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Elif Batuman
Thursday, March 11, 7:30 p.m.
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them BUY NOW
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Cara Black
Wednesday, March 10, 7:30 p.m.
Murder in the Palais Royal: Aimee Leduc Investigations #10 BUY NOW
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Raj Patel
Monday, March 8, 7:30 p.m.
The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy BUY NOW
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Timothy Ferris
Thursday, March 4, 7:30 p.m.
The Science of Liberty: Democracy, Reason, and the Laws of Nature BUY NOW
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Jon Reider
Wednesday, February 24, 7:30 p.m.
Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting Into College (Second Edition) BUY NOW
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Ethan Watters
Wednesday, February 17, 7:30 p.m.
Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche BUY NOW
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Katharine Weber
in Conversation with Susan Karl, head of the Annabelle Candy Company in Hayward
Thursday, February 11, 7:30 p.m.
True Confections BUY NOW
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Meg Whitman
Monday, February 8, 7:30 p.m.
The Power of Many: Values for Success in Business and in Life BUY NOW
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Amy Bloom
Thursday, February 4, 7:30 p.m.
Where the God of Love Hangs Out: Fiction BUY NOW
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Dr. Paul Linde
Tuesday, January 19, 7:30 p.m.
Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist BUY NOW
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John Lescroart
Monday, January 18, 7:00 p.m.
Treasure Hunt BUY NOW
Wyatt Hunt-hero of John Lescroart's New York Times bestseller --returns with a new protégé, in an intricate, tightly plotted thriller set against San Francisco's glamorous charity circuit
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Daniel Pink
Thursday, January 14, 7:30 p.m.
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us BUY NOW
Forget everything you thought you knew about how to motivate people--at work, at school, at home. It's wrong. As Daniel H. Pink explains in his new and paradigm-shattering book, the secret to high performance and satisfaction in today's world is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world.
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Charles Todd
Tuesday, January 12, 7:30 p.m.
The Red Door: An Inspector Ian Rutledge Mystery BUY NOW
New York Times bestselling mother-and-son writing team, Charles Todd, brings back Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge in another riveting mystery set in post–World War I Lancashire, England, June 1920.
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Judith L. London, Ph.D.
Saturday, January 9, 2:00 p.m.
Connecting the Dots: Breakthroughs in Communication as Alzheimer's Advances BUY NOW
Foreward by Jane E. Brody
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David Thomson
Thursday, January 7, 7:30 p.m.
The Moment of Psycho: How Alfred Hitchcock Taught America to Love Murder BUY NOW
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Greg Mortenson
Friday, December 11, 7:30 p.m.
Stones Into Schools: Promoting Peace, with Books Not Bombs, in Afghanistan and Pakistan BUY NOW
Smithwick Theatre at Foothill College, 12345 El Monte Rd., Los Altos, CA, 94022
Mortenson picks up where Three Cups of Tea left off in 2003. He recounts his relentless, ongoing efforts to establish schools for girls.
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Jean-Marie Apostolidès
Wednesday, December 2, 7:30 p.m.
The Metamorphoses of Tintin; or Tintin for Adults BUY NOW
ntury life, Jean-Marie Apostolidès traces the evolution of Tintin's character and reveals the unity of Hergé's masterpiece.
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An Evening of Poetry
Tuesday, December 1, 7:30 p.m.
Kim Addonizio: Lucifer at the Starlite BUY NOW
A lyrically intense fifth collection from "one of the nation's most provocative and edgy poets" (San Diego Union-Tribune).
Cheryl Dumesnil: In Praise of Falling BUY NOW
Winner of the 2008 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize
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Christos Papadimitriou
Monday, November 30, 7:30 p.m.
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth BUY NOW
An innovative, dramatic graphic novel about the treacherous pursuit of the foundations of mathematics
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Barbara Kingsolver
Wednesday, November 18, 7:00 p.m.
The Lacuna: A Novel BUY NOW
Menlo - Atherton Performing Arts Center, 555 Middlefield Road, Atherton, CA 94027
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Wona Miniati
Sunday, November 15, 2:00 p.m.
The Trader Joe's Companion: A Portable Cookbook BUY NOW
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Diane Frankenstein
Tuesday, November 3, 7:30 p.m.
Reading Together: Everything You Need to Know to Raise a Child Who Loves to Read BUY NOW
A dynamic guide to more than 100 books that will get kids talking and reading more.
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Michael Chabon
Thursday, October 29, 7:30 p.m.
Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son BUY NOW
Introduction by Andrew Sean Greer
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A.S. Byatt
Friday, October 23, 7:30 p.m.
The Children's Book: A Novel BUY NOW
Introduction by Yiyun Li, author of The Vagrants
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
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Taylor Branch
Wednesday, October 21, 7:30 p.m.
The Clinton Tapes: Wrestling History with the President BUY NOW
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Alicia Silverstone
Monday, October 19, 7:30 p.m.
The Kind Diet: A Simple Guide to Feeling Great, Losing Weight, and Saving the Planet BUY NOW
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James Ellroy
Friday, October 16, 7:30 p.m.
Blood's A Rover BUY NOW
Introduction by Barry Eisler
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Tracy Kidder
Thursday, October 15, 7:30 p.m.
Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness BUY NOW
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Deborah Tannen
Friday, October 9, 12:00 Noon
You Were Always Mom's Favorite!: Sisters in Conversation Throughout Their Lives BUY NOW
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Richard Dawkins
Tuesday, October 6, 7:30 p.m.
The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution BUY NOW
In a brilliant follow-up to his blockbuster The God Delusion, Dawkins lays out the evidence for evolution.
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Jennifer Burns
Monday, October 5, 7:30 p.m.
Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right BUY NOW
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Sara Paretsky
Sunday, October 4, 2:00 p.m.
Hardball BUY NOW
Chicago politics—past, present, and future—take center stage in New York Times–bestselling author Sara Paretsky’s brilliant new V. I. Warshawski novel.
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Steven Winn
Thursday, October 1, 7:30 p.m.
Come Back Como: Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog BUY NOW
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Victoria Zackheim
Plus a number of contributors, including Michael Bader, Margot Duxler, Aviva Layton, and Leon Whiteson
Wednesday, September 30, 7:30 p.m.
The Face in the Mirror: Writers Reflect on Their Dreams of Youth and the Reality of Age BUY NOW
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Lise Eliot
Monday, September 28, 7:30 p.m.
PINK BRAIN, BLUE BRAIN: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps – and What We Can Do About It BUY NOW
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Sam L. Savage
Thursday, September 24, 7:30 p.m.
The Flaw of Averages: Why We Underestimate Risk in the Face of Uncertainty BUY NOW
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Allison Hoover Bartlett
Wednesday, September 23, 7:30 p.m.
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession BUY NOW
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David Small
Tuesday, September 22, 7:30 p.m.
Stitches: A Memoir BUY NOW
The prize-winning children's author depicts a childhood from hell in this searing, yet redemptive, graphic novel.
Moderator: Walter Mayes
One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die. Small, a prize-winning children’s author, re-creates a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim, subjected to X-rays by his radiologist father and scolded by his withholding and tormented mother, to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist.
Stitches is one of the most compelling books I've read in a long time—totally original in style, seemingly simplistic while psychologically complex and totally absorbing. There's no doubt that David Small, with his ground-breaking work, has elevated the art of the graphic novel and brought it to new creative heights. (Stan Lee, co-creator of Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, and The X-Men )
Photo Credit: Gordon Trice
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Steve Jamison & Craig Walsh
Thursday, September 17, 7:30 p.m.
The Score Takes Care of Itself: My Philosophy of Leadership BUY NOW
“Even when you have an organization brimming with talent, victory is not always under your control. There is no guarantee, no ultimate formula for success. It all comes down to intelligently and relentlessly seeking solutions that will increase your chance of prevailing. When you do that, the score will take care of itself.” (Bill Walsh)
Bill Walsh is a towering figure in the history of the NFL. His advanced leadership transformed the San Francisco 49ers from the worst franchise in sports to a legendary dynasty that won three Super Bowls. In the process, he changed the way football is played—pushing it into the twenty-first century.
Walsh is famous for his strategic brilliance and innovations, such as the West Coast Offense, but his enlightened philosophy of leadership was just as crucial, if not more so, to the unprecedented success of his teams. And that philosophy of leadership is just as powerful and productive in business or any other endeavor as it was for him on the football field.
Prior to his death, Walsh granted exclusive interviews to bestselling author Steve Jamison. They became his ultimate lecture on leadership—illustrated by dramatic and apt anecdotes from throughout Walsh’s career. Additional insights and perspective are provided by his son Craig Walsh, by legendary quarterback Joe Montana, and by other important figures who knew Bill well.
Steve Jamison - Photo Credit: Jamison Edstrom Photography
Bill & Craig Walsh - Photo Credit: PRx, Inc.
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Joan Ryan
Wednesday, September 16, 7:30 p.m.
The Water Giver: A Story of a Mother, a Son, and Their Second Chance BUY NOW
Part meditation on motherhood, part medical drama, THE WATER GIVER is the gripping story of a child's near-fatal accident and a mother's battle to rebuild her relationship with her son. When Joan brought her adopted son home from the hospital when he was only a few days old, she had visions of herself as a patient and kind mother with a close and loving bond with her son. But within a few years, Joan and her husband realized that Ryan's temperament was different then his playmates. They discovered that he suffered from both a mild form of autism and ADHD, causing him to struggle with school and social situations. His odd and defiant behavior confounded and exasperated his parents.
Though she loved Ryan fiercely, Joan always questioned herself as a mother, and wondered if her reactions to Ryan's outbursts were selfish or judgmental. She spent years crying herself to sleep with the guilt that Ryan would probably be better off with someone more patient. When Joan is called to the hospital and told her now 16-year old son had a seemingly minor skateboarding accident, she assumes it will mean a few stitches and a wasted afternoon. Instead, she spends months in the hospital, watching her son fight back from the brink of death.
In this bracingly honest and ultimately redemptive memoir, Joan Ryan raises important questions about how we handle adversity and what it means to be a mother and to give up yourself entirely for another human being.
Photo Credit: Deanne Fitzmaurice
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Sheila and Lisa Himmel
Tuesday, September 15, 7:30 p.m.
Hungry: A Mother and a Daughter Fight Anorexia BUY NOW
Unbeknownst to food critic Sheila Himmel—as she reviewed exotic cuisines from bistro to brasserie— her daughter, Lisa, was at home starving herself. Before Sheila fully grasped what was happening, her fourteen-year-old with a thirst for life and a palate for the flavors of Vietnam and Afghanistan was replaced by a weight-obsessed, antisocial, hundred-pound 19-year-old. From anorexia to bulimia and back again—many times—the Himmels feared for Lisa’s life as her disorder took its toll on her physical and emotional well-being.
Sheila Himmel is an award-winning food critic, writer, and editor.
Lisa Himmel is a graduate of UC Santa Cruz with a degree in American Studies.
Photo Credit: Joanne Lee Photography
San Jose Mercury News
Anorexia: Bay Area mother and daughter sound a warning By Jackie Burrell
August 2, 2009
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Kemble Scott
Wednesday, September 9, 7:30 p.m.
The Sower BUY NOW
The Sower is a twisted, page-turning thriller about a San Francisco bad boy who becomes the sole carrier of a manmade virus that appears to be the cure for all diseases. But the only way to pass the cure to others is through sex. When word gets out, he becomes the world’s most wanted man – the ultimate weapon in the culture wars, pitting him against right wing ideologies, The Roman Catholic Church, and the most famous pop star on the planet.
"Dark, subversive, and laugh-out-loud funny.”
--Raj Patel, author of the international bestseller Stuffed and Starved.
Kemble Scott is the author of the bestselling novel SoMa, finalist for the national Lambda Literary Award for debut fiction. He’s the editor of San Francisco’s SoMa Literary Review and THE LIT GUIDE. An alumnus of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, he’s been honored with three Emmy Awards for his work in television news.
The Sower
By Kilian Melloy, EDGE Staff Reporter
August 27, 2009
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Joyce Maynard
Tuesday, September 8, 7:30 p.m.
Labor Day: A Novel BUY NOW
With the end of summer closing in and a steamy Labor Day weekend looming in the town of Holton Mills, New Hampshire, thirteen-year-old Henry -- lonely, friendless, not too good at sports -- spends most of his time watching TV, reading, and daydreaming. For company Henry has his long-divorced mother, Adele, his hamster Joe, and awkward Saturday-night outings to Friendly's with his estranged father and new stepfamily. As much as he tries, Henry knows he still can't make his emotionally fragile mother happy. Adele has a secret that makes it hard for her to leave their house, and seems to possess an irreparably broken heart.
But all that changes on the Thursday before Labor Day, when a mysterious bleeding man named Frank approaches Henry and asks for a hand. Over the next five days, Henry will learn some of life's most valuable lessons and the knowledge that real love is worth waiting for.
Maynard weaves a beautiful, poignant tale of love, sex, adolescence, and devastating treachery as seen through the eyes of a young teenage boy -- and the man he later becomes -- looking back at an unexpected encounter that begins one single long, hot, life-altering weekend.
Joyce Maynard has been a reporter for the New York Times, a magazine journalist, a radio commentator, and a syndicated columnist, as well as the author of five novels, including To Die For, and four books of nonfiction. Her bestselling memoir At Home in the World has been translated into nine languages. She is a regular contributor to More magazine and has contributed to the New York Times, National Public Radio, O, The Oprah Magazine, Newsweek, the New York Times Magazine, Forbes, and Salon. Maynard appears as a storyteller with The Moth in New York City.
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Phillip Done
Thursday, September 3, 7:00 p.m.
Close Encounters of the Third-Grade Kind: Thoughts on Teacherhood BUY NOW
Elementary school teacher Phillip Done takes readers through a lively and hilarious year in the classroom. Starting with the relative calm before the storm of buying school supplies and posting class lists, he shares the distinct personalities of grades K-4, what he learned from two professional trick-or-treating 8-year-old boys, the art of learning cursive and letter-writing, how kindergartners try to trap leprechauns, and what every child should experience before he or she grows up.
These charming, sweet, and funny tales of Done's trials and triumphs will touch reader's hearts and remind them of the true joys of childhood. We all have that one special, favorite grade school teacher whom we fondly remember throughout our adult lives - and every teacher also has students whom they will never forget. This is the perfect book for teachers, parents, and anyone else who is looking for a lighthearted, nostalgic read.
Phil Done is a 20-year-plus veteran of the California school system and has received the prestigious Charles Schwab Distinguished Teacher Award, was nominated for the Disney Teacher of the Year Award, and has been honored as a Teacher of the Year in California.
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David Mas Masumoto
Monday, August 31, 7:30 p.m.
Wisdom of the Last Farmer: Harvesting Legacies from the Land BUY NOW
Hailed by The New York Times as "A poet of farming" and the Los Angeles Times as the "Rockstar Farmer" who "uses his farm as Thoreau did his Walden Pond," David Mas Masumoto weaves together stories of family and farming, life and death to reveal age-old wisdom that is fast disappearing—and urgently needed. When Slow Food activist David Mas Masumoto’s father has a stroke in the sprawling fields of their farm, the reality of his father’s mortality drives Masumoto to reevaluate the significance and meaning of farming in an information-driven, modern world. As Masumoto nurses his father back to health, and becomes a teacher to the master who had once schooled him, he reclaims the practical and emotional wisdom that they and their ancestors had learned from working the land. Realizing that he himself needs to pass on a wealth of knowledge to the next generation, he writes this impassioned narrative—part memoir, part life instruction—about re-connecting to the land.
Masumoto is the award-winning author of Epitaph for a Peach and other books, popular columnist, spokesperson for organic farming, and a fellow at The Kellogg Foundation. A third-generation farmer, he grows certified organic peaches, nectarines, and grapes on his family’s eighty-acre California farm.
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James G. Workman
Thursday, August 27, 7:30 p.m.
Heart of Dryness: How the Last Bushmen Can Help Us Endure the Coming Age of Permanent Drought BUY NOW
In Heart of Dryness, James G. Workman chronicles the memorable saga of the famed Bushmen of the Kalahari–-remnants of one of the world’s most successful civilizations, today at the exact epicenter of Africa’s drought–-in their widely publicized recent battle with the government of Botswana, in the process of exploring the larger story of what many feel has become the primary resource battleground of the twenty-first century: the supply of water.
The Bushmen’s story could well prefigure our own. In the U.S., even the most upbeat optimists concede we now face an unprecedented water crisis. Each year, around the world, inadequate water kills more humans than AIDS, malaria, and all wars combined. Workman illuminates the present and coming tensions we will all face over water and shows how, from the remoteness of the Kalahari, an ancient and resilient people is showing the world a viable path through the encroaching Dry Age.
James G. Workman began his career as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for the New Republic, Washington Monthly, Utne Reader, Orion, and other publications. He was a speechwriter in the Clinton administration, working closely with Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, and steering the "dambuster" campaign to tear down river-killing dams. He helped edit and launch the report of the World Commission on Dams, and spent two years filing dispatches on water scarcity in Africa, work which formed the basis of an NPR show and documentary. He is now a water consultant to politicians, businesses, aid agencies, development institutions, and conservation organizations on four continents.
San Francisco Chronicle - Sunday, August 16, 2009
“Heart of Darkness” by James G. Workman: Alan Snitow, Special to The Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/16/RVBO18RV75.DTL
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Bonnie Tsui
Tuesday, August 25, 7:30 p.m.
American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods BUY NOW
CHINATOWN, U.S.A.: a state of mind, a world within a world, a neighborhood that exists in more cities than you might imagine. It's a place that's foreign yet familiar, by now quite well known on the Western cultural radar, but splitting the difference still gives many visitors to Chinatown the sense, above all, that things are not what they seem. And it's true that few visitors realize just how much goes on beneath the surface of this vibrant microcosm, a place with its own deeply felt history and stories of national cultural significance.
In American Chinatown, acclaimed travel writer Bonnie Tsui takes an affectionate and attentive look at the neighborhood that has bewitched her since childhood, when she eagerly awaited her grandfather's return from the fortune-cookie factory. Tsui visits the country's four most famous Chinatowns -- San Francisco (the oldest), New York (the biggest), Los Angeles (the film icon), Honolulu (the crossroads) -- and makes her final, fascinating stop in Las Vegas (the newest; this Chinatown began as a mall); in her explorations, she focuses on the remarkable experiences of ordinary people, everyone from first-to fifth-generation Chinese Americans.
Bonnie Tsui is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. A former editor at Travel + Leisure, she has written for National Geographic Adventure, Salon, and Conde - Nast Traveller. She is the editor of A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise, a collection of essays on the outdoors, and is a recipient of the Radcliffe Traveling Fellowship, the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, and the Jane Rainie Opel Award. She lives in San Francisco, and can be reached at www.bonnietsui.com.
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Ansie Lee Sperry
Saturday, August 22, 2:00 p.m.
Running with the Tiger BUY NOW
A Memoir of an Extraordinary Young Woman's Life in Hong Kong, China, The South Pacific and POW Camp
Ansie Lee Sperry's beautiful and witty memoir combines passages from her personal diary, historical research, photos and sketches to portray the fascinating life of a woman who lived in challenging times. Ansie grew up in a prominent Hong Kong family, one of fourteen children in a household with four mothers. Sent to England for her education at the age of nine, she returned to Hong Kong after her father's murder.
When WWII broke out, she left her comfortable life in Hong Kong society to volunteer for the war effort in the interior of China. She went on to travel throughout the South Pacific until the war caught up with her in the Philippines, where she was interned in a Japanese POW camp. It was there that she fell in love with her future husband. Ansie Lee Sperry was born in 1914, the Year of the Tiger in the Chinese Zodiac.
Menlo Park Almanac
August 19, 2009
'Running with the Tiger' follows a life through World War II China by Marion Softky
http://www.almanacnews.com/news/show_story.php?id=4668&e=y
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Melanie Gideon
Wednesday, August 19, 7:30 p.m.
The Slippery Year BUY NOW
For anybody who has ever wondered privately Is this all there is, Melanie Gideon’s poignant, hilarious, exuberant meditation, The Slippery Year, chronicles a year in which she confronts both the fantasies of her receding youth and the realities of midlife with a husband, a child, and a dog (one of whom runs away). She reflects on the exigencies of domesticity—the need for a household catastrophe plan, the fainting spell occasioned by the departure of her nine-year-old son for camp, the mattress wars, and the carpool line. With tenderness, unsparing honesty, and uproarious wit, Gideon brings us back again and again to the sweetness of ordinary pleasures and to life’s most enduring satisfactions. She captures perfectly that moment right before everything changes and the things we have loved forever begin to fall away for the first time.
“Ever wonder what’s running through your wife’s mind? Read The Slippery Year. Gideon has an utterly charming way of turning the constant compromises of married life into riotous poetic insight.”
—Po Bronson, author of NurtureShock
Photo Credit: Jonathan Sprague
'The Slippery Year,' by Melanie Gideon
Jane Juska, Special to The Chronicle
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/02/RVHD18K7II.DTL#ixzz0O2fnHmCG
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Fan Wu
Tuesday, August 4, 7:30 p.m.
Beautiful as Yesterday BUY NOW
Stretching from mid-century China to both coasts of the United States at the turn of the millennium, Beautiful as Yesterday tells the powerful and captivating story of three Chinese women from the same family. It is a penetrating exploration of what it means to belong, what it means to be a family, and the impact of history and memories on one's life.
"A delicate and brilliant novel on the arguments, triumphs, loves and differences of a Chinese family in America."-- Xinran, author of China Witness and Good Women of China
Fan Wu grew up on a state-run farm in southern China, where her parents were exiled during the Cultural Revolution. Her debut novel, February Flowers, has been translated into eight languages, and her short fiction, besides being anthologized and nominated for the Pushcart Prize, has appeared in Granta, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. Wu holds an M.A. from Stanford University and currently lives in Santa Clara, California. Please visit her website at www.fanwuwrites.com.
"Fan Wu is an exciting storyteller with an original take on the disarray of family history and American culture, and, ultimately, how we manage to define ourselves. Beautiful as Yesterday is a story with intelligence, insight, and heart." --Amy Tan
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Kevin Starr
Wednesday, July 29, 7:30 p.m.
Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950 - 1963 BUY NOW
Kevin Starr's acclaimed multi-volume Americans and the California Dream is an unparalleled work of cultural history. In this volume, Starr covers the crucial postwar period when the California we know today first burst into prominence.
Starr brilliantly illuminates the dominant economic, social, and cultural forces in California in these pivotal years. In a powerful blend of telling events, colorful personalities, and insightful analyses, Starr examines such issues as the overnight creation of the postwar California suburb, the rise of Los Angeles as Super City, the reluctant emergence of San Diego as one of the largest cities in the nation, and the decline of political centrism. He explores the Silent Generation and the emergent Boomer youth cult, the pervasive influence of Zen Buddhism and other Asian traditions in art and design, the rise of the University of California and the emergence of California itself as a utopia of higher education, freeway and water projects of heroic magnitude, outdoor life and the beginnings of the environmental movement. More broadly, he shows how California not only became the most populous state in the Union, but in fact evolved into a mega-state en route to becoming the global commonwealth it is today.
Golden Dreams continues an epic series that has been widely recognized for its signal contribution to the history of American culture in California. It is a book that transcends its stated subject to offer a wealth of insight into the growth of the Sun Belt and the West and indeed the dramatic transformation of America itself in these pivotal years following the Second World War.
Photo Credit: Jessica Marple
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M.J. Ryan
Wednesday, July 22, 7:30 p.m.
AdaptAbility: How to Survive Change You Didn't Ask For BUY NOW
Learn the secrets to taking "any" change in stride. "Change is hard," we say, and it is even harder when change is thrust upon us. Our first reaction may be to rail against fate. But what if we could see past today's turmoil and spot the opportunities that lie within unasked-for change? That is the promise of AdaptAbility.
M.J. Ryan is one of the creators of the "Random Acts of Kindness" series, which has sold more than one million copies, and the author of The Power of Patience, The Happiness Makeover, and many other titles. She founded Conari Press and is currently an executive coach and a popular speaker. She is a contributing editor at Good Housekeeping and a regular contributor to Health magazine. She lives in Walnut Creek.
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Alan Drew
Tuesday, July 21, 7:30 p.m.
Gardens of Water: A Novel BUY NOW
An enthralling story of two families, and two faiths, in Turkey at the time of the cataclysm of 1999. It tells of Sinan, whose daughter, Irem, dreams of escaping the confines of her family and the duties of a devout Muslim woman. She sees in Dylan, an American boy and her upstairs neighbor, the enticing promise of another life. But then a massive earthquake forces Sinan and his family to live as refugees in their own country and leads to a dangerous intimacy with their American neighbors, as Irem and Dylan fall in love. When Sinan finds himself entangled in a series of increasingly dangerous decisions, he will be pushed toward a final betrayal that will change everyone’s lives forever.
Alan Drew was born and raised in Southern California and has traveled throughout Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. He taught English literature for three years at a private high school in Istanbul, arriving just four days before the devastating 1999 Marmara earthquake. In 2004 he completed a master of fine arts degree at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where he was awarded a Teaching/Writing Fellowship.
Photo Credit: Sharon Kinder-Geiger
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Anat Baniel
Tuesday, July 14, 7:30 p.m.
Move Into Life: The Nine Essentials for Lifelong Vitality BUY NOW
Combining cutting-edge neuroscience, the work of Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais, and her own method based on more than thirty years of experience working with thousands of people around the world, Anat Baniel has defined the Nine Essentials your brain needs to flourish. In this breakthrough book, she offers specific, practical advice for incorporating those Essentials into everything you do to achieve immediate and powerful benefits.
Endorsed by leading physicians, scientists, and transformational teachers, the Anat Baniel Method will help you enjoy renewed energy and stamina. You’ll be lighter on your feet. Your memory will be better. Thinking and problem solving will become easier. If you are active in a sport, yoga, or work out at the gym, you will notice yourself performing better and with greater ease and fewer injuries.
Baniel is the director of the Anat Baniel Method Center in San Rafael. A clinical psychologist and dancer, she worked closely with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais for more than fifteen years and has helped thousands of people–from five days old to ninety years of age.
Photo Credit: Carl Studna
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Andy Raskin
Thursday, July 9, 7:30 p.m.
The Ramen King & I: How the Inventor of Instant Noodles Fixed My Love Life BUY NOW
“This book will make you hungry. It will make you laugh (probably out loud), and it will make you consider the serious business of being human.” – Megan K., Kepler’s
For three days in January 2007, the most-emailed article in The New York Times was “Appreciations: Mr. Noodle,” an editorial noting the passing, at age 96, of billionaire Momofuku Ando, the inventor of instant ramen. The very existence of the noodle inventor came as a shock to many, but not to Andy Raskin, who had spent nearly three years trying to meet Ando. Why?
To fix the problems that plagued his love life.
The Ramen King and I is Raskin’s memoir about how despair led him to confront the truth of his romantic past, and how Ando became his unlikely spiritual guide. A long-time NPR commentator whose essays have been heard on “All Things Considered” and “This American Life,” Andy Raskin has written for The New York Times, Gourmet, Playboy (Japanese edition) and other publications.
San Francisco Chronicle
May 24, 2009
How 'Ramen King' aids flawed lover by Christina Eng
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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Tuesday, June 30, 7:30 p.m.
The Thing Around Your Neck BUY NOW
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie burst onto the literary scene with her remarkable debut novel, Purple Hibiscus, which critics hailed as “one of the best novels to come out of Africa in years” (Baltimore Sun). Her award-winning Half of a Yellow Sun became an instant classic upon its publication three years later. Now Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.
Adichie grew up in Nigeria. Her work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared in various publications, including The O. Henry Prize Stories, 2003; The New Yorker; Granta; the Financial Times; and Zoetrope. Half of a Yellow Sun won the Orange Broadband Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; it was a New York Times Notable Book and a People and Black Issues Book Review Best Book of the Year. Purple Hibiscus, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. A recipient of a 2008 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, she divides her time between the United States and Nigeria.
Photo Credit: Beowulf Sheehan – PEN American Center
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Geoff Nunberg
Thursday, June 25, 7:30 p.m.
The Years of Talking Dangerously BUY NOW
“There has never been,” Nunberg writes, “an age as wary as ours of the tricks words can play, obscuring distinctions and smoothing over the corrugations of the actual world.... Yet as advertisers and marketers know, our mistrust of words doesn’t inoculate us against them.” These are the years of talking dangerously, and Nunberg is a sure guide to the pitfalls. With illuminating intelligence and devastating humor, Nunberg decodes the changing syntax of Time Magazine, explains why grammar buffs are drawn to sarcasm, and deftly unpacks the telling phrases of our national conversation, from progressive to elite to change—not to mention national conversation itself.
Geoffrey Nunberg is a linguist who teaches at UC Berkeley’s School of Information and is the former chair of the American Heritage Dictionary’s Usage Panel. His commentaries on language and politics have appeared regularly in the Sunday New York Times and on NPR’s “Fresh Air.” The author of Going Nucular, Talking Right, and The Way We Talk Now, Nunberg lives in San Francisco.
Photo Credit: Peg Skorpinski
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