Wednesday, January 5th at 7:30 p.m.
Erin Van Rheenen
Living Abroad in Costa Rica
(Avalon)
Imagine yourself living in Costa
Rica, strolling home past lush vegetation after a long day of surfing,
knowing locals and speaking Spanish with ease. Author Erin Van Rheenen
left her life as a guidebook editor in the Bay Area to make this happen,
and she will tell you it is easier than you think. While some give up,
daunted by the financial and bureaucratic issues, you'll be led step-by-step
through the information you need on visas, money, jobs, housing, safety,
language, culture, and history. Erin has done the research and made
the mistakes -- so you don't have to.
Thursday, January 6th at 7:30 p.m.
Gillian Roberts
Till the End of Tom
(Ballantine)
and
Elaine Flinn
Tagged for Murder (Avon)
A meeting of the mysterious minds! Gillian
Roberts is the Anthony Award-winning author of Caught Dead in Philadelphia
and she returns with another mystery for schoolteacher Amanda Pepper
-- a body at the foot of the school's marble staircase. And 2004 Anthony
Award-nominee and local author Elaine Flinn insures that antique dealer
Mollie Doyle plays sleuth again when she suddenly inherits a niece and
her fellow antique-lovers start dropping dead on the quaint streets
of Carmel.
Monday, January 10th at 7:30 p.m.
Ken Goffman
Counterculture Through the Ages: From Abraham
to Acid House
(Villard)
"With passion and wry humor, Goffman
unfurls a secret history of rebels, ranters, mystics, and bohos united
by their distrust of authority. By placing more recent social struggles
in this juicy (and sometimes hilarious) context, Goffman and coauthor
Dan Joy reveal the deeper dimensions of our current quest for freedom
and fun in a shrinking world of surveillance and control." -Erik Davis,
author of Techgnosis. Ken Goffman (aka, R. U. Sirius) is a well-known
cultural commentator and co-founder of Mondo 2000, the iconoclastic
magazine that defined the digital culture of the early nineties. A columnist
for Artforum International and the San Francisco Examiner,
he also co-wrote Timothy Leary's last book, Design for Dying,
and lectures internationally on subjects ranging from the implications
of new technology to alternative politics.
Tuesday, January 11th at 7:30 p.m.
Amanda Welsh
The Identity Theft Protection Guide
(St. Martin's Griffin)
Identity theft is the fastest
growing crime in America with over 10 million citizens having already
been hit. In the age of the internet, the issue is less privacy and
more protection. Welsh spent 13 years gathering information about other
people for technology and entertainment companies, and after a two-year
project to uncover every electronic file on herself, she grew scared
enough to write this critical, practical book. Covering issues from
credit reports and marketing lists to who has access to government records
and who is tracking you on the internet, this guide is a resource for
everyday people who want to protect their vital information without
completely altering their lives.
Wednesday, January 12th at 7:30 p.m.
Michael Nagler
Search for a Non-Violent Future: A Promise
of Peace for Ourselves, Our Families, and Our World
(Inner Ocean)
This updated edition of the 2002
American Book Award-winning Is There No Other Way is a historical
and spiritual approach to non-violence that draws on the experience
of activists, political visionaries, and spiritual leaders. Including
a new introduction by Arun Gandhi, a preface underscoring the importance
of non-violence in a post-9/11 era, and a five point plan on how to
put non-violence into action, this work by the founder of Berkeley's
Peace and Conflict Studies Program answers tough questions with grace
and hope.
Tuesday, January 18th at 7:30 p.m.
Malcolm Gladwell
blink
(Little Brown)
How do we make decisions--good
and bad--and why are some people so much better at it than others? That's
the question Malcolm Gladwell asks and answers in the follow-up to his
huge bestseller, The Tipping Point. Utilizing case studies as
diverse as speed dating, pop music, and the shooting of Amadou Diallo,
Gladwell reveals that what we think of as decisions made in the blink
of an eye are much more complicated than assumed. Drawing on cutting-edge
neuroscience and psychology, he shows how the difference between good
decision-making and bad has nothing to do with how much information
we can process quickly, but on the few particular details on which we
focus. Leaping boldly from example to example and displaying all of
his trademark brilliance, Gladwell will forever change the way you think
about thinking. Do not miss this enthusiastic, ingenious writer!
Wednesday, January 19th at 6:30 p.m. *
Book Club
Jude the Obscure
by Thomas Hardy
(Modern Library)
Recognized as one of Hardy's most
important novels, Jude the Obscure is the sad story of love and
sexual desire as dictated by the peculiar English matrixes of class
and destiny in the Victorian 19th century. At its apex is the tragic
Jude Fawley, a "simple" country boy whose aspirations to rise in class
are thwarted and his love affair with a woman socially above him is
a disaster.
Wednesday, January 19th at 7:30 p.m.
Martha Alderson
Blockbuster Plots: Pure and Simple
(Illusion Press)
Want to add depth to your stories
and scenes? Is that plotline too limp, the tension not building, or
is there an Effect with no Cause? By analyzing scenes from classic and
contemporary writers such as Twain, London, and McCarthy and with a
push from this writer coach and author, you can add a dynamic, effective
twist to your work. Writes Frank Baldwin (Jake and Mimi, Balling
the Jack), "Few writing teachers understand the subtleties of plot
as deeply, or can explain then as clearly, as Martha Alderson. [Her
book] is that rarest of writing tools -- one that will not only add
life and sparkle to your plot, but also unleash the magic that lies
at the core of your story. A must-have." See www.blockbusterplots.com
for more enticement.
Thursday, January 20th at 7:30 p.m.
Melita Schaum
A Sinner of Memory
(Michigan State University)
"This stunningly accomplished
group of essays bristles with intelligence, alert observations, psychological
insight, and ironic, lyrical prose. Melita Schaum is as unflinching
and shrewd as Joan Didion, as meditative and wise as Annie Dillard."
-- Ron Hansen, author of Atticus. This poet and essayist reflects
on individual experience from the perspective of a wanderer mid-journey
-- a woman in her forties, a self-styled seeker who finds herself flouting
the system and bucking the odds, and a partner to anyone who has ever
wondered whether happiness and unconventionality can coexist.
Friday, January 21st at 7:30 p.m.
Sister Helen Prejean
The Death of Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of
Wrongful Executions
(Random House)
"The Death of Innocents
tells us with intellect, wisdom, and passion an awful truth about the
administration of capital punishment in America that we won't or don't
want to believe--procedure arbitrarily trumps substance, maddening incompetence
undermines best intentions, racism shames everyone, and innocents are
executed." - Barry Scheck. Sister Helen Prejean (Dead Man Walking)
takes us with her on her spiritual journey as she accompanies two possibly
innocent human beings to their deaths at the hands of the state. Prejean
implores us to reflect on what is perhaps the core moral issue of the
death penalty debate: Honorable people disagree about the justice of
executing the guilty, but can anyone argue about the injustice of executing
the innocent?
*Event procedure details to come.
Sunday, January 23rd at 2:30 p.m. *
Mort Rosenblum
Chocolate: A Bittersweet Saga of Light and
Dark
(North Point Press)
Chocolate, the Valentine's Day
drug of choice, has more antioxidants than red wine and triggers the
same brain responses as falling in love. From the mole poblano -- chile-laced
chicken with chocolate -- of ancient Mexico to the vast empires of Hershey,
Godiva, and Valrhona, author Rosenblum (Olives, A Goose in
Toulouse) follows the chocolate trail the world over. He visits
cacao plantations, meets with growers, buyers, makers, and tasters,
and investigates the dark side of the chocolate trade as well as the
enduring appeal of its product. This former editor of the International
Herald Tribune and acclaimed Parisian foodie presents a fascinating
foray into the "food of the gods." Why did Mort Rosenblum write a book
on chocolate? Listen
to Rosenblum's audio clips to get a taste of why.
Chocolate will be provided!
* Please Note Time
Wednesday, January 26th at 7:30 p.m.
William Powers
Blue Clay People
(Bloomsbury)
As a fresh-faced aid worker in
1999 Liberia, William Powers was given the mandate to "fight poverty
and save the rainforest." He would discover a Fourth World country --
poor, environmentally looted, scarred by violence, and barely governed
-- where horror and corruption loomed behind everyday transactions.
Yet he finds a place in the jungle that feels like home and a woman
he might risk everything for, until violence descends once more, threatening
his friends and his future.
Thursday, January 27th at 7:30 p.m.
Michael Shapiro
A Sense of Place: Great Travel Writers Talk About
Their Craft, Lives, and Inspiration
(Traveler's Tales)
This collection of illuminating
conversations with the world's great travel writers reveal deeply-held
views about the craft of writing, the world, and home. Ride over dusty
Montana roads with Tim Cahill and empty a bottle of wine with Jonathan
Raban in Seattle study that seems like a ship's cabin. Did you miss
Isabel Allende, Bill Bryson, Pico Iyer, Paul Theroux or Simon Winchester
at the Book Cafe? Catch up with the experience through A Sense of
Place.
Thursday, January 27th at 7 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
Pakistan: In the Shadow of Jihad and
Afghanistan
by Mary Anne Weaver
(FSG)
This group meets monthly to discuss
a book relevant to current events around the world. To date, we have
examined books focusing on Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America
and Europe. This month's selection is Pakistan: In the Shadow of
Jihad and Afghanistan. By The New Yorker's foreign correspondent,
Mary Anne Weaver, this work fuses geopolitical choices with a vivid
portrait of a land--of its people, its mystery, and its clans--and provides
background for those seeking to understand problems the international
community faces while also posing some disturbing questions about the
future of conflict in South Asia. As always, we welcome people from
all backgrounds and affiliations to participate. For more information
you may email Jenn Ramage at jenn_ramage@yahoo.com or call the store
at 462-4415.
* Please Note Time
Friday, January 28th at 7:30 p.m.
James Dalessandro
1906 -- The Novel and the Film!
(Chronicle)
James Dalessandro, who began his
writing career at the Good Times and is the founder of the now-legendary
Santa Cruz Poetry Festival, returns to Santa Cruz with a most unusual
presentation for a novelist. While 1906, his epic recreation
of the great San Francisco Earthquake, has spent weeks on the bestseller
lists, he has been at work on a documentary film. James and the wizards
at Lucas Film have produced a 19-minute clip of "The Damndest Finest
Ruins," in which they have animated still photographs. James returns
to his hometown for the premier showing of this impressive film clip
and further discussions of his novel, 1906. It's free, and an event
not to be missed.
COMING IN EARLY FEBRUARY
Thursday, February 3rd at 7:30 p.m.
Pankaj Mishra
An End to Suffering
(FSG)
In this original and provocative
book about the Buddha's life and influence, Mishra describes his own
restless journeys into India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, among Islamists
and the emerging Hindu middle class, exploring the myths and places
of the Buddha's life and discussing Western explorers' "discovery" of
Buddhism. This author of The Romantics searches to understand
the Buddha's relevance in a world where class oppression and religious
violence are rife, and where poverty and terrorism cast a long, constant
shadow. The result is the most three-dimensional, convincing book on
the Buddha that we have.
Friday, February 4th at 7:30 p.m.
Warren MacDonald
A Test of Will: One Man's Extraordinary
Story of Survival
(Greystone)
On April 9, 1997, experienced
climber Warren MacDonald set out to make the grueling climb to the top
of Australia's spectacular Mount Bowen. But what had begun as a two-day
adventure suddenly turned into a nightmare when he found himself lying
in a creek bed, both his legs pinned by a giant boulder. Surviving was
only the beginning. In 2003, MacDonald became the first double above-knee
amputee to reach the summit of Africa's tallest peak, Mt Kilimanjaro.
This sensational story has the suspense of a mystery, the pacing of
a thriller, and the intimacy of the best inspirational literature.
