Wednesday, February 1st at 7:30 p.m.
Heather Rogers
Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage
(New Press)
Where does our garbage go?
In Gone Tomorrow, journalist and filmmaker Rogers guides us through
the grisly, oddly fascinating underworld of trash. From the garbage-grazing
urban hogs of 1800's to today's prolific disposable packaging industry
and the high-tech garbage corporations that profit from it, Rogers
investigates the roots of our waste-addicted culture. Read Gone Tomorrow
and you'll never think of garbage the same way again.
Thursday, February 2nd at 7:30 p.m.
Ross King
The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary
Decade that Gave the World Impressionism
(Walker & Co)
In 1864, the currently obscure
Ernest Meissonier was considered the greatest French artist alive,
and Edouard Manet, today beloved as the "Father of Impressionism,"
was derided for his messy paintings of ordinary people. Out of the
fascinating story of their parallel careers, King (Brunelleschi's
Dome) creates a lens through which to view the political tensions
that dogged Louis-Napoleon during the Second Empire and his ignominious
downfall. As well, King paints a vivid portrait of life in an era
of radical social change and casts new light on the birth of Impressionism
and modern French identity.
* Special Event *
Sunday, February 5th at 7:30 p.m.
Bernard-Henri Lévy
American Vertigo: Traveling America
in the Footsteps of Tocqueville
(Random House)
Traveling in the tracks of another
Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, author of the 1831 Democracy in
America, Lévy investigates the heart of our democracy: the
special nature of American patriotism, the coexistence of freedom
and religion (including the religion of baseball), our sense of the
law, immigration, the "return of ideology," and much more.
He revisits de Tocqueville's most important ideas, like "the
tyranny of the majority," explores what Europe and America have
to learn from each other, and interprets what he sees with a novelist's
eye and a philosopher's depth. Above all, Lévy is a sympathetic
foreign observer, arriving at a time when Americans are anxious about
how the world perceives them. Bernard-Henri Lévy is France's
leading writer (Who Killed Daniel Pearl?), philosopher, and
activist and has earned the status of an intellectual rock star. He
has served on diplomatic missions for the French government and was
hailed by a Vanity Fair headline as "Superman and prophet:
we have no equivalent in the United States."
Monday, February 6th at 6:30 p.m.
Fiction Writing Group
Closed
This peer critique group is currently
full. To place your name on a waiting list please email James: jsrmoran@yahoo.com.
Monday, February 6th at 7:30 p.m.
Todd Gitlin
Intellectualists and the Flag
(Columbia University)
"The tragedy of the left
is that, having achieved an unprecedented victory in helping stop
an appalling war, it then proceeded to commit suicide." So writes
journalist and sociologist Todd Gitlin (Letters to a Young Activist)
about the aftermath of the Vietnam War in this collection of writings
that calls upon intellectuals on the left to once again engage American
public life, forcefully address social issues, and resist the trappings
of knee-jerk negativism. Gitlin argues for a renewed sense of patriotism
based on the ideals of sacrifice, tough-minded criticism, and a willingness
to look anew at the global role of the United States in the aftermath
of 9/11. Standing alongside the works of David Riesman, C. Wright
Mills, and Irving Howe, Todd Gitlin's frank analysis paves the way
for a revival in leftist thought.
Wednesday, February 8th at 7:30 p.m.
Curtis Sittenfeld
Prep
(Random House)
"Speaking in a voice as
authentic as Salinger's Holden Caulfield and McCullers's Mick Kelly,
Curtis Sittenfeld's Lee Fiora tells unsugared truths about adolescence,
alienation, and the sociology of privilege. Prep's every sentence
rings true. Sittenfeld is a rising star."-Wally Lamb (She's
Come Undone, I Know This Much Is True). One of The New York
Times Top Ten Books of 2005, Prep is an achingly funny coming-of-age
story, an incisive portrait of an outsider off to boarding school,
and a brilliant dissection of class, race, and gender in a hothouse
of adolescent angst and ambition.
Sunday, February 12th at 7:30 p.m.
Robert B. Parker
Sea Change
(Putnam)
From the beloved author of Appaloosa
and Cold Service comes another hard hitting and witty mystery
starring Jesse Stone, returning after 2003's Stone Cold. This once
LAPD cop is faced with an unidentified body found in a cove off the
tiny village of Paradise, Massachusetts, during the annual Race Week
for sailing vessels-an especially bad time for floating bodies. A
simple case churns out ugly complications, making Parker's latest
a plot-driven tale that simmers with his characteristically smart
and sassy dialogue.
Wednesday, February 15th at 6:30 p.m. *
Fiction Book Club
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
This month's selection is Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson. Twenty-four years after her first novel, Housekeeping,
Marilynne Robinson returns with an intimate tale of three generations
from the Civil War to the twentieth century: a story about fathers
and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage at America's heart.
Writing in the tradition of Emily Dickinson and Walt Whitman, Marilynne
Robinson's beautiful, spare, and spiritual prose allows "even
the faithless reader to feel the possibility of transcendent order"
(Slate). In the luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist
minister John Ames, Gilead reveals the human condition and the often
unbearable beauty of an ordinary life. Read it and join the discussion.
* Please Note Time
Wednesday, February 15th at 7:30 p.m.
Po Bronson
Why Do I Love These People: Honest and
Amazing Stories of Real Families
(Random House)
For three years, Po Bronson (What
Should I Do With My Life?) went searching for people whose families
had survived tremendous hardships and recorded their stories. Told
with honesty and candor, this powerful piece of nonfiction gives a
unique look at our society, shakes off the distorted myths of the
perfect family, and may even give you a better understanding of your
own family.
Thursday, February 16th at 7:30 p.m.
Dominic Smith
The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre
(Atria)
In 1847, after a decade of using
poisonous mercury vapors to cure his daguerreotype images, Louis Daguerre's
mind is plagued by delusions. Believing the world will end within
one year, Daguerre creates his "Doomsday List" of items
he must photograph before the final day, including a woman he has
always loved but not spoken to in half a century. Smith reinvents
the life of one of photography's founding fathers against the backdrop
of a Paris prone to bohemian excess and social unrest. "An endlessly
thought-provoking story about a man driven to capture and preserve
everything that is fleeting and evanescent. It is a book as haunting
as a daguerreotype: true in its details, but pesteringly strange;
and as beautiful as if it were written not in words but in light."--
Stephen Harrigan (The Gates of the Alamo)
Monday, February 20th at 6:30 p.m.
Fiction Writing Group
Closed
This peer critique group is currently
full. To place your name on a waiting list please email James: jsrmoran@yahoo.com.
Wednesday, February 22nd at 7:30 p.m.
Arlene Blum
Breaking Trail: A Climbing Life
(Scribner)
Arlene Blum is a legendary trailblazer
by any measure. Defying the climbing establishment of the 1970s, she
led the first teams of women on successful ascents of Mt. McKinley
and Annapurna, was the first American woman to attempt Mt. Everest,
and is a world-renowned expedition leader. Breaking Trail is
the story of Blum's journey from her overprotected youth in Chicago
to the tops of some of the highest peaks. Along the way, she takes
us to some of the most exquisite places on the planet, sharing the
exhilaration and the toil. She also relates the story of her scientific
career, which, like her mountaineering, challenged gender stereotypes
and was filled with singular accomplishments, including the banning
of two cancer-causing chemicals and the initiation of an important
area of biophysical research.
Thursday, February 23rd at 7:00 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
Night Draws Near: Iraq's People in the
Shadow of America's War by Anthony Shadid
(Henry Holt)
This month's selection is Night
Draws Near: Iraq's People in the Shadow of America's War by Anthony
Shadid, winner of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting.
The Washington Post's Shadid went to war in Iraq although he
was neither embedded with soldiers nor briefed by politicians. An
Arab American, he is fluent in Arabic and was able to disappear into
the divided, dangerous worlds of Iraq. Day by day, as the American
dream of freedom clashed with Arab notions of justice, he pieced together
the human story of ordinary Iraqis weathering the terrible dislocations
and tragedies of war. For more information you may email Jenn at jenn_ramage@yahoo.com
or call the store at 462-4415.
* Please Note Time
Thursday, February 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
Mary Guterson
We Are All Fine Here (Berkley)
and
Maile Meloy
A Family Daughter
(Scribner)
Mary Guterson spins a thoroughly
irresistible novel about a discontented woman--married, with a teenage
son, fast approaching middle age and bored by all of it--who dallies
with her past and must bare the startling, humorous, and bittersweet
consequences. About this irreverent novel, Amy Tan writes, "A
real winner. What a voice: laugh-aloud hilarious, full of naked truth."
Maile Meloy's Liars and Saints told the brilliant and unruly
story of the devout Catholic Santerres and tackled the issues of faith
and the extent one would go to protect the appearance of happiness.
Now, Meloy upends our notion of American fiction with A Family
Daughter, in which her character Abby Santerres writes an autobiographical
novel entitled Liars and Saints. Once again, Meloy rivets us with
the loves, longings, and elaborate secrets of family, while also exploring
the relationship between fiction and "real life." Read alone
or together, Meloy's works pack a seismic wallop.
Tuesday, February 28th at 7:30 p.m.
John Nielsen
Condor: To the Brink and Back--The Life
and Times of One Giant Bird
(Harper Collins)
A respected NPR reporter takes
us through the tumultuous time when the endangered condor was down
to only one established breeding pair and the humans who would save
it bitterly disagreed on how. "Environmental reporter Nielsen
has written the history of the condor wars, which pitted environmentalists
against environmentalists while scientists and zoos stood in the middle.
Whether to bring the last of the wild condors into captivity…or
whether to leave them in their wild habitat with no interference,
was a clash of major proportions, fought on philosophic, political,
and practical battlefields...This is popular science writing at its
peak." -Nancy Bent
COMING IN MARCH 2006
Thursday, March 2 at 7:30pm
Julie Orringer, How to Breathe Under Water (Vintage) &
Ayelet Waldman, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (Doubleday)
Sunday, March 5 at 2:30pm*
Sarah Dunant, In the Company of the Courtesan (Random House)
*Please Note Time.
Thursday, March 16 at 7:30pm
Edward Rutherfurd, The Rebels of Ireland (Doubleday)
Monday, March 20 at 7:30pm
Rita Mae Brown, Sour Puss (Bantam)
