Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
WILLIAM VOLLMANN
Reading and book signing for Imperial
Thursday, August 6 at 7:30 p.m.It sprawls across a stinking artificial sea, across the deserts, date groves, and labor camps of southeastern California, right across the Mexican border. For generations of migrant workers, from Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl of the 1930s to Mexican laborers today, Imperial County had held the promise of paradise – and the reality of hell. It is a land beautiful and harsh, enticing and deadly, rich in history and heartbreak. Across the border, the desert is the same but there are different secrets. In Imperial, Vollmann takes us deep into the heart of this haunted region, and by extension into the dark soul of American imperialism.
Born in 1959, William T. Vollmann is a graduate of Cornell University. He was a recipient of a 1988 Whiting Writers Award, and in 1999 the New Yorker named him one of the twenty best writers in America under forty. He is the author of nine novels (including Europe Central, which won the 2005 National Book Award), three collections of stories, a memoir, three works of nonfiction, and a seven volume meditation on nonviolence in history, which was a finalist for the 2003 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction. Vollmann’s journalism has appeared in The New Yorker, Esquire, Spin, Granta, Grand Street and Outside Magazine.
BONNIE TSUI
Reading and book signing for American Chinatown
Tuesday, August 11 at 7:30 p.m.In American Chinatown: A People’s History of Five Neighborhoods, acclaimed travel writer Bonnie Tsui embarks on a journey to find out what Chinatown means to its inhabitants – and what it means to America at large. Tsui explores the lives, stories and struggles of those in the country’s five most famous Chinatowns: New York (the biggest), San Francisco (the oldest), Los Angeles (the film icon), Honolulu (the crossroads), and Las Vegas (the newest). Each of these Chinatowns is curiously different, tut all have a connection, a cause, and a deep insight into what Chinatown means.
Bonnie Tsui is a frequent contributor to The New York Times. A former editor at Travel + Leisure, she has written for National Geographic Adventure, Salon, and Condé Nast Traveller. She is the editor of A Leaky Tent Is a Piece of Paradise, a collection of essays on the outdoors, and is a recipient of the Radcliffe Traveling Fellowship, the Lowell Thomas Award for Travel Journalism, and the Jane Rainie Opel Award.
JOEY KRAMER OF AEROSMITH
Reading and book signing for Hit Hard
Tuesday, August 18 at 7:30 p.m.Joey Kramer is the legendary drummer with the most successful band in American history—Aerosmith. In Hit Hard: A Story of Hitting Rock Bottom at the Top, Kramer reveals the true and gritty side of rock and roll fame in a moving and inspiring story.
Joey Kramer has been rocking with Aerosmith since the band began in 1970. Kramer and his partners have sold over 150 million albums, and today their multigenerational global audience is bigger than ever. In addition to the Grammys and the twenty-one multi-platinum albums, Aerosmith was inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame in 2001. The band has been the subject of several documentaries, including a film dedicated to Joey Kramer and his lasting influence called It’s About Time.
PETER COYOTE
Reading and book signing for Sleeping Where I Fall
Thursday, August 20 at 7:30 p.m.Out of the 60's counterculture explosion came a radical street group called the Diggers, who became the heart and soul of the Haight-Ashbury experience. Named after a group of 17th century free-thinkers in England, the Diggers dedicated themselves to building a new morality in place of the money-hungry capitalistic society, cutting through the cultural propaganda via the medium of both street theater and "free" programs. They began to distribute free food, provide free medical care and sponsor free rock concerts in Golden Gate Park featuring musicians like the Grateful Dead. They burned money, left its ashes and set out to create the condition they described. Peter Coyote's memoir Sleeping Where I Fall, first published in 1998, recounts his time as one of the group's founders and beyond. He weaves his experiences into a collection of stories from his life in San Francisco to communes and gypsy years on the road becoming part of the Free Family.
Ordained practitioner of Zen Buddhism, activist, and actor, Peter Coyote began his work in street theater and political organizing in San Francisco. In addition to acting in 120 films, Coyote has won an Emmy for narrating the award-winning documentary Pacific Century, and he has cowritten, directed, and performed in the play Olive Pits, which won The Mime Troupe an Obie Award. He lives in Mill Valley, California.
HOMELESS IN THE HAIGHT
Community Forum with guests Violet Blue and Mark Bittner
Monday, August 24 at 7:30 p.m.As residents & merchants who live with the chaos on Haight Street, our patience for the current state occasionally runs out. In our frustration, we sometimes forget that the homeless living on these streets are often struggling with challenges of their own.
According to Wikipedia, as many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year in the US alone. In a January 2007 survey conducted by the city of San Francisco, volunteers counted over 6,300 homeless within the city limits.
Who are these homeless? Why are they living on the streets? What kind of life and challenges do they face? These are some of the questions we'll grapple with at this event. Join two well-respected writers, Mark Bittner and Violet Blue, to hear their personal stories of homelessness.
This event is part of the Booksmith's series of community forums on homelessness. By understanding the homeless perspective, we hope to move a few steps closer to developing solutions to homelessness in our own backyard.
FOUND IN TRANSLATION
Reading group for The Angels Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, translated from the Spanish by Lucia Graves
Thursday, August 27 at 6:30 p.m.Found in Translation, the Booksmith’s reading group, continues with a roster of exciting award-winning titles. Each one a contemporary work of translated fiction, the books discussed by the group will be available at a 15% discount. The group is led by The Booksmith's own Julie Boyer.
This month, the group will be reading The Angels Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner.
SEAN CHIKI
Exhibit and comic signing on the eve of the Haight Street Art Walk
Friday, August 28 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.Over twenty businesses in Haight-Ashbury have joined forces to organize a monthly Art Walk on the last Friday of every month. The entire neighborhood celebrates local artists, and The Booksmith is excited to be able to feature our own Sean Chiki hang out with us for the evening surrounded by his art and brand new comic.
Sean Chiki is a cartoonist, illustrator and veteran bookseller. Trained as a commercial artist, Sean has worked as a freelance illustrator, a theater sound designer and as a musician in a number of San Francisco bands. A lifelong comics fan, Sean is pleased to celebrate the release of the first volume of his new comic, Wunderkammer.
KEMBLE SCOTT
Launch party and reading for The Sower
Monday, August 31 at 7:30 p.m.The Sower is a twisted, page-turning thriller about a San Francisco bad boy who becomes the sole carrier of a manmade virus that appears to be the cure for all diseases. But the only way to pass the cure to others is through sex. When word gets out, he becomes the world’s most wanted man – the ultimate weapon in the culture wars, pitting him against right wing ideologies, The Roman Catholic Church, and the most famous pop star on the planet.
Kemble Scott's novel was recently released as an e-book and received wide recognition in the publishing industry. We decided to invite the author for a reading even though it doesn't have a print edition. Join us for the launch party for The Sower and Booksmith's (and possibly the entire book industry's) first ever e-author reading. There are rumors of a limited edition print version coming soon for the die-hards loyalists of print books.
Kemble Scott is the author of the bestselling novel SoMa, finalist for the national Lambda Literary Award for debut fiction. He’s the editor of San Francisco’s SoMa Literary Review and THE LIT GUIDE. An alumnus of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, he’s been honored with three Emmy Awards for his work in television news.
Thursday, October 1
JOSH BAZELL
Beat the Reaper
7:30 PMWhat do you get when you throw a mob hit man turned doctor, a seductive viola player, a shark tank, and a fibula together? Josh Bazell’s fearless novel delivers the story of Pietro “Bearclaw” Brnwa, a former hit man fed up with the body count he has accumulated. Pietro enters the Federal Witness Protection Program and tries his hand at saving lives instead of taking them. Now a medical intern known as Dr. Peter Brown, our hero is in the clear…until a patient from Peter’s former life recognizes him and threatens to blow his cover if he doesn’t save his life. Unfortunately, the patient has three months to live. If he’s lucky.
Peter races against the clock, trying desperately to keep his patient – and himself – alive, with the threat of the mob, the government, and death itself on his heels. Only time will tell if Peter Brown can Beat the Reaper.
Josh Bazell holds an MD from Columbia. He wrote Beat the Reaper while completing his internship at a hospital not at all like the one described in his novel. He lives in San Francisco.