Wednesday, June 8th at 7:30 p.m.
James Howard Kunstler
The Long Emergency: Surviving the End
of the Oil Age, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of
the Twenty-first Century
(Atlantic Monthly)
Kunstler (The Geography of
Nowhere, Home from Nowhere) now offers a shocking vision
of a post-oil future, telling us what to expect after the honeymoon
of affordable energy is over and preparing us for economic, political,
and social changes of an unimaginable scale. Riveting and authoritative,
The Long Emergency is a devastating indictment that brings new
urgency and accessibility to the critical issues that will shape our
future.
Thursday, June 9th at 7:30 p.m.
Richard Louv
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children
from Nature-Deficit Disorder
(Algonquin)
"I like to play indoors better
'cause that's where all the electrical outlets are," reports a
fourth grader. But it is not just television and video games that are
keeping kids inside. It's also their parents' fears of traffic, strangers,
Lyme disease, and West Nile virus; their schools' emphasis on more homework;
and their lack of access to natural areas. New research shows that nature
can offer powerful therapy for depression, obesity, and attention deficit
disorder and that environment-based education develops skills in problem
solving, critical thinking and creativity. Louv aims for an alternative
future in which the whole family joyfully experiences the natural world.
TICKETS ON SALE SATURDAY, MAY 21st
Saturday, June 11th at 1:30 p.m. *
David Sedaris
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
(Back Bay)
On site / ticketed event
America's favorite humorist and
contributor to "This American Life," David Sedaris lifts the
corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface.
Join this quirky, hilarious and bizarrely insightful author and performer
in honor of the new paperback edition of his latest work.
This event requires tickets and all tickets are tied directly
to book and audio sales. Choose between the following:
- For $ 20.00 you receive ONE ticket AND your choice of one of the
following:
Sedaris paperbacks: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Children
Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Naked,
OR Barrel Fever.
Please Note: The paperback edition of Dress Your Family...is not available
until May 31st. However, the title can be ordered on May 21 and prepaid
to earn a ticket.
- For $ 25.00 you receive ONE ticket AND the audio CD David Sedaris
Live at Carnegie Hall (abridged).
- For $ 100.00 you receive FOUR tickets AND the audio CD The David
Sedaris Boxed Set.
Entry into the store will be limited to ticket-holders only. If you
arrive early, please form a line outside of the store, and general admission
will begin at 12:30pm. Seating is limited, but standing room is plentiful.
Those people who do not have tickets will perhaps be permitted into
the store to join the signing line after the event, depending on crowd
control and time issues.
* Please Note Time. Capitola Book Cafe will be closed to all
other business between 12:15pm and the end of the event (as determined
by Book Cafe staff).
Monday, June 13th at 7:30 p.m.
Jenny Offill and Elissa Schappell
The Friend Who Got Away: Twenty Women's
True Life Tales of Friendships That Blew Up, Burned Out or Faded Away
(Doubleday)
Losing a friend over something
important or nothing at all can be as agonizing as a divorce, yet it
is rarely even discussed. The Friend Who Got Away brings together
the brave, eloquent voices of writers like Francine Prose, Katie Roiphe,
Dorothy Allison, Elizabeth Strout, Ann Hood, Diana Abu Jabar, Vivian
Gornick, Helen Schulman, and many others. Written especially for this
anthology and touched with humor, sadness, and sometimes anger, these
pieces evoke the uniqueness of each situation and illuminate the universal
emotions evoked by the loss of a friend.
Wednesday, June 15th at 7:30 p.m.
Mia Bloom
Dying to Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror
(Columbia University)
What motivates suicide bombers
in Iraq and around the world? Can winning the hearts and minds of local
populations stop them? Will the phenomenon spread to the United States?
Mia Bloom contrasts the use and strategies of suicide bombing in Asia,
the Middle East, and Europe and assesses the effect and the effectiveness
of government responses. She critiques the policies of Israel, Russia,
and the United States in their efforts to prevent such terrorism and
explores the role of suicide attacks against the backdrop of the larger
conflicts.
Thursday, June 16th at 7:30 p.m.
Aaron Glantz
How America Lost Iraq
(Tarcher)
As a reporter for the staunchly
antiwar Pacifica Radio, twenty-seven-year-old Aaron Glantz had spent
much of early 2003 warning of catastrophe if the U.S. invaded Iraq.
But, as he watched the statue of Saddam topple, he wondered whether
he had been mistaken: In interviews with regular Iraqis, he found wide
support for the Americans.
Then, in early 2004, the U.S. military initiated an unprovoked bombing
campaign against Fallujah; the attack confounded many anti-Saddam Iraqis,
and plunged the nation into chaos. Here is the brutally honest account
of a reporter who discovered how popular the U.S. presence was in Iraq,
and who then watched this popularity disappear as the Bush administration
mishandled the war, leaving us with the intractable conflict we face
today.
Thursday, June 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
Susan Casey
The Devil's Teeth: A True Story of Obsession
and Survival Among America's Great White Sharks
(Henry Holt)
Journalist Susan Casey joined
the two intrepid biologists who bunked down during each shark season
in the Farallon Islands--the barren "Devil's Teeth," twenty-seven
miles off the coast of San Francisco. Her first glimpse of the famous,
terrifying jaws up close instantly had her hooked, but she had no way
of preparing for what she would find among these dangerous islands that
have banished every campaign for civilization in the past two hundred
years. The Devil's Teeth is a vivid dispatch from an otherworldly
outpost, a story of crossing the boundary between society and an untamed
place where humans are neither wanted nor needed.
Saturday, June 25th at 2:30 p.m. *
Laurie King
Locked
Rooms
(Bantam)
Mary Russell and her husband Sherlock
Holmes are back in Laurie R. King's highly acclaimed New York Times
bestselling mystery series. This time the first couple of detection
pair up to unlock the buried memory of a shocking crime that took place
on the streets of San Francisco and in Russell's own past. Listen
to clips of Laurie King commenting on her new book.
* Please Note Time
Monday, June 27th at 7:30 p.m.
Editor Kevin Smokler and Contributors Paul Flores, Karl Sochnlein, Michelle
Richmond, Nico Carey, Adam Johnson
Bookmark Now
(Basic Books)
A few big names in fiction and
a lot of writers-to-watch discuss "why books? why now?" in
this collective credo about the future of literature. These authors
in their twenties and thirties, those raised when TV, video games, and
then the Internet supplanted books as dominant cultural mediums, boldly
address the significance of literature today. They are asking "How
do we talk about writing and reading in an age where they both seem
almost quaint?" Editor Kevin Smokler, a Bay Area entrepreneur devoted
to fostering literary culture and cultivating fresh talent, and multiple
contributors will join us in a vibrant conversation about the state
of the literary arts.
Tuesday, June 28th at 7:30 p.m.
Maria Goodavage
Dog Lover's Companion to the Bay Area
and Dog Lover's Companion to California
(Avalon)
Maria Goodavage and her trusty
companion Jake have dug up many surprising resources available to dogs
in the Golden State--from great hikes and fun beach spots to doggy spas
and hound-friendly art openings. Packed with illustrations by celebrated
cartoonist Phil Frank, as well as helpful maps, up-to-date leash laws,
and a useful "paw" ranking system for all locations in the
book, this new edition of The Dog Lover's Companion is a pet's
best friend.
Wednesday, June 29th at 7:30 p.m.
Don Winslow
The Power of the Dog
(Knopf)
From the author of California
Fire and Life comes a breakneck-paced novel about America's drug
world --its devastation and deliriums, its complexities of alliances
and betrayals, its life-shaping effect on all the pawns, the kings,
and the law enforcers who inhabit it both willingly and not. Spanning
thirty years, Power of the Dog tells the riveting, often harrowing
story of five people--a DEA agent, a drug lord, a call girl, a hit man,
and a priest--caught up in the War On Drugs. It's a story about power,
politics, love, revenge and survival, as the five either triumph over,
or fall to, 'the power of the dog'. This is Don Winslow writing at the
very top of his form.
Thursday, June 30th at 7:30 p.m.
David Ewing Duncan
The Geneticist Who Played Hoops with My
DNA... and Other Masterminds from the Frontiers of Biotech
(Morrow)
With the public and policy makers
only vaguely aware of what is really happening in biotech labs, a new
coterie of geniuses, tinkerers, tycoons, and genetic soothsayers are--for
better or worse--about to alter life on earth forever. Award-winning
journalist Duncan writes an insightful, witty narrative about science
and personality, delving into stem cell research, cloning, bioengineering,
extending life span, and genetics by telling the stories of the characters
at the fulcrum of the science--revealing the scientists's quirky, fascinating,
and sometimes vaguely unsettling personas as a way to understand their
science and the implications of their work.
"A book for every human being who read the science
section over the past few years and thought, Holy #@&!!"
--Mary Roach, author of Stiff.
Thursday, June 30th at 7:00 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
This month's selection is Wild
Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China by Ian Johnson. Of
this remarkable work Orville Shell writes, "Ian Johnson has written
a book about contemporary China that is at once concrete and insightful.
By profiling three individuals, he gives us a distinctive lens through
which to view the landscape of unresolved contradictions and discontinuities
that lie just beneath the surface of China's much vaunted 'economic
miracle.'"
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
