April Events 2004

April 2004 Author Events

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.

Thursday, April 1st 7:30 p.m.
Jonathan Kirsch
God Against the Gods: The History of the War Between Monotheism and Polytheism
(Viking)

Perfectly suited to readers of Bernard Lewis and Karen Armstrong, God Against the Gods is a dramatic and eye-opening epic of the final struggle between monotheism and polytheism in the ancient world. It was a war fought by an Egyptian pharaoh, a Jewish king, and a Roman emperor-charismatic, visionary, and violent men battling in the name of the Only True God. Jonathan Kirsch demonstrates how the world of classical paganism was in fact based on religious liberty and diversity and how the advent of monotheism brought-in the name of true belief-holy war, crusades, martyrdom, and inquisitions. An alum of UC Santa Cruz, Jonathan Kirsch is a book columnist for the Los Angeles Times and author of the best-selling and critically acclaimed King David, Moses, The Harlot by the Side of the Road, and The Woman Who Laughed at God.

Thursday, April 8th 7:30 p.m.
Julia Alter
Walking the Hot Coal of the Heart (Hummingbird Press)
and
Erika Meitner
Inventory at the All-Night Drugstore (Anhinga Press)

Patrice Vecchione writes, "Julia Alter is the poet for you if you've ever forgotten what you live for, what you love." Having studied literature and written poetry in places stretching from San Diego to Salamanca, Spain, Julia's poetry is rich with passion and patience, layering the many loves of her life - Pablo Neruda, her mother, a carpenter, a dying cousin - with her deep love of language. Her award winning work has been included on Natalie Goldberg's CD Old Friend and appeared in the Blue Moon Review, DMQ Review, Porter-Gulch Review and the Santa Cruz Sentinel. She is joined by Erika Meitner a visiting Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at the UC Santa Cruz whose most recent publication won the 2002 Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Stephen Corey, associate editor of The Georgia Review writes, " The reader takes an unpredictable, exhilarating trip with the subject matter of Erika Meitner's poems--from memories of a hormone-charged adolescence in the big city, to adult affairs of love and lust and loss; from learning to teach in a classroom filled with pubescent fireplug mirrors of oneself, to confronting one's Jewish history at the hands of an equally fiery grandmother. But riding herd on all this range is Meitner's distinctly snappy voice, a blend of assertiveness and vulnerability..."

Tuesday, April 13th 7:30 p.m.
Rebecca Solnit
River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West
(Viking)

The New York Times says, "One finds it hard to remember what things looked like before this book appeared in the world." Rebecca Solnit, cultural critic and author of six highly praised works of nonfiction, including Secret Exhibition, Savage Dreams, and Hollow City, weaves together biography, history, and fascinating insights into art and technology to create a boldly original portrait of America on the threshold of modernity. The story of Muybridge-who in 1872 succeeded in capturing high-speed motion photographically-becomes a lens for a larger story about the acceleration and industrialization of everyday life. Solnit shows how the peculiar freedoms and opportunities of post-Civil War California led directly to the two industries-Hollywood and Silicon Valley-that have most powerfully defined contemporary society.

Wednesday, April 14th 7:30 p.m.
Zac Unger
Working Fire
(The Penguin Press)

Expanding on a Slate diary he wrote in 2001, Zac Unger delivers a gripping narrative of a rookie's life in the Oakland Fire Department. Responding to a bus stop help-wanted ad, this ambivalent ivy leaguer didn't seem like much of a firefighter (he was worried about being the first in his family not to receive a master's degree). He was sloppy and ill prepared compared to fellow recruits who had planned for this career their whole lives. However, Unger came to feel at home with this close-knit tribe and to see the city through a firefighter's eyes. From harrowing to hilarious, Unger's memoir is a story of finding one's path and discovering fire along the way.

Thursday, April 15th 7:30 p.m.
Amy Stewart
The Earth Moved
(Algonquin)

The earthworm may be small, spineless, and blind, but its role in the ecosystem is profound. In the tradition of Botany of Desire, this former Santa Cruz resident, author of From the Ground Up, and contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle shows just how much depends on the humble worm. In its witty and off-beat style, The Earth Moved exposes the worm's hidden - and extraordinary - universe. From the legendary Australian worm that burrows up to 15 feet below ground to the modest night crawler that inspired Darwin's last book to Stewart's energetic red wrigglers, this book gives worms their due!

Sunday, April 18th 7:00 p.m.
Amy Goodman
The Exception to the Rulers
(Hyperion)

Capitola Book Cafe, Bookshop Santa Cruz and KUSP are pleased to welcome award-winning journalist Amy Goodman, host of the daily hour-long talk show Democracy Now!--a beacon for passionate, critical, and hard-hitting news--will discuss her new book, The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media That Love Them. On subjects ranging from the deceptions of the Bush administration to the corruption of media monopolies and corporate influence over the government, Goodman attacks and exposes the lies and hypocrisy that put democracy at risk. Noam Chomsky says, "Amy Goodman has taken investigative journalism to new heights of exciting, informative, and probing analysis. She has tirelessly pursued the most challenging and hardest questions, relentlessly and courageously. She has made a unique contribution to creating the informed public that must exist if 'democracy now' is to be more than a dream."

Please Note: The event will be off-site and ticketed. With every purchase of The Exception to the Rulers at Book Café or Bookshop Santa Cruz, you will receive two tickets to the event. If you prefer, you may purchase individual tickets for $15.00 each. Seating is limited, so reserve your copies now. A portion of the proceeds will benefit KUSP. This event will be held at the Rio Theatre, 1205 Soquel Avenue, Santa Cruz, CA, 95062. This event is co-sponsored by Capitola Book Cafe and Bookshop Santa Cruz. For more information call 831/462-4415 or 831/423-0900. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 26.

Tuesday, April 20th 7:30 p.m.
Lolly Winston
Good Grief (Warner)
and
Ellen Sussman
On a Night Like This (Warner)

Please join us in celebration of two new and powerful voices that explore the partnership of loss and love. Lolly Winston was discovered by author and agent Laurie Fox, who compares her to another author she discovered - Wally Lamb. Good Grief, selected as the #1 Booksense pick in the March/April 76 list, is a heartbreaking, gorgeous look at loss that follows a young widow through her early days of grief as she first stumbles then fights to begin a new life. Author Ellen Sussman's On a Night Like This echoes the works of Anita Shreve, Elizabeth Berg, and Sue Miller. Her novel brings a fiercely independent single mother who harbors a tragic secret together with an old high school classmate who never had much in common with her, until now. Elegant and tough, these debut novels herald the beginning of grand careers.

Wednesday, April 21st 7:30 p.m.
Pico Iyer
Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign
(Knopf)

Pico Iyer, one of our most compelling and profoundly provocative travel writers, invites us to accompany him on an array of exotic explorations, from L.A. and Yemen to Haiti and Ethiopia, from a Bolivian prison to a hidden monastery in Tibet. He goes to Cambodia, where the main tourist attraction is a collection of skulls from the Khmer Rouge killing fields, and travels through southern Arabia in the weeks before September 11, 2001. He practices meditation with Leonard Cohen and discusses geopolitics with the Dalai Lama. Throughout his travels, the familiar thrill of adventure is haunted by the unsettling questions that arise for Iyer everywhere he goes: How do we reconcile suffering with the sunlight often found around it? How does the foreign instruct the traveler, precisely by discomfiting him? Intensely affecting, Iyer's explorations are a road map of thinking in new ways about our changing world.

Thursday, April 22 7:30 p.m.
Suzan Lori-Parks
Getting Mother's Body
(Knopf)

Suzan Lori-Parks - novelist, playwright, songwriter, and screenwriter - was the recipient of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for her play Topdog/Underdog. She now visits the Book Cafe for Getting Mother's Body, a story "whose characters don't so much as talk to us as sing full-throated, of their joys and miseries" (Richard Russo). Billy is the heiress to her mother's substantial but unconfirmed fortune - a cache of jewels that Willa Mae's lover, Dill Smiles, is said to have had buried with her. When plans for a new supermarket means the unearthing of the treasure-filled grave, young Billy steals Dill's pickup and tears out of Texas, heading for the Arizona graveyard - with Dills in hot pursuit. Getting Mother's Body takes its place in the company of classic works of Zora Neale Hurston and Alice Walker. But when it comes to an ingenious, uproarious knack for depicting the trifling, hard-luck, down-and-out souls who need a little singing and laughing and lying to get through the day, Lori-Parks shares the stage with no one.

Thursday, April 22 7:30 p.m.
World Affairs Book Club
Crossing Over
by Ruben Martinez

This group meets every month to discuss a book relevant to current event(s) around the world. To date, we have examined books focusing on a variety of events in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Europe. This month's selection is Crossing Over by award-winning journalist Ruben Martinez. In his book Martinez puts a human face on the phenomenon of undocumented migrants and their journey north. He charts the Chávez clan's exodus from their small south-Mexican town of Cherán through the harrowing underground railroad to the tomato farms of Missouri, the strawberry fields of California, and the slaughterhouses of Wisconsin. He reveals the effects of emigration on the family members left behind and creates a powerful portrait of migrant culture, one that illustrates the conjoining of once separate lands and cultures. As always, we welcome people from all backgrounds and affiliations to participate. For more information you may email Graham Parsons at parsons402@yahoo.com or call the store at 462-4415. *Please Note Time

Monday, April 26th 7:30 p.m.
Move-On Event
MoveOn's 50 Ways to Love Your Country

Move-On's 50 Ways to Love Your Country is a user-friendly "How To" guide for fixing our broken democracy. Both nuts-and-bolts practical and deeply personal, this book is political Viagra for anyone tired of feeling hopeless, helpless, and impotent in the face of our Big Money/Big Media-controlled political system." - Arianna Huffington, syndicated columnist and author of Fanatics and Fools: The Game Plan for Winning Back America

Tuesday, April 27th 7:30 p.m.
Diana Preston
Pirate of the Exquisite Mind: The Life of William Dampier
(Walker and Company)

In the history of exploration, nobody has ventured further than Englishman William Dampier. Yet while the exploits of Cook, Shackleton, and a host of legendary explorers have been widely chronicled, those of perhaps the greatest are virtually invisible today. As a young man Dampier spent several years in the swashbuckling company of buccaneers in the Caribbean. At a time when surviving one voyage across the Pacific was cause for celebration, Dampier ultimately journeyed three times around the world; his best-selling books about his experiences were a sensation, influencing generations of scientists, explorers, and writers. He was the first to deduce that winds cause currents and the first to produce wind maps across the world. He introduced the concept of the "sub-species" that Darwin later built into his theory of evolution, and his description of the breadfruit was the impetus for Captain Bligh's voyage on the Bounty. Dampier reached Australia 80 years before Cook, and he later led the first formal expedition of science and discovery there. Come hear about this amazing man and his remarkable contributions.

Thursday, April 29th 7:30 p.m.
Ronn Owens
Voice of Reason: Why the Right and Left Are Wrong
(Wiley)

If you watch the news or listen to the pundits, you'd think there were only two kinds of Americans: wacko fundamentalist conservatives and whiny bleeding-heart liberals. But, in fact, the vast majority of Americans fall somewhere between these polar opposites. In Ronn Owens--- the host of the number one rated talk radio show in Northern California, The Ronn Owens Program, on KGO-AM in San Francisco---this neglected majority has finally found its champion. With over 500,000 regular listeners, Owens is the only major-market radio personality who consistently beats Rush Limbaugh in the ratings. Of his new work, Senator John McCain writes, "Whether you find yourself agreeing with him much of the time or not, Ronn Owens is never dull or given to predictable knee-jerk opinions. On the contrary, you can always rely on him to be interesting and fair, and to challenge stereotypes on the right and left in pursuit of answers to problems that many others exploit to deepen the divisions in the country."