Tuesday, November 1st at 7:30 p.m.
Candice Millard
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's
Darkest Journey
(Doubleday)
After his humiliating election
defeat in 1912, Theodore Roosevelt set his sights on the most punishing
physical challenge he could find, the first descent of an unmapped,
rapids-choked tributary of the Amazon. Roosevelt endured starvation,
Indian attack, disease, drowning, a murder within the party's own
ranks, and he even considered suicide himself. A former writer and
editor at National Geographic, Millard skillfully describes
the soaring beauty of the Amazon rain forest, the psyche of an American
president, and the terrors found on the most dangerous river on earth.
Wednesday, November 2nd at 7:30 p.m.
Bill Press
How the Republicans Stole Christmas:
The Republican Party's Declared Monopoly on Religion and What Democrats
Can Do to Take it Back
(Doubleday)
In the wake of an election seen
by many as a victory for "moral values," MSNBC political
commentator and one-time seminarian Bill Press launches a counteroffensive
against the so-called religious right. For decades, Press argues,
conservative preachers have defined religion so narrowly that many
people have been pushed outside the fold. This is Press's fervent
call to Democrats and liberals to reclaim religion and return it to
its basic principles of social justice, charity, and tolerance. The
author is the former co-host of CNN's Crossfire and The Spin Room
and served three years as chairman of the California Democratic Party.
Thursday, November 3rd at 7:30 p.m.
J. R. Moehringer
The Tender Bar: A Memoir
(Hyperion)
"The Tender Bar will
make you thirsty for that life--its camaraderie, its hilarity, its
seductive, dangerous wisdom."-- Richard Russo (Empire Falls).
J.R.'s mother was his anchor, but without a father figure, he needed
something else. He turned to the bar on the corner, a grand old New
York saloon that was a sanctuary for all types of men--cops and poets,
actors and lawyers, gamblers and stumblebums. The flamboyant characters
along the bar provided a kind of fatherhood by committee. Through
it all, the bar offered shelter from failure, from rejection, and
eventually from reality--until at last the bar turned J.R. away. Riveting,
moving, and achingly funny, The Tender Bar is at once an evocative
portrait of one boy's struggle to become a man, and a touching depiction
of how some men remain lost boys
Sunday, November 6th at 2:30 p.m. *
Mark Crispin Miller
Fooled Again:
How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next
One, Too
(Basic Books)
"[Mark Crispin Miller] gathers
enough well-documented evidence that anyone who cares about fair play
should find this book revelatory."- Publishers Weekly.
This incendiary book presents massive documentation that the 2004
election was not swung by "moral values" but stolen by theft,
and describes the mind-set, among both the major parties and the media,
that could permit it to happen again. For Republicans, the election
was little short of miraculous; the exit polls, usually so reliable,
turned out to be wrong by an unprecedented 5 percent in the swing
states. While the greatest body of evidence comes from the key state
of Ohio--where election-day irregularities and old-fashioned intimidation
tactics were found--similar practices were applied in seven other
states. Renowned critic and political commentator Mark Crispin Miller
(Bush Dyslexicon, Cruel and Unusual) argues that this
pattern of thousands of little fraudulent practices is the new Republican
electoral strategy.
* Please Note Time
Wednesday, November 9th at 7:30 p.m.
Seth Kantner
Ordinary Wolves
(Milkweed)
"I've not read anything
that so captures the contrast between the wild world and our ravaging
consumer culture. Ordinary Wolves is painful and beautiful.
" -- Louise Erdrich.
In the tradition of Jack London, Seth Kantner presents an Alaska far
removed from majestic clichés of exotic travelogues and picture
postcards. Kantner's vivid and poetic prose lets readers experience
Cutuk Hawcly's life on the Alaskan plains through the character's
own words--feeling the pliers pinch of cold and hunkering in an igloo
in blinding blizzards. Jeered by native children because he is white,
Cutuk becomes a marginal participant in village life, caught between
modern culture and his family's life alongside the wolves on the unforgiving
tundra. Like his young hero, Seth Kantner grew up in a sod igloo,
and his experiences of wearing mukluks before they were fashionable,
eating boiled caribou pelvis, and communing with the native tribes
add depth and power to this acclaimed narrative.
Friday, November 11th at 7:30 p.m.
Monty Roberts
The Horses In My Life
(Trafalgar Square Publishing)
Monty Roberts is famous the world
over as "the horse whisperer" and for his autobiography
The Man Who Listens to Horses. He now celebrates the best-loved
horses of his life, chosen from the tens of thousands he has worked
with over the past 60 years. From Ginger, the retired ranch horse,
to international classics-winning Thoroughbred racehorses, to Shy
Boy, the star of the PBS documentary and bestselling book, Shy
Boy--all have contributed something unique to Monty's understanding
of their kind. All but born in the saddle, Roberts now spends ten
months every year on the road teaching his non-violent message and
"gentling" training technique to a global audience.
Sunday, November 13th at 7:30 p.m.
George Packer
The Assassin's Gate: America in Iraq
(FSG)
Packer (Blood of the Liberals,
The Fight Is for Democracy) recounts how the United States
set about changing the history of the Middle East and became ensnared
in a guerrilla war in Iraq. As an on-the-ground reporter for The
New Yorker, he describes the struggles of individual American
soldiers and Iraqis from all backgrounds thrown together by a war
that followed none of the preconceived scripts. The Assassin's
Gate also describes the effect of the Iraq war on American life,
including the ordeal of a fallen soldier's family and the shortcomings
of a political culture too impoverished in its knowledge of the world
and too bitterly polarized to debate complex moral and strategic questions.
This intimate first-person narrative brings to the page the full range
of ideas and emotions stirred up by our most controversial foreign-policy
venture since Vietnam.
Wednesday, November 16th at 6:30 p.m. *
Book Club
Drinking: A Love Story by
Caroline Knapp
(Delta)
This month's selection is the
memoir Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp.
In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir of her
twenty years as a functioning alcoholic, Caroline Knapp offers important
insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how
we learn to cope with it. "Presents just enough science and provides
a wrenching inner look at what this disease and the recovery from
it feels like".--San Francisco Chronicle.
Read it and join the discussion!
* Please Note Time
Wednesday, November 16th at 7:30 p.m.
Jeff Divine & Matt Warshaw
Surf Move Tonite!: Surf Move Poster
Art, 1957-2005
(Chronicle)
Jeff Divine, world renowned surf
photographer and current photo editor for Surfer's Journal,
joins Matt Warshaw, author of Maverick's and former editor
of Surfer, for a celebration of beach and film culture. The
posters for low-budget surf flicks began as colorful notices stapled
onto beachside telephone poles in the early fifties. In 1966, The
Endless Summer, with its ultra dayglo view of beach life, proved
that surf movies had made it big time. Four decades later, here is
the singular collection of more than 140 rare posters, covering everything
from Gidget to Pacific Vibrations. A slide show will
be shown. Don't miss it!
Thursday, November 17th at 7:30 p.m.
Jonathan Harr
The Lost Painting: The Quest for a Caravaggio
Masterpiece
(Random House)
Caravaggio, artist and master
of the Italian Baroque, was a revolutionary painter and a man beset
by personal demons. Four hundred years ago, he painted works of transcendent
emotional and visual power while drinking, brawling, and eventually
committing murder among the taverns of Rome. He died young and under
strange circumstances. Caravaggio scholars estimate some eighty of
his works are in existence today, yet many have been lost to time.
Prizewinning author Jonathan Harr (A Civil Action) embarks
on a spellbinding journey to discover the long-lost painting known
as The Taking of Christ, its mysterious fate having captivated Caravaggio
devotees for years. A remarkable synthesis of history and detective
story, Harr's account is not unlike a Caravaggio painting: vivid,
deftly wrought, and enthralling.
Monday, November 21st at 7:30 p.m.
Said Hyder Akbar
Come Back to Afghanistan: A California
Teenager's Story
(Bloomsbury)
Building on two acclaimed radio
documentaries aired on This American Life, Hyder Akbar tells
how his ordinary suburban California life was turned upside-down after
9/11. Hyder's father, a scion of an Afghan political family, sold
his business--a hip-hop clothing store in Oakland--and left for Afghanistan,
where he became President Hamid Karzai's chief spokesman and later,
the governor of Kunar, a rural province. Obsessed since youth with
a country he had never even visited, seventeen-year-old Hyder convinced
his father to let him join him on three successive summers. Working
alongside his father has given Hyder a rare front-row seat at the
creation of democratic government in Afghanistan. In Come Back
to Afghanistan, Hyder interweaves his personal journey of a teenager
struggling with his identity in his parents' homeland with a dramatic
behind-the-scenes account of political and civilian life in post-Taliban
Afghanistan.
Tuesday, November 22nd at 7:30 p.m.
Dan Austin
True Fans: A Basketball Odyssey
(Lyons Press)
Based on the nationally touring
film that won the People's Choice Award at the Banff Film Festival,
Dan Austin's hilarious and thoughtful True Fans details the
real journey of three friends who road their bikes from the pickup
court at Venice Beach to The NBA Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts.
It was a basketball pilgrimage, shooting hoops on sandlots across
the country, looking for enlightenment under a net, and collecting
signatures on a basketball of those who helped them on the way--from
the reverend who let them sleep behind his church, to a coal miner
who offered them five dollars he could scarcely afford to part with.
They would bring this Hero's Ball to the Hall of Fame, and ask that
it be included in the permanent collection. What would America do,
the book also asks, if three guys on bikes with a basketball in tow
showed up and camped on your lawn?
Tuesday, November 29th at 7:30 p.m.
Bob Madgic
Shattered Air: A True Account of Catastrophe
and Courage on Yosemite's Half Dome
(Burford Books)
Watch a spectacular slide-show
program about a calamitous lightning episode on the summit of Half
Dome. A fascinating account and a cautionary tale, Shattered Air
follows five hikers who headed up Yosemite's Half Dome trail in July
1985. They also headed into the very vortex of a powerful thunderstorm
with its savage lightening strikes that would kill two of them and
injure the other three.
Wednesday,
November 30th at 7:30 p.m.
Carl Nolte
The San Francisco Century
(San Francisco Chronicle Press)
and
Frederic Larson
Mystical San Francisco
(San Francisco Chronicle Press)
By fourth generation San Franciscan
and veteran Chronicle reporter, The San Francisco Century documents
100 years since the city's spectacular rebirth after the 1906 earthquake.
This lushly illustrated history reveals the soul of San Francisco,
from the majesty of the Golden Gate Bridge and the back alleys of
Chinatown to the era of Flower Power and the city's emergence as a
world-class center of social and technological innovation. San
Francisco Chronicle photojournalist Frederic Larson (aka, "the
moon guy") and the late Pulitzer Prizewinning columnist Herb
Caen shared a love of San Francisco's beauty and majesty that they
captured in photographs and words over the course of decades. Now
they are united in Mystical San Francisco with its striking
visual and literary tributes to the city's glorious landmarks.
AND Coming in December 2005…
Thursday, December 1st at 7:00 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities
for Our Time by Jeffrey Sachs
(Penguin Press)
This month's selection is The
End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time by Jeffrey
Sachs. Jared Diamond writes, " Jeffrey Sachs is that rare phenomenon:
an academic economist famous for his theories about why some countries
are poor and others rich, and also famous for his successful practical
work in helping poor countries become richer. In this long-awaited,
fascinating, clearly and movingly written book, he distills his experience
to propose answers to the hard choices now facing the world."
For more information you may email Jenn Ramage at jenn_ramage@yahoo.com
or call the store at 462-4415.
* Please Note Time
Thursday, December 1st at 7:30 p.m.
Gus Gregory, Dave Clark & Dan Haifley
Reflections of the Santa Cruz Harbor:
Portal to Monterey Bay
(Burford Books)
Join us for a celebration of
the Santa Cruz Harbor with local author Gus Gregory, photographer
Dave Clark, and Executive Director of O'Neill Sea Odyssey Dan Haifley.
Together with Harbor Historian Ed Larsen, Port Authority Brain Foss
and Editor Joyce Wrenn, these stalwart proponents of our harbor have
created an engaging and richly illustrated look at our favorite hot
spot for sails and students of the sea. All of the proceeds from the
sale of the book are given to the O'Neill Sea Odyssey and its efforts
to educate Central California elementary school students about our
marine ecology.
Monday, December 5th at 7:30 p.m.
Norman Solomon
War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits
Keep Spinning Us to Death
(John Wiley & Sons)
"War Made
Easy exposes and explains the lies and
deceptions that have misled our nation into vile and bloody disasters
from Vietnam to El Salvador to Iraq; it reveals the frequent cowardice
and culpability of the US media that often behaves as a propaganda
arm of the Pentagon. War Made Easy is a sobering and essential
book that Americans should read, share, and discuss."-John Stauber
(Weapons of Mass Deception).
The Executive Director of the Institute for Public Accuracy and author
of Target Iraq, Solomon sets out to change the mindsets of
Americans who mistakenly support unjustified wars. Exploring the government's
tendency to choose war, and the resulting tactics they use to gain
public support, he argues we need to stop blindly accepting the basic
myths we're regularly asked to accept as the truth and challenge the
common notion that opposing war is "anti-American."
Tuesday, December 6th at 7:30 p.m.
Todd Newberry
The Ardent Birder
(Ten Speed Press)
For the novice and serious observers
of birds, The Ardent Birder is the first in the vast field
of popular birding literature to focus on the birder and not just
the bird. In fifty eloquent short essays, Todd Newberry, UCSC biology
professor and lifelong devotee of fine feathered friends, shares everything
from delightful meditations on birdwatchers' daily events to philosophies
of why birders are so fervently dedicated to the sport.
Wednesday, December 7th at 7:30 p.m.
David Littschwager & Susan Middleton
Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the
World's Most Remote Island Sanctuary
(National Geographic)
Fine art photographers, award-winning
environmentalists and documentary film-makers Liittschwager and Middleton
join forces to showcase breathtaking photographs of the native flora
and fauna of the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands. Home to nearly
70% of our nation's coral reefs, and known as the "rainforests
of the sea," these islands are host to wildlife that exist nowhere
else on the planet. For this book, the authors gained unprecedented
access to photograph on and around these islands that are filled with
spectacular diversity but are completely off-limits to people. Join
them for a gorgeous slide show and lecture on our sister marine sanctuary
across the Pacific.
Thursday, December 8th at 7:30 p.m.
Paul Krassner
One Hand Jerking: Reports From an Investigative
Satirist
(Seven Stories Press)
Krassner has won awards from
both Playboy (for satire) and the Feminist Party Media Workship
(for journalism), been inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame
at the Cannabis Cup in Amsterdam, has received an ACLU Uppie (Upton
Sinclair) Award for dedication to freedom of expression, and has been
described by the FBI as "a raving, unconfined nut." Now
this satirist and counterculture legend gazes on the fires of pop
culture, politics and celebrity and returns unscathed to help us make
sense of our senseless world. From cults to pornography, from Charles
Manson to Homer Simpson, from the war on drugs to the invasion of
Iraq, from circumcision to propaganda, this collection epitomizes
Krassner's credo, "Irreverence is our only sacred cow."
Sunday, December 11th at 2:30 p.m. *
Linda Dalal Sawaya & Alice Ganamey Sawaya
Alice's Kitchen: Traditional Lebanese
Cooking
(Linda Sawaya)
Authentic Lebanese cuisine is
one of the healthiest on the planet. This new edition of a sensational
immigrant family cookbook includes 125 recipes, from how to pick and
cure olives to how to prepare pocket bread, baba gannouj, traditional
lamb dishes and even the heavenly pastry baklawe. Generations of recipes
and family tales were passed down from mother to daughter in the mountain
village of Douma, overlooking the Mediterranean, then brought to America
by Grandmother Dalal and Mother Alice, and later passed on to Linda.
Enjoy a fun evening of food and culture with a local culinary talent!
*Please Note Time.
Tuesday, December 13th at 7:30 p.m.
Ed Larson
Pebbles from a Favored Shore
(Fly by Night)
Head Docent for the Santa Cruz
Harbor and author of Spring Tides and Gaff Rigged Remembrance,
Ed Larson is a passionate educator and historian who is dedicated
to the legacy of our harbor and the whole of the Monterey Bay. This
new book is a delightful anthology of essays and illustrations reflecting
on his experiences as a youth and later as a fisherman in Alaska,
as well as his 25 year relationship with the marine life, boats, and
people of our sea-side town.
Wednesday, December 14th at 7:30 p.m.
Carolyn Burke
Lee Miller: A Life
(Knopf)
Biographer, art critic, and former
UCSC professor, Carolyn Burke has now penned a mesmerizing portrait
of Lee Miller, one of the most visible yet enigmatic cultural figures
of the recent past. A sleek bombshell of a model, Miller led a glamorous
life in New York and Paris in the '20s and '30s socializing with Chaplin
and Picasso, and then became a war correspondent and photographer,
entering Dachau with the troops, even posing in Hitler's bathtub.
This impressive work about a multifaceted woman also is a lushly illustrated
story of art and beauty, sex and power, Modernism and Surrealism,
independence and collaboration.
Friday, December 16th at 7:30 p.m.
Chris Elliott
The Shroud of the Thwacker
(Miramax)
Chris Elliott is an Emmy Award-winning
writer, producer and comedian who has performed on SNL,
Everybody Loves Raymond and in the cult film There's Something
About Mary. Now he turns his devilish genius and maniacal wit
onto the historical crime genre, taking hilarious swipes at Patricia
Cornwell, Da Vinci Code and Caleb Carr's mysteries. Jack the Jolly
Thwacker terrorizes the streets of 1882 New York while Police Chief
Caleb Spencer, "Evening Post" reporter Liz Smith and Mayor
Teddy Roosevelt try to unravel the mystery of the world's first serial
killer. A grand spoof by a mad genius! (This event was rescheduled
from its original October date.)
ANNOUNCING:
A NEW FICTION WRITING GROUP
AT CAPITOLA BOOK CAFÉ
The new Book Café Fiction Writer's Group begins Monday, January
9, 2006 from 6:30 - 8:30pm. This peer critique group will provide
a supportive community environment in which participants can receive
feedback on their fiction projects and improve their writing skills.
The group will be facilitated by James Moran, who has participated
in and facilitated numerous fiction workshops, and will meet every
other Monday from 6:30 - 8:30 pm. If you have any questions please
contact James at jsrmoran@yahoo.com.
HOLIDAY SALES ARE COMING…..
Monday, November 21st - Sunday, November 27nd
20% OFF All Cards, Wrap & Gift Items
Monday, November 28th - Sunday, December 4th
20% OFF All Hardcover Children's Books
Monday, December 5th - Sunday, December 11th
20% OFF All Hardcover Nonfiction Books
Monday, December 12th - Sunday, December 18th
20% OFF All Hardcover Fiction and Poetry Books
Monday, December 19th - Saturday, December 24th
20% OFF All 2006 Calendars
