Thursday, June 1st at 7:30 p.m.
Scott Anderson
Moonlight Hotel
(Doubleday)
A New York Times war
correspondent, Anderson (Triage and War Zones) has
written from Beirut , Northern Ireland , Chechnya , Israel , Sudan
, Sarajevo , El Salvador , and other war-torn areas. His novel of
intrigue and dark humor looks hard at the consequences of American
empire. As the kingdom of Kutar backslides into tribal conflict, mid-level
diplomat David Richards is ordered to stay, even as most Americans
and foreigners flee, abandoning the local population to their violent
end. Holed up in the Moonlight Hotel with a collection of ex-pats
and foreign nationals, David tries to maneuver over the radically-changed
landscape.
Saturday, June 3rd at 2:30 p.m. *
Laurie R. King
The Art of Detection
(Bamta,)
Santa Cruz Artist of the year
and bestselling author Laurie King ingeniously bridges her Kate Martinelli
and Mary Russell series. Philip Gilbert was a true Holmes fanatic,
from his antiquated décor and his vintage wardrobe to his collection
of priceless memorabilia, including a manuscript some would kill for.
And perhaps someone did. Now, San Francisco detective Kate Martinelli
must follow the convoluted trail of a killer—one who may have
trained at the feet of the greatest mind of all times.
* Please Note Time
Monday, June 5th at 7:30 p.m.
Heather Lende
If you Lived Here I'd Know Your Name: News from Small Town Alaska
(Algonquin)
As both the social columnist
and obituary writer for the Chilkat County News, as well
as a contributor to NPR and Christian Science Monitor, Lende
knows everyone under all occasions in tiny Haines , Alaska . Accessible
only by air and water and only in good weather, Haines is a beautiful
and isolated place, and that attracts certain strong-character types,
including the high school principal who moonlights as a Roy Orbison
impersonator, a one-legged female gold miner, and, of course, eagles
and bears. With Lende's colorful storytelling, small town life in
wild Alaska is showcased with humor and compassion.
Tuesday, June 6th at 7:30 p.m.
Nando Parrado
Miracle in the Andes
(Crown)
"Given up for dead after
an air crash in the Andes in 1972, Nando Parrado not only survived
but showed the strength and determination that saved his own life
and that of his fifteen friends. Now he gives his own account
of his ordeal—enthralling, enlightening, modest and moving.
An impressive testimony to what love can achieve. —Piers Paul
Read, author of Alive. Thirty years after the disaster made
famous by the bestseller Alive, one of the two Uruguayan
rugby players who walked out of the treacherous Andes mountains 72
days after their plane crashed now tells his miraculous story.
Wednesday, June 7th at 7:30 p.m.
Stevie Smith
Pedaling to Hawaii: A Human-Powered Odyssey
(Countryman)
"Fascinating and inspiring;
if they pulled this off, what can't you do?— Bill McKibben (Wandering
Home ). Two guys disillusioned with their jobs and possessing
little cash or knowledge of geography decide to circumnavigate the
globe using only human-powered means. A bike ride through Europe by
a guy who's never ridden beyond the corner grocery; a 111 pedal-boat
trip across the Atlantic by men whose sailing experience was a bout
in a dinghy on the English coast; a bike and in-line skates get them
across America; and there will be more pedaling to Hawaii. Join Stevie,
now a tired yet empowered Buddhist priest, as he stops at Book Café
while on his human-powered book tour.
Sunday, June 11th at 7:30 p.m.
Robert Baer
Blow the House Down
(Crown)
"Bob Baer knows Arabic,
knows the Middle East , knows the CIA, and he spent years working
its most important target—terrorism. Now he's written a lively
novel about agency infighting on the eve of 9/11, when so many managed
to get so much so wrong. Blow The House Down is an insider's
tale about the one unforgivable sin of the intelligence world—not
wanting to know. —Thomas Powers, Intelligence Wars.
The American intelligence officer on whom the central character in
Syriana was modeled, Baer is also the author of See No Evil
and Sleeping with the Devil.
Tuesday, June 13th at 7:30 p.m.
Scott Simon
Pretty Birds
(Random House)
The host of National Public Radio's
"Weekend Edition" Scott Simon has covered ten wars, from
El Salvador to Iraq , and has won every major award in broadcasting,
including the Peabody and the Emmy. He has authored a memoir, Home
and Away, and now celebrates the paperback release of his striking
novel that centers on a young woman in the besieged city of Sarajevo
in the early 1990s. With both grace and knowledge, Simon "puts
the events in a war-torn land into human perspective with memorable
characters struggling with issues of ethnicity, survival, friendship,
and betrayal." (Booklist)
Wednesday, June 14th at 7:30 p.m.
Bill Buford
Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany
(Knopf)
Staff writer for The New
Yorker, Bill Buford (Among the Thugs ) thought himself
a decent cook and seized the opportunity to train in the kitchen of
Mario Batali’s three-star New York restaurant, Babbo. Heat
is wonderfully exuberant chronicle of his time spent as Batali's
"slave" and of his far-flung apprenticeships with culinary
masters in Italy . Heat is a richly evocative memoir of
Buford's frenetic, humiliating and yet triumphant kitchen adventure,
the story of Batali's amazing rise to culinary (and extra-culinary)
fame, a dazzling behind-the-scenes look at the workings of a famous
restaurant, and an illuminating exploration of why food matters.
Thursday, June 15th at 7:30 p.m.
Carolyn See
There Will Never Be Another You
(Random House)
From the book critic for the
Washington Post and accomplished author Carolyn See (The
Handyman, Making a Literary Life) comes this cautionary
novel of family and society, where a naïve past is replaced by
a menacing future in which distinguishing between reality and imagination
proves to be more challenging than ever. Global threats of terror
have cultivated rage as well as apathy across the country. People
fear that "anybody could be armed, or have a bomb. Or a disease.
Or all three." For Phil, a dermatologist at the UCLA hospital,
it is a time of unease, a contrast to the days when he coasted through
life on his good looks and haphazard effort. Suddenly assigned to
fight bioterrorism, he has to make profound decisions that will effect
not only his wayward wife, and his unreliable mistress but also the
entire country.
Tuesday, June 20th at 7:30 p.m.
Jason Roberts
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler
(Harper Collins)
He was known simply as The Blind
Traveler—a solitary, sightless adventurer, who, astonishingly,
fought the slave trade in Africa, survived a frozen captivity in Siberia,
hunted rogue elephants in Ceylon and helped chart the Australian outback.
James Holman (1786-1857) became "one of the greatest wonders
of the world he so sagaciously explored," triumphing not only
over blindness but crippling pain, poverty and the interference of
well-meaning. A UCSC grad and writer for Village Voice and
McSweeny's, Roberts has rediscovered one of history's epic
lives.
Wednesday, June 21st at 6:30 p.m. *
Book Club
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
(Picador)
This month's selection is The
Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer. "We are
each the love of someone's life." So begins The Confessions
of Max Tivoli, a heartbreaking love story with a narrator like
no other. Born with the physical appearance of an elderly man, Max
grows older mentally like any child, but his body appears to age backwards,
growing younger every year. And yet, his physical curse proves to
be a blessing, allowing him to try to win the heart of the same woman
three times as at each successive encounter she fails to recognize
him, taking him for a stranger, so giving Max another chance at love.Set
against the historical backdrop of San Francisco at the turn of the
twentieth century, The Confessions of Max Tivoli is a beautiful
and daring feat of the imagination, questioning the very nature of
love, time, and what it means to be human.Read it and join the discussion.
* Please Note Time
Wednesday, June 21st at 7:30 p.m.
Persis Karim & Contributors
Let Me Tell You Where I've Been: New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora
(University of Arkansas)
The new hybrid culture of Iranian
Americans has created a uniquely feminine voice in Iranian literature.
This extensive collection consists of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction
by women whose lives have been shaped by history, exile, and immigration.
With a multicultural and distinctly female sensibility, they create
a conversation about Iran , Iranian culture, the Persian and English
languages and the dual identities of its authors. "We have to
thank Persis Karim for this wonderful book and for these powerful
selections; they offer an alternative to the currently politicized
and one-sided view of Iran and Iranian culture."— Azar Nafisi,
author of Reading Lolita in Tehran : A Memoir in Books.
Reading tonight will be Santa Cruz authors Farnaz Fatemi
and Tara Fatemi, along with Bay Area contributors Persis Karim and
Esther Kamkar.
Thursday, June 22nd at 7:30 p.m.
Kyra Davis
Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights
(Red Dress Ink)
From the stylish and sassy Santa
Cruz author who wowed a national audience with her debut, Sex,
Murder and a Double Latte, comes another tale of Sophie Katz,
a young, hip black-Jewish San Franciscan female crime writer who has
great fashion sense to boot. Betrayal hits close to home this time
as Sophie's brother-in-law's secret life and dead body are discovered
at about the same time. Our heroine will pursue the case when no one
else seems to take her wild-haired raving seriously.
Monday, June 26th at 7:30 p.m.
Kristin Luker
When Sex Goes to School: Warring Views on Sex--And Sex Education--Since the Sixties
(W. W. Norton)
A UC Berkeley and Boalt Law School professor, Luker spent over twenty years talking to people in ordinary communities about sex and how, if at all, it should be taught. Tracing sex education from its birth in 1913 to its more politicized modern incarnation, she explores how our parents' sexual attitudes have influenced us and, in turn, how our sexual choices affect the way we teach our children about sex. Her conclusions are unexpected, and after reading this book it is impossible to look at the intersection of the intimate and the political in the same way. Her book Abortion and the Politics of Motherhood was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
Tuesday, June 27th at 7:30 p.m.
Frederick Crews
Follies of the Wise
(Shoemaker & Hoard)
"Forget intelligent design.
We need intelligent dissent: criticism that exposes the cant, corruption,
banality, pomposity, and superstitions of our age. That is why we
need Frederick Crews."—Carol Tavris. Thiry-six year veteran
professor at UC Berkeley and author of the hilarious parody of Freudianism,
The Pooh Perplex, Frederick Crews has always considered himself
a skeptic. His essays brilliantly dismantle sloppy thinking across
the intellectual spectrum, from Freudian theory, to intelligent design,
UFO zaniness, and the current state of literary criticism. With proven
brilliance and humor, Crews zeroes in on the universal temptation
to reach for deep wisdom without attending to the little voice that
asks, "Could I, by any chance, be deceiving myself here?"
Wednesday, June 28th at 7:30 p.m.
Bob Greenfield
Timothy Leary
(Harcourt)
To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, "Tune in, turn on, drop out" became a mantra, and its popularizer, Dr. Timothy Leary, a guru. A charismatic psychologist, Leary became first intrigued and then obsessed with expanding human consciousness and the effects of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s while teaching at Harvard, where he instituted their experimental use. Leary transformed himself from serious social scientist into counterculture shaman, embodying the idealism and the hedonism of an age of revolutionary change. Robert Greenfield, author of works on Jerry Garcia and Bill Graham, has now penned the first major biography of one of the most controversial figures in postwar America .
Thursday, June 29th at 7:00 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State Oppression by Alvaro Vargas Llosa
(Farrar Straus Giroux)
This month's selection is
Liberty for Latin America: How to Undo Five Hundred Years of State
Oppression by Alvaro Vargas Llosa. A Peruvian
journalist and research fellow at Oakland's Independent Institute,
Vargas Llosa proposes that the shortcomings of Latin America's recent
experiments with neoliberalism—which have left the elite and
poor further apart than ever—reflect an unshakeable pattern of
state intervention in the economy, privilege and laws that have plagued
these countries since their early colonial period. "You may not
agree with everything Alvaro Vargas Llosa has to say... but you should
take very seriously his central argument: that lack of political and
economic freedom is at the root of our region's underdevelopment"—Ernesto
Zedillo, former President of Mexico. This book begins a series on
the recent elections, changes and progress in Latin America , specifically
South America .
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
And coming in July 2006...
Wednesday, July 5 at 7:30pm
UCSC graduate Reyna Grande for Across 100 Mountains , a stunning and poignant story of migration, loss, and discovery--as two women, one born in Mexico, one from the U.S., find their lives joined in the most unlikely way.
Wednesday, July 12 at 7:30pm
Judy Yung , author of Unbound Feet, historian, and respected UCSC professor, for Chinese American Voices—From the Gold Rush to the Present
Wednesday, July 19 at 7:30pm
Novelist Elizabeth Buchan for her follow-up to Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, Wives Behaving Badly
Saturday, July 29 at 7:30pm
White House Counsel to U.S. President Richard Nixon and author of Worse Than Watergate, John Dean , for his new work, Conservatives Without Conscience
