Sunday, October 2nd at 2:30 p.m. *
Jill Wolfson
What I Call Life
(Henry Holt)
Join us for a family event celebrating
the complexities and blessings of the foster care system. Santa Cruz's
Jill Wolfson has written about children in the social welfare system
for Salon and San Jose Mercury News and is the author
of Somebody Else's Child. She now she shares with us her witty
and moving middle-reader/young adult novel featuring Cal, an eleven-year-old
who finds herself in a group home with four other girls and being
watched over by a strange old woman everyone refers to as the Knitting
Lady. This event is supported by and in appreciation of CASA, Court
Appointed Special Advocates, who are dedicated to provide a voice
for abused and neglected children in the juvenile court process. Treats
are provided and conversation is encouraged during this important
and fun event.
* Please Note Time
Tuesday, October 4th at 7:30 p.m.
George Taber
Judgement of Paris: California vs. France
and the Historic 1976 Paris Tasting that Revolutionized Wine
(Scribner)
Told for the first time by the
only reporter present, this is the true story of the legendary Paris
Tasting of 1976--a blind tasting where French judges shocked the industry
by choosing unknown California wines over France's best--and its revolutionary
impact on the world of wine. Then Paris correspondent for Time
magazine, Taber also focuses on the three gifted unknowns behind the
winning wines, pioneers using radical techniques alongside time-honored
winemaking traditions to craft premium American wines that could stand
up to France's finest. With unique access to the main players and
a contagious passion for his subject, Taber brings to life an eclectic
cast and a thrilling tale of the entrepreneurial spirit of the new
world conquering the old.
Thursday, October 6th at 7:30 p.m.
John Daniel
Rogue River Journal: A Winter Alone
(Shoemaker & Hoard)
In the Rogue River Canyon and
with Thoreau's Journal for inspiration and instruction, John Daniel
quit civilization. In addition to the physical rigor of working in
isolation, Oregon Book Award-winner Daniel assumed spiritual tasks
as well, and the result is a remarkable memoir of the mysteries of
solitude and the legacies of a father. Mary Oliver writes, "Rogue
River Journal touches, more than a little, the fountains of glory
in wild lands skirting the Rogue River. It touches another kind of
glory also, and with equal elegance-the past, the relationship between
a son and a father, as John Daniel recalls, with honesty, flamboyance,
tenderness and true regard for his father's life, his own journey
toward manhood. It is an extraordinary book."
Tuesday, October 11th at 7:30 p.m.
Holly Morris
Adventure Divas: Searching the Globe
for a New Kind of Heroine
(Villard)
Morris set out to prove that
adventure is a philosophy of living and to find like-minded, risk-taking
women around the globe. With a small television crew, her spirited
producer-mother, and a whole lot of chutzpah, Morris tracked down
artists, activists, and politicos-women of action who are changing
the rules. Morris brings to life the remarkable people she's encountered
while filming her PBS series Adventure Divas, like Kiran Bedi, New
Delhi's chief of police who revolutionized India's infamously brutal
Tijar Jail, and New Zealand pop star Hinewehi Mohi, a Maori who reinvigorated
her native culture for a new generation. Intelligent and phenomenally
funny, Adventure Divas is a pro-woman chronicle for the twenty-first
century.
Thursday, October 13th at 7:30 p.m.
James D. Houston and Eddie Kamae
Hawaiian Son: The Life and Music of
Eddie Kamae
(Hawaiian Legacy)
Join us for an evening of books
and live music, and meet Eddie Kamae, 'A Living Treasure of Hawai'i.'
A discussion of this new biography will be followed by songs by Eddie
and his bassist, Ocean Kaowili. A night after premiering his new documentary
at the Pacific Rim Film Festival, Eddie will appear at the Book Café
with beloved local author Jim Houston, whose book tells the inspirational
story of this legendary musician, 'ukulele virtuoso, pioneering film-maker
and leading voice in Hawaii's cultural renaissance. "...[The]
rare biography of a musician that is as lovingly composed and beautifully
written as his music." -- Aloha Airlines' SPIRIT OF ALOHA
Sunday, October 16th at 7:30 p.m.
Myla Goldberg
Wickett's Remedy
(Doubleday)
The triumphant follow-up to the
bestselling Bee Season, Wickett's Remedy is a brilliant novel
about the dream of progress--personal, scientific, commercial, and
cultural --featuring a charming heroine whose desire for a better
life comes up against the sweep of history. We follow Lydia, an early
20th century Irish American shopgirl with big ambitions, as her husband
quits medical school to create a mail-order patent medicine called
Wickett's Remedy, just as the horrors of the Spanish influenza begin
to change the world. "[A] rich historical re-creation whose energy
and ingenuity evoke memories of E.L. Doctorow's classic Ragtime....A
fine novel very much in the American vein, and a quantum leap forward
for the gifted Goldberg."--Kirkus Reviews
Tuesday, October 18th at 7:30 p.m.
Leslie Savan
Slam Dunks and No-Brainers: Language in Your Life, the
Media, Business, Politics, and, Like, Whatever
(Knopf)
With dazzling wit and acuity,
three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Savan dissects contemporary language
to discover what the most popular idioms reveal about America today.
Tracing the paths of phrases from obscurity to ubiquity, she describes
how "real people" create slang; how business and politics
mine the language for these phrases to better sell products and personalities;
and how new expressions become part of the great dumbing down (to
use an indispensable pop phrase) of our spoken language. Feisty and
marvelously original, this is a book for everyone who loves the mysteries
and idiosyncrasies of the ever changing American language.
Wednesday, October 19th at 6:30 p.m. *
Book Club
The Liars' Club
by Mary Karr
This month's selection is the
memoir The Liars' Club by Mary Karr. Those who have read and
thoughtfully considered the work may join the discussion. In this
powerfully funny, razor's edge tale of a fractured girlhood, prize-winning
poet and critic Mary Karr conjures up the terrors and joys of growing
up in a swampy East Texas refinery town, at the epicenter of a family
full of passionate, volatie attachments. In a voice stipped of self-pity,
in language reinvented with a raw authenticity and brilliant energy,
Karr shows readers a "terrific family of liars and drunks . .
. redeemed by a slow unearthing of truth".
*Please Note Time.
Wednesday, October 19th at 7:30 p.m.
Narendra Jadhav
Untouchables: My Family's Triumphant
Journey Out of the Caste System in Modern India
(Scribner)
For thousands of years the people
at the bottom of the Hindu caste system, the untouchables, have been
treated as subhuman. Now, Jadhav tells the awe-inspiring tale of his
family's struggle for equality and justice in India. Based on his
father's diaries, Jadhav unflinchingly documents the life of untouchables--the
hunger, the cruel humiliations, the perpetual fear and brutal abuse--and
vividly brings to life his parents' world, including their unwavering
courage and eventual victory in the struggle to free themselves and
their children from the caste system.
Thursday, October 20th at 7:30 p.m.
Larry Kane
Lennon Revealed
(Running Press)
A quarter of a century after
his death, the questions remain: what drove John Lennon to the heights
of creativity and the depths of despair, and why do his music and
message still resonate for millions around the world? The only American
reporter who traveled in the Beatles' official entourage on their
first American tour, Larry Kane (Ticket to Ride) draws on new
interviews with more than 50 confidants and illuminates the life of
this man who, in life and in death, has had a singular impact on humanity.
The book includes an exclusive DVD featuring the final filmed interview
with Lennon and McCartney, conducted by Larry Kane in 1968.
Sunday, October 23rd at 2:30 p.m. *
Mary Roach
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife
(W. W. Norton)
The best-selling author of Stiff:
The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers now asks, What happens when
we die? In an attempt to find out, Roach brings her tireless curiosity
to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soulsearchers:
scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or
disprove) that life goes on after we die. She begins the journey in
rural India with a reincarnation researcher and ends up in a University
of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment
near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along
the way, she enrolls in an English medium school and gets electromagnetically
haunted at a university in Ontario.
* Please Note Time
RESCHEDULED
-- December 16th at 7:30 p.m.
Monday, October 24th 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 in SNL, Everybody
Loves Raymond and 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!
Tuesday, October 25th at 7:30 p.m.
Paul Collins
The Trouble with Tom: The Strange Afterlife
and Times of Thomas Paine
(Bloomsbury)
A firebrand rebel and a radical
on the run, founding father Tom Paine alone claims a key role in the
development of three modern democracies. In life he was an eccentric,
but in death, his story turns truly bizarre. Shunned as an infidel
by every church, he was interred in an open field on a New York farm.
Ten years later, a former enemy converting to Paine's cause dug up
the bones to carry them back to Britain, but somehow he lost them
along the way. This odyssey through forgotten history in a search
for the remains of Tom Paine takes Collins from a Paris hotel to inside
a roadside statue in New York. In the end, the search for one man's
body instead finds the soul of democracy, still vibrant in Paine's
eccentric and idealistic followers.
Thursday, October 27th at 7:00 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: American, The
Cold War and the Roots of Terror by Mahmood Mamdani
(Three Leaves Press)
Mamdani's brilliant book looks
at the rise of political Islam. The Washington Post writes
"Good Muslim, Bad Muslim is a necessary corrective to
the hubris and willed amnesia of Cold Warriors who acted as handmaidens
for radical Islamist jihadis. The harmful unintended consequences
of the Anti-Soviet Cold War on the Arab-Islamic world and the West
have never been fully appraised until now." For more information,
email Jenn Ramage at jenn_ramage@yahoo.com or call the store at 462-4415.
* Please Note Time
Friday, October 28th at 7:30 p.m.
Rolling Darkness Revue Tour
Join a truly thrilling night
of fright featuring today's best horror writers. Combining evocative
theatrical elements, live music, and the reading talents of the leading
lights of contemporary horror fiction, the Revue established itself
as THE anticipated Halloween event. The tour's second incarnation,
more elaborate and inventive than ever, features: Dennis Etchison,
winner of the World and the British Fantasy Awards and author of Talking
in the Dark and The Death Artist; Peter Atkins, novelist
and celebrated screenwriter of Wishmaster and Hellraiser
2 and 3; two-time International Horror Guild Award winner and
four-time World Fantasy Award nominee Glen Hirshberg (The Snowman's
Children, The Two Sams, etc.); Robert Morrish, co-editor
of Cemetery Dance magazine; and Michael Blumlein, author of
most recently The Healer and nominee for both the World Fantasy
and the Bram Stocker Awards.
Sunday, October 30th at 7:30 p.m.
Jill Fredston
Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches
(Harcourt)
Jill Fredston stalks avalanches,
forecasting where and when they will strike. Having spent decades
trying to keep avalanches and people apart, she brings them together
unforgettably in Snowstruck. From a rare store of personal
experience, she conveys a panorama of perspectives: a skier making
what may prove to be his final decision, a victim buried so tightly
that he can't move a finger, rescuers racing time and weather. Fredston
(Rowing to Latitude) brings to life the awesome forces of nature
that can turn the mountains deadly--and the equally inexorable forces
of human nature that lure us time and again into treacherous terrain.
AND COMING IN THE FIRST WEEK OF NOVEMBER 2005...
Tuesday, November 1 at 7:30pm
Candice Millard, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest
Journey (Doubleday)
Wednesday, November 2 at 7:30pm
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)
Thursday, November 3 at 7:30pm
J. R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar: A Memoir (Hyperion)
Sunday, November 6 at 2:30pm
Mark Crispin Miller, Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004
Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One, Too
(Basic Books)
