Tuesday, September 6th at 7:30 p.m.
John Simpson
Dam!: Water, Power, Politics,
and Preservation in Hetch Hetchy and Yosemite National Park
(Pantheon)
DAM! vividly exposes the ongoing
environmental debate between the desire to preserve the last vestiges
of wilderness and the need to fully utilize natural resources. In the
wake of the 1906 earthquake and fires of San Francisco and in response
to the heightened demand for reliable water and electricity, the 1913
Congress authorized the construction of the Hetch Hetchy Dam and Reservoir
within Yosemite National Park--despite widespread public objection.
John Simpson takes us through the tangle of political and engineering
intrigues surrounding the project, introduces us to role players like
John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt, and interviews people currently involved
in the controversy over whether to overhaul the flawed system or restore
the valley to its original splendor.
Wednesday, September 7th at 7:30 p.m.
Chun Yu
Little Green: Growing up During the Chinese
Cultural Revolution
(Simon & Schuster)
Little Green is a
miracle--such beauty emerging from the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.
A clear-eyed child is born into a surrealistic China, and tells her
story. Chun Yu's poetry creates sense and order that readers young and
old, Eastern and Western, will appreciate."--Maxine Hong Kingston.
When Chun Yu was born in a small city in China, the streets
were filled with Red Guards, the walls were covered with slogans, and
reeducation meetings were held in all workplaces. This first-person
memoir of the Chinese Cultural Revolution is a stunning, eloquent account
of a country in crisis and a testimony to the spirit of the individual,
no matter how young or how innocent. A work for all ages.
Thursday, September 8th at 7:30 p.m.
Chris Mooney
The Republican War on Science
(Basic Books)
Science has never been more crucial
to deciding the political issues facing the country. However, on a broad
array of issues--stem-cell research, climate change, missile defense,
abstinence education and many others--the Bush administration's positions
fly in the face of overwhelming scientific consensus. Chris Mooney ties
together the disparate strands of the attack on science into a compelling
and frightening account of our government's increasing unwillingness
to distinguish between legitimate research and ideologically driven
pseudoscience.
Saturday, September 10th at 2:30 p.m. *
Bret Easton Ellis
Lunar Park
(Knopf)
From the author of American
Psycho and Glamorama comes the most powerfully original and
deeply moving novel of an extraordinary career. "[Ellis's] most
enjoyable novel...The story of a doomed marriage blends with a satirical
take on upscale suburban angst, a campy horror story about a haunted
house, a Frankenstein-like case of a monster unchained and a serious
rumination on the damage fathers can do to sons. Ellis stirs these elements
into a steamy witches' brew and works his way through to a marvelously
elegiac ending, displaying real artistic discipline." --Kirkus,
starred review.
Lunar Park confounds one expectation after another,
passing through comedy and horror, as facts of Ellis's own glamorous
and devastating life mix with his unlimited imagination and storytelling
mastery.
* Please Note Time
Monday, September 12th at 7:30 p.m.
Nick McDonell
The Third Brother: A Novel
(Grove)
Nick McDonell's Twelve created a sensation
around the world, establishing its seventeen-year-old author as one
of the important voices of his generation. In this second novel, Mike
is a journalist interning in Hong Kong when his editor sends him to
find a brilliant writer gone AWOL. The journey will throw him headlong
into fast nights in Thailand, into the grip of family tragedy, and into
the heart of September 11, 2001. The Third Brother moves with
the speed and purpose of a bullet, offering a devastating portrait of
a family caught between love and turmoil, and of a young man struggling
to come to terms with his past and his future.
Wednesday, September 14th at 7:30 p.m.
Laura Joplin
Love, Janis
(Harper)
Janis Joplin blazed across the 1960s music scene,
electrifying audiences with her staggering voice, unforgettable performances,
and her explosive public persona as a tough-talking and hard-drinking
blues mama. By the time her life was cut tragically short by a heroin
overdose, she had become a rock-and-roll legend. Inspired by more than
one hundred letters Janis wrote home throughout her career, her sister
Laura gives an unbiased and full-blooded look at a talented artist who
was deeply misunderstood. New films on Janis starring Renee Zellweger
and Pink are in the works.
Thursday, September 15th at 7:30 p.m.
Michael Wolfe, contributor
Voices of American Muslims
(Hippocrene Books)
Even though over six million American Muslims
live in vibrant communities, they remain almost unknown to their fellow
citizens. In this long-overdue book, American Muslims from all walks
of life introduce themselves and the many faces of Islam in America.
They speak out clearly, declaring their devotion to the United States,
and these first-person narratives offer insights rarely experienced
in most Americans' relations with their Muslim neighbors. Michael Wolfe
is the author of The Hadj: An American's Pilgrimage to Mecca
and Taking Back Islam, and produced the PBS documentary Muhammad:
Legacy of a Prophet. A convert to Islam, he is featured in this
compilation of interviews.
Sunday, September 18th at 2:30 p.m. *
Terry Pratchett
Thud!
(Harper Collins)
From the bestselling author of Going Postal
and all the brilliant and funny Discworld books that preceded it,
comes Thud!, another wild, magic and irresistibly inventive--yet
somehow deftly realistic--novel starring Commander Sam Vimes of the
City Watch. Terry Pratchett is at the top of his game, full of sharp
wit, keen social commentary and sagacious observations. One of the world's
most popular authors, Pratchett is also known for his young adult titles,
including A Hat Full of Sky, as well as Good Omens for
which he paired his talents with Neil Gaiman.
* Please Note Time. Seating will begin at 1:30pm from the line formed
outside of the store.
Monday, September 19th at 7:30 p.m.
Charles C. Mann
1491: New Revelations of the Americas
Before Columbus
(Knopf)
Traditionally, Americans have learned in school that the ancestors of
American Indians crossed the Bering Strait 12,000 years ago, existed
in small, nomadic bands, and lived so lightly on the land that much
of the Americas was wilderness when Columbus set sail. However, in the
last 20 years archaeologists and anthropologists have proven these long-held
assumptions to be false. Mann shows us evidence that suggests that more
people lived in the Americas in 1491 than in Europe; that certain cities
were greater in size than any European city; that the Native Americans
managed their environments in ways that, if replicated today, could
revolutionize local agriculture. 1491 is an impassioned account
of scientific inquiry and revelation.
Wednesday, September 21st at 6:30 p.m. *
Fiction Book Club
The Beggar Maid by Alice Munro
(Vintage)
In this series of interweaving stories, Munro
recreates the evolving bond between two women in the course of almost
forty years. One is Flo, practical, suspicious of other people's airs,
at times dismayingly vulgar. the other is Rose, Flo's stepdaughter,
a clumsy, shy girl who somehow leaves the small town she grew up in
to achieve her own equivocal success in the larger world.
* Please Note Time. Those who have read and thoughtfully considered
the work may join the discussion.
Wednesday, September 21st at 7:30 p.m.
Elliott Hester
Adventures of a Continental Drifter:
An Around-the-World Excursion into Weirdness, Danger, Lust, and the
Perils of Street Food
(St. Martin's Press)
About Elliott Hester, Tim Cahill (Jaguars
Ripped My Flesh) writes, "Wrapped up in the core of each tale
is some bit of illumination: about other countries and other people,
about travelers and dreams. The man has no permanent home and travels
incessantly, a world citizen adrift in a cross-cultural maze, frequently
bewildered but curiously at 'home' in the oddest places. He's one of
my travel heroes." Hester's travels to 22 countries in one bizarre
year led to various adventures, including impersonating Samuel L. Jackson
at the 38th International Film Festival in the Czech Republic and getting
drunk on Estonian moonshine at the maker's eightieth birthday party.
Monday, September 26th at 7:30 p.m.
Jennifer Leo & Contributors
The Thong Also Rises
(Travelers' Tales)
These funny women on the road stir up global
messes from Egypt to North Dakota. Always the one to lead a refreshingly
irreverent evening, Jen Leo (Sand in My Bra, Whose Panties
Are These?) has again gathered the best and worst of traveling "Ms.-Adventures."
This time, go to Prague with Shari Caudron to conquer the fear of wooden
puppets and become a diarrhea vaccine guinea pig with Colleen Friesen
in Guatemala. Notable contributors include Susan Orlean (Orchid Thief),
Jill Conner Browne (Sweet Potato Queens), and Ayun Halliday (Job Hopper)
Tuesday, September 27th at 7:30 p.m.
Poetry Santa Cruz
This evening of poetry features Victoria Chang,
author of Circle and contributor to The Nation, Slate,
and Threepenny Review. Taking its concept of concentricity
from the eponymous Ralph Waldo Emerson essay, Circle, the first
collection from Victoria Chang, adopts the shape as a trope for gender,
family, and history. These lyrical, narrative, and hybrid poems trace
the spiral trajectory of womanhood and growth and plot the progression
of self as it ebbs away from and returns to its roots in an Asian
American family and context. Locating human desire within the helixes
of politics, society, and war, Chang skillfully draws arcs between
T’ang Dynasty suicides and Alfred Hitchcock leading ladies, between
the Hong Kong Flower Lounge and an all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch,
the Rape of Nanking and civilian casualties in Iraq.
Award-winning local poet Charles Atkinson joins her.
Wednesday, September 28th at 7:30 p.m.
Maureen Corrigan
Leave Me Alone, I'm Readiong: Finding
and Losing Myself in Books
(Random House)
One of the country's most popular book lovers
wryly recounts the stories and authors that have shaped her life, from
the classics of English literature to the hard-boiled detective novel.
As book reviewer for NPR's "Fresh Air" and mystery columnist
for the Washington Post, Maureen Corrigan literally reads for
a living. Books have always been at the center of her life, a never-failing
source of astonishment, hard truths, new horizons, and welcome companionship.
Part memoir, part coming-of-age story, and part the best book recommendation
you'll ever get, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading opens her life to
readers, from the ordeal of adopting a baby overseas, to life as a professional
reader with a mother who does not "get" reading.
Thursday, September 29th at 6:00 p.m. *
World Affairs Book Club
I is for Infidel by Kathy Gannon
(Public Affairs)
This month's selection is I is for Infidel
by Kathy Gannon, described below. The author will join the book
club prior to her 7:30pm Author Event. Those who have read and thoughtfully
considered the work may join the book club discussion. For more information,
email Jenn Ramage at jenn_ramage@yahoo.com or call the store at 462-4415.
* Please Note Time
Thursday, September 29th at 7:30 p.m.
Kathy Gannon
I is for Infidel
(Public Affairs)
Kathy Gannon sold everything to live the life
of a foreign correspondent, and from the entire world, she chose Afghanistan,
then stayed 18 years. Gannon witnessed Afghanistan's tragic opera: the
collapse of communism followed by feuding warlords, the rise of the
Taliban, and the transformation of the country into the staging post
for a global jihad. She also observed the unforeseen consequences of
Western intervention, the ongoing suffering of ordinary Afghans, and
the ability of the most corrupt of the warlords to reinsert themselves
into successive governments. I is for Infidel will transform
readers' understanding of Afghanistan, and inspire awe at the resilience
of its people. Gannon now lives in Tehran, and her work has been published
in Foreign Affairs and The New Yorker.
Coming in October 2005
Sunday, October 23 at 2:30pm
Mary Roach, Spook (Norton)
Monday, October 24 at 7:30pm
Chris Elliott, The Shroud of the Thwacker (Miramax)
