Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Tuesday, June 1, 7:30 PM
ALAN BLACK with PO BRONSON
The Glorious World Cup: A Fanatic’s GuideThe global frenzy has already begun for the historic World Cup starting on June 11 in Johannesburg, South Africa. With the frenzy comes the competition, the trash-talk, the strategy, the high hopes, the dedication, and the downright madness that accompanies the once-every-four-years tournament. The Glorious World Cupbrings everything World cup, with a solid dose of humor.
For one month, billions of people are glued to TV sets, radios, and sports pages, waiting with bated breath for their teams’ advancement. There are tears of elation and sorrow. Pints are drunk. Knuckles are bruised. Noses are broken. And it’s all in the name of a universal love of the biggest game on the planet.Alan Black and co-writer David Henry Sterry take the piss from past to present: filled with tall tales, stats, photos, hilarity, famous-player profiles, hooligans, maniacs, commentary from famous fans, a look back at the greatest World Cup Finals, and so much more. It’s the ultimate fan guide for what’s certain to be the biggest, ballsiest, most epic World Cup yet. Begin the countdown to June 11 with Alan, contributor Po Bronson, and us this evening!
Alan Black, as a kid, wrote his first book on the sidewalk with chalk. It was a bestseller with feet. He writes for various platforms, some low and some high. He is a columnist at www.goal.com, the web’s leading soccer site. He’s a featured blogger atwww.sfgate.com, and a regular contributor to the Huffington Post. His most recent book is Kick the Balls: A Bruising Season in the Life of a Suburban Soccer Coach.
Wednesday, June 2, 7:30 PM
LUCY JANE BLEDSOE
The Big Bang SymphonyWhen novelist and adventurer Lucy Jane Bledsoe writes about the savage beauty of Antarctica, and the emotional intensity of life at the end of the world, she knows what she’s talking about.
She’s journeyed to Antarctica three times and has stayed at all three American Stations, trekking out to the Ross Ice Shelf, skiing in the shadow of Mount Erebus, and living in the remote field camps where scientists are studying penguins, climate change, and the Big Bang. She’s written about these travels in the memoir The Ice Cave and in two children’s books about the frozen continent.
In The Big Bang Symphony, Bledsoe delivers a keenly observed novel of emotional suspense and relationships forged in the harshest of conditions. Beginning with a bang – literally – as a cargo plane bound for McMurdo Station crash lands, the intertwined stories of three women – a scientist, a galley cook, and a composer – the barren landscape itself becomes another character, bonding them together in love and friendship, offering the elusive promise of transcendence even as it tests their endurance and pushes them to the breaking point.
“Lucy Jane Bledsoe knows that the people who go to Antarctica move to a heightened existence, as if to the roof of the universe, where they are stripped to their essences under a surreal sun. A beautiful novel about living in that extreme space, vivid and suspenseful” – Kim Stanley Robinson
Lucy Jane Bledsoe sea kayaks, backpacks, and skis when she’s not writing. She has won numerous awards, including the 2009 Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award. Her books include Biting the Apple, Sweat, Working Parts, and This Wild Silence.
LAUNCH PARTY!
Thursday, June 3, 7:30 PM
LAURA FRASER
All Over the MapLaura Fraser has the kind of life many women daydream about. Crisscrossing the globe as a travel writer, she has amassed a catalog of exotic adventures and met scores of captivating people, with more than a few exciting and sexy romances along the way. Yet as she entered her forties, Laura found herself wondering if her wanderlust had kept her from what she secretly longed for: to be safe, settled, and loved.
In her new memoir ALL OVER THE MAP, the follow-up to her New York Timesbestselling An Italian Affair, Laura searches for answers on several different continents. While grappling with uncertainty, loneliness, and a traumatic experience in Samoa, she tangos in Buenos Aires, seeks wisdom from an Amazonian shaman, reports on the aftermath of genocide in Rwanda, and redefines her relationship with the Professor (a primary and beloved character in An Italian Affair). Ultimately, although she doesn’t have the life she anticipated, Laura learns to create the life she wants, realizing that the only way to become wise is by taking a lot of wrong turns.
“Brave, honest, and compulsively readable. It truly made me laugh and cry.”
-- Mary Roach, author of StiffLaura Fraser has written for Salon.com, Vogue, Glamour, Mother Jones, Self, The San Francisco Examiner, Gourmet, and Health, among other publications. She has taught magazine writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. She lives in San Francisco, where she is a resident of and teacher at the San Francisco Writers Grotto.
Monday, June 7, 7:30 PM
DAN ARIELY
The Upside of Irrationality:
The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at HomeYou hear him frequently on public radio – now meet the incomparable Dan Ariely when he introduces his new book The Upside of Irrationality!
The 2008 economic crisis taught us that irrationality is an influential player in financial markets. But it is often the case that irrationality also makes it way into our daily lives and decision-making -- in slightly different and vastly more subtle ways. In this enthralling follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Predictably Irrational,Dan Ariely shows how irrationality is an inherent part of the way we function and think, and how it affects our behavior in all areas of our lives, from our romantic relationships to our experiences in the workplace to our temptations to cheat.
Blending everyday experience with groundbreaking analysis and new research into our how we actually make decisions, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities. Using data from original experiments, he draws invaluable conclusions about how -- and why -- we behave the way we do, and reflects on ways we can make ourselves and our society better. Dan explores the truth about:
• What we think will make us happy and what really makes us happy;
• How we learn to love the ones we are with;
• Why online dating doesn’t work, and how we can improve on it;
• Why learning more about people makes us like them less;
• Why large bonuses can make CEOs less productive;
• How to really motivate people at work;
• Why bad directions can help us;
• How we fall in love with our ideas;
• How we are motivated by revenge;
• What motivates us to cheat.Drawing on the same experimental methods that made Predictably Irrational one ofthe most talked about bestsellers, Ariely emphasizes the important role that irrationality plays in our day-to-day decision-making -- not just in our financial marketplace, but in the most intimate aspects of our lives.
“A marvelous book that is both thought provoking and highly entertaining, ranging from the power of placebos to the pleasures of Pepsi. Ariely unmasks the subtle but powerful tricks that our minds play on us, and shows us how we can prevent being fooled.” -- Jerome Groopman, New York Times bestselling author of How Doctors Think
Dan Ariely is the James B. Duke Professor of Behavioral Economics at Duke University, with appointments at the Fuqua School of Business, the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, and the Department of Economics. He has also held a visiting professorship at MIT’s Media Lab. He has appeared on CNN and CNBC, and is a regular commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Marketplace. He lives in Durham, NC, with his wife and two children.
Wednesday, June 9, 7:30 PM
JOSHUA BRAFF
Peep ShowThe adult entertainment industry and the world of Hasidic Jews couldn’t be more different. Or could they? Here’s novel evidence that all the world really is a stage — it’s only a matter of which costume you wear.
David Arbus will be graduating from high school in the spring of 1975. His divorced parents offer two options: embrace his mother’s Hasidic sect or go into his father’s line of work, running a porn theater in the heart of New York’s Times Square. What else would a healthy seventeen-year-old with an interest in photography do? He joins the family business. But he didn’t think it would mean giving up his sister and mother altogether.
Peep Show is the story of a young man torn between a mother trying to erase her past and a father struggling to maintain his dignity in a less-than-savory business. As David peeps through the spaces in the screen that divides the men and the women in Hasidic homes, we can’t help but think of his father’s Imperial Theatre, where other men are looking at other women through the peep holes. As entertaining as it is moving, Peep Show looks at the elaborate ensembles and rituals, assumed names, and fierce loyalties of two secret worlds, pulling away the curtains of both.
“Whether he’s writing about religion, pornography, or the family ruined by both in this smart, funny, heartbreaking novel, Braff does it with authority, wit, and an unflagging compassion for his hopelessly broken characters.” – Jonathan Tropper, author ofThis Is Where I Leave You
Joshua Braff is the author of The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green. He lives in Oakland with his wife and two children.