Events

Tuesday, February 23, 5:30 p.m.

Warriors: Power of Three #1: The Sight by Erin Hunter

The time has come for three kits of ThunderClan—Hollypaw, Jaypaw, and Lionpaw—to become apprentices. Grandchildren of the great leader Firestar, all three possess unusual power and talent. But dark secrets surround them, and a mysterious prophecy hints at trouble to come. The warrior code is in danger of being washed away by a river of blood, and all the young cats' strength will be needed if the Clans are to survive.

Please bring $2.00 for pizza and drinks. Do let us know if you plan to come, or if you have a question. Contact Megan at megan@keplers.com

Tuesday, February 23, 7:30 p.m.

The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel  BUY NOW

Zachary Mason’s brilliant and beguiling debut novel, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, reimagines Homer’s classic story of the hero Odysseus and his long journey home after the fall of Troy. With brilliant prose, terrific imagination, and dazzling literary skill, Mason creates alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer’s original that taken together open up this classic Greek myth to endless reverberating interpretations. The Lost Books of the Odyssey is punctuated with great wit, beauty, and playfulness; it is a daring literary page-turner that marks the emergence of an extraordinary new talent.

ZACHARY MASON is a computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence. He was a finalist for the 2008 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award. He lives in California. 

Literature's First Unreliable Narrator
The unexpected lessons of The Lost Books of the Odyssey.

By John SwansburgPosted Thursday, Feb. 18, 2010, at 9:28 AM ET 

http://www.slate.com/id/2244933/

Photo Credit:  Yan Li

Kepler's and Cedro Ristorante present a Special Dinner Event:

Valentina Cirasola

Wednesday, February 24, 5:30 - 7:00 p.m.

Come Mia Nonna: A Return to Simplicity  BUY NOW

Cedro Ristorante, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park

Octavian, a Roman Emperor once said "slow down, we are in a hurry." This book is a tribute to slow food and appreciation of life, a life made with human rhythms. A return to simplicity because these recipes from the Region of Puglia, in Italy are so very uncomplicated that even if you have never cooked in your life, you will be able to put an attractive dinner together in a short, short time. 

Meet the author and enjoy live music and a 5-course dinner made by Cedro's from recipes in the book.

Tickets: $72.95 + tax. Includes dinner, a glass of wine, tip, and one signed copy of the book.
  

For more information and for tickets, please contact Elizabeth at Cedro Ristorante, 650-322-3376.

Wednesday, February 24, 7:30 p.m.

Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting Into College (Second Edition)  BUY NOW

The updated edition of the must-have resource for any student applying to college

This thoroughly revised and updated edition of the bestselling book Admission Matters demystifies the college application process and offers practical advice for choosing the right school, writing an effective essay, navigating financial aid, and more. This handy resource will help any college-bound student whether they attend well-funded private schools or cash-strapped public schools. Filled with helpful suggestions, ideas, and advice, the new edition also includes tips for home-schooled students who are preparing to attend college.

• Helps all students who are applying to college understand the process and find the school that fits their needs
• Expanded information on testing, early decision/early action, applying as a home schooler, and tackling the dreaded college essay
• Up-to-date advice on financial aid in tough economic times – how it works and how to maximize your chances of getting aid
• Authors bring the multiple viewpoints of college admissions officer, high school counselor, and parent of college-bound students

This book gives any college-bound student the information they need to make the application process run smoothly. 

Thursday, February 25, 7:00 p.m.

Business Mensch  BUY NOW

Oshman Family JCC - Schultz Cultural Arts Center, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto

As a successful entrepreneur, seven years after it's creation, Noah's New York Bagels was sold for $100 million. Business Mensch offers seven accessible strategies to incorporate Judaism’s rich values into one’s life and career.

This book is about achieving financial success while remaining loyal to timeless values.

Co-sponsored by the Commonwealth Club of California and the Harvard Club of Silicon Valley.
  

For more information and tickets, click HERE

Thursday, February 25, 7:30 p.m.

Union Atlantic: A Novel  BUY NOW

The eagerly anticipated debut novel from the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist You Are Not a Stranger Here: a deeply affecting portrait of the modern gilded age, the first decade of the twenty-first century.

At the heart of Union Atlantic lies a test of wills between a young banker, Doug Fanning, and a retired schoolteacher, Charlotte Graves, whose two dogs have begun to speak to her. When Doug builds an ostentatious mansion on land that Charlotte's grandfather donated to the town of Finden, Massachusetts, she determines to oust him in court. As a senior manager of Union Atlantic bank, a major financial conglomerate, Doug is embroiled in the company's struggle to remain afloat. It is Charlotte's brother, Henry Graves, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, who must keep a watchful eye on Union Atlantic and the entire financial system. Drawn into Doug and Charlotte's intensifying conflict is Nate Fuller, a troubled high-school senior who unwittingly stirs powerful emotions in each of them.

“Adam Haslett has the rarest of talents: the ability to combine a powerful intelligence with storytelling that is both elegant and suspenseful, and to break your heart in the process. Union Atlantic is a masterful portrait of our age.”
—Malcolm Gladwell

Photo Credit: Brigitte Lacombe 

AAUW Authors' Luncheon 

Saturday, February 27, 12:00 p.m.

Michael's at Shoreline, 1900 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View 

Meg Waite Clayton: Wednesday Sisters  BUY NOW

Milly Kalish: Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the great Depression  BUY NOW

Keith Raffel: Smasher: A Silicon Valley Thriller  BUY NOW

Tad Williams & Deborah Beale: The Dragons of Ordinary Farm  BUY NOW 

This benefit luncheon is sponsored by the American Association of University Women, Palo Alto Branch. Fifty percent of the ticket price is a contribution to send deserving 7th-grade girls to Tech Trek, AAUW's math/science camp to be held at Stanford in July. 

You will hear presentations from five successful local-based authors of bestselling books while enjoying lunch.  There will be time for questions, and the chance to purchase books and have them autographed by the authors.

Make lunch reservations by February 19th to ensure a place.  

It's All About Friends Story Time

Sunday, February 28, 11:30 a.m.

Big Wolf and Little Wolf  BUY NOW

A Visitor for Bear  BUY NOW

Sunday, February 28, 2:00 p.m.

It Is Daylight by Ardna Collins

Arda Collins is the 2008 winner of the annual Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. Mesmerizing and electric, her poems seem to be articulated in the privacy of an enclosed space. The poems are concrete and yet metaphysically challenging, both witty and despairing. Collins’ emotional complexity and uncommon range make this debut both thrillingly imaginative and ethical in its uncompromising attention to detail. In her Foreword, contest judge Louise Glück observes, “I know no poet whose sense of fraud, the inflated emptiness that substitutes for feeling, is more acute.” Glück calls Collins’ volume “savage, desolate, brutally ironic . . . a book of astonishing originality and intensity, unprecedented, unrepeatable.” 

Monday, March 1, 7:00 p.m.

Doce cuentos peregrinos by Gabriel García Márquez 

En Barcelona, una prostituta que va entrando en la vejez entrena su perro a llorar ante la tumba que ha escogido para sí misma. En Viena, una mujer se vale de su don de ver el futuro para convertirse en la adivina de una familia rica. En Ginebra, el conductor de una ambulancia y su esposa acogen al abandonado y aparentemente moribundo ex presidente de un país caribeño, sólo para descubrir que sus ambiciones políticas siguen intactas.

En estos doce relatos magistrales acerca de las vidas de latinoamericanos en Europa, García Márquez logra transmitir la amalgama de melancolía, tenacidad, pena y ambición que forma la experiencia del emigrante.

Monday, March 1, 7:00 p.m.

The Five Ancestors Book #7: Dragon  BUY NOW

Hey kids! Come see Jeff Stone as he talks about the final book, #7: Dragon, in his award-winning middle grade series, The Five Ancestors. Jeff is a martial arts black belt and will demonstrate awesome kung fu moves, especially the "Flying Dragon."  The six previous books in the series are: Book 1: Tiger; Book 2: Monkey; Book 3: Snake; Book 4: Crane; Book 5: Eagle; Book 6: Mouse.

Like the characters in his stories, Jeff practices the martial arts daily. He holds a black belt in Shaolin Do Kung Fu, and often trains in other styles as part of his research for his books. He loves to do demonstrations during his events and often invites kids to learn the basic animal moves!  

Jeff Stone has worked as a photographer, an editor, a maintenance man, a technical writer, a ballroom dance instructor, a concert promoter, and a marketing director for companies that design schools, libraries, and skateboard parks. Like the heroes of The Five Ancestors series, he was adopted when he was an infant. He began searching for his birthmother when he was 18; he found her 15 years later. The author lives with his wife and two children in Carmel, IN.

Photo Credit: Tom Casalini 

Tuesday, March 2, 7:30 p.m.

That Crumpled Paper Was Due Last Week: Helping Disorganized and Distracted Boys Succeed in School and Life  BUY NOW

With an accessible and no-nonsense approach, top academic counselor Ana Homayoun shows how to:

*Identify their son's disorganizational style
*Help him set academic and personal goals he cares about
*Design and establish the right "tools of the trade"
*Complete assignments without pulling all-nighters
*Help him tune out social pressure and fend off anxiety

Much more than a study guide, this insightful, user-friendly book provides a roadmap for the success too many boys have trouble finding--in school and in life.

Ana Homayoun is the Founder and Director of Green Ivy Educational Consulting, where she has helped hundreds of students dramatically improve their academic performance while reducing the stress and anxiety often associated with juggling a rigorous course load and extracurricular activities. A graduate of Duke University, she also holds a Master's Degree in Counseling Psychology.

Giving Disorganized Boys the Tools for Success by Alan Finder

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/01/education/01boys.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&ei=5070&en=33821f10c10d3e67&ex=1199941200&emc=eta1 

Wednesday, March 3, 7:30 p.m.

Model Home: A Novel  BUY NOW

Warren Ziller moved his family to California in search of a charmed life, and to all appearances, he found it: a gated community not far from the beach, amid the affluent splendor of Southern California in the 1980s. But his American dream has been rudely interrupted. Despite their affection for one another, Warren, his wife, Camille, and their three children have veered into separate lives, as distant as satellites. Worst of all, Warren has squandered the family's money on a failing real estate venture. 

When tragedy strikes, the Zillers are forced to move into one of the houses in Warren's abandoned development in the middle of the desert. Marooned in a less-than-model home, each must reckon with what's led them there and who's to blame -- and whether they can summon the forgiveness needed to hold the family together.

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.

Photo Credit: Saeed Mirfattah   

Photo Credit: Saeed Mirfattah 

Sponsored by

Author Kurt W. Beyer in Conversation with Northern California Public Broadcasting’s Linda O’Bryon 

Thursday, March 4, 12:00 p.m. 

Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age   BUY NOW

The Computer History Museum, 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View

March is Women’s History Month and the Computer History Museum is proud to showcase the career and accomplishments of a genuine innovator, Grace Hopper. Among her many awards, Grace Hopper was the Computer History Museum’s first Fellow award recipient for her development of programming languages, computer instruction, and her lifelong naval service. The complete list of her awards and degrees exceeds two full pages, including the National Medal of Technology and 37 honorary doctoral degrees.  

In Grace Hopper and the Invention of the Information Age, Kurt Beyer reveals an authentic Hopper, a vibrant and complex woman whose career paralleled the meteoric trajectory of the postwar computer industry, and discusses the indelible contribution she made to the nascent computer industry.  According to Beyer, Grace Hopper is arguably as important a figure to computing as Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Steve Jobs.

Register Now

Call (650) 810-1898 for information. 

The Computer History Museum offers a variety of membership levels. To find out more, please visit our individual membership or call 650-810-2727.

Thursday, March 4, 7:30 p.m.

The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature  BUY NOW

In his most important book to date, award-winning author Timothy Ferris—“the best popular science writer in the English language today” (Christian Science Monitor)—makes a passionate case for science as the inspiration behind the rise of liberalism and democracy. Ferris argues that just as the scientific revolution rescued billions from poverty, fear, hunger, and disease, the Enlightenment values it inspired has swelled the number of persons living in free democratic societies from fewer than one percent of the world population in 1600 to over a third today.

Ferris deftly investigates the co-evolution of these scientific and political revolutions. A sweeping intellectual history, The Science of Liberty is a stunningly original work that transcends antiquated concepts of left and right.

Timothy Ferris, a Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award nominee, is the author of 12 books, including The Whole Shebang, Coming of Age in the Milky Way, and The Mind's Sky. He is currently professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley.

'The Science of Liberty,' by Timothy Ferris

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Sunday, February 28, 2010
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/02/28/RVTE1C3UED.DTL#ixzz0grnuain8

Friday, March 5, 7:30 p.m.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures by Anne Fadiman

When three-month-old Lia Lee arrived at the county hospital emergency room in Merced, California, a chain of events was set in motion from which neither she nor her parents nor her doctors would ever recover. Parents and doctors both wanted the best for Lia, but their ideas about the causes of her illness and its treatment could hardly have been more different.

The Hmong see illness aand healing as spiritual matters linked to virtually everything in the universe, while medical community marks a division between body and soul, and concerns itself almost exclusively with the former. Lia's doctors ascribed her seizures to the misfiring of her cerebral neurons; her parents called her illness, qaug dab peg--the spirit catches you and you fall down--and ascribed it to the wandering of her soul. The doctors prescribed anticonvulsants; her parents preferred animal sacrifices.

Sunday, March 7, 11:30 a.m.

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

Join us for a special Storytime as we celebrate National Youth Art Month!

Art is not only in the way we hold a paint brush against paper or chalk against cement,

it is visual expression that is louder then words.

Zig, Zag, Squiggle and Swish that brush!

Sunday, March 7, 2:00 p.m.

When a Crocodile Eats the Sun by Peter Godwin 

Hailed by reviewers as "powerful,""haunting" and "a tour de force of personal journalism,"When A Crocodile Eats the Sun is the unforgettable story of one man's struggle to discover his past and come to terms with his present.

Award-winning author and journalist Peter Godwin writes with pathos and intimacy about Zimbabwe's spiral into chaos and, along with it, his family's steady collapse. This dramatic memoir is a searing portrait of unspeakable tragedy and exile, but it is also vivid proof of the profound strength of the human spirit and the enduring power of love.

Monday, March 8, 7:30 p.m.

The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy  BUY NOW

Opening with Oscar Wilde's observation that "nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing," Patel shows how our faith in prices as a way of valuing the world is misplaced.  He reveals the hidden ecological and social costs of a hamburger (as much as $200), and asks how we came to have markets in the first place.  Both the corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis, Patel argues, are a result of our democratically bankrupt political system. If part one asks how we can rebalance society and limit markets, part two answers by showing how social organizations, in America and around the globe, are finding new ways to describe the world's worth. 

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 World Trade Organization 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. 

Tuesday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.

Another Life Altogether  BUY NOW

A keenly observed depiction of the effects of a mother’s mental illness on her young daughter, Another Life Altogether is a profoundly moving, funny, and ultimately heartrending coming-of-age story.

After years of living in the shadow of her mother’s mental illness, Jesse Bennett is given a fresh chance at happiness when her family moves to a village in northern England. But just as it seems that she might be able to build a perfect life for herself after befriending two of her new school’s most popular girls, her mother’s worsening mental state and the secret Jesse fiercely guards about herself threaten to destroy her fragile stability. Caught in the storm of her mother’s moods, her father’s desperation, and her classmates’ strict adherence to cruel social hierarchies, Jesse is forced to choose between doing what’s right and preserving her long-held hope for a normal life.

At the heart of a maddening, eccentric, and ultimately lovable family—from her manic mother and her long-suffering father to her blowsy Aunt Mabel and her Uncle Ted, a comically inept criminal—Jesse is an utterly sympathetic narrator who navigates the ups and downs of adolescence with insight, emotional vulnerability, and a wickedly sharp sense of humor. Alternately hilarious and heartbreaking, Another Life Altogether marks the arrival of an immensely gifted novelist. 

Elaine Beale is the winner of the 2007 Poets & Writers California Writers Exchange contest, a competition for a partial draft of this novel. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in several anthologies. Originally from England, she has lived for the past twenty years in Oakland. 

A powerful tale of a troubled teen

By Sharon Ullman Globe Correspondent / March 1, 2010  

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2010/03/01/elaine_beals_debut_focuses_on_the_life_of_a_troubled_teen/

Wednesday, March 10, 7:30 p.m.

Murder in the Palais Royal: Aimee Leduc Investigations #10  BUY NOW

"The buzz is partly about her heroine's hip, next-generation, cutting-edge investigations and partly about Paris, a setting of unrivaled charm."-Houston Chronicle

"Will have you wondering if it's not too late to book that summer vacation to Paris you always wanted."-USA Today

"The trendy byways of Paris belong to Aimee Leduc, the clever young sleuth in a winning series by Cara Black, an American with an uncanny feel for the street culture of old Parisian neighborhoods."-The New York Times Book Review

"The Parisienne Kinsey Milhone."-Los Angeles Times

"One of the best heroines in crime fiction."-Lee Child

Her partner Rene has been shot and eyewitnesses have identified Aimee 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 Aimee; someone wants revenge. Two murders ensue. How do they relate to the youth whom Aimee's testimony sent to jail in the very first Aimee Leduc investigation, Murder in the Marais?

Cara Black is the author of nine previous books in the best-selling Aimee Leduc series. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.

Thursday, March 11, 6:30 p.m.

Confessions of an Alien Hunter: A Scientist's Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence  BUY NOW

Menlo Park City Council Chambers, 701 Laurel Street, Menlo Park

Shostak has been at the center of the sometimes admired, sometimes dismissed effort to pick up extraterrestrial radio communication. Shostak will explain the challenges of trying to detect alien communications using ever more sophisticated methods and explaining why the almost 50-year effort has so far yielded nothing.

He will also discuss practical questions: Would alien societies communicate via radio or something more advanced? If they were more advanced, how could we understand what they were saying? Would it be safe and proper to reply, and who would decide what to say back? Might aliens have evolved into something akin to computerized machines?

Seth Shostak is a scientist, author, and frequent commentator on TV and radio. He writes a monthly column on SPACE.com, and often lectures on his work at SETI. He lives in Palo Alto.

For reservations call 1-800-847-7730 or register online at www.Commonwealthclub.org/sv

Thursday, March 11, 7:00 p.m.

Either You're In or You're In the Way: Two Brothers, Twelve Months, and One Filmmaking Hell-Ride to Keep a Promise to Their Father  BUY NOW

Redwood City Library - Community Room, 1044 Middlefield Road, Redwood City 

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 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 four-time Academy Award®-nominated actor Ed Harris (and a cast and crew with 11 Academy Awards® and 26 nominations) that premiered at the coveted San Francisco International Film Festival. The Miller brothers′ incredible and comic gonzo story is essential reading for aspiring filmmakers and movie buffs, and readers looking for a fast-paced, thrill ride of heartbreak and redemption. 

Photo Credit: Mikhail Lemkhin

Thursday, March 11, 7:30 p.m.

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them  BUY NOW

THE TRUE BUT UNLIKELY STORIES OF LIVES DEVOTED—ABSURDLY! MELANCHOLICALLY! BEAUTIFULLY!—TO THE RUSSIAN CLASSICS

No one who read Elif Batuman’s first article (in the journal n+1) will ever forget it. “Babel in California” told the true story of various human destinies intersecting at Stanford University during a conference about the enigmatic writer Isaac Babel. Over the course of several pages, Batuman managed to misplace Babel’s last living relatives at the San Francisco airport, uncover Babel’s secret influence on the making of King Kong, and introduce her readers to a new voice that was unpredictable, comic, humane, ironic, charming, poignant, and completely, unpretentiously full of love for literature.

Batuman’s subsequent pieces—for The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and the London Review of Books— have made her one of the most sought-after and admired writers of her generation, and its best traveling companion. In The Possessed we watch her investigate a possible murder at Tolstoy’s ancestral estate. We go with her to Stanford, Switzerland, and St. Petersburg; retrace Pushkin’s wanderings in the Caucasus; learn why Old Uzbek has one hundred different words for crying; and see an eighteenth-century ice palace reconstructed on the Neva.

Love and the novel, the individual in history, the existential plight of the graduate student: all find their place in The Possessed. Literally and metaphorically following the footsteps of her favorite authors, Batuman searches for the answers to the big questions in the details of lived experience, combining fresh readings of the great Russians, from Pushkin to Platonov, with the sad and funny stories of the lives they continue to influence—including her own.

ELIF BATUMAN was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey. She now lives in Twin Peaks, San Francisco (near the radio tower). She is the recipient of a Rona Jaffe Prize. She teaches literature at Stanford. 

Monday, March 12, 7:00 p.m.

The Power of Half: One Family's Decision to Stop Taking and Start Giving Back  BUY NOW

It all started when 14-year-old Hannah Salwen had a eureka moment. Seeing a homeless man in her neighborhood at the same instant she spotted a man driving a glistening Mercedes, she said, "Dad, if that man had a less nice car, that man there could have a meal."

Until that day, the Salwens had been caught up like so many of us in the classic American dream—providing a good life for their children, accumulating more and more stuff, doing their part to help others but not really feeling it. So when Hannah was stopped in her tracks by this glaring disparity, her parents knew they had to act on her urge to do something. Their plan eventually took them across the globe and well out of their comfort zone.

As Kevin Salwen says, "No one else is nuts enough to sell their house," but what his family discovered along the way will inspire countless others, no matter what their means or resources are. Warm, funny, and deeply moving, The Power of Half is the story of how one family grew closer as they discovered that half could be so much more.  

Kevin Salwen was reporter and editor at The Wall Street Journal for over 18 years. He serves on the board for Habitat for Humanity in Atlanta, and works with the U.S. Olympic Committee. Hannah Salwen will be a junior at the Atlanta Girls' School, where she plays for the varsity volleyball team, and is her grade's representative to the student council. She has been volunteering consistently since the 5th grade.

What Could You Live Without?

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: January 23, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24kristof.html

Sunday, March 14, 11:30 p.m.

The Jellybeans and the Big Book Bonanza  BUY NOW 

Laura Numeroff and The Jellybeans are back—this time in the library stacks to discover the varied and wonderful world of reading. The Jellybeans go to the library to do reasearch on book reports. Emily, Nicole and Anna have found their perfect books but what about Bitsy?

Come listen to and meet with Laura as she shares the newest Jellybean Adventure!

Sunday, March 14, 1:00 p.m.

The Prince of Silicon Valley: Frank Quattrone and the Dot-Com Bubble  BUY NOW

The Prince of Silicon Valley traces the rise of the foremost investment banker of the Internet stock-market bubble, from the back streets of South Philadelphia to the peak of finance as the highest paid banker on Wall Street. From Cisco to Netscape to Amazon, Frank Quattrone took some of the biggest names in technology public. During the bubble years of 1999 and 2000, his California-based technology banking group led the most hot initial public offerings, which lifted the entire stock market to record heights.

But after the bubble burst, the hot stocks cooled and ordinary investors lost billions. It emerged that brokers in Quattrone’s firm had created lucrative investment accounts, stuffed with hot IPOs, for banking clients who became known as “Friends of Frank.” Some of the brokers, regulators charged, cut off other investors who refused to pay back a share of their IPO profits.   

The story of Quattrone's fall from grace, however temporary, remains a cautionary tale of ambition gone wrong--of a Wall Street Icarus who flew too close to the sun. The Prince of Silicon Valley is an absorbing noir detective story of the investigations and trials that brought him to the brink of disaster.

RANDALL SMITH is an award-winning reporter for The Wall Street Journal who has covered the Street and its denizens for nearly three decades. He is a graduate of Harvard, and with other Journal reporters has shared the George Polk Award and a Pulitzer Prize.

Sunday, March 14, 4:00 p.m.

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

In  the early days of the Civil War, rumors of gold in the frozen Klondike brought hordes of newcomers to the Pacific Northwest. Anxious to compete, Russian prospectors commissioned inventor Leviticus Blue to create a great machine that could mine through Alaska’s ice. Thus was Dr. Blue’s Incredible Bone-Shaking Drill Engine born.

But on its first test run the Boneshaker went terribly awry, destroying several blocks of downtown Seattle and unearthing a subterranean vein of blight gas that turned anyone who breathed it into the living dead.

Now it is sixteen years later, and a wall has been built to enclose the devastated and toxic city. Just beyond it lives Blue’s widow, Briar Wilkes. Life is hard with a ruined reputation and a teenaged boy to support, but she and Ezekiel are managing. Until Ezekiel undertakes a secret crusade to rewrite history.

His quest will take him under the wall and into a city teeming with ravenous undead, air pirates, criminal overlords, and heavily armed refugees. And only Briar can bring him out alive.

Monday, March 15, 11:30 a.m.

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime  BUY NOW

National Semiconductor - Bldg. E, 2900 Semiconductor Drive, Santa Clara

Go behind the scenes of the historic 2008 election and learn more about the riveting book that even Stephen Colbert just can't put down. Political journalists Halperin and Heilemann, discuss in extensive detail the momentous rise of Barack Obama, shocking fall of Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House, and the national phenomenon around John McCain choosing Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate.

From hundreds of interviews with people working inside the '08 campaigns, learn more about the Obama campaign machine, how McCain staffers truly felt about Sarah Palin, and how Hillary Clinton was wooed as secretary of state. Since its debut, Game Change has been one of the most talked about books of the year - skyrocketing to #1 on The New York Times bestsellers list. 

Mark Halperin Editor-at-large and Senior Political Analyst, Time

John Heilemann National Political Correspondent & Columnist, New York magazine

For reservations call 1-800-847-7730 or register online at https://tickets.commonwealthclub.org/open.asp?show=1693  

Monday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.

So Much for That: A Novel  BUY NOW

From the acclaimed author of the New York Times bestselling novel The Post-Birthday World comes a searing, deeply humane new novel about the tragic costs of the American healthcare system.

Shep Knacker discovered long ago that the same money that lasts one year in Westchester lasts 10 in the Developing World. That lesson has guided him towards fulfilling the dream of moving. Yet instead of Tanzania, Shep is stuck in New York, thanks to the foot-dragging of his wife, Glynis. With no exit date in sight, the 48-year-old Shep reluctantly returns to the company he founded as an employee. Angry and humiliated, he gives Glynis an ultimatum: he’s leaving for Tanzania, with or without her.

Glynis, too, has news: she has cancer. Shep cannot abandon her now; in addition to his love and support, she needs his health insurance. But this “health insurance company from hell” only partially covers the staggering bills, and suddenly this once well-off family is hurtling toward bankruptcy.

So Much for That takes a hard look at America’s healthcare “system,” and poses the disturbing moral question that affects more of us each day: How much is one life worth? 

Photo Credit: Suki Dhanda 

Toward Net-Zero Utility Bills and Comfortable, Healthy and Sustainable Homes

Tuesday, March 16, 5:00 p.m.

Speaker: Nick Harris of Energy Beyond Design

Learn about the simple steps you can take now to reduce your utility bills, improve your comfort and health, and green your home. Nick Harris, an energy analyst and retrofitter from Energy Beyond Design, will discuss how homeowners can develop road-maps for successful and cost-effective home energy projects. Members of the audience will be eligible for steeply discounted home energy audits to get them started on their own path towards a better home.

The Green Dream Team is a group of experts dedicated to providing you with the most comprehensive selection of services to improve, remodel, build, furnish, and landscape your home - always in an eco-friendly and sustainable way.

For information, contact Rich Wingerter at 650-207-8014. www.essentialquality.com

Tuesday, March 16, 7:00 p.m.

Pictures at an Exhibition  BUY NOW

Oshman Family JCC - Schultz Cultural Arts Center, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto

Drawn from copious research on wartime France, the early 20th century Parisian art scene and looting by the Nazi Party, Ms. Houghteling’s novel is luminous with historical detail. The New York Times Book Review gave it a glowing assessment.

Ms. Houghteling is a Harvard graduate and was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to Paris, a John  Steinbeck Fellowship and first prize in the Hopwood Award for novels.

Co-sponsored by the Harvard Club of Silicon Valley.
  

For more information and tickets, click HERE

Photo Credit: Jonathan Sprague

Tuesday, March 16, 7:30 p.m.

Lighting Out for the Territory: How Samuel Clemons Became Mark Twain  BUY NOW

Mark Twain is arguably the most famous and influential writer in American history. His legacy is defined by The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  But little to nothing is known about the crucial years during which Samuel Clemens transformed himself into the beloved American writer we celebrate today as Mark Twain.

Samuel Clemens traveled by stagecoach to the Wildwest in 1861 as an ex-Confederate guerilla and unemployed riverboat pilot, and returned six years later as Mark Twain. LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY tells how Samuel Clemens reinvented himself, all the while evading Indians and gunslingers, failing miserably as a miner, dodging challenges to duels, pioneering surfing in Hawaii, and getting into a lot more trouble along the way. Backed by solid scholarship but never dry, LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY is the first full-length study of Mark Twain’s life-changing time in the still-Wild West and where he began his writing career and shaped himself into an American favorite.

Roy Morris is the editor of Military Heritage magazine and the author of five previous books on the Civil War era, including The Long Pursuit: Abraham Lincoln’s Thirty-Year Struggle with Stephen Douglas for the Heart and Soul of America (Smithsonian Books, 2008); Fraud of the Century: Rutherford B. Hayes, Samuel Tilden, and the Stolen Election of 1876 (Simon and Schuster, 2003); and The Better Angel: Walt Whitman in the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 2000).  A former newspaper reporter and political correspondent for The Chattanooga News-Free Press and The Chattanooga Times, Morris was the founding editor of America's Civil War magazine and has served as a consultant for A&E Network and the History Channel.  

Photo Credit: Paula Grant Shuford 

Wednesday, March 17, 7:30 p.m.

The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe  BUY NOW

Physics is in crisis. For more than two centuries, our understanding of the laws of nature expanded rapidly. But in the last few decades, we’ve made astonishingly little progress. What will finally break the impasse and get physics back on track? In this timely and original book, science writer Anil Ananthaswamy sets out in search of the world’s most audacious physics experiments: the telescopes and detectors that promise to shed new light on things like dark matter, dark energy, and the phenomenon of quantum gravity (which string theory tries to explain). He soon finds himself at the ends of the earth. 

Reporting back from some of the most inhospitable and dramatic research sites on our planet, Ananthaswamy weaves together stories about the people and places at the heart of this research, while beautifully explaining the problems that scientists are trying to solve. In so doing, he provides a unique portrait of the universe and our quest to understand it. An atmospheric, engaging and illuminating read, The Edge of Physics depicts science as a human process and, in a very real sense, brings cosmology—with all its rarefied concepts—back down to earth. 

Anil Ananthaswamy is a consulting editor for New Scientist in London, where he has also worked as deputy news editor. He is also a contributor to National Geographic News. He has a Master of Science degree from the University of Washington, Seattle and worked as a software engineer in Silicon Valley before training as a journalist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Thursday, March 18, 7:00 p.m.

The Secret Daughter  BUY NOW

Stanford University - Bldg. 200, Room 303 (History Corner at Serra Street and Lomita Mall)

Moving between two worlds and two families in California and India, Gowda poignantly explores issues of culture, belonging, and the role of women in her powerful debut novel.

Gowda has masterfully portayed two families . . . linked by a powerful, painful tie that complicates their lives. . . . A thought-provoking examination of the challenges of being a woman in America and in India–and in the psychological spaces in between." –Chitra Divakaruni, author of Palace of Illusions

Shilpi Somaya Gowda was born and raised in Toronto to parents who migrated there from Mumbai. She holds an MBA from Stanford University, and a Bachelor’s Degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  

This event is presented by SACHI, The Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India and The Center for South Asia at Stanford University 

For reservations contact info@sachi.org or call 650-918-6335.

SECRET DAUGHTER just debuted at #4 on the Canadian Bestseller List, only 3 days after its launch.  Read the story in the Globe & Mail, the NY Times of the North: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/books/bestsellers/

Friday, March 19, 7:30 p.m.

Spellwright  BUY NOW

Nicodemus is a young, gifted wizard with a problem. Magic in his world requires the caster to create spells by writing out the text . . . but he has always been dyslexic, and thus has trouble casting even the simplest of spells. And his misspells could prove dangerous, even deadly, should he make a mistake in an important incantation.

When a powerful, ancient evil begins a campaign of murder and disruption, Nicodemus starts to have disturbing dreams that lead him to believe that his misspelling could be the result of a curse. But before he can discover the truth about himself, he is attacked by an evil which has already claimed the lives of fellow wizards and has cast suspicion on his mentor. He must flee for his own life if he’s to find the true villain.

But more is at stake than his abilities. For the evil that has awakened is a power so dread and vast that if unleashed it will destroy Nicodemus... and the world.

BLAKE CHARLTON has had short stories published in several fantasy anthologies. Spellwright is his first novel. A medical student at Stanford University, he lives near San Francisco, where he’s working on a sequel.

Saturday, March 20, 2:00 p.m.

The Man Who Ate His Boots: The Tragic History of the Search for the Northwest Passage  BUY NOW

The enthralling and often harrowing history of the adventurers who searched for the Northwest Passage, the holy grail of nineteenth-century British exploration.

After the triumphant end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British took it upon themselves to complete something they had been trying to do since the sixteenth century: find the fabled Northwest Passage, a shortcut to the Orient via a sea route over northern Canada. For the next thirty-five years the British Admiralty sent out expedition after expedition to probe the ice-bound waters of the Canadian Arctic in search of a route, and then, after 1845, to find Sir John Franklin, the Royal Navy hero who led the last of these Admiralty expeditions and vanished into the maze of channels, sounds, and icy seas with two ships and 128 officers and men.

In The Man Who Ate His Boots, Anthony Brandt tells the whole story of the search for the Northwest Passage, from its beginnings early in the age of exploration through its development into a British national obsession to the final sordid, terrible descent into scurvy, starvation, and cannibalism. Sir John Franklin is the focus of the book but it covers all the major expeditions and a number of fascinating characters, including Franklin’s extraordinary wife, Lady Jane, in vivid detail. The Man Who Ate His Boots is a rich and engaging work of narrative history that captures the glory and the folly of this ultimately tragic enterprise.

Brandt is the editor of the Adventure Classics series published by National Geographic Society Press, and the books editor at National Geographic Adventure magazine. Formerly the book critic at Men’s Journal, Brandt has written for The Atlantic, GQ, Esquire, and many other magazines, and is the author of two previous books. 

Antoinette Portis Storytime

Sunday, March 21, 11:30 p.m.

Not a Box  BUY NOW 

A Penguin Story  BUY NOW   

Come and hear a Kepler's Favorite. We will be reading 'A Penguin Story' and

'Not a Box' by Antoinette Portis! We will also be making our very own Not A Box so be sure to stick around! 

Sunday, March 21, 2:00 p.m.

The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder

"On Friday noon, July the twentieth, 1714, the finest bridge in all Peru broke and precipitated five travelers into the gulf below." With this celebrated sentence Thornton Wilder begins The Bridge of San Luis Rey, one of the towering achievements in American fiction and a novel read throughout the world.

By chance, a monk witnesses the tragedy. Brother Juniper then embarks on a quest to prove that it was divine intervention rather than chance that led to the deaths of those who perished in the tragedy. His search leads to his own death -- and to the author's timeless investigation into the nature of love and the meaning of the human condition. 

Monday, March 22, 7:00 p.m.

The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace  BUY NOW

Oshman Family JCC - Schultz Cultural Arts Center, 3921 Fabian Way, Palo Alto

Dr. Miller, U.S. State Department advisor, formulated U.S. policy on the Middle East and the Arab-Israel peace process. He has been featured on CNN, NBC, CBS, Fox and PBS, and his articles have appeared in newspapers throughout the world.

Co-sponsored by the Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation.
  

For more information and tickets, click HERE

Monday, March 22, 7:00 p.m.

The Dead-Tossed Waves  BUY NOW

Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She’s content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry’s mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry’s generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother’s past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

Born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina, Carrie Ryan, whose debut novel was The Forest of Hands and Teeth, is a graduate of Williams College and Duke University School of Law. A former litigator, she now writes full time. She lives with her writer/lawyer fiancé, two fat cats and one large puppy in Charlotte, North Carolina. They are not at all prepared for the zombie apocalypse. 

Photo Credit: Darren Cassese 

Monday, March 22, 7:00 p.m.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

Balram Halwai is a complicated man. Servant. Philosopher. Entrepreneur. Murderer. Over the course of seven nights, by the scattered light of a preposterous chandelier, Balram tells us the terrible and transfixing story of how he came to be a success in life -- having nothing but his own wits to help him along.

Balram's eyes penetrate India as few outsiders can: the cockroaches and the call centers; the prostitutes and the worshippers; the ancient and Internet cultures; the water buffalo and, trapped in so many kinds of cages that escape is (almost) impossible, the white tiger.

Tuesday, March 23, 7:30 p.m.

The Cartoon Introduction to Economics: Volume One: Microeconomics  BUY NOW

The award-winning illustrator Grady Klein has paired up with the world’s only stand-up economist, Yoram Bauman, PhD, to take the dismal out of the dismal science. From the optimizing individual to game theory to price theory, The Cartoon Introduction to Economics is the most digestible, explicable, and humorous 200-page introduction to microeconomics you’ll ever read. 

Bauman has put the “comedy” into “economy” at comedy clubs and universities around the country and around the world (his “Principles of Economics, Translated” is a YouTube cult classic). As an educator at both the university and high school levels, he has learned how to make economics relevant to today’s world and today’s students. As Google’s chief economist, Hal Varian, wrote, “You don’t need a brand-new economics. You just need to see the really cool stuff, the material they didn’t get to when you studied economics.”

“Hilarity and economics are not often found together, but this book has a lot of both. It also does a great job of explaining important economic concepts simply, accurately, and entertainingly—quite a feat.” —Eric Maskin, Nobel Laureate in Economics  

Photo Credit: Andrea M. Lee 

Wednesday, March 24, 7:30 p.m.

Every Day in Tuscany: Seasons of an Italian Life  BUY NOW

In this sequel to her New York Times bestsellers Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany, the celebrated "bard of Tuscany" (New York Times) lyrically chronicles her continuing, two decades-long love affair with Tuscany's people, art, cuisine, and lifestyle.
 
Frances Mayes offers her readers a deeply personal memoir of her present-day life in Tuscany, encompassing both the changes she has experienced since Under the Tuscan Sun and Bella Tuscany appeared, and sensuous, evocative reflections on the timeless beauty and vivid pleasures of Italian life. Throughout, she reveals the concrete joys of life in her adopted hill town, with particular attention to life in the piazza, the art of Luca Signorelli (Renaissance painter from Cortona), and the pastoral pleasures of feasting from her garden.  

In addition to her Tuscany memoirs, Frances Mayes is the author of the travel memoir A Year in the World; the illustrated books In Tuscany and Bringing Tuscany Home; Swan, a novel; The Discovery of Poetry, a text for readers; and five books of poetry.  She divides her time between homes in Italy and North Carolina.

Photo Credit: John Gillooly

Thursday, March 25, 7:30 p.m.

If You Can Read This: The Philosophy of Bumper Stickers  BUY NOW

A PICTURE MAY BE WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS—BUT A FEW CHOICE WORDS CAN SPEAK VOLUMES!

Long before blogs, tweets, and sound bites, people were telling the world how they felt in brief, blunt bursts of information plastered on the backs of their cars. Whether they’re political or religious, passionate or proud, controversial or corny, these brightly colored, boldly lettered mini manifestos are declarations of who we are, where we stand, and what we’d rather be doing. But as bestselling author and noted philosopher Jack Bowen reveals, there’s much more to the pop-culture phenomenon of bumper stickers than rolling one-liners and drive-by propaganda—no less, in fact, than a wise, funny, poignant, contentious, and truthful discourse on the human condition.
 
Mixing pop culture with the ideas of historically prominent philosophers and scientists, If You Can Read This exposes the deeper wisdom couched behind these slogans—or, as need be, exposes where they have gone wrong. If you brake for big ideas, now’s the time.

Jack graduated from Stanford with Honors in Human Biology. He went on to earn a Masters Degree in Philosophy from California State University, Long Beach graduating Summa Cum Laude. Following a six-year stint teaching philosophy and ethics at De Anza College, he has settled at Menlo School where he teaches philosophy and coaches water polo.