Talking has nothing to do with conversation.
GERTRUDE STEIN

 

Events

 

 

 

Friday, October 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Martha Witt
Broken as Things Are
and
Ron Rash
Saints at the River
(Henry Holt)

Two poetic, Southern voices share the literary stage. Praising the intense, private worlds within Broken as Things Are, E. L. Doctorow writes, "A sensitive Southern tale of weirdly imagined children and hapless adults. Ms. Witt has staked out a territory somewhere between Harper Lee and Flannery O' Connor." Award-winner Ron Rash lyrically explores the love of the land and the hold the dead has on the living when a town divides over the recovery a girl's body and the environmental impact on the river that took her life.

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Monday, October 4 at 7:30 p.m.
Francisco Goldman
The Divine Husband
(Grove)

Translated into nine languages, The Long Night of the White Chickens and Ordinary Seaman established this author as an American voice of importance. This joyfully inventive new novel is a tale about the soul of the Americas and the birth of the modern spirit, of great love, tragedy, and human comedy, set in the convents, ballrooms, and coffee plantations of Central America, and the docks, rooming houses, and stately Fifth Avenue addresses of New York.

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Tuesday, October 5 at 7:30 p.m.
Anthony Doerr
About Grace
(Scribner)

David Winkler is a quiet boy obsessed with snow and all weather and he becomes a man who dreams things before they happen -- a gift that nearly destroys him. Dreaming his infant daughter will drown in a flood, he flees his home, his family and the future to prevent her fate. This dazzling author of The Shell Collector conveys a love of nature and compassion for the frailty of human life.

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Wednesday, October 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Susan Orlean
My Kind of Place
(Random House)

This brilliant and funny New Yorker writer and author of The Orchid Thief now conducts a world tour via its subcultures, from the heart of the African music scene in Paris, to the World Taxidermy Championships in Illinois, to the heights of Mt. Fuji and its commemorative eel cakes. Portrayed by Meryl Streep - with creative liberties - in the film "Adaptation", Susan Orlean is "sinfully enjoyable...catching absurdity and humanity in the same sentence is [her] specialty." (New York Times Book Review)

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Thursday, October 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Mary Trigiani
Cooking With My Sisters
(Random House)

The five sisters of beloved author Adriana Trigiani (Big Stone Gap, The Queen of the Big Time) have brought together their irrepressible energy and humor, sibling rivalry and family love, timeless traditions and generations of Italian recipes. Cooking with My Sisters: One Hundred Years of Family Recipes, from Bari to Big Stone Gap weaves a grand Italian family memoir into the pastas, sauces, breads, and desserts that have been prepared by this larger-than-life family for generations. Join Mary Trigiani for a night of stories and sumptuous dishes.

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Tuesday, October 12 at 7:30 p.m.
Jennifer Traig
Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood
(Little, Brown)

When 12-year-old Jennifer crammed everything from sneakers to barrettes into the washing machine and meticulously washed her hands for 30 minutes before dinner ("All scrubbed in for your big casserolectomy, Dr. Traig?" asked her mother), her family's exasperation made Jennifer realize she'd gone from quirky girl to raving lunatic. Her childhood mania was the result of an undiagnosed Obsessive Compulsive Disorder joining forces with an arcane set of Hebrew laws she studied for her bat mitzvah. Now a writer for McSweeney's, she remembers these scenes with riotous humor and candor, even as her natural tendency toward the extreme led her down different paths of teen agony and mortification.

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Wednesday, October 13 at 7:30 p.m.
August Bullock
The Secret Sales Pitch
(Norwich)

Optical illusions have been embedded in mass media in order to secretly manipulate you since the 1950's. Though forever being denied, these subliminal messages are extremely provocative and involve nightmarish monsters as well as many forms of erotica. With the evidence written by attorney August Bullock and supported with provocative illustrations, their existence is both credible and disturbing. From Smirnoff to In-and-Out, have you really seen what you are looking at?

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Thursday, October 14 at 7:30 p.m.
Wendy Northcutt
The Darwin Awards III
(Plume)

The New York Times bestselling author Wendy Northcutt returns with her hilariously macabre and growing collection of new mishaps and misadventures honoring those individuals who improve our gene pool by removing themselves from it. This paperback edition includes the sheriff who inadvertently shot himself twice, an artist who strung a "shell" necklace of live ammunition, and a man who attempted to collect insurance by severing his leg with a chain saw. Once again this Berkeley grad shows how uncommon "common sense" is, and proves that when it comes to stupidity, no species does it like we do.

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Sunday, October 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Gish Jen
The Love Wife
(Knopf)

From the highly praised author of Mona in the Promised Land and Who's Irish? comes a generous, funny, explosive novel about the new "half-half" American family. A second-generation Chinese-American man marries a Blondie WASP woman, adopts two Asian daughters and has one half-half bio son. His furious and traditional mother sends a mainland "cousin" to the rescue -- to be a nanny and hopefully something more. Comic and thought-provoking, The Love Wife is another study of the modern day immigrant experience from the author that does it best.

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Tuesday, October 19 at 7:30 p.m.
Christopher Burt
Extreme Weather
(Norton)

Weather at its worst is as thrilling as it is threatening -- heat bursts, super bolts, pink blizzards, and falls of fish and toads. In this ultimate book for the weather-curious, meteorologist Christopher Burt has gathered color photographs of the most extreme weather ever captured on camera, extensive research, worldwide weather records, and an exploration of the extent of global warming. Join him for a fantastic slide show and electrifying discussion on the climate around you.

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Thursday, October 20 at 6:30 p.m. *
Book Club
Piano Tuner
by Daniel Philippe Mason
(Vintage)

The year is 1886, and England is at the height of its colonial power. On assignment for the British War Office, Edgar Drake, an unassuming, introverted tuner of pianos, is sent to India to work on a valuable instrument. In Burma, he befriends the owner of the piano, Surgeon-Major Anthony Carroll, who maintains peace with the natives by offering them free medical care and—of all things—music. Drake is soon taken with India and reluctant to leave, but his involvement in a political plot engineered by Carroll has disastrous results. Mason's debut novel is ambitious and fascinating, a smart exploration of the transformative effects of travel, as well as the dangers of colonization.

* Please Note Time

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Wednesday, October 20 at 7:30 p.m.
Ernesto Quinonez
Chango's Fire
(Rayo)

This acclaimed author of Bodega Dreams brings us a powerful love story set against the changing face of the inner city in which cultures collide and morals are challenged. Julio came from Spanish Harlem and provides for his parents by his arson scams; he falls for a Starbucks-gulping white woman who symbolizes all that Julio stands against. Maritza is a pastor of a progressive church who sells U.S. Citizen papers on the streets; she falls for a married, undocumented Mexican immigrant. Both face tough decisions about who they are and which path will bring meaning to their unsettled worlds.

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Friday, October 22 at 7:30 p.m.
A. J. Jacobs
The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World
(Simon & Schuster)

Alarmed and chagrined at the massive gaps in his personal knowledge base, this NPR contributor and senior editor at Esquire sets for himself a daunting, if justifiably insane, task: to fill the holes in his Ivy League education by reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. With endearing wit, disarming frankness, and a lucid articulation of some of the most arcane and strangest of facts, The Know-It-All recounts the comically disruptive effect that Jacob's new knowledge has on every part of this life -- from his marriage and his eccentric New York family to his quest to appear on Jeopardy!

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Sunday, October 24 at 2:30 p.m. *
Barbara DeMarco-Barrett
Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer
(Harcourt)

Host of the weekly NPR radio show "Writers on Writing", contributor to the Los Angeles Times and Poets & Writers, and editor of the American Society of Journalists and Authors Monthly, this talented writer knows about being busy. Finding that the biggest stumbling block for aspiring writers is not so much fear of the blank page as frustration with the lack of time, DeMarco-Barrett gives practical advice for fitting serious writing into stolen moments -- while waiting for your Chinese take-out or sitting in traffic. Focus on the present instead of the end result, experiment, dig deep, and most of all have fun! Time is on your side!

* Please Note Time

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Tuesday, October 26 at 7:30 p.m.
Gary Dolowich, M. D.
Archetypal Acupuncture: Healing with the Five Elements
(Jade Mountain)

Acupuncturists have used the Chinese model of the Five Elements for thousands of years to balance ch'i, the vital force of the body. Drawing upon case histories, spiritual poetry, classical sources, and contemporary culture, this impressive and accessible work explains how to work with this ancient map of energy to resolve physical and emotional imbalances and navigate the stages of life. Writes Dorit Reznek, Five Branches president, "This book serves as a path for our Western world into the heart of Chinese medicine...recommend[ed] to practitioners and patients, as well as those who simply seek a fresh appreciation of the mystery of life."

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Thursday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m.
David Harris
The Crisis: The President, the Prophet, and the Shah--1979 and the Coming of Militant Islam
(Little, Brown)

On November 4, 1979, a seemingly ragtag group of Iranian students, inspired by the then unknown Muslim cleric Khomeini, seized the American Embassy in Tehran and took hostage some five dozen Americans. Crosscutting between Washington, Tehran, Paris, and the doomed Desert One rescue mission, this decades-long work draws on the first comprehensive interviews with the Iranians involved as well as fresh discussions with the American players. Khomeini, the shah, Carter and those who worked the shadows all recount the 444-day Iran Hostage Crisis that undid an American president and forever changed our psyches.

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Thursday, October 28 at 6:30 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
A Continent for the Taking
by Howard French
(Vintage)

Africa first captivated The New York Times journalist Howard French more than twenty-five years ago, but his knowledge of the continent has the depth of a lifetime association. In A Continent for the Taking, he gives an unstinting account of the disastrous consequences of the centuries-old encounter between Africa and the West. Henry Louis Gates Jr. writes, "Essential reading for those of us who love Africa and for all those who wish to gain a fuller understanding of a continent that is sprawling, mysterious, and endlessly fascinating." For more information on this open discussion group email Jenn Ramage at jenn_ramage@yahoo.com or call 462-4415.

* Please Note Time