Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
KATIE HAFNER
reading & booksigning for A Romance on Three Legs
Wednesday, July 9 at 7:30 pmGlenn Gould was one of the most brilliant artists of the twentieth century as well as a musician famous for his many eccentric habits. A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould's Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano tells the story of the Gould’s greatest obsession of all, a Steinway concert grand known as CD 318. Katie Hafner’s fascinating and detailed new book is a must-read for classical music buffs, armchair musicologists, Gould fanatics, and even those rare few who never heard a note Gould played.
Katie Hafner is a correspondent for the New York Times and the author or coauthor of four books, including Where Wizards Stay Up Late, Cyberpunk, The Well, and The House at the Bridge. She lives in the Bay Area.
MICHELLE RICHMOND
talk & booksigning for No One You Know
Tuesday, July 15 at 7:30 pmMichelle Richmond dazzled readers and critics alike with her luminous novel The Year of Fog. Now, Richmond returns with an intensely emotional, multi-layered family drama - a woman’s search for her sister’s killer that spirals into a journey of secrets, revelations, and damaged lives. No One You Know is a novel about the stories and lies that strangers, lovers and families tell - and the secrets we keep even from ourselves.
Michelle Richmond is the author of The Year of Fog, Dream of the Blue Room, and The Girl in the Fall-Away Dress. Her stories and essays have appeared in Glimmer Train, Playboy, The Oxford American, and elsewhere. She has been a James Michener Fellow, and her fiction has received the Associated Writing Programs Award and the Mississippi Review Prize. A native of Mobile, Alabama, Richmond lives in San Francisco.
JENNIFER TRAIG
reading & booksigning for Well Enough Alone
Wednesday, July 16 at 7:30 pmFrom Bay Area writer Jennifer Traig, the critically acclaimed author of Devil in the Details, comes a hilarious new book, Well Enough Alone. Both a first-person account of life as a hypochondriac as well as a literary tour of hypochondria past and present, Well Enough Alone is a singular book on being worried sick oops, we mean worried well, in all of its anxious, gruesome, hysterical and ultimately life-changing detail.
Jennifer Traig is the author of Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Girlhood as well as numerous craft and children's books. She is also a contributor to The Forward and McSweeney’s. Traig holds a Ph.D. in literature.
DAPHNE GOTTLIEB
reading & booksigning for Kissing Dead Girls & Fucking Daphne
Thursday, July 17 at 7:30 pmFusing pornography and postfeminist theory, transcript and tell-all - the playful, penetrating poems and stories found in Daphne Gottlieb’s Kissing Dead Girls reach off the page in search of what it is to be known, both to the masses and to the "other." Similarly, the author’s just published Fucking Daphne: Mostly True Stories and Fictions, an edited collection with work about the author, blurs the lines between reality and fiction and begs the question "who is the real Daphne?"
Daphne Gottlieb is a San Francisco-based performance poet and author. She is the editor of "Homewrecker: An Adultery Reader," as well as the author of the poetry book "Final Girl" (winner of the Audre Lorde Award in Poetry in 2003), "Why Things Burn" (winner of a 2001 Firecracker Alternative Book Award), and "Pelt," and the graphic novel "Jokes and the Unconscious" with artist Diane DiMassa. Her work has been translated into Turkish and Greek, and has inspired theatrical adaptations and DJ-remixes.
MICHELLE GAGNON & SIMON WOOD
talk & booksigning for Boneyard & We All Fall Down
Friday, July 18 at 7:30 pmThe Booksmith welcomes two local crime fiction writers. Michelle Gagnon is the author of Boneyard, the riveting story of the hunt for a serial killer and their copycat nemesis. Simon Wood is the author of We All Fall Down, a clever page-turner set among high-tech workers in the Bay Area. Ladies and gentlemen, hold onto your seats.
Michelle Gagnon is a former modern dancer, dog walker, bartender, freelance journalist, personal trainer, model, and Russian supper club performer. To the delight of her parents, she eventually gave up all these jobs for an infinitely more stable and lucrative position as a crime fiction writer. Simon Wood was born in England and was an engineer by training. He now lives in San Francisco and writes full time. Wood is the author of four previous novels.
DEBORAH GRABIEN
reading & booksigning for Rock & Roll Never Forgets
Tuesday, July 22 at 7:30 pmJP Kinkaid, aging guitarist for a long-lived rock band, has got more than a few things to deal with including the fact that a ruthless tabloid biographer is planning a tell-all history of his group. Murder, malfeasance and music ensue in Rock & Roll Never Forgets, the ultimate rock music mystery. Deborah Grabien San Francisco crime fiction author and rock music insider - offers readers an all-access, back-stage pass into the lives and loves of musicians in this, her latest book.
Deborah Grabien is a cook, guitar player, cat rescuer, traveler, and all-around rocker chick. She also writes a little. Grabien is the author of the Haunted Ballad mystery series and five stand-alone novels. Additionally, many of her short stories and essays have appeared in anthologies and magazines. Grabien lives in San Francisco, heads back to London and Paris whenever she can, and honestly believes you’re never too old to rock and roll.
JACK HIRSCHMAN
reading & booksigning for All That's Left
Wednesday, July 23 at 7:30 pmThe most recent volume in the San Francisco Poet Laureate Series, All That's Left, is a powerful collection of poems by street poet turned city laureate Jack Hirschman. The volume opens with the poet’s autobiographical inaugural address, which traces his career as a poet, editor, translator, and agitator for political and social causes. Along with more personal poems, All That's Left includes a homage to fallen comrades like Bob Kaufman and Jack Kerouac.
Jack Hirschman is a poet and social activist who has written more than 50 volumes of poetry. Dismissed from teaching at UCLA for anti-war activities in 1966, he moved to San Francisco in 1973, and at present is the city's poet laureate. Hirschman translates nine languages and edited the seminal Artuad Anthology.
ALAN BLACK
reading & booksigning for Kick the Balls: An Offensive Suburban Odyssey
Thursday, July 24 at 7:30 pmWhen Alan Black was a child growing up in Glasgow, Scotland, soccer - or what he called fitba’ - was the be all and end all. His experience was not the little league, boys-of-summer stuff. For Black, it was life and death. Now middle-aged and living in California, the ex-pat manager of the Edinburgh Castle finds himself coaching a team of eight-year-olds in his beloved sport -and nothing is going right. Kick the Balls: An Offensive Suburban Odyssey tells the story.
Alan Black is the literary manager of San Francisco’s famous bookish venue, the Edinburgh Castle Pub. His work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon.com, and The Christian Science Monitor. Black is cofounder of the Scottish Cultural and Arts Foundation and coeditor of Public House, an anthology. This is his first book.