Kepler's Books - Events Feed

The Commonwealth Club presents John Heilemann & Mark Halperin

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:50:31 -0500

Start: March 15, 2010 - 11:30am

End: March 15, 2010 - 11:30am

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

Lionel Shriver

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 16:35:56 -0500

Start: March 15, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 15, 2010 - 7:30pm

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

Green Dream Team Panel Discussion

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:53:47 -0500

Start: March 16, 2010 - 5:00pm

End: March 16, 2010 - 5:00pm

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

Sara Houghteling

Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:46:21 -0500

Start: March 16, 2010 - 7:00pm

End: March 16, 2010 - 7:00pm

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

Roy Morris, Jr.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 02:17:16 -0500

Start: March 16, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 16, 2010 - 7:30pm

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

Anil Ananthaswamy

Thu, 14 Jan 2010 20:54:19 -0500

Start: March 17, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 17, 2010 - 7:30pm

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.

Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 20:16:20 -0400

Start: March 18, 2010 - 7:00pm

End: March 18, 2010 - 7:00pm

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/

Blake Charlton

Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:01:55 -0500

Start: March 19, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 19, 2010 - 7:30pm

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.

Anthony Brandt

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:57:08 -0500

Start: March 20, 2010 - 2:00pm

End: March 20, 2010 - 2:00pm

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

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:10:23 -0500

Start: March 21, 2010 - 11:30am

End: March 21, 2010 - 11:30am

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!

Daytime Fiction & More Book Club

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:18:55 -0500

Start: March 21, 2010 - 2:00pm

End: March 21, 2010 - 2:00pm

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.

Teen Event: Carrie Ryan

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 19:36:12 -0500

Start: March 22, 2010 - 7:00pm

End: March 22, 2010 - 7:00pm

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

Fiction Book Club

Fri, 08 Jan 2010 21:53:53 -0500

Start: March 22, 2010 - 7:00pm

End: March 22, 2010 - 7:00pm

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.

Dr. Aaron David Miller

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:06:55 -0500

Start: March 22, 2010 - 7:00pm

End: March 22, 2010 - 7:00pm

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

Yoram Bauman

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:11:42 -0500

Start: March 23, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 23, 2010 - 7:30pm

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

Frances Mayes

Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:30:37 -0500

Start: March 24, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 24, 2010 - 7:30pm

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

Jack Bowen

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 18:55:44 -0500

Start: March 25, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 25, 2010 - 7:30pm

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.

Moomin Story Time

Mon, 25 Jan 2010 17:20:02 -0500

Start: March 28, 2010 - 11:30am

End: March 28, 2010 - 11:30am

Moomin Story Time

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

The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My Enfant BUY NOW

A favorite of Children and Parents alike, we will be reading Tove Jansson's The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My Enfant.

Come one, Come All!

Poetry Book Club

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 14:35:07 -0500

Start: March 28, 2010 - 2:00pm

End: March 28, 2010 - 2:00pm

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

Time and Materials by Robert Hass

The poems in this collection are grounded in the beauty and energy of the physical world, and in the bafflement of the present moment in American culture. This work is breathtakingly immediate, stylistically varied, redemptive, and wise.

His familiar landscapes are here in addition to some of his oft-explored themes: art; the natural world; the nature of desire; the violence of history; the power and limits of language; and, domestic life and the conversation between men and women. New themes emerge as well, perhaps: the essence of memory and of time.

Young Adult Book Club

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 19:30:08 -0500

Start: March 30, 2010 - 5:30pm

End: March 30, 2010 - 5:30pm

Tuesday, March 30, 5:30 p.m.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Twelve-year-old Miranda thinks she knows what common sense is. After all, she's lived in New York City all her life and has never found herself in any sort of sticky situation!

Then Miranda begins to receive strange notes from someone who seems to be able to foretell the future. Logical Miranda knows this can't be true. But not long after the notes begin to arrive, things in the notes begin to happen. Time is running out. The notes keep coming, and getting increasingly urgent. Miranda believes something terrible will happen if she doesn't act fast. Utterly imaginative and simultaneously true to life, this book will have you piecing together the puzzle right alongside Miranda.

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

Paul McHugh

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:22:32 -0500

Start: March 30, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 30, 2010 - 7:30pm

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

Deadlines: A Novel of Murder, Mystery, and the Media BUY NOW

Land-use activist Beverly Bancroft is slain on a stretch of Northern California shore. The killers, who disguise her death as an accident, work for Cornu Point, an equestrian resort seeking to boost profit from public land along the coast. The detectives are San Francisco newspaper reporters.

“Every reporter worth his or her notepad is a sleuth at heart. Paul McHugh brings this truth to life with crackling suspense and a true, ink-stained veteran's eye for the newsroom.”
—Dan Rather, TV anchor and newsman

“People who love San Francisco and appreciate a good mystery will find Paul McHugh’s ‘Deadlines’ a page-turner with unforgettable characters and a realistic view of crime. McHugh creates an eccentric figure who epitomizes an endangered species - a reporter who can connect the dots. My wife Beverly and I couldn’t put it down.”
—Sheriff Mike Hennessey, of the City and County of San Francisco

McHugh wrote for the San Francisco Chronicle from 1985 to 2007. During that period, he also published a non-fiction book, Wild Places. Presently, McHugh writes for the New York Times, Washington Post and L.A. Times, as well as other publications. And he works on short and long fiction as well as non-fiction projects at his home on the San Francisco Peninsula.

Paul McHugh: from newsman to novelist

Louis Peitzman

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Peter Abaci, M.D.

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:26:59 -0500

Start: March 31, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: March 31, 2010 - 7:30pm

Wednesday, March 31, 7:30 p.m.

Take Charge of Your Chronic Pain: The Latest Research, Cutting-Edge Tools, and Alternative Treatments for Feeling Better BUY NOW

With more than twelve years' experience treating its sufferers and seeing the nation's health-care system come up short, Dr. Peter Abaci developed innovative treatments that have helped thousands better their lives in dramatic ways--techniques he now offers in this book for the first time.

“Peter Abaci has learned the secrets of successful chronic pain management and put them into Take Charge of Your Chronic Pain. Both pain sufferers and those who provide care for chronic pain patients can learn from his superb guide to contending with chronic pain and all its facets. He makes it quite clear that it is the patient who must do the work; the health care provider is a guide and source of encouragement and wisdom. This book is a counterbalance to the excessive reliance on pills and procedures that so often fail to adequately deal with those who suffer from chronic pain. The book is an excellent companion-piece for patients entering into a chronic pain management program.”
—John D. Loeser, MD, Professor Emeritus, Neurological Surgery and Anesthesiology and Pain Management, University of Washington

Peter Abaci, MD, is board certified in anesthesia and pain management by the American Board of Anesthesiology. He has been in private practice since 1996 and is the Medical Director and Co-Founder of the nationally recognized Bay Area Pain & Wellness Center, located in Los Gatos. Dr. Abaci created the Pathways approach to pain management, and he also devised a special procedure for treating deep muscle dysfunction around the spine. He is a voluntary clinical instructor at the Stanford Pain Clinic.

Marcia Gagliardi

Sun, 07 Mar 2010 18:30:12 -0500

Start: April 1, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 1, 2010 - 7:30pm

Thursday, April 1, 7:30 p.m.

The Tablehopper's Guide to Dining and Drinking in San Francisco: Find the Right Spot for Every Occasion BUY NOW

When it’s time to take your parents out to dinner or your girlfriend on a sexy date, or when you’re looking for a hot venue for a birthday blowout or brunch with friends, who do you turn to for a spot-on recommendation? Why, the tablehopper, of course! Marcia Gagliardi is San Francisco’s cuisine concierge, providing restaurant recommendations and helping thousands of diners find the right place for the right occasion. With her unique blend of enthusiasm, insider knowledge, and sass, Marcia bases her recommendations on the reason you’re going out, who you’re dining with, and how much money you have to burn.

Covering a huge range of places for all tastes, ages, and budgets, this insider’s guide also includes sections on the South Bay, Wine Country, top eats in the East Bay, and one-, two-, and three-day San Francisco culinary itineraries. Only a local and no-holds-barred eater like the tablehopper can offer visitors and locals alike such a knowledgeable and comprehensive look at the Bay Area dining and drinking scene.

Marcia (rhymes with Garcia) Gagliardi is a freelance food writer and culinary personality, known as the tablehopper. Marcia and her free weekly e-column are among the Bay Area’s most trusted resources for thoughtful recommendations on where to eat, drink, and hobnob. She has appeared on Oprah & Friends: The Gayle King Show, Playboy TV, the Martha Stewart Living Today radio show, and many local programs. She has been zipping around the Bay in her red Alfa Romeo since 1994, and has been writing about food since 2002.

Photo Credit: Andrea Scher - Superhero Designs

Steve Poizner

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:59:56 -0500

Start: April 2, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 2, 2010 - 7:30pm

Friday, April 2, 7:30 p.m.

Mount Pleasant: What Happened When I Traded a Silicon Valley Board Room for an Inner City Classroom BUY NOW

Entrepreneur Steve Poizner has run a billion dollar company, but the greatest challenge of his life was the year he spent teaching twelfth graders at San Jose's Mt. Pleasant High School. On many days, like the one when a student's boyfriend was arrested for bank robbery, his managerial and entrepreneurial skills seemed irrelevant. But on others, they helped him demonstrate how exciting it is to learn. Playing Jeopardy with the class and inviting speakers into the classroom, Poizner motivated his students by expanding their horizons far beyond their high school's walls.

Steve Poizner is currently a candidate for governor of California, but this is a memoir of a riveting personal journey, not a point-by-point account of his vision for his state. Poizner writes, "Often I came to ask myself one question: What exactly are you doing here? As it turns out, I was receiving one hell of an education." Mt Pleasant is ultimately a success story, as Poizner wins Rookie Teacher of the Year honors and, more important, ensures that all his students graduate.

Photo Credit: David Kennerly

First Friday Book Club

Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:10:15 -0500

Start: April 2, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 2, 2010 - 7:30pm

Friday, April 2, 7:30 p.m.

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Volume containing two interrelated stories by J.D. Salinger, published in book form in 1961. The stories, originally published in The New Yorker magazine, concern Franny and Zooey Glass, two members of the family that was the subject of most of Salinger's short fiction. Franny is an intellectually precocious late adolescent who tries to attain spiritual purification by obsessively reiterating the "Jesus prayer" as an antidote to the perceived superficiality and corruptness of life. She subsequently suffers a nervous breakdown. In the second story, her next older brother, Zooey, attempts to heal Franny by pointing out that her constant repetition of the "Jesus prayer" is as self-involved and egotistical as the egotism against which she rails.

Easter Story Time

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:29:53 -0500

Start: April 4, 2010 - 11:30am

End: April 4, 2010 - 11:30am

Sunday, April 4, 11:30 a.m.

The Easter Egg BUY NOW

Ollie's Easter Eggs BUY NOW

Easter brings colorful wicker baskets brimming with jellybean-filled eggs. It also brings us the sign of the not-too-distant Season of Spring!

Join us for an Easter Sunday Story Time. We will be reading Jan Brett's The Easter Egg and Olivier Dunrea's Ollie's Easter Eggs.

Hugh Raffles

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 21:30:00 -0500

Start: April 5, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 5, 2010 - 7:30pm

Monday, April 5, 7:30 p.m.

Insectopedia BUY NOW

For as long as humans have been here, insects have been here. Yet we hardly know them, not even the ones we’re closest to: the insects that eat our food, share our beds, live in our homes. Organizing his book alphabetically, with one entry for each letter, weaving together brief vignettes, meditations, and extended essays, Hugh Raffles uses the prism of history and science, anthropology and travel, economics and popular culture to show how insects have triggered our obsessions, stirred our fears, and beguiled our imaginations.

Hugh Raffles teaches anthropology at the New School for Social Research. He is the author of In Amazonia: A Natural History, which received the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing. His essays have been published in Best American Essays and Granta. He lives in New York City.

Photo Credit: Michael Lionstar

Malena Watrous

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:04:10 -0500

Start: April 6, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 6, 2010 - 7:30pm

Photo Credit: Matt Schumaker

Tuesday, April 6, 7:30 p.m.

If You Follow Me BUY NOW

Hoping to outpace her grief in the wake of her father's suicide, Marina has come to the small, rural Japanese town of Shika to teach English for a year. But in Japan, as she soon discovers, you can never really throw away your past . . . or anything else, for that matter.

If You Follow Me is at once a fish-out-of-water tale, a dark comedy of manners, and a strange kind of love story. Alive with vibrant and unforgettable characters—from an ambitious town matchmaker to a high school student-cum-rap artist wannabe with an addiction to self-tanning lotion—it guides readers over cultural bridges even as it celebrates the awkward, unlikely triumph of the human spirit.

"I love, love, love IF YOU FOLLOW ME. It's fearlessly honest, occasionally heartbreaking, and extremely funny, and I can't recommend it highly enough."
-Curtis Sittenfeld, New York Times bestselling author of PREP and AMERICAN WIFE

"In this beautiful novel, what is most "foreign" to Marina turns out to be her complex relationships with those she thought she knew best. Malena Watrous's writing is sharp-edged and generous, tragic and true. I would follow her anywhere."
-Katharine Noel, author of Halfway House

Co-sponsored by:

Bill Guttentag

Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:47:10 -0500

Start: April 7, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 7, 2010 - 7:30pm

Wednesday, April 7, 7:30 p.m.

Boulevard: A Novel BUY NOW

A teenaged runaway fights for survival on “the boulevard of broken dreams” in this searing debut novel based on a true story. It’s always sunny in California until you walk on the wrong side of Sunset Boulevard. And yet the bright lights still call to thousands, and every day new arrivals fill the ranks of Hollywood’s underworld of teenage runaways and hopeful stars turned hookers and strippers.

Their stories are too wretched and too sad for society’s attention, but when a high-profile lawyer is murdered at the Chateau Marmont, lackluster detective Jimmy McCann takes to the streets and finds himself enmeshed in this complex web of prostitution and drugs, learning that the killer, a young girl named Casey, is a victim in her own right. Delving into Casey’s troubled community of homeless runaways, characterized by abuse, rape, death and disease, but also by friendship, loyalty and love, Bill Guttentag has crafted a stunning literary crime novel—based on real-life incidents—that will resound with readers everywhere.

Bill Guttentag is a two-time Oscar-winning documentary and feature film writer-director. His films include the documentary feature Nanking, and the dramatic feature Live!. He was an executive producer and creator of the series Law & Order: Crime & Punishment, which ran for three seasons on NBC. He has also directed films for HBO, ABC, CBS and others. He lives with his family in Northern California, where he teaches a course at Stanford University.

The Commonwealth Club presents Louann Brizendine, M.D.

Thu, 11 Feb 2010 20:09:08 -0500

Start: April 8, 2010 - 6:30pm

End: April 8, 2010 - 6:30pm

The Commonwealth Club presents Louann Brizendine, M.D.

Thursday, April 8, 6:30 p.m.

The Male Brain BUY NOW

Historic Hoover Theatre, 1635 Park Avenue, San Jose

From the author of the groundbreaking New York Times bestseller The Female Brain, here is the eagerly awaited follow-up book that demystifies the puzzling male brain.

For all those times you've wondered "Why?," Brizendine has the answers. A neurobiologist, Brizendine has studied why our brains lead us to act and react the way we do. Founder of the Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic, Brizendine first focused on the female brain, studying the neurology behind the emotions and actions of women, and coming to conclusions that helped answer many of those "why" questions that females kept asking her. Now she has answers for the other half. Brizendine explores the male brain, showing how, through every phase of life, the "male reality" is fundamentally different from the female one.

The Male Brain finally overturns the stereotypes. Impeccably researched and at the cutting edge of scientific knowledge, this is a book that every man, and especially every woman bedeviled by a man, will need to own.

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

Photo Credit: Michael Chang

Heidi W. Durrow

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:55:15 -0500

Start: April 8, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 8, 2010 - 7:30pm

Thursday, April 8, 7:30 p.m.

The Girl Who Fell from the Sky BUY NOW

This debut novel tells the story of Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I. who becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy.

With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.

It is the winner of the Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice.

Heidi W. Durrow is a graduate of Stanford, Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and Yale Law School. She is the recipient of a Fellowship in Fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts, a Jerome Foundation Fellowship for Emerging Writers, a Jentel Foundation Residency, and won top honors in the Lorian Hemingway Short Story Competition and the Chapter One Fiction Contest. She has received grants from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the American Scandinavian Foundation, the Roth Endowment and the American Antiquarian Society.

Tea Cakes and Teddy Bears Story Time

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 16:42:05 -0500

Start: April 11, 2010 - 11:30am

End: April 11, 2010 - 11:30am

Sunday, April 11, 11:30 a.m.

The Tiger Who Came to Tea BUY NOW

We're Going on a Bear Hunt BUY NOW

Whimsy and fun await every Princess and Teddy Bear. Tea cakes and honey sticks, stories, and a party just for you. Along with stories, we will be featuring delectable treats from Princess Tea by Janeen A. Sarlin.

Kon & Arlene Balin

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 19:11:07 -0500

Start: April 11, 2010 - 2:00pm

End: April 11, 2010 - 2:00pm

Sunday, April 11, 2:00 p.m.

Born Stateless: A Young Man's Story 1823 - 1957 BUY NOW

"Born Stateless" is a book of memories crisp in detail and depth of feeling. Konstantin Balabushkin's young life in Japan bridged the two worlds of east and west with apparent ease. His safe and sheltered childhood vanished with the eruption of Second World War while he attended college in Shanghai waiting for his visa to study in the United States. He and other stateless people, including Russian nobles with whom he lived, became trapped in history with no way out. The war, the defeat and reinvention of Japan and the reinvention of Konstantin Balabushkin, as Kon Balin, bring to the reader a first hand account of suffering and survival. It is a young man's tale, a very lucky young man, who lived through a time that profoundly changed the world.

Kon and Arlene Balin reside in Sonoma and San Francisco where they continue to enjoy the fruits of Kon's garden, fine wines, and the company of family and good friends.

Speculative Fiction Book Club

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 19:16:15 -0500

Start: April 11, 2010 - 4:00pm

End: April 11, 2010 - 4:00pm

Sunday, April 11, 4:00 p.m.

The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard

Fourteen of Lucius Shepard’s most memorable stories are combined with a previously unanthologized novella, Radiant Green Star, to form a stunning sci-fi collection. In the Nebula Award–winning title story, a poor Honduran hunter is coerced into tracking the forbidden black jaguar of Barrio Carolina.

Spanish Book Club

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:07:19 -0500

Start: April 12, 2010 - 7:00pm

End: April 12, 2010 - 7:00pm

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

Alta infidelidad by Rosa Beltrán

Love, fidelity and jealousy, tied to the old problem of solitude and the miscommunication of human beings, are the subjects of this novel, where Julian, a divorced philosophy professor, has three different relationships with three different prototypes of the contemporary woman, and ends up being victim of himself.

Sue Miller

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 20:32:22 -0500

Start: April 12, 2010 - 7:30pm

End: April 12, 2010 - 7:30pm

Monday, April 12, 7:30 p.m.

The Lake Shore Limited: A Novel BUY NOW

Four unforgettable characters beckon you into this spellbinding new novel from the author of last year’s New York Times best seller The Senator’s Wife. First among them is Wilhelmina—Billy—Gertz, small as a child, fiercely independent, powerfully committed to her work as a playwright. The novel centers around her play, The Lake Shore Limited, about the terrorist bombing of that train—and about a man waiting to hear the fate of his estranged wife who is traveling on it.

There’s not a wasted word in this tour de force about the dislocations wrought in our lives by accidents of fate and time, and about how we try to make peace with whom we become in the face of circumstances beyond our control.

Sue Miller is the author of the novels The Senator’s Wife, Lost in the Forest, The World Below, While I Was Gone, The Distinguished Guest, For Love, Family Pictures, and The Good Mother; the story collection Inventing the Abbotts; and the memoir The Story of My Father.