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Friends,

below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)

Thursday, March 4 7:30 PM JOE HILL

Horns

Ignatius Martin Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke the next morning with a headache, put his hands to his temples and felt something unfamiliar, a pair of knobby, pointed protuberances. He was so ill—wet-eyed and weak—he didn’t think anything of it at first, was too hungover for thinking or worry. But when he was swaying over the toilet, he glanced at himself in the mirror above the sink and saw he had grown horns while he slept.

The second son of a renowned musician and doting mother, Ig Perrish has a privileged life and expectations of a bright future with his childhood sweetheart, Merrin Williams. But life takes an unexpected dark turn when Merrin is brutally killed and suspicion falls hard on Ig.

A year passes, but Ig is nowhere near over his grief or his rage . . . feelings that come to a head in a lost evening of alcohol and hate. When he wakes the next morning he discovers that he has undergone a surreal transformation, and is in possession of an incredible power. It isn’t long before he turns his terrible new abilities towards vengeance. Unfortunately Ig is about to learn thatwhen it comes to revenge, the devil is in the details . . .

Joe Hill’s debut novel, Heart-Shaped Box, was an instant New York Times bestseller, hit national lists including the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, and garnered praise from sources as diverse as the Washington Post, Locus, Romantic Times, and James Rollins. It also won the Bram Stoker Award and the International Thriller Writers Award for best first novel. In Entertainment Weekly, Neil Gaiman named Craddock McDermott, the “vengeful ghost that came with the suit in Heart-Shaped Box,” one of the Top 10 New Classic Monsters. Hill’s collection of macabre short stories, 20th Century Ghosts, received the Bram Stoker Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection. In addition, various individual stories from the collection have won awards, including the World Fantasy Award for the novella “Voluntary Committal.”

Joe talks about Horns at Comic-Con. Read notes, interviews, and more on Joe’s website.

Friday, March 5 6:30 – 9:30 PM BOOKSWAP:EAT, DRINK, TALK (and SWAP BOOKS!)

Our second Book Swap in 2010 might just be the most fun you've had at a bookstore, ever -- so don't miss it. Join special author guests tba and tba, along with other smart, creative lit-minded souls of the city. Enjoy good company, swell atmosphere, delicious Reverie food, free-flowing wine, wise discourse and hilarious anecdotes. Bring a book -- one you loved but can part with -- and we'll cook up some good, smart fun. You'll also receive a 20% off discount card!

Author Holly Payne says the Book Swap is "The most unique book event I’ve ever participated in."

Space is very limited -- these events sell out, so we urge you to get your tickets well in advance! As always, tickets must be purchased in advance, in the store, or at Brown Paper Tickets.

Sunday, March 7 4:00 PM ELIF SHAFAK

The Forty Rules of Love

Critically acclaimed Turkish novelist Elif Shafak’s second novel in English, THE FORTY RULES OF LOVE, a huge bestseller in her native Turkey, is lyrical, exuberant and sure to please fans of The Bastard of Istanbul, which was described byUSA Today as a “Turkish version of The Joy Luck Club” and by The Nation as a “brave, ambitious book.”

Deftly weaving two parallel narratives together, through employing the structure of a novel within a novel, THE FORTY RULES OF LOVE tells the story of an American housewife by the name of Ella Rubinstein who is trapped in an unhappy marriage. She takes a job as a reader for a literary agent and finds her life transformed after becoming engrossed in her first project: reading and reporting on a work of fiction describing the three year encounter (1244-1247) between the mystic Sufi poet Rumi and the controversial whirling dervish Shams of Tabriz. As Ella reads the manuscript (and the reader follows along with her), her relationship with the author -- a novelist by the name of Aziz Zahara, who lives in Holland -- soon begins to mirror that of Rumi and Shams.

For Ella, the spirit of Shams lives in Zahara and as the two fall in love, she is guided not only by her own heart, but by Sham’s lessons, or rules, which are directly taken from the ancient philosophy of Sufism. The basis of Sufism is unity of all people and religions, and the presence of love in each and every one of us. As the fortieth rule states: “A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western…Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is.”

Elif Shafak was born in France and spent her teenage years in Spain before returning to Turkey. She holds a Master of Science degree in Gender and Women’s Studies and earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from the Middle East Technical University. She has been a visiting scholar in the US and has been featured widely in the press both in the US and abroad. Shortly before the publication in America of her most recent novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, Shafak was brought to trial by nationalist lawyers in Turkey who accused her of insulting Turkish identity for comments that some of the fictional characters made in the book. The case attracted worldwide attention and she was eventually acquitted. She lives in Istanbul with her husband and two children. Read The Independent (UK)’s interview with Shafak.

Monday, March 8 7:30 PM CAMILLE ROSE GARCIA

Alice goes goth in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Since its publication in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has delighted the world with a wildly imaginative and unforgettable journey, inspiring readers of all ages to suspend disbelief and follow Alice into her fantasy worlds. Camille Rose Garcia brings a bold reinterpretation with a dark yet whimsical style that has won her resounding praise and an international cult following.

One of literature’s most recognized and beloved characters, Alice has already been the subject of numerous films and television specials. Her likeness has appeared on everything from toys to playing cards to Christmas ornaments and has been used in ads to sell products (Wonder Bread, Philco refrigerators, and so on) for many decades. Garcia brings Alice to life like never before in a glorious book whose publication coincides with this month’s release of Tim Burton’s film version of Alice.

Camille Rose Garcia was born in 1970 in Los Angeles, and grew up in the generic suburbs of Orange County, visiting Disneyland and going to punk shows with the other disenchanted youth of that era. Her paintings of creepy cartoon children living in wasteland fairy tales are critical commentaries on the failures of capitalist utopias, blending nostalgic pop culture references with a satirical slant on modern society. Her work has been displayed internationally and featured in numerous magazines including Juxtapoz, Rolling Stone, and Modern Painter. In 2008, a retrospective of her work, entitled TragicKingdom, was on display at the San Jose Museum of Art, accompanied by a catalog of the same name. She has also written and illustrated a children’s book, The Magic Bottle. The recipient of the Stars of Design award from the Pacific Design Center, she recently moved to the Pacific Northwest after 38 years in Los Angeles. Watch Camille’s movie here!

FOREIGN CRIMES IN FOREIGN CLIMES Monday, March 15 7:30 PM CARA BLACK and DAVID CORBETT

Murder in the Palais Royal Do They Know I’m Running?

MURDER IN THE PALAIS ROYAL is the tenth book in Cara Black’s Parisian crime series starring P.I. Aimée Leduc. Last year’s Murder in the Latin Quarter debuted at #1 on the San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller list, garnered much praise, and found Black interviewed in the streets of Paris for NPR’s All Things Considered.. Now, with a narrative call back to her first novel, Palais Royal is poised to be her biggest hit yet.

In Murder In The Palais Royal, Aimée’s business partner, René, has been shot, and eyewitnesses have identified Aimée as the culprit. A mysterious deposit has been made to their firm's bank account, interesting the taxman in their affairs. Someone seems to be impersonating Aimée; someone wants revenge. Two murders ensue. How do they relate to the youth whom Aimée's testimony sent to jail in the very first Aimée Leduc investigation, Murder in the Marais?

“The ninth mystery in Cara Black’s irresistible series set in Paris . . . might well be the book we’ve been waiting for. Aimée Leduc, Black’s adorably punkish sleuth, is in her element . . . one of this colorful series’ most scenic itineraries.” -- New York Times Book Review

Cara Black is the author of nine other novels in the best-selling Aimée Leduc series. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and son and visits Paris frequently.

DO THEY KNOW I’M RUNNING? from acclaimed author David Corbett is a stunning and suspenseful novel of a life without loyalties and the borders inside us.

Roque Montalvo is wise beyond his eighteen years. Orphaned at birth, a gifted musician, he’s stuck in a California backwater, helping his Salvadoran aunt care for his damaged brother, an ex-marine badly wounded in Iraq. When immigration agents arrest his uncle, the family has nowhere else to turn. Roque, badgered by his street-hardened cousin, agrees to bring the old man back, relying on the criminal gangs that control the dangerous smuggling routes from El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, to the U.S. border.

But his cousin has told Roque only so much. In reality, he will have to transport not just his uncle but two others: an Arab whose intentions are disturbingly vague and a young beauty promised to a Mexican crime lord. Roque discovers that his journey involves crossing more than one kind of border, and he will be asked time and again to choose between survival and betrayal -- of his country, his family, his heart.

David Corbett is the author of three critically acclaimed novels: The Devil’s Redhead, Done for a Dime, and Blood of Paradise, nominated for numerous awards, including the Edgar, and named one of the Top Ten Mysteries and Thrillers of 2007 by the Washington Post and a San Francisco Chronicle Notable Book. His short fiction and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals and anthologies, and his story "Pretty Little Parasite," from Las Vegas Noir, was selected for inclusion in Best American Mystery Stories 2009..

Thursday, March 18 7:30 PM TED CONOVER

The Routes of Man: How Roads are Changing the World and The Way We Live Today

Roads: metaphorically and literally, they bind our modern world into a coherent whole. From the transportation of goods, knowledge, and disease to their hold on the imagination, the role of roads in our lives cannot be overstated. They even permeate our language: you navigate the information superhighway; your career is in the fast lane; you choose the high (or low) road; you take the path less traveled.

Behind every road lies a story, and in THE ROUTES OF MAN, Ted Conover brings his unparalleled eye to six roads around the world that have a profound impact on the lives lived on or near them, the businesses run over them, and the cultures that surround them. Conover’s dispatches come from Peru: accompanying a trucker through the perilous Andes, where he contemplates the threat that better infrastructure poses to indigenous populations and surrounding rainforests; the Indian region of Ladakh, where he follows locals down the Chaddar, a frozen river at the bottom of a canyon and the only path in existence during winter, and considers what the coming highway will do to Buddhist towns now untouched by the wider world; East Africa, where he revisits a trucking route from Tanzania through Rwanda and Burundi along which one could trace the spread of AIDS in Africa to see what has changed over a decade; the West Bank, as he passes through security checkpoints with both Palestinians and Israelis, seeing firsthand how grueling and unfair the process is for both sides;

China, where he paints an exuberant and frightening portrait of the emerging car culture from Chinese roads and the rapid increases in auto sales and highway construction; Lagos, Nigeria, describing a megacity where traffic stalls for hours, teenage beggars run between stopped cars, and ambulances park along the highway to wait for accidents.

Conover’s journeys ultimately reveal the costs and benefits of being connected -- how roads have played a crucial role in human life, from ancient Rome to the present, changing man and his world for better and for worse.

“Ted Conover is one of the great writers of my generation, and this may be his finest book. Fearless and compassionate, with echoes of Conrad and Kerouac, it explores how the road, once a symbol of limitless possibility, has become a path to annihilation. I have enormous admiration for what Conover has achieved.” --Eric Schlosser

“Humans evolved on the road and we go on seeking territory, survival, wealth, and even knowledge. The Odyssey, Don Quixote, On the Road, The Road, Arabian Sands, Marco Polo on the Silk Road, wagon trains heading for California, and Latinos at the fence between Mexico and the U.S.A -- so many of us streaming toward vivid dreams. Buy this book and enjoy some armchair roaming (the second best way to travel). That’s my advice.” -- William Kittredge

Ted Conover is the author of several books including Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing (winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) and Rolling Nowhere: Riding the Rails with America’s Hoboes. His writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and National Geographic. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, he is Distinguished Writer-in-Residence in the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University. Read a travel community’s interview with Conover.


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