April 2003

Please let us know at least 7 days in advance if you would like an autographed copy. This will allow us sufficient time to have enough copies of the book in stock. Thank You.

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Tuesday, April 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Elaine Mayes
It Happened in Monterey
(Britannia Press)

As a young freelance photographer, Elaine Hayes traveled to Monterey to cover the Monterey Pop Festival of 1967, the Summer of Love, where she captured candid photographs of electric performers and the vibrant crowds that had come the hear them play. Her rich collection includes images of Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townsend, Simon and Garfunkel, Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin, The Byrds, and The Steve Miller Band. By her own tenacity and talent, Elaine Hayes has succeeded in bringing her work to production, and it is a sight to behold.

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Wednesday, April 2nd at 7:30 p.m.
Denise Osborne
Designed to Kill (Penguin)
and
Diane Leslie
Fleur de Leigh in Exile
(Simon and Schuster)

Join us for a night of novel fun, California style. When a New Age center attracts bad energy, Feng Shui expert Salome Waterhouse must redirect her ch'i-and find the lines that lead to murder. Acclaimed local author Denise Osborne is kicking off her West Cost tour and the third book in her series at the Book Cafe. Pick up some good tips on how to make your home more harmonious. She will be joined by Diane Leslie whose debut novel, Fleur De Leigh's Life of Crime took the Book Cafe by storm. Her new book continues with Fleur's story as she now heads off to boarding school and must say good-bye to Hollywood. It is once again full of charming, witty moments uniquely presented by this former bookseller and fantastic new writer, Diane Leslie. Show biz and a real sense of style, at the Book Cafe.

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Thursday, April 3rd at 7:30 p.m.
Dr. Larry Lachman, Diane Grindol, and Frank Kocher
Birds Off the Perch
(Simon and Schuster)

You love your pet bird, even when he misbehaves, but how can you train him with compassion? Birds off the Perch proves that rewarding good behavior is kinder and more effective than traditional discipline through punishment. This revolutionary approach combines the expertise of an animal behaviorist, a companion parrot consultant and a veterinarian who use "family therapy techniques" -- such as learning to respect the bird's boundaries and viewing sibling rivalry in a broad, environmental context -- to help you change the mischievous behavior of domesticated birds.

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Tuesday, April 8th at 7:30 p.m.
Oscar Casares
Brownsville
(Little, Brown)

Oscar Casares grew up in Brownsville, Texas and this short story collection is his homage to the people who inhabit its dusty landscape. Casares asks us to imagine a place where "Mexican Americans make up 96 percent of the population. Imagine a place in this country where the minority is actually the majority. Imagine a place where the people elect a Mexican American woman as mayor and another as district attorney. In Brownsville we struggle with the same hopes, dreams and frailties that everyone else does. Although this region has been largely ignored by American literature, south Texas is part of what makes this nation so unique." And we, as readers, are lucky to receive a rare window into this border world, thanks to Casares elegant writing and proud heritage. Come celebrate an important new voice in American fiction.

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April 11th at 7:30 p.m.
Paul Collins
Sixpence House
(Bloomsbury)

Abandoning the hills of San Francisco for the hills of the Welsh countryside, Paul Collins became the newest citizen of the cobblestone village of Hay-on-Wye, the "Town of Books" that boasts 1,500 inhabitants and forty bookstores. Employed in (yes, you got it) a bookstore as clerk that shifts dusty stacks of books from place to place, Collins attempts to buy the local tumbledown pub and finds himself in the midst of misfits and bibliomaniacs galore. Guiding us along this sanctuary for book lovers and through the creation of his own book, this talented contributor to McSweeny's meditates on what books mean to us and how their meaning can still resonate long after they have been abandoned by their public.

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Monday, April 14th at 7:30 p.m.
Alan Deutschman
A Tale of Two Valleys
(Broadway)

In the late 1990's, with their cups running over with billions of Silicon Valley dollars, a new generation of super rich mounted an invasion of their unsuspecting neighbors in California's wine country. Napa Valley was overrun quickly, but Sonoma was resisting, and thus was born a fierce debate over the visions of an ideal community - a paradise for wealthy newcomers or rural eccentrics? Acclaimed Vanity Fair journalist Deutschman has penned a rich story of wine and the characters that make it and covet it, and asks provocative questions concerning the preservation of our remaining natural spaces.

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Tuesday, April 15th at 7:30 p.m.
Daniel Press
Saving Open Space: The Politics of Local Preservation in California
(UC Press)

Despite their reputations as effective obstructionists, environmentalists lose far more frequently than they win when it comes to land use conflicts. UCSC professor Daniel Press details the remarkable extent to which communities have gone to win protection of their landscapes and recommends policies and actions that have won success across the country in the fight against open space exploitation. Fight with us for land preservation against the odds!

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Tuesday, April 22nd at 7:30 p.m.
Oz Shelach
Picnic Grounds: A Novel in Fragments
(City Lights)

Part reportage, part parable, part excavation of history, this jigsaw puzzle of compelling tales constitutes an exile's nostalgic tour into Israel's culture of denial. Captivating in its beguiling, seeming simplicity, Picnic Grounds is a novel built from the layers of overlapping lives and stories. Of his debut Ammiel Alcalay says, "Taking responsibility for the destruction of Palestine is a pill still far too bitter for most Israelis to swallow. Stepping outside of home and Hebrew, Oz Shelach takes us on an eerie journey through the archaeology of complicity and denial. Deeply personal, Picnic Grounds is also a profoundly political document that forces us to confront, as James Baldwin put it, 'the price of the ticket,' the heavy debt a state can exact from its people." Oz Shelach was born in West Jerusalem in 1968, has been a journalist and editor for Israeli radio and magazines, and runs an online news service and art gallery.

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Wednesday, April 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
Kathy Harrison
Another Place at the Table
(Penguin)

Over the last decade, Kathy Harrison has been a foster parent to more than one hundred hard-to-place children. Her riveting memoir is a portrait of an extraordinary American family centered on three children who, when they come together into her home, nearly destroy it. Honest and humbling, this spellbinding story is also a look at a child welfare system overwhelmed and the horrors and joys of caring for a child scarred by the violent events or ruthless neglect of his past.

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Thursday, Aril 24th at 7:00 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
The Aquariums of Pyongyang: Ten Years in the North Korean Gulag
(Basic Books)

To date, this monthly book discussion group has read books on Afghanistan, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the border dispute between India and Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Latin America, Africa, and China. As always, we welcome people of all backgrounds and affiliations to come participate. For more information you may email Graham Parsons at parsons402@yahoo.com or call Jenn Ramage at 462-6297.

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Tuesday, April 29th at 7:30 p.m.
Ira Sher
Gentlemen of Space
(Free Press)

In this delightful first novel, Sher takes a snapshot of space-obsessed America in the mid-seventies and seamlessly blends it into what Kirkus calls, " a mysterious and gentle tale of loss conjured out of a more optimistic generation's shattered dreams." Gentlemen of Space is told through the eyes of a nine-year-old Georgie Finch, living in the heart of Florida' space alley. His father Jerry wins an essay contest and becomes the first civilian to visit the Moon as part of Apollo 19. While his father is up on the moon with Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, Georgie's life back at home becomes part of an oddball media circus. When his father doesn't return with the other astronauts, things get even wierder. Georgie begins receiving phone calls from his father from outer space but no one believes him. Come meet the new talent that Book magazine names as one of its "Ten to Watch in 2003".