February 2002

 

Saturday, February 2 at 10:45 am
Farewell Bilingual Storytime with Billie Harris and Brett Taylor

Come send off Billie and Brett with a bang! For over a year, they have regaled children and adults alike with their wild tales, dynamic voices and legendary enthusiasm. We will be saying good-bye to their monthly reading, but don't be too depressed. We'll see them again for special occasions (Harry Potter V anyone?).

 

---

 

Monday, February 4 at 7:30 pm
Carter Scholz
Radiance (Picador)

Radiance is a challenging, timely novel illuminating the dark desires of our nuclear defense industry. Out of the desire to be safe from nuclear weapons comes a program to build a costly, hypothetical shield against them. Quine did not dedicate himself to the field of science to work on weapons, but his expertise with x-rays leads him to them, drawing him further away from pure physics and "further into the judgment-impairing allure of technology and power" (Booklist starred review). About this brilliant expose, Jonathan Lethem writes, "[Radiance] gives a terrifying glimpse of a war at the juncture of science and politics, one never fully fought or abandoned, only covered in denial and fatigue."

---

Wednesday, February 6 at 7:30 pm
An Evening in Celebration of Steinbeck!

Come celebrate John Steinbeck's 100th birthday with scholars and authors alike as we pay homage to the great writer! Co-sponsored by the South Bay Chapter of the California Writer's Club, featured writer Audry Lynch, author of three books, will be signing copies of Steinbeck Remembered (Fithian Press, 2000), a book based upon oral histories with those who knew Steinbeck. John Hooper, Registrar/Archivist from the National Steinbeck Center in Salinas, will share rarely-seen artifacts. Writer's Club member and Santa-Cruz-based writer Jane Parks-McKay will read her story, "My Steinbeck Affair". Club President Bill Baldwin will present a hilarious parody that can't be missed, from "The Leave it to Beaver" papers and Carol Wood will read from "Sweet Thursday". Come and share a special evening with fans of a great writer, whose work has touched us all, right in the middle of Steinbeck Country.

---

 

Thursday, February 7 at 7:30 pm
Robert Hellenga
Blues Lessons (Scribner)

"Blues Lessons...is the real thing: a big book about big issues, given to us with all the intimacy offered by real characters living real lives," writes Fred G. Leebron, author of Six Figures. Robert Hellenga delighted us with his passionate, rich novels The Sixteen Pleasures and The Fall of a Sparrow and has returned with the story of Martin Dijksterhuis. Growing up on his family's orchards in 1950's Michigan, Martin is seemingly content in the cycles of planting and harvesting, hoping to stay in his provincial town. As high school draws to a close, he stumbles onto his true vocation, the country blues - unsettling melodies that cry out from places in his soul he never knew - and he falls into love - with the strong-willed daughter of the farm's black foreman. In this beautifully rendered novel, Hellenga explores the fragility of happiness, the difficulty of following one's calling, and the large American themes of race, family, work, and place.

---

Monday, February 11 at 5:30 pm *
Dixon Long
Brothers (Creative Arts Book Company)

Join us for tea and conversation with a gifted new writer. In Brothers, we meet Henry Cornwall, a rebellious, intuitive lover of art who makes his life half a world away from his Japanese wife and son. His brother Sebastian is a disciplined, cerebral Wall Street deal-maker who finds himself in love with a headstrong French woman. In this expansive, skillfully crafted novel, their stories intertwine and interact across continents and time---from Kyoto in 1964, to Paris, Provence and New York in the eighties---and from the international art scene to the world of high finance. What makes these characters so credible is Dixon Long's own story: for years, he taught English in Kyoto and later worked for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris and Tokyo. His vivid characters and delicious descriptions make Brothers one of the year's best reads.
* Note Special Time

---

 

Monday, February 11 at 7:30 pm
Alexandra Fuller
Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (Random House)

Booksellers here couldn't agree more with Publisher's Weekly who proclaims, "a classic is born in this tender, intensely moving and even delightful journey through a white African girl's childhood." We here at the Book Cafe, along with the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, and countless other papers, are bewitched by this story and its masterful storyteller. Co-owner Marcia Rider says, "Here's a fascinating story of growing up in Rhodesia with eccentric parents passionately committed to a white presence in Africa. Things go badly, but Fuller tells of the beginning of Zimbabwe and her family's moves to Malawi and Zambia with both humor and poignancy." Bookseller Jenn Ramage agrees: "Alexandra Fuller's memoir of life on her family's African farms is brutally honest and completely mesmerizing. I may not like Bobo, but I respect the way she weaves a story, the straight foreword manner of her prejudices and observations. Her tales are simply amazing, her dialogue lively and heartfelt--- especially when dealing with her sister and their rivalry. I cannot stop thinking about Bobo or her wild adventures." Join us for a delightful discussion.

---

 

Tuesday, February 12 at 7:30 pm
Sebastian Faulks
On Green Dolphin Street (Random House)

1960 - a fascinating transitional year in our country, when the comfortable Eisenhower era was drawing to a close and a starkly different decade was beginning. Mary van der Linden, nearly forty, has spent a lifetime as a loyal daughter, wife, and mother, but in this year of change, she undergoes her own transformation - escaping her role as Washington wife for the lure of Greenwich Village, jazz clubs, and, finally, a lover. Faulk's sensational best-selling novels, Birdsong and Charlotte Gray, are equaled again with the vivid characters, emotional narrative, and rich historical setting that make On Green Dolphin Street a memorable American novel.

---

Wednesday, February 13 at 6:30 pm
Book Club Meeting
The Sweet Hereafter: A Novel by Russell Banks

On the middle Wednesday of every month, Capitola Book Cafe's Richard Lange hosts a book club meeting. Please join us this month for a discussion of Russell Banks The Sweet Hereafter. In The Sweet Hereafter, Russell Banks tells a story that begins with a school bus accident. Using four different narrators, Banks creates a small-town morality play that addresses one of life's most agonizing questions: when the worst thing happens, who do you blame?
All book club meetings are held upstairs in the back of the store and all are welcome to attend.

---

 

Thursday, February 14 at 7:30 pm
Judith Freeman
Red Water (Pantheon)

On September 11, 1857, Mormon settlers slaughtered 120 emigrants en route to California. Twenty years later, John D. Lee was executed for the crime, a scapegoat for all those responsible for the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Red Water is the story of Lee's life as told by three of his nineteen wives. As each of these women speaks, a portrait of a complex and ambitious, generous and tortured man emerges. Freeman gives us a dramatic and insightful look into early Mormon belief, the sense of persecution the followers felt, and the fundamental understanding by three sisters of marriage of how faith and love intersect.

---

 

Friday, February 15 at 7:30 pm
Indu Sundaresan
The Twentieth Wife (Pocket Books)

Native of New Delhi, India, Indu Sundaresan has created a sixteenth century epic story true to her homeland in its exotic passion, romance, and powerful history. The Twentieth Wife is the tale of Mehrunnisa, the Sun of Women, a beautiful, sapphire-eyed child blessed with precocious intelligence and ambition surpassing the bounds of her family's station. She first lays eyes on Prince Salim on the day of his first marriage, and she then sees her destiny: she, too, will be his wife. Mehrunnisa is eight years old. Sweeping readers up in the saga of one remarkable woman and her quest for love and power at the highest echelons of the Mughal dynasty, this intense novel is in the tradition of M.M. Kaye's The Far Pavillion and Paul Scott's The Jewel of the Crown.

---

 

Monday, February 18 at 7:30 pm
Jonathan Kirsch
The Woman Who Laughed at God: The Untold History of the Jewish People (Viking)

Best-selling author of King David, Moses, and Harlot by the Side of the Road, Jonathan Kirsch takes us on a lively and at times controversial journey through Jewish history, offering answers to the complex and difficult question: "Who is a Jew?" Today, Jewish peoples are divided by differences of faith, practice, and political antagonism. For every accepted tradition in Jewish faith, there are contradictions with their roots going back to ancient times. Kirsch's illuminating work reveals that-even in ancient times-Judaism was never a single faith. Jews and Gentiles across the spectrum will be fascinated and inspired by this celebration of the Jewish faith, rich in untold stories and revelatory interpretations.

 

---

 

 

Tuesday, February 19 at 7:30 pm
Susie Bright
Best American Erotica 2002
and
How to Write a Dirty Story (Scribner)

 

Boundary-breaking and captivating Susie Bright is back. In the eclectic and startling 2002 collection of erotic short stories, Bright has gathered the best works from authors who prove that a story can be both arousing and literary at the same time. Her experienced eye and wide-open mind that deliver exceptional erotica to curious readers now turn to guide the writers of erotica as well. In How to Write a Dirty Story, Bright suggests practical writing exercises and non-writing activities that will galvanize the imagination, raze creative and psychological hurdles, and boost the abilities of writers of all levels to tell it like they want it.

---

 

Wednesday, February 20 at 7:30 pm
Rodney Yee
Yoga: The Poetry of the Body (Thomas Dunne Books)

One of yoga's most renowned instructors shares his personal philosophy and understanding of the art's spiritual and physical aspects. Rodney Yee is the co-director of the Piedmont Yoga Studio in Oakland, is featured in Yoga Journal Practice Series and Living Arts instructional videos, and has taught worldwide, live and via Oprah. Using thought provoking student-teacher dialogue and poetic metaphors in addition to 400 photographs, Rodney makes abstract concepts come alive, thereby allowing readers to better understand and appreciate the essence of yoga. A stimulating evening for the body and mind!

---

 

Thursday, February 21 at 7:30 pm
Ronald C. White Jr.
Lincoln's Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (Simon & Schuster)

Come celebrate President's Day in style as we honor one of our most eloquent Presidents. Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, delivered forty-one days before his death, was the speech he regarded as his greatest. Revered today as the "malice toward none" speech, it confounded the expectations of his listeners, transformed the meaning of the Civil War, and presented an expansive moral framework for peace and reconciliation. Now historian and author Ronald C. White Jr. analyzes both the content and the context of this address, unappreciated at the time, and explains its continuing relevance, particularly in a time of war and national crisis.

---

Thursday, February 21 6:30 pm - 8:00 pm
Writing Group

Every third Thursday of the month, join Book Café's Wendy Mayer as she leads our writer's group. Due to the limited amount of time, the group will focus on short exercises rather than group critique.

---

Monday, February 25 at 7:30 pm
Eddie Muller
The Distance (Scribner)

Filmmaker and author of several acclaimed works about classic noir, Eddie Muller now presents his own genre in The Distance, a crime novel steeped in the atmosphere of 1940's San Francisco and the heyday of boxing. Arriving at the boxing manager's house, sportswriter Billy Nichols discovers the man dead with boxing's rising star standing over the body. For reasons that he can't explain, Nichols helps a terrified prizefighter cover up for a murder. You do not need to be a boxing enthusiast to enjoy Nichols and the world he moves through. Extremely well written, intriguing, and highly entertaining, "The Distance is a left hook to the liver. The dame is pip. Dashiell Hammett is no longer the sole proprietor of San Francisco," writes F. X. Toole, author of Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner.

---

 

Wednesday, February 27 at 7:30 pm
Michael Nagler
Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Non-Violent Future (Berkeley Hills Books)

Please join us for a special discussion on the future of non-violent movements. Drawing from the experiences of such figures as Mahatma Gandhi, Michael Nagler describes both the laws of nonviolence and the nonviolent actions of ordinary people, with analyses of events like the Columbine High School shootings. "This is a vital book for us as individuals, as communities and nations, maybe even as a species." - Bill McKibben, author of The End of Nature

---

 

Thursday, February 28 at 7:30 pm
Joseph A. Palermo
In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Columbia)

Robert Kennedy's role in American politics in the 1960's defies definition. A junior senator from New York, the public perceived him as possessing the intangible qualities of his brother, the slain President. Joseph A. Palermo chronicles RFK's extraordinary transformation from Cold Warrior to grassroots activist, from his strong opposition against the Vietnam War to his support of the civil rights movement and his continued antagonism with Lyndon Johnson. Based on analysis of newly released documents, this intimate portrait of one of the most respected politicians reveals how he came to stand in the public arena and in the national consciousness as a leader in his own right.