place at The Regency, 1320 Van Ness @ Sutter in San Francisco. For tickets and further information, see

http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/42323

Neal Stephenson is an American writer known primarily for his science fiction works in the post-cyberpunk genre (with a penchant for explorations of society, mathematics, cryptography, and the history of science). He also writes non-fiction articles about technology in publications such as Wired Magazine. Neal Stephenson is the author of eight previous novels and other works, including such groundbreaking books as Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon.

LILY KOPPEL
reading & booksigning for The Red Leather Diary
Wednesday, September 10 at 7:30 pm

The Red Leather Diary tells the true story of a teenage girl's discarded, Depression-era journal rescued from a dumpster in modern day Manhattan and eventually, and remarkably, reunited with its now elderly author. Found by a young writer, journalist Lily Koppel, who read its vivid entries as if letters to herself, this artifact of a forgotten time reveals the lost world of a New York teenager a young woman who dared to follow her dreams.

Lily Koppel writes for the New York Times and other publications. She lives in New York City. For more on her and her book, see

http://www.redleatherdiary.com/

TAMIM ANSARY
reading & booksigning for West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American
Thursday, September 11 at 7:30 pm

The Booksmith and One City One Book: San Francisco Reads celebrate West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American, by Tamim Ansary. This memoir of growing up in pre-Taliban Afghanistan also recounts the author's travels through North Africa and the Middle East as well as a personal journey through two cultures in conflict. Please join us for this special event.

Tamim Ansary writes and lectures about Afghanistan, Islamic history, democracy, schooling and learning, fiction and the writing process. He also directs the San Francisco Writers Workshop, the oldest continuous free writers workshop in America and the hub of a growing community of Bay Area writers.

BILL SANTIAGO
talk & booksigning for Pardon My Spanglish
Monday, September 15 at 7:30 pm

Come hear comedian Bill Santiago read from his new book, Pardon My Spanglish: One Man's Guide to Speaking the Habla, and perform some of the hilarious Spanglish standup from his Comedy Central special. Afterwards, share your own personal experiences with Spanglish (featuring twice the vocabulary and half the grammar). Porque, because laughs for Latinos and the Latino-curious are guaranteed!

Bill Santiago is a nationally known comedian who has appeared on Conan O'Brien and Comedy Central. He became a standup comic after narrowly escaping a career as a widely published journalist, facing the fact that as a comedian he was funny, but as a reporter he was a joke. Bill Santiago's latest show, The Funny of (Latin) Dance, will be premiering at the Brava Theater Center on September 20th.

LYNDA BARRY
talk & booksigning for What It Is
Thursday, September 18 at 7:30 pm

If there were a list of 1,000, or 100, or 10, or even 1 author to see before you die at the top of that list should be Lynda Barry. She is a comic book genius - a comix goddess, and one of the most delightful and inspiring author-artists you'll ever meet. Her new book, What It Is, is a deliciously drawn, insightful, and engaging take on the process of artistic creation. "Barry is not just a storyteller, she's an evangelist who urges people to pick up a pen - or a brush . . . and look at their own lives with fresh, forgiving eyes." - San Francisco Chronicle

Cartoonist, novelist, playwright and Booksmith favorite Lynda Barry is the creator of the syndicated strip "Ernie Pooks Comeek," featuring the incomparable Marlys and Freddy. Her books include Cruddy, One Hundred Demons and The Good Times Are Killing Me.

IRVINE WELSH
talk & booksigning for Crime
Friday, September 19 at 7:30 pm

In Crime, Scottish-born author Irvine Welsh brings his unique brand of literary mayhem to the glitzed-out, drugs-and-danger state of Florida. This just published novel tells the tale of Ray Lennox (a supporting character from the novel Filth) who is cast adrift in the Sunshine State and who befriends a young girl in jeopardy. Not all, however, is as it seems. Described by the author as more "an existential thriller than a police procedural crime novel," Welsh's latest is sure to keep readers riveted.

Irvine Welsh is the author of Trainspotting, Marabou Stork Nightmares, Ecstacy, Porno and other works. He divides his time between Florida, Ireland, and Scotland.

The Booksmith Goes to the Cole Valley Fair!

Sunday ~ September 21st, 2008 ~ 10am to 5pm
Cole Street between Carl and Grattan ( map )
N Judah stop: Carl and Cole. Bus: 43, 6, 66, 7, 71

Stop by The Booksmith's booth at the Cole Valley Fair to receive personalized recommendations from local writers and editors, watch a children's puppet show and participate in crafts, and receive 20% off all special orders placed in the booth.

The Cole Valley Fair is a free community event with booths showcasing local artists and businesses. The Fair features fine arts and crafts, food from neighborhood restaurants, live music, a display of historic Cole Valley photographs, a full block of vintage automobiles owned by neighborhood residents, events for children, and much more! Below are the highlights of Booksmith's participation at the Fair this year:

12-1pm: Discuss Literary Fiction with Michelle Richmond (No One You Know and
The Year of Fog, michellerichmond.com) and Andrew Altschul
(Lady Lazarus, http://www.andrewfosteraltschul.com/)

1-2pm: Discuss Mysteries with Louise Ure (The Fault Tree, http://www.louiseure.com/) and Michelle Gagnon (Boneyard, http://www.michellegagnon.com/)

2-3pm: Discuss Local Interest Books with Paul Madonna
(All Over Coffee, http://www.paulmadonna.com/)
and Kemble Scott (SoMa, http://www.kemblescott.com/)

3-4pm: Discuss Bay Area Literary Journals with Derek Powazek
(Fray, http://www.fray.com/) and Gravity Goldberg
(Instant City: A Literary Exploration of San Francisco, http://www.instantcity.org/)

Bring the Kids - 1pm: Puppet Show

Our kids section has been buzzing with help from Miss Martha and Miss Janine. Our children's booth will showcase a select number of titles we are excited about this year. There will also be a puppet show at 1pm and other crafts and activities throughout the day. Stop by to learn more about our new weekly storytime and other upcoming children's events.

Fair Specials

Meet the not-so-new-anymore owners of the Booksmith (Christin Evans and Praveen Madan) and find out how they are planning to create a neighborhood bookstore which is 'even more'? browser-friendly, experience-rich, community-oriented, and truly independent-minded.

Hope to see you there!

RICK WARTZMAN
talk & booksigning for Obscene in the Extreme
Tuesday, September 23 at 7:30 pm

Few books have caused as big a stir as John Steinbeck's classic 1939 novel, The Grapes of Wrath. Just a month after publication, it was the nation's number one bestseller; but in Kern County, California - the Joads' newfound home - the book was burned publicly and banned from library shelves. Obscene in the Extreme, by California journalist and historian Rick Wartzman, tells the remarkable story behind this fit of censorship.

Rick Wartzman is director of the Drucker Institute at Claremont Graduate University and an Irvine senior fellow at the New America Foundation. He spent two decades as a reporter and editor at the Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Times. He is co-author, with Mark Arax, of the award-winning bestseller The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire.

DAPHNE BEAL
talk & booksigning for In the Land of No Right Angles
Wednesday, September 24 at 7:30 pm

Suspenseful, haunting and spare, In the Land of No Right Angles marks the arrival of a talented and intuitive new writer. In this, her first novel, Daphne Beal tells the story of a twenty-year-old American spending a year in Nepal who befriends a local only to be drawn into an uncertain world where the desire to save a friend is more harmful than doing nothing at all.

Daphne Beal was on the editorial staff of The New Yorker, and her writing has appeared in Vogue, McSweeney's, Open City, and The London Review of Books. Her work has been anthologized in The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers, The KGB Reader, and most recently in State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America.

SEAN WILSEY
talk, screening & booksigning for State by State
Saturday, September 27 at 7:30 pm

Inspired by the WPA guides of the Thirties and Forties, 50 contemporary writers have produced original pieces of reportage and memoir that capture the 50 states in our time. State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America is an American road trip in book form featuring original writing on all 50 states by 50 of our finest novelists, journalists, and essayists. Join editor Sean Wilsey and other contributors as we celebrate the publication of this new book and screen a short film on its making.

Sean Wilsey is the author of the memoir, Oh the Glory of It All, and the co-editor of The Thinking Fan's Guide to the World Cup. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, and McSweeney's quarterly, where he is the editor at large.

NEIL GAIMAN
reading for The Graveyard Book
Sunday, October 5 at 3:00 pm

The Graveyard Book is Neil Gaiman's first full-length novel for middle-grade readers since the internationally bestselling and universally acclaimed Coraline. And like Coraline, this book is sure to enchant and surprise young readers as well as Neil Gaiman's legion of adult fans. This exclusive San Francisco event - one of only a few around the country - will take place at the Sundance Kabuki Theater (1881 Post Street) in San Francisco. Tickets are $28.00 and are on sale at The Booksmith.

Neil Gaiman is the author of the New York Times bestselling children's book Coraline and of the picture books The Wolves in the Walls and The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish. He wrote the script for the film MirrorMask and is also the author of critically acclaimed and award-winning novels and short stories for adults, as well as the Sandman series of graphic novels. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States.

ALSO THIS MONTH: For the second year, The Booksmith is participating in the Cole Valley Street Fair. Scheduled for September 21, the neighborhood street fair promises to be a charming and well-attended event with booths showcasing local artists and businesses. The Booksmith has invited several local authors including Paul Madonna and Michelle Gagnon to share in the fun that day; new this year, we will be hosting a second children's booth with family-friendly activities. The street fair runs 10am to 6pm and additional details about our author line-up will be available in the bookstore and on our website.

GILES MILTON
talk & booksigning for Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922
Wednesday, October 1 at 7:30 pm

Following WWI, Smyrna was a prosperous, cosmopolitan port on Turkey's Aegean coast where Greeks, Turks, Armenians, Jews and others lived in harmony. Then, the unthinkable happened. Paradise Lost: Smyrna, 1922 is historian Giles Milton's searingly vivid account of the city's destruction a nearly forgotten war in which a great modern city burned for four days, 100,000 people were killed, and millions more left homeless.

Giles Milton is a journalist, historian and best-selling author of five previous works of nonfiction including White Gold, The Riddle and the Knight, Big Chief Elizabeth, and Nathaniel's Nutmeg. He lives in London.

PAMELA DES BARRES
talk & booksigning for Take Another Little Piece of My Heart
Thursday, October 2 at 7:30 pm

In I'm with the Band, Pamela Des Barres chronicled her lustful liaisons with such rock legends as Mick Jagger, Jimmy Page and Keith Moon. Take Another Little Piece of My Heart: A Groupie Grows Up is it's candid sequel. Updated to include escapades covering the last 16 years, this rollicking and sometimes heartbreaking follow-up documents Des Barres' struggles with marriage and motherhood and encounters with the likes of Bob Dylan and Sylvester Stallone. Please welcome Pamela back to the Booksmith!

Pamela Des Barres has been described as "Queen of the groupies." As a member of Frank Zappa's performance art / groupie-group The GTO's, Des Barres and her flamboyant sisters released the 1969 cult-classic album, Permanent Damage. Today, she is an Internet columnist, television personality, and the author of a handful of books. And yes, she still loves music of all kinds.

NEIL GAIMAN
reading for The Graveyard Book
Sunday, October 5 at 3:00 pm

Please join us for what promises to be the author event of the season as The Booksmith hosts bestselling author NEIL GAIMAN for a reading and talk to celebrate the release of his brand NEW BOOK for younger readers, "The Graveyard Book." And, as an added bonus at our event, we have been promised a screening of the trailer to "Coraline" - the forthcoming animated film based on Gaiman's earlier book for teens. You won't want to miss this exclusive San Francisco event!

"The Graveyard Book" is Neil Gaiman's first full-length novel for young adults since the universally acclaimed "Coraline." And like "Coraline," this book is sure to enchant and surprise. "The Graveyard Book" tells the story of an unusual boy who inhabits an unusual place - he's the only living resident of a graveyard. Raised from infancy by ghosts, werewolves, and other cemetery denizens, this special boy learns the antiquated customs of his guardians, as well as their timely ghostly teachings - like the ability to fade!

This special event - one of only a few around the country - will take place at the Sundance Kabuki Theater (1881 Post Street) in San Francisco. Tickets are on sale at The Booksmith. Further information follows:

Neil Gaiman - reading and talk
Sunday, October 5th
3:00 pm - 4:45 pm (doors open at 2:15 pm)
Sundance Kabuki Theatre (1881 Post Street at Fillmore, in San Francisco)

Ticket price includes admission to the event and a signed 1st edition copy of "The Graveyard Book,"). Tickets are available only at The Booksmith, in person, or by phone at 415-863-8688 or 800-493-7323.

* Due to time constraints, Neil Gaiman will not be signing at the event.

* The event starts promptly at 3 pm.

*Additional signed copies of "The Graveyard Book," as well as signed copies of a limited number of his earlier titles will be on sale at the event.

*Japantown has two parking lots; One on Fillmore @ Post, the other is on Post @ Webster. Free secure bicycle parking in both lots. Some of the Japantown businesses will validate parking: Validated parking is $2.75 for the first 3 hours.

*Several MUNI lines serve the theater, including the 3 Jackson, 22 Fillmore and 38 Geary.

If you cannot attend the event and want a signed book, please email us at read@booksmith.com (sorry, we can't handle ticket sales via email) or phone us at 415-863-8688 or 800-493-7323. For additional details, please see
www.booksmith.com/gaiman.html
[http://cts.vresp.com/c/?TheBooksmith/9d1a8c180c/ac4f52cc97/dc5862100a]

Neil Gaiman is the author of the New York Times bestselling children's book "Coraline" and of the picture books "The Wolves in the Walls" and " The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish". He wrote the script for the film "MirrorMask," "Beowulf," and "Stardust" (based on his own novel), and is also the author of critically acclaimed and award-winning novels and short stories for adults (including "Neverwhere" and "American Gods"), as well as the Sandman series of graphic novels. Among his many awards are the World Fantasy Award, the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Bram Stoker Award. Originally from England, Gaiman now lives in the United States. This event marks his third appearance at The Booksmith.

Fans of Neil Gaiman won't want to miss our October 20th event with the widely acclaimed author, Jonathan Carroll. Neil Gaiman has written: " Jonathan Carroll has the magic. He'll lend you his eyes, and you'll never see the world in quite the same way ever again." Join us at The Bookmsith on October 20 at 7:30 pm as Carroll reads from his new novel, "The Ghost in Love."

Stephen King has said that "Jonathan Carroll is as scary as Hitchcock, when he isn't being as funny as Jim Carrey." Jonathan Lethem sees Carroll as the "master of sunlit surrealism." However one regards this beguiling original, two facts are indisputable: It's tough being a ghost on an empty stomach. And "The Ghost in Love" is a triumph.

KINKY FRIEDMAN
reading & booksigning for What Would Kinky Do?
Monday, October 6 at 8:00 pm

Hailed as the "Frank Zappa of country music," Kinky Friedman's larger-than-life persona is impossible to categorize. Friedman has been a best-selling crime fiction author, an entrepreneur and an independent 2006 gubernatorial candidate in Texas "" where he polled good numbers with the campaign slogan, "Kinky Friedman for Governor: How Hard Can It Be?" Get ready to laugh as Friedman plays his uniquely Kinky songs and dishes about politics. Reserve early "" this event will sell out!

WILL DURST
talk & booksigning for The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing
Tuesday, October 7 at 7:30 pm

With the sacred cows of American politics practically begging for someone to puncture their pomposity, Will Durst hits them in the funniest places. In The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing, this equal-opportunity offender swats both parties' political piatas. Claiming to represent only those 60 percent of Americans in the middle, Durst attacks the fringe for its lack of common sense and semantic corruption. The result is side-splittingly funny.

Will Durst is a five-time Emmy nominee. He has also co-hosted a morning radio show with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, and recently completed a critically acclaimed Off-Broadway run of "The All-American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing."? He has been fired by both PBS and the San Francisco Examiner, and has written for the New York Times, Esquire, San Francisco Chronicle and many other publications.

ARMISTEAD MAUPIN
talk & booksigning for The Berlin Stories
Wednesday, October 8 at 7:30 pm

As one of the most widely read books of its time, Christopher Isherwood's The Berlin Stories inspired a Broadway musical and an Oscar-winning film, Cabaret. Now, a new edition of this classic of 20th-century fiction has been issued featuring an introduction by Armistead Maupin, the much loved San Francisco writer who not only knew Isherwood but drew inspiration for his acclaimed Tales of the City series from The Berlin Stories. Don't miss this special evening.
The Booksmith is pleased to present this event as part of the Litquake festival.

Armistead Maupin first met Christopher Isherwood in 1978. His 1985 interview with Isherwood, published in the Village Voice, was the last before the author's death. Maupin is the author of nine novels, including the six-volume Tales of the City series, Maybe the Moon, The Night Listener and, most recently, Michael Tolliver Lives. Three miniseries were made from the first three novels in the Tales series, and The Night Listener became a feature film starring Robin Williams.

LEWIS BUZBEE
reading & booksigning for Steinbeck's Ghost
Thursday, October 9 at 7:30 pm

Steinbeck's Ghost is new novel for young adults from San Francisco writer Lewis Buzbee. It tells the story of young Travis Williams, who thinks he sees a ghost in John Steinbeck's childhood home while campaigning to save the public library in Salinas. With touches of magical realism, Buzbee resurrects Steinbeck's characters and scenes to relate a beautifully told story embued with a love of books and reading. The Booksmith is pleased to present this event as part of the Litquake festival.

Well known Bay Area author Lewis Buzbee is a former bookseller and publisher's sales rep, and the author of the acclaimed adult memoir, The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, which was published in 2006. A native Californian, he lives in San Francisco with his wife and daughter. This is his first book for children.

MARIA VAN LIESHOUT
reading & booksigning for Splash!: A Little Book About Bouncing Back
Sunday, October 12 at 1:00 pm

Splash the Seal is having a bad day. He doesn't feel like playing. He doesn't feel like doing ANYTHING. Splash feels blue. Will he EVER bounce back? In Splash!: A Little Book About Bouncing Back - a warm and wonderfully illustrated reminder that hope is always on the horizon, San Francisco children's book author Maria van Lieshout creates the perfect pick-me-up for anyone struggling to bounce back. Please join us for this special story time event kids can even bring their parents! Please join us for this special Sunday story time event.

Readers are already falling in love with Maria van Lieshout's first book, BLOOM!: A Little Book About Finding Love. Splash!: A Little Book About Bouncing Back is her second "little book."? A native of the Netherlands, Maria lives in San Francisco with her husband.

HARMON LEON
talk & booksigning for The American Dream
Tuesday, October 14 at 7:30 pm

For some, the American Dream is a pre-fab house in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a two-week vacation. For others, it's something very different. In The American Dream: Walking in the Shoes of Carnies, Arms Dealers, Immigrant Dreamers, Pot Farmers, and Christian Believers, Harmon Leon draws upon his experiences of adopting personas and disguises to infiltrate the institutions of everyday life. Funny, satirical, and ultimately poignant, The American Dream is one man's take on what it means to be an American today.

Booksmith favorite Harmon Leon is a comedian and an award-winning author, most recently of National Lampoon's Road Trip USA, a travel book commemorating the 25th anniversary of the original vacation movie.

KAREN STALLER
talk & booksigning for Runaways
Thursday, October 16 at 7:30 pm

During the 1960s and 1970s, runaways became a source of national concern. Counter cultural activists provided support to runaway youth, and private agencies began developing innovative, and sometimes controversial programs to serve them. In Runaways: How The Sixties Counterculture Shaped Today's Practices And Policies, Karen M. Staller examines the programs and policies that took shape during the period and the ways in which the alternative-services movement continue to guide our responses to at-risk youth. Joining us for this event is San Francisco Chronicle journalist C.W. Nevius.

Karen M. Staller is assistant professor of social work at the University of Michigan. She has also practiced public interest law with low-income senior citizens and at-risk adolescents in New York City.

ELIEZER SOBEL
talk & booksigning for The 99th Monkey
Friday, October 17 at 7:30 pm

The 99th Monkey: A Spiritual Journalist's Misadventures with Gurus, Messiahs, Sex, Psychedelics, and Other Consciousness-Raising Experiments is an irreverent and often funny romp through the New Age era. Serving as a human guinea pig for many of the most popular and cutting-edge New Age and human potential movements, Eliezer Sobel recounts intercontinental adventures in India, Israel, Brazil, and Haiti. From Primal Therapy to the Dalai Lama, this witty analysis includes brushes with cults, wild experiments with sex and psychedelics, and encounters with visionary gurus and contemporary madmen.

Eliezer Sobel is the award-winning author of Minyan: Ten Jewish Men in a World That Is Heartbroken. His articles, short stories, and poetry have appeared in Inner Directions Journal, New Age Journal, The Village Voice, and Yoga Journal.

JONATHAN CARROLL
reading & booksigning for The Ghost in Love
Monday, October 20 at 7:30 pm

"Jonathan Carroll has the magic. He'll lend you his eyes, and you'll never see the world in quite the same way ever again." Neil Gaiman. "In The Ghost In Love Jonathan Carroll deepens his art, diving into his own obsessions with love and fate, without letting go of an ounce of the uncanny effervescent quality that has always caused readers to crave his narratives like an illegal substance. He's created a version of the world that shines like a beacon into our own." - Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Carroll's novel The Wooden Sea was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2001. He is the author of such acclaimed novels as White Apples, The Land of Laughs, The Marriage of Sticks, and Bones of the Moon. He lives in Vienna, Austria.

ED MCCLANAHAN
reading & booksigning for O the Clear Moment
Tuesday, October 21 at 7:30 pm

In O the Clear Moment, Merry Prankster Ed McClanahan has assembled a gathering of what he calls "coming-of-age to coming-of-old-age" stories that are quirky and cutting - hilarious and lyrical, and all told in the inimitable voice of one of his generation's best chroniclers. In this appealing "implied autobiography," McClanahan's stories come alive as American souvenirs, enchanting readers with his signature prose in this stunning piece of "memoirabilia" (featuring a cover by the acclaimed artists Ralph Steadman).

A former Merry Prankster, Ed McClanahan is an American novelist, essayist, and professor and the author of several books, including The Natural Man and Famous People I Have Known. He has taught English and creative writing at Stanford University, Oregon State University, and the University of Kentucky.

JEFF KALISS
talk & booksigning for I Want to Take You Higher
Wednesday, October 22 at 7:30 pm

From his anthemic early hits ("I Want to Take You Higher," "Family Affair," "Dance to the Music"), through the moody meditations of "There's a Riot Going On" and beyond, Sly and the Family Stone have left an indelible mark on rock, funk, pop, and hip hop. Now, their story is told in I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone. Author Jeff Kaliss scored the first face-to-face interview with the reclusive superstar in over 20 years, making this book a must-read for any fan of music. Among the special guests excepted to attend this event is Family Stone drummer Greg Errico. And who knows who else.

Jeff Kaliss has written about music, theater, film, and other forms of entertainment for over a quarter-century.

CECILIA CHANG
reading & booksigning for The Seventh Daughter
Thursday, October 23 at 6:00 pm

In 1961, when Cecilia Chiang opened her now-legendary San Francisco restaurant The Mandarin, most Chinese restaurants in the U.S. were serving Cantonese or heavily Americanized food. Chiang introduced authentic northern Chinese cuisine to America, earning the adoration of generations of diners. Her new book, The Seventh Daughter, is a classic collection of recipes framed by her gripping life story. Celebrate with Chiang at a festive Chinese banquet dinner at Mayflower Seafood Restaurant.

BILL MORGAN
talk & booksigning for The Letters of Allen Ginsberg
Thursday, October 23 at 7:30 pm

Allen Ginsberg (1926 1997) was one of the 20th century literature's greatest poets and most prolific letter-writers. The Letters of Allen Ginsberg, edited by Beat scholar Bill Morgan and featuring many letters published for the first time, showcases the poet's correspondence with a wide-range of individuals - including fellow Beat writers and the likes of Arthur Miller, Ken Kesey, Lionel Trilling, Philip Glass, Bertrand Russell and others. Allen Ginsberg gave his last ever public reading at The Booksmith, less then half-a-year before his death. Please join us for this special event.

Bill Morgan, Allen Ginsberg's literary archivist for many years, is the author of an acclaimed biography of the poet as well as editor of The Book of Martyrdom and Artifice, Ginsberg's early journals. Also recently published and edited by Morgan is The Selected Letters of Allen Ginsberg and Gary Snyder, 1956-1991.

JEFF GOLDEN
reading & booksigning for Unafraid: A Novel of the Possible
Friday, October 24 at 7:30 pm

Two dates burn fiercely in the memory of millions of Americans: November 22, 1963 and September 11, 2001. These two tragedies bracket Unafraid, a story grounded in a simple question: what if the fatal bullet fired on that sunny Dallas afternoon had veered three inches off target? "What an exciting, clever, imaginative book! And more, what an insightful, important one. This is the Great Read you've been looking for."? - Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations with God.

Jeff Golden's migration from the halls of Harvard to the backwoods of Oregon was chronicled in the book Watermelon Summer. He has built homes, farmed, logged, guided river adventures and served as a County Commissioner, mediator, columnist and public broadcasting producer and talk show host.

CHRISTIAN LANDER
talk & booksigning for Stuff White People Like
Saturday, October 25 at 7:30 pm

Blogger Christian Lander has written a provocative, wickedly funny "study"? of upper-middle-class white people. His new book, Stuff White People Like: The Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions, contains material not featured on his blog and reveals a culture that prides itself on individuality and diversity, yet also a culture that manages to express these beliefs in the exact same way! This book will make you laugh, and you'll want to come to terms with yourself and ask: "How white have I become?"

Christian Lander is the creator of the website Stuff White People Like. He is a Ph.D. dropout who was the 2006 public speaking instructor of the year at Indiana University. He has lived in Toronto, Montreal, Copenhagen, Tucson, Indiana, and now Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife, Jess, a photographer who contributed many of the photos in the book.

J. OTTO SIEBOLD
reading & booksigning for Vunce Upon a Time
Sunday, October 26 at 1:00 pm

Dagmar is not like other vampires. He's shy. He's afraid of humans and . . . he's a vegetarian! But even more than vegetables, Dagmar loves candy! When he hears about all the treats he can get on Halloween, Dagmar knows he has to be brave and venture out into the world. Vunce Upon a Time is the wonderful new book from J. Otto Siebold, author & illustrator of the Olive the Other Reindeer and other classics. Please join us for this special, not-too-spooky, pre-Halloween Sunday story time event. We'll have special prizes for kids in attendence.

Bay Area resident J. Otto Seibold has written, co-written, and illustrated many children's books, including Olive, the Other Reindeer and the widely acclaimed Mr. Lunch series.

ALLISON AMEND
reading & booksigning for Things That Pass for Love
Tuesday, October 28 at 7:30 pm

Things That Pass for Love is the exceptional new book of stories - both thoughtful and entertaining - from debut writer Allison Amend. "The stories in Amend's Things that Pass for Love are such good company that I found myself reading more and more slowly so that the collection wouldn't end. Amend's voice is so compelling, easeful and polished you feel that the stories almost rise up off the page and tell themselves. And, as we all know, the hardest thing a writer can do is make it look easy."? Alison Smith

Allison Amend was born in Chicago, Illinois on a day when the Cubs beat the Mets 2-0. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. While there, she learned never to live downwind from a pig farm and how to put English on a cue ball. She lives in New York, writing and teaching fiction.

BILL KELTER & WAYNE SHELLABARGER
talk & booksigning for Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance
Wednesday, November 5 at 7:30 pm

Over the course of more than 200 years, American voters have sent a platoon of rogues, cowards, drunks, featherweights, doddering geriatrics, bigots, and atrocious spellers to Washington D.C. - only to sit one bullet, cerebral hemorrhage, or case of pneumonia away from the highest office in the land. In their first post-election event, authors Bill Kelter & Wayne Shellabarger discuss their newly released book, Veeps: Profiles in Insignificance.

Booksmith customer Wayne Shellabarger is a San Francisco-based artist and author (and customer at The Booksmith). Bill Kelter lives in Portland, Oregon.

ROSE AGUILAR
talk & booksigning for Red Highways: A Liberal's Journey Into the Heartland
Thursday, November 6 at 7:30 pm

As a San Francisco radio host grown tired of media stereotypes, Rose Aguilar packed up her van, picked up her boyfriend, and set out on a six-month road trip through the red-state West to find out what voters there really care about. Equal parts travelogue, political reportage, and personal discovery, Red Highways: A Liberal's Journey Into the Heartland challenges conventional wisdom and calls for a more thoughtful and productive dialogue between Red and Blue America.

Rose Aguilar is a journalist and political blogger, and the host of "Your Call," a daily public affairs radio show heard on KALW. Aguilar has also written for CNET, Alternet and the BBC.

OLIVER CHIN
reading & booksigning for Welcome to Monster Isle
Sunday, November 9 at 1:00 pm

A family's vacation goes bananas when a perfect storm tosses their skipper's tiny boat off course. Now seven castaways are stranded on an uncharted desert island! Whimsical, fantastic and lushly illustrated, Welcome to Monster Isle related the adventures of Finnegan, his sister, parents, and dog Howl as they venture into the wild and encounter a menagerie of colorful monsters. Can these hardy survivors befriend beasts straight from their wildest imaginations?

Oliver Chin is the author of popular children's books such as the Tales from the Chinese Zodiac series, Julie Black Belt, Timmy and Tammy's Train of Thought, and The Adventures of WonderBaby.

ALISON BECHDEL
talk, slideshow & booksigning for The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For
Monday, November 10 at 7:30 pm

The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For is the collection Alison Bechdel fans have been waiting for! Gathering material from 11 earlier books, as well as 60 new strips never before published in book form, this new book from the author of the celebrated Fun Home chronicles the lives, loves, and politics of Mo, Lois, Sydney, Sparrow, Ginger, Stuart, Clarice, and others. Don't miss this special event - an author talk and slideshow with the one-and-only Alison Bechdel.

Alison Bechdel is the author of numerous collections of commix, including the national bestseller and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Fun Home (named Time Magazine's #1 Book of the Year). Since 1983 she has been chronicling the lives of various characters in the fictionalized "Dykes to Watch Out For" strip, "one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre" (Ms.). The strip is syndicated in 50 alternative newspapers, translated into multiple languages, and collected into a book series with a quarter of a million copies in print.

THERESE POLETTI
talk, slideshow & booksigning for Art Deco San Francisco
Thursday, November 13 at 7:30 pm

The Castro Theatre, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph Headquarters, 450 Sutter Medical-Dental Building - these masterpieces of San Francisco architecture are the work of one man: Timothy Pflueger. While his contemporaries looked to beaux arts traditions, Pflueger brought exotic and art deco forms to buildings ranging from simple cocktail lounges to the city's first skyscrapers. Therese Poletti tells his fascinating story in Art Deco San Francisco: The Architecture of Timothy Pflueger.

Therese Poletti has been a journalist for nearly twenty years. She has written for the San Jose Mercury News, and currently works for MarketWatch as a technology columnist. She lives in San Francisco.

WRITERS CORP
reading & booksigning for Tell the World
Friday, November 14 at 7:30 pm

Through poetry we tell the world who we are, where we're from, what we love, what we think, how we feel, and why we hope. Tell the World is a new collection of poems by teens that have taken part in workshops run by WritersCorps, a national alliance of literary arts programs for youth. Join us for a reading by local teen poets published in this new book - their words represent the thoughts, hopes, and dreams of teens everywhere.

Writers Corps was founded in 1994 in three American urban centers - San Francisco, Washington, D.C., and the Bronx - with a mission to transform lives through the written word. Since its inception, the organization has helped forty thousand children and teenagers improve their writing skills and express their ideas and experiences.

KARAN MAHAJAN
reading & booksigning for Family Planning
Monday, November 17 at 7:30 pm

Karan Mahajan's Family Planning is a hilarious debut novel set in India about a family of thirteen children that is bursting at the seems. "Mahajan is a natural - a masterful storyteller, an assured stylist, and a gentle satirist whose unblinking vision is ultimately tempered by compassion. Family Planning is an incredibly assured debut. More than a fine first novel, it's one of the best comic novels I've read in years." - Jay McInerney

Karan Mahajan is twenty-four years old and grew up in New Delhi. He holds a bachelor's degree from Stanford University, and is the recipient of the 2006 Joseph Henry Jackson Award for Fiction.

SYLVIA BROWNRIGG
talk & booksigning for The Delivery Room
Tuesday, November 18 at 7:30 pm

The Delivery Room is the new novel by Sylvia Brownrigg. Compelling, complex, and deeply human, it is both an engaging examination of the incomplete understandings that course between therapist and patient and a set of variations on the theme of motherhood - as well as a timely meditation on the meanings of wars fought from a distance when ordinary citizens have to measure their personal grief's against the outrages experienced by those under attack.

Sylvia Brownrigg grew up in Los Altos, California, and Oxford, England, was educated at Yale and Johns Hopkins Universities, and lived for many years in London. She is married to San Francisco radio host Sedge Thomson and lives in Berkeley, California.

LESLIE ROBERTS
talk & booksigning for The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica
Wednesday, November 19 at 7:30 pm

More than a distant continent, Antarctica is a land of the imagination, shaping and shaped by explorers, adventurers, scientists, and dreamers. In The Entire Earth and Sky, San Francisco writer Leslie Roberts conjures all these ideas and interweaves them with the experience and history of Antarctica, balancing the reality of a frigid outpost populated by a ragtag alliance of international researchers against the crystalline dreamscape of a continent at the bottom of the world.

Leslie Carol Roberts, a Fulbright Fellow at Gateway Antarctica New Zealand, teaches in the MFA programs in writing and graduate design at the California College of the Arts, San Francisco. She has written hundreds of articles and essays for magazines, newspapers, and literary journals, including the Christian Science Monitor and the Sydney Morning Herald.

RACHEL RESNICK
talk & booksigning for Love Junkie: A Memoir
Thursday, November 20 at 7:30 pm

Rachel Resnick, the celebrated L.A. writer and author of Go West Young F*cked-Up Chick, returns to The Booksmith to read from her just published memoir, Love Junkie. Written with raw humor and unflinching honesty, this new book charts the author's harrowing emotional journey. This unique memoir also sheds light on one of the more elusive and pervasive modern-day compulsions - as it holds a mirror up to each of us.

Rachel Resnick is the author of the Los Angeles Times bestseller Go West Young F*cked-Up Chick. She has published articles, essays, and celebrity profile cover stories nationally in the Los Angeles Times, and is a contributing editor at Tin House magazine.

STEFAN KANFER
reading & booksigning for Somebody
Friday, November 21 at 7:30 pm

For everything we know about Brando as a man as well as an actor and artist, he remains a fascination. What are we to make of someone whose life, both personal and professional, hit such dazzling highs and such abysmal lows? Acclaimed film critic Stefan Kanfer answers this question in Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando. And in the process, Kafner gives us what may well be the final word on one of the most astonishing talents of the twentieth century.

Stefan Kanfer's books include The Eighth Sin, A Summer World, The Last Empire, Serious Business, Groucho, Ball of Fire, and Stardust Lost. He was a writer and editor at Time magazine for more than twenty years and was its first bylined film critic, a post he held between 1967 and 1972. He is also the primary interviewer in the Academy Award-nominated documentary The Line King and editor of an anthology of Groucho Marx's comedy, The Essential Groucho.

BUCKY SINISTER
reading & booksigning for Get Up
Monday, November 24 at 7:30 pm

As an atheist with a background in fundamentalism, Bucky Sinister was skeptical of 12-step groups when the time came for him to get sober. He was afraid of losing his artistic abilities and had big problems with the higher power concept. In spite of his hesitations, he stuck with the program and it rewarded him greatly. In Get Up: A 12-step Guide to Recovery for Misfits, Freaks, and Weirdos, he shares the knowledge he gained on his journey, from being afraid of the 12-step philosophies to embracing them, motivating others to join him in their own efforts to get clean.

Bucky Sinister, is a spoken word artist who performs about 40 times a years at comedy clubs and theaters, primarily on the West Coast, but also around the country. He has published nine chapbooks and three full-length collections of poetry, the most recent being All Blacked Out & Nowhere to Go. His first full-length CD, What Happens in Narnia, Stays in Narnia was released in 2007.OTHER AFFILIATE EVENTS

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER BOOKFEST
talks, readings & booksignings
Sunday, November 2 between 10:30 am - 7:00 pm

The Booksmith will sell books at the JCCSF BookFest on Sunday, November 2nd from 10:30am to 7pm. BookFest is an annual, one-day literary event that provides a lively and intimate view of the thriving Jewish literary scene. Bringing together some of the brightest and most inventive writers from around the world, the festival fosters interest in Jewish literature and fosters a sense of the Jewish literary community. For a full list of authors please visit: www.jccsf.org/bookfest/

FREE. No reservations required to attend festival. Tickets required for keynote and closing sessions. Order tickets today! Call 415.292.1233 or visit the Jewish Community Center BookFest Box Office at 3200 California Street in San Francisco.

GRATITUDE IS IN THE AIR
readings & booksigning
Thursday, November 20 at 7:00 pm

"Gratitude is in the Air" is the theme of a poetry event with local performers and audience members giving voice to the importance of extending kindnesses to others . . . and for being grateful for gifts we can share. Participating in this pre-Thanksgiving event are Dan Harder, Gail Mitchell, Stephen Kopel, Janine Mogannan, Armour Garland, Ana Elsner, klipschutz, Jeanne Powell and Jennifer Futernick.

The Booksmith supports this timely event and hopes poetry partisans will drop by. This Booksmith sponsored community event, which is free and open to the public, will take place at the Red Vic Peace Cafe (1665 Haight St.)

SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- An outstanding collection of the treasures of the State Museums of Berlin that honors the contributions of patron James Simon opened at the Legion of Honor. The State Museums of Berlin and the Legacy of James Simon is a case study of the history of collecting during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and features approximately 150 works from nine separate Berlin museums. This exhibition includes Egyptian and Near Eastern antiquities, Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque sculptures, Old Master paintings, works on paper including eighteenth and nineteenth-century Japanese woodblock prints, art of the Silk Road, and European folk art donated by Simon for the State Museums of Berlin. The exhibition runs through January 18, 2009.

http://www.artdaily.com/index.asp?int_sec=2&int_new=27541

PAPERBACK DREAMS
screening Paperback Dreams
Monday, December 1 at 7:30 pm

Are independent bookstores still relevant in the 21st century? If you've ever wondered about this question, we invite you to join us for a screening and discussion of a powerful new documentary Paperback Dreams. The film is the story of two landmark independent bookstores - Kepler's and Cody's - going back to the days of the paperback revolution. The film traces the bookstores' history as cultural institutions and explores their community relationships. It also includes interviews with several well known authors, publishers, and booksellers, including Salman Rushdie and Michael Powell.

Paperback Dreams is a co-production of Alex Beckstead, the Independent Television Service (ITVS), and KQED Public Television. Alex lives in San Francisco and is a Booksmith fan. His films have screened at the Sundance Film Festival and Public Television Stations across the US. Alex will join us for Q&A after the film screening.

JANIS BELL
talk & booksigning for Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences
Tuesday, December 2 at 7:30 pm

After thirty-five years of teaching writing, Janis Bell knows which sentences work and which sentences don't. In Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences: A Writer's Guide to Avoiding the Most Common Errors in Grammar and Punctuation, Bell describes grammar and usage problems in ways that make sense. Like a new year's resolution, this recently published book is a focused and entertaining guide to getting our sentences into good shape.

Janis Bell is a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, and San Francisco State University, where her graduate studies in English focused on the teaching of writing. She lives in San Francisco, California.

DAVID THOMSON
talk for Have You Seen . . . ?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films
Thursday, December 4 at 7:30 pm

In 1975, David Thomson published his Biographical Dictionary of Film - few film books have enjoyed better press or such steady sales. Now, thirty-three years later, we have a companion volume, a second book of more than 1,000 pages in one voice - that of our most provocative contemporary film critic and historian. Juxtaposing the fanciful and the fabulous, the old favorites and the forgotten, Have You Seen . . . ?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films presents the films that this acclaimed film writer offers in response to the question he gets asked most often. David Thomson will also be screening clips from some of the films under discussion.

David Thomson was born in London. He is a regular contributor to publications in both Britain and the United States,and was the screenwriter on the award-winning documentary "The Making of a Legend: Gone With the Wind." His other books include Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick, Rosebud, and three works of fiction.

DAN PIRARO (aka the cartoonist Bizarro)
talk, slideshow & booksigning for Bizarro Buccaneers
Friday, December 5 at 7:30 pm

Ahoy, matey! Bizarro Buccaneers: Nuttin' But Pirate Cartoons is just that a collection for both wannabe plunderers and scurvy walkin' plankwalkers! Brilliant and in full color, as well as a perfect stocking stuffer (hint-hint), its captain is one Bizarro, a cartoonist whose work we've spied in that local broadsheet, the San Francisco Chronicle. Don't miss this special event, in which Bizarro will screen lantern slides, deliver a rogue-ish speech, and sign his name on the spot. . . . Sail ho me squiffy men!

Dan Piraro was born in Kansas City, grew up in Tulsa, and lived in Dallas for many years. He is a recipient of a Reuben Award for Best Single-Panel Cartoonist and his comic strip, "Bizarro," received multiple-year designations as Best Single-Panel Cartoon by the National Cartoonists Society. Locally, his work is featured in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Happy Holidays from The Booksmith!

To celebrate the season, we are hosting two special holiday events on Sunday and Monday and we invite you to join us! We are kicking off the holidays with a fundraiser to support two of our local schools. Four wonderfully-talented children's book authors/illustrators will join us Sunday morning for breakfast treats and story time. On Monday, rock-star photographer Robert M. Knight will stop by the bookstore to sign the impressive collection of his 40-year career's work from 5-6pm.

Also timed with the holidays, the bookhounds at the Booksmith have put together reviews of their favorites titles in The Booksmith's 2nd annual holiday catalog. You can now pick up a free copy in the store or view the catalog and order online. Enjoy!

CHILDREN'S HOLIDAY CELEBRATION
story time and booksigning
Sunday, December 14 from 10:00 am – 12 noon

The Booksmith presents a Children's Holiday Celebration of authors, illustrators, and books & you're invited! The event will include cider and muffins and superb local writers and illustrators including Lisa Brown (author of Sometimes You Get What You Want, The Latke Who Couldnt Stop Screaming, How to Be), Julie Downing (No Hugs Till Saturday, The Firekeepers Son), Jane Wattenberg (Mrs. Mustards Baby Faces, Never Cry Woof!, This is the Rain), and Dashka Slater (The Sea Serpent and Me, Baby Shoes, Firefighters in the Dark). Please join us for wonderfully fun story-telling for young and old(er) alike, as we welcome these terrific book-makers, whose books will, by the way, make terrific and lasting holiday gifts (and how cool to have them autographed and personalized!)

We especially welcome the Grattan Elementary School and New Traditions Elementary School communities, whose bookstore purchases on December 14 will benefit their schools.

ROBERT M. KNIGHT
booksigning for Rock Gods: Forty Years of Rock Photography
Monday, December 15 from 5:00 – 6:00 pm

Since 1968, Robert M. Knight's photographs have served as witness to the greatest moments in rock and roll history. Rock Gods: Forty Years of Rock Photography is a profuse collection of Knight's best work. This recently published volume features images of Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Green Day and every rock colossus of the last forty years. Don't miss this just added booksigning.

Robert Knight's career spans from the 1960s to the present as one of the premier photographers for the music industry, rock publications, and music equipment manufacturers. He made his mark beginning in 1968, showing up in Seattle with a single roll of film to capture shots of Jimi Hendrix. Today, Knight is best known for his "Guitar Legend" archive, having worked with Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Stevie Ray Vaughn, and Eric Clapton as well as many contemporary performers.

JACK MARSHALL
reading & book signing for Steel Veil
Thursday, January 8 at 7:30 pm

Introspective and engaging, Jack Marshall's new book of poetry, Steel Veil, weds timely depictions of Middle Eastern widows "behind veils heavy / as the steel / veil of empire" with timeless expressions of personal grief and political outrage. Invoking visionary possibilities of being, Marshall's distinctive voice and elegant lyrics unite this muscled, multilayered collection.

Born in 1936 to Jewish parents who emigrated from Iraq and Syria, Jack Marshall grew up in New York and now lives in California. He is the author of a memoir, From Baghdad to Brooklyn, and several poetry collections that have received the PEN Center USA Award, two Northern California Book Awards, and a nomination from the National Book Critics Circle.

RODES FISHBURNE
reading & book signing for Going to See the Elephant
Tuesday, January 13 at 7:30 pm

Rodes Fishburne's debut novel centers around a wide-eyed transplant intent on becoming the best writer in the world. Opening with an adrenaline-fueled rickshaw ride down Market Street, the book traverses present-day San Francisco from end to end. The bestselling novelist James Patterson said, “Going to See the Elephant will delight anybody who has ever written a first novel, wanted to write a first novel, and especially those who cherish reading unforgettable first novels. It is both funny and wise.”

Rodes Fishburne has been published in the New Yorker, the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, and Forbes ASAP, where he was the editor of the acclaimed “Big Issue,” an annual magazine of literary essays from leading writers and thinkers. He is a member of the Grotto, a San Francisco writers’ collective.

LAWRENCE LESSIG
talk & booksigning for Remix
Wednesday, January 14 at 7:30 pm

In Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy, Lawrence Lessig shows how we harm our children - and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form - with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. In this new book, the acclaimed author of Free Culture reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable “hybrid economy.”

Lawrence Lessig is a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and founder of the School’s Center for Internet and Society. In addition to the aforementioned books, he is the author of The Future of Ideas, and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, and is a columnist at Wired. He chairs the Creative Commons project, was named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, and has been several times listed as one of BusinessWeek’s “eBiz 25,” the magazine’s roundup of the twenty-five most influential people in electronic business.

KATHERINE POWELL COHEN
talk & book signing for San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury
Thursday, January 15 at 7:30 pm

At the turn of the 20th century, the Haight-Ashbury gained prominence as the gateway to Golden Gate Park. Six decades later, it would anchor a worldwide cultural revolution that blossomed in the 1960s. San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, by Katherine Powell Cohen, is a pictorial history of the world famous neighborhood that attracts throngs of people – everyone from runaways to tourists, while maintaining a community of families, young people, and long-timers.

Katherine Powell Cohen, Ph.D., compiled vintage images and stories for her book from individual sources, public collections, and from the interviews she has conducted as a columnist for the Haight Ashbury Beat newspaper. An English professor at San Francisco State and Golden Gate Universities, she has lived in the neighborhood for over 20 years.

MICHAEL CAPOZZOLA
talk & book signing for Cheap City
Friday, January 16 at 7:30 pm

Every week, the San Francisco Chronicle carries Michael Capozzola’s always quirky and always funny cartoon Cheap City. Like his comedy act, the cartoon includes creative problem solving for social ills as well as cheap solutions and quick fixes for life and city living. “San Francisco can always benefit from someone willing to point out daily life’s little absurdities, and Mike Capozzola does it in the tradition of our city’s best satirists,” says City Supervisor Aaron Peskin.

Michael Capozzola is a Bay Area based Stand Up Comedian & Cartoonist. Each year, he produces and hosts the Cartoon Art Museum's annual "Comics for Comix" fundraiser.

RAND RICHARDS
talk & book signing for for Mud, Blood, and Gold
Wednesday, January 21 at 7:30 pm

There have been many books on the Gold Rush, but Mud, Blood, and Gold is the first to focus on San Francisco as it was at the peak of the frenzy. With a “you are there” immediacy, Rand Richards brings to life what the city was like during the landmark year of 1849. Based on eyewitness accounts and previously overlooked records, the distinguished author and historian chronicles the explosive growth of a wide-open town rife with violence, gambling, and prostitution - each fueled by unbridled greed.

Rand Richards is a San Francisco-based historian, author, and lecturer. Two of his books are local bestsellers: Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide and Historic Walks in San Francisco: 18 Trails Through the City's Past. He has lectured before many groups, including the California Historical Society, the San Francisco Museum and Historical Society, and the San Francisco History Association. The latter organization recently awarded him their Oscar Lewis Award for his contributions to knowledge of San Francisco history.

GERI SPIELER
talk & book signing for Taking Aim at the President
Thursday, January 22 at 7:30 pm

President Gerald Ford suffered two attempts on his life. One by a young woman in Charles Manson’s gang, and the other just 17 days later by a far more unlikely candidate - an average looking middle-aged mother of five named Sara Jane Moore. In Taking Aim at the President, journalist Geri Spieler sketches the bizarre life of Moore, the only woman to ever fire a bullet at a U.S. President, and her path to that fateful moment outside San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel. Joining us for this special event will be Tim Hettrich, one of the San Francisco police officers at the scene of the assassination attempt.

Geri Spieler is an investigative journalist and speaker. She has written for the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and Forbes. She has had a professional relationship with her subject, Sara Jane Moore, who she visited and interviewed in prison.

BLAIR KILPATRICK
talk & booksigning for Accordion Dreams
Friday, January 23 at 7:30 pm

By age thirty-nine, Blair Kilpatrick had settled into life as a practicing psychologist. Then, a chance encounter in New Orleans turned her world upside down. Accordion Dreams is a memoir filled with music set partly in the San Francisco Bay Area, home to the largest Cajun-Zydeco music scene outside the Gulf Coast. Engaging, uplifting, and illuminating a unique patch of the American cultural landscape, Accordion Dreams is also one person's account of passion, risk-taking, and change - at any age.

Blair Kilpatrick has an independent practice in psychotherapy in the San Francisco Bay Area. She also performs and records with Sauce Piquante, a traditional Cajun-Creole band she founded in the late 1990s.

ERIKA MAILMAN
reading & book signing for The Witch’s Trinity
Tuesday, January 27 at 7:30 pm

Set in 1507, The Witch’s Trinity tells the disturbing story of small town in Germany whose residents turn on themselves after a famine strikes and a friar arrives from a large city, claiming the town is under the spell of witches in league with the devil. Erika Mailman’s debut novel is both a historical work and, in the words of Khaled Hosseini, a “gripping, well-told story of faith and truth.”

Erika Mailman can trace her own roots to a Massachusetts relative who twice stood trial for witchcraft. A member of the San Francisco Writers Workshop, Mailman is a columnist and the author of earlier books on local history.

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
Reading & book signing for Best Sex Writing 2009
Monday, February 2 at 7:30 pm

Intelligent, upbeat, and sex-positive, the pieces in Best Sex Writing 2009 offer an in-depth look at sex the way it actually happens in America today. This anthology includes gubernatorial sex scandals, rape fantasies, "Dear John" letters, teen sexuality, purity balls, the science of screwing, bathroom sex, and other topics scrutinized by noted columnists, bloggers, and authors in pieces that are funny, informative, challenging, sexy, and serious.
Contributors and local writers Tracy Clark-Flory and Violet Blue will be among those joining Bussel for this Booksmith event.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a columnist for the Village Voice and is senior editor at Penthouse Variations. She has written for a long list of publications including Bust, Cosmopolitan, Penthouse, Radar, San Francisco Chronicle, and Time Out New York. She has been quoted in the New York Times, USA Today, Maxim UK, and other publications, and has appeared on The Martha Stewart Show, The Berman and Berman Show, NY1, and Showtime's Family Business. She has hosted In The Flesh Erotic Reading Series since October 2005, about which the New York Times' UrbanEye newsletter said she "welcomes eroticism of all stripes, spots and textures." She blogs at lustylady.blogspot.com and cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com.

SHARON DOUBIAGO
Reading & book signing for Love on the Streets
Tuesday, February 10 at 7:30 pm

Sharon Doubiago is a prolific poet who knows herself intimately and is deeply committed to her craft. On her latest collection, Love on the Streets: Selected and New Poems, she confidently states "the new poems just keep coming." Love on the Streets features selections from four of Doubiago's books of poetry, two of which are book length poems (a style for which she is noted), Hard Country and South America Mi Hija. It also includes poems from the collections Psyche Drives the Coast and Body and Soul. Among Doubiago's other work is a third book length poem, The Husband Arcane: The Arcane of O, and two short fiction collections: The Book of Seeing With One's Own Eyes, and El Nino.

Doubiago holds three Pushcart Prizes for poetry and the Oregon Book Award for Psyche Drives the Coast. She has been nominated twice for the National Book Award. Doubiago is an online mentor in Creative Writing for the University of Minnesota and a board member of PEN Oakland, a chapter of PEN Center USA, which supports the literary arts within the multicultural community.

PETER FOGTDAL
Reading & book signing for The Tsar's Dwarf
Tuesday, February 17 at 7:30 pm

Having written 12 novels in Danish, The Tsar's Dwarf is Peter Fogtdal's first book to be translated in English. In the novel, Soerine, a deformed female dwarf from Denmark, is given as a gift to Tsar Peter the Great, who is smitten by her freakishness and intellect. Against her will, the Tsar takes Soerine to St. Petersburg, where she becomes a jester in his court. There, she lives a life that both compels and repels her. The Tsar's Dwarf is a masterfully told and brilliantly translated novel about aberration, endurance, and the human condition.

Born in Copenhagen, Denmark May 22, 1956, Peter Fogtdal had an obscene amount of pimples as a teenager. He studied in the US from 1977-82 at University of Florida and Cal State Fullerton, and decided that he wanted to be a writer and get laid. He succeeded on the first account. Returning to Denmark in 1982, Fogtdal worked as a freelancer for Denmark's national radio as a DJ and a satirical writer. He has written twelve novels in Danish, and in 2005, won the Francophone Literature Prize for Le Front Chantilly (Flodeskumsfronten). Fogtdal shares his time between Copenhagen, Denmark and teaching literature and writing at Portland State University in Oregon.

EUGENE MIRMAN
Reading & book signing for The Will to Whatevs: A Guide to Modern Life
Friday, February 20 at 7:30 pm

No one understands the complexities of modern life better than Eugene Mirman, claims Eugene Mirman, and anyone seeking guidance from a man who has lived through everything (except the Great Depression, the Spanish-American War, and Jerry Lee Lewis's sex scandal) won't resist this charmingly hysterical guidebook. In The Will to Whatevs, Mirman advises on many of life's difficult challenges, such as: how to become ultra-popular in high school (without "putting out" -- whatever that is); discover somewhere between four and two thousand ways to overcome social anxiety (sadly, closer to four); and how to start a band, become an artist, or disappoint your parents by getting cast on a reality TV show!

Eugene Mirman is a New York City based comedian, writer and actor. He has appeared in his own half-hour special on Comedy Central, in a recurring role on HBO's Flight of the Conchords, on Conan O'Brien and Carson Daly, MTV, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Home Movies, Lucy, Daughter of the Devil and in the new Adult Swim live action series Delocated. He's released two comedy albums: The Absurd Nightclub Comedy of Eugene Mirman (voted Best of 2004 by Time Out and The Onion) and En Garde, Society! Mirman tours the US regularly with countless comedians and has also appeared with bands such as Yo La Tengo, Modest Mouse, The Shins, Cake, and Tegan and Sara.

KIM ADDONIZIO
Reading & book signing for Ordinary Genius: A Guide for the Poet Within
Tuesday, February 24 at 7:30 pm

In Ordinary Genius, Kim Addonizio presents exciting new insights into the creative process, craft, and the lessons of her own creative subjects--love, loss, identity, community, along with a heady variety of writing exercises (and innovative ways to use the Internet). Chapters on gender, race, and class challenge readers to explore their creative vision more deeply. Addonizio, hailed for her passionate, award-winning poetry, shares her breakthroughs and frustrations frankly, including samples of rejection slips. She offers not only encouragement but also a wealth of knowledge about form and structure, metaphor and rhythm, revision, and that elusive goal: publishing.

Kim Addonizio is the author of four poetry collections including Tell Me, A National Book Award Finalist. Her fifth collection, Lucifer at the Starlite, will be published in October 2009. Her first novel, Little Beauties was chosen as "Best Book of the Month" by Book of the Month Club. My Dreams Out in the Street, her second novel, was released in 2007. She also has a word/music CD with poet Susan Browne, "Swearing, Smoking, Drinking, & Kissing,"; a book of stories, In the Box Called Pleasure; and the anthology Dorothy Parker's Elbow: Tattoos on Writers, Writers on Tattoos, coedited with Cheryl Dumesnil. Addonizio's awards include two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Guggenheim Fellowship,a Pushcart Prize, a Commonwealth Club Poetry Medal, and the John Ciardi Lifetime Achievement Award. Her poetry, fiction, and essays have appeared widely in anthologies, literary journals, and textbooks, including Alaska Quarterly Review, American Poetry Review, Bad Girls, Chick-Lit, Dick for a Day, Gettysburg Review, Paris Review, Penthouse, Poetry, and Threepenny Review. She teaches private workshops in Oakland, CA, and online.

VERONICA CHATER
Reading & book signing for Waiting for the Apocalypse
Friday, February 27 at 7:30 pm

Chater brings an ear for dialogue and an eye for the absurd to Waiting for the Apocalypse, a tragicomic debut memoir about coming of age in the 1970s in an ultraconservative Catholic family.

It is 1972, in San Jose, California, and 10-year-old Veronica's parents believe that Vatican II has corrupted the Catholic Church. Pitting himself against the Church and modern America, her father quits the highway patrol, sells everything, and moves the family of eight from California to an isolated village near Fatima. But Portugal is no Catholic utopia, and Veronica and her siblings run feral on the streets as their parents pray for a miracle and the family falls into poverty. Forced to return to the Bay Area broke and disappointed, they attend the Latin Mass in truck garages, backyards, and abandoned buildings, and join the Catholic counter-revolution--an underground network of warrior monks trained to think and fight like the Christian crusaders of the twelfth century. As Veronica comes of age on the fringes of the American Dream, she is forbidden to enjoy anything modern--clothes, movies, and music--but learns to think for herself through journal-writing and poetry, and ultimately rebels against a fanaticism that has long since stopped making sense.

Veronica began her writing career at the age of seven on her father's Underwood typewriter in her family's backyard. When it became clear that she would have to finance her career by working, she sought out jobs that promised to supply creative material, among them food waitress, limousine driver, airplane re-fueler, costume seamstress, convenience store cashier (graveyard shift), restaurant prep-cook, door-to-door toothbrush salesperson, criminal background check person, cocktail waitress, lost-luggage handler, housemaid, bartender, size 6 clothes model, carpenter's assistant, African hyena research assistant, theater stagehand, mail delivery person, English language tutor, wedding reception caterer, car mechanic (60's VW's only), landscape gardener, movie extra, clean-room technician, hybrid-artificial pancreas designer (California patent # 2134088), speed typist, editor's assistant, and titillating story-writer for various women's magazines, including a popular national weekly.

CARA BLACK
Reading and book signing for Murder in the Latin Quarter
Thursday, March 5 at 7:30 p.m.

Murder in the Latin Quarter is the 9th book in the best-selling and award-nominated Aimée Leduc Investigation series. In it, a Haitian woman arrives at the office of Leduc Detective and announces that she is Aimée’s sister. A virtual orphan since her mother’s disappearance and her father’s death, Aimée is thrilled. Her partner, René, is wary of this stranger, but Aimée embraces her and soon finds herself involved in murky Haitian politics leading to murder.

Cara Black frequents a Paris little known outside the beaten tourist track, a Paris she discovers on research trips and interviews with French police and private detectives. She is a San Francisco Library Laureate and a member of the Paris Sociéte Historique in the Marais. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, a bookseller, and their teenage son.

GRAVITY GOLDBERG AND ERIC ZASSENHAUS
With Jim Nelson, Alia Volz, Mark Jacobs, and Matt Stewart
Reading and zine signing for Instant City
Tuesday, March 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Instant City is a literary exploration of San Francisco in zine form. Our city is as legendary for its tectonic cultural shifts as it is for its earthquakes, every decade or so becoming an epicenter for a new utopian vision. Each cultural eruption reinforces the idea of San Francisco as an instant city. This zine captures that frenetic energy in fiction, non-fiction, and art, creating a subjective, ever-changing map of the city.

Editor Gravity Goldberg received a Masters in English, concentration in Creative Writing at SFSU. She worked as festival coordinator for Litquake in 2007. Her fiction is published in Watchword, Strange Tales, Transfer, and the SF Bay Guardian lit section. She’s also written for SFGate, Morbid Curiosity, Tempe Crime Wave, Panache, SFBG, and Stretcher. She has lived in San Francisco for fourteen years.

Editor Eric Zassenhaus works with the Knight Digital Media Center at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Before that, he worked as the Web Coordinator and Buyer for City Lights Books and Publishers, served as the Cultural Editor for Clamor magazine and was an Assistant Editor at Tikkun Magazine. He has self-published many chapbooks, ‘zines, and magazines in the past fifteen years, and his work has appeared in print, online, and on air.

The editors will be joined by contributors Jim Nelson, Alia Volz, Mark Jacobs, and Matt Stewart.

BRIAN YAEGER
Special Event with Magnolia Pub and Brewery
Reading, beer tasting, and book signing for Red, White, and Brew
Thursday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m.

Red, White, and Brew is the ultimate beer run across the United States. From fifth-generation family-run brewing companies to first-wave microbreweries, this book is a travelogue, guide, and genealogical study of beer families and home brewers from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. It is filled with eclectic characters and shrewd businesspeople who produce liquid philanthropy, one keg at a time.

Beer's been good to Brian Yaeger, author of Red, White, and Brew: An American Beer Odyssey. It nourished him at U.C. Santa Barbara (double bachelor degrees in religious studies and Russian), became his thesis at USC (Master of Professional Writing), and fueled his road trip around the country interviewing the people who make our brews.

Haight Street’s own Magnolia Pub and Brewery will provide beer samples.

ERIC SIMONS
Reading, slideshow and book signing for Darwin Slept Here
Tuesday, March 17 at 7:30 p.m.

Two hundred years after Darwin was born, and 150 years after the publication of The Origin of Species, Darwin Slept Here is an exciting journey in the footsteps of one the fathers of modern science. In this fresh-eyed and innovative history and travelogue, Eric Simons reclaims the past of South America, and brings Charles Darwin into the future in a thrilling new look at a familiar subject.

Eric will be showing photos and telling stories about his quest to retrace Darwin’s voyage.

Eric Simons is a freelance writer, confirmed Californian, and marine life enthusiast. He has written for San Francisco magazine, California magazine, the Los Angeles Times, Sierra magazine, and Canoe & Kayak magazine, among others, and reported and produced a nationally distributed radio documentary for the National Radio Project's Making Contact. Eric is a graduate of the environmental and science writing program at the University of California, Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and lives in San Francisco.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION
Reading group meeting for Senselessness
Thursday, March 19 at 6:30 p.m.

The Booksmith’s will be launching our first ever reading group this month. Driven by our resident Italophile Julie, the group will focus on contemporary translated fiction. We're excited about this opportunity to bring more exposure to award-winning titles by authors around the world. The books discussed by the group will be available at a 15% discount.

Our first book will be Senselessness, acclaimed Salvadoran author Horacio Castallanos Moya's astounding debut in English. A Rainmaker Translation Grant winner, Senselessness explores horror with hilarity and electrifying panache. A boozing, sex-obsessed writer finds himself employed by the Catholic Church (an institution he loathes) to proofread a 1,100 page report on the army's massacre and torture of thousands of indigenous villagers a decade earlier, including the testimonies of the survivors.

Come by to pick up your copy so you can finish the book in time for our first meeting.

JON GINOLI
Reading and book signing for Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division
Plus special acoustic performance!
Friday, March 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Deflowered is Jon Ginoli's journey of self-discovery, musical passion, and drive to become the founding member of Pansy Division, the first openly gay punk rock band to make the national scene. We follow the band from their inception in the early '90s in San Francisco, to their search for a music label, and their current status as indie rock icons. We see the highs—touring with Green Day—and the lows—homophobic fans—of striving for acceptance and success in the world of rock. Featuring behind-the-scenes photographs and replete with the requisite tales of sex, drugs, groupies, band fights, and label battles, this rollicking memoir is also an impassioned account of staying true to their artistic vision of queer rock'n'roll.

Jon Ginoli is a guitarist, singer, songwriter and founding member of Pansy Division. An Illinois native, he's played both dive bars and arenas, and his favorite color is purple. When not on tour with the band, he lives and works in San Francisco - at Amoeba Music on Haight Street, just a few blocks from The Booksmith!

HOMELESS IN HAIGHT
Community Forum
Monday, March 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Building on success of the event with Dr. Karen Staller last October, the Booksmith is pleased to organize the next community forum about Homelessness in Haight. This forum is aimed at creating a constructive and inclusive dialog that leads to positive changes in our neighborhood. Representatives of Larkin Street Youth Services and Homeless Youth Alliance will make a short educational presentation to the community about the services they provide in the Haight Ashbury area and issues they face. The presentations will be followed by a Question and Answer session. (Photo by Franco Folini)

DAVID EWING DUNCAN
Reading and book signing for Experimental Man
Wednesday, March 25 at 7:30 p.m.

If you could, would you like to know how long you had to live? What diseases you’re susceptible to? Or, what the environment around you is doing to your overall health? Ultimately, would you want to know how you might die? In EXPERIMENTAL MAN: What One Man’s Body Reveals About His Future, Your Health, and Our Toxic World, Duncan takes "guinea pig" journalism to the very edge of science, building on award-winning articles he wrote for National Geographic and Wired, in which he was tested for hundreds of chemical toxins – from pesticides to plastic additives – and for millions of genetic markers associated with disease, emotions, and other traits.

David Ewing Duncan is the author of seven books including the worldwide bestseller Calendar. He is Chief Correspondent of public radio's Biotech Nation, a commentator on NPR's Morning Edition, and a contributing editor and a columnist for Conde Nast Portfolio. He has been a contributing editor to Wired, Discover and Technology Review, and has written for Harper’s, The Atlantic, Fortune, and many other publications. He is a former special correspondent and producer for ABC Nightline and a correspondent for NOVA’s ScienceNOW! He has won numerous awards including the Magazine Story of the Year from the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He lives in San Francisco and is the Director of the Center of Life Science Policy at UC Berkeley.

MINAL HAJRATWALA
To be introduced by KALW radio host Sandip Roy
Launch party, reading and book signing for Leaving India with homemade Indian refreshments
Thursday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m.

As the daughter of immigrants and the granddaughter of weavers, Minal Hajratwala grew up accustomed to crossing lines. In Leaving India, she weaves together history, memoir, and reportage to explore questions facing not only her own family but that of every migrant: Where did we come from? Why did we leave? What did we lose and gain? Traveling the world, she learns how her family, originally from India, came to be spread across five continents and nine countries over more than a century of migration — a movement that parallels the phenomenal growth of India’s diaspora.

Minal Hajratwala is a writer, performer, poet, and queer activist based in San Francisco, where she was born before being whisked off to be raised in New Zealand and suburban Michigan. Her creative work has appeared in numerous journals, anthologies, and theater spaces, and has received recognition and support from the Sundance Institute, among others. She was an editor and reporter at the San Jose Mercury News, and was a fellow at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism in 2000-01. She is a graduate of Stanford University.

Leaving India is the favorite new book of our own Praveen Madan who considers it the first really good non-fiction book that helped him understand the historical events that shaped the rise of the Indian diaspora. You can watch a short video about the book, and also order a author signed first edition copy.

CATHERINE BRADY
Reading and book signing for The Mechanics of Falling and Other Stories
Monday, April 6 at 7:30 p.m.

Catherine Brady's latest crop of short stories, set largely in San Francisco, are about what happens when the seemingly fixed coordinates of our lives abruptly give way. The characters - a college student waitressing in a remote resort in the Sierras, a devout Christian man who works in a homeless shelter, a faded Berkeley radical, a privileged young woman who canít figure out whom to blame for her discontent - share a fundamental predicament, the struggle to name and embrace some faith that can break their fall.

Catherine Brady's short stories have appeared in prominent literary journals and have been anthologized in Best American Short Stories. Her first collection, The End of the Class War, was a finalist for the 1999 Western States Book Award for Fiction, and her second, Curled in the Bed of Love, was co-winner of the 2002 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco.

LISA LUTZ
Reading and book signing for Revenge of the Spellmans
Wednesday, April 8 at 6:30 p.m.

Isabel Spellman, the offbeat and irrepressible private eye who has been called "the love child of Dirty Harry and Harriet the Spy," is back for a third hilarious adventure in Revenge of the Spellmans. This latest installment in the bestselling series by "smart-mouthed writer" Lisa Lutz finds Izzy once again breaking the rules as she juggles court-ordered therapy, unemployment, a rather spare case load, and the usual antics of her charmingly dysfunctional family.

Lisa Lutz grew up in Southern California. She attended UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine, University of Leeds in England, and San Francisco State University, although she still does not have a bachelor's degree. She spent much of the 1990s hopping from a string of low-paying jobs while writing and rewriting the screenplay, "Plan B", after which she vowed she would never write another screenplay. She is calling California her home, for now.

KRIS SAKNUSSEMM
Reading, multimedia performance and book signing for Private Midnight
Friday, April 10 at 7:30 p.m.

Private Midnight is a psycho-erotic noir thriller set in a gritty underworld of jazz, junkies and shadows, where shadows play tricks and secrets betray. Kirkus has said that “by the end, the word "freakish" doesn't even begin to describe the events” of Saknussemm’s novel.

This will not be your typical author reading; Saknussemm’s theatrics will be accompanied by music from the book’s eerie soundtrack. The author will transport his audience to the moody and surreal world of the novel described by PW as “James Ellroy meets David Lynch in this addictive mix of noir and supernatural horror.”

Kris Saknussemm is a cult novelist and multimedia artist. Born and educated in America, he has lived most of his life abroad, primarily in Australia and the Pacific Islands. His science fiction themed novel Zanesville was hailed by critics as a revolutionary work of surreal black comedy.

AMBER GUETEBIER AND BRENDA KNIGHT
with Bucky Sinister, Phil Cousineau, Ruth Weiss and others TBA
Reading, divination and book signing for The Poetry Oracle: Ask and Question and Find Your Fate
Monday, April 13 at 7:30 p.m.

Just in time to celebrate National Poetry Month comes this book of classical poetry with instruction on how to use the book’s contents for divination. Poets featured in the book with read their work and then the audience will be invited to "ask the oracle" questions. All in all, a one-of-a-kind psychic poetry slam!

Amber Guetebier is a poet and a short story writer. Brenda Knight is a poet and the author of several books, including "Women of the Beat Generation," which won an American Book Award in 1997. They are both self-described "Haight girls."

ALVA NOE
Reading and book signing for Out of Our Heads
Wednesday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m.

Our culture is obsessed with the brain—how it perceives; how it remembers; how it determines our intelligence, our morality, our likes and our dislikes. It’s widely believed that consciousness itself, that Holy Grail of science and philosophy, will soon be given a neural explanation. And yet, after decades of research, only one proposition about how the brain makes us conscious—how it gives rise to sensation, feeling, and subjectivity—has emerged unchallenged: We don’t have a clue.

In this inventive work, Noë suggests that rather than being something that happens inside us, consciousness is something we do. Debunking an outmoded philosophy that holds the scientific study of consciousness captive, Out of Our Heads is a fresh attempt at understanding our minds and how we interact with the world around us.

Alva Noë is a professor of philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also a member of the Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences. His previous book, Action in Perception, was published in 2004.

JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN
Reading and book signing for Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!
Friday, April 17 at 7:30 p.m.

Sure, it’s the foundation for much of Western morality and the cornerstone of world literature, but let’s face it: the Bible always needed punching up—a little more fire with that brimstone. In Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!, This American Life regular contributor Jonathan Goldstein re-imagines and recasts the Bible’s greatest stories and heroes with the depth, wit, and snappy dialogue that they’ve always needed.

Jonathan Goldstein -- the "Canadian Ira Glass" -- is the award-winning author of Lenny Bruce Is Dead. His work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, GQ, ReadyMade, and The New York Times. He’s a contributing editor to PRI’s This American Life, where his work is regularly featured, and he lives in Montreal and hosts his own CBC program, Wiretap.

RUSSELL HOWZE
Reading, slidshow & book signing for Stencil Nation
Tuesday, April 21 at 7:30 p.m.

Without a doubt, stencils are the fastest, easiest, and cheapest method for painting an image on a wall, a sidewalk, or almost any object anywhere. Stencil Nation focuses on the unexpected mix of this lively, accessible medium to reveal engaging aspects of an intentionally secretive international creative community. With dynamically illustrated perspectives from diverse niches of the art form, hundreds of photographs and numerous essays have been curated by StencilArchive.org’s founder, Russell Howze.

Russell Howze saw his first stencil in 1990 in Clemson, SC. When he landed in San Francisco in 1997, he found dozens on the sidewalks of the Mission and Haight neighborhoods. He's never stopped photographing the sometimes temporary, always intriguing art form. He currently lives in San Francisco's Mission District, and is usually seen on his bike with his camera slung around his shoulder.

SHAWNA YANG RYAN
Reading & book signing for Water Ghosts
Wednesday, April 22 at 7:30 p.m.

A dreamlike haze shimmers over Ryan's debut, Water Ghosts, the tale of a real-life immigrants' enclave in early 20th-century California. In a mining town outside Sacramento, Richard Fong's Lucky Fortune casino and Poppy See's brothel provide the only entertainment for Chinese workers sending their wages back to the families they can't bring into the country. For Chloe, a white prostitute who is Richard's favorite, it's also a place to hide from her family just a few towns over.

Born in Sacramento, California, the child of parents who met during the Vietnam War when her father was stationed in Taiwan, Shawna Yang Ryan graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, and received an M.A. from the University of California, Davis. In 2002, she was a Fulbright scholar in Taiwan. Water Ghosts (originally published in 2007 as Locke 1928) was a finalist for the 2008 Northern California Book Award. She currently lives in Berkeley, California.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION
Reading group for Tokyo Fiancee by Amelie Nothomb
Thursday, April 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Found in Translation, the Booksmith’s reading group, continues with a roster of exciting award-winning titles. Each one a contemporary work of translated fiction, the books discussed by the group will be available at a 15% discount.

Nothomb's autobiographical novel, Tokyo Fiancee, takes place in the Japanese metropolis of Tokyo in the late 80’s. Amelie is a 22-year-old Belgian woman who spent her early childhood in Japan and has returned to master the language and join the Japanese workforce. To earn some extra cash, she gives French lessons to a young man named Rinri, and the couple ends up embarking on an affair that takes them on a journey throughout the countryside of Japan.

PAUL MADONNA
Exhibit and book signing for Haight Street Art Walk
Friday, April 24 from 5 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Over twenty businesses in Haight-Ashbury are joining forces to organize a monthly Art Walk on the last Friday of every month. The entire neighborhood will be celebrating local artists, and The Booksmith is excited to have Paul Madonna hang out with us for the evening surrounded by his art and books.

Paul Madonna's strip, All Over Coffee, appears every Sunday in the San Francisco Chronicle and on SFGate.com. Paul's drawings and prints are shown in museums, galleries, restaurants and cafes, and in 2007 a collection of All Over Coffee was published by City Lights Books. Other work can be found in various publications including the Believer Magazine, A Writer's San Francisco, and the new collection Artists Sketchbooks. In 1994 Paul received a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and that same year he was the first (ever!) Art Intern at MAD Magazine, for which he proudly received no money. Paul currently lives with his wife in San Francisco.

GABRIELLE BELL AND ARIEL SCHRAG
Reading, slideshows, and book signing for Cecil and Jordan in New York and Likewise
Tuesday, April 28 at 7:30 p.m.

Cecil and Jordan in New York, the new collection from Gabrielle Bell, represents her short comics work that has been published in various anthologies over the past five years. The surrealist title story, in which a young woman turns herself into a chair so as not to be too much of a bother to those around her, is being adapted into a short film, Interior Design, by director Michel Gondry as part of the Tokyo! trilogy released this spring.

Set in Berkeley, Ariel Schrag's Likewise takes us into the holy grail of teenagers, every bit as terrifying as it is liberating: senior year. Struggling with a major longing for her ex-girlfriend who has gone away to college, her parents' post-divorce relationship, anxiety over the future, and all the graphic details of her complicated life, Ariel sets out to document everything and everyone.

Gabrielle Bell was born in England and raised in California. In 1998, she began to collect her "Book of" miniseries (Book of Sleep, Book of Insomnia, Book of Black, etc), which resulted in When I'm Old and Other Stories. In 2001 she moved to New York and released her autobiographical series Lucky. Her work has been selected for the 2007 and 2009 Best American Comics and the Yale Anthology of Graphic Fiction. She lives in Brooklyn, New York and is working on a second volume of Lucky.

Ariel Schrag was born in Berkeley, CA. She is the author of the autobiographical graphic novels Awkward, Definition, Potential, and Likewise, which chronicle her four years at Berkeley High School. She was a writer for seasons three and four of the hit Showtime series, The L Word. Ariel's illustrations and comics have appeared in publications such as The San Francisco Chronicle, Jane, Paper, and The Village Voice. She divides her time between Los Angeles and New York.

BEN GREENMAN
Reading & book signing for Please Step Back
Thursday, April 30 at 7:30 p.m.

Please Step Back is a swirling Sixties saga of the rise and fall of Rock Foxx, whose unprecedented mixed-race/mixed gender band makes socially conscious music that takes him to the height of worldwide rock stardom. But then his music begins to darken and disappear amidst rumors of sexual debauchery and drugs and violence, even as the culture itself explodes into assassinations and riots until people ask themselves: Whatever happened to Rock Foxx?

Ben Greenman is an editor at The New Yorker and the author of the books Superbad, Superworse, A Circle is A Balloon and Compass Both, and Correspondences. His short fiction, journalism, and criticism has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times, the Washington Post, McSweeney's and the Paris Review. He lives in Brooklyn.

JOHN WRAY
Reading & book signing for Lowboy
Friday, May 1 at 7:30 p.m.

Lowboy is about a sixteen-year-old paranoid schizophrenic who is on a mission to stop the planet’s destruction by radical climate change. He has six hours, and the only way to do it is by losing his virginity. The Daily Beast called it the underground novel of the year. Publisher's Weekly said "Wray deploys brilliant hallucinatory visuals, including chilling descriptions of the subway system and an imaginary river flowing beneath Manhattan. In his previous works, Wray has shown that he’s not a stranger to dark themes, and with this tightly wound novel, he reaches new heights."

John Wray was born in Washington, D.C., where his parents, both scientists, were employed by the National Institute of Health. Wray majored in biology at Oberlin College, intending to become an ornithologist; in the end, he had to content himself with becoming a birdwatcher. Wray’s first novel, The Right Hand of Sleep, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and won a Whiting Award in Fiction. This past year, Granta magazine selected him as one of the best American novelists under the age of thirty-five. For the last seven years, Wray has lived in Park Slope, Brooklyn, across the street from the Prospect Park Bandshell. He has no intention of moving.

TAMIM ANSARY
Reading & book signing for Destiny Disrupted
Monday, May 4 at 7:30 p.m.

In the days after 9/11, Tamim Ansary became a regular on the airwaves in the United States, asked day after day to explain what had just happened to audiences across the country. Raised in Muslim Afghanistan (he is now based in Northern California), having contributed to and edited secondary school textbooks about world history, and possessing a warm and engaging manner and an ease with the role of “cultural interpreter,” Ansary had a unique perspective on and way of explaining U.S and Middle East relations to the masses. In his new book, Destiny Disrupted, Ansary again acts as cultural interpreter, this time covering much more than the significance and consequences of a single day: here, Ansary tells the rich story of world history as the Islamic world sees it, from the time of Mohammed to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and beyond, and what the Islamic world makes of the Western version of those same events.

Tamim Ansary is the author of the memoir West of Kabul, East of New York, and has been a major contributing writer to several secondary school history textbooks. Born in Afghanistan, he now lives in San Francisco, where he is director of the San Francisco Writers Workshop and writes a column for Encarta.com.

TIBET: 50 YEARS OF RESISTANCE AND EXILE
Panel discussion & screening for the 50th Anniversary of Tibet's Peaceful Resistance
Wednesday, May 6 at 7:30 p.m.

The Booksmith is pleased to host a panel of four leading thinkers from the world of Tibetan arts and culture in discussion about Tibet's 50 years of peaceful resistance to the occupation by Chinese government. This event is presented under the aegis of Booksmith's social justice platform in collaboration with the Tibetan Association of Northern California.

Guests will include Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, the first Tibetan woman poet to be published in the U.S. (Rules of the House, 2003); Topden Tsering, Berkeley-based writer, graphic artist, activist, and former Editor of The Tibetan Bulletin, the official journal of the Tibetan exile community; and Rosemary Rawcliffe, producer and director of international programs in television, film, video, and theater, including the The Women of Tibet film trilogy.

LOGAN AND NOAH MILLER
Reading, screening & book signing for Either You're In or You're In the Way
Thursday, May 7 at 7:30 p.m.

When identical twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller’s homeless father died alone in a jail cell, they vowed come hell or high water that their feature film, Touching Home, would be made as a dedication to their love for him. Either You're In or You're in the Way is the amazing story of how—without a dime to their names nor a single meaningful contact in Hollywood—they managed to write, produce, act, and direct a feature film in under a year starring actor Ed Harris. Touching Home premiered at the coveted San Francisco International Film Festival last April and has won numerous audience awards.

With an alcoholic father who lived most of the time in his truck and a single mother trying to eke out a living to raise them, the Miller twins had a tough childhood. Their talent and athletic ability helped fuel their dream of becoming professional baseball players. When that dream failed, they scraped out an existence as bingo callers, ditch diggers, and house painters, and were eventually plucked out of obscurity by a high fashion modeling scout. In a particularly hilarious episode, the ultra famous fashion photographer David LaChapelle declares his intentions to put Noah in a g-string and paint his body gold. The twins escaped from the shoot, pocketing a large portion of the food from the catering table, and never looked back. Broke but not broken, they set their sights on making the film they had always talked about with their dad.

ANDY RASKIN
Launch party, reading and book signing for The Ramen King and I With sake tastings by True Sake
Tuesday, May 12 at 7:30 p.m.

In The Ramen King and I, a "painfully humane, hilariously candid" (Publishers Weekly) memoir, Andy Raskin confronts a longtime pattern of romantic infidelity. Despair— and a bizarre series of adventures involving Japanese food—lead him to adopt Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant noodles, as an unlikely spiritual guide. Devouring Ando's books and essays (such as "Mankind is Noodlekind"), Raskin set out to meet the food pioneer—and to find the secret to a committed relationship.

Raskin's stories have been broadcast on public radio's All Things Considered and This American Life, and published in The New York Times, Gourmet, Wired, Women's Health, CNN/Money and Playboy (the Japanese edition). A judge for the 2009 James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards, Andy resides in San Francisco, where he's a member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto. Sake tastings will poured by True Sake, the sake boutique in Hayes Valley.

ALEX HATCH
Discussion, slideshow, and book signing for Cracks in the Asphalt With community gardeners and beekeepers
Thursday, May 14 at 7:30 p.m.

Cracks in the Asphalt is a one-of-a-kind guide book to 30 of San Francisco's Community Gardens. One important aspect of the book is to let readers know that these gardens were born out of the hard work of each group of neighborhood activists whose role was to not only create a garden where there was a dumping ground, but to create a sense of community as well. Because of this the gardens are situated over looking freeways, in downtown areas, in out of the way corners and busy neighborhoods.

Alex Hatch is a native San Franciscan who believes in the preservation of open space through the development of community gardens by and for the benefit of city residents.She has been a teacher, gardener and pruner in the Bay Area for 15 years, and between occupations has traveled throughout the world as well as living in Europe and Japan. Over time Alex has observed San Francisco becoming overdeveloped where much of its green spaces are threatened. This book is an attempt to introduce the readers to the necessity as well as the charms of green and open community spaces. Alex lives in San Francisco with her life partner Emily (who wouldn't put her hands in dirt but who loves these gardens) and their two cats Pasha and Nemo.

And just in case all those goodies aren't enough, a parting gift for you. Here's the latest comic offering from our very own Sean Chiki: "I Remember Lemuria", a take on the Shaver mystery.

JOSHUA MOHR
Launch party, reading, and book signing for Some Things That Meant the World to Me
Monday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m.

Enter Damascus, the womb-like bar in San Francisco’s Mission District, and you’ll find Rhonda, a thirty-year-old man suffering from depersonalization—a disorder allowing him to reconfigure his reality to tolerate trauma. Some Things That Meant the World to Me is the gritty tale of a band of outcasts struggling to make sense of their broken pasts in this subtly affecting, achingly poignant, and mature debut novel.

Joshua Mohr has been published in Other Voices, The Cimarron Review, Pleiades, and Gulf Coast, among others. He lives in San Francisco and teaches at a halfway house. His second novel, From a Fragile Galaxy, is forthcoming from Two Dollar Radio in June 2010.

ROB REGER, JESSICA GRUNER AND BUZZ PARKER
Slideshow, reading, and book signing for Emily the Strange: The Lost Days
Thursday, June 4 at 7:30 p.m.

Emily the Strange: 13 years old. Able to leap tall buildings, probably, if she felt like it. More likely to be napping with her four black cats; or cobbling together a particle accelerator out of lint, lentils, and safety pins; or rocking out on drums/ guitar/saxophone/zither; or painting a swirling feral sewer mural; or forcing someone to say "swirling feral sewer mural" 13 times fast . . . and pointing and laughing. The Lost Days is her first novel.

Rob Reger has grown Emily the Strange from an image on a few skateboards and T-shirts to an international fashion brand and publishing phenomenon. He lives in the Bay Area. A former high school English teacher, Jessica Gruner owns a clothing boutique in San Francisco. She lives in the Bay Area.

HAL NIEDZVIECKI
with Eric Zassenhaus and Gravity Goldberg of Instant City, and other guests
Panel on community and peep culture for The Peep Diaries
Monday, June 8 at 7:30 p.m.

Join award winning cultural observer Hal Niedzviecki as he takes you on a multimedia tour of our new world: Peepville. In Peepville, Hal will show you such notable features as streets lined with surveillance cameras, daycares equipped with webcams, and citizens eagerly tracking themselves and each other via Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and shared GPS.

Behind all those cameras, cell phones and profiles are real people. It’s time to meet your neighbors, the peeps of Peepville! Some of them are inexplicably revealing the intimate details of their (sex) lives online. Others have become the new enforcers of (digital) morality – digicam vigilantes who stalk everyone from bad drivers to prostitutes. Some of us just want to sit back and relax and watch other people go about their lives dying, disliking their jobs, and trying out for reality tv. Part travelogue, part diary, part meditation and social history, The Peep Diaries explores the way Peep Culture is replacing pop culture, radically changing not just the entertainment landscape, but also the firmaments of our culture and society.

Hal Niedzviecki is the founder of Broken Pencil magazine and the author of Hello I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity and We Want Some Too: Underground Desire and the Reinvention of Mass Culture. Called the "guru of independent/alternative creative action" by The Toronto Star, Niedzviecki and has published numerous works of social commentary and fiction. His writing has appeared in periodicals and newspapers across North America including The New York Times Magazine, Playboy, The Walrus, Adbusters, the Utne Reader and more. Hal is the subject of an upcoming documentary, "The Peep Diaries."

VIVIENNE SOSNOWSKI
Reading and book signing at Cask 17 Third Street, SF, CA Tuesday, June 9

Today, millions of people around the world enjoy California's legendary wines, unaware that 90 years ago the families who made these wines – and in many cases still do – turned to struggle and subterfuge to save the industry we now cherish. When Prohibition took effect in 1919, violence and chaos descended on Northern California. Federal agents spilled thousands of gallons of wine in the rivers and creeks, gun battles erupted on dark country roads, and local law enforcement officers, sympathetic to their winemaking neighbors, found ways to run circles around the intruding authorities. In When the Rivers Ran Red, Vivienne Sosnowski tells the inspiring storyof how ordinary people fought to protect to a beautiful and timeless culture in the lovely hills and valleys of now-celebrated wine country.

Vivienne Sosnowski has been an editorial director of newspapers, including the Washington, D.C., Examiner and the San Francisco Examiner. A gifted photographer whose portraits of wine country pioneers were the genesis of this book, she divides her time between a home in the vineyard county of Sonoma and another in Vancouver, Canada.

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF
Reading and book signing for LIFE INC.
Tuesday, June 9 at 7:30 p.m.

According to social theorist, author, and filmmaker Douglas Rushkoff, the current financial crisis started 450 years ago. In LIFE INC: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back, Rushkoff traces the history of how we came to where we are today, a society where “community” and personal connectedness have broken down, where most Americans have so willingly adopted the values of corporations that they’re no longer even aware of it, where we have replaced our personal decisions with market-tested solutions (for everything from weight loss, to conception, to finding a date), and, now that we are fed up with corporate spending, where to go from here. Provocative and controversial, Rushkoff argues that America's economic implosion is an opportunity for us to become reconnected to our towns, to our values, and to each other.

Douglas Rushkoff is a widely known media critic and documentarian. He has written ten books, and his documentaries include Frontline’s award-winning “The Merchants of Cool” and “The Persuaders.” He teaches media studies at the New School, hosts “The Media Squat” on radio station WFMU, and serves on the board of directors of the Media Ecology Association, the Center for Cognitive Liberty and Ethics, and the National Association for Media Literacy Education. He has won the Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology and was the first winner of the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity. He lives just outside of New York City.

Eduardo Galeano on Mirrors
Friday, June 12 7:30
at Berkeley Arts & Letters @ FCCB, Berkeley, CA

Characteristic of Galeano, Mirrors looks at the world and its histories “upside down” -- “against horror, against defeat, against oblivion” as one critic put it -- recounting, in his inimitably impish and mystical way, the songs and stories of humanity that have been forgotten or condemned to posterity. This author recently made headlines when Hugo Chavez gifted his book "Open Veins" to President Obama. Tickets for this event are available for sale at The Booksmith or online at: Brown Paper Tickets.

NOVELLA CARPENTER
Launch party, reading, and book signing for Farm City
Monday, June 15 at 7:30 p.m.

Farm City is an unforgettably charming memoir about the battle between urban life and the natural world as well as a beautiful meditation on what we have given up to live the way we do. Novella Carpenter loves cities—the culture, the crowds, the energy. At the same time, she can’t shake the fact that she’s the daughter of two back-to-the-land hippies who taught her to love nature and eat vegetables. Ambivalent about repeating her parents’ disastrous mistakes, yet drawn to the idea of backyard self-sufficiency, Novella decides that it might be possible to have it both ways: a homegrown vegetable plot as well as museums, bars, concerts, and a twenty-four-hour convenience mart mere minutes away. If you’ve ever considered leaving it all behind to become a farmer outside the city limits or looked at the abandoned lot next door with a gleam in your eye, consider this both a cautionary tale and a full-throated call to action.

Novella Carpenter grew up in rural Idaho and Washington State. She studied biology and English at the University of Washington in Seattle, where she had many odd jobs, including assassin bug handler and 16-millimeter projectionist. After moving to California, she attended UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. Her writing has appeared in salon.com, saveur.com, sfgate.com (the San Francisco Chronicle’s Web site), and Mother Jones. Her adventures in urban agriculture began with honeybees and a few chickens, then some turkeys, until she created an urban homestead called GhostTown Farm near downtown Oakland, where she and her boyfriend, Bill, live today.

IN CONVERSATION: ADRIAN TOMINE AND SETH
A Special Off-Site Event
at the Park Branch of the SFPL
1833 Page Street
Thursday, June 18 at 7:30 p.m.

The two New Yorker illustrators Adrian Tomine and Seth will be celebrating their own new releases--Tomine's new editions of Shortcomings and 32 Stories and Seth's new graphic novel George Sprott 1894-1975--as well as the releases of the books they have each edited and designed--Yoshihiro Tatsumi's A Drifting Life (Adrian Tomine) and The Collected Doug: Canada's Master Cartoonist (Seth). The two authors will present slide shows, chat with each other, take questions from the audience and sign books.

At 16, Adrian Tomine started writing and drawing a combination of fictional and autobiographical stories, self-publishing them in his mini-comic Optic Nerve, which he sold through local stores and mail order. Thanks to his cool, clean, and very distinctive style, Tomine quickly found himself in high demand and his work has graced numerous CD and album covers as well as magazines like The New Yorker, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and Time. From 2004 to 2007, Tomine completed his most lengthy story arc thus far, Shortcomings, originally serialized in Optic Nerve issues #9-11, excerpted in McSweeney's Quarterly Concern #13, and published as a graphic novel in Fall 2007. The racially-charged, volatile dialogues delineated in Shortcomings are unlike anything in Tomine's previous work or, for that matter, comics in general.

As a book designer, Seth has worked on a variety of projects including the recent Penguin Classics reedition of The Portable Dorothy Parker. He is the designer of the 25 volume series The Complete Peanuts and the upcoming two volume series on Canadian master cartoonist Doug Wright. His novels, which have been translated into 8 languages, include It's a Good Life If You Don't Weaken, Wimbledon Green, and the illustrated memoir of his father, Bannock, Beans and Black Tea. Currently, he is serializing the story Clyde Fans. In 2007, Seth serialized the story George Sprott (1894-1975) in the New York Times Magazine in 25 installments, and has expanded the story to appear as a standalone book. As an illustrator, Seth has produced commercial works for virtually all of the major Canadian and American magazines. His work frequently appears inside and on the cover of the New Yorker. He is the subject of an upcoming National Film Board documentary, lives in Guelph, Ontario with his wife and two cats, and rarely leaves his basement.

EAT, DRINK, TALK AND SWAP BOOKS
An Evening at The Booksmith
Friday, June 19 at 7:00 p.m.
Price: $25

For anyone who is tired of meeting people at bars, new to the city, or simply looking to meet the other smart, creative, lit-minded souls of San Francisco, the Booksmith has put together an event for you: a book swap. If not just tempted by the good company and swell atmosphere, be tempted by delicious Bi-Rite food and free-flowing wine. Bring a book -- one you loved but can part with, and well cook up some good smart fun.

Attendees will receive a 20% discount on all purchases for the evening. There are also rumors of surprise giveaways.

CHRISTIE HERRING
Panel discussion and preview screening of THE CAMPAIGN
A documentary-in-progress about the fights against Prop 8
Monday, June 22 at 7:30 p.m.

Award-winning director and cinematographer Christie Herring presents a sneak preview of her documentary-in-progress, THE CAMPAIGN, and activists from “No on 8” and beyond discuss the state of the movement for marriage equality today. With exclusive access to the headquarters in San Francisco, this film chronicles the daily trials and travails of the people behind the “No on 8” campaign – the largest political campaign for LGBT rights in American history.

In Conversation: ANDREW SEAN GREER
Author of The Story of a Marriage
Wednesday, June 24 at 7:30 p.m.

Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of The Story of a Marriage, which The New York Times has called an “inspired, lyrical novel,” and The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named a best book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune while garnering many other coast-to-coast honors.

His first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, and his story collection, How It Was for Me, were also published to wide acclaim. His stories have appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, and other national publications, and have been anthologized most recently in The Book of Other People and Best American Nonrequired Reading. He is the recipient of the PEN/O’Henry Prize for Short Fiction, the Northern California Book Award, the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library. Greer currently lives in San Francisco and New York, at work on his next novel.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION
Reading group for The Naked Eye by Yoko Tawada, translated from Japanese by Susan Bernofsky
Thursday, June 25 at 6:30 p.m.

Found in Translation, the Booksmith’s reading group, continues with a roster of exciting award-winning titles. Each one a contemporary work of translated fiction, the books discussed by the group will be available at a 15% discount.

In The Naked Eye, a precocious Vietnamese high school student is invited to an International Youth Conference in East Berlin. As she is preparing to present her paper, she is abruptly kidnapped and taken to a small town in West Germany. She escapes on a train to Moscow...but mistakenly arrives in Paris. Alone, broke, and in a completely foreign land, Anh loses herself in the films of Cathrine Deneuve as her real adventures begin.

SHILPA AGARWAL
Reading and book signing for Haunting Bombay
Thursday, July 9 at 7:30 p.m.

Haunting Bombay is a literary ghost story set in 1960's India that tells the tale of three generations of the wealthy Mittal family who have buried a tragic history and the ghosts of the past who rise up to haunt them. In her award-winning novel Agarwal weaves together mysticism, mystery, and haunting supernatural spirits in a luminous story of power and powerlessness, voice and silence in post-colonial India. Agarwal's "stunning debut" has been reviewed as a compelling snapshot of 1960's Bombay and a ghost story that evokes both the hauntings of Poe and the hot pulse of today's vampire narratives."

Shilpa Agarwal is a Los Angeles-based writer and academic. Born in Mumbai to a family uprooted by India's Independence movement and subsequent Partition in 1947, Shilpa's early writings explored how colonialism and the chaos of dislocation shaped human interaction. As an undergraduate at Duke University, Shilpa specialized in Asian and African literatures and Women's Studies. She pursued her interest in post-colonial literatures as a doctoral student at the University of California, Los Angeles. She taught at both UCLA and UCSB, including a course on South Asian diaspora, and spoke regularly on the politics and poetics of community.

PAUL KRASSNER
Reading and book signing for In Praise of Indecency
Tuesday, July 14 at 7:30 p.m.

Paul Krassner's style of personal journalism constantly blurs the line between observer and participant. Nowhere is this more apparent than in In Praise of Indecency, a collection of essays and interviews culled from his columns at AVN Online. Whether being interviewed by Susie Bright, or imagining a conversation between Pee-Wee Herman and Pete Townshend about their busts by overzealous cops, or reminiscing about his friend Lenny Bruce, Krassner shines his keen satirical mind on the so-called taboos of todays society and breaks them down to show the hypocrisy of the worlds "culture warriors." With a biting wit and tongue firmly planted in cheek, Mr. Krassner reveals the absurdity of our oppressive social mores in this stark, funny, and ultimately thought-provoking collection.

Paul Krassner is the founder, editor and frequent contributor to the free-thought magazine The Realist. A key figure in the counterculture of the 1960s, he edited Lenny Bruce's autobiography How To Talk Dirty and Influence People. He currently writes columns for AVN Online and High Times Magazine and publishes the Disneyland Memorial Orgy poster at paulkrassner.com. In 2004 he received an ACLU Upton Sinclair Award for dedication to freedom of expression. His books include Pot Stories for the Soul, Tales of Tongue Fu, One Hand Jerking, and Confessions of a Raving Unconfined Nut. He continues to perform and lecture at college campuses, theaters and art galleries across the country.

SQUAW VALLEY WRITERS POETRY BENEFIT READING
with Cornelius Eady, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, and Evie Shockley
Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street
Friday, July 17 at 7:30 p.m.
PURCHASE TICKETS -- General Admission: $20/Students: $15

Cornelius Eady, Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, Galway Kinnell, Sharon Olds, and Evie Shockley will read their poetry in The Nave at Grace Cathedral (1100 California Street). This benefit reading will raise money for the Poetry Scholarship Fund at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. Books donated by the poets and their publishers will be available for purchase before and after the reading, and the poets will be available to sign books after the reading.

This will mark the 18th year for this annual benefit event, and every year it is a standing room-only success. All proceeds will benefit the Poetry Workshop Scholarship Fund, enabling talented writers to attend the week-long poetry writing workshop held each year in Squaw Valley, California. It is the goal of this program to support both established and emerging writers of talent who would benefit from working with their peers at the Poetry Week at Squaw Valley. - Tickets are available from Brown Paper Tickets.

JOANNA G. HARRIS
Reading and book signing for Beyond Isadora
Monday, July 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Beyond Isadora: Bay Area Dancing The Early Years, 1915-1965 documents the fascinating and little-known history of early 20th century dance in the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a history of performers, choreographers and teachers, pioneers of today's dance community. It is also women's history, since the prime movers were almost all women. This history, offered here as short biographical and chronological sketches, seeks to detail the regional development of ballet and of modern, ethnic and folk dance, from the era of Isadora Duncan, San Francisco's dance legend, who is regarded as the pioneer revolutionary and the mother of modern dance, to the mid 1960s. After Isadora, decades of dancers, dance groups and organizations carried on and refined a new American dance.

After many years of dance training in NY with the Duncan Dance Guild, the New Dance Group, Graham, Limón and Cunningham, Joanna G. Harris came to the Bay Area to study at Mills College with Marian Van Tuyl and Eleanor Lauer. As a graduate student she worked on IMPULSE, the annual magazine of dance, and upon graduation taught at UC Berkeley where she choreographed and performed for the Department of Drama and Music, 1959-69. Joanna formed her own company, the Monday Night Group, toured California, and founded the Dance/Drama Department at UC Santa Cruz and the Creative Arts Therapy program at Lone Mountain College. She is on the faculty of OLLI Institute, Berkeley and an instructor at the Modern Dance Center, Berkeley. She also writes reviews and essays about dance for websites and print publications.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION
Reading group for Clash of Civilization Over an Elevator at the Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous, translated from the Italian by Ana Goldstein
Thursday, July 23 at 6:30 p.m.

Found in Translation, the Booksmith’s reading group, continues with a roster of exciting award-winning titles. Each one a contemporary work of translated fiction, the books discussed by the group will be available at a 15% discount. The group is led by The Booksmith's own Julie Boyer.

Clash of Civilization Over an Elevator at the Piazza Vittorio, Amara Lakhous's prize-winning novel, is a social satire and murder mystery. A small culturally-mixed community living an apartment building in the center of Rome is thrown into disarray when one of the neighbors is murdered. An investigation ensues and as each of the victim’s neighbors is questioned and the reader is offered an all-access pass into the most colorful neighborhood in contemporary Rome.

SKIP HORACK
Reading and book signing for The Southern Cross
Tuesday, July 28 at 7:30 p.m.

The Southern Cross features a teenager who makes a grisly discovery while woodcock hunting; an exonerated ex-con who may not be entirely innocent; a rabbit farmer in mourning; and an earnest young mariner trying to start a new life with his wife. It features proudly Southern characters not often seen in fiction – birdwatchers, recreational hunters, beekeepers, and even marine biologists. “A knockout winner” according to author Antonya Nelson, The Southern Cross marks the arrival of a standout new voice in fiction.

Skip Horack was born and raised in Louisiana, attended Florida State University, and practiced law for five years in Baton Rouge. His work has appeared in Epoch, the Southern Review, Narrative Magazine, and other journals. Horack currently teaches at Stanford University, where he was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He lives in San Francisco.

MARC LESSER
Reading and book signing for LESS: Accomplishing More by Doing Less
Wednesday, July 29 at 7:30 p.m.

A certain kind of busyness is crucial to life, allowing us to earn a living, create art, and achieve success. But too often it consumes us and we become crazy busy, nonstop busy, and we expend extraneous effort that gets us nowhere. Marc Lesser's new book LESS shows us the benefits of doing less in a world that has increasingly embraced more - more desire, more activity, more things, more exhaustion. Less is about stopping, about the possibility of finding composure in the midst of activity. The ideas and practices that Lesser outlines offer a radical yet simple approach to transforming a lifestyle based on endless to-do lists into a more meaningful approach that is truly more productive in every sense.

Marc Lesser has been practicing and studying Zen for thirty years and is a Zen priest in the lineage of Suzuki Roshi, author of Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. Marc was a resident of the San Francisco Zen Center for ten years and in 1983 served as director of Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, the first Zen monastery in the West. He was founder and CEO of Brush Dance, a publishing company that creates greeting cards, journals, and calendars, for fifteen years and currently teaches and lectures in both the Zen and business environments. He holds an MBA from New York University’s Graduate School of Business and is the president of ZBA Associates, a company offering coaching and consulting services in the business and not-for-profit communities. He lives in northern California with his wife and two children.

The Cresting Wave: San Francisco Underground Comix Experience

July 10 — August 22, 2009

Electric Works
130 8th Street
San Francisco, CA
www.sfelectricworks.com
415 626 5496

Electric Works is pleased to present "The Cresting Wave: The San Francisco Underground Comix Experience," a group exhibition featuring underground comix artists from San Francisco, from the mid-'60's to the late '80's. Artists included are Mark Bode, Vaughn Bode, Guy Colwell, R. Crumb, Jay Kinney, Paul Mavrides, Dan O'Neill, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Gilbert Shelton, Larry Todd, Randy Vogel, and S. Clay Wilson. Culling work from private collectors and the artists themselves, guest curator, Underground Comix writer, publisher and historian, Dan Fogel, has amassed important work from each artist that spans personal drawings, well-known comix pieces, including covers and original comps, as well as other rare ephemera from the heyday of the San Francisco scene.

JIMMY CHEN, ANNE GERMANACOS, JENNY PRITCHETT AND HELEN WICKES
Reading and book signing for Best of the Web 2009
Tuesday, August 4 at 7:30 p.m.

Best of the Web 2009 is an eclectic collection of the best fiction, poetry, and non-fiction pieces from online literary journals. In the manner of other broad-ranging anthologies such as Pushcart and Best American Non-Required Reading, this is the first substantial attempt at an annual print compilation of the best of material published online.

Contributors Jimmy Chen, Anne Germanacos, Jenny Pritchett and Helen Wickes will read their work. Scott Esposito, editor of The Quarterly Conversation and the blog Conversational Reading, will host.

WILLIAM VOLLMANN
Reading and book signing for Imperial
Thursday, August 6 at 7:30 p.m.

It sprawls across a stinking artificial sea, across the deserts, date groves, and labor camps of southeastern California, right across the Mexican border. For generations of migrant workers, from Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to Mexican laborers today, Imperial County had held the promise of paradise – and the reality of hell. It is a land beautiful and harsh, enticing and deadly, rich in history and heartbreak. Across the border, the desert is the same but there are different secrets. In Imperial, Vollmann takes us deep into the heart of this haunted region, and by extension into the dark soul of American imperialism.

Born in 1959, William T. Vollmann is a graduate of Cornell University. He was a recipient of a 1988 Whiting Writers Award, and in 1999 the New Yorker named him one of the twenty best writers in America under forty. He is the author of nine novels (including Europe Central, which won the 2005 National Book Award), three collections of stories, a memoir, three works of nonfiction, and a seven volume meditation on nonviolence in history, which was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction. Vollmann’s journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Spin, Granta, Grand Street and Outside Magazine.

BONNIE TSUI
Reading and book signing for American Chinatown
Tuesday, August 11 at 7:30 p.m.

In American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods, acclaimed travel writer Bonnie Tsui embarks on a journey to find out what Chinatown means to its inhabitants – and what it means to America at large. Tsui explores the lives, stories and struggles of those in the country’s five most famous Chinatowns: New York (the biggest), San Francisco (the oldest), Los Angeles (the film icon), Honolulu (the crossroads), and Las Vegas (the newest). Each of these Chinatowns is curiously different, tut all have a connection, a cause, and a deep insight into what Chinatown means.

Bonnie Tsui is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. A former editor at Travel + Leisure, she has written for National Geographic Adventure, Salon, and Condé Nast Traveller. She is the editor of A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise, a collection of essays on the outdoors, and is a recipient of the Radcliffe Traveling Fellowship, the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, and the Jane Rainie Opel Award.

JOEY KRAMER OF AEROSMITH
Reading and book signing for Hit Hard
Tuesday, August 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Joey Kramer is the legendary drummer with the most successful band in American history—Aerosmith. In Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top, Kramer reveals the true and gritty side of rock and roll fame in a moving and inspiring story.

Joey Kramer has been rocking with Aerosmith since the band began in 1970. Kramer and his partners have sold over 150 million albums, and today their multigenerational global audience is bigger than ever. In addition to the Grammys and the twenty-one multi-platinum albums, Aerosmith was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. The band has been the subject of several documentaries, including a film dedicated to Joey Kramer and his lasting influence called It’s About Time.

PETER COYOTE
Reading and book signing for Sleeping Where I Fall
Thursday, August 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Out of the 60's counterculture explosion came a radical street group called the Diggers, who became the heart and soul of the Haight-Ashbury experience. Named after a group of 17th century free-thinkers in England, the Diggers dedicated themselves to building a new morality in place of the money-hungry capitalistic society, cutting through the cultural propaganda via the medium of both street theater and "free" programs. They began to distribute free food, provide free medical care and sponsor free rock concerts in Golden Gate Park featuring musicians like the Grateful Dead. They burned money, left its ashes and set out to create the condition they described. Peter Coyote's memoir Sleeping Where I Fall, first published in 1998, recounts his time as one of the group's founders and beyond. He weaves his experiences into a collection of stories from his life in San Francisco to communes and gypsy years on the road becoming part of the Free Family.

Ordained practitioner of Zen Buddhism, activist, and actor, Peter Coyote began his work in street theater and political organizing in San Francisco. In addition to acting in 120 films, Coyote has won an Emmy for narrating the award-winning documentary Pacific Century, and he has cowritten, directed, and performed in the play Olive Pits, which won The Mime Troupe an Obie Award. He lives in Mill Valley, California.

HOMELESS IN THE HAIGHT
Community Forum with guests Violet Blue and Mark Bittner
Monday, August 24 at 7:30 p.m.

As residents & merchants who live with the chaos on Haight Street, our patience for the current state occasionally runs out. In our frustration, we sometimes forget that the homeless living on these streets are often struggling with challenges of their own.

According to Wikipedia, as many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year in the US alone. In a January 2007 survey conducted by the city of San Francisco, volunteers counted over 6,300 homeless within the city limits.

Who are these homeless? Why are they living on the streets? What kind of life and challenges do they face? These are some of the questions we'll grapple with at this event. Join two well-respected writers, Mark Bittner and Violet Blue, to hear their personal stories of homelessness.

This event is part of the Booksmith's series of community forums on homelessness. By understanding the homeless perspective, we hope to move a few steps closer to developing solutions to homelessness in our own backyard.

FOUND IN TRANSLATION
Reading group for The Angels Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves
Thursday, August 27 at 6:30 p.m.

Found in Translation, the Booksmith’s reading group, continues with a roster of exciting award-winning titles. Each one a contemporary work of translated fiction, the books discussed by the group will be available at a 15% discount. The group is led by The Booksmith's own Julie Boyer.

This month, the group will be reading The Angels Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner.

SEAN CHIKI
Exhibit and comic signing on the eve of the Haight Street Art Walk
Friday, August 28 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.

Over twenty businesses in Haight-Ashbury have joined forces to organize a monthly Art Walk on the last Friday of every month. The entire neighborhood celebrates local artists, and The Booksmith is excited to be able to feature our own Sean Chiki hang out with us for the evening surrounded by his art and brand new comic.

Sean Chiki is a cartoonist, illustrator and veteran bookseller. Trained as a commercial artist, Sean has worked as a freelance illustrator, a theater sound designer and as a musician in a number of San Francisco bands. A lifelong comics fan, Sean is pleased to celebrate the release of the first volume of his new comic, Wunderkammer.

KEMBLE SCOTT
Launch party and reading for The Sower
Monday, August 31 at 7:30 p.m.

The Sower is a twisted, page-turning thriller about a San Francisco bad boy who becomes the sole carrier of a manmade virus that appears to be the cure for all diseases. But the only way to pass the cure to others is through sex. When word gets out, he becomes the world’s most wanted man – the ultimate weapon in the culture wars, pitting him against right wing ideologies, The Roman Catholic Church, and the most famous pop star on the planet.

Kemble Scott's novel was recently released as an e-book and received wide recognition in the publishing industry. We decided to invite the author for a reading even though it doesn't have a print edition. Join us for the launch party for The Sower and Booksmith's (and possibly the entire book industry's) first ever e-author reading. There are rumors of a limited edition print version coming soon for the die-hards loyalists of print books.

Kemble Scott is the author of the bestselling novel SoMa, finalist for the national Lambda Literary Award for debut fiction. He’s the editor of San Francisco’s SoMa Literary Review and THE LIT GUIDE. An alumnus of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, he’s been honored with three Emmy Awards for his work in television news.

Thursday, October 1
JOSH BAZELL
Beat the Reaper
7:30 PM

What do you get when you throw a mob hit man turned doctor, a seductive viola player, a shark tank, and a fibula together? Josh Bazell’s fearless novel delivers the story of Pietro “Bearclaw” Brnwa, a former hit man fed up with the body count he has accumulated. Pietro enters the Federal Witness Protection Program and tries his hand at saving lives instead of taking them. Now a medical intern known as Dr. Peter Brown, our hero is in the clear…until a patient from Peter’s former life recognizes him and threatens to blow his cover if he doesn’t save his life. Unfortunately, the patient has three months to live. If he’s lucky.

Peter races against the clock, trying desperately to keep his patient – and himself – alive, with the threat of the mob, the government, and death itself on his heels. Only time will tell if Peter Brown can Beat the Reaper.

Josh Bazell holds an MD from Columbia. He wrote Beat the Reaper while completing his internship at a hospital not at all like the one described in his novel. He lives in San Francisco.

FIRST FRIDAYS: SPECIAL EVENT
Friday, October 2
TAO LIN
Shoplifting from American Apparel
7:30 PM

“A revolutionary.” – The Stranger

“Hard to believe he’s only 24…We’ll be hearing a lot from him in the years to come.” – USA Today

“Helluvanovella.” – Daniel Handler

“Tao Lin writes from moods that less radical writers would let pass – from laziness, from vacancy, from boredom. And it turns out that his report from these places is moving and necessary, not to mention frequently hilarious.” – Miranda July

Set mostly in Manhattan -- although also featuring Atlantic City, Brooklyn, GMail Chat, and Gainesville, Florida -- this autobiographical novella, spanning two years in the life of a young writer with a cultish following, has been described by the author as “A shoplifting book about vague relationships,” “2 parts shoplifting arrest, 5 parts vague relationship issues,” and “An ultimately life-affirming book about how the unidirectional nature of time renders everything beautiful and sad.”

From VIP rooms in “hip” New York City clubs to central booking in Chinatown, from New York University’s Bobst Library to a bus in someone’s backyard in a college-town in Florida, from Bret Easton Ellis to Lorrie Moore, and from Moby to Ghost Mice, it explores class, culture, and the arts in all their American forms through the funny, journalistic, and existentially-minded narrative of someone trying to both “not be a bad person” and “find some kind of happiness or something,” while he is driven by his failures and successes at managing his art, morals, finances, relationships, loneliness, confusion, boredom, future, and depression.

Tao Lin was born in 1983, and raised in Orlando, Florida. His first two works of fiction, the short story collection Bed, and the novel Eeeee Eee Eeee, were published simultaneously. Lin quickly became an underground sensation with a huge cult following. In 2008, Lin published his poetry collection, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. It has been assigned as a text book in several college level psychology courses.

Monday, October 5
ORAN CANFIELD
Long Past Stopping
7:30 PM

Hippies, circus clowns, drugs, radical thinkers, a broken family, madcap teachers, experimental music, rehab… Welcome to the life of Oran Canfield, the son of a freethinking psychologist and khaki-wearing motivational speaker Jack Canfield (yes, THAT Jack Canfield -- creator of the bestselling self-help series Chicken Soup for the Soul). A life full of adventure and mayhem, pain and reconciliation. Oran puts pen to paper to deliver a wry, edgy, and often hilarious account about his struggle to overcome a childhood dismantled by hypocrisy and an adulthood plagued by heroin addiction.

In the tradition of Augusten Burroughs, Oran Canfield grapples with the vagaries of addiction in a world as dizzling sober as it is stoned in Long Past Stopping. While Oran’s needling mother will go to any length to keep her sons from the scourges of television and traditional culture, she leaves them in the care of an anarchic school, where going to class is optional and throwing rocks at passing cars is a popular pastime. Unmoored but fiercely intelligent, Oran learns to hold his own, delivering newspapers on a unicycle, juggling for a professional circus, and somehow surviving every bewildering adult he encounters.

As an adult, he floats from menial job to menial job and plays drums in a number of fringe California bands, encountering a host of weird characters along the way: Grux, a singer and longtime devotee of obscure noise music, a deranged and paranoid roommate who wakes Oran up at knife point, and a Stanford philosophy professor who supplies him with his first hit of heroin. Even Wavy Gravy and Jerry Garcia make cameos, as Oran struggles with a crippling heroin addiction -- eventually selling off every possession and burning every bridge along the way, all to feed a drug dependency that confounds him. From Steps 1 through 12 and back again, apartment to apartment, failed safety net to safety net, Oran must boldly confront the paradoxical and confounding truths and people of his life, and find his own way through the cliché that self-help can be.

Oran Canfield, 34, was raised by his hippie psychologist mother in Central America and the San Francisco Bay area. In his early twenties, while attending the San Francisco Art Institute, he began his career as a drummer and became heavily involved in San Francisco’s flourishing underground music and art communities. Along with his involvement as a drummer for a countless number of bands in the nineties, he also owned and operated a recording studio and co-operated a music venue featuring experimental and creative jazz music. He has held jobs as a bike messenger, piano restorer, housecleaner, and limo driver. Early in 2000, after seven separate stints in rehab, he got clean after attending an experimental treatment center in the Virgin Islands. He currently lives in Brooklyn and works as a freelance art handler and audio installer for art galleries and designer Donna Karan.

Tuesday, October 6
SUMBUL ALI-KARAMALI
The Muslim Next Door: the Qur’an, the Media, and That Veil Thing
7:30 PM

You're not alone if you've ever wondered what Muslims really believe and practice. In her new book, The Muslim Next Door, Sumbul Ali-Karamali, a Stanford-educated mom and corporate lawyer with degrees in Islamic law and English, invites you inside for a candid, witty, and surprisingly down-to-earth conversation about Muslim life in America.

Warm, funny, and yet scholarly, The Muslim Next Door reliably answers questions about Islam from an American Muslim woman's point of view, discussing subjects from the basic (is Allah different from God?) to the complex (does jihad not mean holy war?) to the borderline ridiculous ("what do you mean you can't go to the prom because of your religion?!").

Sumbul Ali-Karamali grew up in Southern California in an ethnically South Asian family. She earned her undergraduate degree in English, with Distinction, from Stanford University. After working as an editor in a publishing company, she attended law school and graduated with her J.D. from the University of California at Davis. She practiced corporate law in San Francisco for several years.

Although always a practicing Muslim, Sumbul began the formal study of Islam when she attended the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). She graduated from SOAS with her L.L.M. in Islamic Law, with Distinction. She has taught Islamic law as a teaching assistant at the University of London, worked as a research associate at the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law in London, and lectured on Islam and Islamic law. She has had many articles published, both in mainstream news publications and legal journals.

Wednesday, October 7
BEN FONG-TORRES
The Grateful Dead Scrapbook: The Long, Strange Trip in Stories, Photos, and Memorabilia
7:30 PM

Grateful Dead fans are legendary for their Dead-ication to the band and its enduring legacy of freewheeling musical exploration. The Grateful Dead Scrapbook collects rare removable memorabilia and evocative images culled from the Grateful Dead Archives at the University of California, Santa Cruz, including never-before-published photos, flyers, fan letters, and other ephemera. To accompany the eye-popping visuals, renowned journalist Ben Fong-Torres draws on his personal knowledge of the San Francisco music scene in a rich text that conveys the Grateful Dead's story in a fresh way, centering each chapter on a pivotal song that encapsulates a certain era of the group's songwriting, performance, and community. An attractive slipcase and an audio CD round out the book's beautiful design, delivering a richly illustrated volume as colorful as the band itself.

Ben Fong-Torres is the author of Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing, and Life, The Doors, Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to Twenty Years of Rock and Roll, and Hickory Wind: The Life and Times of Graham Parsons, among other books. He began writing for Rolling Stone with its 8th issue in 1968, and his writing has been published in numerous other magazines. He contributed the main biography of Jerry Garcia for People Magazine's tribute issue on the occasion of the singer's death in 1995. Ben lives in San Francisco.

Thursday, October 8
NICK BELARDES
Random Obsessions: Trivia You Can’t Live Without
7:30 PM

Before buying that plane ticket, don’t you need to know which exotic islands still have cannibals? Wonder what it’s like to live in Hell Town at the End of the World? Are you worried about coming down with “Alien Hand Syndrome”? In Random Obsessions, historian Nick Belardes has dug into the raw source material found in historical archives, scientific studies, and libraries the world over, to give us the arcane, the bizarre, and the inexplicable – all of which is true.

Belardes’ passion and wit shine through these accounts of the surprising reality that lurks behind the things we take for granted. And who doesn’t want to read first-person interviews with people who can explain the unexplained, from the permanently puzzling Mothman conspiracy to secret Star Wars Jedi religious cults, and the charmingly eccentric reason why British aerospace engineers sent teddy bears floating out into space?

Nick Belardes is a historian turned into a TV/online journalist overnight after blogging his way to success. His articles and essays have since appeared on the homepage of CNN.com and other news sites across the country. He is the author of the first Twitter novel, Small Spaces, and you can follow his daily rants: twitter.com/nlbelardes. He lives in Bakersfield.

Friday, October 9
Eat, Drink, Talk (and Swap) Books: An Evening at the Booksmith
Note early time: 6:30 PM
Tickets $25 at Brown Paper Tickets and in the store

We’ll bring the food and wine, you bring the book—a book that intrigued or excited you, something you couldn’t put down or that you savored over months—a book you want to talk about. The evening’s activities will be full of smart fun and good cheer, culminating in a swap.

At the Booksmith, we believe that bookstores are more than a place to buy books. They are a meeting place for people who love books—all kinds—a place to bring people of like interests together. This event was created for book-lovers by book-lovers. Wine and appetizers are included in the ticket price.

October's book swap theme is Literary Fiction. We’re delighted that Michelle Richmond (No One You Know, The Year of Fog) will be our special guest this evening!

AMOEBA RECORDS & THE BOOKSMITH SPECIAL EVENT!
Saturday, October 10
STEWART COPELAND
Strange Things Happen: A Life with the Police, Polo, and Pygmies
Note time and location: 2:00 PM at Amoeba (1855 Haight Street, San Francisco)

When Stewart Copeland gets dressed, he has an identity crisis. Should he put on "leather pants, hostile shirts, and pointy shoes"? Or wear something more appropriate to the "tax-paying, property-owning, investment-holding lotus eater" his success has allowed him to become? This dilemma is at the heart of Copeland's vastly entertaining memoir-in-stories, Strange Things Happen. The world knows Copeland as the drummer for The Police, one of the most successful bands in rock history. But they may not know as much about his childhood in the Middle East as the son of a CIA agent. Or be aware of his film-making adventures with the Pygmies in the deepest reaches of the Congo, and his passion for polo ("Brideshead Revisited" on horses). In Strange Things Happen we move from Copeland's remarkable childhood to the formation of The Police, their rise to stardom, and the settled-down life that followed. It ends with a behind-the-scenes view of The Police's extraordinarily successful reunion tour. It's a book of amazing anecdotes, all completely true, which take us backstage in a life that is fully lived.

Reunited after twenty-three years with his bandmates in The Police when they opened the Grammy Awards on February 11, 2007, Stewart Copeland counts himself fortunate to have been a founder of the most played and successful trio of the 1980s. The Police's reunion tour, which began in Vancouver in May 2007 and ended in New York's Madison Square Garden in August 2008, went on to be the third biggest tour of all time -- grossing some 387 million dollars. Recipient of the Hollywood Film Festival's first Outstanding Music in Film Visionary Award and a 2003 inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Copeland has been responsible for some of the film world's most innovative and groundbreaking scores. His career includes the sale of more than sixty million records, which have won him five Grammys and numerous other awards. His ongoing travels in search of exotic rhythms and musical celebrations have taken him all the way around the world -- from the polo fields of Cirencester to the dives of Havana, from the steaming Congo to the remotest regions of the Hollywood jungles. Copeland is the father of seven children. He lives with his wife and three daughters.

Monday, October 12
KEVIN MEREDITH
Hot Shots: Tips and Tricks for Taking Better Pictures
7:30 PM

Today more amateur photographers than ever before have the means to create incredible pictures. This hip primer proves that whether shooting with a film or digital camera, you don't need to invest in expensive photography equipment or have an art school degree to take amazing photographs. Whether readers are tired of disappointing snapshots or have just picked up a camera for the first time, Hot Shots teaches with a friendly tone, picture-perfect advice, fun tricks, and easy-to-understand text. Author, lomographer, and Flickr.com guru Kevin Meredith has created a must-have handbook for any aspiring photographer. The folks at Flickr will offer wine and cheese this evening.

Author and photographer Kevin Meredith is known for his award-winning lomography. He lives in Brighton, England. The foreword is provided by San Franciscans Heather Champ and Derek Powazek, who co-founded JPG magazine.

While in San Francisco, Kevin will be conducting photography workshops.

Tuesday, October 13
JACK BOULWARE and SILKE TUDOR with FRANK PORTMAN
Gimme Something Better: The Profound, Progressive, and Occasionally Pointless History of Bay Area Punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day
7:30 PM

"When punk broke in the Bay Area, with the clamor and the rage, the sex and the safety pins, the sound and the fury, you were either there or you weren’t. If you were there you’re probably in this book. If you weren’t you should read it." —Daniel Handler

Outside of New York and London, California’s Bay Area claims the oldest continuous punk rock scene in the world -- from the innovative late-70s art-damage of San Francisco’s Fab Mab in North Beach, to the still vibrant all-ages DIY ethos of Berkeley’s Gilman Street, where bands like Green Day, Rancid, and AFI got their start.

Gimme Something Better by Bay Area journalists Jack Boulware and Silke Tudor brings this outrageous and influential punk scene to life, straight from the mouths of the bands, roadies, record labels and fans.

Jack and Silke spent two years interviewing countless contributors across the Bay Area, the US and the globe. You will find first-hand accounts from Danny Furious and Penelope Houston of the Avengers, Jello Biafra of Dead Kennedys, Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat and Fugazi, Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, Davey Havok of AFI, Larry Livermore of Lookout! Records, Fat Mike of NOFX, Tim Armstrong of Operation Ivy and Rancid, members of MDC and Flipper, and editors of Maximum RocknRoll magazine, among many others.

Gimme Something Better represents the definitive chronicle of Bay Area punk music, progressive politics, social consciousness, and divine decadence. The book features black and white photographs throughout, an exhaustive who’s-who list, and an introduction by Jesse Michaels, famed singer of Operation Ivy.

Jack Boulware is the author of Sex, American Style and San Francisco Bizarro. His freelance writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, Playboy, Maxim, Salon, and San Francisco Chronicle, among others. For ten years he was a columnist and features writer for SF Weekly. He is co-founder of San Francisco’s annual Litquake literary festival. Silke Tudor is a San Francisco-born writer who has contributed to the Village Voice, Spin, and Tattoo Savage. For ten years she was a columnist and nightlife editor at SF Weekly, and produced the annual SF Weekly Music Awards. She recently moved to New York and toured the world with the Billy Nayer Show. Special guest Frank Portman aka Dr. Frank is involved with the Mr. T Experience, and is the author of the fabulous young adult novels, King Dork and Andromeda Klein.

Thursday, October 15
SARAH VOWELL
The Wordy Shipmates
7:30 PM (see seating note below)

Sarah Vowell is a contributing editor for NPR’s This American Life, the voice of Violet Parr in Pixar’s The Incredibles, and a former columnist for Time, Salon.com, and SF Weekly; she has contributed to numerous publications, including Esquire, GQ, the Los Angeles Times, The Village Voice, Spin, The New York Times, and McSweeney’s, and is the author of Assassination Vacation, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Take the Cannoli, and Radio On. If that weren’t enough, she’s been called a “Madonna of Americana” (by the Los Angeles Times Book Review). Frankly, we think she’s simply one of the most fascinating, original, and perceptive storytellers we have.

What set Vowell on a journey back to our Puritan forefathers was when, in the dreadful weeks following the destruction of the World Trade Center, she found comfort in the words of the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop. In a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity”, Winthrop had written what Vowell calls “one of the most beautiful sentences in the English language”: We must delight in one another, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.

Yet the Puritans’ most enduring bequest to the future United States, Vowell observes in The Wordy Shipmates, is their unshakable vision of themselves as God’s chosen people, a beacon of righteousness that all others are to admire. With sardonic humor, awed respect, and acute insight, Vowell examines the Puritans’ dual legacy of communitarian love and missionary ardor, which continues to shape America nearly four hundred years later. “Vowell likes to explode myths and reveal hypocrisy wherever she finds it,” The Atlanta Journal-Constitution once noted. “She is somehow simultaneously patriot and rebel, cynic and dreamer, and an aching secularist in search of a higher ground.”

‡ Preferred seating vouchers for this event will be offered to those purchasing a copy of The Wordy Shipmates at The Booksmith, beginning October 8 and continuing until all available seat vouchers are distributed.

Friday, October 16
GREG KOT
Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music
7:30 PM

In the mid-nineties, advances in internet and digital technology made it incredibly easy to store, play and – most significantly – “rip” and share recorded music. But for all the benefits these new mediums brought, the music industry -- which included major corporations such as Viacom, Clear Channel, and Sony -- wasn’t prepared for this big change. Instead of finding innovative ways to utilize this new technology, they wasted time, their reputation, and resources in court crippling themselves while online music sharing continued to thrive.

Greg Kot is the Chicago Tribune’s acclaimed music critic and national radio show host of Sound Opinions (“the world’s only rock ‘n’ roll talk show”). He is well-known as a fans’ music critic who writes entertainingly about the intersection of music, technology, and business. In Ripped, Kot details how the new digital technology was bad news for major record executives and mega-selling recording artists who were capitalizing off significantly over-priced CDs, but how it was good news for fans of music and for independent promoters and artists who were struggling to be heard in the era of *NSYNC and Britney Spears. The music business was bloated, making more money than ever before, but many of its consumers felt like they weren't being served. Old school practices like payola combined with the consolidation of record companies and radio stations left the industry blissfully unaware and poised for disaster. Kot explains that the emergence of Napster was only the beginning of the fans taking control. As the web popularized bands and albums that previously would have been relegated to obscurity, forward-thinking artists such as Death Cab for Cutie and even Prince began creating alternative ways of getting their music out to fans. Kot says that “the internet provided bands an independence they never had: the ability to communicate directly with their fans in ways their predecessors never could have imagined.” Genre-bending and mash-ups caught on as never before, live music took on a more significant role and video games and commercials emerged as great places to hear new music.

Ripped is Kot’s masterful and passionate chronicle of how we went from $17.99 to $0.00 for the cost of an album in less than a decade. With first-hand access to some of the biggest artists out there – from Sheryl Crow to Metallica -- Kot tells the tale of backward thinking, forward thinking, and the significant power of music.

We’re delighted that KALW-FM is co-sponsoring, with support from Creative Commons, this evening’s talk and discussion!

A LOOSE TEETH PRESS SPECIAL EVENT!
Sunday, October 18
JOEY COMEAU
Overqualified

ZACH VANDEZANDE
Apathy and Paying the Rent
with The Loose Teeth Press publisher Mike Lecky
Please note early time: 4:30 PM

We’re delighted that Canadian writers Joey Comeau and Zach Vandezande will join us for a special reading and conversation while they’re in San Francisco for the Alternative Press Expo.

Joey Comeau:

“Overqualified's cover letters are like a slap in the face, but the slap is hilarious, and you can't stop laughing, and as soon as it’s over you want to tell all your friends about the slap. You know the kind?” -- Ryan North, Dinosaur Comics

“Joey Comeau’s Overqualified is Judy Blume’s Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret? as chewed up and spit out by J. G. Ballard. . . . A book whose melancholy is leavened by a surprising hilarity.” -- Paul Di Filippo, author of The Steampunk Trilogy and Cosmocopia

Cover letters are all the same. They’re useless. You write the same lies over and over again, listing the store-bought parts of yourself that you respect the least. God knows how they tell anyone apart, but this is how it's done.

And then one day a car comes out of nowhere, and suddenly everything changes and you don’t know if he’ll ever wake up. You get out of bed in the morning, and when you sit down to write another paint-by-numbers cover letter, something entirely different comes out.

You start threatening instead of begging. You tell impolite jokes. You talk about your childhood and your sexual fantasies. You sign your real name and you put yourself honestly into letter after letter and there is no way you are ever going to get this job. Not with a letter like this.

And you send it anyway.

Joey Comeau writes the comic A Softer World, which has appeared recently in The Guardian and been profiled in Rolling Stone, and which Publishers Weekly called “subtle and dramatic.” His self-published first novel, Lockpick Pornography, sold out its print run of 1000 books in just three months. In 2007 he published It’s Too Late to Say I'm Sorry, a collection of short stories. The A Softer World website (asofterworld.com) has been online since 2003 and has an average daily readership of 70,000 people worldwide.

Zach VandeZande:

Some nights, he would go back and forth between the wall and stereo, plucking out this song or that and putting it on a blank tape. When he was finished, he would take the tape with him and listen to it a few times, then put it in the box with the others. He never touched them again. One day he would be satisfied. For now it was missing something.

Zach VandeZande was born in the same gray town as everybody else. For him it was Houston, Texas. He took his vitamins, went to college, started a band, got married, got a degree in Psychology (from Texas A&M if it matters), quit a band, and got a job. He did it all just like he was supposed to. One day he decided to stop striving for mediocrity, and so here we are. He learned to be kind of funny and he learned to write a book and he didn't learn to draw but he did it anyway, and he did these things and he'll probably do them again. Zach is currently pursuing a master's in English at Sam Houston State University, and currently losing sleep over this biography he's writing in the third person, wondering if it should be more specific or longer or something. In addition to Apathy, he’s the author of Legitimate Art: An Animals Have Problems Too Collection.

Tuesday, October 20
VICTORIA ZACKHEIM & Contributors KATHI KAMEN GOLDMARK and MARGOT DUXLER
The Face in the Mirror: Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth & The Reality of Aging
7:30 PM

When you were young and idealistic and you looked in mirror, who did you see? What were your expectations for your future? What was expected of you by your family and your community? And now that you're older and have attained such prominence as a writer, activist, celebrity, how do you feel about the person you've become and the direction your life has actually taken? Are you contented or disappointed? Do you see exciting possibilities in your future, or do you believe that you've gone as far as you can go? These are the questions posed to some of our country's most gifted authors in preparation for The Face in the Mirror. Twenty celebrated writers tackled these questions, sharing with readers the heart of soul of their lives, and a book was born. In these reflective essays, the writers explore the person they expected to become or perhaps desperately wanted to be (or feared they might be), and the person they are today. How does all of this knowledge and insight affect their writing? Their responses, which range from surprising to heart-wrenching to comical (and often hilarious) to inspiring, reflect back on the reader, who is left with the same question that these eminent writers asked themselves: "When I look in that mirror, who do I see?" Each eloquent piece is certain to captivate, and make you see the world and yourself in an entirely new way.

Victoria Zackheim spent her childhood in Los Angeles, received her BA from UCLA and MA from California State University, San Francisco. In 1990, she fulfilled a lifelong dream and went to Paris, with the intention of remaining for three months. Five years later, she returned to the San Francisco area and completed her first novel, The Bone Weaver. She is now a freelance editor and creative writing instructor in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, and the editor of three anthologies: The Other Woman: 21 Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal, For Keeps: Women Tell the Truth About Their Bodies, Growing Older, and Acceptance, and Face in the Mirror.

Wednesday, October 21
TAMIM ANSARY
The Widow’s Husband
7:30 PM

It’s 1841: the British have invaded Afghanistan.. A hundred miles north of the capital, a mysterious beggar enters a tiny village…

The Widow’s Husband, an epic work of historical fiction, is the first novel to tell the story of British imperialism from the Afghan side. Three years after the British occupation of Kabul, news of the invasion still hasn’t reached the village of Char Bagh. Here, the biggest excitement of the season is a mysterious vagabond who has wandered onto a nearby hillside. Is he a madman? Perhaps. But he just might be a God-crazed madman, a malang, a man with the power to channel miracles. And indeed, he does soon begin to transform the lives of the villagers -- the brooding headman Ibrahim, his djinn-haunted wife Soraya, the headman’s charismatic sister-in-law, the widowed Khadija. But the isolation of Char Bagh is about to end. British officials are scouring the countryside for conspirators. They dispatch a priapic young officer to study the pilgrims streaming in and out of Char Bagh.. History is about to reach its long fingers into the heart of this remote hamlet.

From the soot-blackened kitchens of Afghan village compounds to the battle-choked streets of Kabul, from the gorgeous fortresses of Afghan tribal lords to the walled British cantonments where the chandeliers kept glowing and the proper memsahibs kept on hosting dinner parties almost to the very end, this extraordinary novel takes readers into a historical drama that eerily foreshadows events of our own time.

Tamim Ansary is the author of the memoir West of Kabul, East of New York, co-author with Farah Ahmadi of the New York Times bestseller The Other Side of the Sky, and has been a major contributing writer to several secondary school history textbooks. Ansary is director of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. He writes for Encarta.com, the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Alternet, Edutopia, Parade, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His sweeping narrative history Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes illuminates how Muslims have seen the history of the world— and what western world history leaves out

SOCIAL MEDIA PHENOM NIGHT!
Friday, October 23
GARY VAYNERCHUK
Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on Your Passion
7:30 PM

Tickets $22 (includes admission and copy of book) at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006 or in the store (The Booksmith will be closed this evening at 7:00 PM; tickets are required for this event.)

Do you have a hobby you wish you could do all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night?

Meet Gary Vaynerchuk, a 33-year-old self-trained wine and social media expert who has revolutionized the wine industry. Gary’s cult-like following is the result of his unconventional, often irreverent commentary on wine, combined with his business acumen and foresight to use social media tools like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to reach an untapped audience. He hosts a daily webcast called “The Thunder Show” on tv.winelibrary.com that attracts over 90,000 viewers each day. Recently, his podcast become the most downloaded show on iTunes in the food category, beating out venerable names in the industry including Martha Stewart and Jamie Oliver. Called the “king of social media’, Gary is one of the first Facebook users to max out his friend limit, with over 17,000 pending friend requests. He is in the top 100 people followed on Twitter and was the keynote speaker at events like the 2009 South of Southwest Interactive conference and the New Media and Web 2.0 expos.

With Crush It! he shows how to use the power of the Internet to turn your real interests into real businesses. Gary spent years building his family business from a local wine shop into a national industry leader. Then one day he turned on a video camera, and by using the secrets revealed in this book, transformed his entire life and earning potential by building his personal brand. Step-by-step, Crush It! Is the ultimate driver’s manual for modern business.

The Crush It! Tour Contest - Win a Trip on the Crush It! Cruise

At every book signing location, turn in your receipt to be entered for a chance to win a cabin for two on the Crush It! Cruise. Sailing from Ft Lauderdale, FL throughout the Caribbean from March 20 - 27, 2010, the cruise will allow you to go "beyond the book" with a week's worth of interactive business seminars led by Gary, plus entertaining wine events and much, much more! Learn more at http://crushitcruise.com.

At the conclusion of the book tour, Gary will draw one receipt for the grand prize winner

who will accompany Gary on the cruise. Drawing to be conducted live on ustream.tv

on Thursday, November 19th!

*Please note, you must purchase a book at a book tour location and give your receipt to Gary during a book signing event to be entered in the contest. One entry per receipt. Prize winner receives a standard interior stateroom for 2 valued at $899 per person. Winner is responsible for travel to and from Fort Lauderdale and any and all taxes, fees, on-board expenses, and gratuity. **We will have a special and easy sign up list for everyone who purchases a copy of Crush It! at Swig during this event; that list will suffice for purchase receipts and thus for contest entries.

Tuesday, October 27
JAMES WORKMAN
Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought
7:30 PM

In the growing consensus over global warming, we are overlooking one of the most serious consequences of all: the depletion of potable water. Journalist and water expert James Workman travels to one of the driest places on earth to see how, against all odds and under brutal government repression, an indigenous people draws on ancient wisdom to survive the extreme scarcity of life’s essential resource.

In 2002, the government of Botswana decided to clear the Kalahari Desert of its Bushmen. Tribes that had been living for centuries in some of the world’s harshest conditions were told they had to assimilate to modernity or die. Government convoys raided desert villages, destroyed water pumps that pulled water from underground aquifers, and violently put down any protests that erupted. Yet instead of leaving, the Bushmen stayed. And survived. The forced scarcity of water for them suggests the potential disaster in store for all of us. In Heart of Dryness, Jamie Workman shows us that we would do well to emulate the Bushmen.

Workman has written for the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Utne Reader, Orion, and other publications. He was a speechwriter in the Clinton administration, working closely with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and steering the ‘dambuster’ campaign to tear down river-killing dams. Having spent two years filing monthly dispatches on water scarcity in Africa, work which formed the basis of an NPR show and documentary, he is now a water consultant to politicians, businesses, aid agencies, development institutions, and conservation organizations on four continents. He lives in the Haight Ashbury with his wife and children.

FIRST FRIDAYS: SPECIAL EVENT FOR TEEN INDIE GIRLS
Friday, November 6
KAREN MACKLIN and ARNE JOHNSON

INDIE GIRL: From Starting a Band to Launching a Fashion Company, Nine Ways to Turn Your Creative Talent Into Reality - Please note early time: - 6:00 to 7:30 PM

Are you a girl who's tired of letting the world decide what constitutes art? Want to take matters into your own hands? A fun and comprehensive guide for teenage girls (and anyone who thinks like one!), Zest Books' Indie Girl contains all of the information you'll need to start 9 independent creative ventures, from forming a rock band to creating a fashion company to making your own TV show.

At this event, local authors Arne Johnson (documentary film maker of Girls Rock!) and Karen Macklin (magazine writer and editorial director of Zest Books) will take attendees through the process of making a real, DIY zine. Participants will actually create their own zine, which will be available for collaborators to retrieve at Booksmith in the coming weeks! All supplies (and pizza) included .

FIRST FRIDAYS: SPECIAL COMEDY EVENT!
Friday, November 6
Producer of The Daily Show DAVID JAVERBAUM, G.E.D.

What to Expect When You're Expected: A Fetus's Guide to the First Three Trimesters (A Parody - ) - 8:00 PM

Written specifically for the prenatal reader, David Javerbaum's self-help guide to gestation takes its naïve readers -- many of whom weren't even born yesterday -- through the whole process, from conception until their triumphant zeroth birthday. By the last chapter, a panel discussion about birth among four newborns moderated by Regis Philbin, the reader is relaxed, focused, and ready to calmly go through the first (and some would say best) first three trimesters of their lives.

David Javerbaum, G.E.D., is an eleven-time Emmy Award-winning writer and producer of The Daily How with Jon Stewart and one of the principal authors of America: The Book. He is a former contributor to The Onionand writer for The Late Show with David Letterman. Recently he was nominated for a 2009 Tony award for his original score of the Broadway show Cry-Baby and he wrote the lyrics for Stephen Colbert's Christmas special, A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All. He has won the James Thurber Award for American Humor, two Peabody Awards, and the Television Critics Awards for both Best Comedy and Best News Show. He lives in New York.

Monday, November 9
THRILLER NIGHT!
MICHELLE GAGNON, The Gatekeeper - MARK COGGINS, The Big Wakeup - 7:30 PM

Special Agent Kelly Jones returns in Michelle Gagnon's new novel. Drugged then kidnapped, a young girl wakes up to a nightmare. From the moment sixteen-year-old Madison is abducted, an unthinkable terrorist plot is set in motion, pitting Special Agent Jones against her most powerful adversary yet.

Mark Coggins, the award-winning author of The Immortal Game and Runoff and two other books featuring August Riordan, delivers The Big Wakeup, plunging PI Riordan and his sidekick Chris Duckworth into their most terrifying and anguishing case ever.

The odyssey of Eva Perón was as remarkable in death as it was in life. A few years after she succumbed to cervical cancer, her specially preserved body was taken by the military dictatorship that succeeded her deposed husband Juan. Hidden for sixteen years in Italy in a crypt under a false name, she was eventually exhumed and returned to Buenos Aires to be buried in an underground tomb said to be secure enough to withstand a nuclear attack. Or was she?

Wednesday, November 11
Progress Now's MICHAEL HUTTNER
50 WAYS YOU CAN HELP OBAMA CHANGE AMERICA - 7:30 PM

The 2008 presidential election was historic in that it reflected Americans' overwhelming call for change in the United States. Now, the millions of people who worked hard to elect Barack Obama are asking themselves, “What's next? How do we keep the momentum going?” 50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America by Michael Huttner and Jason Salzman answers those questions.

In his inauguration speech, President Obama said, “Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” Americans who want to do what it takes see a progressive agenda succeed will find an invaluable resource guide in 50 Ways You Can Help Obama Change America.

“This up-to-date guide for the hands-on activist is a must-have blueprint for every supporter who answered Barack Obama's phrase, `Fired up,' with `Ready to go!” -- Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, Founder, Daily Kos

“The last election was merely a first step. We must now bring that same enthusiasm and determination to bear in order to get our country back on the right track. This book is a road map for anyone looking to make a difference.” -- Senator Russ Feingold

“Electing Barack Obama to the presidency is the beginning of the journey, not the end. The real agenda is not to have a Democrat in the White House but to give ordinary Americans some say again. Huttner and Salzman show how we can do that.” -- Governor Howard Dean

“Barack Obama made public service `cool.' 50 Ways will help make it effective. Whatever your personal call to service, 50 Ways has the resources you need to make a difference.” -- Christine Pelosi, Campaign Boot Camp: Basic Training for Future Leaders

Michael Huttner is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ProgressNow, a network of state-based online organizations. In 2003, Huttner started ProgressNow in the back of his Denver law firm with his list of 600 e-mail addresses. The 12 ProgressNow partner states' combined membership now exceeds 2 million individuals.

Thursday, November 12
A Very Special Event for Kids (and Their Adults)!
THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS with a mini-concert and signing the new KIDS GO! - Please note early time: 4:00 PM

The Grammy award-winning alternative rock band They Might Be Giants (John Flansburgh and John Linnell) present a new sing-along book and DVD for children of all ages!

They Might Be Giants is one of the most beloved underground bands in popular music, cited as the inspiration for many popular “alternative” groups such as The Barenaked Ladies, Weezer and Harvey Danger. Together for over 25 years, childhood friends Flansburgh and Linnell continue to create.

In KIDS GO!, their new sing-along story book (which follows the success of their first kids' book, Bed, Bed, Bed, TMBG's spirit of fun and adventure invites both parents and kids to share in the pleasure of the story of two kids who learn how to move like a monkey, shake like a jumping bean, throw their hands in the air, and go, go, go.

Throughout their 25+ year career, the band has racked up several charting albums and singles, as well as two Grammy awards -- one in 2002 for their song “Boss of Me,” (the theme song for Malcolm in the Middle) and the other in 2009 for their children's album Here Come the 123s. They also wrote the theme song to “Austin Powers,” and have appeared on “The Late Show with David Letterman,” “Late Night with Conan O'Brien,” NPR's “This American Life,” “Nightline,” and countless radio, print and web interviews. They continue to record albums while branching out into the realm of children's music, and have sold over 4 million records in total.

Don't miss this late afternoon super treat -- grab the kids, the neighbors, and come have a whole lot of fun with us!

Thursday, November 12
WOODY TASCH
Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money (investing as if food, farms, and fertility mattered) - 7:30 PM

Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money presents the path for bringing money back down to earth -- philosophically, strategically and pragmatically, and with an entrepreneurial spirit that is informed by the work of thousands of CEOs, investors, grant-makers, food producers and consumers who are seeding the restorative economy.

The months and years ahead will surely see a flood of books proposing micro- and macro-economic fixes to the financial crises of the day. Inquiries into the Nature of Slow Money brings a different vision -- a meta-economic vision, looking above the top line and below the bottom line, a new way of seeing what is going on in the soil of the economy. This is the path towards a financial system that serves people and place as much at it serves industry sectors and markets.

JOHN BLOOM, director of Organizational Culture at RSF Social Finance, and the author of the new book The Genius of Money: Essays and Interviews Reimagining the Financial World, joins Woody Tasch in discussion this evening.

Friday, November 13
Co-sponsored by Environmentalists Against War
MARK DANNER
Stripping Bare the Body: Politics, Violence, War - 7:30 PM

Stripping Bare the Body is the much-anticipated new work from award-winning journalist Mark Danner, informed by his reporting from some of the world's most troubled regions -- Haiti after the fall of the Duvalier; the Balkans during the bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia; and from Iraq and the US during the war on terror. The book presents a moral history of American power during the last quarter century, told in powerful narratives of politics and violence and war. Stripping Bare the Body is a chronicle of what Danner calls a “grim age, still infused with the remnant perfume of imperial dreams,” and tells the tale, from bloody ground to air-conditioned office, of the final years of the American Century.

Mark Danner has written about foreign affairs and American politics for more than two decades, covering Latin America, Haiti, the Balkans and the Middle East among other stories. He was for many years a staff writer atThe New Yorker and contributes frequently to The New York Review of Books, The New York Times Magazine and other publications. He teaches at the University of California and at Bard College and speaksand debates widely about America's role in the world.

Later this month, we'll be presenting ROMESH RATNESAR, AMY BACH, NANI STEELE, and our final BOOKSMITH BOOKSWAPfor this year. We'll be at the JCC of San Francisco for AMOS OZ's talk, and our affiliate Berkeley Arts & Letters will be presentingORHAN PAMUK and MARY KARR in Berkeley. Stay well and keep reading!

DAVID THOMSON
THE MOMENT OF PSYCHO
Thursday, December 3 - 7:30 PM

It was made like a television movie, and completed in less than three months. It killed off its star in forty minutes. There was no happy ending. And it offered the most violent scene to date in American film, punctuated by shrieking strings that seared the national consciousness. Nothing like Psycho had existed before; the movie industry—even America itself—would never be the same. In The Moment of Psycho, film critic David Thomson situates Psycho in Alfred Hitchcock’s career, recreating the mood and time when the seminal film erupted onto film screens worldwide. Thomson shows that Psycho was not just a sensation in film: it altered the very nature of our desires. Sex, violence, and horror took on new life. Psycho, all of a sudden, represented all America wanted from a film—and, as Thomson brilliantly demonstrates, still does.

English-American writer David Thomson is the author of many books on film, including “Have You Seen...?” A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films, which the New York Times called, “passionate, illuminating, rich, and eccentric”; and the massively influential Biographical Dictionary of Film called “the best book on the movies ever written in English” (The New Republic). He lives in San Francisco with his family.

FIRST FRIDAY on HAIGHT STREET
Friday, December 4 - Stop by for some hot cider and holiday cookies this evening, from 5:30 to 8.

It is quite possible you’ll encounter some zombie caroling, too.

SCHOOL BENEFIT DAY on HAIGHT STREET
Sunday, December 6

The Booksmith will donate 20% of your designated purchases today to Grattan and New Traditions elementary schools. If you haven’t received a voucher from your local schools to bring in for this benefit, just ask one of our booksellers for one!

We’re delighted that our neighbor merchants are joining this much-needed benefit this year; each is offering our neighborhood public schools a donation, so in addition to visiting The Booksmith, you may also want to check out FTC/SFO; Offbeat on Haight; Soul Patch Tattoo; Ben & Jerry’s; Ambiance; Mendel’s; Kids Only; Coco-Luxe; Amoeba Music; Haight Street Market.

JOANNA MACY and ANITA BARROWS
A YEAR WITH RILKE:
Daily Readings from the Best of Rainer Maria Rilke
Tuesday, December 8 - 7:30 PM

One of the most widely read modern poets, Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) has influenced generations of writers and served as a trusted guide for countless others on the importance of looking within to find peace in a hectic world. From The Book of Hours to hisclassic Letters to a Young Poet, his writings have only gained more relevance with time, and his observations are amazingly prescient.

Now, for the first time, A Year with Rilke provides a reading from Rilke for every day of the year. From his luminous poetry, to his piercing prose, and even his intimate letters and journals, editors Joanna Macy and Anita Barrows provide new translations in a collection that reveals the depth and breadth of Rilke’s acclaimed work.

Including the last lines found in Rilke’s journal before he died as well as the epitaph he requested be carved on his gravestone, A Year with Rilke is an intimate window on the work on an unparalleled writer, providing daily meditations on themes such as impermanence, the beauty of creation, the voice of God, and the importance of solitude.

This evening is an opportunity to hear a selection of these daily readings, and to celebrate a lovely book that will make a wonderful gift this holiday season.

News from Our Friends at The Rumpus:
December 14 at The Makeout Room, 3225 22nd St., 7pm

Please join us for a night of literature, music, and comedy featuring:

Andrew Leland from The Believer Magazine
James Nestor, author of Get High Now
Michelle Gagnon, author of The Gatekeeper
Robert Mailer Anderson, author of Boonville
Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Story of a Marriage

and The Confessions of Max Tivoli

With comedy by W. Kamau Bell
Music by Michael Mullen of The Size Queens
and a special performance by Dan Wolf from Felonious

$10, cheap! You can’t afford not to go
Also prizes, giveaways, the chance to kiss someone you’ve never met

(And we’ll be there, too!)

Hosted by Rumpus editor and author of The Adderall Diaries Stephen Elliott

NOTE: No one under 21 years old will be admitted..

 Jason Myers - THE MISSION
Tuesday, January 5 - 7:30 PM 

Wake up and do something! Kaden Norris's life is shattered when his older brother -- his best friend and hero -- is killed in Iraq. All Kaden has left of Kenny is a letter, urging him to break away from his sheltered life and to go to San Francisco to visit his cousin, James. Kaden is blown away, as James introduces him to a life filled with drugs, sex, and apathy. He goes from extreme high to extreme low, having no idea what to expect. And when Kaden uncovers secrets about his family that have been kept from him for years, his entire world comes crashing down. This may not be the trip his brother had envisioned for him, but it's one Kaden will never forget.

Jason Myers was born in 1980 and raised on a farm outside of Dysart, Iowa. After high school, he studied film at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. His first novel, exit here, was published in 2007, and is in it's fifth printing. The Mission is his second novel. He lives and works in San Francisco. More information about this author and book can be found at www.jasonmyersauthor.com

Stewart Levine - GETTING TO RESOLUTION
Thursday, January 7 - 7:30 PM  

What is the greatest impediment to productive and satisfying business and personal relationships? According to empowerment guru Stewart Levine, it's inadequate conflict resolution. Levine's seven-step model integrates two skills essential for success - collaboration and conflict resolution - and emphasizes the importance of a shift in attitude, assumptions, and approaches when facing a problem.

“If you want to resolve conflict and build relationships while connecting at a profound level, read Getting to Resolution. It gives you new language and practices for transforming your communication so you can lead at a higher level.”
Victoria Halsey PhD, Vice President of Applied Learning, The Ken Blanchard Companies and coauthor of The Hamster Revolution and The Hamster Revolution for Meetings

Stewart Levine is a lawyer, management consultant, mediator, and trainer. His clients and students include American Express, Caterpillar Corporation, Chevron, ConAgra, General Motors, Oracle, and others. He has been a partner in two law firms and served as Deputy Attorney General for the state of New Jersey. Visit www.resolutionworks.org.

Raj Patel - THE VALUE OF NOTHING: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy
Saturday, January 9 - 7:30 PM   

Naomi Klein writes, “With great lucidity and confidence in a dazzling array of fields, Patel reveals how we inflate the cost of things we can (and often should) live without, while assigning absolutely no value to the resources we all
need to survive. This is a deeply thought-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness—argued with so much humor and humanity that the enormous tasks ahead feel both doable and desirable. This is Raj Patel’s great gift: he makes even the most radical ideas seem not only reasonable, but inevitable. A brilliant book.”

At the heart of THE VALUE OF NOTHING is a question: If economics is about choices, who gets to make them? Raj Patel shows how prices mislead us and how our faith in prices as a way of valuing the world is misplaced. Part One examines the economic history that got us into this mess; by showing how land and labor originally came to be commoditized, Patel reveals the hidden costs of goods, the real price of a hamburger ($200!), and how government has been captured by corporate interests. Patel argues that in order to truly understand our current economic crisis we need not only to rethink our economic model but the very meaning of democracy. Where other books on these issues end by stating the problem, Patel goes on in Part Two to show how social organizations here in America and around the globe are already successfully reining in markets and, in doing so, creating a new kind of participatory democracy, one in which people, not simply governments, play the crucial role in deciding how we value our world and its resources..

Raj Patel, the author of Stuffed and Starved, is an activist and academic who has been hailed as “a visionary” for his prescience about the food crisis. Raj has worked for the World Bank and the WTO and has protested against them on four continents. He is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, an honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, and a fellow at the Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First. Learn more at www.rajpatel.org. And watch the book trailer here!

  Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser - IT ALL CHANGED IN AN INSTANT: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure
Monday, January 11 - 7:30 PM

In a world where technology has shrunk our attention spans but made it easier for us to communicate, SMITH Magazine has found a medium perfectly suited for contemporary memoirists. Through www.smithmag.net, founder Larry Smith and memoir editor Rachel Fershleiser have collected all new Six-Word Memoirs, cutting to the quick in personal stories of fear, hope, excitement and reflection. In their latest collection IT ALL CHANGED IN AN INSTANT they continue to champion six-word memoirs by civilians and celebrities alike, cultivating a community of people who are empowered to write their own stories and granted access to the tales of others. More than 1750,000 people have submitted Six-Word Memoirs at SMITH Magazine and its younger cousin, SMITH Teens.

Thanks to SMITH, people around the world have been sharing terse true tales of romance, parenthood, friendship, ambition, failure, haircuts, and french fries. Thanks to the devoted admiration of writers, critics and educators alike, the six-word memoir concept has spread to classrooms, dinner tables, and tens of thousands of blogs.

Deceptively simple and surprisingly addictive, IT ALL CHANGED IN AN INSTANT contains a thousand new six-word sagas. From acclaimed authors Wally Lamb, Isabel Allende, Frank McCourt, Junot Diaz, Amy Tan and James Frey, and celebrities Ann Coulter, Yogi Berra, Melissa Etheridge, Sarah Silverman, Suze Orman, Neil Patrick Harris, Tony Hawk, Terrell Owens, Leonard Nimoy and Chelsea Handler, to ordinary folks around the world, everyone has a six-word story to tell.

That means you, too, and we invite you to enter your own six-word memoir in Booksmith’s Big Contest! Send your pithy memoir – in six words – to events@booksmith.com between now and January 8. Larry and Rachel will choose six winners, who’ll each receive an intriguing prize pack – and we’ll invite you to read your winning entries this evening!

Robin Ekiss - THE MANSION OF HAPPINESS
Tuesday, January 12 - 7:30 PM

Robin Ekiss's meditations on memory and mortality are a canary in the coal mine of imagination. With disembodied dolls, dank Parisian catacombs, the gilded interior of a Fabergé egg, and the unfathomable edge of Niagara Falls as the dominion of these poems, reading Ekiss's work is like peering into the perfectly still world of a diorama or daguerreotype: an experience both uncanny and uncompromising.

Ekiss is the recipient of a Stegner Fellowship from Stanford and a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award for Emerging Women Writers. Her poems have appeared widely, in the Atlantic Monthly, Poetry, American Poetry Review, Ploughshares, New England Review, and elsewhere. She lives in San Francisco.

"Charmed by the curious, the miniature, and the grotesque, Robin Ekiss understands where such fascinations lead. ‘In the nautilus,’ she writes, ‘each turn of light/ leads into darkness.’ And into the dire complexities of feeling, recorded here with subtle formal intelligence and a deft control of tone that leads this poet's readers to remember that even dark enchantments are enchantments still." -- Mark Doty

"These darkly beautiful poems are unswerving in their search for a place where the inner and outer world edit one another. Robin Ekiss writes with force and elegance. The content is always there; the craft is never sacrificed. The combination makes this book a superb debut." -- Eavan Boland

David Kessler - PUTTING THE FOOD INDUSTRY ON TRIAL
Booksmith @ the SFJCC: Thursday, January 14 - 8 PM at the JCCSF
Information and tickets - http://www.jccsf.org/content_main.aspx?catid=535#3255

Don Lattin - THE HARVARD PSYCHEDELIC CLUB
Tuesday, January 19 - 7:30 PM

The 1950s -- a decade defined by conformity, consumerism, and conservatism --were coming to a close, and a new era of social, spiritual, sexual, and psychological revolution was beginning. By the end of the century, Americans would have a new outlook on religion and new ways of practicing medicine, and the Mind/Body/Spirit movement would make things like yoga, organic produce, and alternative medicine commonplace.

This is the story of how it all began. Three brilliant scholars and one ambitious undergrad -- widely known today as leaders in the fields of spirituality (Ram Dass), world religions (Huston Smith), hallucinogenics (Timothy Leary), and holistic medicine (Andrew Weil) -- came together in the winter of 1960-61 around the Harvard Psilocybin Project, an infamous series of experiments with psychedelic drugs. Seeking spiritual enlightenment, their research brought them together before bitterness and betrayal tore them apart, and as they forged their own paths and changed their own lives, they would also transform the culture of America.

In The Harvard Psychedelic Club takes readers into the heart of the 1960s and back into this era of “peace, love, and joy.” With cameos by some of the best known and most beloved cultural figures of the era—including John Lennon, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, Ken Kesey, Joan Baez, Keith Richards, and Aldous Huxley—this book presents a comprehensive and compelling picture of a nation undergoing great and lasting change, and the four men who took us there.

Don Lattin is the author of Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge. His work has appeared in dozens of magazines and newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, where he covered the religion beat for nearly two decades. Lattin has also appeared on Dateline, Good Morning America, Nightline, Anderson Cooper 360, and PBS’s Religion and Ethics Newsweekly.

Michael Thomas Ford - JANE BITES BACK
Wednesday, January 20  - 7:30 PM

The fiction of Jane Austen is timeless and has endured the centuries -- and now in Michael Thomas Ford’s JANE BITES BACK she herself will truly never die.

Ford’s clever, campy, and genre-bending tale opens in upstate New York, where Jane is alive and well working in a local bookstore. It’s tough to be surrounded by books while harboring your true bestselling identity, but Jane has learned how to cope after hundreds of years. The one thing that really bothers her is not getting royalty checks on the multitude of spin-offs of her work including The Jane Austen Cookbook and Austen action figures: if she was dead, she’d turn over in her grave. But Jane’s luck is about to change when she lands a new book deal --after 200 years and 116 rejection letters -- that promises to launch her career anew..

JANE BITES BACK is a contemporary comedy of manners, a witty spoof of popular culture, and just a lot of laugh-out-loud fun -- in the immortal words of Jane herself, “If a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

Join us in raising a glass of red, red wine to subject and author this evening!

“It’s impossible not to love Ford’s sharp-witted, sharp-fanged Jane Austen (and I’m not just saying that because she spares my life in Chapter Six).” --Seth Grahame-Smith, author of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

Michael Thomas Ford is the author of numerous books, including the novels What We Remember, Suicide Notes, Changing Tides, Full Circle, Looking for It, and Last Summer.

LAUNCH PARTY!
Ethan Watters - CRAZY LIKE US: The Globalization of the American Psyche
Thursday, January 21  - 7:30 PM 

American culture is homogenizing the way the world goes mad.  Our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon.  But neither our golden arches nor our bomb craters represent our most troubling impact on the world: the bulldozing of the human mind itself.  In CRAZY LIKE US, leading trend-spotter and science writer Ethan Watters shows that we are  not only changing the way the world treats and understands mental illness, we are actually changing the symptoms and prevalence of the diseases themselves.

In CRAZY LIKE US, Watters reveals how:

·        American versions of depression, post traumatic stress disorder and eating disorders are spreading around the world like contagions -- and we are the ones spreading them.

·        Western trauma counselors rush to far off countries to save the day without taking into account that the psychological reactions to trauma vary dramatically from culture to culture. (What would we have thought if New Guinea shamans arrived in New Orleans to counsel Katrina survivors)?

·        Anorexia rose in Hong Kong over the last two decades not only because of western fashion and diet crazes but because we exported the idea of the illness itself!

·        Our Western biomedical conception of mental illness has been show to increase the social stigma placed on the mentally ill around the world.

·        America believes it has a rightful place as the therapist to the world.  Given the state of mental health in our culture, Watters argues it is time to rethink our generosity.

Watters travels the world to illustrate the ways in which Western influences have changed mental illness.  In Hong Kong, he meets teenagers who have learned from American culture that anorexia is the modern way to express distress, and who began refusing food after a wave of Western celebrities and researchers began raising awareness.  In Zanzibar, he witnesses a much milder and more bearable form of schizophrenia than what we have in the States.  In Sri Lanka, he sees western crisis counselors bungle the treatment of Tsunami victims and actually cause the community more distress. And in Japan, he tells the story of the drug companies selling depression itself to create a market for a new drug. 

Ethan Watters is the author of Urban Tribes, an examination of the mores of affluent “never marrieds” and the coauthor of Making Monsters, a groundbreaking indictment of the recovered memory movement.  A frequent contributor to The New York Times Magazine, Discover, Men’s Journal, Details, Wired, and NPR, he has appeared on such national media as Good Morning America, Talk of the Nation, and CNN.

Booksmith @ the SFJCC:
Start-Up Nation: What We Can Learn From Israel's Meteoric Economic Success
with Dan Senor, Council on Foreign Relations
Thursday, January 21 - 8 PM at the SFJCC
Information and tickets: http://www.jccsf.org/content_main.aspx?catid=539#3345

Chris Farrell - THE NEW FRUGALITY: How to Consume Less, Save More, and Live Better
Friday, January 22 - 7:30 PM

According to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, The Great Recession may technically be over. But what’s clear is that, no matter what the GDP may be, people are hurting financially. In The New Frugality, Chris Farrell, personal finance expert for American Public Media’s Marketplace Money and contributing economics editor for BusinessWeek, presents a new paradigm for surviving the greatest economic crisis in a generation.

 The embrace of what Farrell calls the New Frugality signals that half a century of people spending with abandon and borrowing as much as possible is done. Profligacy is out. Frugality is in. Also, The Great Recession comes at a time of another great crisis related to our over consumption: global climate change. This convergence of crises creates opportunities and new ways to be frugal. In everyday money decisions, it turns out that being frugal and being green are synonymous.

 Farrell suggests we should focus not only on what’s affordable in the short term, but also on what’s sustainable in the long term. If you’re thinking about getting rid of your car and buying a bike to save money, there’s no reason you should buy a two-wheeled clunker from Craigslist that needs a trip to the bike shop every other day. As Farrell demonstrates, there’s a difference between being frugal and being cheap.  We’ll still need places to live (do we buy or rent?), to save for college, and every now and then go into a little debt. How we make these choices will be as important as the choices themselves. The New Frugality offers smart, sustainable, and ultimately more fulfilling ways to approach our personal finances and get more out of spending less.

Young Writers Project Group Reading 
Sunday, January 24 - 4:00 – 6:00 PM

Come hear from some of the youngest, and most talented, budding young novelists from the Bay Area at *National Novel Writing Month's third-annual Thank Goodness It's Over Young Writers Program Reading and Celebration*. National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants writing adventure where the challenge is to pen an entire novel in the 30 days of November. Over 40 local classrooms participated in NaNoWriMo this year, and the Young Writers Program will be featuring authors from six of them.. Students from 1st grade through 12th grade will be reading from their newly-written manuscripts. Word lovers of all ages are invited to come enjoy this reading. Warning: this event might be overwhelmingly inspirational! After seeing a 4th-grade student read from the 20,000-word novel that she wrote in 30 days, you may need to write a novel next November yourself! - www.nanowrimo.org

Jeremy Adam Smith - THE COMPASSIONATE INSTINCT: The Science of Human Goodness
Monday, January 25 - 7:30 PM 

In these pages you will hear from Steven Pinker, who asks, "Why is there peace?"; Robert Sapolsky, who examines violence among primates; Paul Ekman, who talks with the Dalai Lama about global compassion; Daniel Goleman, who proposes "constructive anger"; and many others. Led by renowned psychologist Dacher Keltner, the Greater Good Science Center, based at the University of California in Berkeley, has been at the forefront of the positive psychology movement, making discoveries about how and why people do good. Four times a year the center publishes its findings with essays on forgiveness, moral inspiration, and everyday ethics in Greater Good magazine. The best of these writings are collected here for the first time. A collection of personal stories and empirical research, The Compassionate Instinct will make you think not only about what it means to be happy and fulfilled but also about what it means to lead an ethical and compassionate life.

Jeremy Smith is the editor of Greater Good magazine and the author of The Daddy Shift: How Stay-at-Home Dads, Breadwinning Moms, and Shared Parenting Are Transforming the American Family, and he will talk a bit about this work as well this evening.

Co-sponsored by the UCSF Center for Gender Equity.

Found in Translation - Book Group Meeting
Tuesday, January 26 - 7:00 PM

After a short hiatus, Booksmith’s literature-in-translation book group is ready to rock and roll again. This is an open discussion group, and, yes, you may simply show up – we’d love to see you! You’ll find descriptive flyers about the group and forthcoming books and dates in the store.

With the recent publication of Roberto Bolano: The Last Interview and Bolano's newest novel-in-translation, Monsieur Pain, the time is ripe to talk about this superstar. Join us at 7:00 pm on Tuesday, January 26, to discuss The Skating Rink, published last August. Called a "masterpiece" by The New York Times, the book centers around the murder of a beautiful ice skater in Spain. We'll get into why critics have called this detective story a forerunner of Bolano's mega-successful novel The Savage Detectives. For those new to Bolano, this makes a great starting point, and for dedicated Bolano-maniacs this book will be another great read from an author they love. Join us on Tuesday, January 26 at 7:00 for a rousing discussion and a chance to meet new readers.

Copies of The Skating Rink, like all other Found in Translation featured titles, are available at a 15% discount.

The Booksmith is so happy to welcome Scott Esposito and Annie Janusch as group discussion leaders. Scott and Annie's work with both the Quarterly Conversation and the Center for the Art of Translation keeps them apprised on a day-to-day basis of what's new in world lit, and they're excited to act as your "interpreters" through these uncharted literary landscapes.

Booksmith Book Swap
Friday, January 29 - 6:30 to 9:30 PM

The first Book Swap in 2010 might just be the most fun you've had at a bookstore, ever -- so don't miss it.  Join special author guests Stephen Elliott and Kevin Smokler, along with other smart, creative lit-minded souls of the city. Enjoy good company, swell atmosphere, delicious Reverie food, free-flowing wine, wise discourse and hilarious anecdotes.  Bring a book -- one you loved but can part with -- and we'll cook up some good, smart fun. You'll also receive a 20% off discount card!

Author Holly Payne says the Book Swap is "The most unique book event I’ve ever participated in."

Space is very limited -- these events sell out, so we urge you to get your tickets well in advance! As always, tickets must be purchased in advance, in the store, or at Brown Paper Tickets.

Tuesday, February 2 Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie 7:30 PM

SLOW DEATH BY RUBBER DUCK

Pollution is no longer just about belching smokestacks and ugly sewer pipes--now, it's personal. The most dangerous pollution, it turns out, comes from commonplace items in our homes and workplaces. To prove this point, for one week authors Rick Smith and Bruce Lourie ingested and inhaled a host of things that surround all of us. Using their own bodies as the reference point to tell the story of pollution in our modern world, they expose the miscreant corporate giants who manufacture the toxins, the weak-kneed government officials who let it happen, and the effects on people and families across the globe.

Slow Death by Rubber Duck -- the testimony of their experience -- exposes the extent to which we are poisoned every day of our lives, from the simple household dust that is polluting our blood to the toxins in our urine that are created by run-of-the-mill shampoos and toothpaste. Ultimately hopeful, the book empowers readers with some simple ideas for protecting themselves and their families, and changing things for the better.

"This book is a powerful reminder that what we do to Mother Earth, we do directly to ourselves. Read it to see why we have to change the way we live and get off our destructive path." -- David Suzuki

“Fantastically important—an indispensable guide to surviving in an industrial age..” -- Tim Flannery, author of Now or Never and The Weather Makers

Rick Smith is a prominent Canadian author and environmentalist and Executive Director of Environmental Defence Canada (since 2003), where he has established a reputation as one of the country’s leading environmental campaigners with efforts such as the high-profile Toxic Nation campaign.

A biologist by training, Rick completed his doctoral research on an endangered subspecies of freshwater harbour seal in arctic Quebec with a nearby community of Cree hunters. From 1997 to 2002 Rick was Executive Director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare's Canadian office and acting Director of the Fund's UK office for a year. While at the Fund, Rick created high-profile and successful public efforts to end Ontario's spring bear hunt, won a groundbreaking Supreme Court of Canada ruling striking down the patenting of higher life forms and spurred the adoption of Canada's first federal Species At Risk Act.

Bruce Lourie is an influential leader and thinker in Canada's environment sector. His 20 year career is built on creating collaborative solutions to challenges facing non-profits, government and the private sector. Bruce is President of Ivey Foundation, a private charitable foundation focusing on environmental policy change. He is a Director of the Ontario Power Authority and a Director of the Ontario Trillium Foundation, one of Canada's largest community funding agencies. He is Chair of the Board of Environmental Defence Canada.

Wednesday, February 3 Carol Sklenicka 7:30 PM

RAYMOND CARVER: A Writer’s Life (One of The New York Times’ Top 10 of 2009)

Raymond Carver was the most beloved American short-story writer of the late twentieth century. Two decades after his death, this definitive biography tells the story of Carver's uncanny ambition, legendary life, and enduring work.

When Raymond Carver died at age fifty, readers lost a distinctive voice in its prime. Carver was, the Times of London said, "the Chekhov of middle America." His influence on a generation of writers and on the short story itself has been widely noted. Not so generally known are how Carver became a writer, how he suffered to achieve his art, and how his troubled and remarkable personality affected those around him.

Carol Sklenicka's meticulous and absorbing biography re-creates Carver's early years in Yakima, Washington, where he was the nervous, overweight son of a kindly, alcohol-dependent lumbermill worker. By the time he was nineteen, Ray had married his high school sweetheart, Maryann Burk. From a basement apartment where they were raising their first child and expecting their second, they determined that Ray would become a writer. Despite the handicaps of an erratic education and utter lack of financial resources, he succeeded.

Maryann's belief in Carver's talent was unshakable, as was her willingness to support the family and see her experiences transformed in his fiction. Sklenicka reveals the entwined histories of this passionate, volatile marriage and Carver's career. She describes his entry into the literary world via "little magazines" and the Iowa Writers' Workshop; his publication by Esquire editor Gordon Lish and their ensuing relationship; his near-fatal alcoholism, which worsened even as he produced many of the unforgettable stories collected in Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? and What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Sklenicka examines Carver's warmhearted friendships with scores of writers, including Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, John Gardner, Joy Williams, Al Young, William Kittredge, Leonard Michaels, Chuck Kinder, and Hayden Carruth; she shows how his stories about unemployment, drinking, marital trauma, divorce, troubled children, and suburban malaise, dubbed "minimalist" by critics, won readers with their precise and humane portrayal of ordinary lives. She examines the dissolution of his first marriage and his partnership with poet Tess Gallagher, who helped him enjoy the full measure of his success. Ever grateful that he'd been able to renounce alcohol, Carver shunned pity and considered himself a "lucky man" as he faced death from lung cancer in 1988.

Carol Sklenicka draws on hundreds of interviews with people who knew Carver, prodigious research in libraries and private collections, and all of Carver's poems and stories for Raymond Carver, which took ten years to write. Her portrait is generous and wise and shows how Carver's quintessentially American life fostered the stories that knowing readers have cherished from their first publication until the present day.

Tuesday, February 9 Jim Powell 7:30 PM

SUBSTRATE

Poet Jim Powell’s first collection in twenty years examines the indigenous habitat of Northern California, treating history as a kind of sediment. Powell, fascinated by the first person, turns to eyewitness historical accounts and primary witnesses to create a portrait assembled of samples from twenty-five ‘strata’ in the ‘substrate’ of the region.

Largely narrative, Powell’s poems embrace the tradition, borrowing tools from prose and contemporary oral narration. His title poem summons twenty-five witnesses from oral and documentary history, ethnology, archeology, ethnobotany and linguistics, all providing a composite cultural history of California. Substrate is a vivid, multifaceted volume dazzling in its lush imagery and its linguistic richness.

Jim Powell is the author of It Was Fever That Made the World and the translator ofThe Poetry of Sappho and Catullan Revenants. He received a CCLM Younger Poets Prize in 1986 and a MacArthur Fellowship (1993-1198), and was the Sherry Poet and Lecturer at the University of Chicago in 2005. He is a fourth generation California native and lifelong resident of the Bay Area.

See David Ulin’s Los Angeles Times’ review.

Wednesday, February 10 Christine Carter 7:30 PM

RAISING HAPPINESS: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents

“This is THE parenting book. This is the one to read over and over. So much wisdom and empathy, all based in real science. My children owe Christine Carter big time.” -- Kelly Corrigan, author of The Middle Place

“The learning curve for all parents is in failure analysis—where and how we went off course—and how we can do better the next go round. Enter Raising Happiness, a compendium of ideas and suggestions on how to do better and how to increase happiness and joy in all families. Read it, enjoy, and most importantly, put it into practice.” -- Mike Riera, Ph.D., author Field Guide to the American Teenager andRight From Wrong

“Raising Happiness is an elegant, funny, and rigorous handbook for the humbling task of raising joyful children. Brimming with brilliantly distilled science, poignant stories from her family, and what parents so urgently seek – clear, practical, and informed guidance – it is an encyclopedia of wisdom for raising children in today’s multitasking, multimedia world.” -- Dacher Keltner, author Born To Be Good: The Science of A Meaningful Life, Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley

Christine Carter Ph.D., a sociologist, Executive Director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and mother of two young children herself, reveals ten simple principles, distilled from years of fascinating research, to help parents foster the skills, habits, and mindsets that will set the stage for positive emotions now and into their adolescence and beyond.

Psychologists, sociologists, psychiatrists, and neurologists study happiness through single focus lenses, but when you put together their disparate research -- as Carter does at the Greater Good Science Center -- you see proof that happiness is a skill; it is a muscle any parent can help their child build and maintain. In her new book, Carter covers the day-to-day pressure points of

Parenting -- how best to discipline, get kids to school and activities on time, and get dinner on the table -- as well as the more elusive issues of helping children build healthy friendships and develop emotional intelligence.

Bring your questions and observations and join the discussion this evening!

Christine Carter is a regular on ABC's “View from the Bay” talk show, has been profiled in the San Francisco Chronicle and quoted in dozens of national publications including The New York Times, the Boston Globe, American Baby, and Parenting.

Thursday, February 11 Sara Houghteling 7:30 PM

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

A Finalist in Fiction for the National Jewish Book Awards

Set in a Paris darkened by World War II, Sara Houghteling's sweeping and sensuous debut novel (just now in paperback) tells the story of a son's quest to recover his family's lost masterpieces, looted by the Nazis during the occupation.

Born to an art dealer and his pianist wife, Max Berenzon is forbidden from entering the family business for reasons he cannot understand. He reluctantly attends medical school, reserving his true passion for his father's beautiful and brilliant gallery assistant, Rose Clement. When Paris falls to the Nazis, the Berenzons survive in hiding. They return in 1944 to find that their priceless collection has vanished: gone are the Matisses, the Picassos, and a singular Manet of mysterious importance. Madly driven to recover his father's paintings, Max navigates a torn city of corrupt art dealers, black marketers, Resistants, and collaborators. His quest will reveal the tragic disappearance of his closest friend, the heroism of his lost love, and the truth behind a devastating family secret.

Written with tense drama and a historian's eye for detail, Houghteling's novel draws on the real-life stories of France's preeminent art-dealing families and the forgotten biography of the only French woman to work as a double agent inside the Nazis' looted art stronghold. Pictures at an Exhibition conjures the vanished collections, the lives of the artists and their dealers, the exquisite romance, and the shattering loss of a singular era. It is a work of astonishing ambition and beauty from an immensely gifted new novelist.

"In times like this, one turns to books like "Pictures at an Exhibition" for their exhilarating sense of wonder and ambition. No other book I have read in a long time has such depth of history and intelligence, setting art as antidote for suffering, and love as both a cause and remedy for pain." -- Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Story of a Marriage and The Confessions of Max Tivoli

""Pictures at an Exhibition" is remarkably self-assured, astute, worldly, and well-informed; in fact, it does not look like a first novel at all. Its subject-matter-stolen paintings, and Nazis, and the insatiable hunger for beauty-requires both erudition and brilliance, and Sara Houghteling has plenty of both, along with a sense of humor and a warm heart." -- Charles Baxter, author of The Soul Thief

Sara Houghteling graduated from Harvard College in 1999 and received her master's in fine arts from the University of Michigan. She is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to Paris, first prize in the Avery and Jules Hopwood Awards, and a John Steinbeck Fellowship. She currently lives in California, where she teaches high school English.

Amoeba Records joins The Booksmith in presenting Thursday, February 18 7:30 PM

Yvonne Prinz THE VINYL PRINCESS with live music from Matthew Edwards

Sixteen-year-old Allie, a self-professed music geek, has her dream job working at Berkeley’s independent record store, Bob and Bob’s Records. It’s shaping up to be a summer like never before, what with her mother starting to date again after the divorce, business at Bob and Bob’s getting dangerously slow, Allie crushing on a handsome stranger and, biggest of all, her new blog, The Vinyl Princess, which seems to be gaining interest one vinyl junkie at a time…

THE VINYL PRINCESS is a love letter to music, and the perfect companion for readers who walk through life with their earphones in, heads nodding to the rhythm of song, dreaming of all the great things that are to come.

Yvonne Prinz has written three books in the Clare series; Still There, Clare was was nominated for an IPPY Award (an Independent Publisher Award) and a Red Cedar Award. Not Fair, Clare was recently shortlisted for the Red Maple Award. A Canadian living in San Francisco, Prinz founded the famed independent music store Amoeba Records (our neighbor!) with her husband. There, she keeps her finger on the pulse of hip teen culture. You can read the blog of The Vinyl Princess at www.thevinylprincess.com

Matthew Edwards, the driving force behind The Music Lovers, will play a short acoustic set this evening; his song, “The Former Miss Ontario” is on the CD mix that accompanies Yvonne’s book. Be prepared for some cool giveaways, too!

Monday, February 22 7:30 PM Tara Austen Weaver

THE BUTCHER & THE VEGETARIAN: One Woman’s Romp Through a World of Men, Meat, and Moral Crisis

Food writer and blogger Tara Austen Weaver shares her uproarious, firsthand account of what happens when a lifelong vegetarian enters the mysterious world of Chateaubriands, London Broils, and osso buco style cuts... and the men who spend their days working with them.

Growing up in a family that kept jars of bean sprouts on its windowsill before such things were desirable or hip, Weaver never thought she'd stray from vegetarianism. But as an adult, she found herself in poor health, and, having tried cures of every kind, a doctor finally ordered her to eat meat. Warily, she ventured into the butcher shop, and as the man behind the counter wrapped up her first-ever chicken, she found herself charmed. Eventually, he dared her to cook her way through his meat counter. As Tara navigates through this new world -- grass-fed beef vs. grain-fed beef; finding chickens that are truly free-range -- she's tempted to give up and go back to eating tempeh. The more she learns about meat and how it's produced, and the effects eating it has on the human body and the planet, the less she feels she knows. She embarks upon a sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening whirlwind tour that takes her from slaughterhouse to chef's table, from urban farm to the hearthside of cow wranglers. Along the way, she meets an unforgettable cast of characters who all seem to take a vested interest in whether she opts for turnips or T-bones.

Tara Austen Weaver is an award-winning writer whose work focuses on the themes of food, travel, art, and adventure. Her writing has been published in Edible San Francisco, on Chow.com, and in numerous anthologies. Her food blog, Tea and Cookies, was selected by the Times of London as one of the top food blogs in the world.

Tuesday, February 23 7:00 PM Found in Translation Book Group Meeting: Elias Khoury’s YALO

Everyone wants to know more about the Middle East, and Yalo is an excellent chance to find out.. Set in Beirut during Lebanon's civil war, this is the bracing story of a man falsely picked up by the police for terrorism and tortured into a false confession. Written by one of the Arab world's leading authors, Yalo is a great book for discussion. We'll try to unwind this complex plot and see what we can learn from this book about the Middle East world.

Join us on the fourth Tuesday of every month at 7:00 PM in the bookstore for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you by the Booksmith's knowledgeable booksellers. You'll also meet some great new people (including Scott Esposito and Annie Janusch, who will guide each monthly conversation. Scott and Annie's work with both The Quarterly Conversation and the Center for the Art of Translation keeps them apprised on a day-to-day basis of what's new in world lit, and they're excited to act as your "interpreters" through these uncharted literary landscapes) and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.

Thursday, February 25 7:30 PM Marisa Matarazzo DRENCHED: Stories of Love and Other Deliriums

Two lovers accidentally create a love potion while making a batch of Jell-O. An apartment is filled with water as an act of gravity-defying devotion to an acrobat. At turns blissful, absurd, sexy, and devastating, Marisa Matarazzo’s stories don’t just push the boundaries of love – they show how very boundless it is.

These interconnected shorts take love to a new level, another world, where a sex fever can sweep a town and where sex acts are performed while tied to the raised mast of a sailboat. Falling into love, swimming, and drowning in it, Matarazzo’s characters often exist in places where land and water collide: a girl without hands is rescued from the sea by an oil-rig worker; a boy transplants a fish into the body of a menacing neighbor; a woman on the rebound has an unexpected encounter with an otherworldly water engineer…

Fusing magical realism and fantastical elements with the heart of here and now, Drenched is a celebration of the fluid sorcery of love – in its ardor, its ugliness, all of its uncanny and magnificent manifestations.

Saturday, February 27 1:00 – 7:30 PM MAGAZINE DAY

Piles of unread magazines falling to the floor and tormenting you?

Never again!

Join Booksmith and local writer Kevin Smokler for the First Ever celebration of Magazine Day, a nationwide holiday dedicated to magazines and catching up on the ones you haven't read yet. On the afternoon of February 27, Booksmith will convert itself into a giant magazine reading room. Bring your own unread magazines, share then with others when you’re done with them, and pick over Booksmith's magazine racks with impunity (but without coffee stains…)

At 6 PM, we’ll convene a group of magazine publishers and aficionados to talk about the state of magazine publishing today. All speakers will be announced soon; the group will include Derek Powazek (Fray) and Jen Angel (formerly of clamour)

$5 gets you an all-afternoon reading pass, wine and snacks, and take-home mags from the communal already-read pile. And more: presentations and giveaways by local magazine publishers and discussion groups will happen throughout the day. Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006 and in the store.

Magazine Day: Because the unread deserve a day too.

Tuesday, March 2 7:30 PM ERIC PUCHNER

Model Home: A Novel

"Eric Puchner's Model Home is 1980s California in a nutshell: bright and frantic, giddy and broke, desperate and strong and always, always moving." – Daniel Handler, author of Adverbs

Eric Puchner’s Music Through the Floor was one of the best-received story collections in years. His debut novel, a sweeping yet intimate story of the American dream in remission, viewed through the microscope of a single family, proves yet again just “how exhilarating it is to come across a young writer as technically gifted and emotionally insightful as Eric Puchner” (The New York Times Book Review)

The Zillers – Warren, Camille, and their three children – live the good life in a gated Southern California neighborhood, but the sun-bright veneer hides a starker reality. As Warren desperately tries to conceal a failing real estate venture, his family falls prey to secrets and misunderstandings, both hilarious and painful that open fault lines in their intimacy. Their misguided attempts to recover their former closeness, or find it elsewhere, lead them into late-night burglary, improbably romance, and strange acts of betrayal. When tragedy strikes, the Zillers are forced to move to one of the houses in Warren’s abandoned development in the desert. By turns tender and disturbing, irreverent and profound, Model Home is a masterful display of Eric Puchner’s prodigious gifts and penetrating insight – both into the American family and into the imperfect ways we try to connect.

Check out Puchner’s Living with Music piece in the New York Times.

Eric Puchner’s short stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All Story, Chicago Tribune, The Sun, The Missouri Review, Best New American Voices, and many other journals and anthologies. A recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Wallace Stegner Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts grant, he is an assistant professor of literature at Claremont McKenna College. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, novelist Katharine Noel, and their daughter.

Wednesday, March 3 7:30 PM HELENE JORGENSEN

Sick and Tired: How America’s Health Care System Fails Its Patients

As an active person, Helene Jorgensen decided to enjoy a hike in the mountains one afternoon while attending a conference in Montana. Warned by friends to beware of bears, Jorgensen was attacked by a creature much more menacing -- the Rocky Mountain wood tick. SICK AND TIRED is the story of Jorgensen’s subsequent illness and her descent into the quagmire that is the American health care system.

Returning home from her trip, Jorgensen is quickly debilitated by a mysterious illness and sets out to find a diagnosis and cure. Along the way, she is seen by countless doctors, none of whom seems to be able to diagnose her accurately. She undergoes two surgeries, is forced to quit her job as a labor economist, and is saddled with countless bills and denied payment for claims. Jorgensen quickly learns that the health care system does not work; finally diagnosed with Lyme disease, she struggles for years to receive proper medical treatment.

Based on the author’s notes and observations, statistics, and survey data, SICK AND TIRED details the health care system’s failings and lays out arguments to fix it. As an economist, Jorgensen takes a critical look at conflicts of interest between doctors, pharmaceutical companies, diagnostic laboratories, and insurance companies that restrict treatment options and increase patient charges.

While millions of Americans negotiate the health care system, and try to make sense of health care reform, Helene Jorgensen’s saga will prove an important consideration in the national debate. Her voice will bring hope as she provides advice about how to seek better and more affordable medical care from physicians, health plans, and elected officials.

Thursday, March 4 7:30 PM JOE HILL

Horns

Ignatius Martin Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples and felt something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby, pointed protuberances. He was so ill—wet-eyed and weak—he didn’t think anything of it at first, was too hungover for thinking or worry. But when he was swaying over the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror above the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept.

The second son of a renowned musician and doting mother, Ig Perrish has a privileged life and expectations of a bright future with his childhood sweetheart, Merrin Williams. But life takes an unexpected dark turn when Merrin is brutally killed and suspicion falls hard on Ig.

A year passes, but Ig is nowhere near over his grief or his rage . . . feelings that come to a head in a lost evening of alcohol and hate. When he wakes the next morning he discovers that he has undergone a surreal transformation, and is in possession of an incredible power. It isn’t long before he turns his terrible new abilities towards vengeance. Unfortunately Ig is about to learn thatwhen it comes to revenge, the devil is in the details . . .

Joe Hill’s debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was an instant New York Times bestseller, hit national lists including the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and garnered praise from sources as diverse as the Washington Post, Locus, Romantic Times, and James Rollins. It also won the Bram Stoker Award and the International Thriller Writers Award for best first novel. In Entertainment Weekly, Neil Gaiman named Craddock McDermott, the “vengeful ghost that came with the suit in Heart-Shaped Box,” one of the Top 10 New Classic Monsters. Hill’s collection of macabre short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, received the Bram Stoker Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection. In addition, various individual stories from the collection have won awards, including the World Fantasy Award for the novella “Voluntary Committal.”

Joe talks about Horns at Comic-Con. Read notes, interviews, and more on Joe’s website.

Friday, March 5 6:30 – 9:30 PM BOOKSWAP:EAT, DRINK, TALK (and SWAP BOOKS!)

Our second Book Swap in 2010 might just be the most fun you've had at a bookstore, ever -- so don't miss it. Join special author guests tba and tba, along with other smart, creative lit-minded souls of the city. Enjoy good company, swell atmosphere, delicious Reverie food, free-flowing wine, wise discourse and hilarious anecdotes. Bring a book -- one you loved but can part with -- and we'll cook up some good, smart fun. You'll also receive a 20% off discount card!

Author Holly Payne says the Book Swap is "The most unique book event I’ve ever participated in."

Space is very limited -- these events sell out, so we urge you to get your tickets well in advance! As always, tickets must be purchased in advance, in the store, or at Brown Paper Tickets.

Sunday, March 7 4:00 PM ELIF SHAFAK

The Forty Rules of Love

Critically acclaimed Turkish novelist Elif Shafak’s second novel in English, THE FORTY RULES OF LOVE, a huge bestseller in her native Turkey, is lyrical, exuberant and sure to please fans of The Bastard of Istanbul, which was described byUSA Today as a “Turkish version of The Joy Luck Club” and by The Nation as a “brave, ambitious book.”

Deftly weaving two parallel narratives together, through employing the structure of a novel within a novel, THE FORTY RULES OF LOVE tells the story of an American housewife by the name of Ella Rubinstein who is trapped in an unhappy marriage. She takes a job as a reader for a literary agent and finds her life transformed after becoming engrossed in her first project: reading and reporting on a work of fiction describing the three year encounter (1244-1247) between the mystic Sufi poet Rumi and the controversial whirling dervish Shams of Tabriz. As Ella reads the manuscript (and the reader follows along with her), her relationship with the author -- a novelist by the name of Aziz Zahara, who lives in Holland -- soon begins to mirror that of Rumi and Shams.

For Ella, the spirit of Shams lives in Zahara and as the two fall in love, she is guided not only by her own heart, but by Sham’s lessons, or rules, which are directly taken from the ancient philosophy of Sufism. The basis of Sufism is unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As the fortieth rule states: “A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western…Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is.”

Elif Shafak was born in France and spent her teenage years in Spain before returning to Turkey. She holds a Master of Science degree in Gender and Women’s Studies and earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Middle East Technical University. She has been a visiting scholar in the US and has been featured widely in the press both in the US and abroad. Shortly before the publication in America of her most recent novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, Shafak was brought to trial by nationalist lawyers in Turkey who accused her of insulting Turkish identity for comments that some of the fictional characters made in the book. The case attracted worldwide attention and she was eventually acquitted. She lives in Istanbul with her husband and two children. Read The Independent (UK)’s interview with Shafak.

Monday, March 8 7:30 PM CAMILLE ROSE GARCIA

Alice goes goth in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Since its publication in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has delighted the world with a wildly imaginative and unforgettable journey, inspiring readers of all ages to suspend disbelief and follow Alice into her fantasy worlds. Camille Rose Garcia brings a bold reinterpretation with a dark yet whimsical style that has won her resounding praise and an international cult following.

One of literature’s most recognized and beloved characters, Alice has already been the subject of numerous films and television specials. Her likeness has appeared on everything from toys to playing cards to Christmas ornaments and has been used in ads to sell products (Wonder Bread, Philco refrigerators, and so on) for many decades. Garcia brings Alice to life like never before in a glorious book whose publication coincides with this month’s release of Tim Burton’s film version of Alice.

Camille Rose Garcia was born in 1970 in Los Angeles, and grew up in the generic suburbs of Orange County, visiting Disneyland and going to punk shows with the other disenchanted youth of that era. Her paintings of creepy cartoon children living in wasteland fairy tales are critical commentaries on the failures of capitalist utopias, blending nostalgic pop culture references with a satirical slant on modern society. Her work has been displayed internationally and featured in numerous magazines including Juxtapoz, Rolling Stone, and Modern Painter. In 2008, a retrospective of her work, entitled TragicKingdom, was on display at the San Jose Museum of Art, accompanied by a catalog of the same name. She has also written and illustrated a children’s book, The Magic Bottle. The recipient of the Stars of Design award from the Pacific Design Center, she recently moved to the Pacific Northwest after 38 years in Los Angeles. Watch Camille’s movie here!

FOREIGN CRIMES IN FOREIGN CLIMES Monday, March 15 7:30 PM CARA BLACK and DAVID CORBETT

Murder in the Palais Royal Do They Know I’m Running?

MURDER IN THE PALAIS ROYAL is the tenth book in Cara Black’s Parisian crime series starring P.I. Aimée Leduc. Last year’s Murder in the Latin Quarter debuted at #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list, garnered much praise, and found Black interviewed in the streets of Paris for NPR’s All Things Considered.. Now, with a narrative call back to her first novel, Palais Royal is poised to be her biggest hit yet.

In Murder In The Palais Royal, Aimée’s business partner, René, has been shot, and eyewitnesses have identified Aimée as the culprit. A mysterious deposit has been made to their firm's bank account, interesting the taxman in their affairs. Someone seems to be impersonating Aimée; someone wants revenge. Two murders ensue. How do they relate to the youth whom Aimée's testimony sent to jail in the very first Aimée Leduc investigation, Murder in the Marais?

“The ninth mystery in Cara Black’s irresistible series set in Paris . . . might well be the book we’ve been waiting for. Aimée Leduc, Black’s adorably punkish sleuth, is in her element . . . one of this colorful series’ most scenic itineraries.” -- New York Times Book Review

Cara Black is the author of nine other novels in the best-selling Aimée Leduc series. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.

DO THEY KNOW I’M RUNNING? from acclaimed author David Corbett is a stunning and suspenseful novel of a life without loyalties and the borders inside us.

Roque Montalvo is wise beyond his eighteen years. Orphaned at birth, a gifted musician, he’s stuck in a California backwater, helping his Salvadoran aunt care for his damaged brother, an ex-marine badly wounded in Iraq. When immigration agents arrest his uncle, the family has nowhere else to turn. Roque, badgered by his street-hardened cousin, agrees to bring the old man back, relying on the criminal gangs that control the dangerous smuggling routes from El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, to the U.S. border.

But his cousin has told Roque only so much. In reality, he will have to transport not just his uncle but two others: an Arab whose intentions are disturbingly vague and a young beauty promised to a Mexican crime lord. Roque discovers that his journey involves crossing more than one kind of border, and he will be asked time and again to choose between survival and betrayal -- of his country, his family, his heart.

David Corbett is the author of three critically acclaimed novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime, and Blood of Paradise, nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, and named one of the Top Ten Mysteries and Thrillers of 2007 by the Washington Post and a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book. His short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, and his story "Pretty Little Parasite," from Las Vegas Noir, was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2009..

Thursday, March 18 7:30 PM TED CONOVER

The Routes of Man: How Roads are Changing the World and The Way We Live Today

Roads: metaphorically and literally, they bind our modern world into a coherent whole. From the transportation of goods, knowledge, and disease to their hold on the imagination, the role of roads in our lives cannot be overstated. They even permeate our language: you navigate the information superhighway; your career is in the fast lane; you choose the high (or low) road; you take the path less traveled.

Behind every road lies a story, and in THE ROUTES OF MAN, Ted Conover brings his unparalleled eye to six roads around the world that have a profound impact on the lives lived on or near them, the businesses run over them, and the cultures that surround them. Conover’s dispatches come from Peru: accompanying a trucker through the perilous Andes, where he contemplates the threat that better infrastructure poses to indigenous populations and surrounding rainforests; the Indian region of Ladakh, where he follows locals down the Chaddar, a frozen river at the bottom of a canyon and the only path in existence during winter, and considers what the coming highway will do to Buddhist towns now untouched by the wider world; East Africa, where he revisits a trucking route from Tanzania through Rwanda and Burundi along which one could trace the spread of AIDS in Africa to see what has changed over a decade; the West Bank, as he passes through security checkpoints with both Palestinians and Israelis, seeing firsthand how grueling and unfair the process is for both sides;

China, where he paints an exuberant and frightening portrait of the emerging car culture from Chinese roads and the rapid increases in auto sales and highway construction; Lagos, Nigeria, describing a megacity where traffic stalls for hours, teenage beggars run between stopped cars, and ambulances park along the highway to wait for accidents.

Conover’s journeys ultimately reveal the costs and benefits of being connected -- how roads have played a crucial role in human life, from ancient Rome to the present, changing man and his world for better and for worse.

“Ted Conover is one of the great writers of my generation, and this may be his finest book. Fearless and compassionate, with echoes of Conrad and Kerouac, it explores how the road, once a symbol of limitless possibility, has become a path to annihilation. I have enormous admiration for what Conover has achieved.” --Eric Schlosser

“Humans evolved on the road and we go on seeking territory, survival, wealth, and even knowledge. The Odyssey, Don Quixote, On the Road, The Road, Arabian Sands, Marco Polo on the Silk Road, wagon trains heading for California, and Latinos at the fence between Mexico and the U.S.A -- so many of us streaming toward vivid dreams. Buy this book and enjoy some armchair roaming (the second best way to travel). That’s my advice.” -- William Kittredge

Ted Conover is the author of several books including Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) and Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and National Geographic. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. Read a travel community’s interview with Conover.

A TANGO LESSON IN THE BOOKSTORE? Yes! Monday, March 22 7:30 PM MARIA FINN

Hold Me Tight & Tango Me Home

Tango, in essence, is a way of being: it lures you from the job that’s too staid; it beckons on a night when you’re feeling lonely; it promises escape from the grind of daily life. Tango is a journey for those who want their lives to change course; and for others, like me, who believe that their lives have ended, it’s an attempt to start living again. - Maria Finn

Like anyone would, Maria Finn felt anger when she learned of her husband’s infidelity, then despair over losing him and their plans for a life together. But she refused to become one of those women who sob into their divorce lawyer’s answering machine late at night.

In Hold Me Tight & Tango Me Home, Maria relates how she turned to Argentine tango to cope with her pain, learn to trust again, and rediscover herself. Her exhilarating adventure takes us from New York to Buenos Aires and back, exploring the fascinating culture, history, music, moves, and beauty of this sexy, sometimes heartbreaking, yet ultimately life-affirming dance.

For Maria, learning tango means dealing with rejection, criticism, and unpredictable partners -- some rude, others clumsy, and one who earned the moniker “Ear Licker”. But it’s all made worthwhile by those transcendent moments in which Maria joins with a dance partner and the union transforms into what she refers to as “bliss” -- a marriage of leading and following that seamlessly explores intrigue, melancholy, flirtation, and passion.

With each new step—the embrace, the hook, the sweep, the throw—Maria begins to connect with people in a new way. Gradually, she finds the confidence to try romance again and discovers the strength needed to pursue a new life.

Maria Finn has written for Audubon, Saveur, Metropolis, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times, among many other publications. The editor of two anthologies, Cuba in Mind and Mexico in Mind, she received an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College and her essays have been anthologized in Best Food Writing and The Best Women’s Travel Writing. Visit Maria – and watch these videos!

Celebrate with music and dancing this evening!

Tuesday, March 23 7:00 PM Found in Translation Book Group Meeting

COMEDY NIGHT AT THE BOOKSMITH (about economics?)

Wednesday, March 27 7:30 PM YORAM BAUMAN

The Cartoon Introduction to Economics (Volume 1: Microeconomics)

If 2009 taught us anything, it’s that economics matters to everybody.. But how many American voters have a thorough understanding of how economies really work?

Now, thanks to Yoram Bauman and Grady Klein, you don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to get a grasp on the news. Bauman, the world’s first and only stand-up economist, has teamed up with Klein, the cartoonist behind the Lost Colony graphic novels, to take the dismal out of the dismal science. From the optimizing individual to game theory to price theory, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume 1: Microeconomics lays out the fundamentals of microeconomics in brightly imagined words and pictures, making the notoriously daunting subject accessible, digestible, and—against all odds—something many thought it never could be: fun.

There is no one better suited to explain economics through comics than Yoram Bauman. An environmental economist at the University of Washington, Bauman is also an entertainer who has explained the economy at comedy clubs and universities across the country (his “Principles of Economics, Translated” is a YouTube cult classic). As an educator at both the university and high school levels, Bauman knows how to make economics relevant to today’s students.

Check out these videos: “Standup Economist at Caroline’s”, “Principles of Economics, Translated”, and “Standup Economist on the Financial Crisis”!

“Had Art Spiegelman and John Maynard Keynes collaborated on a comic book on economics, they could only have dreamed of coming up with something this good.” -- Jonathan A. Shayne, a.k.a. Merle Hazard, country singer and founder of Shayne & Co., LLC

Thursday, March 25 7:30 PM ALEX LEMON

Happy: A Memoir

Alex Lemon is a thirty-year-old professor, critically acclaimed and award-winning poet, and recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He’s also an ex-college baseball star, ex-rampant partier, and a survivor of multiple strokes and seizures due to a vascular malformation in his brain stem and an extremely dangerous surgery designed to correct it. He tells his incredible story in HAPPY.

As a freshman in college, Lemon was the hard-partying dude everyone called “Happy.” Then he had his first stroke. For two years, he coped with his deteriorating health by drowning himself in alcohol and drugs, his charming and carefree exterior masking his self-destructive behavior as he endured two more brain bleeds and overwhelming sadness. After he miraculously survived the tremendously risky surgery, Lemon’s free-spirited mother nursed him back to health, once again teaching him to stand on his own..

HAPPY is an electric, hypnotic self portrait of a young man confronting mortality and the limits of his own body; it is also the deeply moving story of a mother’s redemptive and healing powers. Like Mary Karr, Mark Doty, and Nick Flynn, Lemon is a much lauded poet who can successfully shift between writing poetry and memoir; and his training as a poet lends his writing a rare precision and vividness. He is a brave and exhilarating writer whose Technicolor sentences make the world he describes pop and sing. In intimate, unflinching prose he writes about survival -- of the body and of the human spirit.

Alex Lemon was born in Iowa. He is the author of three collections of poetry, Mosquito and Hallelujah Blackout; and the forthcoming Fancy Beasts. His poems have been selected for the Best American Poetry series and have appeared in numerous magazines, including AGNI, BOMB, Kenyon Review, New England Review, Open City, Pleiades and Tin House. His awards include a 2005 Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and a 2006 Minnesota Arts Board Grant. Lemon lives in Ft. Worth, Texas and teaches English at Texas Christian University.

Check out the New York Times’ Stray Questions for Alex.

Tuesday, March 30 7:30 PM ARTHUR PHILLIPS

The Song is You

Each song on Julian’s iPod, “that greatest of all human inventions,” is a touchstone. There are songs for the girls from when he was single, there’s the one for the day he met his wife-to-be, there’s one for the day his son was born. But when Julian’s family falls apart, even music loses its hold on him.

Until one snowy night in Brooklyn, when his life’s soundtrack -- and life itself -- start to play again. Julian stumbles into a bar and sees Cait O’Dwyer, a flame-haired Irish rock singer, performing with her band, and a strange and unlikely love affair is ignited. Over the next few months, Julian and Cait’s passion plays out, though they never meet. What follows is a heartbreaking dark comedy, the tenderest of love stories, and a perfectly observed tale of the way we live now.

Arthur Phillips is the internationally bestselling author of Angelica, The Egyptologist, and Prague, which was a New York Times Notable Book and winner of the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. He lives in New York with his wife and two sons.

“Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think, and for those of us who try to think and feel, The Song Is You captures the flip sides of life at middle age pretty much perfectly. Arthur Phillips is that rare thing among fiction writers, a wise guy who’s also wise.” -- Kurt Andersen

“Impossible to put down.” -- New York Times Book Review

Read Phillips on music in The Believer. Check out Phillips’ playlist for the New York Times Living with Music.

A Dear friend, James Redo, is participating in a group art show this May 1 through May 22. Hope everyone can come to the artists' reception on Thursday, May 6 (5-9pm). All the artists are from North Beach and include, Mery Bernard, Agneta Falk and George Long. Thank you and Love & Blessings, Marliese

North Beach Fine Art Exhibit

James Redo, Mery Bernard, George Long, Agneta Falk

The Fine Art Painters of North Beach

May 1-22, 2010

Location: 850 Greenwich Street, San Francisco, CA
Time: Thursday, 06 May 2010 17:00
Facebook Event Page

Maya Vision by James Redo

Tuesday, June 1, 7:30 PM
ALAN BLACK with PO BRONSON
The Glorious World Cup: A Fanatic’s Guide

The global frenzy has already begun for the historic World Cup starting on June 11 in Johannesburg, South Africa. With the frenzy comes the competition, the trash-talk, the strategy, the high hopes, the dedication, and the downright madness that accompanies the once-every-four-years tournament. The Glorious World Cupbrings everything World cup, with a solid dose of humor.

For one month, billions of people are glued to TV sets, radios, and sports pages, waiting with bated breath for their teams’ advancement. There are tears of elation and sorrow. Pints are drunk. Knuckles are bruised. Noses are broken. And it’s all in the name of a universal love of the biggest game on the planet.

Alan Black and co-writer David Henry Sterry take the piss from past to present: filled with tall tales, stats, photos, hilarity, famous-player profiles, hooligans, maniacs, commentary from famous fans, a look back at the greatest World Cup Finals, and so much more. It’s the ultimate fan guide for what’s certain to be the biggest, ballsiest, most epic World Cup yet. Begin the countdown to June 11 with Alan, contributor Po Bronson, and us this evening!

Alan Black, as a kid, wrote his first book on the sidewalk with chalk. It was a bestseller with feet. He writes for various platforms, some low and some high. He is a columnist at www.goal.com, the web’s leading soccer site. He’s a featured blogger atwww.sfgate.com, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. His most recent book is Kick the Balls: A Bruising Season in the Life of a Suburban Soccer Coach.

Wednesday, June 2, 7:30 PM
LUCY JANE BLEDSOE
The Big Bang Symphony

When novelist and adventurer Lucy Jane Bledsoe writes about the savage beauty of Antarctica, and the emotional intensity of life at the end of the world, she knows what she’s talking about.

She’s journeyed to Antarctica three times and has stayed at all three American Stations, trekking out to the Ross Ice Shelf, skiing in the shadow of Mount Erebus, and living in the remote field camps where scientists are studying penguins, climate change, and the Big Bang. She’s written about these travels in the memoir The Ice Cave and in two children’s books about the frozen continent.

In The Big Bang Symphony, Bledsoe delivers a keenly observed novel of emotional suspense and relationships forged in the harshest of conditions. Beginning with a bang – literally – as a cargo plane bound for McMurdo Station crash lands, the intertwined stories of three women – a scientist, a galley cook, and a composer – the barren landscape itself becomes another character, bonding them together in love and friendship, offering the elusive promise of transcendence even as it tests their endurance and pushes them to the breaking point.

“Lucy Jane Bledsoe knows that the people who go to Antarctica move to a heightened existence, as if to the roof of the universe, where they are stripped to their essences under a surreal sun. A beautiful novel about living in that extreme space, vivid and suspenseful” – Kim Stanley Robinson

Lucy Jane Bledsoe sea kayaks, backpacks, and skis when she’s not writing. She has won numerous awards, including the 2009 Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award. Her books include Biting the Apple, Sweat, Working Parts, and This Wild Silence.

LAUNCH PARTY!
Thursday, June 3, 7:30 PM
LAURA FRASER
All Over the Map

Laura Fraser has the kind of life many women daydream about. Crisscrossing the globe as a travel writer, she has amassed a catalog of exotic adventures and met scores of captivating people, with more than a few exciting and sexy romances along the way. Yet as she entered her forties, Laura found herself wondering if her wanderlust had kept her from what she secretly longed for: to be safe, settled, and loved.

In her new memoir ALL OVER THE MAP, the follow-up to her New York Timesbestselling An Italian Affair, Laura searches for answers on several different continents. While grappling with uncertainty, loneliness, and a traumatic experience in Samoa, she tangos in Buenos Aires, seeks wisdom from an Amazonian shaman, reports on the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, and redefines her relationship with the Professor (a primary and beloved character in An Italian Affair). Ultimately, although she doesn’t have the life she anticipated, Laura learns to create the life she wants, realizing that the only way to become wise is by taking a lot of wrong turns.
“Brave, honest, and compulsively readable. It truly made me laugh and cry.”
-- Mary Roach, author of Stiff

Laura Fraser has written for Salon.com, Vogue, Glamour, Mother Jones, Self, The San Francisco Examiner, Gourmet, and Health, among other publications. She has taught magazine writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. She lives in San Francisco, where she is a resident of and teacher at the San Francisco Writers Grotto.

Monday, June 7, 7:30 PM
DAN ARIELY
The Upside of Irrationality:
The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home

You hear him frequently on public radio – now meet the incomparable Dan Ariely when he introduces his new book The Upside of Irrationality!

The 2008 economic crisis taught us that irrationality is an influential player in financial markets. But it is often the case that irrationality also makes it way into our daily lives and decision-making -- in slightly different and vastly more subtle ways. In this enthralling follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational,Dan Ariely shows how irrationality is an inherent part of the way we function and think, and how it affects our behavior in all areas of our lives, from our romantic relationships to our experiences in the workplace to our temptations to cheat.

Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking analysis and new research into our how we actually make decisions, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities. Using data from original experiments, he draws invaluable conclusions about how -- and why -- we behave the way we do, and reflects on ways we can make ourselves and our society better. Dan explores the truth about:

• What we think will make us happy and what really makes us happy;
• How we learn to love the ones we are with;
• Why online dating doesn’t work, and how we can improve on it;
• Why learning more about people makes us like them less;
• Why large bonuses can make CEOs less productive;
• How to really motivate people at work;
• Why bad directions can help us;
• How we fall in love with our ideas;
• How we are motivated by revenge;
• What motivates us to cheat.

Drawing on the same experimental methods that made Predictably Irrational one ofthe most talked about bestsellers, Ariely emphasizes the important role that irrationality plays in our day-to-day decision-making -- not just in our financial marketplace, but in the most intimate aspects of our lives.

“A marvelous book that is both thought provoking and highly entertaining, ranging from the power of placebos to the pleasures of Pepsi. Ariely unmasks the subtle but powerful tricks that our minds play on us, and shows us how we can prevent being fooled.” -- Jerome Groopman, New York Times bestselling author of How Doctors Think

Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Department of Economics. He has also held a visiting professorship at MIT’s Media Lab. He has appeared on CNN and CNBC, and is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Marketplace. He lives in Durham, NC, with his wife and two children.

Wednesday, June 9, 7:30 PM
JOSHUA BRAFF
Peep Show

The adult entertainment industry and the world of Hasidic Jews couldn’t be more different. Or could they? Here’s novel evidence that all the world really is a stage — it’s only a matter of which costume you wear.

David Arbus will be graduating from high school in the spring of 1975. His divorced parents offer two options: embrace his mother’s Hasidic sect or go into his father’s line of work, running a porn theater in the heart of New York’s Times Square. What else would a healthy seventeen-year-old with an interest in photography do? He joins the family business. But he didn’t think it would mean giving up his sister and mother altogether.

Peep Show is the story of a young man torn between a mother trying to erase her past and a father struggling to maintain his dignity in a less-than-savory business. As David peeps through the spaces in the screen that divides the men and the women in Hasidic homes, we can’t help but think of his father’s Imperial Theatre, where other men are looking at other women through the peep holes. As entertaining as it is moving, Peep Show looks at the elaborate ensembles and rituals, assumed names, and fierce loyalties of two secret worlds, pulling away the curtains of both.

“Whether he’s writing about religion, pornography, or the family ruined by both in this smart, funny, heartbreaking novel, Braff does it with authority, wit, and an unflagging compassion for his hopelessly broken characters.” – Jonathan Tropper, author ofThis Is Where I Leave You

Joshua Braff is the author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green. He lives in Oakland with his wife and two children.

Thursday, June 10, 7:30 PM
JIM WOODRING
Weathercraft

For over 20 years now, Jim Woodring has delighted, touched, and puzzled readers around the world with his lush, wordless tales of “Frank.”

Weathercraft is Woodring’s first full-length graphic novel set in this world — indeed, Woodring’s first graphic novel, period! — and it features the same hypnotically gorgeous linework and mystical iconography.

As it happens, Frank has only a brief supporting appearance in Weathercraft, which actually stars Manhog, Woodring’s pathetic, brutish everyman (or everyhog), who had previously made several appearances in “Frank” stories (as well as a stunning solo turn in the short story “Gentlemanhog”).

After enduring 32 pages of almost incomprehensible suffering, Manhog embarks upon a transformative journey and attains enlightenment. He wants to go to celestial realms but instead altruistically returns to the unifactor to undo a wrong he has inadvertently brought about: The transformation of the evil politician Whim into a mind-destroying plant-demon who distorts and enslaves Frank and his friends. The new and metaphysically expanded Manhog sets out for a final battle with Whim...

Weathercraft also co-stars Frank’s cast of beloved supporting characters, including Frank’s Faux Pa and the diminutive, mailbox-like Pupshaw and Pushpaw; it is both a fully independent story that is a great introduction to Woodring’s world, and a sublime addition to, and extension of, the Frank stories.

“The ancient myths and folk tales of all cultures which have been preserved for so many centuries have meaning for us today because the fantastic elements in them are rooted in immutable reality. The Frank stories belong to this class of literature.” – Francis Ford Coppola

Jim Woodring was born in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California and enjoyed an exciting childhood full of poetry and paranoia among the snakes, rats and tarantulas of that enchanted realm. He eventually grew into an inquisitive bearlike man who has had three exciting careers; garbage collector, merry-go-round-operator and cartoonist. His work has been collected in several books and in various toys, fabrics, prints and urban legends.

Woodring’s cartoons chart a course through some of the most surreal imagery ever seen in any artistic medium, drawing visions from the realms of the subconscious to create a graphic world of dreams. But while his work may speak in the language of dreams, Woodring’s life has often led him into nightmare territory.

As a child, Woodring was plagued by both schoolmates and by waking nightmares accompanied by “voices” — a condition which would haunt him through childhood and much of his adult life. After enduring drug and alcohol abuse and homelessness, he worked as an animator for several major studios.

At the same time, Woodring worked on his own cartoon visions, self-publishing them in minicomic format. In the mid-’80s, Woodring was introduced to publisher Gary Groth by mutual friend Gil Kane (who worked with Woodring at Ruby-Spears), and Groth agreed to publish Woodring's work. In 1987, Woodring quit animation and moved with his wife Mary and son Max to Seattle, where they live to this day. In addition to his critically acclaimed comics and books, Woodring also works in canvas painting and 3-dimensional objects, many of which have been featured in gallery exhibitions from Seattle to New York.

“Woodring is fantastic... his stuff will outlast all but one in a thousand of his peers. His stuff is a revelation.” – Scott McCloud

“I promise to spare you all my worst visions.” – Jim Woodring

Friday, June 11, 7:30 PM
SASHA POLAKOW-SURANSKY
The Unspoken Alliance:
Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa

A senior editor at Foreign Affairs considers how Israel’s booming arms industry and apartheid South Africa’s international isolation led to a secretive military partnership between two seemingly unlikely allies.

Prior to the Six-Day War, Israel was a darling of the international left: socialist idealists like David Ben-Gurion and Golda Meir vocally opposed apartheid and built alliances with black leaders in newly independent African nations. South Africa, for its part, was controlled by a regime of Afrikaner nationalists who had enthusiastically supported Hitler during World War II.

But after Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, the country found itself estranged from former allies and threatened anew by old enemies. As both states became international pariahs, their covert military relationship blossomed: they exchanged billions of dollars’ worth of extremely sensitive material, including nuclear technology, boosting Israel’s sagging economy and strengthening the beleaguered apartheid regime.

By the time the right-wing Likud Party came to power in 1977, Israel had all but abandoned the moralism of its founders in favor of close and lucrative ties with South Africa. For nearly twenty years, Israel denied these ties, claiming that it opposed apartheid on moral and religious grounds even as it secretly supplied the arsenal of a white supremacist government.

Polakow-Suransky reveals the previously classified details of countless arms deals conducted behind the backs of Israel’s own diplomatic corps and in violation of a United Nations arms embargo. Based on extensive archival research and exclusive interviews with former generals and high-level government officials in both countries,The Unspoken Alliance tells a troubling story of Cold War paranoia, moral compromises, and Israel’s estrangement from the left. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Israel’s history and its future.

Sasha Polakow-Suransky is a senior editor at Foreign Affairs and holds a doctorate in modern history from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar from 2003 to 2006. His writing has appeared in The American Prospect, the International Herald Tribune, The New Republic, and Newsweek. He lives in Brooklyn.

WRITERS & READERS VIP TOUR:
Monday, June 14, 7:30 PM
BEHIND THE SCENES AT THE PARIS REVIEW
An Evening with Managing Editor CAITLIN ROPER
And Summer Issue Contributors JEFF ANTEBI and MATTHEW ZAPRUDER

Whether you’re a published writer, a would-be writer, or simply an avid reader, you have a rare opportunity to see the inner workings of a literary magazine. The Paris Review’s managing editor, Caitlin Roper, talks about submissions, editing, curation, how art is chosen, how production works, the review’s redesigned website (debuting this month), author interviews (so wonderfully collected in the four volume Paris Review Interviews series), and the effect of The Paris Review’s use of Twitter. Roper’s look at what one critic called “one of the single most persistent acts of cultural conservation in the history of the world” gives us unprecedented behind-the-scenes access to this cultural institution.

Joining Caitlin Roper this evening are photographer Jeff Antebi, whose portfolio of photos taken in Haiti is featured in the Summer 2010 issue of The Paris Review, who will show slides and talk about his experience of shooting in that country, and poet Matthew Zapruder, who has a long poem featured in the Summer 2010 issue, will offer a short reading.

Founded in Paris by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton in 1953, The Paris Review began with a simple editorial mission: “Dear reader,” William Styron wrote in a letter in the inaugural issue, “The Paris Review hopes to emphasize creative work—fiction and poetry—not to the exclusion of criticism, but with the aim in mind of merely removing criticism from the dominating place it holds in most literary magazines and putting it pretty much where it belongs, i.e., somewhere near the back of the book. I think The Paris Review should welcome these people into its pages: the good writers and good poets, the non-drumbeaters and non-axe-grinders. So long as they're good”

Decade after decade, the Review has introduced the important writers of the day. Adrienne Rich was first published in its pages, as were Philip Roth, V. S. Naipaul, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Mona Simpson, Edward P. Jones, and Rick Moody. Selections from Samuel Beckett's novel Molloy appeared in the fifth issue, one of his first publications in English. The magazine was also among the first to recognize the work of Jack Kerouac, with the publication of his short story, “The Mexican Girl,” in 1955. Other milestones of contemporary literature, now widely anthologized, also first made their appearance in The Paris Review: Italo Calvino's Last Comes the Raven, Philip Roth's Goodbye Columbus, Donald Barthelme's Alice, Jim Carroll's Basketball Diaries, Peter Matthiessen's Far Tortuga, Jeffrey Eugenides’s Virgin Suicides, and Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections.

In addition to the focus on original creative work, the founding editors found another alternative to criticism—letting the authors talk about their work themselves. The Review’s Writers at Work interview series offers authors a rare opportunity to discuss their life and art at length; they have responded with some of the most revealing self-portraits in literature. Among the interviewees are William Faulkner, Vladimir Nabokov, Joan Didion, Seamus Heaney, Ian McEwan, and Lorrie Moore.

CALLING ALL WRITERS!
Tuesday, June 15, 7:30 PM
KATHI KAMEN GOLDMARK AND SAM BARRY
Write That Book Already!
The Tough Love You Need to Get Published Now
"How do I get my book published?"

Good question. Lucky for you, publishing insiders Sam Barry and Kathi Kamen Goldmark have laid out the blueprint for what you want -- your book. From transforming an idea into a manuscript to finding an agent to working with an editor to marketing your book, BookPage's Author Enablers are here to assist you every step of the way. And they've brought some backup with original insight from literary superstars like Stephen King, Amy Tan, Rita Mae Brown, and more.

It's everything you would ever want -- and need -- to know about the industry from the inside out.

Sam Barry is a marketing and promotions manager at HarperOne as well as an author and musician. Barry offers advice to aspiring writers as one half of BookPage's Author Enablers team, and tours the country as a member of the Rock Bottom Remainders. He is also the author of How to Play the Harmonica and Other Life Lessons.

Kathi Kamen Goldmark has worked "on the inside" of publishing as a media escort and publicist for nearly every major publisher. She's also the other half of the Author Enablers column and the founding member of the Rock Bottom Remainders. She is also the author of And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You.

"[T]he joy they promise in their prose makes me glad that I and other writers have been willing to make good writing our aim, and even great writing our dream." – from the Foreword by Maya Angelou

Wednesday, June 16, 7:30 PM
PIPER KERMAN
Orange is the New Black:
My Year in a Woman’s Prison

When Piper Kerman was sent to prison for a ten-year-old crime, she barely resembled the reckless young woman she’d been when, shortly after graduating Smith College, she’d committed the misdeeds that would eventually catch up with her. Happily ensconced in a New York City apartment, with a promising career and an attentive boyfriend, she was suddenly forced to reckon with the consequences of her very brief, very careless dalliance in the world of drug trafficking.

Kerman spent thirteen months in prison, eleven of them at the infamous federal correctional facility in Danbury, Connecticut, where she met a surprising and varied community of women living under exceptional circumstances. In Orange Is the New Black, Kerman tells the story of those long months locked up in a place with its own codes of behavior and arbitrary hierarchies, where a practical joke is as common as an unprovoked fight, and where the uneasy relationship between prisoner and jailer is constantly and unpredictably recalibrated.

Revealing, moving, and enraging, Orange Is the New Black offers a unique perspective on the criminal justice system, the reasons we send so many people to prison, and what happens to them when they’re there.

“Don’t let the irreverent title mislead: This is a serious and bighearted book that depicts life in a women’s prison with great detail and—crucially—with empathy and respect for Piper Kerman’s fellow prisoners, most of whom did not and do not have her advantages and options. With its expert reporting and humane, clear-eyed storytelling, Orange Is the New Black will join Ted Conover’s Newjack among the necessary contemporary books about the American prison experience.” -- Dave Eggers, author of Zeitoun and co-author of Surviving Justice: America's Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated

“I loved this book, to a depth and degree that caught me by surprise. Of course it’s a compelling insider’s account of life in a women’s federal prison, and of course it’s a behind-the-scenes look at America’s war on drugs, and of course it’s a story rich with humor, pathos and redemption: All of that was to be expected. What I did not expect from this memoir was the affection, compassion, and even reverence that Piper Kerman demonstrates for all the women she encountered while she was locked away in jail. That was the surprising twist: that behind the bars of women's prisons grow extraordinary friendships, ad hoc families, and delicate communities. In the end, this book is not just a tale of prisons, drugs, crime, or justice; it is, simply put, a beautifully told story about how incredible women can be, and I will never forget it.” --Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love

Piper Kerman is vice president of a Washington, D.C.–based communications firm that works with foundations and nonprofits. A graduate of Smith College, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband Larry Smith (editor of the “Six-Word Memoir” website and books).

Monday, June 21, 7:00 PM
FOUND IN TRANSLATION
Book Group Meeting
Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra

A prizewinning sensation in Chile, Bonsai is the lightest, yet also the most complex, 90 pages you will read this year. Part story of a love affair (yet on the very first page Zambra informs us "in the end she dies and he remains alone"), part metafictional game (the protagonist eventually starts to write a novel suspiciously similar to the one we're reading), and part meditation on how books are like bonsai trees (they both rely on containers to make sense), this book is perfect for a lengthy discussion.Bonsai has more metaphors and aphorisms than most books twice its length, and we'll have a great time discussing this book that had all of Chile reading.

Please note: this has been rescheduled from Tuesday, June 22.

Join us on the fourth Tuesday (usually!) of every month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you by the Booksmith's knowledgeable booksellers. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.

Writing About the News…While It’s Still Being Made
Tuesday, June 22, 7:30 PM
MARTHA McPHEE
Dear Money

In this Pygmalion tale of a novelist turned bond trader, National Book Award Finalist Martha McPhee brings to life the greed and riotous wealth of New York during the heady days of the second gilded age.

A few years ago, when a legendary bond trader claimed he could transform her into a booming Wall Street success, McPhee toyed with the notion. She considered the money, the tangible success -- but declined the offer and wrote Dear Money instead, using fiction to explore what might have been. This ambitious novel encapsulates a moment in America's recent history, the moment just before the current collapse of the economy.

Dear Money is a deadly serious, yet deftly witty book in the great American tradition of Edith Wharton, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Theodore Dreiser. McPhee adroitly tackles the age-old issues of wealth, ambition and social status with aplomb. With a light-handed irony that is by turns as measured as Claire Messud and as biting as Tom Wolfe, Martha McPhee tells the classic American story of people reinventing themselves, unaware of the price they must pay for their transformation.

Martha McPhee is the author of the novels Bright Angel Time, Gorgeous Lies, andL'America. Her work has been honored with fellowships from the National Endowment of the Arts and The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. In 2002 she was nominated for a National Book Award. Her novels have been Best Books of The Year on New York Times, Washington Post, and Chicago Tribune lists. Her essays and reviews have appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers including New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, Newark Star Ledger, Vogue, More,Harper's Bazaar, Self, Traveler, Travel & Leisure, among many others. She lives in New York City with her children and husband, the poet and writer Mark Svenvold. Martha teaches writing at Hofstra University.

This evening, she’ll be talking about the writing process, writing about money, its challenges, and its pleasures. Writers, would-be writers, and simply readers are all welcome to join this discussion!

Wednesday, June 23, 7:30 PM
JACOB PAUL
Sarah / Sara

An engrossing meditation on the meaning of faith in the modern world, Sarah/Sara is the story of a young Orthodox Jewish woman who undertakes a solo kayaking journey across the Arctic Ocean after her parents are killed and she is disfigured by a terrorist bomb in a Jerusalem café. Haunted by her parents' death, and in particular by memories of her father, a 9/11 survivor whose dream was to kayak through the Arctic, Sarah embarks on her expedition unprepared for the strenuous physical and emotional trial that lies ahead. What begins as a series of diary entries on her struggle with faith ends in a fight for survival, as Sarah slowly comes to realize that she is lost in the Arctic wilderness, the ice closing in around her.

“This solo kayak adventure along the coast of Alaska becomes the perfect cauldron for this ardent, introspective young woman with two names. Everywhere there is danger and grace. In the trials of her past, the rigors of her faith; and in the icy world as it unfolds before her, there are promises of redemption. Jacob Paul offers us in this powerful novel Sarah's many layered season of discovery.” -- Ron Carlson, author of Five Skies and The Signal

Jacob Paul teaches creative writing at the University of Utah, where he earned a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing. A 9/11 World Trade Center survivor, he won the 2008 Utah Writers' Contest, and the 2007 Richard Scowcroft Prize. Sarah/Sara is his first novel. Read more about him here.

Thursday, June 24, 7:30 PM
KATE WALBERT
A Short History of Women

A Short History of Women spans more than one hundred years and five generations of women—beginning with the death by starvation of a suffragette in England and ending with a playdate on the Upper West Side. Filled with humor and rage, it is a complex, compact novel that claims England and America in its epic scope -- from the politicization of women for the vote in the early 20th century to the free-floating, un-nameable anxiety of mothers and daughters in the early 21st century. The novel looks backward and forward, each century a striation of rock, each character defined by the pressures and weather of her particular moment; through this layering the characters react in lively and unpredictable ways to what came before, furthering the ambitious woman’s ongoing argument with history. Named one of the 10 Best Books of 2009 by the New York Times Book Review, A Short History of Women is this talented novelist’s most audacious and ambitious work yet.

“A Short History of Women is an accomplished, absorbing, and ferociously graceful work…. The novel’s technical grace is remarkable, Walbert’s prose masterful.” -- Laura Van Den Berg, The Rumpus

Kate Walbert is the author of Where She Went, a New York Times notable book of 1998, The Gardens of Kyoto, winner of the Connecticut Book Award for best fiction in 2002, and Our Kind, finalist for the National Book Award in 2004. Her short fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories and numerous other publications. She lives in New York City and Connecticut with her family.

Author photographs and book jacket images available upon request.

Wednesday, July 7, 7:30 PM
WILLOW WILSON
The Butterfly Mosque:
A Young American Woman’s Journey to Love and Islam

Twenty-seven-year-old G. Willow Wilson has already established herself as an accomplished writer on modern religion and the Middle East in publications such asThe Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times Magazine. In her memoir, The Butterfly Mosque, she tells her remarkable story of converting to Islam and falling in love with an Egyptian man in a turbulent post–9/11 world.

When Willow leaves her atheist parents in Denver to study at Boston University, she enrolls in an Islamic Studies course, hopeful that it will help her to understand her inchoate spirituality. As she reads through the teachings and events of the Quran, Willow is astounded and comforted by how deeply this fourteen-hundred-year-old document speaks to who she is, and decides to risk everything to convert to Islam and embark on a fated journey across continents and into an uncertain future.

She settles in Cairo where she teaches English and attempts to submerge herself in a culture based on her adopted religion. And then she meets Omar, a passionate young man with a mild resentment of the Western influences in his homeland. They fall in love, entering into a daring relationship that calls into question the very nature of family, belief, and tradition. Torn between the secular West and Muslim East, Willow -- identifiably Western with her shock of red hair, shaky Arabic, and candor -- records her intensely personal struggle to forge a “third culture” that might accommodate her own values without compromising them or the friends and family on both sides of the divide.

Part travelogue, love story, and memoir, The Butterfly Mosque is a brave, inspiring story of faith -- in God, in each other, in ourselves, and in the ability of relationships to transcend cultural barriers and exist above the evils that threaten to keep us apart.

Willow Wilson was born in New Jersey in 1982 and raised in Colorado. Shortly after graduating from Boston University, Willow moved to Cairo, where she converted to Islam. She divides her time between Cairo and Seattle. Wilson is also the author of the graphic novel Cairo.

Monday, July 12. 7:30 PM
HENRY LEE
Presumed Dead:
A True Life Murder Mystery

Computer genius Hans Reiser married beautiful Russian pediatrician Nina Sharanova, moved with her to his native Oakland, and had two children. But bliss soon soured, and in the middle of a contentious divorce Nina simply vanished. One month later, Hans was charged with her murder. But that was just the beginning...

Henry Lee is a crime reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and writes the “Crime Scene” blog at sfgate.com. Lee takes a thorough look at the entirety of the Hans Reiser case, from the exclusive vantage point of a long-time, on-the-ground field reporter.

Wednesday, July 14, 7:30 PM
LARRY DOYLE
Go, Mutants!

It came to earth . . . and now its’ kids go to high school.

The author of I Love You, Beth Cooper returns with another hilarious novel, this time with heroes and villains straight from classic sci-fi and teen movies of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

What if the movies that glowed from drive-in screens from the 50s and 60s weren’t fantasies but really happened? In Go, Mutants!, Larry Doyle has created a world populated with the monsters, aliens, and mutants of B-movie legend, with all the beach parties, dances, fist fights and hotrod races of classic teen dramas. An unforgettable era of pop culture is brought to life in an uproarious mash-up filled with Romance! Danger! Intergalactic Conspiracy! Molting!

Earth has survived alien invasions, attacks by hordes of atomic mutants and the ravages of dinosaurs brought back to life. Now we’re in the blissful future. The grass is always green, freshly mowed by famous robots. Carhops in jetpacks deliver burgers and fries to your atomic coupe. And automatic sidewalks can take you anywhere: the Watch the Skies Drive-in, Crater Cove, and Manhattan High, where everybody roots for the Mutants.

J!m, the son of the alien who nearly destroyed the planet, is a brooding blue-skinned rebel with an enormous forehead and exceptionally oily skin. Along with Johnny, a leather-jacketed radioactive ape, and Jelly, a gelatinous mass passing as a fat kid, J!m navigates a scary adolescence in which he really is as alienated as he feels, the world might actually be out to get him, and true love is complicated by misunderstanding and incompatible parts. As harmless school antics escalate into explosive events with tragic consequences, J!m makes a discovery that will alter the course of civilization, though it may help his dating life.

Larry Doyle, a former writer for The Simpsons, works in showbiz and writes funny things for The New Yorker. He is the author of I Love You, Beth Cooper, which won the 2008 Thurber Prize for American Humor and was made into a major motion picture. He lives outside Baltimore with his wife, Becky, and their three children.

Friday, July 16, 7:30 PM
SQUAW VALLEY COMMUNITY OF WRITERS BENEFIT POETRY READING
in honor of Lucille Clifton

With KAZIM ALI, author of The Far Mosque, The Fortieth Day, and Bright Felon;BRENDA HILLMAN, author of Pieces of Air in the Epic and Practical Water;FORREST GANDER, author of Eye Against Eye and A Faithful Existence; EVIE SHOCKLEY, author of A Half-Red Sea; and DEAN YOUNG, author of Primitive Mentor and Embryoyo. This annual gala reading benefits the Poetry Scholarship Fund.

First Unitarian Universalist, 1187 Franklin at Geary, San Francisco
Tickets $15-$30 at Brown Paper Tickets (or call 800-838-3006)

More information: squawpoet@ureach.com or 877-537-8073
The Booksmith is a supporter of this event, as are Hotel Rex, Rev. Audrey Gonzalez, and Deborah and Leo Ruth.

Wednesday, July 21, 7:30 PM
KATE VEITCH
Trust

What does it take to be a good woman – and what does it take from you?

Susanna Greenfield has given her all to being a good daughter, sister, wife and mother. Somehow, she’s maintained her profession as a college art teacher, as well as rearing two headstrong teenagers and nurturing a twenty-year marriage to Gerry, a confident, ambitious architect. She’s also the eternal peacemaker between her pretty younger sister, a single mother and former junkie turned born-again Christian, and their strong-willed mother. Just as Susanna is about to revive her long delayed creative artistic career, the unthinkable happens, ripping apart the fabric of her world, and revealing secrets which threaten to destroy both a marriage and a life.

Kate Veitch is a journalist and writer who grew up in Melbourne, Australia. She now divides her time between San Francisco (in our neighborhood!) and New South Wales, Australia. Her debut novel, Without a Backward Glance, received international praise, and was a bestseller in Australia and Germany.

“Similar to Anne Tyler in her wry affection for her characters and to Anita Shreve in her aptitude for creating compulsively readable plotlines…with its brisk pacing and compassionate take on human failing, this absorbing novel is sure to win many fans.” – Booklist

“Warm and always honest, Veitch manages to capture the ebb and flow of sibling dynamics and illuminate the mixed bag of emotions that comes with family life.” – Vogue (Australia)

Visit her at kateveitch.com.

THE AUTHOR OF CLOUD ATLAS RETURNS TO THE BOOKSMITH:
Thursday, July 22, 7:30 PM
DAVID MITCHELL
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

A postmodern visionary, linguistic virtuoso, and sage of deep human feeling, David Mitchell has rightly earned international acclaim, a fireplace mantle of prizes, and a slavishly devoted readership. His fiction overflows with ecstatically rich language, dry humor, cliff hangers, plot twists, extraordinary characters, and imagination. All those pleasures and more await you in Mitchell’s long-awaited, hotly-anticipated new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet.

Mitchell has spent the past four years in Japan and Holland researching and writing this novel, so it is no surprise that it is chockablock full of gorgeous historical detail intertwined with his boundless imagination. Set in the mysterious, atmospheric coastal Japan of 1799, this tale follows an earnest, nerdy Dutch accountant fresh off the boat as he loses himself in a swirling, silken world of Japanese intrigue and danger – dangers that only grow stronger and more ethereal as the novel unfolds.

With superstitions, samurai and swamp fever, kimonos, crocodiles and courtesans, the brutal but dazzling world of feudal Japan is brought to life, as are Dutch ships, the royal court, forests, temples, and shrines. As with all Mitchell novels, fates intertwine, human choices and mistakes shift the course of events in unexpected ways, and delicate questions of identity, foreignness, and interconnectedness are raised.

David Mitchell is a two-time Booker Prize finalist, a Time magazine 100 Most Influential People, and a Granta Best Young British Novelist. His first novel,Ghostwritten, was awarded the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for the best book by a writer under 36 and a Guardian First Book Award finalist. His second novel, Number9Dream, was a finalist for the Booker Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His third novel Cloud Atlas was short-listed for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and was an international bestseller. His most recent novel, Black Swan Green, was long-listed for the Booker Prize and named a Times Best Book of the Year. He lives in Ireland with his wife and two children. It is our great pleasure to welcome David Mitchell back to The Booksmith.

Preferred seating vouchers available with the purchase of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet at The Booksmith, beginning June 29. There are a limited number of seating vouchers; we suggest purchasing your copy early if you would like one.

Tuesday, July 27, 7:00 PM
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group
Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac

In July we're going classic with a novel by Honoré de Balzac, one of France's most important writers and a major influence on Proust, Dostoyevsky, Faulkner, and others. Eugénie Grandet's father is a rich miser, making life unbearably dull for the young lady. One day she discovers salvation in her dashing, orphaned cousin Charles, but there's one catch: Charles is penniless, and he needs a fortune to satisfy Eugénie's father. So off to the West Indies for Charles . . . We'll be discussing Romanticism, fraught love, the origins of the novel, and Balzac's epic, 100-book series Comédie humaine, an immense panorama of post-Napoleon France--of which Eugénie Grandet forms one of the most important, most acclaimed, parts.

Join us on the fourth Tuesday of every month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you byScott Esposito, of the Center for the Art of Translation and The Quarterly Conversation, who also fearlessly leads the discussion, brilliantly.. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.

Saturday, July 31, 7:30 PM
TONY O’NEILL
Sick City

“Tony O’Neill is a man who has taken the term rock & roll poet to its furthest edges…” – The Guardian

The latest page-turning romp from Tony O’Neill, author of Down and Out on Murder Mile and Hero of the Underground, Sick City is an outrageous adventure of one legendary sex tape, two desperate dope fiends, and all the trouble in the world.

Jeffrey has nowhere to go when his sugar-daddy boyfriend, Bill, croaks. But before Jeffrey sets off into the glare of LA, he grabs a few parting mementos: two grand in cash; a handgun; Bill’s police badge; a wild assortment of drugs; and a film canister that contains a treasure greater than all the rest combined: a reel featuring Steve McQueen, Mama Cass, Yul Brynner, and Sharon Tate in a never-before-see, drug-fueled orgy.

Randal is the fallen scion of a great Hollywood family. His drug addiction and his rehab bills have been long overlooked by his indulgent father; however, with him no dead and gone, Randal’s left to the zealous sanctimony of his younger brother who has admitted him to Clean and Serene, a celebrity treatment center run by TV personality Dr. Mike, which is where Randal meets Jeffrey.

Together the new friends scramble to unload the sex tape before their pasts, and a killer, catch up with them. Sick City rollicks in the absurdities of celebrity culture, entertains from first to last, and reads as if Elmore Leonard co-opted the métier of Irvine Welsh.

Tony O’Neill’s books include Digging the Vein, Down and Out on Murder Mile, andHero of the Underground. He is also the co-author of Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway by Cherie Currie. O’Neill’s essays, poems, and short stories have appeared extensively online and in print. He is a survivor of heroin addition, crack abuse, rehab, fatherhood, and stints in the Brian Jonestown Massacre, Kenickie, and Marc Almond’s band. He lives in New York with his wife and daughter.

"Sick City is a disturbingly twisted ride through Hollywood's underbelly with a degenerate cast of colorfully interwoven characters. I loved the whole fucked up journey." -- Slash, rock'n'roll legend

"Sick City is fun, twisted and brutal. One of the best books written about LA in a long time. O'Neill could be our generation's Jim Thompson." -- James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces, Bright Shiny Morning

"…this ensemble of grotesques stumbles through skid-row L.A. like a Robert Altman film scripted by Charles Bukowski and William S. Burroughs … the characters are unforgettable; they live and breathe, and you sure as hell wouldn't want them to breathe on you. Sick City is appealing in its unsentimentalism, disgusting in its details—and almost unbelievably funny." -- Booklist

Monday, August 2, 7:30 PM
MICHAEL SCOTT MORRE
Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results

While living in Germany, travel adventurer, journalist, and surfer Michael Scott Moore unexpectedly stumbled upon a vibrant German surf scene. Surprised, he set out to uncover how an obscure tribal sport from pre-colonial Hawaii (and associated mostly with his home state of California) managed to spread so far across the planet. Moore chronicles his quest to answer that question in his new book Sweetness and Blood.

Moore’s journey took him beyond Germany to some of the sport’s other unlikely destinations, including the Gaza Strip, Northern England, Japan, Morocco, and more. In explaining how surfing made its way across the globe, Moore masterfully weaves in the complicated political and cultural histories that have played key roles in the spread of the sport -- uncovering the sometimes “sweet,” sometimes “bloody” forces that shaped both surf culture and that of the places it traveled. His exploration goes far beyond surfer dudes and stereotypes -- it’s a thrilling, moving, and revealing look at a subject we only think we know.

Michael Scott Moore is a novelist and journalist who has written on politics and travel for publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, The Financial Times, among others. He lives in Berlin, Germany.

The New York Times’ Paper Cuts interview - The Atlantic Monthly on Munich’s surf scene

Thursday, August 5, 7:30 PM
JOHN BIEWEN
Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound with THE KITCHEN SISTERS

Over the last few decades, the radio documentary has developed into a strikingly vibrant form of creative expression. Millions of listeners hear arresting, intimate storytelling from an ever-widening array of producers on programs including This American Life, StoryCorps, and Radio Lab; online through such sites as Transom, the Public Radio Exchange, Hearing Voices, and Soundprint; and through a growing collection of podcasts.

Reality Radio celebrates today’s best audio documentary work by bringing together some of the most influential and innovative practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In these twenty essays, documentary makers tell -- and demonstrate, through stories and transcripts -- how they make radio the way they do, and why. Contributors include Jad Abumrad, Jay Allison,damali ayo, John Biewen, Emily Botein, Chris Brookes, Scott Carrier, Katie Davis, Sherre DeLys, Lena Eckert-Erdheim, Ira Glass, Alan Hall, Natalie Kestecher, The Kitchen Sisters, Maria Martin, Karen Michel, Rick Moody, Joe Richman, Dmae Roberts, Stephen Smith, and Sandy Tolan.

Whether the contributors to the volume call themselves journalists, storytellers, even audio artists -- and although their essays are just as diverse in content and approach -- all use sound to tell true stories, artfully.

John Biewen is audio program director at the Center for Documentary Studies atDuke University, where he teaches and produces documentary work for NPR, PRI,American Public Media, and other public radio audiences. Joining him in discussion this evening are NIKKI SILVA and DAVIA NELSON, radio’s superbThe Kitchen Sisters.

“A powerful and illuminating anthology about our most powerful and intimate medium.Reality Radio is a must-read for anyone who feels called to make documentary work or whose imagination and heart are stirred by the sounds of nonfiction storytelling on the radio. A wonderful book!”—Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps and Sound Portraits Productions

“Reality Radio is a fabulous book I wish I could have read when I started at NPR in 1974. It would have shaved 10–15 years off the learning curve in discovering how to make great radio.”—Bob Edwards, host of The Bob Edwards Show on Sirius XM Radio

“The essays in this book were written by people thinking with their ears.”—Rick Moody, from the foreword

Monday, August 9, 7:30 PM
A Special Community Forum:

THE EVOLVING LANDSCAPE OF LOCAL JOURNALISM
A Panel Discussion with The Bay Citizen’s LISA FRAZIER, Mission Local’s LYDIA CHAVEZ, and SF Public Press’ MICHAEL STOLL

It’s an exciting time in the landscape of San Francisco journalism as we see tectonic changes take place before our eyes. There have recently been some enticing examples of citizen-funded journalism, including quality investigative reports on the over-budget Bay Bridge project and the proposed development of Treasure Island. This evening we bring some key players in public-interest reporting to The Booksmith to discuss the emerging models which will compete and compliment the incumbents bringing us Bay Area news.

As the San Francisco Chronicle continues to struggle and cuts reporting budgets, these new players are increasingly our source for original local news reporting.
They are nimble, tech savvy, and experimenting with new methods for delivering the news.

Lisa Frazier is the President and CEO of The Bay Citizen; Lydia Chavez is the Managing Editor of Mission Local; Michael Stoll is the Executive Director of SF Public Press. We'll discuss the sustainability of their models, what career opportunities they are providing for aspiring and seasoned journalists, and the ways in which they are distributing their content through new media and traditional print.

Christin Evans, co-owner of the Booksmith and a self-proclaimed news junkie, will moderate this panel. She has dabbled in citizen reporting through her contributions to the Huffington Post and will ask the tough questions about what we can expect from local journalism in the years ahead.

Friday, August 13, 6:30 – 9:30 PM
THE BACK TO SCHOOL BOOKSWAP!

With special guests Caroline Paul, author of East, Wind, Rain, and SF Writers’ Grotto resident, and Justine Sharrock, author of Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things..

For our Back to School special edition Bookswap, bring a book that moved you at some point in your education. Maybe your third grade teacher read it to you, maybe it was the first novel you read, or something assigned to you in high school or college. Whatever it was, it deepened your love for books somehow. Now it’s time to share it! As always, we'll have delicious food, free-flowing wine, fantastic company and lots of laughter. We look forward to celebrating the end of the summer with you!

Booksmith Bookswaps sell out quickly. To purchase your tickets, visit Brown Paper Tickets or call 800-838-3006. (Ages 21+, please.)

Tickets are $25. and include not only drink and food, but a coupon for you to receive 20% off your purchases this evening or in the several weeks following the Swap!

Tuesday, August 24, 7:00 PM
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group
The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo Atxaga

The Guardian (London) once wrote that Bernardo Atxaga is "not just a Basque novelist, but the Basque novelist: a writer charged . . . with exporting a threatened culture." Indeed, Atxaga himself has said that the Basque language has only produced 100 books in the last 400 years . . . If Atxaga is indeed the world emissary of Basque culture, then The Accordionist's Son, just published in paperback last spring, is the book to read: called his masterpiece by many, it's an epic tale of the Basque country in the 20th century, both during the dictator Francisco's Franco's rule and after, as ETA terrorists battled with the democratic Spanish government in a struggle to preserve the Basque identity. We'll travel to the bucolic villages of theBasque country (as well as California) and read an author who is quite possibly his language's greatest writer, hopefully on a hot August night reminiscent of Mediterranean Spain.

Join us on the fourth Tuesday of every month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you byScott Esposito, of the Center for the Art of Translation and The Quarterly Conversation, who also fearlessly leads the discussion, brilliantly.. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.

Tuesday, September 7, 7:30 PM
JOHN JODZIO
If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home

“You may think you’ve read enough stories about penniless gay clowns who can’t get over the loss of a dog, but – I assure you – you have not. John Jodzio is the best kind of modern fiction writer: a thematic traditionalist who feels totally new.” – Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

A middle-aged masochist in love with a comatose man. A gay birthday clown lamenting the loss of his beloved dog. An amateur veterinarian keeping watch over his suicidal daughter. And a bikini model with a barnacle stuck to her rear. These are just a few of the characters who populate the quirky, offbeat world of If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home, a world that feels at once alien and strangely familiar. Jodzio is by turns bleak and hopeful, cruel and tender; his new collection is one exciting literary debut.

John Jodzio is a winner of the Loft-McKnight Fellowship. His stories have appeared in One Story, Opium, The Florida Reviewand Rake Magazine and a number of other places, both print and online. He’s won a Minnesota Magazine fiction prize and both the Opium 500 Word Memoir competition and Opium Fiction Prize.

“…colorful and seemingly fractured tales, each shining brilliantly alone, but also growing more vibrant as one story lays over another. Together they form an intricately stained glass window that looks out onto a whole new world.” – Hannah Tinti, author ofThe Good Thief.


Wednesday, September 8, 7:00 PM
THE RUMPUS BOOK CLUB IN-PERSON DISCUSSION
Tao Lin’s Richard Yates

First, The Rumpus announced its’ version of a book club – one whose members receive a hand-chosen book, for a thrilling insider’s early (before publication) look at what’s likely to be a very hot book. Club members are then invited to an online discussion with the author and with one another. (Read all about The Rumpus Book Club here.) What could be added to the mix? Why, a get-together to meet and talk with other club members in person!

We’re delighted to host these monthly gatherings this fall. Local book club members, come on in; if you’re a member from outside the Bay Area, but planning to be in our neighborhood, you come on in, too! Curious about The Rumpus and its book club? You, too!

Tonight: a discussion about Tao Lin’s new novel Richard Yates. (Please note that Tao Lin will himself be talking at The Booksmith on October 4.)


Thursday, September 9, 7:30 PM
WILLIAM GIBSON
Zero History

Since his 1984 debut novel Neuromancer, in which he coined the term “cyberspace” and envisioned the Internet before it was a pervasive reality, William Gibson has gained a reputation as a trend-spotter with a unique ability to anticipate cultural and technological movements. In his two most recent novels, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, Gibson trained those sensibilities on our contemporary, post-9/11 age. And the present, it seems, is only growing more astonishing in Gibson’s latest novel, Zero History. It’s a time defined by frenzied change, a world in which everything is growing faster and more connected at an exponential rate. If we were in Gibson’s 1996 novel Idoru, we might call it a “nodal point” – a key point in history after which everything will be different.

Zero History returns to the adventures of Hubertus Bigend, the twisted financial genius from Pattern Recognition and Spook Country. Bigend’s newest obsession is with the military culture that is trickling down to the streets. Military contracting is recession-proof, and Bigend wants in. But it seems that someone is one step ahead of him, and Bigend must uncover who that is if he’s to come out on top. His plan involves Hollis Henry, former rocker from the cult 90s band The Curfew, and Milgrim, a Russian translator, finally sober after a stint in rehab. It’s not long before Hollis and Milgrim find themselves entangled in a mesh of postmodern marketing and corrupt American military contracting that threatens to topple Bigend’s massive empire.

Gibson’s talent has always been his ability to spot our cultural trajectory – to locate what Bigend calls “the edge”. It’s that barest glimpse of the future at the far reach of the horizon, the cutting-edge that will soon become the norm. In Zero History, the edge is a place where boundaries between on- and offline have become blurred, where the parent-child relationship has migrated to twitter, and where brands generate attention not by marketing themselves but by eschewing marketing altogether.

Preferred seating with the purchase of Zero History at The Booksmith, beginning September 7 (on-sale date). Seating cards will be distributed at the time of purchase until supply is gone. Standing room and limited floor seating will be available as well. Please note that we’ll be at maximum capacity this evening; if you need special accommodations, please send a request toevents@booksmith.com.

Please note that Mr. Gibson will sign copies of his previous books provided that a copy of Zero History is purchased from The Booksmith. Photographs of those attending with Mr. Gibson will be possible.


Friday, September 10, 7:30 PM
MARKOS MOULITSAS
American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right

Markos Moulitsas is the founder and publisher of Daily Kos, America’s largest online political community. His publications include the acclaimed Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics and Taking on the System: Rules for Radical Change in a Digital Era. He is a frequent guest on cable news and shows like Meet the Press and Real Time with Bill Maher, a weekly columnist for The Hill, and a former Newsweek contributing columnist.

America’s main international enemy -- Islamic radicalism -- favors theocracy, curtails civil liberties, embraces torture, represses women, reviles homosexuality, subverts science and education, and reveres force over diplomacy. In American Taliban, Markos Moulitsas shows how the American right shares those very same traits. He argues that our domestic jihadists are a greater threat to American democracy than any Islamic terrorist.

“I can’t remember a time in my life when anti-intellectualism and intolerance has been more pervasive. From America’s prejudice against evolutionary science to its reactionary condemnation of a scholarly African American president, the time has never been more ripe for a book such as this, which reminds us that fanaticism isn’t always an import.” -- Brett Gurewitz, Bad Religion

“It isn’t possible to understand American politics now without understanding the worldview and arguments of Markos Moulitsas. If you still believe the beltway caricature of the squishy, compromising, conciliatory American left, American Taliban should disabuse you of that notion.” -- Rachel Maddow, The Rachel Maddow Show

“Markos writes with a conscience and armed with facts to let you know: no, you’re not crazy. What you suspected all along was true—America’s right wing lives on a myth of self-constructed lies about the Other, with a juvenile disregard for reality, and Obama’s presidency has further radicalized an already radical conservative movement.” -- Janeane Garofalo, comic and actor

“Moulitsas alerts us to a clear and present danger in America: radical zealots who disregard our Constitution and our freedoms, and who disguise themselves as patriots.” -- Roger Ebert, film critic

“A thorough compendium of right-wing hypocrisy and selective memory that is either hilarious or tragic, depending on your mood. And it’s all lovingly couched in outrage and profanity.” -- David Cross, I Drink for a Reason


Sunday, September 12, 4:00 PM
MELISSA STEIN
Rough Honey

Rough Honey is suffused with a dark tenderness. These poems speak of fragility and power, the contradictions of pleasure, the bruises we bear. With remarkable range, they carry us from a whitewater rafting calamity to the “torrents of wheat” on a family farm; from a bathysphere’s color-starved depths to a butcher’s blood-soaked counter; from a peepshow’s “manageable storm of boredom and sex” to a passionate fall from grace in an orchard. By turns buoyant and forlorn, Rough Honey’s characters both long for and abandon hope of true connection, of home, in a world where “everything is rented.” But their struggles are rendered in language so radiant, so mellifluous, it can’t help but hint at the possibility of transcendence, the sheer sweetness in being alive.

“Rough Honey is a miracle of a first collection. Melissa Stein’s sensuous articulation of the world from the inside out puts her poems into a kind of freefall—back into a pulsing, primal language. Her electric apprehensions throb with this nearly preverbal knowing . . . Above all, they define and redefine the lyric poem, giving it myriad protean identities. Stein is a new poet of the first order.” -- Molly Peacock

“Openness—of form, and of the receptive and longing body—is Rough Honey’s central subject, and its oxymoronic title suggests the sweet and fierce character of desire, that compelling and dangerous sustenance . . . Stein’s poems are lit by a restless and flashing verbal intelligence . . . Her sentences are beautifully
choreographed; they start and stop the motion of her poems with a nearly invisible, effortless authority.” -- Mark Doty, from the Introduction

Melissa Stein has published poems in The Southern Review, New England Review, Best New Poets 2009, Harvard Review, North American Review, and many other journals and anthologies. She has received residency fellowships from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the Djerassi Foundation.


Tuesday, September 14, 7:30 PM
HAIGHT ASHBURY GUIDE & MAP CELEBRATION

For several years, our Haight Ashbury neighbors and long-time residents Jack and Gay Reineck (Rufus Graphics) have been working on a project to design and publish a new, concise but thorough, history and guide to the Haight Ashbury. The project stemmed from a local discussion about a Haight Ashbury Museum; in lieu of a museum, not possible at this time, they’ve created a nifty little “paper museum” that tells the story of the Haight from before the 1906 earthquake through the 60s (including sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll) and to today. With a fascinating text, and a detailed Haight Ashbury map, accompanying over 100 photographs, many of them historical, and some from contemporary photographers including Lisa Law and Herbie Green, this is a terrific book for visitors and residents alike.

Tonight we celebrate our neighborhood’s history with Jack and Gay!


Wednesday, September 15, 7:30 PM
MARK HASKELL SMITH
Baked

Mark Haskell Smith, who “writes like Carl Hiassen’s oversexed cousin” (Booklist), is back with Baked, a charming comic suspense novel that is a hybrid cross-breed of The Big Lebowskiand Half Baked with The Orchid Thief and Weeds thrown in.

With marijuana well on its way to being legalized in California, Smith takes on the subject of cannabis with typically oddball results. Meet Miro Basinas, an experimental botanist, a gentleman farmer who sells his rarefied product to an educated clientele. Only he’s not growing heirloom tomatoes or making organic wine – he’s growing weed. His greatest creation, a blend called Elephant Crush that tastes like mangoes, has his loyal customers, who need medical marijuana for their anxiety disorders and restless leg syndrome, clamoring for more. Months earlier, Miro had entered Elephant Crush in Amsterdam’s prestigious Cannabis Cup and won, but upon his return to Los Angeles, he is shot and his weed is taken, in a brutal blow to ganjaficionados everywhere.

Baked, complete with a typically Smith-ian cast of lovably quirky characters, takes readers on a truly hilarious ride through LA, the world of medical marijuana and competitive pot-growing, all while trying to solve the mystery of who shot Miro and trying to recover the fabled Elephant Crush.

Mark Haskell Smith is an award-winning screenwriter and author of three prior novels, Moist, Delicious, and Salty. He covered the real Cannabis Cup for the Los Angeles Times last fall, and as California speeds towards the ballot initiative to legalize marijuana, he has fashioned himself into a kind of expert on the state’s number one crop. He lives in Los Angeles, close to the Rambo taco truck.


Thursday, September 16, 7:30 PM
DR. DAVID SMITH
Unchain Your Brain: 10 Steps to Breaking the Addictions That Steal Your Life

Dr. David Smith, the founder of the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic, asks, along with his co-author Dr. Daniel Amen, “Are you chained to your addiction to smoking? Drinking? Sugar? Drugs? Good? Prescription painkillers? Caffeine? Internet porn? Gambling? Sex?” – and answers everyone who says “Yes”: with tools to optimize one’s brain.

Smith says brain dysfunction is the number-one reason why people fall victim to addiction, why they can’t break the chains of addiction, and why they relapse. He and Amen offer strategies to find lasting motivation to changes, ways to lock up the craving monster, tips for eating right, thinking right, and healing from an addiction, and ways to prevent relapse (including brain science). They offer 7 steps parents can take now to help prevent addictions for their children; 10 daily behaviors that will enhance brain function; 15 strategies for dealing with the people who try to sabotage recovery; 5 natural supplements that can soothe the brain and reduce craving; 4 areas of life one needs to address to prevent relapse; and 1 decision that will change one’s life.

Join the discussion about rediscovering the pleasure of developing satisfying relationships with family and friends, regaining health, finding greater energy, and exploring the amazing world in which we live.

As if founding the Haight Ashbury Free Medical Clinic wasn’t enough, Dr. Smith is a Fellow and Past President of the American Society for Addiction Medicine and a Fellow of the American Academy of Clinical Toxicology. He is an inaugural Diplomate of the American Board of Addiction medicine, and serves as Chair of Adolescent Addiction Treatment at Newport Academy, Medical Director of Center Point, and Adjunct Professor of Medicine at UCSF. He has authored and co-authored over 350 professional articles and over tow dozen books, including Drugfree: A Unique, Positive Approach to Staying Off Alcohol and Other Drugs, It’s So Good, Don’t Even Try It Once: Heroin in Perspective, The Physician’s Guide to Psychoactive Drugs, and Clinician’s Guide to Substance Abuse. He is the founder and publisher of The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.


Tuesday, September 21, 7:30 PM
SKIP HORACK
The Eden Hunter

In 1816, five years after being captured and sold into slavery, Kau, a pygmy tribesman, flees south into the Florida wilderness, determined to find a place where he can once again live in harmony with nature. Both haunted and driven by his memories of Africa, he embarks on an epic quest through the treacherous pinewoods, swamps, and river bottoms of the southern frontier. Encountering renegades and thieves, traitors and mercenaries, and the dark prophetic magic of the forest before he finally finds himself within the walls of a remote fort on the Apalachicola River, he becomes the reluctant companion of several hundred runaway slaves once recruited by the British to fight in the War of 1812, then abandoned to fend for themselves against the American forces intent on destroying their remarkable stronghold.

Inspired by actual historical events, at turns both violent and beautiful, The Eden Hunter is the amazing story of a man’s journey into the turbulent forces of a torn and garmented America.

“…a stylish, fast-paced, historical narrative…” – Publishers Weekly

Skip Horack is the author of the story collection The Southern Cross (about which Colm Toibin wrote, “These stories evoke places with a sharp, sensuous and at times magical skill. They also dramatize characters and states of mind with a fierce truthfulness and sense of understanding. Horack’s style has a beautiful edge to it; the range of his sympathy makes this a wonderful collection.”). He is a Jones Lecturer in Fiction at Stanford, and was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He practiced law for five years in Louisiana and now lives in Burlingame.


Wednesday, September 22, 7:00 PM
RACHEL SAUNDERS
The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook

“[Once] I became hooked on jam making, several years of intense experimentation ensued. I slaved away in my tiny kitchen, gradually developing my own techniques in my quest for perfect results. Over time, I grew to understand fruit. I also, through the course of these several years, formed my own vision of what the ideal textures were for different jams and marmalades.”

The Blue Chair Jam Cookbook represents the distillation of jam aficionado Rachel Saunders’ 10-year exploration of everything fruit. In her unflinching search for the perfect balance of flavor, texture and appearance, Saunders
brings a modern sustainable eye to the age-old nostalgia of the jam-maker’s kitchen. The same sentiment reigns at her Bay Area jam company, Blue Chair Fruit, which sources only from local organic farmers and produces its small-batch wonders in traditional French copper kettles. The resulting cookbook is a vast overview of the art of jam, dressed up with clear descriptions of preserving techniques, stunning photography and over 100 recipes.

Saunders’ passion for fresh, seasonal and local fruits informs every pearl of the long sought wisdom she shares – only plant-ripened produce provides a natural intensity and sweetness that requires less sugar while delivering more flavor. Thus, recipes are chronicled seasonally by fruit, with recipes arranged month-to-month to ensure the book remains a gem throughout the year. April examines rhubarb and strawberry, while July taps sour cherry, currant and Meyer lemon. The dead of winter fares just as well, with bergamot and grapefruit in January and orange and kumquat in early spring. Far from a traditionalist, Saunders also explores a variety of herbs, spices and spirits to produce nuanced flavor combinations that range from basic to complex: Brandied Red Cherry Conserve, White Guava & Meyer Lemon Marmalade, Italian Prune & Cardamom Conserve, even Strawberry Jam with Aged Balsamic & Black Pepper.

Saunders also shares her conviction that preserving is an aesthetic as much as a
technical endeavor. Each recipe includes suggestions for variation, encouraging home cooks to prepare unique creations that express their own style. Informed by her background in art history and French culture (she studied at Smith College as well as La Sorbonne in Paris), Saunders fills every page with the sense
of sheer fun, adventure and imagination that have inspired the book’s creation.

Friday, September 24, 7:30 PM
GARIN HOVANNISIAN
Family of Shadows: A Century of Murder, Memory, and the Armenian American Dream

In Family of Shadows Garin Hovannisian presents the history of Armenia, past, present, and future, through the story of three generations of the men in his family: his great-grandfather Kasper, his grandfather Richard, and his father Raffi.

A teenager in 1915 in the village of Kharpert, in what was then western Armenia, Kasper was caught in the chaos of the first genocide of the 20th century -- the systematic slaughter of 1.5 million Armenians and the displacement of a historic people from its homeland of three thousand years. He witnessed the murder of his kid brother, his father, and his family. He eventually escaped to the United States and built an agricultural and real estate empire.

Growing up on Kasper’s twenty-acre farm in California’s San Joaquin Valley in the 1930s, Richard spoke no Armenian. In junior high school, he was horrified to learn that, according to the class atlas, Armenia did not exist. He resolved to learn Armenian and has spent his life chronicling the nation’s history and campaigning for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide. Today, Richard is a professor of Armenian history at UCLA and one of the world’s authorities on genocide.

A corporate lawyer in Los Angeles, Raffi had visited Soviet Armenia many times. In 1990, he and his immediate family returned for good. When Armenia declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Raffi was handed a fax machine and a building that would soon become the republic’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Today, Raffi leads Heritage, a national liberal party, in Armenia’s parliament --and will run for president in the 2013 election
.
A powerful story about the long shadows that history casts on one family, Family of Shadows also perfectly captures Armenia’s history in the last 100 years.

Garin Hovannisian is a graduate of UCLA (06) and of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism (M.S., 08). The recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to Armenia, he now lives between Los Angeles and Yerevan. His writing on Armenian issues, including the Genocide, has appeared in the Los AngelesTimes, Christian Science Monitor, Chicago Tribune, Newsday, and many other publications, as well as in major periodicals of the Diaspora, such as The Armenian Observer and the literary journalArarat.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Art of Translation

Saturday, September 25, 7:30 PM
DANIEL KEHLMANN
Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes

Imagine being famous. Being recognized on the street, adored by people who have never even met you, known the world over. Wouldn’t that be great?

But what if, one day, you got stuck in a country where celebrity means nothing, where no one spoke your language and you didn’t speak theirs, where no one knew your face (no book jackets, no TV) and you had no way of calling home? How would your fame help you then?

What if someone got hold of your cell phone? What if they spoke to your girlfriends, your agent, your director, and started making decisions for you? And worse, what if no one believed you were you anymore? When you saw a look-alike acting your roles for you, what would you do?

And what if one day you realized your magnum opus, like everything else you’d ever written, was a total waste of time, empty nonsense? What would you do next? Would your audience of seven million people keep you going? Or would you lose the capacity to keep on doing it?

Fame and facelessness, truth and deception, spin their way through all nine episodes of this captivating, wickedly funny, and perpetually surprising novel as paths cross and plots thicken, as characters become real people and real people morph into characters. The result is a dazzling tour de force by one of Europe’s finest young writers.

“Who would have thought contemporary Central European literature could be so fun and so funny? Daniel Kehlmann is who. The young Austrian prodigy, famous everywhere but in the United States, has given us a real beauty of a book, farcical, satiric, melancholic, and humane. Modern fame may have been invented in America, but nobody has dramatized its paradoxes and heartbreaks more entertainingly than the European Kehlmann does here." -- Jonathan Franzen

Daniel Kehlmann’s Measuring the World was translated into more than forty languages. Awards his work has received include the Candide Prize, the Literature Prize of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, the Heimito von Doderer Literature Award, the Kleist Prize, the WELT Literature Prize, and the Thomas Mann Prize. Kehlmann divides his time between Vienna and Berlin.


Monday, September 27, 7:00 PM
THE RUMPUS BOOK CLUB IN-PERSON DISCUSSION
Lan Samantha Chang’s All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost

First, The Rumpus announced its’ version of a book club – one whose members receive a hand-chosen book, for a thrilling insider’s early (before publication) look at what’s likely to be a very hot book. Club members are then invited to an online discussion with the author and with one another. (Read all about The Rumpus Book Club here.) What could be added to the mix? Why, a get-together to meet and talk with other club members in person!

We’re delighted to host these monthly gatherings this fall. Local book club members, come on in; if you’re a member from outside the Bay Area, but planning to be in our neighborhood, you come on in, too! Curious about The Rumpus and its book club? You, too!

Tonight: a discussion about Lan Samantha Chang’s new novel All is Forgotten, Nothing is Lost.

BOOKSMITH PRESENTS AN EVENING WITH FILMMAKER & NOVELIST GUILLERMO DEL TORO
at the Sundance Kabuki Theater
Tuesday, September 28, 7:30 PM
GUILLERMO DEL TORO

Born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico, Guillermo del Toro made his feature directorial debut in 1993 with the film Cronos, and has since gone on to direct, among other films, Mimic, The Devil's Backbone, Blade II, Hellboy I, Hellboy II, and Pan's Labyrinth,which garnered enormous critical praise worldwide and won three Academy Awards. Del Toro has produced and written films numerous films. He is currently working on a remake of Frankenstein; it’s been announced that James Cameron will produce Del Toro’s 3-D At the Mountains of Madness, and that Del Toro will direct Disney’s The Haunted Mansion.

With Chuck Hogan, Del Toro has become a novelist as well. Their first novel was The Strain, about which all that must be said is this:

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.

In two months -- the world.

“I cannot wait to see where Del Toro and Hogan take us next.” -- James Rollins, New York Times bestselling author of The Doomsday Key

The wait is over! Guillermo Del Toro returns with The Fall -- the second blood-chilling volume in their critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling Strain Trilogy. The Fall picks up where The Strain left off -- with a vampiric infection spreading like wildfire across America as a small band of heroes struggles to save the dwindling human race from the vampire plague. Horror fiction and dark fantasy fans will be swept up in this epic story that bestselling author Nelson DeMille describes as “Bram Stoker meets Stephen King meets Michael Crichton.”

In addition to his multiple screen ventures, Del Toro is, with Chuck Hogan, writing the third volume in The Strain trilogy.

Film fans, young filmmakers and vampire and horror novel fans alike won’t want to miss this very special event!

Advance ticket purchase encouraged; general admission tickets at the door may or may not be available.

General admission $12.
VIP ticket for private pre-talk reception at 6:30 PM, also at the Kabuki, with Mr. Del Toro, including delicious food, a special bar drink, reserved seat, and a copy of The Fall $75.
Kabuki Sundance Theater, 1881 Post Street at Fillmore, San Francisco. Doors open for general admission seating at 6:45 PM; VIP ticket holders will be seated promptly at 7:15 PM.

Tickets available at Brown Paper Tickets online or by phone at 800-838-3006, and at The Booksmith.


Tuesday, September 28, 7:00 PM
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group
The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz

As we turn toward fall, we read a writer who hails from Kafka's city--Prague--and who is reminiscent of both that famous writer and Jorge Luis Borges. Michal Ajvaz, considered by many the greatest living Czech author, has written in The Golden Age a book that is once philosophical and riveting, a book about language and narratives that includes fake civilizations and dueling royal families. On an imaginary island in the Atlantic Ocean lives a nation of humans without cars, money, or even telephones. They're discovered by a modern-day Gulliver who wants to chronicle their strange society and its one piece of writing, a collective, Wikipedia-like effort known only as the Book (called by one critic a "pre-Gutenberg Internet"). We'll talk about what this odd fairy-tale like book has to say about our own connected culture, as well as satire, the importance of storytelling to a society, and the morality of betrayal.

Join us on the fourth Tuesday of every month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you by Scott Esposito, of the Center for the Art of Translation and The Quarterly Conversation, who also fearlessly leads the discussion, brilliantly.. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.


Wednesday, September 29, 7:00 PM
MONA SIMPSON
My Hollywood

Mona Simpson, acclaimed author of Anywhere But Here and A Regular Guy, has written a wonderfully provocative and appealing new novel, her first in ten years. My Hollywood tells the story of two women whose lives entwine and unfold behind the glittery surface of Hollywood.

Claire, a composer and a new mother, comes to LA so her husband can follow his passion for writing television comedy. Suddenly the marriage, once a 50/50 arrangement, changes, with Claire left at home with a baby, whom she adores but has no idea how to care for.

Lola, a fifty-two-year-old mother of five who is working in America to pay for her own children’s higher education back in the Philippines, becomes their nanny. Lola stabilizes the rocky household and soon other parents try to lure her away. What she sacrifices to stay with Claire and “Williamo” remains her own closely guarded secret.

In a novel at turns satirical and heartbreaking, we see two versions of events: the upstairs competition for the best nanny and the downstairs competition for the best deal, and are forced to ask whether it is possible to buy love for our children and what that transaction costs us all.

“This big gorgeous book is at once an entertaining, socially astute upstairs-downstairs drama and a profound meditation on the shifting and often competing demands of love and work in a woman’s life. One more time, Mona Simpson has burrowed deep into the American family to extract the shivering truth about the many trade-offs women face in raising children today. Lola, the Filipina nanny at the heart of this book, is surely one of the great literary creations of our time. My Hollywood is vast in scope, exquisite in detail, rife with pleasure.” – Michelle Huneven

“In her first novel since Off Keck Road, Simpson tells a blistering story of fractured love and flailing parents… The story both satirizes and earnestly assesses the failings of upper-middle-class L.A., and Simpson’s taut prose allows her to drill into the heart of relationships, often times with a single biting sentence. Funny, smart, and filled with razor sharp observations about life and parenthood, Simpson’s latest is well worth the wait.” -- Publishers Weekly, starred review

“A darkly beautiful atlas of the American promised land, and a definitive novel of modern domesticity. Brilliant, in short.” -- Joseph O’Neill

“Simpson's massive gifts -- for unflinching precision, for artful indirection and for the deft unfurling of imagery -- are on vivid display in My Hollywood, a book that carries us down deep, into the darkness of two distinct worlds, and lights them up, finding all the comedy in the ways they are the same world, and all the tragedy in the unbridgeable distance between them.” -- Michael Chabon

Mona Simpson is the author of Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, A Regular Guy, and Off Keck Road, which was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and won the Heartland Prize of theChicago Tribune. She has received a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Guggenheim grant, a Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Writers’ Award, and, recently, an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She lives in Santa Monica.


Thursday, September 30, 7:30 PM
FERYAL ALI GAUHAR
No Space for Further Burials

Set in Afghanistan in late 2002, No Space for Further Burials is a chilling indictment of the madness of war and our collective complicity in the perpetuation of violence.

The novel’s narrator, a U.S. army medical technician in Afghanistan helping “liberate” the country from the Taliban, has been captured by rebels and thrown into an asylum. The other inmates are a besieged gathering of society’s forgotten and unwanted refugees and derelicts, disabled and different, resilient and maddened, struggling to survive the lunacy raging outside the asylum compound. Their collective tale becomes a powerful evocation of the country’s desolate history of plunder and war, waged by insiders and outsiders, all fueled by ideology, desperation, and greed.

Feryal Ali Gauhar studied political economy at McGill University, Montreal, and has worked as a filmmaker and broadcaster in Europe and the U.S. She has been imprisoned by two military regimes in Pakistan for her prodemocracy activism. In 1999 she was appointed Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund. She lives in Lahore, Pakistan, with fourteen cats, three dogs, a turtle, and four donkeys.

“In No Space for Further Burials, Feryal Ali Gauhar has crafted a novel of unrelenting truth, held in transcendent prose and an exquisite grace. There is no easy redemption here, but there is light and more light.” – Chris Abani, author of GraceLand and Song for Night

“Profoundly touching…Feryal Ali Gauhar questions us and forces us to face our responsibilities as universal citizens. In a mirror effect, she makes us see the image of a world that has become its own tormentor.” – Yasmina Khadra, author of The Swallows of Kabul

Monday, October 4, 7:30 PM
TAO LIN Richard Yates
“[A] deadpan literary trickster.” – The New York Times

Tao Lin’s trademark minimalism takes on a much darker edge as he narrates the story of a young man dealing with the consequences of an affair with an underage girl, in a startling change of direction for this cult writer. Buried within Lin’s work is a troubling question – what exactly constitutes illicit sex for a generation with no rules?

Richard Yates is named after real-life writer Richard Yates, but it has little to do with him. Instead, it racks the relationship between writer Haley Joel Osment, a New Yorker in his early twenties, and Dakota Fanning, his 16-year-old lover. Moving between Fanning’s suburban New Jersey home and Osment’s Wall Street apartment, the couple increasingly shuns the outside world as they work to navigate the moral ambiguity of their relationship. But as that relationship grows more obsessive and Osment becomes more intimately involved with Fanning, she reveals her increasingly disturbing and self-destructive personality. Osment’s own guilt and anger entrap him as they find the relationship – and their lives – hurtling out of control.

"Richard Yates is hilarious, menacing, and hugely intelligent. Tao Lin is a Kafka for the iPhone generation. He has that most important gift: it’s impossible to imagine anyone else writing like he does and sounding authentic. Yet he has already spawned a huge school of Lin imitators. As precocious and prolific as he is, every book surpasses the last. Tao Lin may well be the most important writer under thirty working today." -- Clancy Martin

Tao Lin is the author of numerous other books, including Shoplifting from American Apparel, Eeeee Eee Eeee, and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy.

Tuesday, October 5, 7:30 PM
NICK BILTON
I Live in the Future & Here’s How It Works Why Your World, Work, and Brain Are Being Creatively Disrupted

Nick Bilton is the lead technology writer for The New York Times’ Bits blog and a reporter for the paper. At the Times, he has also worked in research and development labs, helping chart the path for the future of news; he is also an adjunct professor at New York University’s interactive telecommunication program. Bilton delivers a new and often counterintuitive understanding ho how a radically changed media world is influencing human behavior in his new I Live in the Future.

Bilton explains why social networks, the openness of the Internet, and handy new gadgets are not just vehicles for telling the world what you had for breakfast but are becoming the foundation for “anchoring communities” that tame information overload and help determine what news and information to trust and consumer – and what to ignore.

Exploring the way our brains are adapting and the positive effect of new media narratives on thinking and action, Bilton finds evidence in a study that shows that surgeons who play video games are more skillful than their nonplaying counterparts. He examines how the Internet is creating a new type of consumer, the “consumnivore”, living in a world where immediacy trumps quality and quantity, and discovers who is dictating the type of content being created. Bilton describes why the map of tomorrow is centered on “Me”, and why that simple fact means a totally new approach to the way media companies shape content -- and why people pay for experiences, not content…and why great storytelling and extended relationships will prevail and enable businesses to engage with customers in ways that go beyond merely selling information…and so much more.

Our intent is to welcome you to an energetic, engaging in-person discussion with the very savvy Nick; his further intent is to continue the discussion with readers online . (Bonus for book buyers: the I Live in the Future reading experience also includes access to additional original content – using your smart phone and one of many free applications available for download online, snap an image of the QR Code at the beginning of each chapter to see videos of Nick expanding on key ideas and controversies plus links to related articles, research, and interactive experiences.)

Thursday, October 7, 6:30 – 9:30 PM
THE BOOKSMITH BOOKSWAP, LITQUAKE EDITION EAT, DRINK, TALK, (SWAP) BOOKS!

Presented in collaboration Litquake and with fabulous wordsmith guests including Oscar Villalon, Holly Payne, and K.M. Soehnlein.

What:
Join The Booksmith for the only Litquake event that celebrates YOU, the Reader. The Bookswap is a truly unique event: participants have the chance to reflect on their most treasured reads and learn about dozens of new, fantastic books; the evening culminates in a rowdy (and always entertaining) swap – think cocktail party, with a bookish twist.

Since its inception last year, The Booksmith Bookswap has SOLD OUT every time and has received rave (“the most unique book event…ever!”; “a great place to meet smart, creative, like-minded people”) reviews from all who participate.

For the Litquake edition, bibliovores from across the city will convene at Martin Macks, a very fun Irish pub in the Haight Ashbury. We’ll have hilarious and interesting book-y conversation starters, amazing writers, wine and beer, and the best pub fare in all of San Francisco. Bring a book – one you passionately love but can part with – and we’ll provide the rest.

Who:
You! This event is for anyone who has ever loved a book and craved the chance to convince more folks to read it. You’ll also meet amazing writers and a big group of passionate readers like you.

Where:
Martin Macks (1569 Haight Street, between Clayton and Ashbury, San Francisco)

Sunday, October 10, 4:00 PM
DEAN RADER
Works & Days

Emotionally and intellectually engaging, Dean Rader’s debut collection of poetry undertakes provocative questions about identity in original, ambitious, and playful ways. In a style that is at once both traditional and experimental, these poems map the terrains of high and popular culture with serious meditation and wry humor. Characters in Rader’s interactive landscape include Wallace Stevens, Michael Jackson, Dorothea Lange, Arvo Part, and even Frog and Toad. Like its namesake, Works and Days by the Greek poet Hesiod, Rader’s work takes on the great issues of any era -- our attempts to make sense of dreams, duty, and the divine.

Dean Rader is professor of English at the University of San Francisco where he held the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair. He has published widely in the fields of poetry, literary studies, American Indian studies, and visual and popular culture. He has received the Crab Creek Review Poetry Prize (2007) and The Sow’s Ear Poetry Prize (2009). He regularly contributes op-eds and book reviews to the San Francisco Chronicle and blogs at The Weekly Rader,SemiObama and 52 Gavins. A native of Weatherford, Oklahoma, he now lives in San Francisco with his wife and son. Check out Dean's website at http://deanrader.com/

“There is no anticipation like waiting for the poem you ordered to arrive,” Dean Rader writes. Well, the poems we ordered have arrived. Works & Days is a shipment of poetic pleasure, a care package to get readers through a dark, unpoetical time. Playful, probing, frequently philosophical (and sometimes mock-philosophical, and sometimes both), these entertaining and liberating poems know their tradition and engage with it without being confined by it.” -- Troy Jollimore

“Dean Rader reads his past, reads the landscape of his native land, especially Oklahoma, through the lens of previous poets, such as Hesiod, his first tutelary guide, who lead him to a vibrant, innovative, and fresh new poetry, who point the way to his own formal making, his poignant American version of life and labor, Works & Days.” – Edward Hirsch

Monday, October 11, 7:30 PM
STEVEN JOHNSON
Where Good Ideas Come From

How and why do world-changing ideas surface? Johnson writes, “The argument of this book is that a series of shared properties and patterns recur again and again in unusually fertile environments. I have distilled them down into seven patterns: the adjacent possible; liquid networks; the slow hunch; serendipity; error; exaptation; and emergent platforms. The more we embrace these patterns – in our private work habits and hobbies, in our office environments, in the design of new software tools – the better we will be at tapping our extraordinary capacity for innovative thinking.”

Johnson traces these patterns across centuries and disciplines, from the FBI’s tragic failure to grasp the importance of information that might have prevented the 9/11 terrorist attacks to Gutenberg’s use of wine-press technology to build the world’s first printing press with moveable type to the founding of Google on a Net-transforming hunch. But the relevant question, Johnson insists, is not how these guys got to be so clever (or not). Rather, what we need to ask is: What kind of environment fosters remarkable innovation?

With four critically acclaimed books, the two most recent being New York Times Notable Books, Steven Johnson has demonstrated that he can pinpoint an urgent cultural issue and illuminate it with dazzling cross-disciplinary insights. Whether tweaking conventional wisdom in Everything Bad is Good for You, offering captivating new perspectives on the conflict between science and religion in The Invention of Air, or debunking skepticism about the significance of Twitter in a cover story for Time magazine, Johnson has commanded a prominent perch in the public discourse. Now Johnson bridges natural science, intellectual history, urban sociology, and cutting-edge technology to explore one of our most pressing cultural questions, and to offer persuasive, inspiring, and practical answers that readers can use to propel their lives and careers forward.

“An infectiously exciting writer…Steven Johnson is that rarest of commodities among twenty-first century public intellectuals…His is a questing, limber intelligence, eager to consider opposing arguments, explore new terrain, and notice underlying patterns he hasn’t seen before.” –Salon.com, reviewing The Invention of Air

Steven Johnson is the founder of a variety of influential websites – most recently, outside.in – and writes for Time, Wired, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. With 1.5 millionTwitter followers, he is widely regarded as one of the world’s most perceptive and thought-provoking thinkers on new media and the evolution of information technology. His previous books are The Invention of Air, The Ghost Map, Everything Bad is Good for You, Mind Wide Open, Emergence, and Interface Culture.

Wednesday, October 13, 7:30 PM
BILL BARICH
Long Way Home - On the Trail of Steinbeck’s America

“We do not take a trip; a trip takes us,” John Steinbeck noted in his 1962 classic, Travels with Charley. In the summer of 2008, Bill Barich stumbled upon a used copy of Travels in Ireland, where he has lived for the past eight years, and it inspired him to explore the mood of the United States as Steinbeck had done almost a half century before. With a hotly contested election looming, and in the shadow of an economic meltdown, Barich set off on a 5,943-mile cross-country drive from New York to his old hometown in San Francisco via Route 50, a road twisting through the American heartland.

Long Way Home is the stunning result of his pilgrimage, an illuminating and perceptive portrait of America at a dramatic point in its history. Where Steinbeck returned from the road depressed about the country’s soul, Barich – while not uncritical of the narrow-mindedness and incivility of our present culture – finds brightness among the dark and rekindles his belief in the long view, as exemplified by the unbridled optimism of some high school kids in Hutchinson, Kansas, and by the undaunted spirit of an eighty-year-old barber he chanced upon in Jefferson City, Missouri. “The world truly does renew itself while we’re looking the other way,” he observes.

From the Easter Shore of Maryland to the spectacular landscape of Moab, Utah, to Steinbeck’s own Salinas Valley, filled with memorable encounters and redolent with history and local color,Long Way Home is a truthful, inspiring account of the country at a social and political crossroad. “The highway nakes into a tunnel,” Barich writes about a stretch of Route 50 in West Virginia, “the erupts into the light with the force of revelation.”

Bill Barich is the author of eight books, among them A Pint of Plain: Tradition, Change, and the Fate of the Irish Pub and the racetrack classic Laughing in the Hills. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and a Literary Laureate of the San Francisco Public Library, and has written for The New Yorker for many years. He currently lives in Dublin – and California.

Saturday, October 16, 7:30 PM
DINAW MENGESTU
How to Read the Air

Dinaw Mengestu's first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, earned the young writer comparisons to Bellow, Fitzgerald, and Naipaul, and garnered ecstatic critical praise and awards around the world for its haunting depiction of the immigrant experience. In How to Read the Air, Mengestu enriches the themes that defined his debut with a heartbreaking literary masterwork about love, family, and the power of imagination, which confirms his reputation as one of the brightest talents of his generation.

One early September afternoon, Yosef and Mariam, young Ethiopian immigrants who have spent all but their first year of marriage apart, set off on a road trip from their new home in Peoria, Illinois, to Nashville, Tennessee, in search of a new identity as an American couple. Soon, their son, Jonas, will be born in Illinois. Thirty years later, Yosef has died, and Jonas needs to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. How can he envision his future without knowing what has come before? Leaving behind his marriage and job in New York, Jonas sets out to retrace his mother and father's trip and weave together a family history that will take him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to his life in the America of today, a story -- real or invented -- that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.

Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980, he immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister, joining his father, who had fled Ethiopia during the Red Terror. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University’s MFA program in fiction and the recipient of a 2006 fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation in 2007. Mengestu has written for Rolling Stone and Harper’s, among other publications; he lives in New York City. The New Yorker’s Summer Fiction double issue, this summer, heralds 20 fiction writers under 40 who “capture the inventiveness and the vitality of contemporary American fiction.” Dinaw Mengestu is one of them.

“Mengestu draws a haunting psychological portrait of recent immigrants to America, insecure and alienated, striving to fit in while mourning the loss of their cultural heritage and social status. Mengestu's precise and nuanced prose evokes characters, scenes, and emotions with an invigorating and unparalleled clarity.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review

Monday, October 18, 7:30 PM
ANDREW LAM
East Eats West - Writing in Two Hemispheres

From cuisine and martial arts to sex and self-esteem, East Eats West shines new light on the bridges and crossroads where two hemispheres meld into one worldwide "immigrant nation." In this new nation, with its amalgamation of divergent ideas, tastes, and styles, today's bold fusion becomes tomorrow's classic. But while the space between East and West continues to shrink in this age of globalization, some cultural gaps remain.

In this collection of twenty-one personal essays, Andrew Lam, the award-winning author ofPerfume Dreams, continues to explore the Vietnamese diaspora, this time concentrating not only on how the East and West have changed but how they are changing each other. Part memoir, part meditation, and part cultural anthropology, East Eats West is about thriving in the West with one foot still in the East.

Andrew Lam is an editor and cofounder of New America Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets in America. His essays have appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines across the country, and his short stories are anthologized widely. Followed by a film crew back to his homeland, Vietnam, he was featured in the documentary My Journey Home, which aired nationwide on PBS in 2004. His book Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora won a PEN American Beyond Margins award in 2006. Lam currently lives in San Francisco.

"Once an awed young refugee from Vietnam, Andrew Lam can still view America with wonder. Our country is becoming Asian—culture, religion, food, media—all influenced by diasporas from countries that were enemies and allies. Alarmed and delighted, I voraciously read East Eats West."
—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of I Love a Broad Margin to My Life

"Don't be fooled by the seductive beauty of [Lam's] prose--underneath its iridescent surface, it comes with the wicked kick of Sriracha chili sauce."
—Sandip Roy, host of New America Now Radio and commentator on NPR's Morning Edition

"Andrew Lam devours the American experience with fresh eyes, keen insight, and a lyrical voice. He is a natural storyteller on a journey of discovery across continents and cultures, and we're lucky to be along for the ride."
—Scott James, New York Times columnist and author of SoMa and The Sower

"In these lovely, wise, probing essays, Andrew Lam not only illuminates the crucial twenty-first-century issues of immigration and cultural identity but the greater, enduring issues of what it means to be human. East Eats West is a compelling book, and an important one."
—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

"Future historians will have the pleasure of chronicling how through his deft essays Andrew Lam bridged, fused, and reconciled Asia, Vietnam, Vietnamese America, contemporary California, American culture as a whole, and the English language into one interactive symbiosis, his and all of ours, for now and for decades to come."
—Kevin Starr, University Professor and professor of history, University of Southern California

"Lam describes our new Pacific world in prose that is subtle, mesmerizing, and unforgettable."
—Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation and Who We Be: The Colorization of America

"No one writes about being Vietnamese and American with a finer sadness or a richer sense of irony or greater humor than Andrew Lam."
—Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America

Tuesday, October 19, 7:30 PM
MICHAEL KRASNY
Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest

Unlike recent authors who emphatically say No! or Yes! to God, Michael Krasny joins the millions who know they don't know. As a radio host, college professor, and literary scholar, he has spent decades leading conversations on every imaginable topic. He has discussed life's most important questions with the foremost thinkers in virtually every discipline. And yet answers to some questions — the big, three-o'clock-in-the-morning questions — elude him. Despite this, Krasny does not discount belief systems or ridicule faith. Instead, he seeks. He explores morality, eternal life, why we do good, and why evil sometimes triumphs, and his quest is informed by artists, scientists, world events, and even films. Personal and universal, timely and timeless,Spiritual Envy is a deeply wise yet warmly welcoming conversation, an invitation to ask one's own questions — no matter how inconclusive the answers.

Michael Krasny, PhD, hosts the nation's most listened to locally produced public radio talk show,Forum with Michael Krasny. Forum is heard weekdays on KQED-FM in San Francisco, an affiliate of National Public Radio, as well as on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio. An award-winning broadcaster who has interviewed many of the great cultural icons of our era, he is the author ofOff Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life (Stanford University Press) and coauthor of Sound Ideas (McGraw-Hill). Krasny is also an English professor at San Francisco State University.

“He's serious, erudite, always interested in the substance of an issue, and might be better prepared, day after day, than any general interest host in the world.”
— Dave Eggers

Wednesday, October 20, 7:30 PM
JOEL SELVIN
Smartass: The Music Journalism of Joel Selvin

San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin started covering rock shows for the paper shortly after the end of the Civil War. His writing has appeared in a surprising number of other publications that you would think should have known better. People all over the world are still pissed off about pieces in this collection.

“My opinion? San Francisco is the greatest town for live music, hands down. Why, because the audience is curious, enthusiastic, and smart. And relaxed. Sounds a lot like Joel, now, doesn't it? Joel is a San Francisco Music-writing man — 40 years on the job — and that's another thing San Francisco and Joel Selvin have in common: it's a union shop, all the way! Joel is not no show business industry town mouthpiece, you dig? What's that make him, the last of the real music writers? You be the judge.” — Ry Cooder

“Push the book into the 8 track slot in the back of your head and Sly Stone begins to play LOUD! Try on Ralph Gleason's raincoat; Phil Spector's purple shades and enter the Fillmore. You will perspire and be slapped around as fascinating arcane details about the eccentric and bizarre world of music are poured into your ear: blood tests, pimps in hair salons, guns on the console, 21 year old millionaires, jail terms, and pit bulls in wedding chapels. Selvin stitches the myth to the truth 'cos that's music too!” — Tom Waits

“Erudite King Selvin remains unchallenged. Having pounded out a long list of dutiful accounts, from the audience, backstage, the studios, the labels, the clubs, by telephone, and the streets, Joel, with his courage and honesty, has been a friend to artists and listeners alike.” — Booker T. Jones

“I had to pick myself up off the floor laughing. This is going to be a great read whether you love or hate the Beach Boys!” — Al Jardine of the Beach Boys

“Love him or hate him, he was there – read ‘em and weep.” — Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead

“Joel really understands where the music, the musicians and the fans are coming from. He just gets it. He's hip, incisive and writes with a lot of style and a clear point of view.” — Bonnie Raitt

“Joe Silvein, What a hack he did everything he could to make me a star and failed miserably Fuck him and the Examner.” — Steve Miller

“For much of the last 4 decades Joel Selvin has been one of the most revered (and feared) music journalists and critics in North America. His insights and purity of artistic standards put him in a class by himself. But Joel was unique in a way that set him aside from all other journalists. He had an innate ability to actually insert himself into the lives of many of his subjects — counseling, advising and actually playing a pivotal role in the success of many legends. Incredibly, he played this role while maintaining his objectivity in evaluating the work of the people he befriended, and he had no hesitation in lambasting these artists when he didn't like what he saw and heard. The articles in “Smartass” are an invaluable collection that is a rare chronicle of modern pop culture.” — Joan Jett

“There never was an artist that didn’t need a critic like you.” — Bono

“The Mickey Spillane of rock journalism.” — Sam Andrew, Big Brother & the Holding Co.

“I don’t even know about Joel Selvin.” — Sly Stone

This evening holds surprises, as Joel brings some very special guests along!

Drawn from forty years of reporting in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere.Smartass will for the first time collect the work of the award-winning music journalist and best-selling author of Summer of Love.
From the Redding ranch of country maverick Merle Haggard to the humble Hawthorne beginnings of the Beach Boys in South Central Los Angeles, Selvin tracked rock and roll lore throughout California for the Chronicle since 1970. Smartass brings together his finest reporting on California rock and roll – a collection of feature articles ranging from Phil Spector to Tom Waits, Glen Campbell to CSN&Y, the Grateful Dead to the Beach Boys – all peppered with his trademark insights and acerbic asides.

Highlights include Selvin’s historic interview with Augustus Owsley Stanley; the award-winning series on the Bill Graham probate case; the controversial account of the life and death of Sheryl Crow boyfriend and mentor Kevin Gilbert; his frightening chronicle of the making of “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” by Sly and the Family Stone that first appeared on the cover of England’s Mojomagazine.

Selvin specialized in coverage of the Grateful Dead and Smart Ass features a full selection of his greatest hits – from behind-the-scenes at studio sessions for “Terrapin Station” with producer Keith Olsen to his chilling tale of despair and anguish that led to the suicide of Dead keyboardist Vince Welnick.

He also covered, almost as extensively, the Beach Boys and his classic interview with Dennis Wilson about Charles Manson is included. His interviews with John Fogerty earned Selvin a subpoena in the lawsuit by Fantasy Records founder Saul Zaentz and his liner notes to Creedence Clearwater reissues won the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award.

Ironically, in March 2009, shortly after laying the initial groundwork for Smartass, Selvin left his staff position with the Chronicle, part of drastic staff reductions by the failing newspaper. With arts coverage in newspapers slashed and rock music producing fewer and fewer giants, columnist Selvin clearly operated during a golden era of music journalism. His epic biography of the little known rhythm and blues songwriter Bert Berns will be published next year and he is currently co-writing the Sammy Hagar autobiography for Harper Collins.

Thursday, October 21, 7:30 PM
STEPHEN O’CONNOR
Here Comes Another Lesson: Stories

In what reality do a Minotaur, an Iraq War vet, and a Professor of Atheism coexist? Stephen O’Connor, whose fiction has been published in The New Yorker, The Partisan Review, and The Quarterly, brings these disparate characters and many more together in Here Comes Another Lesson, a surprising and haunting collection ranging from the wildly inventive to the vividly realistic.

O’Connor’s protagonists are all, in one way or another, idealists who cannot live according to their own ideals. They yearn for love and fulfillment, often against fantastical, semi-apocalyptic backdrops whose strangeness only serves to make these lives more familiar and deeply affecting. Reminiscent of George Saunders, David Mitchell, and Haruki Murakami, O’Connor’s short stories showcase a vibrant literary talent. The New York Times Book Review wrote that his previous collection, Rescue, had “a sense of wandering reality [that] pervades most of the startlingly inventive stories.”

In the story “Ziggurat” (which ran in The New Yorker in June 2009), the Minotaur -- the agent of all in life that is indifferent to human wishes -- is awakened to his own humanity by a computer-game-playing “new girl” who has been brought to him for supper, and then has to deal with the consequences of his own actions. In “White Fire,” the protagonist longs for the ordinary life as husband and father after he returns from the National Guard in Iraq. In “The Professor of Atheism,” the title character has his beliefs challenged when he finds himself in Paradise -- where people are granted their every wish and frolic naked without shame -- but comes to learn that the place has a dark side not far from its opposite.

Here Comes Another Lesson is a compulsively readable celebration of human hopefulness and a profound lament to a sane and gentle world that cannot exist.

Stephen O’Connor is the author of three previous books: Rescue (collection of short fiction and poetry), Will My Name Be Shouted Out? (work of memoir and social analysis), and Orphan Trains (narrative history). His fiction, poetry, and journalism have appeared in The New England Review, Poetry Magazine, The New York Times, The Nation, and elsewhere. O’Connor is the recipient of the Cornell Woolrich Fellowship in Creative Writing from Columbia University, the Visiting Fellowship for Historical Research by Artists and Writers from the American Antiquarian Society, and the DeWitt Wallace/Reader’s Digest Fellowship from the MacDowell Colony. He has received a BA from Columbia University and an MA from the University of California at Berkeley, both in English Literature. He currently teaches at the MFA programs of Columbia University and Sarah Lawrence, and lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.

Booksmith for YOUNG KIDS!
Saturday, October 23, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM
A HALLOWEEN EXTRAVAGANZA & BENEFIT
LISA BROWN and Vampire Boy’s Good Night

Storytelling, Mask-Making, Yummy Snacks: An Afternoon of Celebration
(and Costume-Wearing)
(and All for A Good Cause: Blood Banks!)

Lisa Brown is one of our most treasured illustrators and writers. Her new picture book for children is Vampire Boy’s Good Night. When the sun goes down and everything is wonderfully cold and dark, a vampire boy and a little witch go searching for children in the night. But this is no ordinary night. It is Halloween, and what they find may surprise them.

“The lyrical, understated prose and clever outsider’s perspective on the holiday might make this a new seasonal favorite” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)

What we’ll have: a specially-illustrated reading of Vampire Boy’s Good Night, mask-making, hauntingly yummy Halloween-y snacks and drinks, a costume contest, a raffle for special prizes, and face-painting! A book signing, of course. And the opportunity for adults to sign up to donate blood!

Who should attend: all children ages 3 to 7, and their adults! You’re enthusiastically invited to wear your costumes!

What’s the Benefit? Although we hear that vampires drink blood, we think it’s much more satisfying to donate blood. We’ll have information on just how to do that from the BLOOD CENTERS OF THE PACIFIC, and we’ll invite you to drop a donation into the pot for that organization’s work.

In addition to Vampire Boy’s Good Night, Lisa Brown is the author and/or illustrator of a growing number of books for children, teens, and new parents, including Picture the Dead, How to Be, The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming, and Baby Mix Me a Drink. She notes, “Halloween has always been my favorite holiday. There is something really magical about a night in costume: a time to try on different identities; to hide safely behind masks and hats and makeup; a chance to be as spooky as I always wanted to be. For the first seven Halloweens of my life, I dressed as a witch (often in the same exact outfit; I have never really grown). After that, I experimented a bit: ballerina-fairy-princess, for instance. But I always come crawling back to the slightly macabre. It is what I love best. When I was very young I lived in Queens, New York, and was able to Trick or Treat up and down the hallways of our apartment building. After moving to Connecticut, I was made to wear a winter coat over my costume when going door to door, which was a terrible indignity. Now I live in San Francisco, and never need to bundle up on Halloween night. I share an old Victorian house with my husband, who is rumored to beLemony Snicket, and my son, who is rumored to be in elementary school. He generally likes to dress up for Halloween as some sort of vehicle.”

Publishers Weekly had this to say about Vampire Boy’s Good Night: “Bela, a vampire with a fanged overbite, and his witch friend, Morgan, set out to look for children on Halloween night, though they aren't sure they exist ("I've heard they like to swing and climb," Bela says). But when they attend a party, they discover that the partygoers are actually children dressed in Halloween costumes. The use of speech balloons adds to the intimacy of Brown's detail-rich scenes, and the absence of parental figures contributes to an exultant mood. The lyrical, understated prose and clever outsider's perspective on the holiday might make this a new seasonal favorite.”

Monday, October 25, 7:30 PM
THE RUMPUS BOOK CLUB IN-PERSON DISCUSSION

First, The Rumpus announced its’ version of a book club – one whose members receive a hand-chosen book, for a thrilling insider’s early (before publication) look at what’s likely to be a very hot book. Club members are then invited to an online discussion with the author and with one another. (Read all about The Rumpus Book Club here.) What could be added to the mix? Why, a get-together to meet and talk with other club members in person!

We’re delighted to host these monthly gatherings this fall. Local book club members, come on in; if you’re a member from outside the Bay Area, but planning to be in our neighborhood, you come on in, too! Curious about The Rumpus and its book club? You, too!

Tonight: a discussion about Adam Levin’s The Instructions.

Tuesday, October 26, 7:00 PM
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou

Just in time for Halloween we travel to the seamy underbelly of an unnamed African nation reminiscent of the Congo. Very must recalling Joseph Conrad's "heart of darkness" Broken Glasshas been called "Fanon's 'wretched of the earth' updated for a new generation." It's the tale of a drunk, 64-year-old former teacher named Broken Glass and the lowlifes he hangs out with at the bar Credit Gone West. One day Broken Glass is recruited to write the history of all the regulars at Credit Gone West--a history that expands to cover the entire nation. We'll talk about Alain Mabanckou, seen by many as the wild child of African literature, as well as what the colorful tale might say (if anything) about contemporary Africa.

Join us on the fourth Tuesday of every month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you by Scott Esposito, of the Center for the Art of Translation and The Quarterly Conversation, who also fearlessly leads the discussion, brilliantly.. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.

STORYTELLING FOR DARKENING DAYS:
Wednesday, October 27, 7:30 PM
KATE BERNHEIMER
My Mother She Kille Me, My Father He Ate Me - 40 New Fairy Tales

“Let’s open the door to the greenroom and peek to see who is waiting. A bevy of beauties . . . an evanescence of sprites . . . an abundance of adversaries . . . a passel of princes . . . Maybe we should have brought that bubbly; but there’s something being served here more deeply inebriating than champagne. Hush.”
—Gregory Maguire, from the Foreword

Childhood memories of princesses and ogres dominate our perception of fairy tales. Yet for many modern writers, the fairy tale is a living art form as relevant today as the tales of the Brothers Grimm were hundreds of years ago. My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me, edited by Kate Bernheimer, is a celebration of this unique story form, with contributions from forty extraordinary writers. Inspired by everything from Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl” to fairy tales by Goethe and representing countries from China to Mexico, these stories will thrill you with worlds where the real and unreal exist side by side.

As the recent success of the film Alice in Wonderland illustrates, fairy tales are making a comeback, attracting attention from studios and scriptwriters who see their big screen potential. The contemporary writers whose stories fill this fabulous volume are already familiar with the power contained in fairy tales. They have mined the classic stories that thrilled us as children and lovingly transformed them into modern tales, applicable to adult lives. Those writers are Kim Addonizio, Chris Adrian, Rabih Alameddine, Naoko Awa, Aimee Bender, Francesca Lia Block, Karen Brennan, Kevin Brockmeier, Sarah Sun-Lien Bynum, Lucy Corin, Michael Cunningham, Ludmilla Petrusheyskaya, Kathryn Davis, Rikki Ducornet, Brian Evenson, Karen Joy Fowler, Neil Gaiman, Lily Hoang, Hiromi Ito, Shelley Jackson, Ilya Kaminsky, Jonathan Keats, Neil Labute, Kelly Link, Sabrina Orah Mark, Michael Martone, Joyelle McSweeney, Michael Mejia, Lydia Millet, Alissa Nutting, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Stacey Richter, Marjorie Sander, Timothy Schaffert, Jim Shepard, John Updike, Katherine Vaz, Kellie Wells, and Joy Williams.

The writers and stories in this unique collection represent amazing diversity. Neil Gaiman and Francesca Lia Block offer an entirely new take on Greek mythology. Naoko Awa and Hiromi Ito magically resurrect Japanese folktales. Bluebeard and his infamous castle are revived by Joyce Carol Oates and John Updike. Stacey Richter and Michael Martone reimagine lasting favorites such as “Cinderella” and “Jack and the Beanstalk.” My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me challenges us to preserve fairy tales for future generations. These, after all, are the stories that find a way to speak to everyone.

Kate Bernheimer is the founder and editor of the literary journal, Fairy Tale Review and the editor of two previous anthologies, Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: Women Writers Explore Their Favorite Fairy Tales and Brothers and Beasts: An Anthology of Men on Fairy Tales. She is also the author of several books, including two novels and a children’s book. She has published stories in such journals as Tin House, Western Humanities Review, and The Massachusetts Review. Her new story collection, Horse, Flower, Bird, is also just published; Kate will talk about this book, too, this evening. Bernheimer lives in Tucson, Arizona and teaches at the University of Louisiana in Lafayette.

Thursday, October 28, 7:30 PM
JEFF GREENWALD
Snake Lake

In a circular valley beneath the looming peaks of the Himalaya lies Kathmandu, Nepal. It’s a city of shimmering prayer flags, sacred cows, lavish festivals, and violent political turbulence -- and a world that journalist Jeff Greenwald has come to call home. Focused on the life-changing events that unfolded during one calamitous spring, Greenwald weaves a vivid tapestry of Buddhism, revolution, and the often serpentine paths to personal liberation.

Snake Lake unfolds during 1990's dramatic “people power” uprising against Nepal’s long-entrenched monarchy. The story follows Greenwald as he wins the friendship of a high lama who reveals the pillars of Tibetan Buddhism, embarks on a passionate romance with a spunky but curiously unlucky news photographer, and discovers what democracy means to rural Nepali citizens, all while covering the revolution for a major American newspaper. Meanwhile, back in the U.S., Greenwald's brilliant but troubled younger brother descends into a deepening depression. Jeff is forced to choose between witnessing Nepal’s long-overdue revolution and reconnecting with an alienated brother in desperate need of help.

“Jeff Greenwald has always been a great travel writer, but in Snake Lake he transcends the genre by taking us on a perilous journey through the human heart. By turns poignant and hilarious, Greenwald molds the dramas of his life into teaching stories, filled with both passion and wisdom.” -- Wes Nisker, author of The Essential Crazy Wisdom

Jeff Greenwald is the author of Shopping for Buddhas and The Size of the World. His writing has appeared in print and online in such publications as National Geographic Adventure, Wired, The New York Times Magazine, Tricycle and Salon.

Wednesday, November 3
7:00 PM

QUIET LIGHTNING

For the first time, Booksmith hosts Evan Karp and Rajshree Chauhan’s Quiet Lightning.

Quiet Lightning is a monthly submission-based reading series that features an unpredictable mash-up of performance poetry, academic fiction, inspiring rant dreams, and original combinations thereof. It takes accepted submissions and put them in an order that weaves varying patterns of language into a compelling and oft-intoxicating double set of literary mixtape madness. And it prints it all in a monthly book called sPARKLE & bLINK (available at the show!)

There are no introductions. Authors can't even say their names.

Join the gang. It's cheap ($3 to the hosts) and you won't forget it. Promise!


Thursday, November 4
7:30 PM

ANNE GERMANACOS
In the Time of the Girls

"The beauty of this unconventional collection is in its details: each moment offers a glimpse at a larger story while giving the reader intimate, wry, and acute details about the narrator or her surrounding characters. This makes for a light and lively reading experience...." – Publishers Weekly

These stories navigate turbulent waters from American shores, Aegean islands, and both sides of the Bosporus. Each examines borders (religious, cultural, sexual, social, generational, psychological, and moral) while also crossing them. They're seductive and sly. Like poetry, the stories are highly concentrated and contain strong images. Like fiction, they narrate a movement through time. With nothing extraneous, they pack a hard punch.

There's a new version of the Adam and Eve story as well as a contemporary take on Ovid's songs; a woman with a birthmark in the shape of a map has a penchant for risky travel; lightning strikes, minds are lost to disease, new languages are invented; a contemporary Oedipus, living with his mother in a house full of cats, is cured of his blindness; Odysseus and Penelope contemplate the Trojan War of a long marriage from both sides of the Golden Horn; a herd of goats gnaw on notepads stolen from a NYC hotel; tourists stuff their bags with fiery food in an attempt to imbibe the land; lost empires are contemplated and mourned; a young woman starves herself while trying to follow her father toward sainthood; a girl named Hera buys junk food, another named Artemis drinks soy milk; both eat ice cream called "Nirvana."

Born in San Francisco, as were three generations before her, Anne Germanacos has split her time between Greece and San Francisco for thirty years. Together with her husband, Nick Germanacos, she ran the Ithaka Cultural Studies Program on the islands of Kalymnos and Crete, and taught writing, literature, and Modern Greek. She holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars and has studied Greek, Turkish, Hebrew, Arabic, and Spanish. Her work has appeared in over sixty literary reviews and anthologies, including Dzanc's Best of the Web 2009.



Monday, November 8
7:30 PM

TOM HUDGENS
The Commonsense Kitchen
500 Recipes Plus Lessons for a Hand-Crafted Life

Equally at home on shelves urban and rural, The Commonsense Kitchenemphasizes sustainability, self-sufficiency, and American cuisine in a big way – literally. With 500 recipes that encompass the traditional dishes, regional specialties, and ethnic items that characterize America’s diversity, The Commonsense Kitchen also features lessons in life skills, from the proper way to wash dishes to how to make homemade soap.

The Commonsense Kitchen enjoys a fittingly unique heritage – originating in the mess hall of Deep Springs College, one of the toughest schools to get into in the United States (only 12 men are admitted each year). The curriculum includes supporting an organic farm and working cattle ranch in the high desert of California’s remote Sierra Nevada, where students participate in every aspect of maintenance.

The Commonsense Kitchen embodies the conscious approach to living espoused by Deep Springs, along with the fabulous food enjoyed there. From specialties such as Red Chile Enchiladas, Mama Nell’s Kentucky Bourbon Balls, Matzoh Ball Soup, My Mother’s Polish Sausage Stew, and Skillet Cornbread to basics likeBaked Salmon, four kinds of apple pie and some unbelievable pancakes, along with sophisticated indulgences including Black Truffle Risotto, The Commonsense Kitchen will quickly become your go-to source for smart, sensible and, most importantly, absolutely delicious dishes.

Tom Hudgens attended and cooked at Deep Springs Ranch, Chez Panisse, and Liberty Café in San Francisco. He teaches at College of Marin.



CROCHET FOOD DEMO, with cupcakes:
Tuesday, November 9
7:30 PM

TWINKIE CHAN
Twinkie Chan’s Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodies

With Twinkie Chan's Crochet Goodies for Fashion Foodies, crochet aficionados can have their cupcakes and wear them, too. The founder of her own popular line of food-inspired fashions, Twinkie Chan has whipped up a feast of head-turning scarves, mittens, hats, and more so that her many fans can learn to make her culinary creations at home.

This evening, Twinkie shares some visual demonstrations and inspirations. In her book, you'll find recipes for food-themed scarves that feature sushi, salad, gingerbread men, buttered toast, eggs and bacon, ice-cream cones, popcorn boxes, and more. You'll also learn how to make a pair of strawberry fingerless mittens, a chocolate cupcake hat complete with a cherry on top, and even a coconut-lemon cake tissue box cozy.

In three sections -- Sweet Things, Fruits and Veggies, and Savory Stuff -- and complete with an illustrated how-to section, lists of "ingredients" for each project, easy-to-follow, step-by-step directions, full-color photos and illustrations. Twinkie’s book gives both beginning and experienced crafters impetus to make these quirky, colorful, wearable confections.

Since the age of 10, Twinkie Chan (aka Stephanie Lee) has been crocheting zany goodies such as tiger-head Kleenex cozies, frog hats with dangly legs, and BBQ pork bun plushies for her friends and family. Fans are snapping up her crocheted goodies online at www.twinkiechan.com.

We’ll be showing a sample of her newest creations from her San Francisco-based Yummy You! Company –with a raffle for three Twinkie-crafted scarves! (Raffle tickets will be given to all those buying a copy of this book.) Plus: cupcakes!



Thursday, November 11
7:30 PM

SYED AFZAL HAIDER
To Be With Her

Of love and love lost, belonging and alienation, unflinching in its vision of the exile's American utopia, Haider offers a wise, poignant, often funny meditation on coming of age in his debut novel To Be With Her - a gripping, well-told tale, notable for its brisk, poetic style, and uniquely literate perspective on those who shuttle between cultures in our porous but volatile global community. With intellect and comic instincts Haider has created a seeker, a romantic, ardent moviegoer, who breaks from traditional Pakistani ways to be with the woman of his choice.

Syed Afzal Haider was born in India, grew up in Pakistan, and was educated in America, studying electrical engineering, psychology, and social work. After twenty plus years he forsook them all and escaped to writing. His short stories and essays have appeared in a variety of literary magazine including Saint Ann's Review, AmerAsia, Rambunctious Review, The Journal of Pakistani Literature, and Indian Voices. His short stories have been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and have won best short fiction awards; Oxford University Press, Milkweed Editions, Penguin Books, and Pearson, Longman Literature have anthologized Haider. He has stories forth coming in Marco Polo and Trajectory. He lives in Evanston, IL, with his wife and is the father of two wonderful, grown up boys.

To Be With Her is the first publication from Weavers Press, a new small publisher – which we also celebrate this evening -- helmed by San Franciscan Moazzem-Ahmed Sheik, who is also the author of The Idol Lover and Other Stories of Pakistan.



LA INK Superstar KAT VON D: BOOKSIGNING ONLY

Saturday, November 13
6:30 – 8:30 PM

KAT VON D
The Tattoo Chronicles

People can’t get enough of Kat Von D, the charismatic star of TLC’s LA Ink and one of the world’s most sought-after tattoo artists. In 2009 she released her first bookHigh Voltage Tattoo, which became an immediate New York Times bestseller. In her gorgeous new book, THE TATTOO CHRONICLES, Kat offers an intimate look at a pivotal year in her personal and professional life through an illustrated diary that begins in spring 2008 and ends in summer 2009.

When Kat does a tattoo, she writes about it and draws sketches in a journal, creating an entry for each piece. She has hundreds of ledgers of these entries in her own writing, which reflect upon not only upon the significance of the tattoo for the person who is receiving it, but also how the experience of creating this tattoo affects her personally. In these entries—some poignant, some hilarious, some confessional—she lays it on the line about how the experience of creating these tattoos affect her personally. Here are the highs and the lows, the good, the bad, and the ugly—including her feelings about her fame, her family, her then-boyfriend Nikki Sixx of Mötley Crüe, her friends, and fans.

Visually stunning and unique in its design from page to page, THE TATTOO CHRONICLES is jam-packed with tons of Kat’s images, from sketches of her tattoos to the finished works, and candid shots of friends, family, and her many unusual personal collections—all photographed by Kat herself.

Kat Von D is a tattooer and the star of LA Ink. In 2007, she set the Guinness World Record for doing the most tattoos in a 24-hour period. She is the creator of an exclusive makeup and fragrance line for Sephora. Her tattoo shop, High Voltage Tattoo, is in Hollywood, where she lives.

PLEASE NOTE: This is a book-signing only; Kat will not be speaking. You must purchase a book, in advance or at the event, from The Booksmith in order to join the signing line. Signing line space will be available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 5:30 PM.

Copies of The Tattoo Chronicles, as well as copies of High Voltage Tattoo, will be available on or around November 1. You may purchase your copies early in the store, by phone, at Booksmith.com, or via email (orders@booksmith.com). Kat will not have time to sign any memorabilia; please do not bring any.



Monday, November 15
7:30 PM

SAID SAYRAFIEZADEH
When Skateboards Will Be Free

"When Skateboards Will Be Free is a brave, honest and elegant book. It felt like the story was being whispered in my ear. I haven’t read a memoir in quite a while that has so skillfully made sense of an American childhood." -- Colum McCann, author ofLet the Great World Spin


“The revolution is not only inevitable, it is imminent. It is not only imminent, it is quite imminent. And when the time comes, my father will lead it.”

With a profound gift for capturing the absurd in life, and a deadpan wisdom that comes from surviving a surreal childhood in the Socialist Workers Party, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh has crafted an unsentimental, funny, heartbreaking memoir.

Saïd’s Iranian-born father and American Jewish mother had one thing in common: their unshakable conviction that the workers’ revolution was coming. Separated since their son was nine months old, they each pursued a dream of the perfect socialist society. Pinballing with his mother between makeshift Pittsburgh apartments, falling asleep at party meetings, longing for the luxuries he’s taught to despise, Said waits for the revolution that never, ever arrives. “Soon,” his mother assures him, while his long-absent father quixotically runs as a socialist candidate for president in an Iran about to fall under the ayatollahs. Then comes the hostage crisis. The uproar that follows is the first time Saïd hears the word “Iran” in school. There he is suddenly forced to confront the combustible stew of his identity: as an American, an Iranian, a Jew, a socialist... and a middle-school kid who loves football and video games.

Poised perfectly between tragedy and farce, here is a story by a brilliant young writer struggling to break away from the powerful mythologies of his upbringing and create a life—and a voice—of his own. Saïd Sayrafiezadeh’s memoir is unforgettable.

“[Saïd Sayrafiezadeh is a name] that you may want to remember…if this exacting and finely made first book is any indication…[He] writes with extraordinary power and restraint…[His] prose has some of [Isaac Bashevis] Singer’s wistful comedy, and good deal of that writer’s curiosity about the places where desire, self-sacrifice and societal obligation intersect and collide.” -- New York Times

When Skateboards Will Be Free was selected as one of the ten best books of 2009 by Dwight Garner of The New York Times. His short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Granta, The New York Times Book Review, and numerous other publications. Born in Brooklyn to a Jewish American mother and an Iranian father, raised in Pittsburgh, Saïd lives in New York City with his wife Karen Mainenti.



Tuesday, November 16
7:30 PM

KEVIN KELLY
What Technology Wants

Most of us have a love / hate relationship with new inventions—take the “crackberry,” for example. In WHAT TECHNOLOGY WANTS, Kevin Kelly declares this conflict as inherent to all technology. But he also argues that technology is an extension of life -- and an acceleration of the mind. Technology is not anti-nature, but rather the “seventh kingdom” of life: it now shares with life certain biases, urges, needs and tendencies.

The system of technology, which Kelly dubs the “technium,” “wants” in an unconscious way to head in certain directions, just as do life and evolution. The technium functions as a living, natural system. Just as evolution has tendencies, urges, trajectories, established forms, and a direction, so too does the technium.

So what is technology’s agenda? Where is it headed? What is the true nature of its increasing presence in our society? And how do the goals of the technological agenda relate to humanity’s goals? These are the questions Kelly examines as he uncovers three practical lessons: 1) by listening to what technology wants we can better prepare ourselves and our children for the inevitable technologies to come. 2) by adopting the principles of pro-action and engagement, we can steer technologies into their best roles. 3) and by aligning ourselves with the long-term imperatives of this near-living system, we can capture its full gifts.

Kevin Kelly is one of the true visionaries of our time. He was editor and publisher ofWhole Earth Review, helped launch Wired magazine and was its editor for nearly six years, and has been involved in such cultural innovations as The Hacker’s Conference, the early online community The Well, and the All Species Inventory. His last book, New Rules for the New Economy, sold over 100,000 copies in hardcover and paperback and hit the New York Times Business, Wall Street Journal, andBusiness Week bestseller lists. Kelly writes for publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Time, Harpers, Science, GQ, andEsquire, and he is currently editor and publisher of the popular Cool Tools, True Films, and Street Use websites.



Thursday, November 18
7:30 PM

SHAUGNESSY BISHOP-STALL
Ghosted

Growing up, Mason Dubisee had a hundred future selves: Jedi. Cowboy. Jedi-cowboy. Explorer. Rock star. Sandinista-Gandhi-Hemingway-Indiana-Jones type thing. But at thirty, he must finally face the truth: He’s a drug-addled drifter, an aspiring novelist unable to move beyond lists of titles and themes.

Desperate, he takes a job as “The Dogfather”—a downtown hot dog vendor. When a mysterious customer hires him to write a very personal letter, he stumbles into a shadow career, ghostwriting suicide notes for the despondent. The gig helps cover his gambling debts but takes an emotional toll. The trouble is, Mason is hardwired to rescue people, and no one needs rescuing more than the suicidal. Except maybe Willy, the heroin-addicted beauty he’s falling for.

What happens when someone wrestling with his own demons immerses himself in other people’s tragedies? Quite a lot: A hotdog cart is totaled, a convict sprung, a funeral faked, a head scalped, a horse stolen. As Mason’s professional and personal lives become entangled, his sanity is tested -- as is the line between suicide and murder.

Ghosted is a gritty literary thriller, a black comedy, a high-stakes poker caper, an urban cowboy adventure, and a love story. Bishop-Stall plunges fearlessly into the perilous terrain of drugs, love, and death in this ambitious debut.

Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall left Vancouver at seventeen to hitchhike to Costa Rica. After teaching English, painting houses, and picking olives in Mexico, Italy, and Spain, he worked as an actor and journalist and currently teaches writing at the University of Toronto. His book Down to This chronicles his year living with the homeless in the continent’s largest shantytown. He lives in Toronto.



Friday, November 19
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM

GREG GRAFFIN
Anarchy Evolution:
Faith, Science, and Bad Religion in a World Without God

“Take one man who rejects authority and religion, and leads a punk band. Take another man who wonders whether vertebrates arose in rivers or in the ocean, is fascinated by evolution, creativity, and Ice Age animals. Put them together, what do you get? Greg Graffin, and this uniquely fascinating book.”
— Jared Diamond, author of Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse

Most people recognize Greg as a punk icon, the lead singer of the legendary punk band Bad Religion, though many people don’t know is that he is a professor of Life Sciences and Evolution at UCLA. In Anarchy Evolution, Graffin weds his experiences in punk culture and the academic world, and explores the deep connection between art, religion, and science. Early this evening, Greg offers “Office Hours”, when you’ll have a chance to ask him questions about the book, his teaching work, and how his experiences in punk culture tie in with his academic pursuits

“I’ve always had a problem with authority.”
—Greg Graffin

As an adolescent growing up when “drugs, sex, and trouble could be had on any given night,” Graffin discovered that the study of evolution provided a framework through which he could make sense of the world. In this provocative and personal book, Graffin describes his own coming of age as an artist, as well as the formation of his naturalist worldview on questions involving God, science, and human meaning.

“Humble, challenging, and inspiring....For Graffin, the appeal of both worlds was that, at their best, they challenged authority, dogma and given truths and opened up space for the anarchic process of creativity.” -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“Graffin is one of those rare people who seem to have combined two lives into one. He’s one of a small but growing number of atheists in the United States willing to talk about the damage they believe religion can do.” -- Paste


Greg Graffin, born in Madison, Wisconsin, obtained his Ph.D. at Cornell University in zoology, and his master's degree at UCLA in geology. He has served as a lecturer in life sciences and paleontology at UCLA. 2010 marks the 30th anniversary of quintessential Los Angeles punk rock pioneers Bad Religion, and to kick off the yearlong celebration the band performed music spanning their storied career at multiple-night shows at House of Blues in Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego and Las Vegas. Having just completed their 15th studio album, they’ve finished a tour of Europe, and are now on tour in the US and Canada. Formed in 1980 in the suburbs of Los Angeles by teenage friends, Bad Religion have become synonymous with intelligent and provocative West Coast punk rock and are considered one of the most influential and important bands in the genre. Over the past three decades the band has continually pushed social boundaries and questioned authority and beliefs armed only with propulsive guitars, charging drumbeats, thoughtful lyrics and an undying will to inspire and provoke anyone who will listen.

Graffin’s co-author, who can’t be with us this evening, is Steve Olson, the author ofMapping Human History: Genes, Race, and Our Common Origins, which was one of five finalists for the 2002 nonfiction National Book Award and received the Science-in-Society Award from the National Association of Science Writers. He has been a consultant writer for the National Academy of Sciences as well as other organizations, and his writing has been featured in Atlantic Monthly, the Washington Post, Scientific American, and Wired, among other publications.

Preferred seating ticket available with the purchase of Anarchy Evolution at The Booksmith, while supplies last. This is Graffin’s only Bay Area signing.



KIDS @ THE BOOKSMITH:
Saturday, November 20
11:00 AM

How to Care for the Earth
with TODD PARR and the Rainforest Action Network

Bring the kids and join children’s author Todd Parr and Rainforest Action Network for a program on caring for rainforests and a reading of New York Times’ best-seller The Earth Book. The program will be followed by book signing and plenty of time for holiday shopping with The Earth Book and other Rainforest Safe titles available.

Todd Parr is the author and illustrator of more than 35 books. He is the creator of ToddWorld, an award winning, 3-time Emmy-nominated TV show for pre-school that airs around the world. Todd also recently partnered with Sesame Street Workshop to create short films, with the first one titled “Fears” airing in September during the premier episode of Season 41.

Rainforest Action Network is a San Francisco based environmental organization that campaigns for the forests, their inhabitants and the natural systems that sustain life by transforming the global marketplace through education, grassroots organizing, and non-violent direct action.



Saturday, November 20
7:30 PM

PETER BALAKIAN
Ziggurat

Widely known for his memoir and nonfiction on the Armenian genocide, Peter Balakian is also an accomplished poet, and Ziggurat is his first book of poems in nine years. Exploring history, self, and imagination, as well as his ongoing concerns with catastrophe and trauma, many of Balakian’s new poems wrestle with the aftermath and reverberations of 9/11.

Whether reliving the building of the World Trade Towers in the inventive forty-three section poem that anchors the book, walking the ruins of the Bosnian National Library in Sarajevo, meditating on Andy Warhol’s silk screens, or considering the confluence of music, language, and memory, Balakian continues his meditations on history, as well as the harshness and beauty of contemporary life, that his readers have enjoyed over the years. In a sensual, layered, and sometimes elliptical language, Balakian in Ziggurat explores absence, war, love, and art in a new age of American uncertainty.

Peter Balakian is the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in Humanities and professor of English at Colgate University. He is the author of five books of poems and three prose works, including The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response, a New York Times best seller; and Black Dog of Fate, a memoir, winner of the PEN/Albrand Prize.

“Peter Balakian’s new book Ziggurat ingests calamity and dissolves it into an exhilarating rhythm and image, pushing the language until it feels like it’s breaking into something new. This is how idioms change, advance. The harrowing long poem ‘A-Train/Ziggurat/Elegy’ jostles a range of perspectives and narratives. It is a panorama of contemporary witness, but a syncopation of the same. Balakian renders scenes and at the same time enacts the sensibility being breached and affected—9/11 is just short-hand for our new magnitudes of violence and dissociation. The frames of contemporary life, and our recent history, fit together because they have been brought to account in the self of the poet. The work aims to reveal the human capacity to integrate and, after hard passage, transcend.” – Sven Birkerts

“With characteristic originality, Balakian finds his echoing motif in the construction of the first great skyscraper, the Ziggurat at Ur, and this gives his epic poem, ‘A-Train/Ziggurat/ Elegy,’ a historical depth I have found nowhere else in American poetry in recent years. What Balakian has achieved here is a brilliant assimilation of the historical, philosophical, political, and psychological.” – Carolyn Forche



Monday, November 29
7:00 PM

RUMPUS BOOK CLUB IN-PERSON DISCUSSION

First, The Rumpus announced its’ version of a book club – one whose members receive a hand-chosen book, for a thrilling insider’s early (before publication) look at what’s likely to be a very hot book. Club members are then invited to an online discussion with the author and with one another. (Read all about The Rumpus Book Club here.) What could be added to the mix? Why, a get-together to meet and talk with other club members in person!

We’re delighted to host these monthly gatherings this fall. Local book club members, come on in; if you’re a member from outside the Bay Area, but planning to be in our neighborhood, you come on in, too! Curious about The Rumpus and its book club? You, too!

Tonight: a discussion about Rumpus Women: Personal Essays by Women, Volume 1.


Now! New! Never before seen!

Friday, December 3
8:00 PM

The Booksmith presents... the first ever...
LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY

What happens when clowns and books mix? Come find out at the
Booksmith's first LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY, hosted in collaboration with
the world-class local San Francisco Circus Center.

Drop in for thrilling talent and adult beverages as we transform our stacks into a living stage for clowning, live music, juggling, and books. Local clown mademoisellePolina Smith will play ringleader to this shiny new crew of local misfits, oddities and outcasts. See original and innovative clowning in an exciting new space -- but buy your tickets early, they'll sell out fast.

$10 at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006, and in the store



Thursday, December 9
7:30 PM

LIZA BAKEWELL
Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun

While studying in Mexico in the late 80s and 90s, linguistic anthropologist Liza Bakewell became obsessed with Mexicans’ use of the word madre in all its forms --un desmadre, a major disaster; de poca madre, great; vale madre, worthless; dar en la madre, give it in the mother (the weak spot). Her madre list growing by the day, edited and updated during cab rides, weddings, dinner parties, art studio visits, trips for tamales, and in conversation with friends and colleagues, Bakewell began asking: Why can’t a bien educada lady in Mexico say the word madre without raising eyebrows? How could madre mean whore as much as virgin? What happens to the ninety-nine madres when one father enters the room and they become a group of padres? How is it that parto (childbirth) is masculine, not to mention el love, el marriage, el sex, el pregnancy?

In thematically organized chapters titled Love, Mixed Messages, Food Fight, Lost in Los, Sounding it Out, Explaining What Happened, and Looking Back, Bakewell merges memoir with linguistics as she chronicles the evolving meanings of the word madre -- heavily influenced by the Church’s often fraught relationship with the Mexican State, she argues. In wildly lively prose rich in wordplay and attitude, Bakewell celebrates language and the role of the creative female in a sexist culture. (It’s one swell holiday gift for the language enthusiast!)

Liza Bakewell is a linguistic anthropologist at Brown University. Her writing has appeared in Words without Borders, Humanistic Quarterly, Frontiers, American Anthropologist, the Encyclopedia of Mexico, www.mesolore.net and other publications.

Wednesday, January 12
7:30 PM

GREIL MARCUS
BOB DYLAN
Writings 1968 – 2010

His foremost interpreter revisits more than forty years of listening to Dylan—weaving individual moods and moments into a brilliant history of their changing times

The book begins in Berkeley in 1968, and ends with a piece on Dylan's show at the University of Minnesota—his very first appearance at his alma mater—on election night 2008. In between are moments of euphoric discovery: From Marcus's liner notes for the 1967 Basement Tapes (pop music's most famous bootlegged archives) to his exploration of Dylan's reimagining of the American experience in the 1997Time Out of Mind. And rejection; Marcus's Rolling Stone piece on Dylan's album Self Portrait—often called the most famous record review ever written—began with "What is this shit?" and led to his departure from the magazine for five years. Marcus follows not only recordings but performances, books, movies, and all manner of highways and byways in which Bob Dylan has made himself felt in our culture.

Together the dozens of pieces collected here comprise a portrait of how, throughout his career, Bob Dylan has drawn upon and reinvented the landscape of traditional American song, its myths and choruses, heroes and villains. They are the result of a more than forty-year engagement between an unparalleled singer and a uniquely acute listener.

Greil Marcus is the author of When That Rough God Goes Riding and Like a Rolling Stone, The Old Weird America, The Shape of Things to Come, Mystery Train, Dead Elvis, In the Fascist Bathroom, and other books; a twentieth anniversary edition of his Lipstick Traces was published in 2009. With Werner Sollors he is the editor of A New Literary History of America. Since 2000 he has taught at Princeton, Berkeley, Minnesota, and the New School in New York; his column "Real Life Rock Top 10" appears regularly in The Believer.


Friday, January 14
8:00 PM

LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY

We had so much fun with clowns in the bookstore in December that we’re bringing them back!

Drop in for thrilling talent and adult beverages as we transform our stacks into a living stage for clowning, live music, juggling, and books. Local clown mademoiselle Polina Smith will play ringleader to this shiny crew of local misfits, oddities and outcasts – all graduates of the world-class San Francisco Circus Center. See original and innovative clowning in an unexpected space -- but buy your tickets early, they'll sell out fast.

$10 at Brown Paper Tickets or 800-838-3006, and in the store


Sunday, January 16
4:00 PM

PETER BRUCE
breasts are beautiful

Come join acclaimed photographer, Peter Bruce, as he discusses his b for a cureproject benefiting breast cancer charities, and the inaugural edition of its coffee table book featuring black and white photographs of over 300 nude-breasted volunteers:breasts are beautiful.

Peter will explain how he embarked on this philanthropic project at the beginning of 2010 and quickly found himself traveling the country to interact with everyday women concerned about the enormous reach of this unprejudiced disease. A portion of his volunteers are healthy, some proactively battled cancer, many lost loved ones – but most importantly, all were awe-inspiring in their commitment to help this cause. He’ll share stories from the production of the book, discuss technical aspects and difficulties encountered while capturing hundreds of models across six shoot locations, as well as the fortuitous participation of actress Jenny McCarthy, and DreamWorks artist, Devin Crane, and the complications of benevolence and how an overly skeptical society criticizes first, and researches later. From threatening phone calls and dunning emails, to charities unwilling to accept his donations, Peter will relate how hard it is to do good in modern America.

Peter Bruce was born in Australia and spent much of his life traveling the globe. He is a seasoned professional, experienced in many styles of photography. During his career, Peter has worked with a variety of clients, including Playboy, the Melbourne Opera, as well as shooting for major movie studios in Hollywood. However, he states that some of his most rewarding work has been with various charities over the years, including the F.I.R.E. and Dulaan projects (providing clothing for homeless children) and the Smile Train.


Wednesday, January 19
7:30 PM

AMY CHUA
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother

This is a story about a mother, two daughters, and two dogs.
This was supposed to be a story of how Chinese parents are better at raising kids than Western ones.
But instead, it’s about a bitter clash of cultures, a fleeting taste of glory, and how I was humbled by a thirteen-year-old. —Amy Chua

“A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it.” Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is bestselling author Amy Chua’s witty, awe-inspiring, and provocative memoir of extreme parenting, revealing the awards—and the costs— of raising her children the Chinese way.

When Amy, a first generation Chinese-American, married Jed they agreed that their children would be raised Jewish, like Jed, but would speak Mandarin Chinese. Amy also decided that she would hew closely to the Chinese tradition of child-rearing. Unlike your typical Western parents, who stress individuality and strive to create a nurturing environment, the Chinese believe you must prepare your children for the future by arming them with skills, strong work habits, and inner confidence. As Amy puts it: “the Chinese mother believes that 1) schoolwork always comes first; 2) an A-minus is a bad grade; 3) your children must be two years ahead of their classmates in math; 4) you must never compliment your children in public; 5) if your child ever disagrees with a teacher or coach, you must always take the side of the teacher or coach; 6) the only activities your children should be permitted to do are those in which they can eventually win a medal; and 7) that medal must be gold.”

With remarkable honesty and a great sense of humor, Amy chronicles her and her daughters’ experiences: the constant drills, the endless piano and violin practice, the successes (hello, Carnegie Hall) and the challenges—including a rebellion that upends all of Amy’s carefully laid plans. Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is an eye-opening exploration of the differences in Eastern and Western parenting that is sure to spark a national conversation about what it means to be a good parent.

"Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is the book we've all been waiting for – a candid, provocative, poignant and vicarious journey through the Chinese-American family culture. It will leave you breathless with its bluntness and emotion. Amy Chua is a Tiger Mother, a greatly gifted law professor and, ultimately, an honest, loving woman with a lot to say." –Tom Brokaw

Amy Chua is the daughter of Chinese immigrants, who arrived in the U.S. as graduate students in 1960. Along with her three younger sisters, Amy grew up in the Midwest under conditions of extremely strict but also extremely loving “Chinese parenting.” She attended El Cerrito High School in California and went on to graduate from Harvard College (1984) and Harvard Law School (1987).

After law school, Amy practiced on Wall Street for a few years, and then taught at Duke, Stanford, and NYU. In 2001 she joined the faculty of the Yale Law School, where she teaches in the areas of contracts, law and development, international business transactions, and law and globalization. She is a recipient of the Yale Law School’s “Best Teaching” award.

Amy’s first book, World on Fire: How Exporting Free Market Democracy Breeds Ethnic Hatred and Global Instability, was a New York Times bestseller. Her second book, Day of Empire: How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance – and Why They Fall, was a critically acclaimed Foreign Affairs bestseller.


Thursday, January 20
7:30 PM

PITCHAPALOOZA! Calling All Writers!

The Book Doctors, aka David Henry Sterry, and ex-agent/current wife Arielle Eckstut, authors of the The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, will make a house call in San Francisco, and they want YOU to PITCH your BOOK at their Pitchapalooza.

It’s like American Idol for books, only without the Simon. Writers get one minute to pitch their book ideas to a once-in-a-lifetime All-Star cast of publishing experts. Plus: every writer who buys a book at The Booksmith will receive a free consultation withThe Book Doctors, a $100 value!

Arielle has been a literary agent for 18 years, and David is the best-selling author of more than a dozen books, the last of which appeared on the cover of the Sunday New York Times Book Review. They’ve helped dozens and dozens of talented amateurs become professionally published authors. They’ve appeared on NPR many times, and taught publishing at Stanford University. Joining them this evening are Elise Cannon, VP & Director of Field Sales at Publisher’s Group West, and others to be announced.

“A must-have for every aspiring writer.” – Khaled Hosseini, New York Times bestselling author of The Kite Runner

“Refreshingly honest, knowledgeable and detailed. . . . An invaluable resource”—Jamie Raab, publisher, Grand Central Publishing

The world is still filled with countless aspiring authors who want to write books and get them read. As the rise of e-readers suggests, the book—in whatever form—certainly isn’t going anywhere!

So the question becomes: How can authors use this new digital landscape to get their books into the hands of readers?

Throughout The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published: How to Write It, Sell It, and Market It…Successfully! Eckstut and Sterry demystify every step of the publishing process, explaining how to :

come up with a search-engine-friendly, blockbuster title,
create a selling proposal,
find the right agent,
develop marketing and publicity savvy,
determine whether self-publishing is right for you,
put together a great event,
produce an effective video book trailer,
understand electronic publishing, e-book pricing and royalties, and much more.

The book includes interviews with hundreds of publishing insiders and authors, including Seth Godin, Neil Gaiman, Amy Bloom, Margaret Atwood, Larry Kirshbaum, and Leonard Lopate, plus agents, publicists, editors, booksellers, web wizards, and social networking gurus; sidebars featuring real-life publishing success stories, sample proposals, query letters, and a feature-rich website and community for authors.

Arielle Eckstut, cofounder of LittleMissMatched, an iconic brand with stores in Disneyland and Grand Central Station, is a writer, entrepreneur, and agent-at-large for the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. She is the author of Pride and Promiscuity: The Lost Sex Scenes of Jane Austen

David Henry Sterry is the coeditor of Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys (front page review, The New York Times Book Review) and author of Master of Ceremonies, Chicken, Satchel Sez, and most recently, The Glorious World Cup. He is also an actor, media coach, book doctor, Huffington Post regular, and activist. The authors are married and live in Montclair, New Jersey, with their daughter.

Check out a few previous Pitchapalooza here and here.


Sunday, January 23
4:00 PM

Young Writers Project Student Reading

50,000 young writers around the globe wrote novels this past November! They were participants in National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo), a fun, seat-of-your-pants writing adventure where the challenge is to pen an entire novel in one month. About 30 Bay Area classrooms took part this year, and we’ll be presenting a selection of budding novelists at the fourth annual Young Writers Program Thank Goodness It’s Over Reading and Celebration. With revised manuscripts fresh off the presses, these authors—aged elementary through high school—are excited to share their work. Book lovers of all ages are invited to attend this reading and, we hope, be inspired to write their own novels next year!


Thursday, January 27
7:30 PM

JANE McGONIGAL
Reality is Broken:
Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World

Reality is Broken reveals the hidden connections among three hot-button topics in the world of business, psychology and technology. These three topics by themselves have been the subject of a number of bestselling books, but Reality is Broken brings them together for the first time to tell a much larger story: The story of how computer and video games can produce real happiness and help us collaborate in ways that change the world.


But Jane McGonigal would argue the time has come to move beyond these kinds of books, beyond present debates over the value of games and game culture, because the reality is the gap between gamers and non-gamers is disappearing: Game-playing, in all its various applications, is already as integrated into our lives as work, school and play. Reality is Broken: will completely reorient how you think about games and the people who play them.

She begins with a simple observation: In today’s society, games are fulfilling real human needs in ways that reality is not. Hundred of millions of people globally—174 million in the United States alone—regularly inhabit game worlds because they provide the rewards, stimulating challenges and victories that so often are lacking in the real world. In fact, compared to games, reality just doesn’t cut it. It doesn’t motivate us as effectively; it isn’t engineered to maximize our potential, and wasn’t designed from the bottom up to make us happy. In other words, reality is broken, and we need to start making games to fix it.

What if the right kind of games could actually change a player’s habits for the better (eat less, exercise more, conserve electricity, stop smoking)? What if in participating in the game, real world problems are worked on and inspire real-world change (stopping war, ending poverty, curing cancer)? Isn’t imaging a better future the first step in actually creating one?

McGonigal’s argument might sound counterintuitive, but she makes her case with extensive research and real-world examples of how games—what she calls “good games”—already are improving the quality of our daily lives, fighting social problems like depression and obesity, and addressing vital 21st century challenges. McGonigal persuasively argues that those who continue to dismiss games as escapist entertainment will be at a major disadvantage in the coming years, unable to leverage the collaborative and motivational power of games in their own lives, their businesses, and around the world. Reality is Broken offers everyone a framework for making decisions about “good gaming.”

World-renowned game designer and futurist Jane McGonigal, PhD. takes play seriously. McGonigal is the Director of Game Research and Development at the Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, where she earned Harvard Business Reviewhonors for "Top 20 Breakthrough Ideas of 2008" for her work on the future of games. Her work has been featured in The Economist, Wired, and The New York Times; and on MTV, CNN, BBC, and NPR. In 2009, BusinessWeek called her one of the 10 most important innovators to watch, and Fast Company hailed her as one of the 100 most creative people in business. She has given keynote addresses at TED, South by Southwest Interactive, the Game Developers Conference, ETech, and the Web 2.0 Summit, and has been a featured speaker at The New Yorker Conference. Born in Philadelphia in 1977 and raised in New York, Jane now lives in San Francisco with her husband.

Visit www.realityisbroken.org for more information about the book and Jane McGonigal.

Want to play a “good game”? Here are some suggestions: EVOKE, Fold It!, The Epic Win App, Flower, Code of Everand, SuperBetter, The MP Expenses Game,Budgetball, the Pokéwalker, Quest to Learn, Little Big Planet: Gamechangers, World Without Oil, Seek ‘n Spell, Goal Mafia,and Conspiracy for Good


Friday, January 28
7:30 PM

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSELL and VIOLET BLUE
with Susie Hara, Dustry Horn, and Donna George Storey
Gotta Have It
69 Stories of Sudden Sex

Award-winning local writer and sexpert Violet Blue (Best Women’s Erotica 2011, Seal It With a Kiss) and New York-based erotica author and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel (Orgasmic, Fast Girls) join forces to bring you an evening of sexy smut! Featuring local Orgasmic contributors Susie Hara, Dusty Horn, and Donna George Storey, plus free cupcakes, this promises to be a steamy night of sensuous stories.

Every word counts in each of these stories that get right to the point. Rachel Kramer Bussel returns to The Booksmith with a plentitude of short, original erotica stories spanning every way you can "get it on" in every kind of setting, with a wild and wide variety of sexual orientation - quickie sex threesomes, sex toys, public sex, BDSM, fetishes, fantasies and MUCH more.

Rachel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, hosts the In The Flesh Erotic Reading Series, writes a featured column in SexIS, and formerly wrote the "Lusty Lady" sex column for The Village Voice. She has edited the Best Sex Writing series since 2008. A prolific erotica editor, her titles include Spanked, He’s on Top, Yes, Ma'am, Crossdressing, and Bottoms Up. Rachel holds a bachelor's degree in political science and women's studies from the University of California at Berkeley and has studied at the New York University School of Law. Visit her at www.rachelkramerbussel.com.

Tuesday, February 1
7:30 PM

CITIZEN JOURNALISM AND THE NEW MEDIA ECOLOGY
with PETER RICHARDSON and ROSE AGUILAR

We will always have news. The question is, will we have journalism? In 1985, 25 corporations controlled everything we read, hear, and see. Today, it's only six. Because profit is the ultimate goal, hard hitting journalism for the public good is greatly lacking. Rose Aguilar and Peter Richardson review the alternatives and propose new forms of citizen journalism that depend less on advertising and more on the recognition that political information is a public good and crucial for a healthy democracy. They also argue that a healthy media ecology needs both large media outlets and savvy fringe players to keep them honest. You are invited to join the conversation.

Rose Aguilar is the host of KALW's "Your Call" and author of Red Highways: A Liberal's Journey into the Heartland. Peter Richardson is the author of the critically acclaimed A Bomb in Every Issue: How the Short, Unruly Life of Ramparts Magazine Changed America and teaches at San Francisco State University.


SOLD OUT:
Friday, February 4
6:30 – 9:30 PM

BOOKSMITH BOOKSWAP, LOVE EDITION
Eat, Drink, Talk, (Swap) Books

Love is everywhere in literature, but it is never simple. Love can be between people or for a thing, it can be for a hobby, a place, a game, an idea; love can be doomed, twisted, transcendent, unrequited, comedy, tragedy...or destiny. One thing is certain, love is never boring.

For February's Bookswap, bring a book that contains love. We don't necessarily mean a love story in the traditional sense (though it could be); we're curious about strange, unexpected and interesting forms of love. Use your imagination…and get ready to passionately describe your choice. You’ll swap your book for someone else’s heartfelt choice. What a way to hear about books we might never stumble upon ourselves!...

As always, we'll have loads of delicious food and free flowing wine. You'll also receive a 20% off discount card!

Our very special guests this month are writers Ellen Sussman (Dirty Girls) and Rodes Fishburne (Going to See the Elephant).

The Examiner notes, "The Bookswap embodies the spirit both of innovation and community and is proof that there is a strong desire for "and much to be learned from" independent bookstores in the 21st century."

Space is very limited -- these events sell out, so we urge you to get your tickets well in advance! As always, tickets must be purchased in advance, in the store, or at Brown Paper Tickets (or phone 800-838-3006).


Tuesday, February 8
7:30 PM

TATJANA SOLI
The Lotus Eaters

Now in paperback, Tatjana Soli’s The Lotus Eaters is a unique and sweeping debut novel of an American female combat photographer in the Vietnam War, as she captures the wrenching chaos and finds herself torn between the love of two men.

On a stifling day in 1975, the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll into Saigon. As the fall of the city begins, two lovers make their way through the streets to escape to a new life. Helen Adams, an American photojournalist, must take leave of a war she is addicted to and a devastated country she has come to love. Linh, the Vietnamese man who loves her, must grapple with his own conflicted loyalties of heart and homeland. As they race to leave, they play out a drama of devotion and betrayal that spins them back through twelve war-torn years, beginning in the splendor of Angkor Wat, with their mentor, larger-than-life war correspondent Sam Darrow, once Helen's infuriating love and fiercest competitor, and Linh's secret keeper, boss and truest friend.

"The Lotus Eaters is a mesmerizing novel. Tatjana Soli takes on a monumental task by re-examining a heavily chronicled time and painting it with a lovely, fresh palette. The book is a true gift from a promising new writer." -- Katie Crouch, author of Girls in Trucks and Men and Dogs

"Set amid the twin infernos of Cambodia and Vietnam in the early 1970's, The Lotus Eaters draws the reader into a haunting world of war, betrayal, courage, obsession, and love. Tatjana Soli's spare, lucid prose infuses this novel with a dramatic clarity that makes us eyewitnesses to the collapse of two civilizations. More than that, The Lotus Eaters helps us to see and hear and feel the terrible human costs of that conflagration." -- Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried

Tatjana Soli was born in Salzburg, Austria, attended Stanford University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program. Her stories have appeared in The Sun, StoryQuarterly, Confrontation, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Nimrod, Third Coast, Carolina Quarterly, Sonora Review and North Dakota Quarterly among other publications. Her work has been twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She was awarded the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Prize, the Dana Award, and was a finalist for the Bellwether Prize. The Lotus Eaters was named a Notable Book of 2010 by The New York Times, and Top Debut of 2010 by Kirkus.


Wednesday, February 9
7:30 PM

DAVID VANN
Caribou Island

Set against the backdrop of Alaska’s unforgiving wilderness, Caribou Island is David Vann’s dark and captivating (and thoroughly riveting) tale of a marriage pulled apart by rage and regret. With this eagerly anticipated debut novel, a masterful follow-up to his internationally bestselling short fiction anthology, Legend of a Suicide, Vann takes up the mantle of Louise Erdrich, Marilyn Robinson, and Rick Moody, delivering a powerfully wrought, enthrallingly emotional narrative of struggle and isolation.

On a small island in a glacier-fed lake on Alaska's Kenai Peninsula, a marriage is unraveling. Gary, driven by thirty years of diverted plans, and Irene, haunted by a tragedy in her past, are trying to rebuild their life together. Following the outline of Gary's old dream, they're hauling logs to Caribou Island in good weather and in terrible storms, in sickness and in health, to build the kind of cabin that drew them to Alaska in the first place.

But this island is not right for Irene. They are building without plans or advice, and when winter comes early, the overwhelming isolation of the prehistoric wilderness threatens their bond to the core. Caught in the emotional maelstrom is their adult daughter, Rhoda, who is wrestling with the hopes and disappointments of her own life. Devoted to her parents, she watches helplessly as they drift further apart.

Brilliantly drawn and fiercely honest, Caribou Island captures the drama and pathos of a husband and wife whose bitter love, failed dreams, and tragic past push them to the edge of destruction. A portrait of desolation, violence, and the darkness of the soul, it is an explosive and unforgettable novel from a writer of limitless possibility.

“Vann established himself as one of the most exciting new talents to come out of America with his short-story collection Legend of a Suicide, which
was loosely based around his father’s death. This first novel, set once again in Alaska , proves it was no fluke, and that he is an extravagantly gifted
and moving writer.” -- The Sunday Times (London)

“Surely one of the most eagerly anticipated novels of the year . . . Caribou Island is a scant 300 pages, and written in prose as pellucid as the rivers
he used to fish as a boy. But it says so much: about men and women, about marriage, about the desperate gap between who we want to be and who
we are.” -- The Observer (The Guardian, UK)

“Caribou Island earns Vann a seat beside the masters—no longer as a student but as a peer. A+” -- San Francisco Magazine

A former National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, Wallace Stegner Fellow, and John L'Heureux Fellow, David Vann has taught at Stanford, Cornell, SF
State, FSU, and is currently an Associate Professor at the University of San Francisco. He was born on Adak Island, Alaska and lives in the Bay
Area with his wife Nancy.


Friday, February 11
8:00 PM

LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY: BOOKS MEET CLOWNS

With featured performer Thomas John and his NEW piece,
The Battle Hymn of the American Juggler

February's Cabaret also includes more amazing performers -- Tristan Cunnigham, Luz Gaxiola, Cathy Diebold, Audrey Spinazola, Texas Holly, Abraham Dover and Polina Smith -- from Circus Bella, Circus Finelli and affiliates of the San Francisco Circus Arts! There will be juggling, accordions, acrobatics, music and lots and lots of laughs!

Tickets $10 in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006 (21+, please; wines will be served)

“Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.” – William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night


Monday, February 14
7:00 PM

A little wine, a little chocolate, and
HOW TO TRAIN YOUR LOVER

Dr. Rhonda, relationship expert, wants to help you apply the scientific method to your relationship in a one-hour lecture, demonstration and performance workshop for singles and couples. Based on her forthcoming book, How To Train Your Lover in Five Easy Steps, the workshop promises to “provide answers to some of the stickiest questions people ask about relationships,” says Rhonda.

“Most people think, ‘all I have to do is be nice, and I’ll be loved and rewarded’,” Dr. Rhonda points out. “They couldn’t be more wrong. Isn’t it always the nicest people who get hurt in relationships?”

The bombshell psychiatrist says she has spent years researching scientific methods for regaining power and control in abusive relationships. “In my workshop, participants will learn how to come out on top in their love lives,” she says. “I cover meeting the right kind of prospect, establishing an advantage from the beginning, and how to maintain the upper hand throughout the relationship.”

Dr. Rhonda notes that all of the skills she teaches have been used on her.
“I’ve developed a foolproof plan that enables meek and timid lovers to preemptively prevent abusive relationship patterns from becoming a problem for them,” Dr. Rhonda maintains. “All you need is the confidence to drive the bus, and my workshop will help you build that confidence.”

How To Train Your Lover In Five Easy Steps illustrator REBECCA MIGDAL will be on hand to sign books, including Last Gasp’s new anthology Best Erotic Comics #3, which also features her artwork. Migdal’s work appears in many of the semi-annual World War 3 volumes, Rosetta Stone Comics, Crime and Punishment, The Yes Men in Judgment Day, and many other comics platforms.

We assure you a most useful and pleasurable, and, may we say, hilarious, Valentine’s evening. Please make plans to be our Valentine and join us!

Wednesday, February 16
7:30 PM

Words from The Translator:
DAMION SEARLS on Aliss at the Fire by Jon Fosse

Called "the new Ibsen" in the German press, and heralded throughout Western Europe, Jon Fosse is one of contemporary Norwegian literature's most important writers. In 2000, his novelMelancholy won the Melsom Prize, and Fosse was awarded a lifetime stipend from the Norwegian government for his future literary efforts.

In her old house by the fjord, Signe lies on a bench and sees a vision of herself as she was more than twenty years earlier: standing by the window waiting for her husband Asle, on that terrible late November day when he took his rowboat out onto the water and never returned. Her memories widen out to include their whole life together, and beyond: the bonds of one family and their battles with implacable nature stretching back over five generations, to Asle's great-great- grandmother Aliss. In Jon Fosse's vivid, hallucinatory prose, all these moments in time inhabit the same space, and the ghosts of the past collide with those who still live on. Aliss at the Fire is a haunting exploration of love, ranking among the greatest meditations on marriage and loss.

Damion Searls is a translator from German, Norwegian, French, and Dutch and a writer in English. He has translated many of Europe's greatest writers, including Proust, Rilke, Robert Walser, Ingeborg Bachmann, Thomas Bernhard, Kurt Schwitters, Peter Handke, Jon Fosse, and Nescio, edited a new abridged edition of Thoreau's Journal, and produced a lost work of Melville's.

Searls grew up in New York City, studied German philosophy at Harvard and American literature at UC Berkeley, and has received writing and translating awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, PEN America, the Netherland America Foundation, the University of California, and the Austrian, Belgian, and Dutch governments.

This evening, Scott Esposito (The Quarterly Conversation; the Center for the Art of Translation) talks with Damion about all things translation.

Co-sponsored by the Center for the Art of Translation


Thursday, February 17
7:30 PM

MICHAEL DAVID LUKAS
The Oracle of Stamboul

Celebrate with us an elegantly crafted, utterly enchanting debut novel set in a mystical, exotic world, in which a gifted young girl charms a sultan and changes the course of an empire's history

Late in the summer of 1877, a flock of purple-and-white hoopoes suddenly appears over the town of Constanta on the Black Sea, and Eleonora Cohen is ushered into the world by a mysterious pair of Tartar midwives who arrive just minutes before her birth. "They had read the signs, they said: a sea of horses, a conference of birds, the North Star in alignment with the moon. It was a prophecy that their last king had given on his deathwatch." But joy is mixed with tragedy, for Eleonora's mother dies soon after the birth.

Raised by her doting father, Yakob, a carpet merchant, and her stern, resentful stepmother, Ruxandra, Eleonora spends her early years daydreaming and doing housework—until the moment she teaches herself to read, and her father recognizes that she is an extraordinarily gifted child, a prodigy.

When Yakob sets off by boat for Stamboul on business, eight-year-old Eleonora, unable to bear the separation, stows away in one of his trunks. On the shores of the Bosporus, in the house of her father's business partner, Moncef Bey, a new life awaits. Books, backgammon, beautiful dresses and shoes, markets swarming with color and life—the imperial capital overflows with elegance, and mystery. For in the narrow streets of Stamboul—a city at the crossroads of the world—intrigue and gossip are currency, and people are not always what they seem. Eleonora's tutor, an American minister and educator, may be a spy. The kindly though elusive Moncef Bey has a past history of secret societies and political maneuvering. And what is to be made of the eccentric, charming Sultan Abdulhamid II himself, beleaguered by friend and foe alike as his unwieldy, multiethnic empire crumbles?

Michael David Lukas has been a Fulbright scholar in Turkey, a late-shift proofreader in Tel Aviv, and a Rotary scholar in Tunisia. He is a graduate of Brown University and the University of Maryland, and his writing has been published in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Slate,National Geographic Traveler, and the Georgia Review. Lukas lives in Oakland, less than a mile from where he was born. When he isn't writing, he teaches creative writing to third- and fourth-graders.

AUTHOR EVENT JUST ADDED!
RESERVED SEAT TICKETS AVAILABLE WITH PURCHASE OF BOOK, while supplies last*

Sunday, February 20
4:00 PM

SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE
The Emperor of All Maladies:
A Biography of Cancer

The Booksmith is extremely pleased to present the author of the “sweeping, erudite, and challenging” The Emperor of All Maladies, the new, uniformly praised “biography” of the shape-shifting and formidable disease that has plagued and riddled humanity for thousands of years.

From the first known reference to cancer on an ancient Egyptian scroll to the epic modern battles to conquer it, Mukherjee, a leading cancer physician and researcher, approaches this crucial subject with the passion and fixation of a biographer and the flourish of a novelist. The Emperor of All Maladies is a story that touches on the brilliance and tenacity that frequently make scientific history—and also on the serendipitous discoveries.

Mukherjee introduces readers to key figures such as Sidney Farber, the father of modern chemotherapy, holed up in the cellar of a Boston hospital and characterized by a colleague as a “cancer maniac,” and William Halsted, bewhiskered, obsessive, and addicted to cocaine, who created and perfected the radical and super-radical mastectomies that became the norm in cases of breast cancer for decades. We learn about the accidental discovery during World War I of mustard gas as a method for killing cancer cells, and from there the experimental evolution into the specialized chemicals that are just deadly enough to kill cancerous cells without killing normal cells.

Mukherjee tells these stories with the grand sweep that marks The Emperor of All Maladies as a work of major literature, seamlessly weaving significant moments in cultural history into the narrative. It is also something more personal: readers will be moved by Mukherjee’s observations about his own coming of age as a physician—especially in his thoughtful and compassionate consideration of his patients as they soldier through toxic, bruising, and draining regimens to battle a relentless disease that fully envelops their lives.

In the past 50 years, Americans have watched as various strategies in the “War on Cancer” have earned the attention of politicians, physicians, the media and, of course, the public. Cancer is now projected to become the leading cause of death worldwide. Cases of cancer doubled globally between 1975 and 2000, and will double again by 2020, nearly tripling by 2030. In America, one in two men and one in three women will get cancer during their lifetime; one in four will die. The Emperor of All Maladies could not be more timely nor essential reading, and Mukherjee writes with such clarity and verve that we feel enlightened, even uplifted, despite those grim figures.

SIDDHARTHA MUKHERJEE, M.D., Ph.D., is a cancer physician and researcher. He is an assistant professor of medicine at Columbia University and a cancer physician at the CU/NYU Presbyterian Hospital. A Rhodes Scholar, he graduated from Stanford University, University of Oxford, and Harvard Medical School and was a Fellow at theDana Farber Cancer Institute and an attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. He has published articles in Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, Neuron, Journal of Clinical Investigation, The New York Times, and The New Republic. He lives in New York with his wife and daughters.

* you may request a reserved seat ticket when you purchase a copy of The Emperor of All Maladies at or by phoning The Booksmith, or online at Booksmith.com by noting “reserved seat requested” in the notes field of your order. All seats so reserved must be taken no later than fifteen minutes before Dr. Mukherjee’s talk; otherwise, they will be given to others.


A New York Times’ 10 Best Books of 2010

Daily Beast 20 Must Reads

“It’s hard to think of many books for a general audience that have rendered any area of modern science and technology with such intelligence, accessibility, and compassion. “The Emperor of All Maladies” is an extraordinary achievement.” – The New Yorker

“All patients begin as storytellers, the oncologist Siddhartha Mukherjee observes near the start of this powerful and ambitious first book.…It is an epic story that he seems compelled to tell, the way a passionate young priest might attempt a biography of Satan.” – The New York Times Book Review

“With this riveting and moving book, Siddhartha Mukherjee joins the first rank of those rare doctor-​​authors who can wield a pen as gracefully as a scalpel: Jerome Groopman, Atul Gawande, Richard Selzer. A magisterial, wise, and deeply human piece of writing.” -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost and Bury the Chains

“An elegant … tour de force. The Emperor of All Maladies reads like a novel … but it deals with real people and real successes, as well as with the many false notions and false leads. Not only will the book bring cancer research and cancer biology to the lay public, it will help attract young researchers to a field that is at once exciting and heart wrenching … and important.” -- Donald Berry, Ph.D., Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas

“Sid Mukherjee’s book is a pleasure to read, if that is the right word. Cancer today is widely regarded as the worst of all the diseases from which one might suffer — if only because it is fast becoming the most common. Dr. Mukherjee explains how this perception came about, how cancer has been regarded across the years and what is now being done to treat its protean forms. His book is the clearest account I have read on this subject. With The Emperor of All Maladies, he joins that small fraternity of practicing doctors who can not just talk about their profession but write about it.” -- Tony Judt, author of Postwar and Ill Fares the Land

“Siddhartha Mukherjee has done something that should not have been possible: he has managed, at once, to write an authoritative history of cancer for the general reader, while always keeping the experiences of cancer patients in his heart and in his narrative. At once learned and skeptical, unsentimental and humane, The Emperor of all Maladies is that rarest of things—a noble book.” -- —David Rieff, author of Swimming in a Sea of Death

“The Emperor of All Maladies beautifully describes the nature of cancer from a patient’s perspective and how basic research has opened the door to understanding this disease.” -- Bert Vogelstein, Director, Ludwig Center at Johns Hopkins University

“Rarely have the science and poetry of illness been so elegantly braided together as they are in this erudite, engrossing, kind book. Mukherjee’s clinical wisdom never erases the personal tragedies which are its occasion; indeed, he locates with meticulous clarity and profound compassion the beautiful hope buried in cancer’s ravages.” -- Andrew Solomon, National Book Award-​​winning author of The Noonday Demon

Monday, February 21
7:30 PM

MIRA BARTOK
The Memory Palace

“The Memory Palace is almost a fairy tale: two little girls grow up under the spell of their mother’s madness. But it really did happen, once upon a time, and Mira Bartók uses her considerable powers of recollection and compassion to understand her family and to present them to readers as complete, loved human beings. This is an extraordinary book.” -- Audrey Niffenegger, author of The Time Traveler’s Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry

“Even now, when the phone rings late at night, I think it’s her. I stumble out of bed ready for the worst. The last time my mother called was in 1990. I was thirty-one and living in Chicago. She said if I didn’t come home right away she’d kill herself.”

So opens Mira Bartók’s stunning and powerful memoir The Memory Palace. In the footsteps of The Glass Castle and The Liars’ Club, Mira chronicles her life with her brilliant but mentally ill mother Norma, and explores their volatile relationship and ultimately unbreakable bond with astonishing and unforgettable lyrical power.

A piano prodigy in her youth, Norma’s severe case of schizophrenia created a hellish upbringing for Mira and her sister. When they were young, Norma neglected the girls, and Mira and her sister were forced to make do on their own. As the girls entered their teenage years, Norma’s illness grew progressively severe – she tried to be a loving mother, but her illness made it impossible. Norma became more and more obsessed with her daughters – at times, she wouldn’t let them go to school because she was afraid they would leave her, and she entered their room at night and told them that people were stalking them and wanted them dead. When they left for college, Norma would call Mira and her sister dozens of times a day, appear unannounced at their jobs and apartments, and threaten them if they suggested that she get treatment for her illness.

Finally, after Norma attacked her daughters when they insisted she get help, Mira and her sister decided that, in order to stay safe, they had to change their names and cut off all communication with her. Myra Herr became Mira Bartók. For the next seventeen years, Mira’s only contact with her mother was through letters exchanged through a post office box that she set up so that Norma wouldn’t be able to find her.

During that time she spent away from her mother, Mira travelled the world and continued her career as an artist, but when she was 40, a debilitating car accident left her with a terrible brain injury. She could retrain herself to draw and write, but struggled to regain some of her memories. When she received word that her mother was dying in a hospital in Cleveland, Mira and her sister traveled to see Norma and to reconcile with her. In the hospital, Mira found Norma’s set of keys in a dirty sock in her backpack. Norma told her that one of the keys was to a storage unit where she kept all of her belongings – the sisters went to the unit and discovered hundreds of diaries, photographs, and mementos from their past that Mira never thought she would see again. They triggered a flood of memories and gave Mira access to the past that she believed had been lost forever and inspired her to paint a memory palace, based on a mnemonic practice from the Renaissance used to create a visual map in one’s mind in order to recall people and events.

Mira’s original paintings of her memory palace appear throughout the book, as do passages from her mother’s letters to her and entries from her mother’s journals. Norma’s writing became more and more desperate as the years went by, and readers will be riveted as they become spectators to her descent deeper into madness. But Mira’s beautiful prose and her incredible resilience through everything that life throws at her makes her story impossible to put down. At turns heartbreaking and uplifting, The Memory Palace is an unforgettable memoir that forces you to reflect on your own relationships with loved ones and consider the importance of family and love and forgiveness.

Alison Bechdel, bestselling and award-winning author of Funhouse: A Family Tragicomic, writes that Mira’s “harrowing and beautiful tale of growing up with her paranoid schizophrenic mother is in some ways a memoir about memory itself. For Bartok—suffering from a brain injury and raised by someone who had tenuous contact with the external world—the question “what really happened” takes on a particular urgency. She answers it with painstaking honesty…And as she recalls the shattering experiences of her childhood, literally illuminating them with her haunting mnemonic paintings, something that was never intact is made resonantly whole again.”

Mira Bartók is an artist and writer living in Massachusetts. She has received awards from such organizations as the Fulbright-Hayes Foundation, the Associated Writing Programs, the Illinois Arts Council, Pollock-Krasner Grant, and the Carnegie Fund for Writers. Her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has been noted in The Best American Essays 1999 and other anthologies. Mira also runs an online resource for artists – iraslist.blogspot.com. Listen to Bartok interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.


Tuesday, February 22
7:00 PM

FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat

To kick of 2011, we're going to read a book that's widely hailed as one of the greatest works of Persian literature of the 20th century. Coming to us from Iran, it’s called The Blind Owl, and it's been compared to Kafka and Poe for its wide-eyed look into the heart of madness. The plot of this strange, dream-like book circles around an opium addict's obsession with stunning images he encounters in the desert. We'll see if we can channel our inner Freud and unpack some of the surreal events of this book, plus we'll talk about what the heck in the Iran of the 1930s inspired Sadegh Hedayat to write this enduringly odd masterpiece and how this book is inspiring battles over censorship in the Middle East today.

Join us each month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you by Scott Esposito, of the Center for the Art of Translation and The Quarterly Conversation, who also fearlessly leads the discussion, brilliantly.. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.


Wednesday, February 23
7:30 PM

DAYNA MACY
Ravenous:
A Food Lover’s Journey from Obsession to Freedom

How can a food lover and lifelong overeater learn to be satisfied?

That is the question Dayna Macy asks in her memoir Ravenous. Like many of us, Macy has had a complicated relationship with food all her life. Rather than head straight for the diet manuals, she chooses to change her relationship with food from the inside out by embarking on a year-long journey—from her childhood home in upstate New York and back up the California coast—to uncover the origins of her food obsessions.

To understand why she craves certain foods and not others, Macy travels across the country, meeting the people who know the finer points of her passions—the olive farmer, the sausage maker, the chocolatier, the artisanal cheese maker. She deepens her understanding of what food means to her by learning where it comes from and paying close attention to the effects it has on her—both physical and emotional. Along the way, she forages for wild plants, tours a certified humane slaughterhouse, learns to practice mindfulness with a Zen chef, revisits her beloved Slim-Jim, and learns to listen to her body through yoga.

Recounting memories from her youth, Macy looks at the nostalgia deeply embedded in food and the powerful forces of family and tradition that shape our diets. Delving deeper into the spiritual underpinnings of eating, she examines what it means to be satisfied — and forges her own path to balance and freedom.

“Food as protection, comfort, pleasure and love, a defense against deprivation, a buffer against pain — so many of us will recognize our insatiable hungers in Dayna Macy’s quest to understand her own. But the real appeal of Ravenous is Macy’s voice: her candor and humility, her curious mind and storyteller’s clarity, and the open, generous heart she brings to her tale of learning to find peace with her appetite and her body.” --Kate Moses, author of Cakewalk, A Memoir

Dayna Macy has written for Yoga Journal, Self, Salon.com, and other publications. She lives in Berkeley with her husband, Scott Rosenberg, and their two sons.

JUST ADDED:
Thursday, February 24
7:30 PM

EVAN CARROLL and JOHN ROMANO
Your Digital Afterlife:
When Facebook, Flickr and Twitter Are Your Estate, What's Your Legacy?

Almost without realizing it, we have shifted toward an all-digital culture. Future heirlooms like family photos, home movies, and personal letters now exist only in digital form, and in many cases they are stored using popular services like Flickr, YouTube, and Gmail. These digital possessions form a rich collection that chronicles our lives and connects us to each other.

But have you considered what will happen to your treasured digital possessions when you die?

Unfortunately the answer isn't as certain as we might presume. There are numerous legal, cultural, and technical issues that could prevent access to these assets, and if you don't take steps to make them available to your heirs, your digital legacy could be lost forever.

Evan Carroll and John Romano, the creators of TheDigitalBeyond.com, can help you secure your valuable digital assets for your loved ones and perhaps posterity. Whether you're the casual email user or the hyper-connected digital dweller, you'll come away with peace of mind knowing that your digital heirlooms won't be lost in the shuffle.

Check out this Fresh Air feature!

"Death is the final frontier of cyberspace-and this book provides a road map to the key issues, problems and future prospects for bridging this ultimate transition with dignity, security and grace." - Daniel "Dazza" Greenwood, Executive Director of the eCitizen Foundation

"To be ahead of one's time usually means stepping to the side of one's time in order to see it clearly. This book does just that, putting our digital lives and afterlives into sharp focus. Fascinating." - David Eagleman, neuroscientist and author

John Romano works as an interaction designer, technology researcher, and cultural observer. His work centers on the mass adoption of digital tools and the ways they are changing how we interact with each other. When he isn’t writing or speaking, he is designing websites, building stuff in the garage with his son, or riding his motorcycle. John holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from the North Carolina State University College of Design.

Evan Carroll is an experience designer and researcher. His passion is observing how people interact with technology and using that insight to create user-centered products and services—a passion that led him to study the digital afterlife. In Evan’s spare time, you’ll find him pulling for the Tar Heels or escaping the digital world at the North Carolina coast. Evan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Science and has completed additional graduate studies at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Science.

Monday, February 28
7:30 PM

MARK HERTSGAARD
Hot: Living Through the Next 50 Years on Earth

Long before Al Gore and the rest of the world were paying any attention to the issue of global warming, The Nation’s environmental correspondent Mark Hertsgaard was travelling the world attempting to understand this largely misunderstood phenomenon and the threat it posed to our existence. Recent environmental catastrophes, including the floods in Pakistan that have left nearly a fifth of the country under water and 20 million people homeless, have only driven home the unavoidable fact that global warming has, without a doubt, arrived—more than a hundred years earlier than expected.

Considered one of the most informed and judicious journalists covering the issue of global warming today and described by Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed) as “one of America’s finest reporters”, Hertsgaard illuminates how our day-to-day experience is going to change in the next five, ten, and fifty years: Chicago’s climate transformed to resemble Houston’s; the loss of cherished crops and luxuries, such as California wines; the redesign of U.S. cities.

Addressing problems we'll face very soon and revealing where they'll be most serious, Hertsgaard offers "pictures" of what unbiased experts expect, and looks at who is taking wise, creative precautions. All the while, he delivers a resounding, motivating message of hope that will spur activism among parents, college students, and readers alike. Taking Bill McKibben’sEaarth to the next essential step, Hot is a call to action, not just about how we'll live, but about how we will survive.

“I know what you're thinking: The problem is so massive I can't bear to read any more about it. But you’re wrong. Mark Hertsgaard not only makes the workings of climate change clear, vivid and comprehensible but gives us some reasons for hope. Some of the ways to fight or adapt to global warming are simpler—and more unexpected—than you would think, and some of the places where these lessons are being applied you never would have guessed. Hot is a lively, personal, very human piece of reportage about an issue that will ever more be at the very center of our lives.” -- Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold’s Ghost

“Mark Hertsgaard is the master of a kind of travelogue reporting that lets you understand possibilities and problems in a deep way. But this time, one of the places he's traveling to is the near future, and the news he brings back is equal parts scary, invigorating, and full of challenge. This is an important book.” -- Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

Mark Hertsgaard has written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and Time, and is author of four books, including Earth Odyssey. He has traveled the world seeking answers to the question of how to keep humanity alive in the face of global warning. A Soros fellow, he recently attended the Copenhagen Conference, widely considered the most important global meeting in the history of the climate issue.

Monday, March 7
7:30 PM

An Evening at the Movies with Humphrey Bogart
A Talk with Film Clips:

STEFAN KANFER
Tough without a Gun:
The Life and Extraordinary Afterlife of Humphrey Bogart

Humphrey Bogart: it’s hard to think of anyone who’s had the same lasting impact on the culture of movies. Though he died at the young age of fifty-seven more than half a century ago, his influence among actors and filmmakers, and his enduring appeal for film lovers around the world, remains as strong as ever. What is it about Bogart, with his unconventional looks and noticeable speech impediment, that has captured our collective imagination for so long? In this definitive biography, Stefan Kanfer answers that question, along the way illuminating the private man Bogart was and shining the spotlight on some of the greatest performances ever captured on celluloid.

Bogart fell into show business almost by accident and worked for nearly twenty years before becoming the star we know today. Born into a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century New York, Bogart was a troublemaker throughout his youth, getting kicked out of prep school and running away to join the navy at the age of nineteen. After a short, undistinguished stint at sea, Bogart spent his early twenties drifting aimlessly from one ill-fitting career to another, until, through a childhood friend, he got his first theater job. Working first as a stagehand and then, reluctantly, as a bit-part player, Bogart cut his teeth in one forgettable role after another. But it was here he began to develop a work ethic; deciding that there were “two kinds of men: professionals and bums,” Bogart, for the first time in his life, wanted to be the former.

After the Crash of ’29, Bogart headed west to try his luck in Hollywood. That luck was scarce, and he slogged through more than thirty B-movie roles before his drinking buddy John Huston wrote him a part that would change everything; with High Sierra, Bogart finally broke through at the age of forty—being a pro had paid off.

What followed was a string of movies we have come to know as the most beloved classics of American cinema: The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The African Queen . . . the list goes on and on. Kanfer appraises each of the films with an unfailing critical eye, weaving in lively accounts of behind-the-scenes fun and friendships, including, of course, the great love story of Bogart and Bacall. What emerges in these pages is the portrait of a great Hollywood life, and the final word on why there can only ever be one Bogie.

Stefan Kanfer’s books include Ball of Fire: The Tumultuous Life and Comic Art of Lucille Ball; Stardust Lost: The Triumph, Tragedy, and Mishugas of the Yiddish Theater in America; and Somebody: The Reckless Life and Remarkable Career of Marlon Brando. He was a writer and editor at Time for more than twenty years and was its first bylined film critic, a post he held between 1967 and 1972. He is also the primary interviewer in the Academy Award–nominated documentary The Line Kingand editor of an anthology of Groucho Marx’s comedy, The Essential Groucho. He is a Literary Lion of the New York Public Library and recipient of numerous writing awards.


Tuesday, March 8
7:30 PM

ANGELA BALCITA
Moonface:
A True Romance

From the pages of the New York Times’ Modern Love column comes one woman’s moving and uproarious story of how love and laughter rescued her from life-threatening illness. Angela Balcita’s cathartic memoir of finding love while wrestling with kidney failure will strike a chord with anyone yearning for a poignant, true-to-life romance…with a real fairy tale ending.

At the age of eighteen, Angela Balcita had reached a point in her life when her health could not keep up with her optimistic personality. After suffering kidney failure and after her body's rejection of the kidney her brother donated to her, she was in desperate need of a transplant. Lucky for Angela, she had found the ultimate partner in crime: her boyfriend, Charlie. Although they had known each other for only a short period of time, Charlie offered Angela his kidney.

The ensuing story is unforgettable, with readers following Angela and Charlie's journey through preparations for their respective surgeries; the procedures themselves, difficult yet emotionally riveting; the process of recuperation through the relapses; and the eventual healing—both inside and out—that greets this undeniably powerful duo.

Angela Balcita received her MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Iowa. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Iowa Review, and Utne Reader, among other publications. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and daughter.


Sunday, March 13
4:00 PM

ALAN PAUL
Big in China:
My Unlikely Adventure Raising a Family, Playing the Blues, and Becoming a Star in Beijing

When Alan Paul urged his wife to accept an offer to become the Wall Street Journal’s China Bureau Chief, he looked forward to the new life they and their three young children would experience relocating from Maplewood, New Jersey to Beijing. After years as a freelance writer and stay-at-home dad, he couldn’t wait to immerse himself and his family in a completely foreign culture. Three-and-a-half years later, Paul was an award-winning columnist writing about his expat life and the front man for a Chinese-American blues band that would be voted “Beijing’s Best Band” and become a national touring sensation.

Though he didn’t speak a word of Chinese at the outset, Paul loved everything about the country: the energy, the culture, the sites and the food. “Even the pea-soup pollution didn’t give me second thoughts,” he writes. Once there, the family worked hard getting to know the “real” China while avoiding getting stuck inside the expat bubble. As part of his journey of reinvention, Paul became the leader of a band he named Woodie Alan, and was soon touring the country with his band mates, one of two non-Chinese members. The band’s success was exhilarating, and Paul would come to view his experiences with Woodie Alan as a microcosm of his entire stay in China. But it was only one part of the journey, as he learned to see what at first was an intimidating challenge as a singular opportunity to rediscover his passions and reboot his life.

Entertaining and thought-provoking, Big in China is a testament to the transformative power of the expatriate experience and to the importance of keeping your horizons wide.

Alan Paul wrote “The Expat Life” column for the Wall Street Journal Online from 2005 until June 2009, shortly after he moved back to the United States. His columns earned a wide following, and the National Society of Newspaper Columnists named him 2008 Online Columnist of the Year. He also reported from Beijing for NBC, Sports Illustrated, The Wall Street Journal, and others. Paul is a senior writer for Slam andGuitar World magazines, and his writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, People, ESPN.com, RollingStone.com, and many other publications and websites. He has contributed to the Rolling Stone Jazz and Blues Guide, The Insider’s Guide to Beijing and several other books.

Alan’s band, Woodie Alan, was voted Beijing Band of the Year in the 2008 City Weekend Reader’s Poll and has toured and performed throughout China. Their debut CD, “Beijing Blues” (Guitar China Records), has been praised by musical luminaries ranging from the Allman Brothers Band’s Derek Trucks and Warren Haynes to ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons. For more information about the band including music and videos, click www.alanpaul.net.


Wednesday, March 16
7:30 PM

Mystery Double-Header:
CARA BLACK
Murder in Passy

LIBBY FISCHER HELLMAN
Set the Night on Fire

Cara Black’s Aimée Leduc is back again – and encounters Basque terrorists, police corruption, and a Spanish princess as she tries to clear her godfather of murder inMurder in Passy.

The village-like neighborhood of Passy, home to many wealthy Parisians, is the
last place one would expect a murder. But when Aimée Leduc’s godfather, Morbier, a police commissaire, asks her to check on his girlfriend at her home there, that’s exactly what Aimée finds. Xavierre, a haut bourgeois matron of Basque origin, is strangled in her garden while Aimée waits inside. Circumstantial
evidence makes Morbier the prime suspect, and to vindicate him, Aimée must
identify the real killer.

“No contemporary writer of noir mysteries evokes the spirit of Paris more than Cara Black in her atmospheric series starring P.I. Aimée Leduc…. Fearless, risk-taking Aimée is constantly running, hiding, fighting and risking her life—all while dressed in vintage Chanel and Dior and Louboutin heels.” -- USA Today

Libby Fischer Hellman’s Set the Night on Fire paints an unforgettable portrait of Chicago during a turbulent time: the riots at the Democratic Convention... the struggle for power between the Black Panthers and SDS... and a group of young idealists who tried to change the world.

Someone is trying to kill Lila Hilliard. During the Christmas holidays she returns from running errands to find her family home in flames, her father and brother trapped inside. Later, she is attacked by a mysterious man on a motorcycle... and the threats don't end there.

As Lila desperately tries to piece together who is after her and why, she uncovers information about her father's past in Chicago during the volatile days of the late 1960s... information he never shared with her, but now threatens to destroy her.

"A tremendous thriller, sweeping but intimate, elegiac but urgent, subtle but intense... this story really does set the night on fire." -- Lee Child

Cara Black lives in San Francisco, when she’s not in Paris. Libby Hellman is a Washington DC transplant living in Chicago.


Tuesday, March 22
7:00 PM

FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group Discussion
Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya

At the end of a 30-year civil war that dirtied all sectors of society, Guatemala tried to pick up and move on by publishing a truth report that chronicled all the misdeeds in this horrible war. Imagine if you were the person who had to proofread this report of theft, murder, rape, massacre, baby-killing, and more. That's the unenviable job of the narrator of Horacio Castellanos Moya's torrid novel Senselessness. Already just a little insane, our narrator is pushed over the brink by this terrible job, with a little help from the Catholic Church he is in the employ of and what may or may not be government thugs spying on his every move. We'll talk about the incredible technical artistry of this book, its amazing language and first-person narration (and the sizable challenges of translating them), plus exactly who the author is, how he got banned from his homeland, why he wrote about this civil war, and what resemblances, if any, he has to his exceedingly off-kilter protagonist.

Join us each month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you by Scott Esposito, of the Center for the Art of Translation and The Quarterly Conversation, who also fearlessly leads the discussion, brilliantly.. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world. New participants are always welcomed!


Wednesday, March 23
7:30 PM

ANNE ZIMMERMAN
An Extravagant Hunger:
The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher

“Although many people write about food and hunger, there are few who write about it well. Rarer still is a writer who composes prose with the precision and grace of M.F.K. Fisher. Her lines are imbued with poetry and philosophy that could make the greatest of writers weep.”

In this stunning portrait of M.F.K. Fisher and the heartbreak and happiness that catapulted her to creative success, Anne Zimmerman is the careful witness, lingering beside Fisher through her most dramatic and productive years.

In An Extravagant Hunger, time slows and is relished, as the turning points and casual strolls of M.F.K. Fisher’s life are unwrapped and savored. From the Berengaria that washed her across the sea to France in 1929, to Le Paquis, the Swiss estate that later provided a backdrop for some of the most idyllic and fleeting moments of her life, the stories of Fisher’s love for food and her love for family and men are meticulously researched and exquisitely captured in this book.

Exploring Fisher’s lonely and formative time in Europe with her first husband; her subsequent divorce and re-marriage to her creative spark plug, Dillwyn Parrish, and his tragic suicide; and the child she carried from an unnamed father, the story of M.F.K. Fisher’s life becomes as vibrant and passionate as her prolific words on wine and cuisine.

Letters and journal entries piece together a dramatic life, but An Extravagant Hunger steps further, bridging the gaps between personal notes and her public persona, filling in the silences by offering an engaging and unprecedented depth of intuitive commentary.

Anne Zimmerman holds a BA from Linfield College and an MA from San Diego State, where her thesis was a biographical study of the life of M.F.K. Fisher. She has spent extensive time researching Fisher at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College and is a food enthusiast and contributor to Culinate.com. She lives in San Francisco.


Thursday, March 24
7:30 PM

NEIL STRAUS
Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead:
Journeys into Fame and Madness

Neil Strauss has shot guns with Ludacris, been kidnapped by Courtney Love, madeLady Gaga cry, shopped for Pampers with Snoop Dogg, tried (and failed) to preventMötley Crüe from getting arrested, been taken on a Scientology tour by Tom Cruise, flown in a helicopter with Madonna, been taught to read minds by the CIA, soaked in a hot tub with Marilyn Manson, been told off by Prince, and tucked Christina Aguilera in bed.

It’s all in a day’s work for a renowned reporter whose been infiltrating the lives of musicians, actors, and artists since he was eighteen. Yet over the years, the exigencies of journalism have meant that his stories have usually been edited down to a fraction of the total material—and too often left the best material on the cutting room floor. “No matter what happens during an interview, once it ends, a writer’s loyalty is to the pressure of an immediate deadline, the style and tone of the publication, and the priorities of an editor,” Strauss writes. “Somewhere along the way, the subject gets lost.”

Rather than creating the usual collection of turgid, “in-depth” interviews with vapid celebrities, Strauss has taken just the most memorable few minutes from each interview, weaving brief passages together into one unforgettable whole. “I searched for the truth or essence behind each person, story, or experience,” Strauss writes. “Often it came from something I’d previously ignored: an uncomfortable silence, a small misunderstanding, or a scattered thought that had been compressed into a sound bite for publication. Other times it came from something more dramatic, like an emotional confession, a run-in with the police, or a weeklong drinking binge.”

The celebrities run the gamut from Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen to Steven Colbert and Ben Stiller, from The Who and Ringo Starr to Zac Efron and Britney Spears. From rock gods to teen idols, superstars to starlets, Straus provides 227 perception-altering moments of truth that illuminate our popular culture as no straightforward interview collection could. A singular, original—and often seriously funny—work, Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead shows why legendary music critic Dave Marsh calls Neil Strauss “the best and most honest daily newspaper reporter rock has ever seen.”

Neil Strauss is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Game, Rules of the Game, and Emergency. He is also the coauthor of three New York Times bestseller—Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt, and Marilyn Manson’s The Long Hard Road Out of Hell—as well as Dave Navarro’s Don’t Try This at Home, a Los Angeles Times bestseller. A writer for Rolling Stone, Strauss lives in Los Angeles and can be found at www.neilstrauss.com.


Saturday, March 26
6:30 PM

A Very Special Event at the Yerba Buena Ice Center:
KRISTI YAMAGUCHI
Dream Big, Little Pig!

Olympic champion skater Kristi Yamaguchi will be talking about and signing copies of her very first book for children, Dream Big, Little Pig!

Poppy has big dreams—lots of them! But following her dreams isn’t as easy as it sounds. Poppy wants to be a ballerina, a singer, and a supermodel but people just keep telling her no!

It’s a good thing Poppy’s friends and family—who love her no matter what—encourage her to keep believing in herself and pursuing her dreams. Poppy achieves her dreams and will inspire readers to believe that they can too!

Kristi Yamaguchi is an ice skating Olympic gold medalist and world champion who knows about dreaming big. The motto, Always Dream, serves as Kristi’s personal inspiration as well as the name of her charitable foundation for children. This philosophy has contributed to Kristi’s success on and off the ice, and is one that she aspires to instill in the hearts of children.

DETAILS TK


Sunday, March 27
4:00 PM

TRACY SEELEY
My Ruby Slippers:
The Road Back to Kansas

Sure, there’s no place like home—but what if you can’t really pinpoint where home is? By the time she was nine, Tracy Seeley had lived in seven towns and thirteen different houses. Her father’s dreams of movie stardom, stoked by a series of affairs, kept the family on edge, and on the move, until he up and left.

Thirty years later, settled in what seems like a charmed life in San Francisco, a diagnosis of cancer and the betrayal of a lover shake Seeley to her roots—roots she is suddenly determined to search out. My Ruby Slippers, from the American Lives series edited by Tobias Wolff, tells the story of that search, the tale of a woman with an impassioned if vague sense of mission: to find the meaning of home.

Seeley finds herself in a Kansas that defies memory, a place far more complex and elusive than the sum of its cultural myths. On back roads and in her many back years, Seeley also finds unexpected forgiveness for her errant father, and, in the face of mortality, a sense of what it means to be rooted in place, to dwell deeply in the only life we have.

“Under Tracy Seeley’s cool, clear gaze, the fractured landscape of America’s rootlessness is seen whole again. She reminds us that place is both on the horizon and within our memories. . . . My Ruby Slippers is a complete pleasure to read.” -- Lewis Buzbee, author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop

“There is a sensitivity and patience and persistent thoughtfulness in Tracy Seeley’s prose that makes her memoir unique to this cultural moment. In her capable hands we are in no hurry to get anywhere, but happy to follow her lead down every digressive and revelatory path.” -- Phillip Lopate, author of Getting Personal: Selected Essays

Tracy Seeley lives and writes in Oakland, with her husband, filmmaker Frederick Marx and three formerly feral cats. An avid if amateurish organic gardener, she longs for a flock of backyard chickens. In her free time, she’s an English Professor at the University of San Francisco.


Thursday, March 31
7:30 PM

MARK CHILDRESS
Georgia Bottoms

Mark Childress’s novel, One Mississippi, was greeted with widespread and enthusiastic acclaim. Stephen King called it the “funniest book I have read in ten years.” Another Childress novel, Crazy in Alabama, was made into a feature film starring Melanie Griffith, has been published in fifteen countries, and has more than a million copies in print worldwide. Childress has proven himself both an astute chronicler of southern life and a critical and popular literary success. Now, from one of the most beloved of American authors writing today comes Georgia Bottoms, a hilarious and heartfelt story about an Alabama socialite with an unusual secret.

Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist southern belle. Nobody realizes that the family fortune has long since disappeared, and a determinedly single woman like Georgia needs an alternative, and discreet, means of income. In Georgia’s case it is six well-heeled lovers — one for each day of the week, with Mondays off — none of whom knows about the others. But when the married preacher who has been coming to call (Saturdays) decides to confess their affair in front of the whole congregation, Georgia must take drastic measures to stop him. Mark Childress displays once again his unmistakable skill for combining the hilarious and the absurd to reveal the inner workings of the rebellious human heart.

“Childress (One Mississippi) is sassy magnolia lit's Truman Capote--sharply observant, unrelentingly honest, and downright hilarious--and his Georgia peach is the freshest bad girl to rise from the South since Scarlett O'Hara.” – from Publishers Weekly’s starred reveiw

“Move over, Flannery O’Connor, and make room for a new master. Mark Childress has written yet another laugh-out-loud Southern classic." -- Fannie Flagg

"Georgia Bottoms is one of my favorite characters in recent years ... , in a story filled with serious challenges and fabulous people, good and bad, rich and poor, stunning and appalling, sometimes all at once." – Anne Lamott, author of Imperfect Birds

“This is Mark Childress's finest novel. I adore Georgia Bottoms, novel and character. Her story is funny, smart, serious and engaging beginning to end. A must read.” – Lynn Freed, author of The Servants' Quarters

“A sparkling novel... Mark Childress once again proves himself the master of American comic fiction.” – Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander

Mark Childress was born in Monroeville, Alabama. He is the author of six previous novels and three books for children. Childress has received the Thomas Wolfe Award, the University of Alabama’s Distinguished Alumni Award, and the Alabama Library Association’s Writer of the Year. He is a staff member and a director of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. He has lived in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, California, Costa Rica, and currently lives in Key West, Florida.

Thursday, July 7
7:30 PM

ANNA NORTH
AMERICA PACIFICA

A startling debut novel about a teenage girl’s search for her missing mother on an island paradise turned dystopian nightmare. In the not too distant future, 18-year-old Darcy lives on the island of America Pacifica—one of the last places on earth that is still habitable after the second ice age.

Education, food, and basic means of survival are the province of a chosen few, while most struggle under the thumb of a mysterious, corrupt dictator.

To Darcy, America Pacifica is simply home—the only one she’s ever known, made bearable by her loving though enigmatic mother. But when her mother doesn’t come home one night, Darcy is forced on a quest through the dark underbelly of the island, a journey that will take her through Pacifica’s corrupt history and make her an indispensible part of its future. In the spirit of Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, America Pacifica imagines a world drastically different from the one we know today, and how we might continue to live in it.

Anna North graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop in 2009, having received a Teaching-Writing Fellowship and a Michener/Copernicus Society Fellowship. Her fiction has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, where it was nominated for a National Magazine Award, and she is a staff writer for Jezebel.com. North grew up in Los Angeles, and lives in Brooklyn.


Friday, July 8
8:00 PM

LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY
An Evening of Satire, Cabaret, and Amazing Feats of Comedy

Get ready to rock your world: July’s Literary Clown Foolery is dedicated to the work of the amazing Neil Strauss! San Francisco’s clowns will bring new perspectives to Strauss’s books, The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists,Emergency, and Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead. The evening will include clowns trying out the Game, live adaptations of Straus’s interviews with rock stars, as well as accordions, juggling, and just plain, old hilarity! Join us for the evening, it’s sure not to disappoint!

Admission $10; advance tickets at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006
Wines and mineral waters.

Monday, July 11
7:30 PM

AMY SNYDER
HELL ON TWO WHEELS:
An Astonishing Story of Suffering, Triumph, and the Most Extreme Endurance Race in the World

The Race Across America (RAAM) is a bicycle race like no other. Unlike its famous cousin the Tour de France, RAAM is much crazier, more gothic, and even savage. Once the gun goes off on the Pacific Coast, the clock doesn’t stop, forcing participants to forego sleep, or else lose. The first rider to complete the prescribed 3,000-mile route – nine days later at the Atlantic – is the victor. In this race, contestants have died, been maimed, and spiraled into the nightmarish realm of the mad. Most racers manage a few hours of sleep each day, while the leaders get by on an hour or so. Many hallucinate, often for hours on end, and every contestant suffers ghastly maladies including muscle, joint, and nerve failure; broken bones; and even life-threatening pulmonary infections.

In Hell on Two Wheels, Snyder follows a group of athletes before, during, and after the 2009 RAAM, the closest and most controversial race in the event’s 30-year history, .offering a thrilling and remarkably detailed account of the competitors’ triumphs and tragedies as they test themselves, each other, and the limits of human endurance. As RAAM exacts its vicious toll, Snyder shows how the 2009 racers discover their essential humanity and experience profound joy and completeness, demonstrating how such a grueling effort can also be cleansing and self-revelatory.

“As an Ironman finisher and avid cyclist, I was able to embed myself in the obscure world of ultra-distance cycling,” Snyder said. “Getting to know these athletes before, during, and after the 2009 race helped me see that RAAM is more than a race – it’s a monster and a crucible. As a result, Hell on Two Wheels became more than a story about a bike race. It’s an allegory about overcoming personal limitations and self-discovery that offers lessons for all of us, cyclists and non-cyclists alike.”

Amy Snyder grew up in New York City and attended Princeton University and Stanford Business School. After a career in management consulting she retired and settled in La Jolla, and began competing in Ironman triathlons and eventually discovered events even longer than the Ironman. Knowing she didn’t have it in her to conquer these ultra-distance races, she decided to find out why and how others can by following the RAAM,

Tuesday, July 12
7:30 PM

LOIS GOODWILL
ENTANGLED:
A Chronicle of Late Love

Age doesn’t matter when it comes to love.

Don, an eighty-year-old jazz pianist, and Sarah, a sixty-nine-year old clinical psychologist, spent twenty-two relatively content years together as monogamous lovers, despite their wildly different interests and personalities. One summer at her youngest son's wedding, a handsome, seventy-year-old former Jesuit priest asked Sarah to dance. She soon fell head over heels into an intoxicating, passionate relationship with him that belied their years. After a beguiling and giddy courtship, that romance abruptly blew up in her face.

Told from the alternating points of view of Don and Sarah, Entangled is an honest and moving memoir in two voices about the devastating consequences of a love affair gone wrong. When Sarah returned to Don, he discovered that she had kept a journal of her affair, and he agreed to join her in reconstructing, through writing, what had happened to them. Lois (Sarah) Goodwill’s story is the culmination of this courageous undertaking in the face of pain and betrayal. Their willingness to confront difficult truths led to a relationship that, while changed and injured by circumstance, was still a rich and vibrant source of friendship and acceptance.

Don Asher was a jazz pianist and author of nine books, including Notes from a Battered Grand and a biography of Hampton Hawes. His books have been reviewed in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, the Boston Globe, and the San Francisco Chronicle. An avid tennis player, he was a longtime resident of San Francisco.

Dr. Lois Goodwill is a retired clinical psychologist. Born in Montreal, Canada, she holds degrees from McGill University in Montreal and the Wright Institute in Berkeley. She enjoys attending theater and symphony performances and volunteer work, and is an enthusiastic hiker and walker. She is the mother of four children and grandmother of eleven. She lives in San Francisco.

Wednesday, July 13
7:30 PM

ELLEN SUSSMAN
FRENCH LESSONS

A single day in Paris changes the lives of three Americans as they each set off to explore the city with a French tutor, learning about language, love, and loss as their lives intersect in surprising ways.

Josie, Riley, and Jeremy have come to the City of Light for different reasons: Josie, a young high school teacher, arrives in hopes of healing a broken heart. Riley, a spirited but lonely expat housewife, struggles to feel connected to her husband and her new country. And Jeremy, the reserved husband of a renowned actress, is accompanying his wife on a film shoot, yet he feels distant from her world.

As they meet with their tutors—Josie with Nico, a sensitive poet; Riley with Phillippe, a shameless flirt; and Jeremy with the consummately beautiful Chantal—each succumbs to unexpected passion and unpredictable adventures. Yet as they traverse Paris’s grand boulevards and intimate, winding streets, they uncover surprising secrets about one another—and come to understand long-buried truths about themselves.

“As inviting as the smell of freshly baked croissants wafting from a Parisian café, this is a novel to savor.” -- Ann Packer, author of The Dive from Clausen’s Pier

“Touching, thoughtful, hilarious, and exquisite in its observations, French Lessons—Ellen Sussman’s day in Paris with a wonderful collection of characters—is a treat. . . . Très charmant!” -- Meg Waite Clayton, author of The Four Ms. Bradwells

Ellen Sussman is the author of the novel On a Night Like This, which was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller and was translated into six languages. She is the editor of two anthologies, Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave, a New York TimesEditors' Choice and San Francisco Chronicle bestseller, and Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex. She has published numerous essays and short stories. Ellen teaches creative writing in both private classes and through Stanford Continuing Studies.

Thursday, July 14
7:30 PM

ANDREW LAM, ANGIE CHAU, and ISABELLE PELAUD
on Vietnamese American Identity, Literature and California

The San Francisco Chronicle described ANGIE CHAU's Quiet As They Come as "a powerful mix of tragedy and kindness, of miscommunications and all-too-painful empathy, which bound together are a resonating homage to many an immigrant." She was born in Vietnam and now lives in Eddie Money's former studio in Oakland.

ANDREW LAM is a writer and a co-founder of New America Media. Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora has won the Pen American "Beyond the Margins" Award in 2006, and was short-listed for "Asian American Literature Award”.East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres was published in October 2010 and listed as top ten indie books by Shelf Unbound magazine.

ISABELLE PELAUD is associate professor in Asian American Studies at San Francisco State University and author of This Is All I Choose To Tell: History and Hybridity in Vietnamese American Literature. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network (DVAN).

These three local authors will read from their work and talk about Vietnamese American identity and literature and California. Bring your questions, observations, and join the discussion!

Wednesday, July 20
7:30 PM

SCOTT MARTELLE
THE FEAR WITHIN:
Spies, Commies, and American Democracy on Trial

Sixty years ago political divisions in the United States ran even deeper than today's name-calling showdowns between the left and right. Back then, to call someone a communist was to threaten that person's career, family, freedom, and, sometimes, life itself. Hysteria about the "red menace" mushroomed as the Soviet Union tightened its grip on Eastern Europe, Mao Zedong rose to power in China, and the atomic arms race accelerated. Spy scandals fanned the flames, and headlines warned of sleeper cells in the nation's midst, just as they do today with the "War on Terror."

In his new book, The Fear Within, Scott Martelle takes dramatic aim at one pivotal moment of that era. On the afternoon of July 20, 1948, FBI agents began rounding up twelve men in New York City, Chicago, and Detroit whom the U.S. government believed posed a grave threat to the nation--the leadership of the Communist Party-USA. After a series of delays, eleven of the twelve "top Reds" went on trial in Manhattan's Foley Square in January 1949.

The proceedings captivated the nation, but the trial quickly dissolved into farce. The eleven defendants were charged under the 1940 Smith Act with conspiring to teach the necessity of overthrowing the U.S. government based on their roles as party leaders and their distribution of books and pamphlets. In essence, they were on trial for their libraries and political beliefs, not for overt acts threatening national security. Despite the clear conflict with the First Amendment, the men were convicted and their appeals denied by the U.S. Supreme Court in a decision that gave the green light to federal persecution of Communist Party leaders--a decision the court effectively reversed six years later. But by then, the damage was done. So rancorous was the trial the presiding judge sentenced the defense attorneys to prison terms, too, chilling future defendants' access to qualified counsel.

Martelle's story is a compelling look at how American society, both general and political, reacts to stress and, incongruously, clamps down in times of crisis on the very beliefs it holds dear: the freedoms of speech and political belief. At different points in our history, the executive branch, Congress, and the courts have subtly or more drastically eroded a pillar of American society for the politics of the moment. It is not surprising, then, that The Fear Within takes on added resonance in today's environment of suspicion and the decline of civil rights under the U.S. Patriot Act.Watch the trailer.

“Martelle's scrupulous, lucid history resonates with contemporary relevance because it reminds us that freedom of speech and thought are most essential, not when we are feeling most confident, but when we are most afraid.” – from a review in The Los Angeles Times

Scott Martelle, former Los Angeles Times staff writer, is a veteran journalist, and the author of the critically acclaimed Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West.

Wednesday, July 27
7:30 PM

JOEL PRIMACK
NANCY ABRAMS
THE NEW UNIVERSE AND THE HUMAN FUTURE
How a Shared Cosmology Could Transform the World

“When science reveal to us an opportunity of profound hope – a potential bond among all humans – we must grasp it and celebrate it. Abrams and Primack show us how the strange and newly discovered nature of our universe can empower us to meet the gravest challenges of our time.” – Archbishop Demond Tutu

In their new book, two cutting-edge thinkers—Nancy Abrams, a cultural philosopher and Joel Primack, a leading astrophysicist—combine their abilities to present a new picture of the universe with critical relevance for our time.

After a four-century rupture between science and the questions of value and meaning, this groundbreaking book presents an explosive and potentially life-altering idea: if the world could agree on a shared creation story based on modern cosmology and biology—a story that has just become available—it would redefine our relationship with Planet Earth and benefit all of humanity, now and into the distant future.

In previous generations everyone was able to refer with confidence to a belief system which explained our role in the world. In this new scientific age there is no consensus as to our origins or our place in the universe—a situation which leaves us with no believable, shared context for the problems that we face together. And yet, as the first species that has evolved with the capability to destroy our planet, it is up to us to find common ground to work together--or face the devastating consequences.

Illustrated with images from innovative simulations of the evolving universe to bring the new scientific picture of the universe to life, Primack’s and Abram’s new book interprets what our human place in the cosmos may mean for us and our descendants. It also offers unique insights into the potential use of this newfound knowledge to find solutions to seemingly intractable global problems such as climate change and unsustainable growth. Most importantly, it explains why we need to “think cosmically, act globally” if we’re going to have a long-term, prosperous future on Earth.

Nancy Ellen Abrams, an attorney, cultural philosopher, and lecturer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, has worked for the Ford Foundation and the Office of Technology Assessment of the U.S. Congress. Joel R. Primack, Distinguished Professor of Physics at the UC Santa Cruz, is one of the principal creators of the modern theory of the universe on the grand scale. Together they have authored several books, including The View From the Center of the Universe. They live in Santa Cruz.

Thursday, July 28
7:30 PM

EMMA STRAUB
OTHER PEOPLE WE MARRIED

“These quiet epiphanies in Straub’s stories place her in the company of Beattie and Moore, and the voices she creates are contemporary. When I finished reading this exquisite collection, I flipped back to the beginning of the book and stared at the table of contents. The book was suddenly heavier in my hands—suddenly filled with the weight of all these character’s silent fantasies, side-thoughts and careful revelations. Other People We Married is a captivating first collection of short stories for this writer; I look forward to her future work.” –Bracha Goykadosh, The Rumpus

“…Emma Straub crafts characters so compelling that they linger quietly on the periphery of one’s consciousness days after reading, waiting patiently for the reader to consider and then understand them. Trendier writers may grab a reader’s attention with outrageous spectacle, but it’s the strong, silent types like Straub who are the true writers to watch.” –Yennie Cheung, for The Hipster Book Club

In Emma Straub’s witty debut story collection, Other People We Married, New Yorkers venture outside their home city to see what the rest of America has to offer, and these trips force the realities of their relationships into stark relief.
In “A Map of Modern Palm Springs,” two sisters meet in California for a vacation together. They head to Joshua Tree National Park, about which the local they scored drugs from warned them, “It’s the desert. It’s only exciting if you’ve never been there before.” It also can be exciting if you take hallucinogenic mushrooms, which the older, more settled and successful sister does, prompting the younger sister to consider ditching her.

In the touching “Hot Springs Eternal,” Richard and Teddy, a gay couple from New York, visit Glenwood Springs in Colorado, and Teddy, the younger man, gets a kick out of the rampant bad taste on display, enjoying hotels “that looked on the verge of destruction, with words spelled incorrectly, or ones that looked like cottages where Snow White or the Swiss Miss might work at the front desk.” Their relationship appears doomed at the outset, with Richard feeling older and crankier, and no longer amused with Teddy’s antics, but the story ends with an old-fashioned gesture of chivalry: Richard takes off his T-shirt to reveal the “pale expanse” of belly about which he’s sensitive, and offers it to Teddy, who lacks a shirt.

In the quirky “Fly-Over State,” a New York woman named Susan finds herself sentenced to Wisconsin, where her husband has taken an academic job, and she has little to do but study the habits of the locals, in particular the grown son of her neighbors, who introduces himself as “Mud” and lives in his parents’ basement. Although she fears Mud is a “serial killer,” Susan takes to him, as he displays “the first sign of unfriendliness” she’s encountered since moving to Wisconsin. Mud asks whether living New York is like it is in the movies, and she thinks, “nothing was as much like the movies as the last month of my life, when strange women brought me lemonade and baked goods, which I then consumed without worry that I was being poisoned for the lease to my Co-Op.”

A good sense of humor is a great place to start as a writer, and Emma Straub is off to a promising beginning with these funny, sensitive stories.” – The Dallas Morning News

Emma Straub’s forthcoming novel is Laura Lamont’s Life in Pictures. Her fiction and non-fiction have appeared in The Paris Review Daily, Tin House, Cousin Corinne's Reminder, and many other journals. She works as a bookseller at Brooklyn's BookCourt, has read recently with her father, horror master Peter Straub, and tweets @emmastraub.

Friday, July 29
7:30 PM

A Conversation with
CHRISTOPHER MOORE and IAN CORSON
THE GRIFF

From outrageously funny New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore and award-winning screenwriter and director Ian Corson, THE GRIFF: A Graphic Novel is about an alien invasion of Earth and the motley crew of humans who save the world—sort of . . .

How do you conquer the world in 4 easy steps?

First, activate an ancient alien beacon that summons a behemoth spaceship from the far reaches of the galaxy. Second, release a stream of pods that unfold into minivan-size griffin-like dragons into Earth’s atmosphere. Third, destroy all human defensive and emergency infrastructures. Finally, systematically kill everyone on the planet.

Too bad a pesky trio of survivors aren’t about to roll out the red carpet to these alien invaders. Mo, a snarky, sexy, Goth-y leader of a computer game-design team; Steve, a skateboard-punk who has made a career out of distributing swag at pro skating events; and Curt, the obligatory buff commando type (who seems to know just a little too much about makeup and hair color), are going to take it to the marauding Griff, battling their way from New York to Orlando, where the alien mother ship is the most awesome new attraction.

And in Florida, another motley band of survivors await, including Liz, a killer whale trainer at Ocean World, and Oscar, a chain-smoking professional squirrel (seriously—he’s paid to wear that squirrel costume).

Once united, the intrepid warriors will attempt to infiltrate the alien spacecraft and save the world…

Christopher Moore is the author of twelve previous novels: Practical Demonkeeping, Coyote Blue, Bloodsucking Fiends, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Lamb, Fluke, The Stupidest Angel, A Dirty Job, You Suck, Fool, and Bite Me.

Ian Corson is an award-winning screenwriter and director whose credits includeBloodline for Castle Rock Entertainment and Starting Five for Paramount Pictures. He has also directed Monster Garage for the Discovery Channel and the feature filmMalicious (starring Molly Ringwald). He teaches screenwriting at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He lives in Los Angeles,

Wednesday, August 10
7:30 PM

CHRISTOPHER BOUCHER
HOW TO KEEP YOUR VOLKSWAGON ALIVE
A Novel

"Christopher Boucher joins a now-forgotten handbook with Steven Wright's old joke* about mistakenly sticking a car key in a house door and builds a new, exuberant novel-world. Goofiness and grief are in perfect harmony in this impressive, moving debut." -- Sam Lipsyte

"How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive is definitely the next book you should read. It’ll be the most fun you’ll ever have getting sad." – Adam Levin

*"The other night I came home late, and tried to unlock my house with my car keys. I started the house up. So, I drove it around for a while. I was speeding, and a cop pulled me over. He asked where I lived. I said, 'Right here, officer.'" – Steven Wright

Driving a classic 1971 VW Beetle across country on tour, Christopher Boucher makes a pit stop in San Francisco this evening.

If you think raising a kid in today’s world is hard, imagine how tough it would be if your child also happened to be a Volkswagen Beetle. And not a modern Beetle at that, but a 1960's era Bug who tended to forget himself racing joyously and heedlessly down the highway, only to break down on the side of the road, puking oil. It’s enough to help a man cope with the recent death of his father, and focus on the dizzying, beautiful here and now of his fragile child.

Welcome to Christopher Boucher’s zany and brilliant literary universe, a place where metaphors shift beneath your feet, familiar words suddenly assume new meaning, tools talk, trees walk, and where time is actually money.

Modeled on the bestselling 1969 hippie handbook of the same title, this wildly inventive tale is both a stunning tour-de-force and a wise and charming consideration of the stuff of great fiction: death, love, loss, responsibility, and road trips.

With the hyperkinetic spark of George Saunders and the surrealist humanism of Aimee Bender, How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive marks the arrival of a fiction-making Mozart.

Christopher Boucher received his MFA in Fiction from Syracuse University, where he studied with George Saunders and Junot Díaz. Before moving to Syracuse, he worked as the Arts and Entertainment Writer for The Daily Hampshire Gazette, and drove (when it started) a 1971 Volkswagen Beetle. He currently teaches writing and literature at Boston College, and is the managing editor of Post Road Magazine. In his free time, he plays banjo in a bluegrass band.

Thursday, August 11
7:30 PM

CARMELA CIURARU
in conversation with OSCAR VILLALON
NOM DE PLUME: A (Secret) History of Pseudonyms

Nom de Plume is a fascinating collection of stories – populated by individuals whose ‘doubleness’ is so distinct that they acquire secondary personalities, and, in some notable cases, multiple personalities. It’s a richly documented literary excursion into the inner, secret lives of some of our favorite writers.” -- Joyce Carol Oates

“This is a fascinating book on a fascinating subject. We all have other selves, but only some of us give them a name and let them loose in the world. Carmela Ciuraru steps behind a host of shadowy facades to interrogate the originals, and the result is both enlightening and wonderfully entertaining.” -- John Banville

In our “look at me” era of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and the 24-hour news cycle, privacy now seems a quaint relic. Everyone’s a brand. Self-effacement is a thing of the past. Yet as Carmela Ciuraru’s book reminds us, it wasn’t always like this. NOM DE PLUME explores the fascinating stories of sixteen authorial impostors across centuries and cultures, plumbing the creative process and the darker, often crippling aspects of their fame.

Various biographies have chronicled the lives of individual pseudonymous authors such as Mark Twain, Isak Dinesen, and George Eliot, but never before have the stories behind many noms de plume been collected into a single volume. Each chapter is a mini-biography, delving into the intrigue and turmoil behind the secret identities. These are narratives of secrecy, obsession, modesty, scandal, defiance, and shame. A few highlights: A shy, half-deaf Victorian mathematician at Oxford felt free to let his imagination run wild only through the protective guise of Lewis Carroll; the aristocratic, cigar-smoking, cross-dressing Baroness who rejected the rules of propriety by having sexual liaisons with men and women alike, publishing novels and plays as George Sand; the alcoholic, misanthropic, nattily dressed, snail collecting, bestselling novelist Patricia Highsmith (Strangers on a Train, The Talented Mister Ripley) concealed her identity -- and her sexuality -- to write a novel celebrating lesbian love. (Elsewhere, she used occasional pseudonyms for her anti-Semitic rants in newspapers and in letters to politicians.); the “three weird sisters” (as the poet Ted Hughes called them) from Yorkshire -- the Brontës -- produced instant bestsellers, transforming them into literary icons, yet they wrote under the cloak of male authorship. Emily and Anne were dead by the age of thirty, tragically never having achieved fame under their own names; a young Eton-educated man from a well-to-do family reinvented himself as the downtrodden writer George Orwell.

Grounded by research yet highly accessible and engaging, these provocative, astonishing stories reveal the complex motives of writers who hoarded secret identities -- sometimes playfully, sometimes with terrible anguish and tragic consequences. A wide-ranging exploration of pseudonyms both familiar and obscure, NOM DE PLUME is part detective story, part exposé, part literary history, and an absorbing psychological meditation on identity and creativity.

Carmela Ciuraru is not a pseudonym. Her anthologies include First Loves: Poets Introduce the Essential Poems That Captivated and Inspired Them and Solitude Poems. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle and PEN American Center, and has written for a number of publications, including the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, the Forward, Newsday, O, The Oprah Magazine, and ReadyMade.She lives in Brooklyn. Follow her on Twitter @CarmelaTheTwit, or find her onFacebook and read her blog about the arts, culture and books

Oscar Villalon is the managing editor of Zyzzyva, and a former book critic for theSan Francisco Chronicle. He is also a dynamic interviewer, a part he’ll play splendidly this evening.

Friday, August 12
8:00 PM

LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY
An Evening of Satire, Cabaret, and Amazing Feats of Comedy

August’s Foolery features Slow Sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm byNicole Daedone. Nicole is the founder of One Taste and has been making international waves redefining the female orgasm. (Check out her TED Talk.). This evening, Nicole joins us in person, talking with the clown Dr. Schmidt about her work! Come for an evening of hilarious clown acts and learn all about orgasms in the process!

Admission $10; advance tickets at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006. Wines and mineral waters.

Tuesday, August 16
7:30 PM

An Evening of Poetry and Music
YURI KAGEYAMA with ERIC KAMAU GRAVATT and ISAKU KAGEYAMA

Prize-winning American essayist, novelist and poet Ishmael Reed has compiled into a new book the works of a Japanese woman who has chosen English as her language of expression to explore the themes of racism, sexuality, identity and family. Yuri Kageyama’s poetry and fiction underline her bicultural Japanese and American sensibilities for a challenging view of the everyday that debunks cultural stereotypes and lambastes male domination.

“They’ve called Yuri ‘cute’ often during her life. She’s cute all right. Like a tornado is cute. Like a hurricane is cute. This Yuricane,” Reed writes in his introduction. “Her poems critique Japanese as well as American society. The Chikan. The arrogance of the Gaijin, who, even when guests in a country, insist that everybody be like them. Some are erotic. You might find allusions to Richard Wright, Michelangelo, John Coltrane. Music is not only entertainment but like something that one injects, something that invades the nervous system.”

Yuri Kageyama is a bilingual and bicultural poet and writer, born in Japan, raised in Maryland, Tokyo and Alabama. Her works have appeared in many literary publications, including Y’Bird, Greenfield Review, San Francisco Stories, On a Bed of Rice, Breaking Silence: an Anthology of Asian American Poets, POW WOW: Charting the Fault Lines in the American Experience _ Short Fiction from Then to Now, Other Side River, Beyond Rice, Yellow Silk, Stories We Hold Secret, KONCH, MultiAmerica and Obras. She has two books of poems, The New and Selected Yuri: Writing From Peeling Till Now and Peeling. Her film “Talking Taiko” (March 2010), directed by Yoshiaki Tago, documents her readings and thoughts on art and life. She has collaborated in readings with music, visual art and dance, including an Isamu Noguchi exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She has translated the words of dancer Suzushi Hanayagi for Robert Wilson’s performance piece “KOOL _ Dancing in My Mind.” She also translated Hiromi Ito's poems. She is a magna cum laude graduate of Cornell University and holds an M.A. in Sociology from the UC Berkeley. She lives in Tokyo.

Eric Kamau Gravatt is a jazz drumming legend, having performed with many artists, including Stanley Clarke, Michael Brecker, Wayne Shorter, Freddie Hubbard, McCoy Tyner, Wallace Roney, Gary Bartz, Ravi Coltrane, Weather Report, John Scofield, Albert Ayler, Don Ayler, Yuri Kageyama, Roberta Flack, Sonny Fortune, Bill Frisell, Woddy Shaw, Derrick Trucks, Roy Hargrove, Bobby Hutcherson, Jackie McLean, Charles Mingus, Donald Byrd, Carlos 'Patato' Valdez, Ladjii Cammara, Booker Irvin, Pharoah Saunders, James Moody, Kenny Dorham, Blue Mitchell, Hank Mobley, Harold Wheeler, Tony Hymas, Donny Hathaway, Paquito D'Rivera, Hino Terumasa, Andrew N. White III, The Milwaukee Symphony, Jimmy Heath, Sam Rivers, Khalid Yasin, George Mraz, Savion Glover and Kikuchi Masabumi. He has taught at the Philadelphia All City Elementary School Student’s Symphony Orchestra, The New Thing Art & Architecture Center and the African Heritage Dancers & Drummers, both in Washington, D.C., as well as lectured at Howard University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Minnesota He lives in Minneapolis and leads Source Code.

Isaku Kageyama is the principal drummer for top taiko ensemble Amanojaku, in Tokyo, where he studied taiko under composer and Amanojaku founder Yoichi Watanabe from the age of six. He has also blended taiko with other genres to claim a place in the modern art scene for the traditional Japanese drum by leading his fusion trio Hybrid Soul, his extensive collaborations with Winchester Nii Tete, a percussionist from Ghana, and featuring taiko in creative club events for the young in Tokyo. He has played with Toshinori Kondo, Amelia Ali, Seijiro Sawada, Kazutoki Umezu, Kyosuke Suzuki, Chris Young, Pat Glynn, Craig Harris, NATA, Kansai Yamamoto, Yuu Ishizuka, Shintaro Sendo, Terumasa Hino and Takashi Yanase. He is a two-time National Odaiko (large drum) Champion. He was the youngest player to win the honors at the Mr. Fuji Odaiko Contest in 2000, at 18. He won the Hokkaido title in 2003. He has taught taiko in Brazil, where Amanojaku has repeatedly visited to instruct its taiko style. He lives in Boston and is studying at the Berklee College of Music.

Wednesday, August 17
7:30 PM

JULIAN GUTHRIE
THE GRACE OF EVERYDAY SAINTS:
How a Band of Believers Lost Their Church and Found Their Faith

“Must a religious community depend on a physical structure for its reality? Or do the people themselves make sacred ground wherever they gather? The exiled congregation of St. Brigid have not given up their church. Their story will reverberate long after this amazing book ends.”—Maxine Hong Kingston

St. Brigid Church was one of San Francisco’s great landmarks in the early 1990s. The church itself had weathered depressions and natural disasters, epic earthquakes and a massive fire. Its loyal congregation was active, vibrant, and growing. But in 1993, without warning, the Catholic archdiocese mysteriously ordered its doors to be closed.

The Grace of Everyday Saints is the story of how a ragtag group of believers came together in a crusade to save their church. What they discovered would be devastating: that around the country, parishes like theirs were threatened by the higher echelons of the Church, all to hide a terrible secret. Soon there were near-daily headlines that shocked the world. But still this unlikely group of heroes—led by a renegade lawyer, a reformed Catholic, and an antiestablishment priest—continued to meet weekly, to fight, to prove that their beloved St. Brigid was worth saving.

A dramatic narrative that takes readers from the streets of San Francisco to the halls of the Vatican, Guthrie’s investigation is about injustice and betrayal, redemption and grace.

Julian Guthrie is a reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle. She has won numerous awards for her work, including the Best of the West Award and the Society of Professional Journalists' Public Service Award.

Wednesday, August 24
7:30 PM

CLARK BLAISE
THE MEAGRE TARMAC

BHARATI MUKHERJEE
THE NEW MISS INDIA

Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee are writers, with scores of books between them, who have been married to one another for over forty years. This evening they’ll talk about, and read a bit from, each of their new books, and will discuss intercultural marriage, its expectations and realities.

Of Clark Blaise’s newest collection of stories, Margaret Atwood writes “Top work by a master storyteller and border-crosser … a gem of a book.”

The Meagre Tarmac begins with Dr. Vivek Waldekar, who refused to attend his father’s funeral because he was “trying to please an American girl who thought starting a fire in his father’s body too gross a sacrilege to contemplate.” It ends with Pranab Dasgupta, the Rockefeller of India, who can only describe himself as “‘a very lonely, very rich, very guilty immigrant.’” And in between is a cluster of remarkable characters, incensed by the conflict between personal desire and responsibility, who exhaust themselves in pursuit of the miraculous. Fearless and ferociously intelligent, these stories are vintage Blaise, whose outsider’s view of the changing heart of America has always been ruthless and moving and tender.

Of Bharati Mukherjee’s newest novel, Amy Tan writes, “Enchanting! Mukherjee's pitch-perfect ear for character and mood and her story-telling gifts capture the exhilarating restlessness of a young Indian woman's pursuit of happiness. Miss New India illuminates as brilliantly as it entertains.”

Meet Anjali Bose. Born into a traditional lower-middle-class family and living in a backwater town with an arranged marriage on the horizon, Anjali doesn’t like her prospects. Armed with ambition, moxie and a gift for language, Anjali sets off to Bangalore, India’s fastest-growing major metropolis, determined to change her destiny. .Miss New India perfectly captures a moment in a modernizing, sophisticated and evolving India in this vividly imagined story of a young woman’s quest to invent a new life for herself.

Mukherjee explores how young Indians are dismantling age-old social structures by creating new identities—both literally and figuratively—as call-center employees, where crossing cultural lines is only a phone call away.

Clark Blaise, Canadian and American, is the author of 20 books of fiction and nonfiction. A longtime advocate for the literary arts in North America, Blaise has taught writing and literature at Emory, Skidmore, Columbia, NYU, Sir George Williams, UC-Berkeley, SUNY-Stony Brook, and the David Thompson University
Centre. In 1968, he founded the postgraduate Creative Writing Program at Concordia University; he after went on to serve as the Director of the International Writing Program at Iowa (1990-1998), and as President of the
Society for the Study of the Short Story (2002-present). Blaise has received an Arts and Letters Award for Literature from the American Academy, and in
2010 was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Bharati Mukherjee is the author of eight novels, two story collections, and the coauthor of two books of nonfiction. She has also written numerous essays on immigration and American culture and is the first naturalized U.S. citizen to have won the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Best Fiction. She is a professor of English at the UC Berkeley.

Wednesday, September 7
7:30 PM

MARY JO McCONAHAY
MAYA ROADS
One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest

As a young expat studying Spanish in Mexico in the 1970s, Mary Jo McConahay fell in love with the haunting beauty and mystery of the rainforest. Determined to experience the jungle firsthand, McConahay traveled solo through the beautiful wild region that spans southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. She found her own way, encountering animals, snakes, archaeologists, and, most important, the indigenous Lacandón people, descendants of the ancient Maya.

Drawing upon three decades in Central America’s remote and dangerous landscapes, where she traveled, lived, and worked as a war correspondent, McConahay’s MAYA ROADS chronicles her intense relationships with the land, people, politics, archaeology and species of the cradle of Maya civilization. As she sleeps on mosquito-net-covered hammocks, hikes through the steamy jungle and views the autumnal equinox during a rainstorm, she also recognizes the effects of increased drug trafficking and the horrific violence brought about by revolution and uprisings. McConahay traces not only the lives of the jungle’s inhabitants -- the villagers and war survivors -- but also her own development and bittersweet regret at the transformations modern life has forced upon the Lacandón and the rainforest.

From Indiana Jones–like escapades to passionate Day of the Dead rituals, McConahay’s insights and gripping narrative make MAYA ROADS a personal story of discovery as well as a dramatic depiction of a changing culture.

“In this extraordinary travel memoir, McConahay journeys through beauty, history, disappearing cultures, and revolution… Her courage, keen observation, and open heart make her an unparalleled guide to this gorgeous, mysterious, sacred, and sometimes terrifying corner of the planet.” -- Laura Fraser, author of An Italian Affairand All Over the Map

Check out Don George’s review in National Geographic.

Mary Jo McConahay is a journalist who began covering Guatemala and Central America as a correspondent in the 1980s. Her work has appeared in more than 30 magazines and periodicals including Rolling Stone, Time, Vogue and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Talk with Us About Why “Local” Matters:
Thursday, September 8
7:30 PM

ANDREW LATIES Talks with CHRISTIN EVANS:

WHY INDIE BOOKSTORES REPRESENT EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO FIGHT FOR FROM FREE SPEECH TO BUYING LOCAL TO BUILDING COMMUNITIES

Andy Laties has launched five bookselling companies in the past thirty years. In 1987 he won the Women's National Book Association's Pannell Award for his innovative community outreach work at The Children's Bookstore in Chicago. After ten years as an American Booksellers Association School instructor, Andy wrote the original Rebel Bookseller, which won the 2006 Independent Publisher Award for best book about writing and publishing. He’s now revised and expanded that book, and teacher and educator Bill Ayers has added an afterword.

Laties tells how he got started, how he kept going, and why he believes independent bookselling has a great future. He alternates his narrative with short anecdotes, interludes between the chapters that give his credo as a bookseller. Along the way, he explains the growth of the chains, and throws in a treasure trove of tips for anyone who is considering opening up a bookstore.

Andy holds a Masters degree from the School of Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University. He co-founded and still manages the museum shop at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts.

Joining the conversation this evening is Booksmith’s co-owner Christin Evans.

REBEL BOOKSELLER is a must read for those who care about the book biz, a testament to the ingeniousness of one man’s story of making a life out of his passionate commitment to books and bookselling.

“Everything you always wanted to know about the book business but were afraid to ask.” -- Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Sunday, September 11
4:00 PM

THIRTEEN WAYS

One of the Bay Area's longest-standing poetry groups arrives to read at The Booksmith and to film the event to post on YouTube. Thirteen Ways writers reading this afternoon are Idris Anderson, Beverly Burch, Lisa Gluskin-Stonestreet, George Higgins, Diane Kirsten-Martin, Zack Rogow, Melissa Stein, and Robert Thomas.

Individually the poets have won national prizes and awards. As a group, they meet one Sunday a month for a potluck and critique session. Thirteen Ways began in 1987, and though the members have changed over the years, the poets continue to enjoy one another's writing, company, and cooking, not to mention a little bit of literary gossip.


Monday, September 12
7:30 PM

ANN WILLIAMS
DOWN FROM CASCOMB MOUNTAIN

“This is a haunting and lovely book.” -- Andre Dubus III, author of Townie

Set in rugged New Hampshire in the aftermath of a fatal accident, this assured debut novel wrestles with grief and desire as a young woman finds her way over the course of one summer.

“There seems to be no element of these people and this landscape to which Williams is a stranger. She sees straight to the heart of her characters, and it is a pleasure to witness them yearning and grieving and loving their way through these pages, one living human presence after another, the mountain and the forest rising up around them in all their mystery and specificity.” -- Kevin Brockmeier, author of Illuminationand The Brief History of the Dead

Ann Joslin Williams grew up observing the craft of writing: her father, Thomas Williams, was a National Book Award-winning novelist. Many of his stories were set in the fictional town of Leah, New Hampshire, and on nearby Cascom Mountain, locations that closely mirrored the landscape of the Williamses’ real hometown. WithDOWN FROM CASCOM MOUNTAIN, she proves herself a formidably talented novelist in her own right, while paying tribute to her father by setting her debut novel in the same fictional world -- the New Hampshire he imagined and that she has always known.

Newlywed Mary Hall brings her husband to settle in the rural New Hampshire of her youth to fix up the house she grew up in and to reconnect to the land that defined her, with all its beauty and danger. But on a mountain day hike, she watches helplessly as her husband falls to his death. As she struggles with her sudden grief, in the days and months that follow, Mary finds new friendships -- with Callie and Tobin, teenagers on the mountain club’s crew, and with Ben, the gentle fire watchman. All are haunted by their own losses, but they find ways to restore hope in one another, holding firmly as they navigate the rugged terrain of the unknown and unknowable, and loves lost and found.

Ann Joslin Williams grew up in New Hampshire. She earned her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She is the author of The Woman in the Woods, a collection of linked stories, which won the 2005 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, and her work has appeared in StoreQuarterly, the Iowa Review, the Missouri Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She was the winner of an NEA grant for her work on Down from Cascom Mountain. Williams is an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire.


YUM!
Tuesday, September 13
7:30 PM

STEVEN GDULA
GOBBA GOBBA HEY:
A GOB COOKBOOK

Now that you can’t walk a city block without passing a cupcake vendor, it seems that these little desserts have sated the market, not to mention the public. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a new cake-like confection, small like a cupcake, with buttercream or cream cheese frosting (naturally), and cake on both sides of said frosting, like a little sandwich? A more delicious and sophisticated whoopie pie, without the to-be-expected marshmallow filling?

Enter the gob.

When Steven Gdula was growing up in western Pennsylvania, gobs were a staple dessert, found everywhere -- at church bake sales and birthday parties, and even stacked by convenience store cash registers, sparkling in cellophane. Transplanted to San Francisco, Steven found himself missing these sweet treats, but the only way he could satisfy his craving was to make them himself. Well, he could do that, and, even better, he’d share them with his new city. With a nod to the Ramones, he called his enterprise Gobba Gobba Hey, and, after starting out by having to explain to passersby what a gob was, he’s now a local food rock star, selling his gobs from a cart on the streets of San Francisco and beyond. In GOBBA GOBBA HEY, Steven introduces readers, bakers, and eaters to the gob.

Here you’ll find fifty-two recipes, one for every week of the year, from old-school chocolate and vanilla to matcha green tea with lemongrass ginger frosting, to orange cardamom ginger with saffron frosting, to chocolate fennel with raspberry absinthe. Heavenly! You may just have a tasting treat in store for you this evening…


Wednesday, September 14
7:30 PM

BEN FONG-TORRES
THE RICE ROOM
GROWING UP CHINESE-AMERICAN FROM NUMBER TWO SON TO ROCK 'N' ROLL

An instant best-seller when originally published in 1994, this expanded and updated edition of THE RICE ROOM tells of growing up with a double identity—Chinese and American. Ben Fong-Torres was torn between an alluring American lifestyle—including Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll—and the traditional cultural heritage his proud immigrant parents struggled to instill in their five children. Now illustrated with personal family photographs as well as photos of the author with various celebrities, Fong-Torres rounds out his life story with a new final chapter.

Ben Fong-Torres is the author of many books, including Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing and Life, Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock &’ Roll and The Hits Just Keep on Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio, plus the forthcoming The Eagles.

“Ben Fong-Torres ran and wrote the music section of Rolling Stone and at the same time kept his other foot in the dark, secret world of San Francisco’s Chinatown. It’s an amazing story.” -- Jann Wenner


A READING! A BOOKSWAP!

Find your way to THE NIGHT CIRCUS: Booksmith’s Bookswap Mixes It Up
with ERIN MORGENSTERN and her deliciously magical new book

Friday, September 16

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway -- a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love -- a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Rich, seductive, Morgenstern’s splendid and spell-catching debut novel is a feast for the senses and the heart – and not to be missed.

Erin Morgenstern is a writer and a multimedia artist, who describes all her work as "fairy tales in one way or another." She lives in Massachusetts with her husband and two very fluffy cats. It’s our great pleasure to welcome her to our festive celebration party and Bookswap.

6:30 – 7:30 Erin Morgenstern talks, reads, and signs books (no charge; RSVPs requested via Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006 or in the store; preferred seating with advance purchase of THE NIGHT CIRCUS at The Booksmith)

7:30 – 10:00 The Bookswap commences: eat, drink, talk, and swap (books) with Erin and like-minded booklovers, with cameo appearances by our Literary Clowns (space is limited; tickets required: $25 at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006 or in the store)

Never been to a Booksmith Bookswap? Our wildly popular and always sold-out Bookswap evenings are scheduled four times a year or so. Book lovers from all over the Bay Area converge to eat deliciously, drink free-flowing wine happily, and share passionately one book they’re evangelists for…and to take home someone else’s absolute favorite in the bargain (plus there’s a discount coupon for everyone!) Which book to share this evening? Consider bringing something that struck you not only as wonderful, but magical. The interpretation is up to you!

More on The Night Circus:

"Pure pleasure...Erin Morgenstern is a gifted, classic storyteller, a tale-teller, a spinner of the charmed and mesmerizing -- I had many other things I was supposed to be doing, but the book kept drawing me back in and I tore through it. You can be certain this riveting debut will create a group of rêveurs all its own."
-- Aimee Bender, author of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

“The Night Circus is a gorgeously imagined fable poised in the high latitudes of Hans Christian Anderson and Oscar Wilde, with a few degrees toward Hesse’s “Steppenwolf” for dangerous spice. The tale is masterfully written and invites allegorical interpretations even as its leisurely but persistent suspense gives it compelling charm. An enchanting read.”
-- Katherine Dunn, author of Geek Love

“A riveting debut. The Night Circus pulls you into a world as dark as it is dazzling, fully-realized but still something out of a dream. You will not want to leave it.”
-- Téa Obreht, author of The Tiger’s Wife

"While there are echoes of Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus (a newspaper piece by a Rêveur, or circus aficionado, shares the name), Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, and Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love, Morgenstern’s vision remains distinct wholly her own. Great novels of the circus have frequently reveled in the underbelly beneath the daylight calliope, but here the author builds tension by refusing to allow her characters to give in to the dark. Nimbly leaping from one memorable character to another, from one wondrous scene to another worrisome secret, the author conjures a compulsive read carried forward by precise and lovely prose."-- Publishers Weekly



Join us for AN AFTERNOON OF POETRY, WINE, AND NIBBLES:
Sunday, September 18
4:00 PM

KIWAO NOMURA
WITH TRANSLATOR KYOKO YOSHIDA
SPECTACLE & PIGSTY

If you think of haiku when you think of Japanese poetry, Kiwao Nomura’s work will be a huge surprise. His strange and wild poems deal with sex and loss and memory by making unpredictable leaps of association. Imagine Fugazi singing philosophy and you get close. Inspired by shamanism, Kiwao Nomura sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard before and like something you want to hear over and over. He is one of the two or three of the most influential living Japanese poets, and his work will be as stunningly original and compelling to contemporary Americans as haiku was to the late Victorians.

Kiwao Nomura was born in 1951 in Saitama Prefecture. He graduated from Waseda University, majoring in Japanese literature. A leading writer of the post-war generation, he is in the forefront of contemporary poetry. At the same time, he is known to be a prolific critic, translator, and essayist on comparative poetics. His work has been translated into many languages and published in magazines abroad, especially in France and the United States. He has performed internationally and released two CDs of collaborations with musicians. He played a leading role in Contemporary Poetry Festival 95, Poetry Goes Out and Contemporary Poetry Festival 97, Dance and Poésie. In 2007, he organized The Festival of International Poetry: Toward the Pacific Rim. From August to November 2005, he was a fellow at the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa in the United States. In December of the same year, he served as a director of the Japan-European Contemporary Poetry Festival in Tokyo.

Kyoko Yoshida was born and raised in Fukuoka, Japan. She was a participant of the 2005 International Writing Program at University of Iowa. Her stories have been published in The Massachusetts Review, Chelsea, The Cream City Review and The Beloit Fiction Journal, among other places. She is working on a novel about the visit of American Negro League baseball players to Japan in the 1930s. In addition, she translates Japanese contemporary poetry and drama. Recently a Visiting Scholar at Brown University, she teaches English at Keio University and lives in Yokohama.

Nomura’s publisher, Omnidawn, is based in the Bay Area, and has been publishing innovative writing since 2001, including poetry, poetics, translations, and fabulist fiction. Our books are distributed nationally by Independent Publishers Group (IPG), have been reviewed widely, and have received awards, including a PEN USA Award in Poetry and two PEN USA Awards in Translation.



Monday, September 19
7:30 PM

WILL BOAST
POWER BALLADS

JOSH ROLNICK
PULP AND PAPER


Josh Rolnick’s Pulp and Paper captures lightning in a bottle, excavating the smallest steps people take to move beyond grief, heartbreak, and failure -- conjuring the subtle, fragile moments when people are not yet whole, but no longer quite as broken.

“Josh Rolnick is a wonderful observer and a beautiful storyteller. Each story in Pulp and Paper is a path to the hearts of Rolnick’s characters, who, like you and me, strive to be their true, honest selves despite follies and weaknesses. A truly compassionate collection.” -- Yiyun Li


Josh Rolnick’s short stories have won the Arts & Letters Fiction Prize and the Florida Review Editor’s Choice Prize. They have also been published in Harvard Review, Western Humanities Review, Bellingham Review, and Gulf Coast, and have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best New American Voices. A reporter, editor, and journal publisher, he grew up in New Jersey, spent summers camping his way through Upstate New York, and has lived in Jerusalem, London, Philadelphia, Iowa City, Washington, D.C., and Menlo Park. He lives with his wife and three sons in Akron, Ohio.

“…I was unprepared for the powerful, cumulative effect of these related stories. There’s a barebones believability, increased in every direction by the author’s ability to permeate veneers and to find moments of harmony…heard very unexpectedly. Underneath the calm surface runs an undercurrent of loss and pain, a subtext never sentimentalized or easily summarized. He can really write. What an impressive book.” – Ann Beattie


Will Boast’s linked stories in Power Ballads are devoted to the unheard virtuoso: the working musician.

From the wings of sold-out arena to hip-hop studios to polka bars, these stories are born out of a nocturnal world where music is often simply work, but also where it can, in rare moments, become a source of grace and transcendence. A skilled but snobby jazz drummer joins a costumed heavy metal band to pay his rent. A Country singer tries to turn her brutal past into a successful career. A vengeful rock critic reenters the life of an emerging singer-songwriter, beset on wreaking havoc. Boast’s characters need music to survive, yet find themselves lost when the last note is played, the lights go up, and it’s time to return to regular life. Both melancholy and hilarious, Power Ballads is an exploration of the secret music that plays inside us all.


Will Boast was born in England and grew up in Ireland and Wisconsin. His story collection, Power Ballads, won the 2011 Iowa Short Fiction Award. His fiction has appeared in Best New American Voices 2009, Narrative, Glimmer Train, The Southern Review, and The American Scholar, among other publications. From 2008-2010, he was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. He lives in San Francisco and moonlights as a musician around the Bay Area.


Wednesday, September 21
7:30 PM

ALEX SHAKAR
LUMINARIUM

Do you feel...Your life is without purpose? Your days are without meaning? There's something about existence you're just not getting?

Fred Brounian and his twin brother, George, were once co-CEOs of a New York City software company devoted to the creation of utopian virtual worlds. Now, in 2006, as two wars rage and the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, George is in a coma, control of the company has been wrenched away by a military contracting conglomerate, and Fred is broke. Near despair, he’s led by an attractive woman, Mira, to a neurological study promising “peak” experiences and a newfound spiritual outlook on life. As the study progresses, lines between subject and experimenter blur, and reality becomes increasingly porous. Meanwhile, Fred finds himself caught up in what seems at first a cruel prank: a series of bizarre emails and texts that purport to be from his comatose brother.

Moving between the research hospitals of Manhattan, the streets of a meticulously planned Florida city, the neighborhoods of Brooklyn and the uncanny, immersive worlds of urban disaster simulation; threading through military listserv geek-speak, Hindu cosmology, the maxims of outmoded self-help books and the latest neuro-scientific breakthroughs, LUMINARIUM is a brilliant exploration of the way we live now, a novel that’s as much about the role technology and spirituality play in shaping our reality as it is about the undying bond between brothers, and the redemptive possibilities of love.

Alex Shakar's first novel, The Savage Girl, a New York Times Notable Book, has been translated into six foreign languages. His story collection, City in Love, won the FC2 National Fiction Competition. A native of Brooklyn, NY, he now lives in Chicago with his wife, the composer Olivia Block.

"Luminarium is dizzyingly smart and provocative, exploring as it does the state of the present, of technology, of what is real and what is ephemeral. But the thing that separates Luminarium from other books that discuss avatars, virtual reality and the like is that Alex Shakar is committed throughout with trying, relentlessly, to flat-out explain the meaning of life. This book is funny, and soulful, and very sad, but so intellectually invigorating that you'll want to read it twice." – Dave Eggers

“Shakar's prose is sharp and hilarious, engendering the reader's faith in the novel's philosophical ambitions. Part Philip K. Dick, part Jonathan Franzen, this radiant work leads you from the unreal to the real so convincingly that you begin to let go of the distinction.” – Publishers Weekly (starred review)


Wednesday, September 21
7:30 PM

AN EVENING WITH NEAL STEPHENSON
AT THE SWEDISH AMERICAN HALL

The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Anathem, Neal Stephenson is continually rocking the literary world with his brazen and brilliant fictional creations—whether he’s reimagining the past (The Baroque Cycle), inventing the future (Snow Crash), or both (Cryptonomicon). With the gargantuan REAMDE, this visionary author whose mind-stretching fiction has been enthusiastically compared to the work of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Kurt Vonnegut, and David Foster Wallace—not to mention William Gibson and Michael Crichton—once again blazes new ground with a high-stakes thriller that will enthrall his loyal audience, science and science fiction, and espionage fiction fans equally. The breathtaking tale of a wealthy tech entrepreneur caught in the very real crossfire of his own online fantasy war game,REAMDE is a new high—and a new world—for the remarkable Neal Stephenson.

Neal Stephenson is the author of the three-volume historical epic The Baroque Cycle (Quicksilver, The Confusion, and The System of the World) and the novelsCryptonomicon, The Diamond Age, Snow Crash, Zodiac, and Anathem. He lives in Seattle, Washington.

Tickets: seat + book $47, at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-383-3006 or in the store.

The Booksmith at the Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market Street, San Francisco

Doors will open for seating at 6:30; a downstairs bar will be open. Space is limited, so we suggest purchasing your tickets early.



Thursday, September 22
7:30 PM

REVEREND BILLY and SAVITRI D
THE REVEREND BILLY PROJECT: FROM REHEARSAL HALL TO SUPER MALL WITH THE CHURCH OF LIFE AFTER SHOPPING

Reverend Billy, the revivalist preacher created by performance artist Bill Talen, has attracted an international following as he has railed in white suit and clerical collar against the evils of excessive consumerism and corporate irresponsibility. In his early solo performances in Times Square he delivered sermons by megaphone against Starbucks and the Disney Store; as his message and popularity spread, he’s been joined by a 35-member choir (The Life After Shopping Gospel Choir) and a 7-piece band. The group’s acclaimed stage show and media appearances (including the film What Would Jesus Buy?) have reached millions.

The Reverend Billy Project presents texts and backstage accounts of recent performance-actions by Reverend Billy and the troupe’s director, Savitri D, recounting their exploits on three continents in vivid narratives that are engaging, shrewdly analytical, and often side-splittingly funny. Also included are an introduction by journalist Alisa Solomon and her engaging interview with Bill and Savitri about their work. As thoughtful as they are funny and inventive, Reverend Billy and Savitri D’s story-essays bring to life a playful yet sincere new form of political theater. We’re thrilled they will both be with us this evening.

Reverend Billy and the Church of Life After Shopping have been featured in a wide range of contemporary media, including some unlikely places: the Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, Fox News, and even Glenn Beck. More than a thousand homemade movies of Reverend Billy have been posted on YouTube by the old-time faithful, and the project maintains a website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, and a regular email bulletin that goes out to tens of thousands subscribers.


Monday, September 26
7:30 PM

HELEN BENEDICT
SAND QUEEN

Culled from real life stories of female soldiers and Iraqis, SAND QUEEN offers a story of love, courage and struggle from the rare perspective of two young women on opposite sides of a war.

Nineteen-year-old Kate Brady joined the army to bring honor to her family and democracy to the Middle East. Instead, she finds herself in a forgotten corner of the Iraq desert, guarding a makeshift American prison. There, Kate meets Naema Jassim, an Iraqi medical student whose father and little brother have been arrested and detained. Kate and Naema promise to help each other, but the stresses of war soon strain their intentions. Like any soldier at war, Kate must face the daily threats of bombs and attacks, but as a woman, she is in equal danger from the predatory men in her unit. Naema suffers bombs, starvation, and the loss of her home and family. As the two women struggle to survive and hold on to the people they love, each comes to have a drastic and unforeseeable effect on the other’s life.

“Every war eventually yields works of art which transcend politics and history and illuminate our shared humanity. Helen Benedict’s brilliant new novel has done just that with this century’s American war in Iraq. Sand Queen is an important book by one our finest literary artists.” – Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

Helen Benedict is the author of five novels and five books of nonfiction. This, her sixth novel, is based on her research for her most recent nonfiction book, The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq. Benedict has won three major awards for her work on soldiers: The 2010 Exceptional Merit in Media Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus, The Ken Book Award from the National Alliance on Mental Illness for 2010, and the 2008 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism. She has testified twice to Congress on behalf of women in the military. She is a professor of journalism at Columbia University.


Wednesday, September 28
7:30 PM

BANNED BY THE BAY PRESENTS
“LET’S TALK FREADOM WITH KIRK BOYD”

Banned by the Bay, San Francisco’s celebration of Banned Books Week, invites you to The Booksmith for an insider’s look into battles over censorship and free speech and the state of the First Amendment in our libraries and schools.

Kirk Boyd graduated from the UC Berkeley School of Law in 1985 and then later returned to receive an LL.M, writing about the enforcement of economic and social rights in courts of law. He then went on to his doctorate, receiving his J.S.D. in 2001, for drafting an International Bill of Rights that can be enforceable in the courts of all countries. This work went on to become the best-selling book 2048: Humanity’s Agreement to Live Together, which tells about the evolution of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights into an enforceable International Bill of Rights.

This event is made possible by the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Media Law Resource Center Institute, The Booksmith and is part ofBanned by the Bay, a celebration of Banned Books Week taking place from September 24 - October 1.



Thursday, September 29
7:30 PM

SIMON REYNOLDS
RETROMANIA:
POP CULTURE’S ADDICTION TO ITS OWN PAST
In conversation with SCOTT HEWICKER

“Is nostalgia stopping our culture’s ability to surge forward, or are we nostalgic precisely because our culture has stopped moving forward and so we inevitably look back to more momentous and dynamic times? But what happens when we run out of past? Are we heading towards a sort of cultural–ecological catastrophe, when the seam of pop history is exhausted? And out of all the things that happened this past decade, what could possibly fuel tomorrow’s nostalgia crazes and retro fads?”

What will popular culture and music from the first decade of the twenty-first century be remembered for? In RETROMANIA, a brilliant consideration of this question, one of today’s best music writers, Simon Reynolds argues that the 2000s were the ‘Re’ Decade. The ‘Noughties’ saw countless genre revivals, classic album reissues, film and television remakes, lucrative reunion tours, event reenactments, and music that recycled, repurposed, and renovated existing culture with samples and mash-ups. As Reynolds writes, “there has never been a society in human history so obsessed with the cultural artifacts of its own immediate past.” But what does this mean for the present and future of music? Are we in the midst of the gradual wind-down of pop? Is this how it ends? “Not with a BANG but with a box set whose fourth disc you never get around to playing and an overpriced ticket to the track-by-track restaging of the Pixies or Pavement album you played to death in your first year at university”?

In addition to music, Reynolds considers everything from fashion to film, and shows how technologies that burgeoned in the 2000s—from internet archives, to YouTube, to the iPod—have made access to the past ridiculously easy. If we live in a world where we can hop on the computer (or iPhone) and watch a video of a blues singer like Son House, followed by a late seventies performance by Talking Heads, and then the newest Lady Gaga video within the span of ten minutes—and use them all to build our own identity—then who are we? If we document everything that we do right as we do it, aren’t we always in a state of looking backwards? There are some aspects of ‘retromania’ that Reynolds has less disdain for than others, but overall this book is an unsparing critique, itself nostalgic for the days when pop music seemed to hurtle into the future, and genres and artists had the ability to define eras.

Simon Reynolds is one of the most respected music journalists working today, and his writing is both influential and polarizing. He draws on an impressive range of knowledge, and writes with a fluid, engaging style. His books Rip it Up and Start Again and Generation Ecstasy are well-regarded works about their respective genres, and RETROMANIA may be his most broadly appealing book yet. It makes an argument about art, nostalgia, and technology that has implications for all readers—whether diehard music fans or not. It’s an important and provocative look at the present and future of culture and innovation.

Scott Hewicker is an artist, writer and musician based in San Francisco. He has an MFA from Stanford University and has exhibited his work at Gallery 16, Jack Hanley Gallery, Deitch Projects NY, Galleri Christina Wilson in Copenhagen, ICA Philadelphia and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. He recently co-curated the exhibit Hauntology at the Berkeley Art Museum with Larry Rinder, and plays in the bands The Alps and Aero-Mic’d. With Cliff Hengst, Hewicker co-edited and illustrated the book, Good Times, Bad Trips published by Gallery 16

“If I had to choose just one commentator to guide me through the last quarter-century of popular (and not so popular) music, it would have to be—on the basis of knowledge, range of reference, soundness of judgment, and fluency of style—Simon Reynolds.” -- Geoff Dyer

Wednesday, November 2
7:30 PM

ALAN KAUFMAN
DRUNKEN ANGEL

“With an outsized heart to go with its outsized thirst, Drunken Angel tells
the sort of truths that feel like myths and the sort of myths that feel like truth.”
—Daniel Handler

Son of a French Holocaust survivor, Alan Kaufman was an alcoholic so mauled by his indulgences it’s a marvel he was alive enough to get into recovery. DRUNKEN ANGEL is the story of how he climbed up from the abyss of a life pickled in self-pity, self-loathing and guilt to become a celebrated writer, editor, organizer and father to the daughter he’d abandoned for 20 years.

Kaufman’s descent takes us from the street gangs of the Bronx to the intellectual centers of Manhattan; from the battlefields of Gaza and the West Bank, where he served in the Israeli army, to the punk rock nights of the East Village, the poetry stages of Europe and San Francisco, as he was a force in the nascent spoken word poetry movement.

The brutal account of his ceaseless, losing battle against his addiction and the glimpses of beauty that emerge as he begins to find his way is mesmerizing. For the frontispiece Kaufman chose the Diane Arbus quote, “It’s very thrilling to see darkness again.” Reading this book is like watching an accident to see if any of the victims crawl away barely alive. Kaufman did, and here delivers a lacerating cautionary tale.

With his estranged daughter as inspiration, Kaufman cleaned himself up at age 40, taking full responsibility for nearly destroying himself, his work and so many loved ones along the way.


Alan Kaufman is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Jew Boy, the novel Matches, called "an extraordinary war novel," by David Mamet, and a book of poetry, Who Are We?. He is the award-winning editor of several anthologies, the most recent of which, The Outlaw Bible of American Literature, was reviewed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review. His work has appeared in Salon, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, The San Francisco Examiner, Partisan Review, Tikkun and Tel Aviv Review, among other publications. A former editor of Jewish Frontier, he is the founder and editor of the controversial magazine Davka: Jewish Cultural Revolution and has performed extensively as a spoken-word poet in the United States and internationally. A lay ordained Zen practitioner, he is also one of the founders and Dean of the Free University of San Francisco, which The New York Times recently compared to the Freedom Schools of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.


Thursday, November 3
7:30 PM

STEPHEN BEACHY
BONEYARD

Jake Yoder, a precocious boy caught between Amish culture and the modern world, sits in his sixth-grade classroom writing stories at the behest of a stern but charismatic teacher. Jake’s stories feature children who are crushed, imprisoned, and distorted, yet somehow flailing around with a kind of bedazzled awe, trying to find a way out. His characters wander through Amish farms, one-room schoolhouses, South American plains, mental institutions, exotic cities, and prisons; his often haunting and beautiful sentences seem constructed to the beat of an obsessive internal rhythm.

The strange logic and disturbing shifts in Jake’s tales reveal a young boy processing intense emotional experiences in the wake of his mother’s suicide and his own proximity to the schoolroom shootings at Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, in 2006. Jake imagines fantastic journeys, magical transformations, and rock stardom as alternatives, it seems, to his own grim reality and the limitations of his life among the Amish.

Novelist Stephen Beachy frames Jake’s work with commentary from both himself and his editor, in which they offer their very different views on Amish culture, literary context, the use of psychoactive medications for children, Stephen’s own mental health, and the reality of Jake Yoder’s unverified existence.


“Intelligent cultural critique wrapped in a twisty, turny, funny, damning fairy tale that happened neither long ago nor far away but every day and here.” -- Rebecca Brown

Stephen Beachy’s previous books are Distortion, The Whistling Song, and Some Phantom/No Time Flat. His article in New York Magazine in 2005 exposing JT LeRoy as a fake gained him a cult following of sorts. Beach teaches in the MFA program at USF.


Friday, November 4
6:30 PM

BOOKSWAP: SCIENCE EDITION!

Our last bookswap of 2011 happens November 4th, and we're ready to go out with a Big Bang. That's right - a bookswap with a science theme, because nerds are cool now (thanks, Steve Jobs).

Docents from Night Life at the California Academy of Sciences will be on hand to make sure this month's 'swap is not only fun, but educational. And, as always, kilos of delicious food (metric - for science!), 20% discount for bookswappers, and wine that flows like... well, wine.

Bring any book that tickles your neurons (science fiction counts!), provided you can still talk about it after three drinks, and then be prepared to bittersweetly part with it. Don't fret about giving it up! Most patrons leave with armfuls of free books.

Tickets are $25, and this event ALWAYS sells out. Tickets must be purchased in advance, in the store, or at Brown Paper Tickets (or phone 800-838-3006).


Tuesday, November 8
7:30 PM

FARIBA NAWA
OPIUM NATION:
Child Brides, Drug Lords, and One Woman’s Journey Through Afghanistan

Afghan-American journalist Fariba Nawa delivers a revealing and deeply personal exploration of Afghanistan and the drug trade which rules the country, from corrupt officials to warlords and child brides and beyond. Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and AThousand Splendid Suns calls OPIUM NATION “an insightful and informative look at the global challenge of Afghan drug trade.

Nawa weaves her personal story of reconnecting with her homeland after 9/11 with a very engaging narrative that chronicles Afghanistan’s dangerous descent into opium trafficking…and most revealingly, how the drug trade has damaged the lives of ordinary Afghan people.” Readers of Gayle Lemmon Tzemach’s The Dressmaker of Khair Khana and Rory Stewart’s The Places Between will find Nawa’s personal, piercing, journalistic tale to be an indispensable addition to the cultural criticism covering this dire global crisis.

Sharing remarkable stories of poppy farmers, corrupt officials, expats, drug lords, and addicts, including her haunting encounter with a twelve-year-old child bride who was bartered to pay off her father’s opium debts, Nawa offers a revealing and provocative narrative of a homecoming more difficult than she ever imagined as she courageously explores her own Afghan American identity and unveils a startling portrait of a land in turmoil.

Fariba Nawa has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, the Christian Science Monitor, Mother Jones, The Sunday Times Magazine(London), Newsday, and the Village Voice. She has been a guest on NPR, the BBC, MTV, NBC, and CBS’s 48 Hours.

“Opium Nation brings much needed depth and complexity to any conversation involving Afghanistan and its future. Fariba Nawa writes with the detailed eye of a journalist, the warmth of a proud Afghan and the nuanced perspective of someone effortlessly straddling the East and the West.”
— Firoozeh Dumas, author of Laughing Without an Accent and Funny in Farsi


Wednesday, November 9
7:30 PM

PETER ORNER
LOVE AND SHAME AND LOVE

Covering four generations of the Popper family, Peter Orner illuminates the countless ways that love both makes us whole and completely unravels us. Alternately comic and sorrowful, LOVE AND SHAME AND LOVE: A Novel explores the universals with stunning originality and wisdom.

Alexander Popper can’t stop remembering. Four years old when his father tossed him into Lake Michigan, he was told, Sink or swim, kid. In his mind, he’s still bobbing in that frigid water. The rest of this novel’s vivid cast of characters also struggle to remain afloat: Popper’s mother, stymied by an unhappy marriage, seeks solace in the relentless energy of Chicago; his brother, Leo, shadow boss of the family, retreats into books; paternal grandparents, Seymour and Bernice, once high fliers, now mourn for long-lost days; his father, a lawyer and would-be politician obsessed with his own success, fails to see that the family is falling apart; and his college girlfriend, the fiercely independent Kat, wrestles with impossible choices.

Peter Orner was born in Chicago and is the author of two widely praised books, Esther Stories and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo. Orner is also the editor of two books of oral history, Underground America and Hope Deferred: Narratives of Zimbabwean Lives. His work has appeared in the Atlantic Monthly and The Best American Short Stories, and has been awarded two Pushcart Prizes. A 2006 Guggenheim Fellow, Orner has taught at the University of Montana and the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa and is a permanent faculty member at San Francisco State University. He lives with his family in San Francisco.



Thursday, November 10
7:30 PM

GERALD NICOSIA
ONE AND ONLY: The Untold Story of On the Road

Beat historian Gerald Nicosia spent years looking for Lu Anne Henderson, the woman who started Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassady on their journey, because he knew that if not for her, the two men wouldn’t have taken the road trip that became On the Road. With the help of Lu Anne’s daughter Anne Marie Santos, Nicosia tells the story of the beautiful 15-year-old girl who loved both men, and taught them how to love each other, in ONE AND ONLY: The Untold Story of On The Road.

Nicosia had interviewed Henderson in 1978, when she was 47 and he was just in his early 20s, and though he said “a lot of Lu Anne was beyond me then,” he understood what a great gift she had given him. She had long strenuously avoided the spotlight—Nicosia only found her through an off-hand comment from a fellow Beat aficionado—and she quickly dropped out of sight again after they spoke. As the author of Memory Babe, widely regarded as the definitive work on Jack Kerouac, he alone recognized her secret impact on 20th century literature. ONE AND ONLY includes the never-before-published transcription of the 34,000-word taped interview and is illustrated with fifty-five rare archival black-and-white photographs, including priceless pictures of Neil Cassady and Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg and others, many of which have never before been seen.

Nicosia’s book coincides with the release of the long-awaited Walter Salles movie of On the Road later this fall, in which Kristen Stewart will portray Marylou, the character based on Lu Anne Henderson. The actors starring in the film weren’t born when On the Road was published. To educate them, Director Salles created “Beat boot camp,” enlisting ONE AND ONLY author Gerald Nicosia as the first instructor.

Lu Anne has routinely been portrayed as a teenage slut, which is how she came off in Carolyn Cassady’s memoir Heart Beat, made into a major movie in 1980. Finally, in ONE AND ONLY, we see Henderson as astutely sensitive and keenly observant about her own life, that of her friends, and the human condition. In preparing for her role, Kristen Stewart was having a hard time making sense of how Lu Anne could still love Neal, despite his endless cheating on her. After listening to the taped interview that is at the heart of this book, Kristen said she found the key to playing Marylou in the movie “as her own woman, not Neal’s.”

Gerald Nicosia is a biographer, historian, poet, playwright and novelist. His biography of Jack Kerouac won the Distinguished Young Writer Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters and was called a “great book” by Allen Ginsberg and “by far the best of the many books published about Jack Kerouac’s life and work” by William Burroughs. His book Home to War: A History of the Vietnam Veterans' Movement won numerous honors and was named one of the Los Angeles Times “Best Books of the Year” in 2001. He is currently at work on a biography of Ntozake Shange.

A SPECIAL BOOKSIGNING WITH A MASTER OF URBAN ART
Friday, November 11
6:30 PM

JUSTIN BUA
With DJ QBERT
THE LEGENDS OF HIP HOP:
Honoring the Greatest Names in Hip Hop History and Culture

A collection of portraits and personal essays by pop iconic artist and author Justin BUA, internationally known for his bestselling collection of fine-art posters, THE LEGENDS OF HIP HOP pays homage to 50 of the greatest names in hip hop history, using portraiture to celebrate each individual's revolutionary contribution to the global phenomenon known as hip hop. From Afrika Bambaataa, Queen Latifah, and LL Cool J to Snoop Dogg, Jay-Z, and Eminem, BUA captures the spirit of both the unsung and iconic heroes who have shaped music, art, dance, fashion, even language and politics. Each portrait is accompanied by a personal essay that details each individual's impact—not only on cultural history, but on BUA’s own life and work. THE LEGENDS OF HIP HOP comes not from an investigative academic, but from an authentic source who—as a native New Yorker and young artist—witnessed the birth and development of hip hop from a community movement to its explosion into a global industry.

Justin BUA attended NY's LaGuardia High School of Music & Performing Arts and Art Center College in CA, where he received a BFA.The Beat of Urban Art was his first book. BUA has created art for the music, film, fashion, and entertainment industries, with clients like Warner Brothers, Comedy Central, MTV, Sony, and EA Sports. BUA's art sells at galleries worldwide as well as at retail giants like Target. Recent credits include art direction for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's acclaimed film "On the Shoulders of Giants," as well as the direction and hosting of Ovation TV's hit documentary "Walk this Way," about rapper DMC of RUN-D.M.C. BUA lives in Los Angeles.

Please note: copies of BUA’s book must be purchased from The Booksmith in order to be signed. Advance orders may be placed in the store, by email (orders@booksmith.com), by phone (415-863-8688), and online (Booksmith.com). The Legends of Hip Hop will be available from the beginning of November on.

THE CONCLUSION OF THE WICKED YEARS:
Saturday, November 12
7:30 PM

GREGORY MAGUIRE
OUT OF OZ

In Wicked, Gregory Maguire created a rich fantasy world based on the characters and setting of The Wizard of Oz, as told from the point of view of the antagonist of L. Frank Baum’s classic tale. Offering a different look into the land of Oz, one of political and social unrest, Maguire first introduced readers to a little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, the misunderstood creature who grows up to become the infamous villain of Baum’s beloved story. That first novel in the series was followed by the hugely successful and bestselling novelsSon of a Witch, the story of Elphaba’s son Liir, and A Lion Among Men, the story of the Cowardly Lion named Brrr. With more than six million copies of the first three volumes in print, books in the Wicked Series have also been published in twenty countries and have been embraced by young and old alike.

Now in OUT OF OZ: The Final Volume in the Wicked Years, Maguire brings the world of Oz full circle, as he once again takes readers back to the marvelous land of Oz, where the Emerald City is mounting an invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda is held under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law. And Dorothy Gale of Kansas makes something more than a cameo appearance. Amidst the chaos, Elphaba’s granddaughter, Rain, comes of age to take up her broom in an Oz wracked by war.

This imaginative and stunning conclusion to one of the most beloved and bestselling series in modern American literature will assuredly please Gregory Maguire’s multitude of fans while gaining him many, many more. Please don’t miss meeting him, hearing him, and celebrating the phenomenon with us this evening!

Reserved seating available with the purchase of OUT OF OZ at The Booksmith beginning 11/1 (or advance order by phone, email, or website) while seats last.

Gregory Maguire received his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Tufts University. His work as a consultant in creative writing for children has taken him to speaking engagements across the United States and abroad. He is a founder and codirector of Children's Literature New England, Incorporated, a non-profit educational charity established in 1987.

Monday, November 14
7:30 PM

SARAH LADIPO MANYIKA
IN DEPENDENCE

It is the early-sixties when a young Tayo Ajayi sails to England from Nigeria to take up a scholarship at Oxford University. In this city of dreaming spires, he finds himself among a generation high on visions of a new and better world.
The whole world seems ablaze with change: independence at home, the Civil Rights movement and the first tremors of cultural and sexual revolutions. It is then that Tayo meets Vanessa Richardson, the beautiful daughter of an ex-colonial officer. IN DEPENDENCE is Tayo and Vanessa's story of a brave but bittersweet love affair, a tale of two people struggling to find themselves and each other, and a story of passion and idealism, courage and betrayal, and the universal desire to fall, madly, deeply, in love.

Sarah Manyika grew up in Nigeria in Lagos and Jos, and then Nairobi, Kenya. She won ACER’s Young Black British Writers Award in 1993 and the Andrew and Mary Thompson Rocca writing scholarship in 1999 for work in advanced African Studies. She holds a Ph.D from the University of California, Berkley in Education with a focus on Africa and the African Diaspora. She currently lectures at San Francisco State University.


Wednesday, November 16
7:30 PM

JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN
PULPHEAD

A sharp-eyed, uniquely humane tour of America’s cultural landscape—from high to low to lower than low—by the award-winning young star of the literary nonfiction world, PULPHEAD is an exhilarating tour of our popular, unpopular, and at times completely forgotten culture. Simultaneously channeling the gonzo energy of Hunter S. Thompson and the wit and insight of Joan Didion, Sullivan shows us—with a laidback, erudite Southern charm that’s all his own—how we really (no, really) live now.

In his native Kentucky, Sullivan introduces us to Constantine Rafinesque, a nineteenth-century polymath genius who concocted a dense, fantastical prehistory of the New World. Back in modern times, Sullivan takes us to the Ozarks for a Christian rock festival; to Florida to meet the alumni and straggling refugees of MTV’s Real World, who’ve generated their own self-perpetuating economy of minor celebrity; and all across the South on the trail of the blues. He takes us to Indiana to investigate the formative years of Michael Jackson and Axl Rose and then to the Gulf Coast in the wake of Katrina—and back again as its residents confront the BP oil spill.

Gradually, a unifying narrative emerges, a story about this country that we’ve never heard told this way. It’s like a fun-house hall-of-mirrors tour: Sullivan shows us who we are in ways we’ve never imagined to be true. Of course we don’t know whether to laugh or cry when faced with this reflection—it’s our inevitable sob-guffaws that attest to the power of Sullivan’s work.

”The age-old strangeness of American pop culture gets dissected with hilarious and revelatory precision…Sullivan writes an extraordinary prose that's stuffed with off-beat insight gleaned from rapt, appalled observations and suffused with a hang-dog charm. The result is an arresting take on the American imagination.” -- Publishers Weekly (starred review)

John Jeremiah Sullivan is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine and the southern editor of The Paris Review. He writes for GQ, Harper's Magazine, and Oxford American, and is the author of Blood Horses. Sullivan lives in Wilmington, North Carolina.

“Pulphead is upsettingly good. It’s the most inspired book of essays since David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. John Jeremiah Sullivan perceives the world with so much original wit and energy that when I put this book down, the roll of duct tape on my desk suddenly seemed like it might be full of funny secrets. I'm grateful that Sullivan is doing such outlandishly brilliant, enlivening stuff.” —Wells Tower

“‘Skip has been and gone from places you will never get to,’ the great blues singer Skip James once told a young fan. John Jeremiah Sullivan knows how to look for those places, and he bring us close enough to touch them. ” -- Greil Marcus

Sunday, November 20
4:00 PM

PETER SIS
THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS

Celebrated Caldecott Honor-winning children’s book author and illustrator Peter Sís’s first book for adults is a gorgeous and uplifting adaptation of the classic twelfth-century Sufi epic poem by the same name. THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS speaks to what is meaningful and hopeful in our passage through life.

This deeply felt adaptation tells the story of an epic flight of birds in search of the true king, Simorgh. Drawn from all species, the band of birds is led by the hoopoe. He promises that the voyage to the mountain of Kaf, where Simorgh lives, will be perilous and many birds resist, afraid of what they might encounter. Others perish during the passage through the seven valleys: quest, love, understanding, friendship, unity, amazement, and death.

Those that continue reach the mountain to learn that Simorgh the king is, in fact, each of them and all of them. In this lyrical and richly illustrated story of love, faith, and the meaning of it all, Peter Sís shows the pain, and beauty, of the human journey.

Born in Brno, in the former Czechoslovakia, in 1949, Peter Sís is an internationally acclaimed illustrator, author, and filmmaker. Most recently he published The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, which was awarded the Robert F. Sibert Medal and was also named a Caldecott Honor Book. His other books are numerous and include Tibet Through the Red Box, Starry Messenger, The Tree of Life, and the three Madlenka tales. Sís was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2003. He is the author of twenty children’s books and a seven-time winner of the The New York Times Book Review Best Illustrated Book of the Year.

In THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS, Peter Sís breathes new life into this foundational Sufi poem, revealing its profound lessons. Welcoming him to The Booksmith is a particular pleasure, and one we hope you won’t miss, along with the opportunity to have copies of this gorgeous book signed for all on your holiday list.

Reserved seating available with the purchase of THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS at The Booksmith beginning 10/27 (or advance order by phone, email, or website) while seats last.

Saturday, December 3
11:00 AM

JON AGEE takes over Storytime with MY RHINOCEROS

"Jon Agee's My Rhinoceros is a genuine masterpiece. Even better, every kid will love it." -- Maurice Sendak

If you should ever get a rhinoceros for a pet, you're in for a surprise. It won't chase a ball. Or a stick. Or a frisbie. In fact, according to the experts, a rhinoceros does only two things: pop balloons and poke holes in kites.
But don't be discouraged. As you'll discover in Jon Agee's hilarious picture book, rhinoceroses can do more -- so much more -- than that!

Jon Agee is the author/illustrator of many books for children, including Terrific, Milo's Hat Trick, and The Incredible Painting of Felix Clousseau, along with a series of popular wordplay books, among them, Go Hang a Salami! I'm a Lasagna Hog!

He grew up along the Hudson River in Nyack, New York, and went to college at The Cooper Union School of Art in New York City, where he studied painting and filmmaking. His stories — of mysterious painters, hard luck magicians, guffawing grumps, and forgotten astronauts — have been called quirky, absurdist, and above all, humorous. His sophisticated wit appeals to children and adults alike.

Tuesday, December 6
7:30 PM

JULIA SCHEERES
A THOUSAND LIVES:
The Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown

"I love socialism, and I'm willing to die to bring it about, but if I did, I'd take a thousand with me." -- Jim Jones, September 6, 1975

In 1954, a pastor named Jim Jones opened a church in Indianapolis called Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church. He was a charismatic preacher with idealistic beliefs, and he quickly filled his pews with an audience eager to hear his sermons on social justice. After Jones moved his church to Northern California in 1965, he became a major player in Northern California politics; he provided vital support in electing friendly political candidates to office, and they in turn offered him a protective shield that kept stories of abuse and fraud out of the papers. Even as Jones's behavior became erratic and his message more ominous, his followers found it increasingly difficult to pull away from the church. By the time Jones relocated the Peoples Temple a final time to a remote jungle in Guyana and the U.S. Government decided to investigate allegations of abuse and false imprisonment in Jonestown, it was too late.

A Thousand Lives follows the experiences of five Peoples Temple members who went to Jonestown: a middle-class English teacher from Colorado, an elderly African American woman raised in Jim Crow Alabama, a troubled young black man from Oakland, and a working-class father and his teenage son. These people joined Jones's church for vastly different reasons. Some, such as eighteen-year-old Stanley Clayton, appreciated Jones's message of racial equality and empowering the dispossessed. Others, like Hyacinth Thrash and her sister Zipporah, were dazzled by his claims of being a faith healer—Hyacinth believed Jones had healed a cancerous tumor in her breast. Edith Roller, a well-educated white progressive, joined Peoples Temple because she wanted to help the less fortunate. Tommy Bogue, a teen, hated Jones's church, but was forced to attend services—and move to Jonestown—because his parents were members.

A Thousand Lives is the story of Jonestown as it has never been told before. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there. Her own experiences at an oppressive reform school in the Dominican Republic, detailed in her unforgettable debut memoir Jesus Land, gave her unusual insight into this story.

Vividly written and impossible to forget, A Thousand Lives is a story of blind loyalty and daring escapes, of corrupted ideals and senseless, haunting loss.

Julia Scheeres is the author of Jesus Land. She lives in Berkeley with her husband and two daughters and is a member of the San Francisco Writers' Grotto.

"Jonestown has become a grim metaphor for blind obedience--for fanaticism without regard to consequences. In the aptly titled A Thousand Lives, Julia Scheeres captures the humanity within this terrible story, vividly depicting individuals trapped in a vortex of hope and fear, faith and loss of faith, not to mention the changes sweeping America in the 1960s and '70s. She makes their journeys to that unfathomable tragedy all too real; what was truly incredible, she shows, was the escape from death by a tiny handful of survivors. Drawing on a mountain of sources compiled and recently released by the FBI, she changes forever the way we think about this dark chapter of our history." -- -- T.J. Stiles, author of The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt

“This the best book in a good long time on the dangers of fanatical faith, the power of group belief and lure of deep certainties. These demons that haunt the human mind can only be countered by facing them with courage and honesty -- this is precisely what Scheeres has done." -- Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us

Booksmith in Berkeley:
Tuesday, December 6
7:30 PM

LUIS ALBERTO URREA
QUEEN OF AMERICA
A Berkeley Arts & Letters Program

The remarkable heroine of the beloved bestseller The Hummingbird’s Daughter makes a welcome return in an epic novel of love, loss and miracles in America by the bestselling storyteller Luis Alberto Urrea. More than two decades in the making, QUEEN OF AMERICAis the much-anticipated sequel to The Hummingbird’s Daughter, and showcases one of our most talented writers at the top of his form.

Urrea’s tale is based on his real great-aunt Teresita, who had healing powers and was acclaimed as a saint. Urrea extensively researched historical accounts and family records for decades to get the true story. He recounts a spell-binding tale: After the bloody Tomochic rebellion, Teresita Urrea, beloved healer and “Saint of Cabora,” flees with her father to Arizona. But their plans are derailed when she once again is claimed as the spiritual leader of the Mexican Revolution. Besieged by pilgrims and pursued by assassins, Teresita embarks on a journey through turn-of-the-century industrial America-stopping in New York, San Francisco, and St. Louis.

Teresita meets immigrants and tycoons, European royalty and Cuban poets, all waking to the new American century. As she decides what her own role in this modern future will be, she must ask herself, can a saint fall in love? At turns heartbreaking, uplifting, and riotously funny, QUEEN OF AMERICA reconfirms Luis Urrea’s status as one of our literary gems.

Luis Alberto Urrea is the author of 14 books, including The Devil’s Highway and Into the Beautiful North. Winner of a Lannan Literary Award and Christopher Award (for Across the Wire), he is the recipient of an American Book Award (for Nobody’s Son), the Kiriyama Pize, an Edgar award (for Amapola in Phoenix Noir(), and a citation of excellence from the American Library Association. He is also a member of the Latino Literary Hall of Fame. Follow him on Twitter; catch him on Facebook.

Celebrate author, book, and the holidays with us as we end our fall season!


Berkeley Arts & Letters and The Booksmith @ the Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley
7:30 PM (doors open at 6:45)

Tickets $12 (seat), $36 (1 seat + 1 book), $48 (2 seats + 1 book) in advance at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006.Tickets at the door, based on space available, $15. A portion of the proceeds will be given to the Alameda County Food Bank for its Holiday Food & Fund Drive. (If you’d like to make a personal donation, contact ACFB here.)


Celebrating the Rebirth of Capra Press:
Wednesday, December 7
7:30 PM

JENNIFER FUTERNICK
I NEVER EXPECTED THIS GOOD LIFE: Poems and Stories

More moving and wonderfully strange than Jennifer Futernick’s certainty at seventeen that she would never be happy is her effortless joy in being proved wrong. Her response has been to teach herself thankfulness, and she has produced a memoir making it an art form.


Futernick has an intimacy with the biology of kinship. She establishes the metaphorical heart at the center of a complex ecosystem—in which love is water, light, and oxygen—by weaving together body and spirit so viscerally and so well that at times it will leave you wanting to forget where you end and someone else begins. She is most at home, and at her most eloquent, in noting the myriad ways that the heart extends its influence into every touch, look, thought, reply… every thing that matters.

“In this brave and unusual memoir, the author's spirit vibrates through these refreshingly honest and open pages. She does not shy away from the joy and pain of ordinary life, but reveals in surprising, delicate detail the connections that make up ‘the good life’." -- Kate Abbe, author of Joy Riding; Nothing Curved

Jennifer Futernick holds a B.A. in Humanities from U.C. Berkeley and an MLS from San Jose State. She was a research librarian at McKinsey & Company for over twenty years. Currently a poet and freelance editor, she lives with her husband in San Francisco.

Capra Press, an important and independent publishing house established in Santa Barbara by Noel Young in 1969; it was sold to Robert Bason in 2001.Capra has returned to family ownership with its purchase by Noel’s eldest daughter, Hilary Young Brodey, her husband Philip and John and Diana Harrington, and is now based in San Francisco. Capra acquired and published over 300 titles by writers like Henry Miller, Anais Nin, Raymond Carver, Ray Bradbury, Gretel Ehrlich, and Ursula K. Le Guin. The press will remain a small, independent press and continue the tradition of publishing artfully crafted, quality literary works. We’re delighted to honor its past, and to welcome its rebirth and its future. This evening celebrates the first publication by the “new” Capra Press.

Thursday, December 8
7:30 PM

ZYZZYVA Winter Issue Celebration and Reading
with KAREN JOY FOWLER, JOSEPH DI PRISCO, KATIE CHASE, and ADAM JOHNSON
hosted by editor Laura Cogan and managing editor Oscar Villalon

Come celebrate the release of ZYZZYVA's Winter 11 issue (No. 93) with a reading by four of its contributors: The Jane Austen Book Clubauthor Karen Joy Fowler, rising talent Katie Chase, poet Joseph Di Prisco, and award-winning novelist Adam Johnson. Wine will flow, good cheer will abound.

Katie Chase’s work has appeared in The Best American Short Stories 2008 and the 2009 Pushcart Prize anthologies. Born and raised outside of Detroit, she now lives in Portland.

Joseph Di Prisco is the author of several books, including two novels and two books of poetry. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Threepenny Review, and Prairie Schooner, among other places. His forthcoming novel is All For Now. He lives in Berkeley.

Karen Joy Fowler is the prize-winning author of many books, including the novels Sister Noon, Wit’s End, and The Jane Austen Book Club. Her most recent book is the story collection What I Didn’t See. She lives in Davis and Santa Cruz.

Adam Johnson is the author of the story collection Emporium and the novel Parasites Like Us, which won a California Book Award. His novel The Orphan-Master’s Son will be published in January.


Friday, December 9
5:30 – 7:00 PM

BEER TASTINGS

JEREMY COWAN
CRAFT BEER BAR MITZVAH:
How it Took 13 Years, Extreme Jewish Brewing, and Circus Sideshow Freaks to Make Shmaltz Brewing Company an International Success

Shmaltz proprietor Jeremy Cowan delivers a witty and compelling tale of how the nation's first and only kosher craft beer came to fruition, Cowan tells the story of Shmaltz Brewing's evolution from an inside joke into a thriving and award-winning craft brewing company. In the words of Pete Slosberg, founder of Pete's Wicked Ale, "This man knows how to build a brand from scratch, and reading his story is a fascinating, can't-put-the-book-down tale. Just don't read it from right to left." Cowan divulges the small business challenges and marketing strategies that helped him go from hand-squeezing pomegranates and delivering beer in his grandmother's Volvo, to producing two of the most respected and unique craft beer brands in America: HE'BREW the Chosen Beer and Coney Island Craft Lagers.

"Jeremy Cowan is the Philip Roth of Craft Beer, and 'Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah' is his "Portnoys Complaint", a hilariously mindblowing account of a young Gen J entrepreneur who, armed only with vision, love of things Jewish, and a few bucks, turns his "He-brew Beer" label into an American cultural institution. "Craft Beer Bar Mitzvah' will bootleg inspiration straight into your heart."
-- Alan Kaufman, author of Jew Boy and editor of
The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry

Shmaltz Brewing Company was awarded the gold medal for “Best American Craft Beer” and the overall “Best in Show” by Beverage World Magazine, 2010. Established by Jeremy Cowan in San Francisco in 1996 with the first batch of 100 cases of HE’BREW Beer® bottled, labeled, and delivered by hand, Shmaltz has sold over eight million bottles of beer to date. Along with their acclaimed line of HE’BREW Beers®, Shmaltz introduced its sideshow-inspired Coney Island Craft Lagers® in 2007. Shmaltz Brewing beers have appeared in such distinguished media outlets as The New York Times, CNN, Beer Advocate Magazine, NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” and The Onion, and are now distributed in over 30 states.

* 21+. Samples will include HE'BREW and Coney Island Craft Lagers (with some vintage and limited releases thrown in), at the very least!

“Cowan transforms San Francisco into the land of Malt and Hops with humor, an edge and a deep sense of biblical intoxicity.” -David Katznelson, Co-Founder of The San Francisco Appreciation Society

PUBLICATION DAY CELEBRATION!
Tuesday, January 10
7:30 PM

ADAM JOHNSON
THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON

“Adam Johnson has pulled off literary alchemy, first by setting his novel in North Korea, a country that few of us can imagine, then by producing such compelling characters whose lives unfold at breakneck speed. I was engrossed right to the amazing conclusion. The result is pure gold, a terrific novel.” – Abraham Verghese

“An addictive novel of daring ingenuity; a study of sacrifice and freedom in a citizen-eating dynasty; and a timely reminder that anonymous victims of oppression are also human beings who love. A brave and impressive book.” – David Mitchell

"I've never read anything like it. This is truly an amazing reading experience, a tremendous accomplishment. I could spend days talking about how much I love this book. It sounds like overstatement, but no. The Orphan Master's Son is a masterpiece." – Charles Bock

When Adam Johnson first started researching North Korea, he was writing an ironic story called “The Best North Korean Short Story of 2005,” a playful take on how Kim Jong Il dictates a single ridiculous narrative for a country of 23 million. But once Johnson read the heartbreaking firsthand stories of North Korean defectors, he abandoned his original idea and began instead a novel about an average citizen coming of age during the famine. He also felt he had no choice but to travel there himself, and experience life in one of the most isolated countries on earth. There, he discovered – despite the screening of his three government minders – a place where every woman wears the same color lipstick, starving families forage for chestnuts in trees, pedestrians are randomly scooped up for “volunteer” labor, and loudspeakers blast nonstop patriotic anthems.

From his rare observations, Adam Johnson – whose previous fiction has been hailed as “remarkable” by The New Yorker and as having “great ingenuity and bravado” by The New York Times – created THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON. In this big-hearted, haunting, and boldly imaginative novel, Johnson interweaves the story of a young man named Jun Do with the official North Korean narrative as dictated by Kim Jong Il. As readers follow Jun Do from his orphanage work camp to his job as kidnapper of unsuspecting Japanese, through his time monitoring radio waves on a fishing boat to his dangerous impersonation of a government minister, they are exposed to the weird and wild textures of a corrupt country where the slightest mistake is punishable by death.

THE ORPHAN MASTER’S SON is a knuckle-biting literary thriller from a masterful storyteller, as well as a courageous meditation on what it means to be free

Adam Johnson teaches creative writing at Stanford University. His fiction has appeared in Esquire, The Paris Review, Harper’s and Tin House, as well as in Best New American Voices. His other works include Emporium, a short-story collection, and the novel Parasites Like Us. He lives in San Francisco.


Watch the book trailer here! http://youtu.be/Vx0eAfegTjg

Friday, January 13
8:00 PM

LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY

This New Year, we want to celebrate local authors. (And, hopefully, make them laugh!) For January's installation of clownfoolery, our very own literary cabaret players will create skits around Cat Versus Human, by Oakland-based cartoonist Yasmine Surovec, as well asOutrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead, by SF Examiner writer Tosha Silver.

Come celebrate the Bay Area's literary and creative (and divine!) tradition through laughter. We promise you've never been to a literary event like this before....

The fun starts at 8! Tickets $10, in the store and online at Brown Paper Tickets. .

Tuesday, January 17
7:30 PM

LEIGH STEIN
THE FALLBACK PLAN

Estimated percentage of the U.S. college class of 2011 who are moving back home after graduation: 85 (Harper’s Index, August 2011)

When you’re young you have a plan -- a scheme, a hope, a notion, a dream -- for what adulthood will be. Reality, however, loves to disappoint. Sooner or later everyone has to ask: “Okay, so what’s my fallback plan?”

THE FALLBACK PLAN by former New Yorker staffer Leigh Stein is a dazzlingly funny and heartbreaking debut novel about that bittersweet moment in-between youth and adulthood when childhood fantasies morph into something strange and new. Fresh out of college, with no job materializing from her drama degree, Esther Kohler moves home to live with her parents in the suburbs. When her dad starts charging her rent, she’s forced to take a job babysitting for a young couple whose second child has recently died. Esther soon finds herself playing many roles within the troubled family—confidante, friend, mistress, mother, therapist—and facing some untidy truths about adult life.

Leigh Stein’s prose is a pure delight. Like a Lorrie Moore for the Facebook generation, or Miranda July’s wiseass kid sister, Stein shifts effortlessly between pop-culture comedy, dead-on dialogue, and wry psychological insight. Beneath the playful riffs on The Sound of Music, suburban Judaism, Guitar Hero, and The Chronicles of Narnia is a writer with a profound understanding of what makes people tick.

Wednesday, January 18
7:30 PM

KESHNI KASHYAP
TINA’S MOUTH: An Existential Comic Diary

From filmmaker Keshni Kashyap comes the story of a high school heroine --funny, wise, and reminiscent of Persepolis’s Marjane Satrapi -- negotiating an existentially trying spring semester at her Southern California prep school.

Sophomore Tina Malhotra is a wry and endearing observer of the cliques and mores of Yarborough Academy and the foibles of her Southern California intellectual Indian family. After an English honors class assignment to keep an existential diary, she's on a first-name basis with Jean-Paul Sartre. She looks to the great philosopher for help when Alex, her best friend and longtime smart-girl ally, dumps her for a new group -- with whom, per Tina, "Alex could discuss slutty clothes and cheesey poetry."

Weekdays eating lunch alone on her Bench of Existential Solitude and a little nudge from her hippie teacher drive her to make decisions that will change the course of her semester…and lead her to her first “technical” and real kisses.

Kashyap's smart and funny graphic novel illustrates the tricky world of high school while wrestling with those bigger questions. In TINA’S MOUTH, our heroine contemplates her place in the world, what a heavenly and mysterious expanse might be, and what it all means on her path to enlightenment -- all before the spring formal.

Keshni Kashyap is a filmmaker whose five short films have been screened in more than forty festivals around the world. She contributes to The Daily Beast. She lives in New York City.

Illustrator Mari Araki, an artist and storyteller, lives in Los Angeles.

Thursday, January 19
7:30 PM

WILLIAM GIBSON
DISTRUST THAT PARTICULAR FLAVOR


William Gibson is known primarily as a novelist, from his ground-breaking first novel, Neuromancer, which was published in 1984 and was credited with having described the internet and cyberspace before any such things existed, to his more recent contemporary bestsellers Pattern Recognition, Spook Country, and Zero History. During those nearly thirty years, though, Gibson has been sought out by wildly varying publications, from major magazines to more obscure and out-of-print sources, for his insights into contemporary culture on everything from the future of technology to the work of George Orwell, from compulsive online watch collecting to drug trafficking in Singapore.

Gibson has always had the keen ability to spot our technological and cultural trajectory in both his fiction and nonfiction and DISTRUST THAT PARTICULAR FLAVOR grants readers a privileged view into the mind of the writer whose thinking has shaped not only a generation of writers, but our entire culture. This first collection of Gibson’s nonfiction includes an introduction by the author and essays and articles published over the course of 30 years. Taken together, these pieces offer perspective into the ideas that fuel his novels: futurity, technology, history, connectivity.

Gibson riffs on the ways our lives are “soundtracked” by the music and culture around us for Rolling Stone; he weighs in on the internet for the New York Times Magazine; and describes the wonders of Tokyo for Wired. One of his major pieces, “Disneyland with the Death Penalty,” a controversial article about Singapore, resulted in Wired being banned from that country and incited a strong critical response. Throughout this volume, Gibson shows himself at the forefront of our rapidly transforming, endlessly beguiling culture, and immerses himself in the ideas, themes, and obsessions at the heart of his novels.

DISTRUST THAT PARTICULAR FLAVOR is the central pillar to the body of work of “one of the most astute and engaging commentators on our astonishing, chaotic present” (The Washington Post Book World).

William Gibson is the author of ten previous books. His 1984 debut novel, Neuromancer, was the first novel to win the three top science fiction prizes—the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, and the Philip K. Dick Memorial Award. He is also a co-author of the novel The Difference Engine, written with Bruce Sterling. Originally from South Carolina, Gibson lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his family.

We’re incredibly pleased to host him once again.

Reserved seats are available with the purchase of Distrust That Particular Flavor from The Booksmith, in advance by request or from January 3 in the store. Please phone (415-863-8688), email (orders@booksmith.com), or place your order online (www.booksmith.com). Reserved seats available while supplies last.

A Literary Double-Header:
Monday, January 23
7:30 PM

BEN EHRENREICH
ETHER

and

ROBERT ARELLANO
CURSE THE NAMES

Ben Ehrenreich is an award-winning journalist and fiction writer. His fiction has been published in McSweeney's, Bomb, and Black Clock, among other publications. His previous novel, The Suitors, received widespread critical attention. ETHER is his second novel.


A bearded man in a badly soiled suit known only as The Stranger wanders into an apocalyptic landscape on the fringes of a dying metropolis, looking for a way to "get back on top." Thwarted and rejected at every turn by old friends and strangers alike--even by the author of this novel, whom he visits repeatedly in unsuccessful attempts to determine his own narrative--his impotence and rage are expressed in acts of seemingly senseless violence. The various characters he encounters on his journey--a pack of sadistic boys, skinheads who beat him senseless, a deaf-mute woman who tries to heal him, a sidewalk preacher and a deranged man who identify him as The One--avoid him or abuse him, or attempt to follow him.

Entertaining, disturbing and wildly intelligent, written with sinister humor and great compassion, ETHER reflects on the possibilities and consequences of forgiveness, the problems of faith and the trials of creation.


"A compact work of biblical noir...like Bambi directed by Quentin Tarantino....In Ether God is one of us: fickle, self-obsessed, senselessly malicious....Drink in Ehrenreich's sculpted sentences ... language for the weary and the dispossessed, the rich or the poor. Have a seat; stay awhile." -- Los Angeles Times

Robert Arellano is the author of the Edgar-nominated noir Havana Lunar and two earlier novels. Writing as Eddy Arellano, he collaborated with three artists on the graphic novel Dead in Desemboque, and as Bobby Rabyd he created the Web’s first interactive novel, Sunshine ’69. He teaches in the College of Arts & Sciences at Southern Oregon University. CURSE THE NAMES is his newest work.

High on a mesa in the mountains of New Mexico, a small town hides a dreadful secret. On a morning very soon there will be an accident that triggers a terrible chain reaction, and the world we know will be wiped out. James Oberhelm, a reporter at Los Alamos National Laboratory, already sees the devastation,
like the skin torn off a moment that is yet to be. He believes he can prevent an apocalypse, but first James must escape the devices of a sensuous young blood tech, a lecherous old hippie, a predator in a waking nightmare, and a forsaken adobe house high away in the Sangre de Cristo mountains whose dark history entwines them all.

A massive bomb is ticking beneath the sands of the Southwest, and time is running out to send a warning…

“In this unsettling mix of noir and paranormal obsession . . . Arellano displays a sly, Hitchcockian touch.” -- Publishers Weekly

Tuesday, January 24
7:30 PM

GREIL MARCUS
THE DOORS: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years

“Nobody reads a song like Greil Marcus, whose prose is as passionate and omnivorous as the music he loves. Here he travels by way of Thomas Pynchon, Pop Art and Charles Manson to bring the chaotic, majestic, death-haunted Doors back to doomed and haunting life.” -- Salman Rushdie

“No one thinks or writes like Greil Marcus. He has a genius for putting the aural dream-language of music into words, for making you ‘hear’ songs you thought you knew as if for the first time. Not just hear, but, as he puts it, ‘feel on your skin’ well after the song is over. Because ‘the story it’s telling is still going on.’” -- Mary Gaitskill

The Doors: a lasting voice or psychedelic trash?
To Greil Marcus they can be both—in the same song.

More Doors songs can be heard on the radio today, forty years after Jim Morrison’s death, than those of almost any group of their era. Sparked by that fact, and with the deep-focus intensity of a critic absolutely engaged with his subject, Greil Marcus both revisits a parade of great performances—L.A. Woman, Roadhouse Blues, Light My Fire, When the Music’s Over, End of the Night and more—and explores why and how the Doors have endured with their spirit and menace intact. In a masterful essay that takes Oliver Stone’s excoriated 1991 film The Doors as its springboard, Marcus makes plain that the Doors are at the heart of what Leslie Fiedler called “the mythic life of the their generation.” In “Twentieth Century Fox” and their version of “Gloria,” Marcus follows the band on its giddy swerve between pop art and pornography. To Marcus, the Doors’ ghostly compulsion today is as powerful as when they first emerged in Los Angeles in 1966. He dramatizes how their music still shimmers with the dread that in their time hovered over a country convulsed by assassination and war—and, with its own darkness, over a city terrorized by the specter of the Manson murders—a dread that, in different forms, with different faces, is with us still.

There have been many books on the Doors, but Marcus is the first to look past their mystique and the death cult of both Jim Morrison and the era he was made to personify to focus solely on the music.

Greil Marcus is the author of When That Rough God Goes Riding, Like a Rolling Stone, The Old, Weird America, The Shape of Things to Come, Mystery Train, Dead Elvis, In the Fascist Bathroom, and other books. With Werner Sollors, he is the editor of A New Literary History of America. Since 2000, he has taught at Princeton, Berkeley, Minnesota, and the New School in New York; his column “Real Life Rock Top 10” appears regularly in The Believer.

Wednesday, January 25
7:30 PM

RYAN BOUDINOT
BLUEPRINTS OF THE AFTERLIFE

Ryan Boudinot’s daring and wildly imaginative novel BLUEPRINTS OF THE AFTERLIFE takes place in a future where the distinctions between nature, humanity, and technology have become indistinguishable, and the end of the world is no more than a distorted memory called “the Age of F***ed Up Shit.”

Boudinot, called “some kind of new and dangerous cross between Vonnegut and Barthelme” by Dave Eggers, deftly combines absurdism and satire with the outrageous high-concept storytelling of slipstream sci-fi to offer a novel that is rich in riddles, ideas, and secret treasures.

We enter a world where a sentient glacier has wiped out most of North America’s cities, and telepathy has become a reality. Medical care is supplied by open-source nanotechology, human nervous systems can be hacked, and the Web is interfaced with the collective unconscious. Abby Fogg is a film archivist with a niggling feeling that her life is not really her own. And she’s right. Al Skinner is a former mercenary for the Boeing Army, who’s dragged his war baggage behind him for nearly a century. Woo-jin Kan is a virtuoso dishwasher with the Hotel and Restaurant Management Olympics medals to prove it. Over them all hovers a mysterious man named Dirk Bickle, who puts the right people in the right places at the right times—and it all culminates in a full-scale replica of Manhattan under construction in Puget Sound.

BLUEPRINTS OF THE AFTERLIFE is a compelling novel of future shock, overconsumption, social control, and human nature by one of the most promising young novelists of his generation.

Ryan Boudinot’s work has appeared in The Best American Non-Required Reading twice, and in Best American Fantasy, McSweeney’s,BlackBook, and Nerve. He blogs about film on The Rumpus and teaches in Goddard College’s MFA program.

Thursday, January 26
7:30 PM

HEATHER DONAHUE
GROWGIRL: How My Life After the Blair Witch Project Went to Pot

Over the decades, marijuana has entrenched itself into our culture – from Up in Smoke to Reefer Madness, The Big Lebowski to Weeds, from criminalizing it to legalizing it – it’s a passionately debated issue that won’t lose steam anytime soon. In fact, it’s currently one of the biggest topics in national discourse. The referendums on legalization have sparked a new conversation with huge implications for our country, both politically and economically, particularly as we enter a major election year. What better way to find out more about the ins and outs of cannabis than from the source – a weed farmer? This New Year, the go-to-girl for ganja is Heather Donahue.

After starring in a little film called The Blair Witch Project, Donahue’s career stalled and, after meeting a strange and enigmatic grower named Judah, she decided to start a new life in the cannabusiness. GROW GIRL submerges readers in an insular subculture that few get to see, but whose tender nuggets touch the lips and minds of 20 million domestic and 160 million international imbibers. And though her relationship with Judah crumbles, Heather’s new life brings unexpected solace, and she’s surprised to finally find normalcy in the least likely of places.

Heather Donahue has a fresh take on the fourteen billion dollar a year weed industry, and her year spent as a pot grower in Nuggettown, CA is voyeurism at its best. Donahue has been featured on the cover of Newsweek, People, and on The Tonight Show, The Today Show, The Daily Show, and CNN. She lives in San Francisco.

GROW GIRL is part exposé, part fish-out-of-water memoir, and all raucous fun. Come talk with Heather Donahue about the book, the weed industry, the ongoing marijuana debates, and more – because she’s not afraid to hold back. After all, she just wrote a book detailing a year of federally illegal activities, so why would she?

Friday, January 27
6:30 – 9:30 PM

BOOKSMITH BOOKSWAP
The Great American Family Edition

Bookswap is back, fresh for 2012!

We are very excited to have Peter Orner join us for January's installation of Bookswap! His literary mosaic Love and Shame and Love paints a beautiful and intimate portrait of a Chicago family across four generations. With Love and Shame and Love on our minds, and the holidays fresh on our heels, let's dedicate this Bookswap the Great American Family.

As always, we'll have several rounds of cozy conversation, an open bar and unlimited food, discounts on books for swappers, and the faithful Booksmith staff on hand to keep things lively. The evening will culminate in a rowdy white-elephant swap, so everyone's sure to leave with something they love.

Tolstoy said it best in Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Bring a book to swap that best depicts the American Family inside your heart. Fiction or nonfiction; anything goes!

Tickets $25, in the store, or online at Brown Paper Tickets.

Tuesday, January 31
7:30 PM

VICTORIA COSTELLO
A LETHAL INHERITANCE: A Mother Uncovers the Science Behind Three Generations of Mental Illness
In conversation with Dr. Demian Rose, UCSF Psychiatrist, Medical Director of PREP SF

Co-presented by the Mental Health Association of San Francisco

Part memoir, part scientific detective story, A LETHAL INHERITANCE is Emmy Award-winning science writer Victoria Costello’s harrowing account of her son’s descent into schizophrenia, which, at its worst had him wandering the streets of Los Angeles shoeless, muttering incoherently; and her exploration into her family’s history of depression, drug addiction, and secrets that stretches back
at least three generations.

She shares the story of her younger sister, who by sixteen had a full-blown heroin habit, recalls her loving, but alcoholic father, and re-examines the tragic “accident” that left her grandfather dead on a New York City railroad track in 1913. She also shares how she had to address her own history of depression and cope when a second son developed an anxiety disorder.

Artfully weaving the scientific into the personal, Costello takes a journey to the far reaches of neuroscience and reports back on the startling findings it is yielding about the complex interplay between genes and environment that drives mental
illness and what it now tells us about how parents can trump a lethal inheritance.

“This honest, lucid book examines the urgent problems of family history and early diagnosis in mental illness from a personal and scientific standpoint. It will be invaluable to families trying to understand their own history, and to those who have been blind to such history.” – Andrew Solomon, National Book Award- winning author of The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Victoria Costello is a science writer, journalist, and TV producer. Originally from suburban New York, Costello launched her investigative journalism career by weighing in on the Vietnam War and the rights of farm workers in her high school’s “underground newspaper.” She studied journalism at American University in Washington, DC and became an independent video journalist covering such hot button issues as abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment, nuclear power, the environment, and social justice for PBS. She was the first Director of the TV/Video Program at The American Film Institute; a TV producer of documentaries; a web content writer and editor; and the author of four books on mental health topics. Currently, she helps train social workers in strength-based recovery at Family Services Agency in San Francisco.

Friday, February 3
5:30 PM

Come and celebrate the release of Full Stop. SF Waldorf High School's biannual literary magazine!

Students from the SF Waldorf High School will celebrate the release of the Winter issue of their literary magazine - Full Stop. with music, readings and refreshments. Contributors Noam Baruch, Jules Christeson, Owen Christofferson, Rebecca Cohen, William Donovan-Seid, Jessie Ferguson, Alana Gurewitz, Annie Hughes-White, Caroline Kaufman, Davia Schendel, Manette Stamm, andThea Wong will read their work with musical accompaniment by Owen Christofferson and Leanna Vandlen.

Thursday, February 9
7:30 PM

LOVE, INSHALLAH: The Secret Love Lives of American Muslim Women
With co-editors Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi, and contributors Leila Khan and Zahra Noorbakhsh

Co-hosted by the International Museum of Women

Love, Inshallah [goes] to a place where few, if any, books have gone before. Lesbians, co-­‐wives, converts to Islam, Shia, Sunni, black, brown and white: Every voice is unique. Collectively, they sing of strength, passion and love. One can’t help but sit back and listen, captivated. – Samina Ali, award-­winning author of Madras on Rainy Days

Romance, dating, sex and – Muslim women? In this groundbreaking collection, 25 writers sweep aside stereotypes to share their search for love and reveal what it means to be a Muslim woman in America today. The writers represent a broad spectrum of ethnicities, races and religious practice and speak openly for the first time about love, relationships, sexuality, gender, identity, homophobia, and racism. Come hear from the editors of this collection, Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi, about their intentions and purpose of the book and the road to publication, and meet two of the contributors reading excerpts from their stories. Plus: a spirited question and answer session where audience members can pose the questions they've always wanted to ask a Muslim woman -- but were too afraid to ask!

Everyone seems to have an opinion about Muslim women, even (especially!) those who have never met one. Co-­‐editors Ayesha Mattu and Nura Maznavi thought it was about time we heard directly from Muslim women themselves. You’ll be captivated by these moving, funny, provocative and surprising stories, each as individual as the writers themselves.

A beautiful collection that reminds us all not only of the diversity of the American Muslim community, but the universality of the human condition, especially when it comes to something as magical and complicated as love. – Reza Aslan, bestselling author of No god but God

Hats off to Maznavi and Mattu, who were the winners of the first of last year’s Pitchapaloozas created and hosted by our favorite Book Doctors, David Henry Sterry and Arielle Eckstut!

Muslim women…and Jon Stewart? Check out a recent Huff Po article.

Ayesha Mattu is a writer, editor and international development consultant. Her writing has appeared in the International Museum of Women, Religion Dispatches, and The Huffington Post. She was selected a Muslim Leader of Tomorrow by the UN Alliance of Civilizations and the ASMA Society in 2009. Ayesha is working on a memoir about losing faith and finding love, which is excerpted inLove, InshAllah. She lives with her husband and son in Northern California.

Nura Maznavi is a civil rights attorney. She has worked with migrant workers in Sri Lanka, on behalf of prisoners in California, and with a national legal advocacy organization leading a program to end racial and religious profiling. She is working on a screenplay and several short stories. Nura’s third love—after food and traveling—is California, where she was raised and currently lives.

Leila N. Khan (pen name) lives and works in Northern California. She enjoys Italian films, classical music, and spending time in her kitchen. Her favorite places in the world are Strasbourg, Dubrovnik, and Maui.

Zahra Noorbakhsh is a writer, actor and stand-up comedian, whose one-woman shows All Atheists Are Muslim and Hijab and Hammerpants have appeared at the New York International Fringe Theater Festival, San Francisco Theater Festival, and Solo Performance Workshop Festival, with widespread critical acclaim. She is a graduate of the UC Berkeley in Theatre & Performance Studies. Though she began as a stand-up comic, her love of storytelling drew her into the world of theater and ultimately the art of short story writing.

Friday, February 10
8:00 PM

Literary Clown Foolery
An Evening of Satire, Cabaret and Amazing Feats of Comedy

Hosted by Dr. Schmidtt and Gretchen (Polina Smith and Tristan Cunningham)

This evening we welcome Bi-Rite Market’s Sam Mogannam, co-author of Eat Good Food: A Grocer’s Guide to Shopping, Cooking& Creating Community Through Food, and now the subject of our attention, and, we hope, wit. Check out Bi-Rite’s why-we-wrote-a-book video here!

Once a month, our very own Literary Clown Foolery troupe of trained, professional clowns (clowns, not seals) offers hilarious interpretations of a featured writer’s work as well as juggling, acrobatics, original music – and we offer you refreshments and a ton of fun! Celebrate the Bay Area’s literary and creative traditions through laughter – the fun starts at 8.

Tickets $10, available in the store and Brown Paper Tickets online.

Tuesday, February 21
7:30 PM

RABBI MICHAEL LERNER
EMBRACING ISRAEL/PALESTINE:
A Strategy to Heal and Transform the Middle East

A major modern conundrum is how the Arab/Israel conflict remains unresolved and, seemingly, unresolvable. In Embracing Israel/Palestine, Rabbi Michael Lerner examines how the mutual demonization and discounting of each sides’ legitimate needs drive the antagonism, and explores the underlying psychological dynamics that fuel the seeming intransigence on both sides. Lerner shows the importance of being both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, challenges the master narratives in both Israel and Palestine to the extent that they demean the other side, and exposes the false idea that “homeland security” (either for Israel or for the U.S.) can be achieved through military, political, economic, or cultural domination. Lerner argues that real security is best achieved through an ethos of caring and generosity toward “the other” and presents a Global Marshall Plan whose first location would be the Middle East.

Insisting that any agreement reached at the negotiating table will be worthless without a fundamental transformation of consciousness, Lerner shows how we in the West could play a central role in facilitating that change if we ourselves were to adopt a more rational approach to homeland security and foreign policy. Lerner’s approach, drawn from his own work as a psychotherapist with Israelis and Palestinians and addressing the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that politically cripples both societies, presents a vital and creative new direction that will provide hope and instruction to anyone who seeks a lasting peace for the Middle East and a healing of the U.S. as well.

Best-selling author Michael Lerner, PhD, is the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco and Berkeley and the editor of Tikkunmagazine. Lerner founded Tikkun in 1986 as “the voice of Jewish liberals and progressives” and as “the alternative to Commentarymagazine and the voices of Jewish conservatism.” From the start, the magazine was dedicated to Jewish ethics and to healing and repair of the world, but it has evolved into one of the leading interfaith intellectual magazines in the West and the spur to a new movement, the Network of Spiritual Progressives. In 2001, he was awarded a special PEN Award for his stance in breaking the censorship that effectively exists around Israel-Palestinian matters in the U.S. media, and in 2005 the Martin Luther King, Jr./Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award from Morehouse College.

Wednesday, February 22
7:30 PM

MARTHA GROVER
ONE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE

Eight years in the making, ONE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE is the first collection of Martha Grover’s zine Somnambulist. Playful, wry, and conversational, ONE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE chronicles three generations in the life of the Grover family. As these idiosyncratic characters reluctantly confront adulthood, one Grover is always there to take notes. But after she’s diagnosed with a rare, potentially fatal disease (whose 81 side effects include dramatic changes to her appearance, not to mention the dreaded possibility of having to move back home), her story becomes something unexpected: a survival guide. In the spirit of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face, Grover transforms her own misfortune into a tale as unsettling as it is entertaining.
Martha Grover is a genius. Her story is unique, but as I read Grover, some part of me always feels that this is everybody’s autobiography. This is what it means to fiercely love a changing self. – Ariel Gore, author of Bluebird and Atlas of the Human Heart
Martha Grover has a master’s degree in creative writing from California College of the Arts. Her work has appeared in The Coachella Review, Switchback, Broken Pencil, Never Have Paris Zine, Tom Tom Magazine, The Raven Chronicles, and her zine Somnambulist, which she has been publishing since 2003. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

Thursday, February 23
7:30 PM

RICHARD MASON
HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER

From the acclaimed author of The Drowning People (“A literary sensation” —The New York Times Book Review) and Natural Elements(“A magnum opus” —The New Yorker), HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is an opulent, romantic coming-of-age drama set at the height of Europe’s belle époque, written in the grand tradition with a lightness of touch that is wholly modern and original.

Richard Mason’s tale opens in Amsterdam at the turn of the last century, moves to New York at the time of the 1907 financial crisis and proceeds onboard a luxury liner headed for Cape Town. It is about a young man—Piet Barol—with an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. Piet’s father is an austere administrator at Holland’s oldest university. His mother, a singing teacher, has died—but not before giving him a thorough grounding in the arts of charm. Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe’s leading hotelier: a child who refuses to leave his family’s mansion on Amsterdam’s grandest canal. As the young man enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets—and soon, quietly, steadily, finds his life transformed as he in turn transforms the lives of those around him.

HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is a brilliantly written portrait of the senses, a novel about pleasure and those who are in search of it; those who embrace it, luxuriate in it, need it; and those who deprive themselves of it as they do those they love. It is a book that will beguile and transport you—to another world, another time, another state of being.

If Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Mann’s Buddenbrooks, Miller’s Tropic of Cancer or Wharton’s The Age of Innocence intrigued and caught you as a reader, Richard Mason’s new novel is a marvelous ‘literary romp’ to fall into.

“One of the best three books of the year” – Independent

“Piet Barol is a pure pulse of young manhood; not an everyman, but perhaps the fantasy everyman that every man would like to be.” – Times Literary Supplement

“Enthralling and perfectly paced” – The Observer

“A saucy, hugely entertaining romp of a young man making his fortune in 1907 Amsterdam’ – The Sunday Times

“Readers of a sensitive disposition beware” – The Lady

“Highly recommended as an engaging portrait of an individual, a family, and time.” -- Library Journal, starred

“This bildrungsroman is as smart as it is seductive . . . Readers will savor final scenes aboard the gilded ocean-liner Eugenie and welcome the undercurrent that perhaps Piet’s good fortune isn’t luck at all but a lesson that pleasure exists for those who seek it.” -- Booklist

Richard Mason was born in South Africa in 1978 and lives in New York City. His first novel, The Drowning People, published when he was twenty-one and still a student at Oxford, sold more than a million copies worldwide and won Italy’s Grinzane Cavour Prize for Best First Novel. He is also the author of Natural Elements, which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009 and longlisted for the IMPAC Prize and the Sunday Times Literary Award. HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is his fourth novel.

In 1999, with Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mason started the Kay Mason Foundation, which helps disadvantaged South Africans access quality education. He is the recipient of the Inyathelo Award for Philanthropy.

Thursday, March 1

7:30 PM

DAVID WOLMAN

THE END OF MONEY:

Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers -- and the Coming Cashless Society

In today’s tough economic climate many of us have money on our mind. But in our efforts to put away a nest egg or at least earn a living, rarely do we take the time to think about how money actually works. We put our faith in the system, trusting the currency of the land—and especially our cash in hand—to retain value now and forever. Is our trust misplaced? Does this commitment to cash in particular make sense in the 21st century? Might there be a better way to transact—even more convenient than checks, credit cards, and PayPal? What if someone told you those better ways could also save lives and help countries pay their debts?

In The End of Money, David Wolman dares to take a critical look at cash, considering its liabilities and what our world would be like without those trillions of little numbered bits of paper and tiny metal disks. He starts by giving us a crash course in the rise and fall of physical money, beginning with Marco Polo’s fascination with the paper notes he saw circulating in China, then zooming through the ages to the end of the gold standard and the ascent of national currencies. Next, we follow him around the globe as he pieces together a cross-cultural picture of cash today. He takes us to Iceland, where he examines the connection between cash, cultural heritage, and emotional value; to India, where he explores a growing trend people in developing countries seem to be embracing faster than people in wealthy ones: using cell phones as replacements for both bank branches and cash; and to Tokyo, where he delves into the parallel worlds of counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting technology.

With input from characters such as a Georgia pastor who sees the end of cash as the start of Armageddon, a convicted counterfeiter whom the Feds have labeled a “domestic terrorist,” a coin collector who seems to loathe his merchandise, and a British technologist who views cash as a “menace,” Wolman weaves a well-rounded analysis of tactile money and our relationship to it. He even explores the topic from health, environmental, and psychological angles, looking at cash as a host for bacteria, a contributor to everyone’s carbon footprint, and an elixir that makes people more confident and happy. Wolman’s journey ends with a glimpse of a future in which he (and others) see a rainbow of currencies—national, virtual, and alternative—being exchanged, and a reflection on his own (mostly successful) attempt to go a full year without using coins or bills.

David Wolman is a contributing editor at Wired. He has written for such publications as Outside, Mother Jones, Newsweek, Discover, Forbes, and Salon, and his work appeared in Best American Science Writing 2009. A former Fulbright journalism fellow in Japan and a graduate of Stanford University’s journalism program, he now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he received a 2011 Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. His previous books are A Left-Hand Turn Around the World and Righting the Mother Tongue.

Friday, March 2

6:30 - 9:30 PM

BOOKSMITH BOOKSWAP: MURDER MYSTERY EDITION!

Calling all crime buffs: March means murder at the Booksmith.

Bring a Thriller - Eat Great Food

Drink Unlimited Wine - Leave With Swag

Meet Local Authors - Make New Friends

Parlor Games - Noir - Prizes

We invite you to come get a clue and a drink at our first-ever Murder Mystery Bookswap! Bring your favorite page-turner, and get ready to mingle with other voracious crime enthusiasts. And our special guests, Michelle Gagnon, the author of Kidnap & Ransom, and other super mysteries/thrillers, and Cara Black, creator of the Aimee Leduc Parisian mysteries!

Trenchcoat not required.

Now in its third year, Bookswap is the most fun you'll ever have in a Bookstore. Quoth the believers:

The Examiner: "The Bookswap embodies the spirit both of innovation and community and is proof that there is a strong desire for "and much to be learned from" independent bookstores in the 21st century."

Author Holly Payne: Bookswap is "The most unique book event I’ve ever participated in."

Litquake: "...rowdy and always entertaining. Think cocktail party, with a bookish twist."

Conversational Reading calls Bookswap, "An idea every Independent Bookstore should steal."

Tickets $25 in the store, or at Brown Paper Tickets (800-838-3006)

Monday, March 5

7:30 PM

JOSHUA FOER

MOONWALKING WITH EINSTEIN:

The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

In Moonwalking with Einstein, now available in paperback, Joshua Foer. explores – with humor and irresistible curiosity -- the fascinating ways in which our brains are wired to remember, or forget, the vast array of information and experiences that make up life. “Captivating” (The New York Times) and “entertaining” (Wall Street Journal), Foer’s work charts an amazing journey of the mind while revolutionizing our concept of memory.

Moonwalking with Einstein draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Under the tutelage of top “mental athletes,” Foer immerses himself obsessively in the fascinating subculture of competitive memorizers and learns to apply techniques that call on imagination as much as determination. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, he discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories.

Foer also takes his inquiry well beyond the arena of competitive memorization—across the country and deep into his own mind. In San Diego, he meets an affable old man with one of the most severe cases of amnesia on record, where he learns that memory is at once more elusive and more reliable than we might think. In Salt Lake City, he swaps secrets with a savant who claims to have memorized more than nine thousand books. At a high school in the South Bronx, he finds a history teacher using twenty-five-hundred-year old memory techniques to give his students an edge in the state Regents exam.

This vastly intriguing book tells the unlikely story of how Foer eventually became the United States Memory Champion, but it also marks the debut of an abundantly talented storyteller; it is an electrifying work of journalism that reminds us that, in every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories.

Joshua Foer was born in Washington, DC in 1982 and lives in New Haven, CT with his wife Dinah. His writing has appeared in National Geographic, Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate, and other publications. He is the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura, an online guide to the world’s wonders and curiosities, and the co-founder of the architectural design competition, Sukkah City.

Tuesday, March 6

7:30 PM

TERRY BISSON

ANY DAY NOW

“An unsettling, funny, freaky reimagining of America, impeccably written, by one of our most consistently interesting transgressors of literary boundaries” —Michael Chabon

From award-winning author Terry Bisson, hailed by Publishers Weekly as "a wonder of seemingly effortless control and precision," comes a new novel, Any Day Now -- a literary tour de force, transcending the fundamental coming of age story to become a social commentary on the history and politics of a post Vietnam War society.

Growing up in the 1950s, a small town boy from Middle America makes his way to New York City amid the radicalized culture of the 1960s where he is torn between the antiwar movement and the hippie counterculture. When tragedy strikes, he flees to a utopian commune in the Southwest as a disputed presidential election brings the U.S. to the brink of a second world war.

Any Day Now is a reimaging of America, an alternate history to the unfolding of our society and culture, as we know it today. Testing the boundaries of fact and fiction in literature, Terry Bisson describes his debut literary novel as "not exactly science fiction, but not exactly not." The resulting story has been called “the masterpiece” by Jonathan Lethem.

Traveling from Kentucky to New York City to the Southwest, Bisson brings this road movie of a novel to life with an original, captivating voice and vivid prose, providing a transcendent commentary on America’s civil liberties and on the perils of growing up—then and now.

"In this version of the Sixties we don't know what's going to happen next. Little changes quickly add up to big surprises, which is exactly how it felt at the time, and so by paradox Bisson makes that most dramatic era pop to life in a most startling way. This is the great novel of the Sixties."

--Kim Stanley Robinson, author of Red Mars

Terry Bisson is an award-winning writer and the author of seven novels. His short fiction has appeared in Playboy and Harper’s, among other magazines. He previously worked as an auto mechanic and as a magazine and book editor.

Bisson lives in Oakland.

Wednesday, March 7

7:30 PM

MATT RUFF

THE MIRAGE

11/9/2001: Christian fundamentalists hijack four jetliners. They fly two into the Tigris & Euphrates World Trade Towers in Baghdad, and a third into the Arab Defense Ministry in Riyadh. The fourth plane, believed to be bound for Mecca, is brought down by its passengers.

The United Arab States declares a War on Terror. Arabian and Persian troops invade the Eastern Seaboard and establish a Green Zone in Washington, D.C.

Summer, 2009: Arab Homeland Security agent Mustafa al Baghdadi interrogates a captured suicide bomber. The prisoner claims that the world they are living in is a mirage—in the real world, America is a superpower, and the Arab states are just a collection of "backward third-world countries." A search of the bomber's apartment turns up a copy of The New York Times, dated September 12, 2001, that appears to support his claim. Other captured terrorists have been telling the same story. The president wants answers, but Mustafa soon discovers he's not the only interested party.

The gangster Saddam Hussein is conducting his own investigation. And the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee—a war hero named Osama bin Laden—will stop at nothing to hide the truth. As Mustafa and his colleagues venture deeper into the unsettling world of terrorism, politics, and espionage, they are confronted with questions without any rational answers, and the terrifying possibility that their world is not what it seems.

Acclaimed novelist Matt Ruff has created a shadow world that is eerily recognizable but, at the same time, almost unimaginable. Gripping, subversive, and unexpectedly moving, The Mirage probes our deepest convictions and most arresting fears. It’s the most original 9/11 tale that we have yet seen, a unique and mesmerizing literary entertainment.

Booklist writes, “Cult favorite Ruff's past novels… are all wildly, thrillingly different, but they do share one recurring characteristic: they are total brain-twisters but in a good way…Like Robert Ferrigno in his Assassin trilogy, Ruff enthusiastically upends world history, offering provocative commentary while grounding his story with a highly appealing Muslim cast.”

Matt Ruff is the author of the award-winning novels Bad Monkeys and Set This House in Order, as well as the cult classics Fool on the Hill and Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy. He is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. He lives in Seattle with his wife, Lisa Gold.

Thursday, March 8

7:30 PM

LARRY SMITH and Co.

THE MOMENT:

Wild, Poignant, Life-Changing Stories

from 125 Writers and Artists Famous & Obscure

SMITH Magazine celebrates the release of The Moment with its first book reading. You'll hear some talented authors share their MOMENTS with us -- and anyone from the audience is invited to share a "first line" from a Moment in his or her life.

Many of us think our lives follow a fated path, or one that comes from a route we engaged and strive to follow. But in fact so much of our existence—where we find ourselves in life, love, work, and at home, and where we might end up later—results from a single moment or decision that was made on a whim, even randomly. The stories in The Moment take all shapes and sizes— from written narratives ranging from six to a thousand words, to photographs, comics, illustrations, handwritten letters, tweets, and more.

Read more

The amazing cast of readers:

CAROLINE PAUL is a journalist and author of Fighting Fire, a memoir of her time as a San Francisco firefighter, and East Wind, Rain, about the villagers of an isolated Hawaiian island whose lives are forever changed when a plane crash-lands nearby.

AARON HUEY is a contributing editor (photographer) for Harper’s Magazine and a photojournalist who freelances regularly for National Geographic, Harper’s, the New Yorker, Smithsonian Magazine, and the New York Times.

STEVE SILBERMAN is a science writer for Wired and other national magazines.

MATTHEW ZAPRUDER is an editor for Wave Books and teaches as a member of the core faculty of UCR-Palm Desert’s Low Residency MFA in Creative Writing. His most recent book is Come On All You Ghosts.

KIRK CITRON is the founder of the digital advertising agency AKQA. He edits The Long News, and lives in San Francisco and New York City.

MO CLANCY was once a trend forecaster for Fortune 500 fashion and consumer brands. He now focuses on modern artifacts and Mayan culture.

ELLEN SUSSMAN is the author of the novels French Lessons and On a Night Like This. She is the editor of two anthologies, Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave and Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia of Sex.

MICHAEL CASTLEMAN is the author of twelve consumer health guides, among them Building Bone Vitality and The New Healing Herbs, and three mystery novels, most recently, A Killing in Real Estate.

JULIA HALPRIN JACKSON has written fiction, nonfiction, and poetry that has appeared in anthologies from Flatmancrooked and the American Diabetes Association, as well as the literary magazines .Fourteen Hills, Spectrum and Catalyst.

CHRISTINE MACDONALD is a writer and dancer based in her hometown of Waikiki, Hawaii. She is currently working on a memoir about her life as an exotic dancer.

Larry Smith is also the editor of numerous Six Word Memoir books, and the originator of the Six Word Memoir game.

Friday, March 9

8:00 PM

LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY

An Evening of Cabaret and Satire

Details TK

THRILLER NIGHT!

Monday, March 12

7:30 PM

KIRA PEIKOFF

LIVING PROOF

In 2027, destroying any viable embryo is considered first-degree murder. Fertility clinics still exist, giving hope and new life to thousands of infertile families, but they have to pass rigorous inspections by the U.S. Department of Embryo Preservation. Fail an inspection, and you will be prosecuted.

Brilliant young doctor Arianna Drake is thriving in the spotlight. Her clinic surpasses every DEP requirement and its growing reputation attracts more clients every day. But when the DEP chief discovers Arianna’s radical past as a supporter of an infamous scientist, he sends undercover agent Trent Rowe to investigate her for possible illegal activity.

As the agent gleans clues about Arianna’s enigmatic operation, his own faith in the mission unravels. Split between the traditions he knows and the truth he fears, his life implodes just as he gains power over Arianna’s chances for survival. But with the clock ticking, neither realizes just how deep their closest colleagues are invested in the outcome, and how desperate they might become. Nothing less than human life—and profound scientific progress—hang in the balance.

A thought-provoking thriller, Living Proof is a celebration of love and life that cuts to the core of a major cultural debate of our time.

“Makes you think, makes you sweat, leaves you happy – everything a good book should.” -- Lee Child

"A tremendous debut, Living Proof is smart, savvy, and suspenseful. Kira Peikoff is a writer to watch." -- Alafair Burke

Kira Peikoff has written for The Daily News, Newsday, The Orange County Register, and New York magazine. She holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from NYU and has worked in the editorial departments of Random House and Henry Holt. She lives in New York City, where she teaches creative writing and is working on her second thriller.

Tuesday, March 13

7:30 PM

ERICKA LUTZ

THE EDGE OF MAYBE

What makes a family a family? What do we owe the people in our lives?

Adam and Kira Glazer live a quirky, Northern California liberal lifestyle, entering middle age with politically correct values, an obsession with gourmet organic food, and no idea what has happened to their punk rock, adventurous youth. When Amber—a young ex-con from Nevada who might be Adam's daughter—lands on their doorstep bringing with her a disabled child, Adam and Kira are forced to confront their disappointments—in each other and in themselves. Adam, Kira, and their 13-year-old daughter Polly take on freeways and yoga classes, explore truths and secrets, and ultimately go for broke in The Edge of Maybe, a novel of possibilities.

Award-winning author Ericka Lutz takes readers on a wild road trip, with a novel that is tender, witty, and entertaining and characters who are visceral, sexy, and real.

“An unflinching exploration of 21st century family life, California style—at once funny, complicated, earnest, and passionate, with an ending I cheered. The characters are full of surprises, and Amber is a gem.” -- Alix Kates Shulman, author of To Love What Is and Memoirs of an Ex-Prom Queen

“Ericka Lutz is a brave, honest, deeply observant writer. She deftly celebrates and lampoons Bay area culture as she exposes the dark side of a family which, on the surface, seems ideal. The Edge of Maybe is a timely, compulsive read.”

—Gayle Brandeis, author of Delta Girls and My Life with the Lincolns

Ericka Lutz is the author of seven previous books, including The Complete Idiot's Guide to Stepparenting. Her stories and essays have appeared in many literary magazines, journals, and anthologies. A long time columnist for Literary Mama magazine, she teaches writing and public speaking at the UC Berkeley, and performs her solo show A Widow's To-Do List around the Bay Area. She lives in Oakland, the city from which she draws much of her inspiration. The Edge of Maybe is her first novel.

Wednesday, March 14

7:30 PM

CHRISTINE PELOSI

Campaign Boot Camp 2.0

Basic Training for Candidates, Staffers, Volunteers, and Nonprofits

A Seven-Step Guide to Winning

“My political activism began in the stroller,” writes Christine Pelosi. As the daughter of Congresswoman and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Christine is almost literally a born campaigner. She knows politics and policy inside out: she’s served as an attorney in the Clinton-Gore administration, as a Congressional chief of staff on Capitol Hill, and as a San Francisco prosecutor. She has conducted “boot camps” in over thirty states and in three countries, working with dozens of successful candidates for office from city council to US congress. In Campaign Boot Camp 2.0, Pelosi presents leadership lessons from the campaign trail from a diverse array of over forty public figures, lending advice for anyone who wants to run for office, advocate for a cause, or win a public policy issue.

Campaign Boot Camp 2.0 is basic training for future leaders who hear a call to service—a voice of conscience that springs from vision, ideas, and values—and want to translate that call into positive change. Pelosi offers the seven essential steps to winning: identify your call to service, define your message, know your community, build your leadership teams, raise the money, connect with people, and mobilize to win..

In this edition, Pelosi updates the book’s “Call to Service” examples—profiles of current political leaders and what motivated them to enter public service; details the expanding role of social media, the Internet, and technology as message multipliers; explores challenges unique to women candidates; and expands on the power of volunteers.

“A passionate call to public service—and a practical guide for making that service more productive. Christine Pelosi is a sharp and knowledgeable drill sergeant looking to whip our democratic process back into shape.”

-- Arianna Huffington

Christine Pelosi currently serves as chair of the California Democratic Party Women’s Caucus, a vice chair of the Veterans and Military Families Council of the Democratic National Committee, and a board member of Young Democrats of America. She has been a US Department of Housing and Urban Development special counsel, chief of staff to US Congressman John F. Tierney, and assistant district attorney for the City of San Francisco.

SPECIAL BOOKSWAP EDITION!

Thursday, March 15

4:00 – 6:00 PM

AFTER SCHOOL BOOKSWAP FOR KIDS & THEIR PARENTS!

Bookswap is branching out!

Sondra Hall of Take My Word For It joins us for this junior version of our popular after-dark Bookswap for budding literati and the parents who've nurtured their book habit.

REQUIREMENTS:

Be a kid, aged 8-12.
Be a parent of a kid aged 8-12.
Bring a book. You too, parents.
Eat some delicious snacks.
Swap your book.
Make new friends, together!

In addition to the swap, Sondra will lead a writing activity for kids and parents to do together!

It's good to share.

$15 Parent & Kid pair

$5 per additional kid (or parent)

Includes food and beverages, and a special discount coupon.

This event is intended to be for kids with their parents - parents must be in attendance

Tickets in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006

Friends Don’t Let Friends Write Novels Alone!

Thursday, March 15

7:30 PM

MEREDITH MARAN

In celebration of her first novel

A THEORY OF SMALL EARTHQUAKES

talks about writing, as only friends can, with MICHELLE RICHMOND

In her ten previous nonfiction books, Meredith Maran has trained her journalistic eye on the subtle dance between the political and the personal. Now Maran brings her provocative gaze to her debut novel -- a very Berkeley family story spanning two decades, set against the social, political, and geological upheavals of the Bay Area.

Eager to escape her damaging past and chart her own future, Alison Rose is powerfully drawn to Zoe, a free-spirited artist who offers emotional stability
and a love outside the norm. After many happy years together, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake deepens fissures in the two women’s relationship, and Alison leaves Zoe for a new, “normal” life with a man. Alison’s son is the outcome of both of these complicated relationships, and the three parents strive to create a life together that will test the boundaries of love and family in changing times.

“A smart, sexy, funny, wrenching, delicious story of lust and trust and love and family." -- Anne Lamott

“A Theory Of Small Earthquakes teaches us something new about love and sex, jealousy and loyalty, and also, and perhaps most importantly, motherhood. Meredith Maran’s first novel is a powerful debut that left me waiting impatiently for her second.” -- Ayelet Waldman

"Funny, lively, political, personal, nostalgic, touching, A Theory of Small Earthquakes deftly chronicles love and its various meanings. I enjoyed it greatly." -- Meg Wolitzer,

“In this groundbreaking novel, Meredith Maran has told a story few writers, if any, have explored: of a woman drawn to two lovers and two distinct worlds, and of the unlikely family she creates, with two extraordinarily different partners, each of whom speaks to a different aspect of her desire. With rare honesty and courage, Maran asks us to consider whether sexuality can be defined by preference for one gender or the other, or if it is shifting and sometimes stormy as the tides.”

-- Joyce Maynard

Joining Meredith in conversation this evening is Michelle Richmond, friend, and the author of the award-winning story collection The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress, the novels Dream of the Blue Room and No One You Know, and the international sensation The Year of Fog. Richard was a James Michener Fellow at the University of Miami, has taught in the MFA programs in Creative Writing at USF, California College of the Arts, St. Mary’s College, and Bowling Green State University. She serves on the executive council of The Authors Guild and holds the Sister Catharine Julie Cunningham Chair at Notre Dame de Namur University.

Monday, March 19

7:30 PM

DICK EVANS and BEN FONG-TORRES

SAN FRANCISCO AND THE BAY AREA: THE HAIGHT-ASHBURY EDITION

It’s high time to celebrate the arrival of a gorgeous new photographic contemporary look of our neighborhood and its place in the Bay Area.

There’s no lack of historical books about the Haight-Ashbury, but this is the first to portray the modern Haight…with its rich mix of 60s tie-dyes, 80s Deadheads and 00s murals recalling the past…a neighborhood with history and culture intertwined with the City and with the greater Bay Area that surrounds it.

Dick Evans worked with his long-time photo editor, Yasemin Kant, with the resulting 200+ photographs marvelous in full color. Ben Fong-Torres added a Foreword and section introductions. And local guide and historian Stannous Flouride provided background research. It’s a terrific mix that culminates in a book you’ll want to give to friends and family far away.

Join us to cheer all the hard work and to celebrate the ‘hood!

Dick Evans was born and raised on a cattle ranch in Oregon, and could easily have stayed home and become a cowboy. Instead, he studied engineering and evolved into a globe-trotting CEO. Along the way, he’s lived in North America, Africa, and Europe; travelled in China, Japan, Brazil, Australia, Iceland, and India; and, while fly fishing on a stream in northern Quebec, he rediscovered his passion for photography.

LAUNCH PARTY!

Tuesday, March 20

7:30 PM

JENNIFER duBOIS

A PARTIAL HISTORY OF LOST CAUSES

“Hilarious and heartbreaking and a triumph of the imagination. Jennifer duBois is too young to be this talented. I wish I were her.” -- Gary Shteyngart

In Cambridge, Massachusetts, thirty-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison has witnessed her father -- a brilliant, multi-lingual professor of music -- succumb to Huntington’s. After a genetic test reveals that not only is she likely to get the cruel brain-atrophying disease, but that it will arrive within two years, Irina finds herself seeking the most appropriate way to make her exit and wondering if she has actually made any mark on the world. After her father’s funeral, Irina finds a copy of an unanswered letter he wrote to Soviet chess prodigy Aleksandr Bezetov asking the profound question: How does one proceed in a lost cause? She believes her father—already aware he was entering his final declension—reached out to Bezetov because the young hero, like himself, was “a person who knew the value of his own intelligence, and the shortness of its reign.” Looking for a graceful departure from her Cambridge life and a last adventure, Irina travels to Russia to find both Bezetov and the answer to her father’s question.

In St. Petersburg, Russia, former world chess champion Bezetov is haunted by memories of a woman he loved in his youth who married a Party official and a close friend who was murdered by the KGB. Weighed down with guilt for his lack of action in those moments, Bezetov launches a dissident political movement. He decides to run for president against Vladimir Putin—a campaign he knows he will not win and that may get him killed—but his conviction to make the current regime uncomfortable drives him.

"By what exquisite strategy did duBois settle on this championship permutation of literary moves? Her debut is a chess mystery with political, historical, philosophical and emotional heft, a paean to the game and the humans who play it. DuBois probes questions of identity, death, art and love with a piercing intelligence and a questing heart." -- Heidi Julavits

Spanning two continents and the dramatic sweep of history, Jennifer duBois has crafted a beautiful novel about many things: the power of memory, the stubbornness and splendor of the human will, the endurance of love, but above all, how one proceeds in a lost cause. The result is clearly going to be one of the most notable debuts of 2012.

"An amazing achievement—a braiding of historical, political, and personal, each strand illuminating the other. Wonderful characters, glimpses of elusive wisdom, and a gripping story that accelerates to just the right ending." -- Arthur Phillips

Jennifer duBois was born in Northampton, Massachusetts in 1983. She earned a B.A. in political science and philosophy from Tufts University and an M.F.A. in fiction from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow. She recently completed her Stegner Fellowship at Stanford University, where she now teaches. Jennifer's short fiction has appeared in Playboy, The Missouri Review, The Kenyon Review, The Northwest Review, The South Carolina Review and The Florida Review.

Wednesday, March 21

7:30 PM

THOMAS CHRISTENSEN

1616: The World in Motion

For some, 1616 stands out as the year Shakespeare and Cervantes died. And, while it did mark the end of an era of literature, it also marked the beginnings of a new, globalized world in which America was for the first time directly connected to Europe, Africa, and Asia. 1616: The World in Motion reveals the surprising degree of movement that took place, and the remarkable interconnectivity of distant places and cultures during this time. These connections were responsible for altering the course of humanity in ways that affect us to this day.

In his newest book, Thomas Christensen presents riveting stories and stunning color images that define what sets this year apart from the rest. From witch-hunts, astronomy, and alchemy, to the global trade of silk, silver, and slaves, Christensen presents a panoramic and colorful glimpse into a year that changed our world forever.

“A brimmingly generous intellectual feast, lavishly curated by Mr. Christensen—on every page a fresh marvel—the catalog, as it were, of a show just asking to be mounted, and the Show of the Year at that.” -- Lawrence Weschler, Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder

Thomas Christensen’s previous books include New World/New Words: Recent Writing from the Americas, and the best-selling translation (with Carol Christensen) of Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate. He is Director of Creative Services at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

Before Downton Abbey, There was Poldark!

Thursday, March 22

7:30 PM

ROBIN ELLIS

DELICIOUS DISHES FOR DIABETICS

Downton Abbey is what millions of us have avidly, passionately watched recently. Another classic British series that captivated us thirty-five years ago was the spellbinding Poldark. Its star Robin Ellis is known worldwide for his role as Captain Ross Poldark. Theatre and film haven’t been his only passions: his life-long passion for cooking has undergone some fabulous changes since his diagnosis of Type-2 diabetes.

Robin explains the strategic changes he has had to make in what he eats and how he prepares food – the result is a food-lover’s guide to eating well with diabetes. His cookbook, based on Mediterranean cuisine, offers superb recipes for satisfying dishes like Lamb Tagine, Roast Quail in Balsamic Vinaigrette, Red Peppers Stuffed with Tomato and Goat Cheese, and Chick Peas with Tomato Sauce and Spinach.

Not only does Delicious Dishes show us how to eat well, Robin also suggests how to improve your day-to-day health. With simple daily walks and a revamped eating style, he’s managed his condition without medication for over six years – and he says he if can do it, so can you!

Robin Ellis is a British actor best known for playing the swashbuckling lead in the BBC series Poldark, based on the novels of Winston Graham. (It was voted by Masterpiece Theatre fans as one of the top 10 costume dramas of all time!) He has appeared in many other classic TV series and had a long career in British theatre, including a stint with the Royal Shakespeare Company. His most recent role was in the original Swedish version of the detective series Wallander. He also starred in the Merchant Ivory film The Europeans and can been seen in Fawlty Towers, The Good Soldier (based on the Ford Madox Ford novel) and Elizabeth R.

He now lives in Southwestern France with his American wife (a Stanford grad!) and a menagerie of animals.

Monday, March 26

7:00 PM

Christin & Praveen invite you to join them in a special Booksmith celebration and community dialogue

The debate rages on. Is there a future for brick & mortar bookstores in the digital age?

It’s not a new debate, but the latest salvos were fired by Salon writer Farhad Manjoo who wrote the obituary of bookstores the same week Amazon offered an incentive for people to walk into stores and use a price checking app to compare prices and then shop online. Bookstore lovers fired back. Richard Russo wrote an op-ed in The New York Times denouncing Amazon’s moves and Ann Patchett matched Stephen Colbert wit for wit on why she started a bookstore.

It’s a debate we have lived & breathed every day of the last five years when we quit our corporate jobs, followed our instincts, and assumed the reins at The Booksmith as the new owners. We have a lot to celebrate and we invite you to join us for the celebration. We have a lot to discuss and we invite you for a community dialogue.

Please join us to celebrate 35 years of Booksmith, 5 years of new ownership, success, growth, survival, spirit of innovation and forward thinking. Please join us to celebrate our feisty booksellers, our supportive customers, our local writer friends, and our publishing partners. Please join us to celebrate the completion of talented Sean Chiki’s artwork around the store that has helped make your bookstore the “Best Reimagined Bookstore” in San Francisco.

We will share specifics of how things are going behind the scenes at your bookstore. What are our plans for a future likely to be dominated by instantly downloadable e-books and free e-readers? What role do we see for Booksmith in this future? What opportunities and challenges do we face? We would love for you to join us and tell us what you think. How’s the new Booksmith working for you? What are we doing well? Where would you like to see us improve? We have a lot to talk about.

And we’ll have very good things to eat and drink.

-- Christin and Praveen

Monday, April 2
7:30 PM

Passionate for Poetry!
You Share, We Share Favorite Poems
in celebration of National Poetry Month

You've got a favorite poem -- we know you do! This evening is dedicated to sharing one poem -- the one with the most significance for you, the one that blows you away every time.

Bring a poem of your choice -- by someone else, not you, no longer than one page.
Be prepared to tell why you chose it, in two to three sentences.
Everyone wishing to share poems this evening will be given a number on arrival; numbers will be randomly drawn and we'll strive to have all who want to speak do so within a 90-minute span.
Guest host Pireeni Sundarlingam has held national fellowships both in cognitive science and in poetry. She is co-editor of Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry, winner of both the 2011 N. California Book Award and the PEN Oakland 2011 National Book Award. Her own poetry has been published in journals such as Ploughshares and The Progressive, and in a variety of anthologies Sundaralingam has spoken on the intersections between poetry and the brain at MOMA (New York), the deYoung Fine Arts Museum, and the Exploratorium. She’s just returned from a fellowship in cross-disciplinary thinking in Berlin.

Tuesday, April 3
7:30 PM

MICHAEL TUCKER with Jill Eikenberry
AFTER ANNIE

Michael Tucker’s debut novel, After Annie is a hilarious and beautifully rendered tale about a man off the rails, battling through the middle-aged wilderness days he hoped never to face alone.

Best known for his work on the Emmy-award winning television series L.A. Law, Michael Tucker is a veteran actor and author of three previous nonfiction works. In his first work of fiction, Tucker proves to be shrewd observer of human nature, as he introduces New York actor Herbie Aaron, whose universal failings he scrutinizes with a comic eye and a compassionate heart.

When his wife Annie dies suddenly from cancer, Herbie is faced with a new role – a third act - for which he is totally unprepared. Like a great theater ensemble, After Annie is filled with memorable portraits: Olive, a beautiful bartender who just might be a great actress; Candy, Herbie’s neurotic and troubled daughter; and a wise woman named Billy, a tough-talking golf pro who teaches Herbie more about his psyche than about his lousy swing. From the streets and stages of New York to the golf courses of Myrtle Beach, Herbie’s journey to find a new start after Annie is filled with unexpected moments of beauty and wisdom, pathos and humor.

“With an acerbic, sarcastic bite and a depth of honesty rare in most first novels, After Annie is a refreshing, heartwarming, and introspective read.” — Booklist

A veteran stage, film and television actor, Michael Tucker is perhaps best known for his role as Stuart Markowitz in L.A. Law. His 8-year stint on the phenomally popular drama brought him three Emmy nominations and two Golden Globe nominations. Michael’s film credits include Woody Allen’s Radio Days and The Purple Rose of Cairo, Diner, Tin Men, An Unmarried Woman, The Eyes of Laura Mars, Network, and For Love or Money. He received the Good Guys Award from the National Women’s Political Caucus for his work on women’s health issues. Tucker’s first book I Never Forget a Meal: An Indulgent Reminiscence is part memoir, part cookbook. His second book, Living in a Foreign Language, chronicles his experience, with his wife Jill Eikenberry, as homeowners in the Italian countryside. His third book, Family Meals, is an acclaimed food memoir.

Wednesday, April 4
7:30 PM

MARY ALBANESE
MIDNIGHT SUN, ARCTIC MOON:
Mapping the Wild Heart of Alaska

In 1981, Mary Albanese left the comfort of Buttercup Farm in upstate New York, where she grew up, the tomboy sister, the second of three girls with one brother on the end. She began the adventure of a lifetime to become a geological explorer in Alaska, where she maps remote wilderness areas and journeys to the depths of her own heart.

Mary Albanese tells her own engaging story, one full of rich and eccentric characters with human failings. Its remote landscape reveals the courage and sacrifice her “family” of visionary explorers, framed against the background of Alaska’s raw beauty, with humor, grace, and an abiding respect for America’s last frontier.

Framed against the backdrop of Alaska’s raw beauty, it is an inspiring story of
achievement and hope, told with gentle humor, compassionate grace, and abiding respect for America’s last frontier.

Mary Albanese is an author, artist, and scriptwriter. She lives in England.
.
Thursday, April 5
7:30 PM

TERRY McDERMOTT
THE HUNT FOR KSM: Inside the Pursuit and Takedown of the
Real 9/11 Mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is the most significant terrorist in captivity. On March 1, 2003, American and Pakistani intelligence agents captured KSM, ending one of the greatest manhunts in history.

Drawing on unprecedented access to key sources, many of whom have never spoken publicly—as well as jihadis and members of KSM’s family and support network—Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer give the first comprehensive account of the search for KSM and what happened after he was captured, including how his torture prompted false confessions that sent U.S. agents on a wild goose chase across four continents.

"On one level, McDermott and Meyer have given us a fact-filled inside account, in the voices of those on the job, of the failed decade-long American effort to find KSM before he could strike again. But there is a most important underlying message in this book—that the American intelligence community remains caught up in bureaucratic warfare and remains today incapable of working together...of sharing insights and information...even when all involved share the same goal. This, ultimately, is an account of an American tragedy."
-- Seymour M. Hersh, writer for The New Yorker

THE HUNT FOR KSM is a tour de force of investigative journalism as well as a gripping tale of international intrigue. It provides a window into the deep dysfunction that plagued—and continues to plague—the intelligence community in the years since 9/11.

"Terry McDermott and Josh Meyer have written a completely authoritative account … a deeply reported page-turner about the race to find the man who was the Chief Operating Officer of Al-Qaeda." -- Peter Bergen, author of The Longest War: The Enduring Conflict between America and Al-Qaeda

Terry McDermott’s work has appeared in The New Yorker, the Wilson Quarterly, the Columbia Journalism Review, the Los Angeles Times Magazine, and Pacific Magazine, ad he is the author of Perfect Soldiers and 101 Theory Drive. McDermott has worked at eight newspapers for more than thirty years, most recently for ten years at the Los Angeles Times, where he was a national correspondent.

Monday, April 9
7:30 PM

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL and SUSIE BRIGHT
BEST SEX WRITING 2012

Powerhouse pundits Rachel Kramer Bussel and Susie Bright have gathered the best, boldest, and brightest minds on sex and culture today

In Best Sex Writing 2012, sex columnist Rachel Kramer Bussel and noted commentator Susie Bright, this year's guest judge, collect the most challenging and provocative work on this endlessly evocative subject. Find out what's behind the latest political sex scandals in "Sex, Lies, and Hush Money", learn about how "Atheists Do It Better", and find out "Why Lying About Monogamy Matters". From an insider look at being gay in the military pre-DADT and an impassioned defense of circumcision to a dating site for people with STDs, nuanced explorations of teen sex laws, prostitution, sex at 66, SlutWalks, female orgasm workshops, and more, Best Sex Writing 2012explores the smarter side of sexuality. This is bedtime reading for erotic intellectuals and those who want to go behind the latest leering headlines for real talk about the topic of everyone's lips.

Rachel Kramer Bussel is the editor of over 35 anthologies, including Best Bondage Erotica 2011, Fast Girls, Orgasmic, Passion, Bottoms Up, Spanked, and Please, Sir and Please, Ma'am, as well as Best Sex Writing series editor. Bookslut has said about her work, "Bussel always portrays sex as delicious, wonderful, and fun." She writes the biweekly “Secrets of a Sex Writer” column for SexIs Magazine. Her writing has been published in Crushable, The Daily Beast, The Frisky, The Gloss, Jezebel, Mediabistro, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, Zink and other publications. Her books have garnered five IPPY (Independent Publisher) awards. She is the cofounding editor of the popular blog Cupcakes Take the Cake.

Susie Bright is one of the world's most respected voices on sexual politics, as well as an award-winning and best-selling writer who has edited hundreds of the finest authors working in American literature and progressive activism today. She was a screenwriting consultant on Bound, Erotique, and The Celluloid Closet, and hosts the show "In Bed with Susie Bright" on Audible.com. Her most recent book isBig Sex Little Death: A Memoir.


Tuesday, April 10
7:30 PM

PAT THOMAS
LISTEN, WHITEY!
Sights and Sounds of Black Power 1965 – 1975


Noted music producer and scholar Pat Thomas spent five years re­searching Listen, Whitey! While befriending members of the Black Panther Party, Thomas discovered rare recordings of speeches, interviews, and music by noted activists Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Elaine Brown, The Lumpen and many others that form the framework of this definitive retrospective.

Listen, Whitey! chronicles the forgotten history of Motown Records. From 1970 to 1973, Motown’s Black Power subsidiary label, Black Forum, released politically charged albums by Stokely Carmichael, Amiri Baraka, Langston Hughes, Bill Cosby & Ossie Davis, and many others, and explores the musical connections between Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Graham Nash, the Partridge Family (!?!) and the Black Power movement. Obscure recordings produced by SNCC, Ron Karenga’s US, the Tribe and other African-American socio­political organizations of the late 1960s and early ’70s are examined along with the Isley Brothers, Nina Simone, Archie Shepp, Art Ensemble of Chicago, Clifford Thornton, Watts Prophets, Last Poets, Gene McDaniels, Roland Kirk, Horace Silver, Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, Stanley Crouch, and others that spoke out against op­pression. Thomas further focuses on Black Consciousness poetry (from the likes of Jayne Cortez, wife of Ornette Coleman), inspired re­ligious recordings that infused god and Black Nationalism, and obscure regional and privately pressed Black Power 7-inch soul singles from across America. The text is ac­companied by over 200 large sized, full-color reproductions of album covers and 45 rpm sin­gles — most of which readers will have never seen before.


“[Listen Whitey!]… is a huge contribution to our understanding of this crucial moment in our shared history, and a document that resounds with as much beauty, passion and hope as the records of that fervid time.” – Jeff Chang, author of Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of The Hip-Hop Generation and Who We Be: The Coloriza­tion of America


As a reissue producer, Pat Thomas has released vintage recordings from Elaine Brown, the Watts Prophets, Gene McDaniels, and Eddie Gale, His writing about music has appeared in Mojo, Craw­daddy, and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. During the research for this book, he lectured on the recordings contained within at UCLA, San Francisco State University, Evergreen State Col­lege and Merritt College.

Our friends at Amoeba Music, just up the street, will be on hand with the companion CD from Light in the Attic Records!

Wednesday, April 11
7:30 PM

MICHAEL MORAN
THE RECKONING:
Debt, Democracy, and the Future of American Power

“This solemn examination of the severe problems facing the U.S. today...offers a practical, useful roadmap for change if politicians will follow.”—Publishers Weekly

A leading forecaster of economic and political trends takes a sharp look at the decline of American influence in the world, and how it can prepare for the new reality.

The age of American global dominance is ending. Today, a host of forces are converging to challenge its cherished notion of exceptionalism, and risky economic and foreign policies have steadily eroded the power structure in place since the Cold War. Staggering under a huge burden of debt, the country must make some tough choices—or cede sovereignty to its creditors. In The Reckoning, Michael Moran, geostrategy analyst, explores the challenges ahead -- and what, if anything, can be prevent chaos as America loses its perch at the top of the mountain.

Covering developments like unprecedented information technologies, the growing prosperity of China, India, Brazil, and Turkey, and the diminished importance of Wall Street in the face of global markets, Moran warns that the coming shift will have serious consequences not just for the United States, but for the wider world. Countries that have traditionally depended on the United States for protection and global stability will have to fend for themselves. Moran describes how, with a bit of wise leadership, America can transition to this new world order gracefully—by managing entitlements, reigniting sustainable growth, reforming immigration policy, launching new regional dialogues that bring friend and rival together in cooperative multinational structures, and breaking the poisonous deadlock in Washington. If not, he warns, history won’t wait.

Michael Moran is Editor-in-Chief of Renaissance Insight, the thought-leadership arm of the global investment bank Renaissance Capital. Based in London and New York, Moran writes on and forecasts geopolitical and economic trends for the bank's clients and is author of "The Reckoning" blog on Slate. Moran worked directly with renowned economist Nouriel Roubini during the 2008-2009 economic crisis and, over the past 25 years, he has reported and analyzed major events for the world’s leading intellectual and newsgathering institutions, winning numerous awards for his work on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations, the BBC, MSNBC.com, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Thursday, April 12
7:30 PM

ZYZZYVA: Spring Issue Celebration
with managing editor Oscar Villalon

Celebrate the release of ZYZZYVA's Spring '12 Issue (No. 94) with readings from four contributors: novelist Elena Mauli Shapiro, debut writer Benjamin T. Miller, and Lindsey Thordarson.

Elena Mauli Shapiro is the author of 13, rue Therese. She lives in the Bay Area.

Benjamin T. Miller taught writing from 2007 to 2010 at UC Irvine, from which he graduated. He lives in Los Angeles.

Lindsey Thordarson has had her work appear in California Northern Magazine and received the 2010 Doug Fir Fiction Award. She lives in Mountain View.

Tuesday, April 17
7:30 PM

S.G. BROWNE
LUCKY BASTARD

Meet Nick Monday: a private detective who’s more Columbo than Sam Spade, more Magnum P.I. than Philip Marlowe. As San Francisco’s infamous luck poacher, Nick doesn’t know whether his ability to swipe other people’s fortunes with a simple handshake is a blessing or a curse. Ever since his youth, Nick has swallowed more than a few bitter truths when it comes to wheeling and dealing in destinies. Because whether the highest bidders of Nick’s serendipitous booty are celebrities, yuppies, or douche bag vegans, the unsavory fact remains: luck is the most powerful, addictive, and dangerous drug of them all. And no amount of cappuccinos, Lucky Charms, or apple fritters can sweeten the notion that Nick might be exactly what his father once claimed—as ambitious as a fart.

That is, until Tuesday Knight, the curvy brunette who also happens to be the mayor’s daughter, approaches Nick with an irresistible offer: $100,000 to retrieve her father’s stolen luck. Could this high-stakes deal let Nick do right? Or will kowtowing to another greedmonger’s demands simply fund Nick’s addiction to corporate coffee bars while his morality drains down the toilet? Before he downs his next mocha, Nick finds himself at the mercy of a Chinese mafia kingpin and with no choice but to scour the city for the purest kind of luck, a hunt more titillating than softcore porn. All he has to do to stay ahead of the game is remember that you can’t take something from someone without eventually paying like hell for it. . .Lucky readers, discover Lucky Bastard, a radically funny and irreverent satirical tale.

“Springboarding off a traditional noir framework, Browne delivers an insightful, intriguing tale… (w)ith twists aplenty, this fast-paced adventure succeeds as both a hard-boiled homage and a paranormal romp.”
– Publishers Weekly, starred review


S.G Browne is the author of Breathers and Fated. He graduated from the University of the Pacific in Stockton, and worked for several years in Hollywood before moving to Santa Cruz to write. He currently lives in San Francisco.

Wednesday, April 18
7:30 PM

MELANIE THORNE
HAND ME DOWN

talks with

PAM HOUSTON
CONTENTS MAY HAVE SHIFTED

A tough, tender, debut novel, in the tradition of Dorothy Allison and Janet Fitch, Hand Me Down is the unforgettable story of a girl who travels between California and Utah in search of her true family, having never been loved best of all.

Fourteen-year-old Elizabeth Reid has spent her life protecting her sister, Jaime, from their parents' cruel mistakes. Their father, who'd rather work the system than a job, pours every dollar into his many vices, denying his daughters the shoes and clothing they need. Their mother, once a loving parent, is going through a post-post-adolescent rebellious streak and finds love with a dangerous ex-con. When she chooses starting a new family over raising her first-born girls, Elizabeth and Jaime are separated and forced to rely on the begrudging kindness of increasingly distant relatives.

A string of broken promises that begins with Liz's mother swearing, "I would never hurt you, Liz. You're family," propels her between guest beds in two states searching for a safe home. All the while, Liz is burdened by her stake in a bleak pact with a deceitful adult: to tell the truth about the darkest of her circumstances will cost her the ability to shelter Jaime. As Liz spirals into the abyss of fear and shame that haunts her sleepless nights, can she break free from her bonds in time to fight for her life?

Talking and reading with Melanie this evening is Pam Houston, the amazing author of Cowboys Are My Weakness, Waltzing the Cat, Sight Hound, A Little More About Me, and the new Contents May Have Shifted, and about whom Melanie writes, “In addition to being an amazing writer, Pam is also a kind and generous person and one of the best teachers I’ve ever had. I was lucky enough to work with her at UC Davis for several years and she was the chair of my graduate thesis committee, which advised me on the very first draft of Hand Me Down, though it was originally titled something less interesting that no one liked.” What a pleasure it is to welcome bothMelanie and Pam this evening!

Thursday, April 19
7:30 PM

JULIE BRUCK
MONKEY RANCH

The compassionate and precise eye for which her earlier books
The compassionate and precise eye for which her earlier books were praised is given a wider, more ambitious scope in Monkey Ranch, Julie Bruck’s third collection. What, these poems ask, is sufficient, what will suffice?

A mandrill, a middle-aged woman, a shattered Baghdad neighborhood, a long marriage and even a spoon grapple with this conundrum—sometimes with rage, or plain persistence, sometimes with the furious joy of a dog who gets to ride with his head out a truck’s passenger window.

“Monkey Ranch has all the antic sensuality and thrilling precision we’ve come to expect from Julie Bruck’s work. This volume has a pitch-perfect elegance that calms the ruckus just long enough for us to glimpse the vulnerability of everyone involved. Monkey Ranch is like the best sort of letter from a friend—full of gossip, lively observation, and serious wit.” – Sharon Thesen

“I have long considered Julie Bruck to be one of our most committed and humane voices. Bruck sees everything we do; she just seems to see it wiser. Her poems sing and roil with everything complicated and joyous we human monkeys are.” – Cornelius Eady

Julie Bruck is the author of two previous books, The End of Travel, and The Woman Downstairs. Her recent work has appeared in The New Yorker, Ploughshares, Literary Mama, Maisonneuve, The Malahat Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review and The Walrus, among other publications. A Montreal native, she lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughter, and two enormous, geriatric goldfish.

Sunday, April 22
10:30 - 11:45 AM

Take My Word for It! Kids' Writing Classes Begin at The Booksmith

“Take My Word For It!” is a one-of-a-kind creative writing program for enthusiastic and reluctant writers alike. We’ll thrill you and your pencil with lots of innovative activities to explore your author-self. Students have the opportunity to share their work at our reading for parents and friends at the end of the session.

For this inaugural class at Booksmith, we'll be exploring where to find inspiration and ideas for your writing, how to spice up what you put on the page, and how to get better acquainted with metaphors, similes, alliterations and more!

So if you love to write or would like to make better friends with the written word in a safe, supportive environment, come check us out!

Who: Kids 8 - 12 years old
When: 6 week session Sundays, Aril 22 - June 3 [no class 5/27]10:30 – 11:45 AM at The Booksmith
Where: The Booksmith (in the secret upstairs creative space!)
Fee: $108. Early bird discount of 10% if you register by April 11. Min. 8 kids. (1 scholarship is offered once minimum enrollment is met.)
Register and pay online!

Questions? Email us

Tuesday, April 24
7:30 PM

AMELIA GRAY
THREATS

Amelia Gray has a singular voice and imagination; the world of THREATS is full of psychological twists and turns that are eerie yet familiar, violent yet tender. With ability and precision far beyond her years, Gray grabs you from the first page and never loosens her grip.

The dead of winter in an unnamed Ohio town is the scene of a painful death. David has had a rough couple of years. When his dentist license was revoked, he found his equilibrium slip. When Franny, his wife, dies of incomprehensible causes, he begins to lose his grasp on reality.

As David attempts to uncover the mystery of Franny’s death, he begins finding a series of threats hidden around his home, whose quickly escalating messages delve deeply into his innermost fears:

I will lock you in a room much like your own until it begins to fill with water.

If you’re here, don’t leave. I’m here in the house. If you’re here, I will find you.

Detective Chico would also like to know the truth behind Franny’s end. A psychiatrist stations her office in David’s garage and strange occurrences proliferate, possibly imagined. As David attempts to navigate life without Franny, and uncovers more threats, a dark comedy unfolds. Our perspective is rooted in David’s mind, a place where reality and paranoid fantasy are indecipherable from one another.


“The first time I encountered Amelia Gray’s fiction, it slugged me in the jaw. The second time, too, and the third. Said jaw-slugging has ensued nearly every time I’ve read something of hers, except for when instead it whispered sad and surprising but unreliable truths about the difficulty of intimacy and sense in the wretched blastoscape of modern life. And then it made me a grilled cheese sandwich to prove that the world can be a kind place, and it waited until I had sated myself and wiped away the crumbs before slugging me in the jaw again.”
—Doug Dorst, author of Alive in Necropolis


Amelia Gray is the author of two previous books, both acclaimed by critics, AM/PM and Museum of the Weird. She financed her tour for AM/PM through Kickstarter, renting a van and travelling around the country to read in bars and indie bookstores. Building a following one stop at a time, she wowed audiences with her riveting reading, which led to appearances at the AWP Conference, the Texas Book Festival, and others.

Wednesday, April 25
7:30 PM

RAFE SAGARIN
LEARNING FROM THE OCTOPUS:
How Secrets from Nature Can Help Us Fight Terrorist Attacks, Natural Disasters, and Disease

Whether discussing responses to terrorism, natural disaster, or disease, the past decade is full of failures. Many disasters were evaded only because of slip-ups on the part of the enemy: the underwear bomber’s underwear didn’t explode; SARS just wasn’t that bad. Other disasters landed full body blows, yet the response was more of the same: add a new charade to the security checkpoint, another meter to the levee wall. This time, the argument goes, we’ll finally have the risk—suicide bomber or hurricane—beat. Inevitably, we will find, we don’t.

Ecologist Rafe Sagarin offers a revolutionary prescription for security systems in society: applying lessons from 3.5 billion years of evolution to fortify ourselves against disaster and war. More than copying what nature looks like, Sagarin argues that we must learn from how nature is organized, how it acts, and how it continually grows and diversifies on this dangerous and unpredictable planet.

Sagarin brings the abstractions of ecology to life to uncover nature’s examples of how can we detect danger, understand behavior, and defend against disaster or disease outbreaks. What can we do to avoid threats? Learn from the octopus, the picture of variability, from its ability to change color to its capacity to learn how to use coconut shells as body armor. Both traits evolved, but where one was preprogrammed, the other is open-ended, making use of whatever’s available. Within that combination of long- and short-term variability lays powerful protection.

LEARNING FROM THE OCTOPUS gathers wisdom from the hedgehog and the salmon, mangrove swamps and viral parasites, showing how nature’s lessons can transform our security systems from a series of after-the-fact, one-time interventions to proactive, holistic, and adaptable strategies that not only protect us from the threats we know about, but prepare us to respond efficiently and effectively to danger lurking around the corner. No system will ever be perfect, but that’s nature’s, and Sagarin’s, point: it’s not possible to eliminate all risk. Given how many species have been able to survive millions of years despite being under constant existential threat, learning from nature should enable us to do at least half as well. It’s all here in Sagarin’s timely, original, and totally game-changing book.

Rafe Sagarin is a marine ecologist and Environmental Policy Analyst at the University of Arizona. His research has appeared in Science, Nature, and Foreign Policy, among other publications.

Thursday, April 26
7:30 PM

DAVID VANN
DIRT

David Vann’s widely celebrated Caribou Island solidified this writer’s reputation as one of the rising stars of the literary world. Routinely compared with writers such as Cormac McCarthy and William Faulkner, Vann is being published in eighteen languages and has won fourteen prizes for his work, including France’s Prix Médicis Étranger and Spain’s Premi Llibreter. His much-anticipated new novel, DIRT, is a savagely funny tragedy that once again displays “the beautiful exactness of language, the unerring eye for detail” (New York Times Book Review) that are hallmarks of Vann’s work.

Set in 1985 in a secluded house with a walnut orchard in the suburbs of Sacramento, DIRT is the story of twenty-two-year-old Galen, who lives with his emotionally dependent mother in a kind of eccentric isolation. He has no idea who his father is, his abusive grandfather is dead, and his dementia-afflicted grandmother is in a nursing home. The family inheritance is in danger from a grasping aunt and cousin. A New Age believer bent on finding transcendence, Galen is prone to manic binges. When the family visits an old cabin in the Sierras, tensions build, and Galen is shocked to discover just how far he will go to achieve that transcendence he craves.
Like Caribou Island, “I think of DIRT as a play written through landscape,” Vann says. “It’s very traditional tragedy, from the Greeks, focusing on a primary relationship (in this case a mother and son) put under pressure until the characters break and are revealed. The book ultimately is about how philosophy leads to brutality. It’s also about a family legacy of abuse, passed down through a couple generations.” Readers may be surprised to discover more humor in this book than in Vann’s previous work, as he pokes fun at New Age beliefs and practices. But, as with all his work, Vann is concerned with relationships and the enveloping landscape that provides their metaphors.

David Vann’s books—Legend of a Suicide, Caribou Island, A Mile Down, and Last Day on Earth—have appeared on sixty-five best books of the year lists in a dozen countries, and he’s been shortlisted for the Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize and the Sunday TimesShort Story Award, and longlisted for the Story Prize. A current Guggenheim fellow and former Stegner fellow and NEA fellow, he is a professor at the University of San Francisco, and has written for The Atlantic, Esquire, Outside, Men’s Journal, the Sunday Times, theObserver, and many others, and appeared in documentaries with the BBC, Nova, National Geographic, and CNN.


Launch Party!
Friday, April 27
7:30 PM

VICTORIA SWEET
GOD’S HOTEL:
A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine

Twenty years ago, a brilliant doctor took what she thought was a short-term assignment at an old-fashioned charity hospital. Today, she is still there. What she found at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco captivated and astonished her – not just the remarkable cases that doctors rarely see anymore, but the opportunity to practice a time-honored form of “slow medicine” that was attentive to the soul as well as the body, that often brought about stunning cures, and that offered abundant lessons for the efficiency-obsessed model of medicine that now dominates our healthcare system. Revealing her dazzling literary gifts as much as her incisive medical insights, Victoria Sweet tells the dramatic and moving stories of her patients, her hospital, and her own journey as a physician in her first book,GOD’S HOTEL

Sweet knew instantly that Laguna Honda – with its open wards, gardens, greenhouse, aviary, and barnyard – was very different from your typical modern hospital, and she quickly fell under its spell. It lacked the high-tech equipment of a state-of-the-art facility, but it also lacked the grinding emphasis on speed, bureaucratic protocol, and cost cutting. The patients had weirder and more extreme illnesses than any Sweet had ever encountered, but she got to work with them in ways that doctors hardly ever do anymore – over long periods of time that allowed her to observe them carefully, listen to their stories, and treat them as whole human beings.

Her patients included Mrs. Muller, for whom a simple x-ray reversed months of suffering and disability due to a series of inappropriate diagnoses and costly treatments. Mr. Grenz’s protruding tongue and an almost-forgotten vital sign called the “paradoxical pulse” were the clues Sweet needed to save him from heart failure. Mr. Bramwell suffered from severe dementia, but his undiminished ability to dance testified to the almost miraculous persistence of his spirit.

As Sweet learned, Laguna Honda’s values were inspired by the Hôtels-Dieu, or God’s Hotels, of medieval Europe. Founded by nuns and monks, these were the first Western institutions to care for the sick. Long interested in the fascinating history of pre-modern medicine, Sweet made a pilgrimage to Switzerland and wrote her Ph.D. thesis about the most prominent medieval healer, a nun called Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard saw the doctor more as a gardener than a mechanic, and her keenly perceptive observations of the body’s natural healing processes are still instructive today.

As Sweet chronicles, however, this unusual hospital – perhaps the last of its kind in the United States – could not remain forever beyond the reach of the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the efficiency experts. In recent years, they descended on Laguna Honda, determined to transform it into a modern health care facility, and the hospital has been completely rebuilt. But it remains an open question whether the spirit of the old institution can be transplanted into the new one. In a very real sense, the hospital is the ultimate hero of Sweet’s narrative, with a story as engaging, revelatory, and sometimes heartbreaking as those of the patients and staff.

Sweet beguiles us with tales so gripping and a voice so intimate that we barely notice that lessons are being imparted. Yet as she recounts dozens of case histories and explains how her patients at Laguna Honda have profoundly changed the way she practices medicine, she suggests steps to make healthcare not only more humane for both patients and medical professionals, but often vastly less expensive. In addition, she offers trenchant and thought-provoking commentary on the healthcare reform bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2010, as well as other reform efforts.

“Victoria Sweet writes beautifully about the enormous richness of life at Laguna Honda, the chronic [care] hospital where she has spent the last twenty years, and the intense sense of place and community that binds patients and staff there. Such community in the medical world is vanishingly rare now, and Laguna Honda may be the last of its kind. . . . God’s Hotel is a most important book which raises fundamental questions about the nature of medicine in our time. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the “business” of health care—and especially those interested in the humanity of health care.”
-- Oliver Sacks

Victoria Sweet has been a physician at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda
Hospital for more than twenty years. An associate clinical professor
of medicine at UC San Francisco, she also holds a Ph.D. in history and social medicine.

We’re honored to have Dr. Paul Linde, Health Sciences Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UCSF School of Medicine, with us this evening to introduce Victoria Sweet and her book.

Monday, June 4
7:30 PM

JUSTIN HALPERN
I SUCK AT GIRLS

The day before Justin Halpern proposed to his now wife, he told his father what he was about to do. In typical fashion, his dad was unimpressed by this life-changing decision. “You’ve been dating her four years,” he said. “It ain’t like you found a parallel fucking universe.”

But his dad could tell he was nervous and needed a push, so he gave Justin some advice: to take an entire day, go off somewhere on his own, think about all the things he’d learned about women, relationships, and himself over the years, and make an “educated guess” as to whether proposing was the right decision. This conversation, and Halpern’s resulting trip down memory lane, is the subject for his hilarious new book – the follow up to his phenom, Sh*t My Dad Says – I SUCK AT GIRLS. A funny and touching series of stories, I SUCK AT GIRLS is an exploration of Halpern’s romantic adventures (read: mostly failures) – from his first kiss, to getting engaged, and every awkward moment in between.

Halpern became an Internet sensation in 2008 after creating a Twitter feed called shitmydadsays, where he captured the absurd and expletive-ridden words of wisdom that came out of his father’s mouth. What began as an attempt to keep his mind off things and make a couple friends laugh, however, quickly exploded: within two months he had over half a million followers, a book deal and a TV deal. As his Twitter following grew, the book Sh*t My Dad Says became a massive bestseller. Halpern co-created and co-executive produced the TV adaptation for CBS and Warner Brothers TV, starring William Shatner.

His hilarious new book, told chronologically through his romantic past, opens with “I Like It,” the story of a seven-year-old Halpern presenting a crude drawing of his second-grade crush to his second-grade crush – of a red-headed stick figure above whose head hovered a dog, going Number Two on her face. Summoned to school by his son’s teacher, Justin’s father was furious, but not for the reasons that you’d expect. “You have to draw a hill or something under the dog. A dog can’t just float up into the atmosphere and take a shit on someone’s head. I mean, I know you’re six or seven or whatever, but that’s just pretty basic physics right there.”

I SUCK AT GIRLS charts the life-changing experiences that shaped Halpern into the awkward, yet happily married man that he is today, including: his nine-year-old fear that on his wedding night not only would his wife see him naked, but that he would also be obligated to have sex with her; being the last of his friends to lose his virginity at age twenty to a Hooters waitress who broke up with him almost immediately after; taking a trip to Europe in hopes that maybe women were easier to talk to overseas, only to find that the only person with whom he could carry on a conversation was an Asian man who wore all denim; and finally, his first date with Amanda, where, at a party in her own house, he forced her to guard the bathroom door while he loudly and painfully emptied his bowels, with a line of people waiting on the other side of the door.

Halpern, who tried to ask a girl to homecoming in high school by asking her if she’d “ever taken flaming hot Cheetos and dumped nacho cheese on them?” learns a few things along the way, however, and I SUCK AT GIRLS captures them all.

Justin Halpern, 31, is a bestselling author and TV/writer producer, who has appeared on Chelsea Lately, the CBS Early Show, Last Call with Carson Daly, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. He was most recently a co-producer on “How to Be a Gentleman,” for Paramount and CBS TV studios. He runs and regularly contributes to the very funny website, These Fries Are Good. He recently married his lovely wife Amanda, and splits his time between Los Angeles and San Diego. Follow him on Twitter: @justin_halpern



Tuesday, June 5
7:30 PM

WAJAHAT ALI and BARAKA BLUE
ALL AMERICAN: 45 American Men on Being Muslim

Who are American Muslim men?
What do they think, do, and say?

We live in volatile times, where hysteria and scapegoating have reduced the rich diversity of Muslim experience to humiliating and disempowering stereotypes. The narratives of American Muslim men in particular seem forever anchored by stories of extremism, violence, terrorism, and intolerance. In the revealing ALL AMERICAN, 45 unique stories from American Muslim men represent the gamut of America’s diversity, and their stories shatter the misconceptions surrounding American Muslim men through honest, accessible, personal essays.

Join the conversation this evening with editor Wajahat Ali and contributor Baraka Blue.

“Finally, a chance for American Muslims to seize the mic from the pundits and politicians who claim to know what Islam is and what Muslims wants, and to speak for themselves about their hopes and aspirations, their trials and tribulations, and, above all else, their unique identity as Americans. At a time when anti-Muslim sentiment is growing in this country, there could be no more vital book than this.” -- Reza Aslan, author of No god but God and Beyond Fundamentalism

“Important, necessary, eloquent and humane, All-American is an eye-opening, heartfelt journey through the stupendous diversity of the American Muslim experience. Superb.” -- Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

“These are essential stories, each one a world, taken together a cosmos. America is a nation rejuvenated by immigrants. Islam is a tradition at its best when it travels. These pieces show that the hyphen between American and Muslim is a bridge not a barrier, that this young nation and that ancient tradition can be mutually enriching rather than mutually exclusive.” -- Eboo Patel, Founder and President, Interfaith Youth Core

Wajahat Ali is a playwright, attorney, essayist and humorist. “The Domestic Crusaders”, his first full-length play, was published by McSweeney’s in 2011. Ali’s essays and interviews on contemporary affairs, politics, the media, popular culture and religion frequently appear in a variety of publications. He is the associate editor of altmuslim.com, and contributing editor to Illume Magazine. Ali, a practicing attorney in the Bay Area, is a frequent consultant on Islam and Muslims, post 9-11 Muslim American identity and politics, multicultural art and activism, and New Media Journalism.

Baraka Blue is an emcee and spoken word artist living in Oakland. Part of Muslim musicians collective Remarkable Current, Blue has performed all over the US as well as the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. His first album, “Sound Heart” was released in 2010. He is acclaimed for his original synthesis of spoken word poetry with the tradition of Sufi poets such as Rumi and Hafiz. He is the author of Disembodied Kneelings. In addition to his performances he has taught classes and led creative writing workshops internationally. Baraka Blue is currently pursuing a master’s degree with a focus on Sufism and psychology. His sophomore album “Majunun’s Lost Memoirs” will be released soon.



Wednesday, June 6
7:30 PM

MARK COGGINS
PROM NIGHT, and Other Man Made Disasters

David Sedaris meets Bill Bryson meets Chelsea Handler

If Mark Coggins’s life were a supermarket, the stories from Prom Night and Other Man-made Disasters would be the aisle markers. Meander through the nostalgic, riotous, and sometimes cringe-inducing wares Coggins offers up in his version of Whole Fool. Whether he’s staking out the house of his two-timing, belly-dancing girlfriend, deep sea diving with equipment fashioned from tire chains, a trash can and a garden hose, or donning an oversize waterfowl outfit to win the heart of the one who got away, Coggins writes with honesty, self-effacing humor and warmth.


Mark Coggins’s work has been nominated for the Shamus and the Barry crime fiction awards and selected for best of the year lists compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Detroit Free Press, among others. His novels Runoff and The Big Wake-Up won the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) respectively, both in the crime fiction category. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Linda.



Thursday, June 7
7:30 PM

DANIEL WILSON
AMPED

What is in Owen Gray’s head…and who is trying to kill him for it?

Technology makes them superhuman. But mere mortals want them kept in their place. The New York Times bestselling author of Robopocalypse creates a stunning, near-future world where technology and humanity clash in surprising ways.

As he did in Robopocalypse, Daniel Wilson masterfully envisions a frightening near-future world. In AMPED, people are implanted with a device that makes them capable of superhuman feats. The powerful technology has profound consequences for society, and soon a set of laws is passed that restricts the abilities—and rights—of "amplified" humans. On the day that the Supreme Court rules favorably on the first of these laws, twenty-nine-year-old Owen Gray joins the ranks of a new persecuted underclass known as "amps." Owen is forced to go on the run, desperate to reach an outpost in Oklahoma where, it is rumored, a group of the most enhanced amps may be about to change the world -- or destroy it.

Once again, Daniel H. Wilson's background as a scientist serves him well in this technologically savvy thriller that delivers first-rate entertainment, as Wilson takes the "what if" question in entirely unexpected directions.

Daniel H. Wilson earned a Ph.D. in robotics from Carnegie Mellon University. He is the author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising,Where’s My Jetpack?, How to Build a Robot Army, The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame, Bro-Jitsu: The Martial Art of Sibling Smackdown,and A Boy and His Bot.



Monday, June 11
7:30 PM

DAN ARIELY
THE (HONEST) TRUTH ABOUT DISHONESTY: How We Lie to Everyone---Especially Ourselves

With his game-changing books Predictably Irrational and The Upside of Irrationality, behavioral economist Dan Ariely established himself as the go-to authority when it comes to understanding how irrational behavior shapes every part of our lives in surprisingly predictable ways.

Ariely has long been fascinated with dishonesty and cheating, and now he explores these timely topics in his latest book, THE (HONEST) TRUTH ABOUT DISHONESTY. With his unique blend of intellectual curiosity, groundbreaking research, and down-to-earth appeal, Ariely investigates why we cheat, what causes our dishonest behavior, and how we can curb and limit it.

As he points out, cheaters are everywhere and constantly in the headlines, whether it’s the politician embroiled in an extramarital affair, the superstar athlete testing positive for banned performance enhancers, or the Ponzi schemer busted for stealing billions. In fact, from rounding up billable hours, recommending unnecessary medical treatments, and charging hidden fees, to defaulting on mortgages, claiming higher losses on insurance, and fudging golf scores, many businesses and individuals will cheat when the opportunity arises.

“I was shocked at how prevalent mild cheating was and how much more harmful it can be, cumulatively, compared to outright fraud.
This is Dan Ariely’s most interesting and most useful book.”
-- Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan


According to Ariely, the rational forces that we think drive our dishonest behavior don’t, and the irrational forces that we think don’t drive our dishonest behavior often do. Drawing from a wide-ranging series of experiments and his own insightful observations, Ariely discovers that, despite popular belief, dishonesty is not often an outcome of a deliberate cost–benefit analysis. Instead, we are likely to be guided away from honesty by hidden influences such as conflicts of interest, depletion, creativity, witnessing the dishonest acts of others, caring about our colleagues, and revenge.

Essentially, dishonesty is a prototypical example of our irrational tendencies: on one hand, we want to view ourselves as honest people; on the other hand, we want to benefit from cheating. So as long as we cheat only a little bit, we can both benefit from our dishonest acts and still look at ourselves in the mirror.

New York Times bestselling author Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Medical School, and the Department of Economics. Ariely’s work has been featured widely in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Boston Globe among others. He has also made numerous appearances on CNN, CBS, and NPR. He lives in Durham, North Carolina with his wife and two children. We’re delighted to welcome him back to The Booksmith!



Tuesday, June 12
7:30 PM

LINDSEY HILSUM
SANDSTORM: Libya in the Time of Revolution

The Arab Spring is one of the most fascinating episodes in recent history. It led to the unthinkable: the downfall of longstanding autocratic regimes in the region, including the end of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s rule in Libya. Lindsey Hilsum, who has reported extensively on crisis and conflict the world over, offers the first on-the-ground account of the revolt, its aftermath; and explores what’s to come in SANDSTORM: Libya in the Time of Revolution.

In February 2011, Hilsum was reporting from Libya within a week of the uprising and remained there to see the defeat of Colonel Gadaffi nine months later. She visited the frontline every day, getting shelled and mortared alongside the rebels. In Tripoli, she found herself pinned down under small arms fire as she tried to enter the city with the rebels. The day after Colonel Gadaffi was killed, Hilsum went to see the men who had captured him, and was able to hold the satellite phone on which the dictator made his last defiant broadcasts, the amulet he had with him for luck, and the engraved golden pistol he carried with him to the end.

But, as Hilsum explains, maybe the most remarkable experience was listening to what Libyans shared about their lives. They had been silent for forty-two years and now couldn’t stop talking, and Hilsum was amongst the first to hear their stories. SANDSTORM reveals the stories of Libyans returning home from the Unites States and Europe to risk everything by providing secret intelligence, or to commit daring acts of civil disobedience to help topple the regime, even knowing the punishment if caught would be torture and death. We see the dynamics of the insurrection both from inside the regime and through the astonishing stories of the men and women who found themselves starting a revolution. Woven into Hilsum’s account is a revelatory exposé on the dysfunctional Gaddafi family, the scale of whose excesses almost surpasses belief.

In a year replete with extraordinary changes, the fall of Gaddafi is among the most fascinating stories of them all. In Lindsey Hilsum, it has found its definitive chronicler.

Lindsey Hilsum is Channel 4 News (UK) International Editor. In addition to reporting from Libya, she also reported the "Arab Spring" from Egypt and Bahrain; from Belgrade in 1999 when NATO bombed Serbia, from Baghdad during the 2003 US invasion, and covered the Fallujah assault in November 2004. Her reports from Africa, the Middle East and Russia have earned her several awards. From 2006-8 she was the Channel 4 News China Correspondent, based in Beijing. In 1994, she was the only English-speaking journalist in Rwanda when the genocide started.



Wednesday, June 13
7:30 PM

STEPHANIE REENTS
THE KISSING LIST

Experience an inventive debut that recalls the imagination of Aimee Bender and the sardonic wit of Lorrie Moore.

The interlocking stories in THE KISSING LIST feature an unforgettable group of young women – Sylvie, Anna, Frances, Maureen – as their lives connect, first during a year abroad at Oxford, then later as they move to New York on the cusp of adulthood. We follow each of them as they navigate the treachery of first dates, temp jobs and roommates, failed relationships and unexpected affairs – all the things that make their lives seem full of possibility, but also rife with potential disappointment.

Shot through with laugh-out-loud lines, yet still wrenchingly emotional and resonant, THE KISSING LIST is about women who bravely defy expectations and take outrageous chances in the face of a life that might turn out to be anything less than extraordinary.

“Nothing you’ve read before will prepare you for these sly, funny, beautifully off-kilter stories. In Reents’s hands, tragedy and comedy aren’t so much related as indistinguishable, and the only happy marriage is between romance and despair. I guarantee The Kissing List will occupy a place in your heart.” -- Eric Puchner, author of Model Home

Stephanie Reents's fiction has been included in the O. Henry Prize Stories,
noted in Best American Short Stories, and has appeared in numerous journals.
Stephanie has been a Bread Loaf Conference Scholar, a Stegner Fellow, and a
Rhodes Scholar. She is an assistant professor at the College of the Holy Cross in
Worcester, Massachusetts.



Friday, June 15
8:00 PM

LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY: Theater Pub Edition
Books & Burlesque

Welcome to the lighter side of literature!

If you've not heard of Theater Pub, now's the time. Basically, they take over local bars on weeknights and re-imagine classics by performing them entirely within the bar space.

For June's LCF, our clown foolery players will team up with Stuart Bousel and Co. to create a theater takeover the likes of which The Booksmith has never seen. Performances by Bay Area cabaret players, lovely free drinks, humor that pushes the boundaries of good taste, and live music, all for $10 at our monthly 90-minute show!

Tickets $10, in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets



Monday, June 18
7:30 PM

AN EVENING ALL ABOUT OBSESSION WITH
SARAH TEREZ ROSENBLUM and ANNA PULLEY


Sarah Terez Rosenblum is a writer whose work has been featured in Pop Matters, The Chicago Sun Times and The Shepherd Express. When not writing, Sarah supports herself as a figure model, spinning instructor, and creative writing teacher at Chicago’s Story Studio. Rosenblum’s debut novel is HERSELF WHEN SHE’S MISSING.

Meet Andrea: tightly wound, hotter than she gives herself credit for, mid-20s, teacher. Meet Jordan: a liar who believes her own lies, LA skinny, ocean eyes, early-40s, perpetual undergraduate student. When the two meet outside a concert, their connection is instantaneous -- and Andrea can’t believe her luck. But some things are indeed too good to be true, and it’s not long until Jordan’s secrets (for starters: she’s married, she routinely steals money from her places of employment, she’s never told the story of her past the same way twice) begin to
undermine Andrea’s own identity.

Andrea is fully aware of the farce -- the beguiling, attractive, spellbinding farce -- that is Jordan, and goes so far as to dub her “the Criminal Mastermind.” And yet, in spite of everything, she can’t seem to let her go. The first time Jordan leaves her, Andrea’s so broken up she flees Los Angeles for Chicago, swearing she’ll never look back. But when Jordan makes her way to the Midwest, plopping herself at Andrea’s door and claiming she’s become selfless, they go to the movies.

Told in lists, 3x5 note cards, and even the occasional screenplay, HERSELF WHEN SHE’S MISSING is a quirky, utterly memorable tale of a girl desperate to be loved. By the time we realize Andrea’s version might be unreliable, we’re too caught up to care. Andrea is as endearing as she is unstable, as charming as she is obsessive, and we can’t wait for her next list.


Hailing from the rough-and-tumble deserts of southern Arizona, where one doesn’t have to bother with such trivialities as “coats” or “daylight savings time,” Anna Pulley is a freelance writer living in San Francisco. She tends to put quotes around things unnecessarily and spends altogether too much time justifying the artistic merit of limericks. She has written reviews of everything from bars torestaurants to films to theater to sex toys, in addition to writing several different sex and relationship columns for the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye, AfterEllen, Centerstage Chicago, and Chicago Now. She also writes a weekly social media etiquette column for SF Weekly,and her work has appeared in Mother Jones, The Bay Citizen, Salon, and The Rumpus. She was recently a guest on Dan Savage’s podcast, talking about why lesbians are so confusing. Plus, one time Amanda Palmer asked her out on Twitter, with Neil Gaiman’s blessing.



Tuesday, June 19
7:30 PM

OWEN EGERTON
THE BOOK OF HAROLD:
The Illegitimate Son of God

As profound and deeply respectful as it is wild and often hilarious, this take on a modern messianic movement in suburbia confronts the inherent paradoxes, absurdities, and dangers of spirituality, while musing on the beautiful complexity of humanity and the strange and wonderful beliefs we hold.

The titular and sometimes exasperating hero of Owen Egerton’s satire is Harold Peeks, a middle-aged suburbanite living a lonely if typical modern life in the outskirts of Houston. His world feels bland and pointless until one evening, at a mundane office party, he announces to his stunned co-workers that he is the Second Coming of Christ. Oddly enough, people start to believer him

Blake Waterson, Harold’s closest friend and narrator of the novel, is as skeptical as anyone of this disheveled and disconcertingly bawdy Savior, and yet this would-be Judas is compelled to follow Harold on his two-hundred mile walking journey to Austin with a mismatched group of equally puzzled disciples. On the road, this motley crew of witnesses experience misguided converts, violent possums, and the ungrateful recipients of off-kilter healings. They also discover the inherent paradoxes, absurdities, and dangers of spirituality, as they learn that saviors may not have all the answers, and humanity is just as bizarre and beautiful as the beliefs we hold.

“An engaging exploration of everything ridiculous, horrible, and beautiful that humanity has ever been given or invented about religion.”
—The Hipster Book Club

“A lively and beautifully crafted novel about the anguish of belief.”
—Kirkus

Owen Egerton has had a varied yet illustrious career that includes employment as a secret fast food inspector, an on-air home shopping host, and a para-church youth leader. He was the co-creator of the award-winning The Sinus Show at the Alamo Drafthouse Theater, and for several years was the artistic director of Austin’s National Comedy Theater. He currently writes screenplays and performs standup comedy. He lives in Austin.



Wednesday, June 20
6:30 – 8:30 PM

NOTES FROM A REVOLUTION:
COM/CO., THE DIGGERS, & THE HAIGHT

Please join us for a celebration of the Diggers, the Communication Company, and the Haight-Ashbury of the mid 1960s on the occasion of the publication of the new book from Foggy Notion Books, Notes from a Revolution: Com/co, the Diggers & the Haight. A panel discussion, moderated by Kristine McKenna, will feature Harvey Kornspan, Claude Hayward, and special surprise guests.


The social upheaval of the sixties gave rise to fascinating coalitions and communes, but the Diggers stand apart from them all. Formed in Haight-Ashbury in 1966 by members of R. G. Davis's subversive theater company, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, the Diggers took their name from the English Diggers, a seventeenth century agrarian collective devoted to creating a utopian society free of ownership and commerce.

Under the leadership of Peter Berg, Emmett Grogan, Peter Coyote, and Billy Murcott – they were true anarchists, with roots in the Theater of the Absurd, Existentialism, and strategies of direct action. They coined slogans designed to prod people into participating and staged art happenings, public interventions, and street theater infused with wicked humor. The Diggers also provided free food, clothing, medical care and lodging to anyone in need as part of their effort to create a unified and mutually supportive community.

A critically important part of their methodology were the hundreds of broadsides that they regularly produced and distributed throughout the Haight, printed by the Communication Company, a maverick, short-lived publishing outfit founded by Chester Anderson and Claude Hayward. A selection of these graphically inventive, lacerating and sometimes funny broadsides are gathered together for the first time inNotes From a Revolution, which offers a fascinating and oddly moving record of the counterculture in its early bloom.


Claude Hayward was born in Brooklyn and raised in rural New Jersey. In 1963 he moved to Venice, California, where he worked as advertising manager for the L.A. Free Press, and as a contributing reporter for maverick radio station KPFK. In late 1966 he moved to Haight-Ashbury, where he partnered with Chester Anderson to co-found the underground printing press, the Communication Company, in January of 1967. Throughout that crucial year, the Communication Company published daily bulletins that were distributed throughout the Haight and unified the community. At the end of 1967 Hayward founded a commune in Covelo, Calif., and spent the next three years developing his skills as a builder and homesteader. I n 1971 he moved to a traditional Spanish Land Grant village on the Pecos River, in northeastern New Mexico, where he refined his skills as a builder of adobe houses made of sun-dried mud brick. He currently serves as the elected Majordomo of the Acequia de Tecolotito, and is president of the local drinking water cooperative that provides domestic water to approximately one hundred families.

Harvey Kornspan was born in Youngstown, Ohio, and in 1962 he earned a B.S. in philosophy and science from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In August of 1964 he moved to San Francisco and enrolled in Hastings Law School; he dropped out the following year, and beginning in spring of 1965 he worked for a year as the manager of the San Francisco Mime Troupe. From 1966 through 1968 he was a managing partner in the Steve Miller Blues Band, and in 1969 he moved to Los Angeles, where he was a fellow at the American Film Institute from 1970 through 1971. Over the next five years he worked in film in various capacities, and from 1976 through 2008 he was director of production for advertising and promotion at CBS.

Kristine McKenna is a Los Angeles based writer and art historian, and is a partner, with Donna Wingate and Lorraine Wild, in the publishing imprint Foggy Notion Books. She has published twelve books on various aspects of popular culture of the west coast.



Tuesday, June 26
7:30 PM

An Evening of Poetry & Stories with Friends and Colleagues

D.A. POWELL
USELESS LANDSCAPE, OR A GUIDE FOR BOYS

CATHERINE BRADY
CURLED IN THE BED OF LOVE


In D. A. Powell’s fifth book of poetry, USELESS LANDSCAPE, the rollicking line he has made his signature becomes the taut, more discursive means to describing beauty, singing a dirge, directing an ironic smile, or questioning who in any given setting is the instructor and who is the pupil. This is a book that explores the darker side of divisions and developments, which shows how the interstitial spaces of boonies, backstage, bathhouse, or bar are locations of desire. With Powell’s witty banter, emotional resolve, and powerful lyricism, this collection demonstrates his exhilarating range.

“With his typical wry eroticism, an eagle eye for the places where men converge, and a compass that points always to desire, poet D. A. Powell leads us on a tour through a Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys, from gay bars to bathhouses and into the backwoods.” --Vanity Fair, “Hot Type”

“Powell has a perfect ear. . . . [His] great subject is passion, in all its stages and manifestations: passion sought, spent, relived in the mind, played out in language.” -- Dan Chiasson, The New Yorker

“In this, his fifth and most elegant and accessible book, [Powell] watches himself aging, his disease making off with his body, his energy and his hope—but not his humor: ‘You face your wrinkles, daily, in the mirror. / But the wrinkles are so slimming, they rather flatter.’ He entreats us, by book’s end, to ‘triumph over death with me.’ It’s an invitation—and a poet—you won’t be able to resist.”
-- National Public Radio, “Not Your Parents’ Poems: A 2012 Poetry Preview”

D. A. Powell is the author of five collections of poetry, including Chronic, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His honors include the Gold Medal in Poetry from the California Commonwealth Club, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is an associate professor at USF.


To read Curled in the Bed of Love is to feel the incessant tug between devotion and desire that can unmake even the closest couple. Catherine Brady’s characters are as resolute in evading middle-class conformity as they are in clinging to their illusions about love. They share the dream of love as a pure space cleared of hesitations, doubts, and regrets, even as desire forces them to
encounter what they can’t change about themselves -- and what they haven’t yet discovered. All of Brady’s stories are gritty and unflinching in their gaze, yet lyrical and rich in the imagery of stasis and change.

Catherine Brady is the author of three short story collections, one the winner of the 2002 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, and another the winner of the 2010 Northern California Book Award for Fiction. Her stories have appeared in numerous literary journals andBest American Short Stories. She’s also the author of a book on writing craft, Story Logic and the Craft of Fiction, and a biography of a Nobel laureate, Elizabeth Blackburn and the Story of Telomeres: Deciphering the Ends of DNA. She teaches in the MFA in Writing Program at the University of San Francisco and is currently at work on a novel.




Wednesday, June 27
7:30 PM

THE ART OF MEMORY for Names, Faces, and Pretty Much Everything Else
A Short Workshop with BRENT SVERDLOFF

You look familiar
I'm blanking on your name
Remind me again who you are
Have we met before?

Ellen DeGeneres once quipped, “Scientists say we use less than 10% of our brain power; imagine how smart we’d be if we used the other 65%.” The basic memory principles you’ll learn in this workshop can enable you to sharpen your powers of observation, banish absentmindedness, and memorize anything: appointments, historical dates, names and faces, lists and numbers of any length, speeches, difficult words in English and foreign languages, and even where you put your keys this morning!

Based on trained-memory techniques dating back to antiquity and perfected by 20th-century memory training specialist Harry Lorayne, these tried-and-true methods will help you achieve success in both your professional and personal life. Amaze yourself and others with what you can do with that other 65% of your brain!

Armed with degrees in both Spanish and Romance Linguistics, Brent began his career teaching language courses at the high school and college levels, and then eventually to adults. His methods called for intense immersion in language and culture, helping students build awareness of the phonetic and syntactic patterns of language systems. Brent credits memory techniques he learned 30 years ago with enabling him to master multiple languages and hold archivist positions at The Getty Center and Harvard, where he worked with centuries-old manuscript and rare book collections. Brent has also performed stand-up comedy at clubs in Boston and Cambridge, where trained-memory systems allowed him to perform long sets. He currently lives in San Francisco, where he is the Executive Director of the Center for the Art of Translation, a non-profit that promotes international literature and translation through publications, teaching, and public events.

Co-presented with the California Preservation Foundation and the Victorian Alliance of San Francisco
Tuesday, July 3
7:30 PM

RON TANNER
FROM ANIMAL HOUSE TO OUR HOUSE: A Love Story …with slides and advice!


Ten years ago, Ron and his then-girlfriend, Jill, did the impossible. They bought condemned property -- a big Baltimore Victorian brownstone – and vowed to bring it back to its original glory. The house had been home to Baltimore’s most notorious fraternity for a decade and now, wrecked and abandoned, it was filled with garbage. As if that weren’t daunting enough: Ron and Jill had been dating for only six months and they knew nothing about fixing up old houses. Friends, family, and concerned onlookers told them not to do it – they would surely lose their shirts and their love in the bargain.

An odyssey for lovers, dreamers, do-it-yourselfers, and fans of old houses, FROM ANIMAL HOUSE TO OUR HOUSE offers inspiration, insight, and hilarity as Ron and Jill hammer away at the dream of home ownership and true love.

Ron will show slides and regale us with hair-raising and hilarious tales of his adventures as a newbie renovator of a wrecked house. He has since become a licensed house inspector and is now prepared to offer advice and tips, especially for couples who take on DIY projects in their houses, wrecked or otherwise.

Ron Tanner's awards for writing include a Faulkner Society gold medal, a Pushcart Prize, a New Letters Award, a Best of the Web Award, and many others. He has won fellowships from the Copernicus Society, Sewanee Writers Conference, and the National Park Service, to name a few, and his stories and essays have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, and he’s the author of A Bed of Nails(stories) and Kiss Me Stranger (illustrated novel). He teaches writing at Loyola University in Baltimore, and directs the Marshall Islands Story Project.



Friday, July 6
6:30 – 9:30 PM

BOOKSMITH BOOKSWAP: Flashback Edition

July marks Bookswap's third birthday! Birthdays make us sentimental. We wish we could go back and re-experience the wonder of seeing Bookswap transform from a fledgling, wobbly-kneed event series to a cornerstone of our events program, and all the hilarious moments and people along the way.

But, we can't. So, instead, this Bookswap is all about time travel. Books, like anything you love in a particular space-time, tend to change their timbre. We challenge you to think back a decade or two and re-read something you loved then. Has it gone the way of Britney and Justin's denim catastrophe of 2001 (never forget!), or has it held up? If not, what was happening in your life that made it seem like a good idea? If it has held up, why? What about the book makes it a Time Lord?

We'll talk in small groups, so you'll get to learn about other people's book histories, and then we'll convene for a rowdy, white elephant swap. As always, we'll have food, drinks, swag, local authors, good conversation, and Bookswap Birthday surprises (Bookswap, this is your life!). Amy Stephenson, our sass-attack-in-chief, will host.

Tickets $25 in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets (online or 800-838-3006)



Tuesday, July 10
WORDS & PIZZA:
Game Night at The Booksmith
7:00 - 9:00
$20 (includes Club Deluxe pizza and drinks!)

Our favorite local writers, journalists, friends, and you...duke it out over a game of Dictionary.

Team Laura (aka Laura Fraser) and Team Pireeni (aka Pireeni Sundaralingam) battle it out with their well-chosen guest team members joined by randomly chosen audience members, all emceed by Amy (Bookswap) Stephenson.

Audience provides the dictionary -- the words -- to each team. Team members have three minutes to provide a definition of the word given. Correct answers win the point; incorrect answers earn the laughs. Plus other hilarious and participatory word games! White elephant prizes awarded, of course.

Great pizza, book raffle, coupons, and hilarity for all who join the wordy merriment!


Announcing the July 10 teams!

Team Laura: Laura Fraser, Jeff Greenwald, Mary Roach!

Team Pireeni: Pireeni Sundaralingam, Ken Grobe, Elise Proulx!


Tickets must be purchased in advance, in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-8368-3006.



Wednesday, July 11
7:30 PM

JOSHUA HENKIN
THE WORLD WITHOUT YOU

"Witty and wise, poignant and heartfelt. . . . The 4th of July will never be the same for me, nor for my fellow Americans. I can't imagine a world without Joshua Henkin." -- Gary Shteyngart


It's July 4th, 2005, and the Frankel family is descending upon their beloved summer home in the Berkshires. But this is no ordinary holiday: the family is gathering for a memorial. Leo, the youngest of the four Frankel siblings and an intrepid journalist and adventurer, was killed one year earlier while on assignment in Iraq. His parents, Marilyn and David, are adrift in grief, and it's tearing apart their forty-year marriage. Clarissa, the eldest, is struggling at thirty-nine with infertility. Lily, a fiery-tempered lawyer, is angry about everything. Noelle, a born-again Orthodox Jew (and the last person to see Leo alive), has come in from Israel with her husband and four children and feels entirely out of place. And Thisbe -- Leo's widow and mother of their three-year-old son -- has arrived from California bearing her own secret.

Over the course of three days, the Frankels will contend with sibling rivalries and marital feuds, volatile women and silent men, and, ultimately, with the true meaning of family.

“An immeasurably moving masterpiece that tracks the intricate threads connecting children to parents, sisters to brothers, wives to husbands. To say I ‘cared’ about these characters would be to hugely understate their consuming effect on me.” -- Heidi Julavits, author of The Vanishers

Joshua Henkin is the author of the novels Swimming Across the Hudson (a Los Angeles Times Notable Book) and Matrimony (a New York Times Notable Book). His stories have been published widely, cited for distinction in Best American Short Stories and broadcast on NPR's Selected Shorts. He directs the MFA Program in Fiction Writing at Brooklyn College.



Thursday, July 12
7:30 PM

ALEX STONE
FOOLING HOUDINI:
Magicians, Mentalists, Math Geeks, and the Hidden Powers of the Mind

Magic has never been more popular—something the average person probably doesn’t even know since the magic community is fiercely insular and zealously private. Longtime aficionado Alex Stone pulls back the curtains and shares an eye-opening glimpse into this fascinating subculture a vividly entertaining chronicle of his quest to make his mark in this notoriously secretive world where the ability to deceive is the most prized attribute of all.

A thrillingly original blend of history, psychology, science, and memoir, FOOLING HOUDINI is funny and insightful, told from Stone’s unique perspective as a journalist and a former physics graduate student. A dedicated amateur magician since childhood, Stone vows to rebound from a disastrous showing at the 2006 Magic Olympics and soon embarks on an ambitious journey of self-improvement that takes him both across the globe and inside the brain, leading him to question life’s biggest mysteries and investigate the fundamental aspects of human nature in the process.

Stone’s determination to excel at magic’s highest levels quickly blossoms into an obsession as he eagerly commits to training rigorously, learning hundreds of complicated techniques, and crafting a cutting-edge act. He takes us through the ups and downs with remarkable good humor and humility, inviting us along for the ride as he attends tournaments, conventions, lectures, shows, and boot camps; spends countless hours getting schooled by a gruff mentor at a rundown pizza parlor; practices everywhere he goes; causes loved ones to fear for his sanity; and interacts with a colorful bunch of eccentrics, skeptics, scholars, cheats, criminals, geniuses, legends, and prodigies.

Traveling from the Las Vegas Strip to the halls of academia, Stone’s tale traces the history of magic and the impact of its seminal moments, spotlighting the contributions of famous headliners and forgotten pioneers alike. Delving deeper, Stone ponders the connections between magic and science as he probes the limits of consciousness, experiments on the workings of the mind, and explores the challenges of distinguishing reality from illusion. Ultimately he brings all of his findings together as he prepares for his return to the stage with a performance designed to nail a magician’s greatest feat: fooling other magicians -- the Holy Grail of their collective calling.

Alex Stone has written for Harper’s, Discover, Science, and The Wall Street Journal. He graduated from Harvard University and has a master’s degree in physics from Columbia University. He grew up in Wisconsin, Texas, and Spain. He currently lives in New York City.


Friday, July 13
8:00 PM

July Literary Clown Foolery: Pen Names Edition
Books & Burlesque

Welcome to the lighter side of literature!

This month, the clowns go incognito! Carmela Ciuraru joins us for her paperback release of Nom De Plume, which is a collection of "narratives of secrecy, obsession, modesty, scandal, defiance, and shame". Yup, sounds perfect.

We'll interview Carmela, and, hopefully, make her laugh, while you drink our lovely drinks. As always, there'll be live performances by bay are players, musicians, and more, all for only $10 at our 90-minute show. Join us, and bring all your friends, and enemies.

Tickets in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets



Monday, July 16
Note Early Time: 4:00 PM

Chuck Palahniuk Brings the Brandy Alexander Witness Reincarnation Project Tour to The Booksmith

One of our all-time favorite people (and one of our all-time favorite writers!) returns, this time right in the store, for a late afternoon of mayhem dedicated to the brand-new, most outrageous Invisible Monsters Remix. We know you’ll have to ditch work early to come listen to him and leave with a signed copy, and we also know it’s totally worth it!

If you’re attending:
Seating will be available for those purchasing a copy of Invisible Monsters Remix from The Booksmith. Simply ask for a reserved seat card when you place your order (in the store, online, by email, or by phone) in advance, or purchase a copy in the store. Reserved seats won’t last for long, so don’t delay placing your order. You may order multiple copies. Reserved seats unclaimed at 3:45 will be given to others.

All books will be signed by Chuck in advance, and you’ll pick your book up when you arrive at the store that afternoon. (Due to time constraints, Chuck won't be able to personalize copies. But they will be signed!)

Seating will commence at 3:15 PM. Those without seats will easily be able to hear Chuck’s talk in the store. If you arrive before 3:15, please plan to wait outside, enjoying the ‘hood.

If you cannot attend but want a signed book:

We must receive your order (online, by email, or by phone) no later than 12 noon PST on July 9. (We will make every effort to accommodate orders placed after this date, while supplies last.) We’ll have your copy signed and shipped to you immediately after July 16.



Chuck Palahniuk is one of the most innovative and daring writers of our generation. His new release, INVISIBLE MONSTERS REMIX, is the first book that truly realizes the complexity and depth of Palahniuk’s vision.

Loaded with new material and special design elements, INVISIBLE MONSTERS REMIX is a “director’s cut” that fulfills the author’s original vision for his 1999 novel. Readers will find themselves jumping between chapters, holding the book to a mirror to read the text, rereading the book to understand the elusive dissolve between fiction and fact, and deciphering the playful book design as they embark on a ride they'll never forget.

Palahniuk's fashion-model protagonist has it all -- boyfriend, career, loyal best friend -- until an accident destroys her face, her ability to speak, and her self-esteem. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, who is one operation away from becoming a bona-fide woman. Seamlessly laced into the original text are new chapters of memoir and further enriching scenes with the book's characters. This elaborate new format turns an already daring satire on beauty and the fashion industry into an even more wildly unique and immersive reading experience.

Chuck Palahniuk is the author of Fight Club, which was made into a movie directed by David Fincher, as well as Survivor, Damned, and Tell-All, among other books. He lives in Washington State.


Wednesday, July 18
7:30 PM

KAREN THOMPSON WALKER
THE AGE OF MIRACLES

“It still amazes me how little we really knew. . . . Maybe everything that happened to me and my family had nothing at all to do with the slowing. It’s possible, I guess. But I doubt it. I doubt it very much.”

On a seemingly routine Saturday morning, eleven-year-old Julia and her family wake to an alarming news report announcing the slowing of the earth’s rotation. As a result of the “slowing,” the 24-hour day grows to 25 hours, then 26, increasing by several more minutes of sunlight and darkness each day. What follows is an undoing of life as we know it; crops dry, food and water supplies dwindle, unknown illnesses befall large swaths of the population, and entire species drop out of existence. A government mandate to follow the once universal 24-hour clock drives a societal splinter between those who observe traditional time -- ‘clock-timers’ -- and ‘real timers’, radicals, who mark the passing of days by the rise and fall of the sun. And yet, amid this portentous upheaval, Julia remains a typical young girl, making her way through the tumultuous terrain of adolescence -- the slights that cut so deeply at that age; friendships that dissolve for no apparent reason, the flawed humanity of her parents and their marriage, and the wonder of first love.

Extraordinary for its startlingly original concept, unforgettable characters and poetically punctuated prose, THE AGE OF MIRACLES is moving portrait of family life set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world.


“This is what imagination is. In The Age of Miracles, the earth’s rotation slows, gravity alters, days are stretched out to fifty hours of sunlight. In the midst of this, a young girl falls in loves, sees things she shouldn't and suffers heartbreak of the most ordinary kind. Karen Thompson Walker has managed to combine fiction of the dystopian future with an incisive and powerful portrait of our personal present.” -- Amy Bloom, author of Away

Karen Thompson Walker holds an MFA from Columbia University and is a former editor of fiction and non-fiction at Simon & Schuster. A native of Del Mar, California, she now lives in Brooklyn with her husband. This is her first book.

NPR includes The Age of Miracles in its Literary Look Ahead: 13 Great Books On The Horizon

Movie rights for The Age of Miracles have been optioned by River Road Entertainment, with Seth Lochhead attached to adapt. River Road is the production company for The Tree of Life, Into the Wild, Brokeback Mountain, and more. Lochhead most recently wrote the screenplay for Hanna.

Thursday, July 19
7:30 PM

MAX and WHIT ALEXANDER
BRIGHT LIGHTS, NO CITY: An African Adventure on Bad Roads with a Brother and a Very Weird Business Plan

Take two brothers -- one a cofounder of the Cranium board game and the other a journalist who worked for Variety and People -- and send them off to Ghana on an adventure that will test notions of charity and entrepreneurship even among the most environmentally conscious among us. Mix in a few tangential challenges -- deadly insects, terrible roads, and an assortment of culinary, religious, and governmental issues -- and you have BRIGHT LIGHTS, NO CITY.

Whit Alexander, Max’s younger brother, spent several years as a young man living in Western Africa working in development. He saw firsthand that while various aid projects did undoubtedly make a giant difference in many lives, he came to realize that truly long-lasting change needed to come from the African marketplace itself, not Western handouts. He returned to States to pursue a
career in technology but Africa was never far from his mind.

Fast-forward to 1997 when Whit, and a colleague from his old job at Microsoft, created a board game called Cranium. His older brother Max, a journalist covering pop culture, didn’t get the appeal of the game; though he helped write some of the questions for the first edition. Max was sure it was an idea destined to fail. How wrong he was: the game launched Whit Alexander onto the cover
of Inc. Magazine and great success.

Then, in 2008, Bill Gates addressed the Davos World Economic Forum on what he called “creative capitalism,” and challenged businesses to start innovating products that would benefit those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder. Whit Alexander took up this challenge (that has always been in his heart) and headed back to his first love: Africa.

Burro, Whit Alexander’s new business, was begun in Ghana, renting batteries to people who earn a dollar a day. The rechargeable batteries would allow those living largely off-grid to have battery-operated lanterns (allowing kids to do homework), radios, and chargers for their cellphones in a country where regular phone service is not available. However, Ghana was also a place where the
annual inflation rate exceeded 20 percent, and the country has a history of deadly military coups -- not exactly the stable marketplace in which to launch a fledgling business. Whit asked Max to come along and see for himself what this kind of start-up looks like in the making. The business has had its trials: from signing up customers who have little income or none at all, to training employees who have no Western-style work experience, plus dealing with manufacturers who are used to creating junk for Africans, not long-lasting, durable goods.

BRIGHT LIGHTS, NO CITY is a picaresque story with a business plan. Max Alexander is the perfect guide: skeptical at first, hilariously observant, worried about much that he is asked to plunge into, and finally inspired by what he sees. It’s also a story of two grown brothers and how this seminal adventure tests and finally redefines their relationship.


Max Alexander is an American journalist, author and failed politician. Man Bites Log, his 2004 memoir of moving from New York to Maine (which details his unsuccessful local election campaign) has been called "a hilarious how-not-to". He is a former senior editor at Peoplemagazine and, before that, the executive editor of Variety and Daily Variety. He has co-written several books on subjects ranging from cooking to personal finance, and he edited George Plimpton's last book, about the Antarctic explorer George Shackleton. His articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian, Money, Reader's Digest, TV Guide, This Old House and many other publications. He lives in Maine with his wife, the owner of an online retailer of natural handmade toys, and their two sons.

LAUNCH!
Thursday, July 26
7:30 PM

ROB REID
YEAR ZERO

“Can you imagine The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy combined with The Social Network? Of course you cannot: because ONLY ROB REID CAN. Hilarious, provocative, and supersmart, Year Zero is not merely the first IPSF (intellectual property SF) epic EVER WRITTEN, it is also a plain brilliant novel to be enjoyed in perpetuity, in the known universe and all unknown universes yet to be discovered.” -- John Hodgman, Resident Expert, The Daily Show

An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet.
Worse, they were lawyering up. . . .

In the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes us on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe -- and the inner workings of our absurdly dysfunctional music industry.

Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it’s a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news.

The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity’s music ever since “Year Zero” (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything -- and the aliens are not amused.

Nick Carter has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly, and he’s an unlikely galaxy-hopping hero: He’s scared of heights. He’s also about to be fired. And he happens to have the same name as a Backstreet Boy. But he does know a thing or two about copyright law. And he’s packing a couple of other pencil-pushing superpowers that could come in handy.

Soon he’s on the run from a sinister parrot and a highly combustible vacuum cleaner. With Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick now has forty-eight hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.

“What if aliens heard our music – and really liked it? You could ‘what if’ for the next millennium and still not come up with as many zany scenarios as Rob Reid does in this tale of copyright law, astrophysics, biophysics, and crazy physics that hasn’t yet been invented. So sit back, hold your sides to ease the laughing pains, and find out whether Earth survives.” -- Jill Tarter, director, Center for SETI Research


Rob Reid was the founder of Rhapsody, the world's largest seller of music downloads until it was eclipsed by iTunes. He is the author ofYear One, a memoir about student life at Harvard Business School, where he received his MBA, and also of Architects of the Web, the first true business history of the Internet. He has spent years as a venture capitalist, working with Internet-related businesses. Year Zerois his first novel. Reid lives in the Los Angeles area with his wife, Morgan Webb, who hosts X-Play, the world's most popular video-gaming-related TV show, airing daily on NBC's G4 network.

Wednesday, August 8
7:30 PM

KAYA OAKES
RADICAL REINVENTION

Having spent more time in mosh pits and pro-choice rallies than kneeling in a pew, Kaya Oakes was not exactly a poster-child for Catholicism. But, despite a youth spent immersed in the Bay Area punk rock scene, proudly waving her atheist flag, something kept drawing her back to the religion of her Irish roots.

Maybe it’s the so-called God-gene? Or maybe, just being a practicing Catholic amidst her atheist Gen-X peers was the most rebellious thing she could do. Whatever the reason, after running away from the church for thirty years, Kaya decides to return. In spite of her frustration with Catholic conservatism, nothing brings her peace like Mass, and after years of searching to no avail for a better religious fit, she realizes that the only way to find harmony – in her faith and her personal life – is to confront the church she’d left behind.

Rebellious and hypercriticial, Kaya relearns the catechisms and achieves the sacraments, all while trying to reconcile her liberal beliefs with contemporary church philosophy. Along the way she meets a group of feisty feminist nuns, a “pray-and-bitch” circle, an all-too handsome Italian priest, and a motley crew of misfits doing their best to find their voices in an outdated institution.

The result is a story of transformation, no only Kaya’s from ex-Catholic to amateur theologian, but ultimately of the cultural and ethical pushes for change that are rocking the world’s largest religion to its core.

Kaya Oakes is the author of Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, the poetry collection Telegraph, and cofounder ofKitchen Sink, winner of the Utne Independent Press Award for Best New Magazine. She teaches at the UC Berkeley.



Thursday, August 9
7:30 PM

OKSANA MARAFIOTI
AMERICAN GYPSY

Oksana Marafioti’s parents performed in a traveling Romani ensemble until she was 15, when they moved to America. Growing up, she saw the Mongolian deserts and the Siberian tundra, watched her father get into bar fights with Nazis, learned about sex by sneaking into illicit movies, and endured the hostility of school bullies who would stick pieces of paper on her back that read “Gyp.” But in America, Oksana had a whole new life to get used to, which included rifling through curbside trash in Beverley Hills and wondering if it belonged to George Michael, reading Harlequin romances and using her Russian-American dictionary to decipher the phrase “burning loins,” and trying desperately not to make one of those typical mistakes immigrant families make -- like confusing cat food for canned tuna.

In AMERICAN GYPSY, she takes us through family revelations, cultural misunderstandings, and gives us a never-before-seen look at the realities of what it’s like to be a gypsy – and offers a fine look at the clash of two very different cultures.

Oksana Marafioti was recently awarded the BMI-Kluge Fellowship in partnership with the Library of Congress, a nine-month fellowship program offered to published writers and public intellectuals whose work ranges away from the American experience and into international terrain. Trained as a classical pianist, Marafioti has also worked as a cinematographer. She lives in Las Vegas.




Tuesday, August 14

WORDS & PIZZA:
Game Night at The Booksmith
7:00 - 9:00
$20 (includes Club Deluxe pizza and drinks!)

Our favorite local writers, journalists, friends, and you...duke it out over rounds of Three Words, Dictionary, and more engaging, seriously fun, and word-nerd friendly games.

Our dynamic teams battle it out with their well-chosen guest team members joined by randomly chosen audience members, all emceed by Amy (Bookswap) Stephenson.

Audience and teams are highly...and hilariously...interactive. Correct answers win the point; incorrect answers earn the laughs.And if experience holds, points can be earned any old way the audience sees fit.

Great pizza, book raffle, coupons, and hilarity for all who join the wordy merriment!

Announcing the August 14 teams soon!

Tickets must be purchased in advance, in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-8368-3006.




Thursday, August 16

RUBEN MARTINEZ
DESERT AMERICA
Boom and Bust in the New “New West”


“Martínez offers reportage beyond the simple binaries of the immigration issue or the drug war. He delivers a lively, compassionate intervention into our collective conception of the Southwest... This thoughtful and well-written account intimately explores the convolutions of racism and class conflict that have come to define a divided America.” -- Publishers Weekly


A brilliantly illuminating portrait of the twenty-first-century West -- as vast, diverse, and unexpected as the land and the people, from one of our foremost chroniclers of migration.

The economic boom -- and the devastation left in its wake -- has been writ nowhere as large as on the West, the most iconic of American landscapes. Over the last decade the West has undergone a political and demographic upheaval comparable only to the opening of the frontier. In DESERT AMERICA, Emmy-winning journalist, Lannan Foundation fellowship recipient, and author of the famed Crossing Over, Rubén Martínez evokes a new world of extremes: outrageous wealth and devastating poverty, sublime beauty and ecological ruin. Martínez shows how the new West will drive America’s future, both demographically and economically.

Far different from our romantic illusions of John Wayne, cacti and cowboys, DESERT AMERICA takes us on a deeply personal tour of the drug addiction, race wars, and front lines of illegal immigration in the New West. Martínez re-creates an enthralling panorama of characters, settings, and stories that explore the unique cultural intersections between native and new inhabitants of the area.

In northern New Mexico, an epidemic of chronic drug use flourishes in the shadow of some of the country's richest zip codes. In Joshua Tree, California, gentrification displaces people and history. In Marfa, Texas, an exclusive enclave triggers a race war near the banks of the Rio Grande. And on the Tohono O'odham reservation, Native Americans hunt down Mexican migrants crossing the most desolate stretch of the border.

With each desert story, Martínez explores his own Mexican and El Salvadorian heritage as well as his love for this most contested region.

“Martínez is one of the brightest voices of a new generation of Hispanic Southern Californian writers. He manages to be both graceful and impassioned; his obsessions with multiculturalism, with the nature of identity and with popular culture are precisely the subjects with which intelligent people today must grapple.” —The Washington Post

Rubén Martínez is an award-winning journalist, author and performer. Among the topics he examines in his courses are mixed-genre writing, post-colonial literatures and disapora, and the peculiar particulars of Los Angeles (his hometown) and the American West. His essays, opinions and reportage have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Village Voice, The Nation, Spin, Sojourners, and Mother Jones. He is the recipient of a Lannan Foundation Fellowship in Non Fiction, a Loeb Fellowship from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design, a Freedom of Information Award from the ACLU, a Greater Press Club of Los Angeles Award of Excellence, and an Emmy Award for hosting PBS-affiliate KCET-TV’s Life & Times. As a musician, Martínez has been featured on albums by Concrete Blonde, Los Illegals, and the Roches, and he has been active in the spoken word and performance scenes for over twenty years. He is the author of Flesh Life: Sex in Mexico City, The New Americans, Crossing Over: A Mexican Family on the Migrant Trail, Eastside Stories, and The Other Side: Notes from the New L.A., Mexico City and Beyond.



Thursday, August 23
7:30 PM

JORJA LEAP
JUMPED IN
What Gangs Taught Me About Violence, Drugs, Love, and Redemption

“I loved school and had good grades. I played every sport—football, basketball, swimming—up to Jordan High,” Ronny Dawson reminisces. But Ronny had little chance of not becoming a gang member. Born in Nickerson Gardens, a housing project in South Los Angeles which encompasses Watts and Compton and is the birthplace of the notorious Bounty Hunter Bloods, Ronny grew up in an apartment with 29 other people. He never knew his father, who was in and out of prison, and rarely saw his mother, a crack addict. Ronny is a third-generation gang member whose family started their own offshoot of the Bounty Hunter Bloods, the Hillbilly Gangsters. “We aren’t just Bloods, this is my blood. They are my family,” he explains.

In JUMPED IN, UCLA professor and gang expert Jorja Leap gives voice to the people who understand the gang problem best—the gang members and the people who try to arrest them, control them, and help them. A noted anthropologist, Leap offers one of the first genealogies of Los Angeles’s oldest and most powerful black and brown gangs, including the Bloods, Crips, Florencia, MS-13, and 18th Street, among others, and breaks down their territories street by street.

Tracing the family trees of gang members back three generations, she shows just how strong the clan mentality really is and how deep the kinship connections run. By hearing their oral histories and conducting personal interviews with active and former gang members, interventionists, police officers, priests, parents and victims, Leap reveals the stories and traumas of gang members born into a life of violence, drugs, guns and sex.

The wife of a veteran LAPD officer, Leap spent years on the ground building the trust of gang interventionists and gaining access to the inner gang world. Reporting from their living rooms and street corners, Leap paints a gritty, authentic portrait of life inside the gangs, and explains the forces that pull people into them and keep them there. Trayvon Jeffers was j