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

True Confections, the irresistible new novel by Katharine Weber, is about a family-run candy factory that's trying to stay alive after 85 "sweet" years. Katharine's work has won accolades from Iris Murdoch, Madeleine L’Engle, Wally Lamb, and Kate Atkinson, to name a few. 

Alice Tatnall Ziplinsky’s marriage into the Ziplinsky family has not been unanimously celebrated. Her greatest ambition is to belong, to feel truly entitled to the heritage she has tried so hard to earn. Which is why Zip’s Candies is much more to her than just a candy factory, where she has worked for most of her life.

“Delicious, stuffed with humor and brimming with greed and goodness. Weber adroitly evokes a real candy factory, with all its aromas and intrigue, providing the perfect setting for the Ziplinskys to chase their dreams. True Confections is good enough to eat! Better yet, savor one of the best novels of the year!”
—Susan Karl, president and CEO, Annabelle Candy Company.

KATHARINE WEBER is the author of the novels Triangle, The Little Women, The Music Lesson, and Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, the cultural historian Nicholas Fox Weber, and is a thesis adviser in the graduate writing program at Columbia University.

Photo Credit: Marion Ettlinger 

Youth Event: Carrie Jones and Alyx Harvey 'Meet and Greet' 

Friday, February 12, 5:30 p.m.

Captivate  BUY NOW

Hearts at Stake BUY NOW

The author of Need discusses her new sequel, Captivate.  The new pixie king is convinced that Zara is destined to be his, and Zara wants to trust him.  But there’s a lot more than her relationship with Nick at stake.  It’s her life—and his.

Meet the author of Hearts at Stake in which 16 year-old Solange, the only daughter born to an ancient vampire dynasty, has to outwit her seven overprotective older brothers and the agent of an anti-vampire league intent on staking her and her entire family.

Youth Event: Heather Brewer

Friday, February 12, 7:00 p.m.

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod: 11th Grade Burns  BUY NOW

Calling Heather’s Minions!

Green Dream Team Panel Discussion

Tuesday, February 16, 5:00 p.m.

Eco-nomical Tips to Green-Up Your Bathroom

Susan & Bob Davis, co-owners of Spectrum Fine Homes, Inc., will share some simple, cost-effective ways to update your bathrooms to be water and energy efficient. They will also share some great information for those wanting to remodel or build a new bathroom. Making the right choices for this little room can have a BIG effect on your health, the long-term maintenance of your home, and on the environment! 

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.

Ethan Watters

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

Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche  BUY NOW

It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But is it possible America's most troubling impact on the globalizing world has yet to be accounted for? In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad.

But this book is not just about the damage we've caused in faraway places. Looking at our impact on the psyches of people in other cultures is a gut check, a way of forcing ourselves to take a fresh look at our own beliefs about mental health and healing. When we examine our assumptions from a farther shore, we begin to understand how our own culture constantly shapes and sometimes creates the mental illnesses of our time. By setting aside our role as the world's therapist, we may come to accept that we have as much to learn from other cultures' beliefs about the mind as we have to teach.

Ethan Watters is a free lance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Discover, Men's Journal, Spin, Details, and Wired. A frequent contributor to NPR, Watters' work appeared in the 2007 and 2008 Best American Science and Nature Writing. He co-founded the San Francisco Writers Grotto, a work space for local artists. 

Steven Amsterdam

Thursday, February 18, 7:30 p.m.

Things We Didn't See Coming  BUY NOW

Michael Williams, in Melbourne’s The Age, wrote of this award-winning, dazzling debut collection, “By turns horrific and beautiful . . . Humanity at its most fractured and desolate . . . Often moving, frequently surprising, even blackly funny . . . Things We Didn’t See Coming is terrific.” This is just one of the many rave reviews that appeared on the Australian publication of these nine connected stories set in a not-too-distant dystopian future in a landscape at once utterly fantastic and disturbingly familiar.
 
Richly imagined, dark, and darkly comic, the stories follow the narrator over three decades as he tries to survive in a world that is becoming increasingly savage as cataclysmic events unfold one after another.  In each story we see that, despite the violence and brutality of his days, the narrator retains a hold on his essential humanity—and humor.

Steven Amsterdam is a native New Yorker who moved to Melbourne, Australia, in 2003.  He currently works as a psychiatric nurse.
 

Photo Credit: Corry De Neef 

Kelli Stanley

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

City of Dragons: A San Francisco Mystery  BUY NOW

February, 1940. In San Francisco's Chinatown, fireworks explode as the city celebrates Chinese New Year with a Rice Bowl Party, a three day-and-night carnival designed to raise money and support for China war relief. Miranda Corbie is a 33-year-old private investigator who stumbles upon the fatally shot body of Eddie Takahashi. The Chamber of Commerce wants it covered up. The cops acquiesce. All Miranda wants is justice--whatever it costs. From Chinatown tenements, to a tattered tailor's shop in Little Osaka, to a high-class bordello draped in Southern Gothic, she shakes down the city--her city--seeking the truth. An outstanding series debut.

"One of my favorite novels of all time. Watch out, Sam Spade, Miranda Corbie is a woman hardboiled and feminine enough to keep you in line!"
- Rebecca Cantrell, author of A Trace of Smoke

Kelli Stanley is the author of the criticallly acclaimed Nox Dormienda, which won the Bruce Alexander Award for best historical mystery and was nominated for a Macavity Award. She lives in San Francisco. 

Abraham Verghese

Sunday, February 21, 3:00 p.m.

Cutting for Stone  BUY NOW

India Community Center, 525 Las Cochas St., Milpitas

iPods, iPhones But No iPatients Please! - The Art of Medicine in a Technological Age

Award-winning author, practicing physician and tenured Stanford professor Dr. Abraham Verghese will talk about his novel Cutting for Stone, an epic love story, medical story and family saga.

His first book, My Own Country, movingly chronicled his experience of treating AIDS patients in rural America in the early 1980s. The book was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1994, and was later made into a film by acclaimed director Mira Nair.  His second book, The Tennis Partner, was a New York Times Notable Book and a national bestseller. 

Dr. Verghese began his medical career at the onset of the AIDS epidemic. He views medicine as a passionate and romantic pursuit, seeing the bedside ritual of examining the patient as a critical, cost-saving, time-honored, and necessary - but greatly threatened - skill that cements the patient-physician relationship. Earlier last summer, Verghese wrote a much-heralded op-ed on the practice of medicine. He will speak and answer questions.

Register by email to Vishnu@indiacc.org

Admission Free; Suggested donation $10 to defray expenses.

Zachary Mason

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

The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel  BUY NOW

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. 

Photo Credit:  Yan Li

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

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. 

Adam Haslett

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 

Noah Alper 

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

Business Mensch  BUY NOW

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

AAUW Authors' Luncheon 

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

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

Youth Event: Jeff Stone

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 

Parenting Event: Ana Homayoun

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 

Eric Puchner

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.

Eric Puchner teaches at Stanford University, where he was a Wallace Stegner Fellow. His award-winning short stories have appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Chicago Tribune, Best New American Voices 2005, Pushcart Prize XVIII, and many more acclaimed journals and anthologies. His short story collection, Music Through the Floor, was a finalist for the NY Public Library's Young Lions Award and the California Book Award.  

Photo Credit: Saeed Mirfattah 

Timothy Ferris

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.

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.

Raj Patel

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. 

Photo Credit: Andrea Ismert 

Elaine Beale

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. 

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. 

Photo Credit: Israel Ferraz 

Cara Black

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

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

"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. 

Elif Batumen

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

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

The Commonwealth Club presents Seth Shostak

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  

Logan & Noah Miller

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. 

Kevin & Hannah Salwen

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

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

Location TBA

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.

Lionel Shriver

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

Tuesday, March 16, 5:00 p.m.

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

Roy Morris, Jr.

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.

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 

Sarah Houghteling 

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.

Anil Ananthaswamy

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.

Blake Charlton

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

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.

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.  

Youth Event: Carrie Ryan

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 

Dr. Aaron David Miller 

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

Yoram Bauman

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

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

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.
 

Paul McHugh

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

Hugh Raffles

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 

Photo Credit: Matt Schumaker 

Malena Watrous

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

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. 

Heidi W. Durrow

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. 

Sue Miller 

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.  

Charlotte Jacobs, M.D.

Wednesday, April 14, 7:30 p.m.

Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin's Disease  BUY NOW

In the 1950s, ninety-five percent of patients with Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of lymph tissue which afflicts young adults, died. Today most are cured, due mainly to the efforts of Dr. Henry Kaplan. Henry Kaplan and the Story of Hodgkin's Disease explores the life of this multifaceted, internationally known radiation oncologist, called a "saint" by some, a "malignant son of a bitch" by others. Kaplan's passion to cure cancer dominated his life and helped him weather the controversy that marked each of his innovations, but it extracted a high price, leaving casualties along the way. Most never knew of his family struggles, his ill-fated love affair with Stanford University, or the humanitarian efforts that imperiled him.
 

Charlotte Jacobs, M.D., is Ben and A. Jess Shenson Professor of Medicine at Stanford University.

J. Kirk Boyd

Thursday, April 15, 7:30 p.m.

2048: Humanity's Agreement to Live Together  BUY NOW

Many of the problems the world faces, such as war, poverty, and environmental ruin are the by-product of a flawed international social order.  Fortunately, there is an international agreement, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) which all countries signed in 1948, that promises a social order of justice, equality, and freedom.  But although the UDHR was agreed to by all countries it is only a declaration and is unenforceable in courts of law.  

The 2048 Project, launched by the author and his colleagues at the University of California School of Law and from which the book gets it’s name, is a movement to make the fundamental rights in the Declaration enforceable in the courts of all countries by 2048, the 100th anniversary of the Universal Declaration.  2048 tells how the UDHR came to be written and the origins of the movement to make it enforceable; lays out the five basic freedoms the UDHR is meant to protect; and gives detailed advice on what everyone can do to make international human rights a reality.

Dr. John Kirk Boyd is a lawyer, professor, and Executive Director of the 2048 Project at the U.C. Berkeley law school. In addition, the author has argued at every level of court, including the United States Supreme Court. He teaches International Human Rights, Civil Rights, International Law, Free Speech, and Constitutional Law at the University of California.

Christopher Moore 

Friday, April 16, 7:30 p.m.

Bite Me: A Love Story  BUY NOW

The undead rise again in this third farcical vampire love story from the wonderfully twisted New York Times bestselling author Christopher Moore.  

Christopher Moore is the author of 11 previous novels: Practical Demonkeeping, Coyote Blue, Bloodsucking Fiends, Island of the Sequined Love Nun, The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove, Lamb, Fluke, The Stupidest Angel, A Dirty Job, You Suck, and Fool. He lives in San Francisco.

The Los Altos Library Endowment "Speaking Volumes" Series presents:

T.J. Stiles

Friday, April 16, 4:30 p.m.

The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt  BUY NOW

Los Altos Library, 13 S. San Antonio Road, Los Altos

T. J. Stiles has held the Gilder Lehrman Fellowship in American History at the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, taught at Columbia University, and served as adviser for the PBS series The American Experience. His first book, Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War, won the Ambassador Book Award and the Peter Seaborg Award for Civil War Scholarship, and was a New York Times Notable Book. He has written for The New York Times Book Review, Salon.com, Smithsonian, and the Los Angeles Times. He lives in San Francisco.

The First Tycoon is a gripping, groundbreaking biography of the combative man whose genius and force of will created modern capitalism.

This event is free and open to the public. For questions, contact the Los Altos Library Endowment at 650-948-7683 ext. 3500 or by email: info@LALEndow.org

Photo Credit: Stephanie Rausser 

Breast Cancer Connections Spring Breakfast Benefit - presenting Ayelet Waldman

Tuesday, April 20, 8:00 - 10:00 a.m.

Sharon Heights Golf & Country Club, 2900 Sand Hill Road, Menlo Park

Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace  BUY NOW

Terry McDermott

Tuesday, April 20, 7:30 p.m.

101 Theory Drive: A Neuroscientist's Quest for Memory  BUY NOW

An obsessive scientist and his eclectic team of researchers race to discover one of the hidden treasures of neuroscience–the physical makeup of memory–and in the process pursue a pharmaceutical wonder drug.

It’s not fiction: Gary Lynch is the real thing, the epitome of the rebel scientist – malnourished, contentious, inspiring, explosive, remarkably ambitious, consistently brilliant. He is one of the foremost figures of contemporary neuroscience, and his decades-long quest to understand the inner workings of the brain’s memory machine has begun to pay off.

Award-winning journalist Terry McDermott spent nearly two years observing Lynch at work and now gives us a fascinating and dramatic account of daily life in his lab. He provides detailed, lucid explanations of the cutting-edge science that enabled Lynch to reveal the inner workings of the molecular machine that manufactures memory. And he explains where Lynch’s sights are now set: on drugs that could fix that machine when it breaks, drugs that would enhance brain function during the memory process and that hold out the possibility of cures for a wide range of neurological conditions, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. 

Terry McDermott is a former national reporter for the Los Angeles Times and the author of Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers—Who They Were, Why They Did It. 

Photo Credit: Nelly Min

Anne Lamott

Wednesday, April 21, 7:30 p.m.

Imperfect Birds  BUY NOW

Rosie Ferguson is seventeen and ready to enjoy the summer before her senior year of high school. She's intelligent, athletic, and beautiful. She is, in short, everything her mother, Elizabeth, hoped she could be. The family's move to Landsdale, with stepfather James in tow, hadn't been as bumpy as Elizabeth feared.

But as the school year draws to a close, there are disturbing signs that the life Rosie claims to be leading is a sham, and that Elizabeth's hopes for her daughter to remain immune from the pull of the darker impulses of drugs and alcohol are dashed. Slowly and against their will, Elizabeth and James are forced to confront the fact that Rosie has been lying to them--and that her deceptions will have profound consequences.

This is Anne Lamott's most honest and heartrending novel yet, exploring our human quest for connection and salvation as it reveals the traps that can befall all of us. 

Lamott is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Grace (Eventually), Plan B, Traveling Mercies, and Operating Instructions, as well as seven novels, including Rosie and Crooked Little Heart. She is a past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Paul Davies

Thursday, April 22, 7:30 p.m.

The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence  BUY NOW

Fifty years ago, a young astronomer named Frank Drake pointed a radio telescope at nearby stars in the hope of picking up a signal from an alien civilization. Thus began one of the boldest scientific projects in history, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). But after a half century of scanning the skies, astronomers have little to report but an eerie silence—eerie because many scientists are convinced that the universe is teeming with life. The problem, argues the leading physicist and astrobiologist Paul Davies, is that we’ve been looking in the wrong place, at the wrong time, and in the wrong way. A provocative and mind-expanding journey, The Eerie Silence will thrill fans of science and science fiction alike. 

Paul Davies is an internationally acclaimed physicist, cosmologist, and astrobiologist at Arizona State University, where he runs the pioneering Beyond Center for Fundamental Concepts in Science. He also chairs SETI's Post-Detection Taskgroup, so if scientists succeed in finding intelligent life, he will be among the first to know. In addition to his many scientific awards, the Guardian newspaper recently named Davies one of the "masters of the universe," along with Richard Dawkins and Michael Frayn. He is the author of more than twenty books, including the bestseller The Mind of God, About Time, How to Build a Time Machine, and The Goldilocks Enigma. The asteroid 1992OG was officially renamed Pauldavies in his honor.

Andre Aciman

Monday, April 26, 7:30 p.m.

Eight White Nights  BUY NOW

Eight White Nights is an unforgettable journey through that enchanted terrain where passion and fear and the sheer craving to ask for love and to show love can forever alter who we are. A man in his late twenties goes to a large Christmas party in Manhattan where a woman introduces herself with three words: “I am Clara.” Over the following seven days, they meet every evening at the same cinema. Overwhelmed yet cautious, he treads softly and won’t hazard a move. The tension between them builds gradually, marked by ambivalence, hope, and distrust.  

Call Me by Your Name, Aciman’s debut novel, established him as one of the finest writers of our time, an expert at the most sultry depictions of longing and desire. As The Washington Post Book World wrote, “The beauty of Aciman’s writing and the purity of his passions should place this extraordinary first novel within the canon of great romantic love stories for everyone.” 

Acimen is also the author of Out of Egypt, and False Papers, and is the editor of The Proust Project. He teaches comparative literature at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

Lisa Shannon

Tuesday, April 27, 7:30 p.m.

A Thousand Sisters: My Journey into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman  BUY NOW

Lisa J. Shannon had a good life—a successful business, a fiancé, a home, and security. Then, one day in 2005, an episode of Oprah changed all that. The show focused on women in Congo, the worst place on earth to be a woman. She was awakened to the atrocities there—millions dead, women raped and tortured daily, and children dying in shocking numbers. Shannon felt called to do something. And she did. A Thousand Sisters is her inspiring memoir. 

She raised money to sponsor Congolese women, beginning with one solo 30-mile run, and then founded a national organization, Run for Congo Women. The book chronicles her journey to the Congo to meet the women her run sponsored, and shares their incredible stories. What begins as grassroots activism forces Shannon to confront herself and her life, and learn lessons of survival, fear, gratitude, and immense love from the women of Africa. 

From ‘Oprah’ to Building a Sisterhood in Congo by Nicholas D. Kristof

Feb. 3, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/04/opinion/04kristof.html?sudsredirect=true