Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Monday, August 2, 7:30 PM
MICHAEL SCOTT MORRE
Sweetness and Blood: How Surfing Spread from Hawaii and California to the Rest of the World, with Some Unexpected Results
While living in Germany, travel adventurer, journalist, and surfer Michael Scott Moore unexpectedly stumbled upon a vibrant German surf scene. Surprised, he set out to uncover how an obscure tribal sport from pre-colonial Hawaii (and associated mostly with his home state of California) managed to spread so far across the planet. Moore chronicles his quest to answer that question in his new book Sweetness and Blood.
Moore’s journey took him beyond Germany to some of the sport’s other unlikely destinations, including the Gaza Strip, Northern England, Japan, Morocco, and more. In explaining how surfing made its way across the globe, Moore masterfully weaves in the complicated political and cultural histories that have played key roles in the spread of the sport -- uncovering the sometimes “sweet,” sometimes “bloody” forces that shaped both surf culture and that of the places it traveled. His exploration goes far beyond surfer dudes and stereotypes -- it’s a thrilling, moving, and revealing look at a subject we only think we know.
Michael Scott Moore is a novelist and journalist who has written on politics and travel for publications such as The Atlantic, Slate, The Financial Times, among others. He lives in Berlin, Germany.
The New York Times’ Paper Cuts interview - The Atlantic Monthly on Munich’s surf sceneThursday, August 5, 7:30 PM
JOHN BIEWEN
Reality Radio: Telling True Stories in Sound with THE KITCHEN SISTERS
Over the last few decades, the radio documentary has developed into a strikingly vibrant form of creative expression. Millions of listeners hear arresting, intimate storytelling from an ever-widening array of producers on programs including This American Life, StoryCorps, and Radio Lab; online through such sites as Transom, the Public Radio Exchange, Hearing Voices, and Soundprint; and through a growing collection of podcasts.
Reality Radio celebrates today’s best audio documentary work by bringing together some of the most influential and innovative practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. In these twenty essays, documentary makers tell -- and demonstrate, through stories and transcripts -- how they make radio the way they do, and why. Contributors include Jad Abumrad, Jay Allison,damali ayo, John Biewen, Emily Botein, Chris Brookes, Scott Carrier, Katie Davis, Sherre DeLys, Lena Eckert-Erdheim, Ira Glass, Alan Hall, Natalie Kestecher, The Kitchen Sisters, Maria Martin, Karen Michel, Rick Moody, Joe Richman, Dmae Roberts, Stephen Smith, and Sandy Tolan.
Whether the contributors to the volume call themselves journalists, storytellers, even audio artists -- and although their essays are just as diverse in content and approach -- all use sound to tell true stories, artfully.
John Biewen is audio program director at the Center for Documentary Studies atDuke University, where he teaches and produces documentary work for NPR, PRI,American Public Media, and other public radio audiences. Joining him in discussion this evening are NIKKI SILVA and DAVIA NELSON, radio’s superbThe Kitchen Sisters.
“A powerful and illuminating anthology about our most powerful and intimate medium.Reality Radio is a must-read for anyone who feels called to make documentary work or whose imagination and heart are stirred by the sounds of nonfiction storytelling on the radio. A wonderful book!”—Dave Isay, founder of StoryCorps and Sound Portraits Productions
“Reality Radio is a fabulous book I wish I could have read when I started at NPR in 1974. It would have shaved 10–15 years off the learning curve in discovering how to make great radio.”—Bob Edwards, host of The Bob Edwards Show on Sirius XM Radio
“The essays in this book were written by people thinking with their ears.”—Rick Moody, from the forewordMonday, August 9, 7:30 PM
A Special Community Forum:
THE EVOLVING LANDSCAPE OF LOCAL JOURNALISM
A Panel Discussion with The Bay Citizen’s LISA FRAZIER, Mission Local’s LYDIA CHAVEZ, and SF Public Press’ MICHAEL STOLL
It’s an exciting time in the landscape of San Francisco journalism as we see tectonic changes take place before our eyes. There have recently been some enticing examples of citizen-funded journalism, including quality investigative reports on the over-budget Bay Bridge project and the proposed development of Treasure Island. This evening we bring some key players in public-interest reporting to The Booksmith to discuss the emerging models which will compete and compliment the incumbents bringing us Bay Area news.
As the San Francisco Chronicle continues to struggle and cuts reporting budgets, these new players are increasingly our source for original local news reporting.
They are nimble, tech savvy, and experimenting with new methods for delivering the news.Lisa Frazier is the President and CEO of The Bay Citizen; Lydia Chavez is the Managing Editor of Mission Local; Michael Stoll is the Executive Director of SF Public Press. We'll discuss the sustainability of their models, what career opportunities they are providing for aspiring and seasoned journalists, and the ways in which they are distributing their content through new media and traditional print.
Christin Evans, co-owner of the Booksmith and a self-proclaimed news junkie, will moderate this panel. She has dabbled in citizen reporting through her contributions to the Huffington Post and will ask the tough questions about what we can expect from local journalism in the years ahead.
Friday, August 13, 6:30 – 9:30 PM
THE BACK TO SCHOOL BOOKSWAP!
With special guests Caroline Paul, author of East, Wind, Rain, and SF Writers’ Grotto resident, and Justine Sharrock, author of Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things..For our Back to School special edition Bookswap, bring a book that moved you at some point in your education. Maybe your third grade teacher read it to you, maybe it was the first novel you read, or something assigned to you in high school or college. Whatever it was, it deepened your love for books somehow. Now it’s time to share it! As always, we'll have delicious food, free-flowing wine, fantastic company and lots of laughter. We look forward to celebrating the end of the summer with you!
Booksmith Bookswaps sell out quickly. To purchase your tickets, visit Brown Paper Tickets or call 800-838-3006. (Ages 21+, please.)
Tickets are $25. and include not only drink and food, but a coupon for you to receive 20% off your purchases this evening or in the several weeks following the Swap!Tuesday, August 24, 7:00 PM
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group
The Accordionist's Son by Bernardo AtxagaThe Guardian (London) once wrote that Bernardo Atxaga is "not just a Basque novelist, but the Basque novelist: a writer charged . . . with exporting a threatened culture." Indeed, Atxaga himself has said that the Basque language has only produced 100 books in the last 400 years . . . If Atxaga is indeed the world emissary of Basque culture, then The Accordionist's Son, just published in paperback last spring, is the book to read: called his masterpiece by many, it's an epic tale of the Basque country in the 20th century, both during the dictator Francisco's Franco's rule and after, as ETA terrorists battled with the democratic Spanish government in a struggle to preserve the Basque identity. We'll travel to the bucolic villages of theBasque country (as well as California) and read an author who is quite possibly his language's greatest writer, hopefully on a hot August night reminiscent of Mediterranean Spain.
Join us on the fourth Tuesday of every month for spirited conversation about some of the newest writing hitting the U.S. from all over the globe. No foreign language knowledge necessary and no continental savvy required (but will be appreciated!) -- just bring your desire to read some excellent new books, hand-selected for you byScott Esposito, of the Center for the Art of Translation and The Quarterly Conversation, who also fearlessly leads the discussion, brilliantly.. You'll also meet some great new people and chat with them about the best new fiction from around the world.Tuesday, September 7, 7:30 PM
JOHN JODZIO
If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home
“You may think you’ve read enough stories about penniless gay clowns who can’t get over the loss of a dog, but – I assure you – you have not. John Jodzio is the best kind of modern fiction writer: a thematic traditionalist who feels totally new.” – Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
A middle-aged masochist in love with a comatose man. A gay birthday clown lamenting the loss of his beloved dog. An amateur veterinarian keeping watch over his suicidal daughter. And a bikini model with a barnacle stuck to her rear. These are just a few of the characters who populate the quirky, offbeat world of If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home, a world that feels at once alien and strangely familiar. Jodzio is by turns bleak and hopeful, cruel and tender; his new collection is one exciting literary debut.
John Jodzio is a winner of the Loft-McKnight Fellowship. His stories have appeared in One Story, Opium, The Florida Reviewand Rake Magazine and a number of other places, both print and online. He’s won a Minnesota Magazine fiction prize and both the Opium 500 Word Memoir competition and Opium Fiction Prize.
“…colorful and seemingly fractured tales, each shining brilliantly alone, but also growing more vibrant as one story lays over another. Together they form an intricately stained glass window that looks out onto a whole new world.” – Hannah Tinti, author ofThe Good Thief.
Wednesday, September 8, 7:00 PM
THE RUMPUS BOOK CLUB IN-PERSON DISCUSSION
Tao Lin’s Richard Yates
First, The Rumpus announced its’ version of a book club – one whose members receive a hand-chosen book, for a thrilling insider’s early (before publication) look at what’s likely to be a very hot book. Club members are then invited to an online discussion with the author and with one another. (Read all about The Rumpus Book Club here.) What could be added to the mix? Why, a get-together to meet and talk with other club members in person!
We’re delighted to host these monthly gatherings this fall. Local book club members, come on in; if you’re a member from outside the Bay Area, but planning to be in our neighborhood, you come on in, too! Curious about The Rumpus and its book club? You, too!
Tonight: a discussion about Tao Lin’s new novel Richard Yates. (Please note that Tao Lin will himself be talking at The Booksmith on October 4.)
Thursday, September 9, 7:30 PM
WILLIAM GIBSON
Zero History
Since his 1984 debut novel Neuromancer, in which he coined the term “cyberspace” and envisioned the Internet before it was a pervasive reality, William Gibson has gained a reputation as a trend-spotter with a unique ability to anticipate cultural and technological movements. In his two most recent novels, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country, Gibson trained those sensibilities on our contemporary, post-9/11 age. And the present, it seems, is only growing more astonishing in Gibson’s latest novel, Zero History. It’s a time defined by frenzied change, a world in which everything is growing faster and more connected at an exponential rate. If we were in Gibson’s 1996 novel Idoru, we might call it a “nodal point” – a key point in history after which everything will be different.
Zero History returns to the adventures of Hubertus Bigend, the twisted financial genius from Pattern Recognition and Spook Country. Bigend’s newest obsession is with the military culture that is trickling down to the streets. Military contracting is recession-proof, and Bigend wants in. But it seems that someone is one step ahead of him, and Bigend must uncover who that is if he’s to come out on top. His plan involves Hollis Henry, former rocker from the cult 90s band The Curfew, and Milgrim, a Russian translator, finally sober after a stint in rehab. It’s not long before Hollis and Milgrim find themselves entangled in a mesh of postmodern marketing and corrupt American military contracting that threatens to topple Bigend’s massive empire.
Gibson’s talent has always been his ability to spot our cultural trajectory – to locate what Bigend calls “the edge”. It’s that barest glimpse of the future at the far reach of the horizon, the cutting-edge that will soon become the norm. In Zero History, the edge is a place where boundaries between on- and offline have become blurred, where the parent-child relationship has migrated to twitter, and where brands generate attention not by marketing themselves but by eschewing marketing altogether.
Preferred seating with the purchase of Zero History at The Booksmith, beginning September 7 (on-sale date). Seating cards will be distributed at the time of purchase until supply is gone. Standing room and limited floor seating will be available as well. Please note that we’ll be at maximum capacity this evening; if you need special accommodations, please send a request toevents@booksmith.com.
Please note that Mr. Gibson will sign copies of his previous books provided that a copy of Zero History is purchased from The Booksmith. Photographs of those attending with Mr. Gibson will be possible.