Friday, June 1 at 7:30 pm
William S. Pollack, Ph.D.
Real Boys' Voices : Boys Speak Out About Drugs, Sex, Violence, Bullying, Sports, School, Parents and So Much More (Penguin)

In Real Boys, Dr. William Pollack explored the profound, painful issues that most boys in our nation face. In this fascinating follow-up bestseller, Pollack goes right to the source, recording the diverse voices of young men who tell compelling, extraordinarily candid stories about their lives today. An eye-opening book for teenage boys and girls, their parents and teachers, and all the people in their lives.

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Saturday, June 2 at 10:45 am
Storytime with Billie Harris and Brett Taylor

We invite children and adults alike to join us for a grand time. Billie Harris--whose marvelous, whimsical voice can be heard on KUSP's Castle Cottage---joins us for another monthly storytime for young children. She is joined by the amazing Brett Taylor whose Latin Beat can be heard on KUSP's The Global Village. He joins us to read some delightful books in Spanish for those who love to hear that lyrical language as much as English.

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Monday, June 4 at 7:30 pm
Nani Power
Crawling at Night: A Novel (Atlantic Monthly)

Nani Power brilliantly paints a searing view of the New York cityscape in her darkly lyrical Crawling at Night. Power follows a lonely Japanese sushi chef and a heavy drinking, out-of-luck waitress as they navigate through the city's sea of alcohol, sex, and exotic food. We see the people condemned to the shadows of urban anonymity and feel the darkened yet noble longings of people who draw towards each other to absorb the shock of loneliness. Power's debut novel is receiving a large amount of early praise; come and hear a daring new voice for yourself!

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Tuesday, June 5 at 7:30 pm
Karen Tei Yamashita
Circle K Cycles (Coffee House Press)

The provocative, neatly packaged Circle K Cycles alternates between essays detailing the author's travels to Japan with her Brazilian family--a time spent straddling the fence between boisterous Brazilian customs and conservative Japanese tradition--and overlapping short stories whose characters are all somehow involved by a Brazilian Japanese employment scam and its unresolved, deadly outcome. When the grandchildren of Japanese immigrants in Brazil move to Japan to perform manual work, their need for cultural understanding, along with their homesickness, clash with the sometimes-xenophobic status quo. This book of hybrids---merging colorful collage with text, story and history---opens a door onto some of the important issues of the new century: labor, nationalism, and cultural diaspora. Please join us in welcoming this distinguished UCSC literature professor.

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Thursday, June 7 at 7:30 pm
Adair Lara
Hold Me Close, Let Me Go: A Mother, A Daughter and an Adolescence Survived (Broadway)

Almost overnight, her daughter Morgan turned from a sweet young child into an angry, secretive teenager who exploded into a dangerous mix of drugs, alcohol, school failures, and confrontation. Lara Adair writes a startling and straightforward memoir about her experience of raising a daughter, a nightmare child whom she would not abandon. Adair's own father, who left his wife and seven children, returns, bringing memories of her own headstrong adolescence and, surprisingly, some of the best advice. Acclaimed newspaper columnist and local wonder Claudia Sternbach introduces.

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Monday, June 11 at 7:30 pm
Douglas Steakley and Ric Masten
Pacific Light: Images of the Monterey Peninsula

The natural brilliance and diversity of our blessed home along the Monterey Peninsula is elusive yet memorable. The celebrated photographer Douglas Steakley and prolific poet Ric Masten have joined their creative arts in a celebration of singular beauty. Phenomenal photographs stretch through the pages with words wafting within them, broadening the powerful sensation of capturing the legendary scenes of the Central Coast. Join us for a breathtaking experience. Slides will be shown.

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Wednesday, June 13 at 7:30 pm
Terry Ryan
The Prize Winner of Defiance Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less (Simon & Schuster)

Married to an alcoholic man whose income made even getting by nearly impossible, Evelyn Ryan raised an armload of children by entering - and winning - contests for rhymed jingles and advertising slogans. In this quick-witted biography, Terry Ryan writes of her mother's resourcefulness in the heyday of 1950's wacky consumer culture, netting prizes of bikes, cash, and all-you-can-grab shopping sprees. Ryan's story is one of dignity in the face of poverty mixed with a quirky, hysterical look at how one woman was determined to provide for her family -- in twenty-five catchy words, or less!

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Thursday, June 14 at 5:30 pm
Learn about New Book Club Titles from Random House!

Join us for a thoughtful discussion on book clubs and hot new titles. Valerie Walley, our local sales representative from Random House, will talk about what's new for book group selections and some titles from Random House that are very appropriate for book groups. Also, she will provide book group guides and door prizes. This is one enthusiastic, knowledgeable sales rep, whose tips prove vital in recommending new books to staff and customers! Don't miss her.

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Thursday, June 14 at 7:30 pm
George Saunders
Pastoralia: Stories (Penguin)

We're honored to welcome the highly acclaimed author of CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella to Capitola. Of his recent collection of stories, Esquire says, "Saunders is a provocateur, a moralist, a zealot, a lefty, a funny funny writer, and the stories in Pastoralia delight. We're lucky to have them." If that doesn't convince you to join us for a memorable evening, imagine this scenario laid out by The New York Times: "Artful and sophisticated...truly unusual. Imagine Lewis' Babbitt thrown into a backseat of a car going cross-country, driven by R. Crumb, Matt Groening, Lynda Barry, or Spike Jonze. That's a story Saunders could tell."

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Monday, June 18 at 7:30 pm
Ted Conover
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (Random House)

Denied a request to shadow a recruit at the New York State Corrections Officer Academy, acclaimed journalist Ted Conover applied for a job as a prison officer. So began his odyssey at Sing Sing, once a model prison but now the state's most troubled maximum-security facility. Setting a new standard for in-depth reporting, Conover shares a remarkable look inside the bars, where drugs, sex, and gang wars are rampant and where the line between violator and violated is often unclear. The Washington Post says New Jack "is an amazing book...The stories are spellbinding and the telling is clear and cold."

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Wednesday, June 20 at 5:30 pm *
Anne D. LeClaire
Entering Normal

According to Publisher's Weekly, Anne D. LeClaire's latest novel packs, " an emotional wallop comparable to that produced by Sue Miller's The Good Mother or Jane Hamilton's A Map of the World." In the small town of Normal, Mass., Rose Nelson has never ceased grieving the accidental death of her teenage son. At the same time, 20-year-old Opal Gates arrives in town with her young son, Zack, in tow and moves in next door. The tentative friendship that slowly develops between Opal and Rose sustains both women as they face new obstacles and old demons. Join us for a lovely discussion and a cup of tea with a marvelous new voice in fiction. Then, stay to hear one of our finest novelists, Elizabeth Berg.
*Please Note Time

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Wednesday, June 20 at 7:30 pm
Elizabeth Berg
Never Change (Pocket Books)

The New York Times best-selling author Elizabeth Berg follows the acclaimed Oprah Book club selection Open House with a luminous modern-day parable of the redemptive power of love over death. A self-anointed spinster at fifty-one, Myra Lipinsky endures the isolation of her middle life by doting on her dog, Frank, and immersing herself in her career as a visiting nurse. Her life changes forever when Chip Reardon, the too-good-to-be-true golden boy she adored in high school and now victim of an incurable illness, is assigned to be her new patient. Soon, Myra and Chip find themselves engaged in a poignant redefinition of roles, and a complicated dance of memory, ambivalence and longing. Elizabeth Berg is a master in examining ordinary people and everyday life. With keen insight and marvelous humor, she gets it right the first time and leaves us wanting more.

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Thursday, June 21 from 6:30-8 pm
Writing Group

Every third Thursday of the month, join Book Cafe's Wendy Mayer as she leads our writer's group, which meets upstairs in the back of the store. The intent is to provide an opportunity for local writers at any stage to come together and write. Due to the limited amount of time, the group will focus on short exercises rather than group critique.

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Thursday, June 21 at 7:30 pm
Lalita Tademy
Cane River (Time Warner)

Always interested in her family's roots, Lalita Tademy found herself swept up in a two year odyssey of passionate research that led her from her vice-presidency at Sun Microsystems to the Creole plantations of pre-Civil War Cane River, Louisiana. The women in her family were born as slaves, weathered the Civil War, and grappled with the contradictions of emancipation through the turbulent years of the twentieth century. Tademy presents an all-too-rarely seen part of American history with vibrant storytelling. An excellent event for those fascinated by the real folks of American history and the art of weaving the captivating tales of family.

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Tuesday, June 26 at 7:30 pm
Julia Alvarez
In the Name of Salome (Penguin)

Julia Alvarez is a superb writer who merges complex revolutionary history with lyrical prose, who masterfully evokes a nation's turmoil in the pages of her novels. In her most ambitious work since In the Time of the Butterflies, the author of Yo and How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents recounts the story of a woman whose poetry inspired one Caribbean revolution and of her daughter whose dedication to teaching strengthened another. Camila Henriquez Urena is about to retire from her longtime job teaching Spanish at Vassar College. Only now as she sorts through family papers does she begin to know the woman behind the legend of her mother, the revered poet Salome Urena, who became the Dominican Republic's national poet at age 17 and died when Camila was only three. Based in fact, In the Name of Salomé alternates between Camila's story and her mother's. In the process of deciding where she should settle, Camila uncovers the truth of her mother's tragic personal life and, finally, finds a place for her own passion and commitment. It is a marvelous, tragic story, and surely one of Alvarez' most poignant.

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Wednesday, June 27 at 7:30 pm
Maureen Draper
The Nature of Music (Riverhead)

Why does certain music have a profound effect, both viscerally and psychologically? Taking readers on an adventure of self-awakening, classical pianist Maureen Draper explores the wondrous force of music, its vast potential for healing, for expression of intense and subtle emotions, and for nurturing personal creativity. Filled with innovative ideas to intensify listening pleasure and impact, complemented by an extensive listening list, The Nature of Music presents a symphony of possibilities for enriching your musical life. A lyrical night!

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Thursday, June 28 at 7:30 pm
Timothy Ferris
Life Beyond Earth (Simon & Schuster)

Are we alone in the universe? And if not, is anybody listening? Timothy Ferris -- the acclaimed author of The Whole Shebang -- shows how contemporary science is attempting to answer these questions in Life Beyond Earth. The companion volume to the two-hour documentary film of the same name, Life Beyond Earth makes cutting-edge scientific research accessible to the broadest possible audience. Filled with hundreds of full-color illustrations, including dozens of stunning photographs shot from the Hubble Space Telescope, it asks how life and intelligence began, who we are, where we came from, and where we're going. A slide show will accompany the reading.