Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Saturday, October 16, 7:30 PM
DINAW MENGESTU
How to Read the Air
Dinaw Mengestu's first novel, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, earned the young writer comparisons to Bellow, Fitzgerald, and Naipaul, and garnered ecstatic critical praise and awards around the world for its haunting depiction of the immigrant experience. In How to Read the Air, Mengestu enriches the themes that defined his debut with a heartbreaking literary masterwork about love, family, and the power of imagination, which confirms his reputation as one of the brightest talents of his generation.One early September afternoon, Yosef and Mariam, young Ethiopian immigrants who have spent all but their first year of marriage apart, set off on a road trip from their new home in Peoria, Illinois, to Nashville, Tennessee, in search of a new identity as an American couple. Soon, their son, Jonas, will be born in Illinois. Thirty years later, Yosef has died, and Jonas needs to make sense of the volatile generational and cultural ties that have forged him. How can he envision his future without knowing what has come before? Leaving behind his marriage and job in New York, Jonas sets out to retrace his mother and father's trip and weave together a family history that will take him from the war-torn Ethiopia of his parents' youth to his life in the America of today, a story -- real or invented -- that holds the possibility of reconciliation and redemption.
Dinaw Mengestu was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1978. In 1980, he immigrated to the United States with his mother and sister, joining his father, who had fled Ethiopia during the Red Terror. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and Columbia University’s MFA program in fiction and the recipient of a 2006 fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and a 5 Under 35 Award from the National Book Foundation in 2007. Mengestu has written for Rolling Stone and Harper’s, among other publications; he lives in New York City. The New Yorker’s Summer Fiction double issue, this summer, heralds 20 fiction writers under 40 who “capture the inventiveness and the vitality of contemporary American fiction.” Dinaw Mengestu is one of them.
“Mengestu draws a haunting psychological portrait of recent immigrants to America, insecure and alienated, striving to fit in while mourning the loss of their cultural heritage and social status. Mengestu's precise and nuanced prose evokes characters, scenes, and emotions with an invigorating and unparalleled clarity.” – Publishers Weekly, starred review
Monday, October 18, 7:30 PM
ANDREW LAM
East Eats West - Writing in Two Hemispheres
From cuisine and martial arts to sex and self-esteem, East Eats West shines new light on the bridges and crossroads where two hemispheres meld into one worldwide "immigrant nation." In this new nation, with its amalgamation of divergent ideas, tastes, and styles, today's bold fusion becomes tomorrow's classic. But while the space between East and West continues to shrink in this age of globalization, some cultural gaps remain.
In this collection of twenty-one personal essays, Andrew Lam, the award-winning author ofPerfume Dreams, continues to explore the Vietnamese diaspora, this time concentrating not only on how the East and West have changed but how they are changing each other. Part memoir, part meditation, and part cultural anthropology, East Eats West is about thriving in the West with one foot still in the East.
Andrew Lam is an editor and cofounder of New America Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets in America. His essays have appeared in dozens of newspapers and magazines across the country, and his short stories are anthologized widely. Followed by a film crew back to his homeland, Vietnam, he was featured in the documentary My Journey Home, which aired nationwide on PBS in 2004. His book Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora won a PEN American Beyond Margins award in 2006. Lam currently lives in San Francisco.
"Once an awed young refugee from Vietnam, Andrew Lam can still view America with wonder. Our country is becoming Asian—culture, religion, food, media—all influenced by diasporas from countries that were enemies and allies. Alarmed and delighted, I voraciously read East Eats West."
—Maxine Hong Kingston, author of I Love a Broad Margin to My Life
"Don't be fooled by the seductive beauty of [Lam's] prose--underneath its iridescent surface, it comes with the wicked kick of Sriracha chili sauce."
—Sandip Roy, host of New America Now Radio and commentator on NPR's Morning Edition
"Andrew Lam devours the American experience with fresh eyes, keen insight, and a lyrical voice. He is a natural storyteller on a journey of discovery across continents and cultures, and we're lucky to be along for the ride."
—Scott James, New York Times columnist and author of SoMa and The Sower
"In these lovely, wise, probing essays, Andrew Lam not only illuminates the crucial twenty-first-century issues of immigration and cultural identity but the greater, enduring issues of what it means to be human. East Eats West is a compelling book, and an important one."
—Robert Olen Butler, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
"Future historians will have the pleasure of chronicling how through his deft essays Andrew Lam bridged, fused, and reconciled Asia, Vietnam, Vietnamese America, contemporary California, American culture as a whole, and the English language into one interactive symbiosis, his and all of ours, for now and for decades to come."
—Kevin Starr, University Professor and professor of history, University of Southern California
"Lam describes our new Pacific world in prose that is subtle, mesmerizing, and unforgettable."
—Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation and Who We Be: The Colorization of America
"No one writes about being Vietnamese and American with a finer sadness or a richer sense of irony or greater humor than Andrew Lam."
—Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America
Tuesday, October 19, 7:30 PM
MICHAEL KRASNY
Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest
Unlike recent authors who emphatically say No! or Yes! to God, Michael Krasny joins the millions who know they don't know. As a radio host, college professor, and literary scholar, he has spent decades leading conversations on every imaginable topic. He has discussed life's most important questions with the foremost thinkers in virtually every discipline. And yet answers to some questions — the big, three-o'clock-in-the-morning questions — elude him. Despite this, Krasny does not discount belief systems or ridicule faith. Instead, he seeks. He explores morality, eternal life, why we do good, and why evil sometimes triumphs, and his quest is informed by artists, scientists, world events, and even films. Personal and universal, timely and timeless,Spiritual Envy is a deeply wise yet warmly welcoming conversation, an invitation to ask one's own questions — no matter how inconclusive the answers.
Michael Krasny, PhD, hosts the nation's most listened to locally produced public radio talk show,Forum with Michael Krasny. Forum is heard weekdays on KQED-FM in San Francisco, an affiliate of National Public Radio, as well as on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio. An award-winning broadcaster who has interviewed many of the great cultural icons of our era, he is the author ofOff Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life (Stanford University Press) and coauthor of Sound Ideas (McGraw-Hill). Krasny is also an English professor at San Francisco State University.
“He's serious, erudite, always interested in the substance of an issue, and might be better prepared, day after day, than any general interest host in the world.”
— Dave Eggers
Wednesday, October 20, 7:30 PM
JOEL SELVIN
Smartass: The Music Journalism of Joel Selvin
San Francisco Chronicle pop music critic Joel Selvin started covering rock shows for the paper shortly after the end of the Civil War. His writing has appeared in a surprising number of other publications that you would think should have known better. People all over the world are still pissed off about pieces in this collection.
“My opinion? San Francisco is the greatest town for live music, hands down. Why, because the audience is curious, enthusiastic, and smart. And relaxed. Sounds a lot like Joel, now, doesn't it? Joel is a San Francisco Music-writing man — 40 years on the job — and that's another thing San Francisco and Joel Selvin have in common: it's a union shop, all the way! Joel is not no show business industry town mouthpiece, you dig? What's that make him, the last of the real music writers? You be the judge.” — Ry Cooder
“Push the book into the 8 track slot in the back of your head and Sly Stone begins to play LOUD! Try on Ralph Gleason's raincoat; Phil Spector's purple shades and enter the Fillmore. You will perspire and be slapped around as fascinating arcane details about the eccentric and bizarre world of music are poured into your ear: blood tests, pimps in hair salons, guns on the console, 21 year old millionaires, jail terms, and pit bulls in wedding chapels. Selvin stitches the myth to the truth 'cos that's music too!” — Tom Waits
“Erudite King Selvin remains unchallenged. Having pounded out a long list of dutiful accounts, from the audience, backstage, the studios, the labels, the clubs, by telephone, and the streets, Joel, with his courage and honesty, has been a friend to artists and listeners alike.” — Booker T. Jones
“I had to pick myself up off the floor laughing. This is going to be a great read whether you love or hate the Beach Boys!” — Al Jardine of the Beach Boys
“Love him or hate him, he was there – read ‘em and weep.” — Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead
“Joel really understands where the music, the musicians and the fans are coming from. He just gets it. He's hip, incisive and writes with a lot of style and a clear point of view.” — Bonnie Raitt
“Joe Silvein, What a hack he did everything he could to make me a star and failed miserably Fuck him and the Examner.” — Steve Miller
“For much of the last 4 decades Joel Selvin has been one of the most revered (and feared) music journalists and critics in North America. His insights and purity of artistic standards put him in a class by himself. But Joel was unique in a way that set him aside from all other journalists. He had an innate ability to actually insert himself into the lives of many of his subjects — counseling, advising and actually playing a pivotal role in the success of many legends. Incredibly, he played this role while maintaining his objectivity in evaluating the work of the people he befriended, and he had no hesitation in lambasting these artists when he didn't like what he saw and heard. The articles in “Smartass” are an invaluable collection that is a rare chronicle of modern pop culture.” — Joan Jett
“There never was an artist that didn’t need a critic like you.” — Bono
“The Mickey Spillane of rock journalism.” — Sam Andrew, Big Brother & the Holding Co.
“I don’t even know about Joel Selvin.” — Sly Stone
This evening holds surprises, as Joel brings some very special guests along!
Drawn from forty years of reporting in the pages of the San Francisco Chronicle and elsewhere.Smartass will for the first time collect the work of the award-winning music journalist and best-selling author of Summer of Love.
From the Redding ranch of country maverick Merle Haggard to the humble Hawthorne beginnings of the Beach Boys in South Central Los Angeles, Selvin tracked rock and roll lore throughout California for the Chronicle since 1970. Smartass brings together his finest reporting on California rock and roll – a collection of feature articles ranging from Phil Spector to Tom Waits, Glen Campbell to CSN&Y, the Grateful Dead to the Beach Boys – all peppered with his trademark insights and acerbic asides.
Highlights include Selvin’s historic interview with Augustus Owsley Stanley; the award-winning series on the Bill Graham probate case; the controversial account of the life and death of Sheryl Crow boyfriend and mentor Kevin Gilbert; his frightening chronicle of the making of “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” by Sly and the Family Stone that first appeared on the cover of England’s Mojomagazine.
Selvin specialized in coverage of the Grateful Dead and Smart Ass features a full selection of his greatest hits – from behind-the-scenes at studio sessions for “Terrapin Station” with producer Keith Olsen to his chilling tale of despair and anguish that led to the suicide of Dead keyboardist Vince Welnick.
He also covered, almost as extensively, the Beach Boys and his classic interview with Dennis Wilson about Charles Manson is included. His interviews with John Fogerty earned Selvin a subpoena in the lawsuit by Fantasy Records founder Saul Zaentz and his liner notes to Creedence Clearwater reissues won the ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award.
Ironically, in March 2009, shortly after laying the initial groundwork for Smartass, Selvin left his staff position with the Chronicle, part of drastic staff reductions by the failing newspaper. With arts coverage in newspapers slashed and rock music producing fewer and fewer giants, columnist Selvin clearly operated during a golden era of music journalism. His epic biography of the little known rhythm and blues songwriter Bert Berns will be published next year and he is currently co-writing the Sammy Hagar autobiography for Harper Collins.