Tuesday, March 1st at 7:30 p.m.
Anna Tsing, Jennifer Gonzales, and Helene Moglen
Shock and Awe: War on Words
(New Pacific Press)
If you don't know what to say
about global war, you may need a dictionary. Shock and Awe, published
by The Literary Guillotine's New Pacific Press, is just that: a keywords
book that participates in a battle over the imagination, acknowledging
the force of words and images in framing our everyday lives. Rather
than being merely shocked and awed by the manipulation of words (think
"patriot", "terrorism", "peace", "security"), a group of more than seventy
scholars, artists and public intellectuals put their writings on the
line, joining forces and fervor to offer "glimpses of social history
as a form of defense and defiance in an escalating war on words." Several
UCSC contributors will participate.
Wednesday, March 2nd at 7:30 p.m.
Richard Walker
The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness
in California
(The New Press)
For over a century, California
has been the world's most advanced agricultural zone, out-producing
most countries. However, as acclaimed geographer and historian Walker
argues, our state's miraculous manipulation of nature has been purchased
at the price of epic environmental degradation and labor exploitation.
Full of thunder and surprises, The Conquest of Bread allows the
reader to weigh the claims of both boosters and critics in the debate
over the most extraordinary agricultural profusion in the modern world.
Tuesday, March 8th at 7:30 p.m.
Frank Delaney
Ireland
(Harper )
"With this extraordinary
novel Frank Delaney joins the ranks of the greatest Irish writers,"
says bestselling writer Jack Higgins. Epic in scope, yet intimate in
the telling, this impressive American fiction debut surveys the great
diorama of Irish history from prehistoric times to the struggle for
independence. Delaney, a former BBC reporter, alternates his "modern"
story with the legends and historical events of Ireland's past, capturing
on the page the magical cadences of the ancient oral tradition that
defines this nation of storytellers.
Wednesday, March 9th at 7:30 p.m.
Adam Hochschild
Bury the Chains: Prophets, Slaves and Rebels
in the First Human Rights Crusade
( Houghton Mifflin)
From the author of King Leopold's
Ghost comes a thrilling account of the first grass-roots human rights
campaign, which began in 1787 with twelve men dedicated to an impossible
goal: ending slavery in the largest empire on earth. Along the way,
they pioneered most of the tools citizen activists still rely on, from
wall posters to boycotts. Though fought by the House of Lords, the crusade
refused to die, fueled by celebrity figures like Thomas Clarkson, a
fiery organizer who devoted his life to the cause and who lived to see
the day when a slave chains were buried in a Jamaican churchyard. Bury
the Chains abounds in atmosphere, high drama, and nuanced portraits
of unsung heroes and colorful villains. Again, Hochschild gives a little-celebrated
historical watershed its due.
Thursday, March 10at 7:30 p.m.
Sonny Brewer
The Poet of Tolstoy Park
(Ballantine )
"The more you transform your
life from the material to the spiritual domain, the less you become
afraid of death." Leo Tolstoy's words became Henry Stuart's raison d'etre.
Owner of Transom Bookstore and editor of the Stories From the Blue Moon
Cafe, Brewer has penned an unforgettable novel based on Stuart's life,
who, when told he had one year to live, moved to Fairhope, Alabama,
a haven for strong-minded individualists. There he built a round house
of hand-poured concrete and lived another 20 years. Human existence,
Stuart believed, continues in a perfect circle unmarred by flaws of
personality, irrespective of blood and possessions and rank, and separate
from organized religion. The Poet of Tolstoy Park is a moving
and irresistible story, a guidebook of the mind and spirit that lays
hold of the heart.
Sunday, March 13th at 2:30 p.m.
Lily Tuck
The News from Paraguay
(Harper )
Help us welcome the 2004 National
Book Award Winner! Paris, 1854. Francisco Solano--the future dictator
of Paraguay--began his courtship of the young, beautiful Irishwoman,
Ella, who follows Franco to Asunción and reigns as his mistress. Isolated
and estranged in this new world, she embraces her lover's ill-fated
dream, one fueled by a heedless arrogance and one that will devastate
Paraguay. With the urgent narrative, intimate detail, and wealth of
skillfully layered characters, this book recalls the epic novels of
Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa.
* Please Note Time.
Monday, March 14th at 7:30 p.m.
Azadeh Moaveni
Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up
Iranian in America and American in Iran
( Public Affairs)
As far back as she can remember,
UCSC graduate Moaveni has felt at odds with her Iranian-American identity.
At home, she served tea, clung to tradition, and dreamed of Tehran.
Outside, she practiced yoga and listened to Madonna. After studying
Arabic in Egypt, she moved to Iran as a journalist for Time magazine.
This is the story of her search for her place between two cultures cleaved
apart by a violent history. She also paints a rare portrait of the rebellious
Iranian next generation and their restive land lost in the twilight
of its revolution.
Tuesday, March 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Doug Fine
Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man
(Alaskan Northwest)
As heard on his NPR commentary,
Doug Fine had a rough time adjusting to rural Alaska after a life in
the suburbs of New York. He faced heavy dead whales, frozen pipes, angry
moose and disorientation in a bear-packed wilderness. And yet the frostbite
and embarrassment are worth it: at least he doesn't have to face traffic
jams in the wild. Fine has worked for the Washington Post,
US News and World Report, and Salon reporting on human rights
in Guatemala, tribal war in Tajikistan, democracy struggles in Burma
and mountain gorillas in Rwanda, and he is currently news director at
radio station KHNS in Haines, Alaska. A slide show will be presented.
Wednesday, March 16th at 6:30 p.m.
Book Group Meeting
The News from Paraguay by
Lily Tuck (Harper )
Meet to discuss the novel The
News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck.
Paris, 1854. Francisco Solano--the future dictator of Paraguay--began
his courtship of the young, beautiful Irishwoman, Ella, who follows
Franco to Asunción and reigns as his mistress. Isolated and estranged
in this new world, she embraces her lover's ill-fated dream, one fueled
by a heedless arrogance and one that will devastate Paraguay. With the
urgent narrative, intimate detail, and wealth of skillfully layered
characters, this book recalls the epic novels of Gabriel García Márquez
and Mario Vargas Llosa.
* Please note time
Thursday, March 17th at 7:00 p.m.
World Affairs Book Club
The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations
in Occupied Iraq
Christian Parenti
(New Press)
Parenti takes us directly to the
conflict in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Sadr City, introduces us to relatives
waiting for the imprisoned in Abu Ghraib, and takes a night drive around
Baghdad with the insurgents. William Greider writes, "Parenti's war
reporting is so fresh and flavorful---so somberly real---it makes you
wonder why it is so rare. His work reminds me of the great war reporting
of the distant past, when correspondent were observers, writing letters
from the front to convey what they actually saw and heard, the gore
and the boredom together." As always, we welcome people from all backgrounds
and affiliations to participate. For more information you may email
Jenn at jenn_ramage@yahoo.com or call the store at 462-4415.
* Please Note Time.
Wednesday, March 16th at 7:30 p.m.
Jeanette Walls
The Glass Castle (Scribner)
AND
Alison Smith
Name All the Animals (Scribner)
Two memoirs by women who experienced
the power of sibling loyalty and the emotional trials of a homelife
left in tatters. Walls was raised by loving but dangerously irresponsible
parents. Her father, when sober, taught them geology, physics, and how
to embrace life, but when he drank, he would steal grocery money and
disappear. Her mother was a free-spirited artist who preferred making
art over making dinner. The family was nomadic, and the children learned
to protect and support each other, even as their parents became homeless.
As children, Alison and Roy Smith were so close their mother called
them Alroy, but by age 18, Roy was dead. Alison felt the full impact
of that grief, waiting for his return, breaking every rule at Catholic
School, and reaching out for a taboo first love that helped her discover
a world beyond the death of her brother.
Monday, March 21st at 7:30 p.m.
Suze Orman
Money Book for the Young, Fabulous and Broke
( Riverhead)
Suze Orman is the bestselling
author of The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom and The Courage
to Be Rich, the Emmy-winning host and producer of several TV finance
education programs, and a financial planning wizard "who has revolutionized
the way America thinks about money." She now takes aim at Generation
Debt (and their anxious parents), those in their twenties and thirties
who graduate from college with a mountain of student loan debt and are
stuck with one of the weakest job markets in recent history. They live
off credit cards, may or may not have health insurance, and come up
so far short at the end of the month that the idea of saving money is
a joke. Concisely, pragmatically, and without a whiff of condescension,
this new work offers a set of real, not impossible, solutions to the
problems at hand and the problems ahead.
Tuesday, March 22nd at 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Santa Cruz
Gary Young is a poet and artist
whose honors include a Pushcart Prize and twice won grants from the
National Endowment for the Arts. He is the author of several collections
of poetry, and since 1975 he has designed, illustrated, and printed
limited edition books at his Greenhouse Review Press. His print work
appears in the Museum of Modern Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum,
and The Getty Center for the Arts. Christopher Buckley is the author
of 13 books of poetry, most recently Sky. He has edited three
anthologies of contemporary poetry, has written critical books on poet
Philip Levine and on poet Larry, and teaches Creative Writing at the
MFA Program at UC Riverside.
Wednesday, March 23rd at 7:30 p.m.
Jordan Fisher Smith
Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the
Sierra
( Houghton Mifflin)
Part Edward Abbey, James Ellroy,
and Barry Lopez, Nature Noir is the story of Smith's fourteen
years as a park ranger for forty-eight miles of Sierra Nevada river
canyons. The gorgeous government-owned land along the American River
that he has pledged to protect is (think Catch-22) condemned to be inundated
by a huge dam. Ranger work here includes encounters with armed miners
scouring for gold, drug-addled squatters, and extreme-sports fanatics
who combine motorcycles, parachutes, and high bridges. The predator
may be mountain lion or human in a sudden act of violence in this surreal
landscape surrounding a half-constructed dam slowly reverting to wild.
With his original western voice, Smith reveals some startling truths
about park rangering on America's public lands.
Thursday, March 24th at 7:30 p.m.
Deborah Santana
Space Between the Stars: My Journey to an
Open Heart
( One World / Ballantine)
Though Deborah Santana is best
known for her marriage to music icon Carlos Santana, her own life was
charged with drama before and after they wed. Daughter of a white mother
and a black father-the legendary blues guitarist Saunders King-Deborah
experienced racial intolerance, her romantic involvement with musician
Sly Stone led to personal suffering, and with the civil rights movement
and Woodstock era as the backdrop, she and Carlos were pulled dangerously
into a manipulative cult by their yearning for truth and spirituality.
Deborah Santana talks frankly about her fight against racial injustice
and her loyalty to her family, but ultimately her work explores the
struggle to remain a spiritual and artistic force in her own right,
in the shadow of one of the world's most revered musicians. "Beautifully
written, full of fine detail, it breaks illusions about gurus, rock
stars, and stereotypes about race. This is a dynamic memoir of an extraordinary
woman's life."-Natalie Goldberg.
Thursday, March 31st at 7:30 p.m.
Roger Burbach
Imperial Overstretch: George W. Bush and
the Hubris of Empire
AND
The Pinochet Affair: State Terrorism and Global Justice
(Zed Books)
A historian by training, Burbach
has held leadership roles with the Center for the Study of the Americas
(CENSA), the North American Congress on Latin America, and UC Berkeley's
Peace and Conflict and International Studies programs. Imperial Overstretch
explains how the neo-conservatives and the petro-military complex have
hijacked US foreign policy. Historically, the cost of running empires
outstrips the capacity of the citizenry to pay for them. Is this the
fate of the US? The Pinochet Affair describes General Augusto
Pinochet 's violent coup against the elected government of Chile and
probes the sociopathic tendencies that led him to murder thousands while
authorizing acts of international terrorism. The book describes the
clash between the politicians who sought wash their hands of his crimes,
and the judges, lawyers and human rights organizations that mobilized
for an international regime of justice.
AND coming in early April 2005....
Saturday, April 2nd at 2:30 p.m.
Dean Karnazes
The Ultra Marathon Man: Confessions of an
All Night Runner
( Tarcher / Penguin)
There are those of us whose idea
of the ultimate physical challenge is a 26.2-mile Marathon. And then
there is Dean Karnazes who has run 226.2 miles nonstop; he has completed
the 135-mile Badwater Ultramarathon across Death Valley National Park
in 130-degree weather; and he is the only person to complete a marathon
to the South Pole in running shoes (and probably the only person to
eat an entire pizza and a whole cheesecake while running). This is an
ultramarathoner's story. Karnazes captures the euphoria and out-of-body
highs of these adventures and, with an insight and candor rarely seen
in sports memoirs, he also reveals how he merges the solitary, manic,
self-absorbed life of hard-core ultrarunning with a full-time job, a
wife, and two children, and how running has made him who he is today:
a man with an überjock's body, a teenager's energy, and a champion's
wisdom. (The author is planning lead a run immediately after the event.
Contact store for details. Bring your running shoes!)
* Please Note Time.
Tuesday, April 5th at 7:30 p.m.
Richard Weinstein
The Stress Effect: Discover the Connection
Between Stress and Illness and Reclaim Your Health
( Avery)
Santa Cruz's Dr. Weinstein is
a doctor of chiropractic who has specialized in treating stress-related
disorders for the past 25 years. The Stress Effect helps readers
understand the connection between chronic stress and numerous health
problems, including intestinal inflammation, and provides effective
programs for correcting imbalances and repairing the intestinal tract
lining. It also offers suggestions for managing psychological stress;
a commonsense diet that promotes balance; and a resource guide that
directs the reader to doctors who are familiar with the range of therapies
recommended.
Detailed
information for April authors and events
