Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Tuesday, March 22
7:00 PM
FOUND IN TRANSLATION Book Group Discussion
Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos MoyaAt the end of a 30-year civil war that dirtied all sectors of society, Guatemala tried to pick up and move on by publishing a truth report that chronicled all the misdeeds in this horrible war. Imagine if you were the person who had to proofread this report of theft, murder, rape, massacre, baby-killing, and more. That's the unenviable job of the narrator of Horacio Castellanos Moya's torrid novel Senselessness. Already just a little insane, our narrator is pushed over the brink by this terrible job, with a little help from the Catholic Church he is in the employ of and what may or may not be government thugs spying on his every move. We'll talk about the incredible technical artistry of this book, its amazing language and first-person narration (and the sizable challenges of translating them), plus exactly who the author is, how he got banned from his homeland, why he wrote about this civil war, and what resemblances, if any, he has to his exceedingly off-kilter protagonist.
Join us each 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 by Scott 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. New participants are always welcomed!
Wednesday, March 23
7:30 PM
ANNE ZIMMERMAN
An Extravagant Hunger:
The Passionate Years of M.F.K. Fisher
“Although many people write about food and hunger, there are few who write about it well. Rarer still is a writer who composes prose with the precision and grace of M.F.K. Fisher. Her lines are imbued with poetry and philosophy that could make the greatest of writers weep.”
In this stunning portrait of M.F.K. Fisher and the heartbreak and happiness that catapulted her to creative success, Anne Zimmerman is the careful witness, lingering beside Fisher through her most dramatic and productive years.
In An Extravagant Hunger, time slows and is relished, as the turning points and casual strolls of M.F.K. Fisher’s life are unwrapped and savored. From the Berengaria that washed her across the sea to France in 1929, to Le Paquis, the Swiss estate that later provided a backdrop for some of the most idyllic and fleeting moments of her life, the stories of Fisher’s love for food and her love for family and men are meticulously researched and exquisitely captured in this book.
Exploring Fisher’s lonely and formative time in Europe with her first husband; her subsequent divorce and re-marriage to her creative spark plug, Dillwyn Parrish, and his tragic suicide; and the child she carried from an unnamed father, the story of M.F.K. Fisher’s life becomes as vibrant and passionate as her prolific words on wine and cuisine.
Letters and journal entries piece together a dramatic life, but An Extravagant Hunger steps further, bridging the gaps between personal notes and her public persona, filling in the silences by offering an engaging and unprecedented depth of intuitive commentary.
Anne Zimmerman holds a BA from Linfield College and an MA from San Diego State, where her thesis was a biographical study of the life of M.F.K. Fisher. She has spent extensive time researching Fisher at the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe College and is a food enthusiast and contributor to Culinate.com. She lives in San Francisco.
Thursday, March 24
7:30 PM
NEIL STRAUS
Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead:
Journeys into Fame and Madness
Neil Strauss has shot guns with Ludacris, been kidnapped by Courtney Love, madeLady Gaga cry, shopped for Pampers with Snoop Dogg, tried (and failed) to preventMötley Crüe from getting arrested, been taken on a Scientology tour by Tom Cruise, flown in a helicopter with Madonna, been taught to read minds by the CIA, soaked in a hot tub with Marilyn Manson, been told off by Prince, and tucked Christina Aguilera in bed.
It’s all in a day’s work for a renowned reporter whose been infiltrating the lives of musicians, actors, and artists since he was eighteen. Yet over the years, the exigencies of journalism have meant that his stories have usually been edited down to a fraction of the total material—and too often left the best material on the cutting room floor. “No matter what happens during an interview, once it ends, a writer’s loyalty is to the pressure of an immediate deadline, the style and tone of the publication, and the priorities of an editor,” Strauss writes. “Somewhere along the way, the subject gets lost.”
Rather than creating the usual collection of turgid, “in-depth” interviews with vapid celebrities, Strauss has taken just the most memorable few minutes from each interview, weaving brief passages together into one unforgettable whole. “I searched for the truth or essence behind each person, story, or experience,” Strauss writes. “Often it came from something I’d previously ignored: an uncomfortable silence, a small misunderstanding, or a scattered thought that had been compressed into a sound bite for publication. Other times it came from something more dramatic, like an emotional confession, a run-in with the police, or a weeklong drinking binge.”
The celebrities run the gamut from Johnny Cash and Bruce Springsteen to Steven Colbert and Ben Stiller, from The Who and Ringo Starr to Zac Efron and Britney Spears. From rock gods to teen idols, superstars to starlets, Straus provides 227 perception-altering moments of truth that illuminate our popular culture as no straightforward interview collection could. A singular, original—and often seriously funny—work, Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead shows why legendary music critic Dave Marsh calls Neil Strauss “the best and most honest daily newspaper reporter rock has ever seen.”
Neil Strauss is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Game, Rules of the Game, and Emergency. He is also the coauthor of three New York Times bestseller—Jenna Jameson’s How to Make Love Like a Porn Star, Mötley Crüe’s The Dirt, and Marilyn Manson’s The Long Hard Road Out of Hell—as well as Dave Navarro’s Don’t Try This at Home, a Los Angeles Times bestseller. A writer for Rolling Stone, Strauss lives in Los Angeles and can be found at www.neilstrauss.com.
Saturday, March 26
6:30 PM
A Very Special Event at the Yerba Buena Ice Center:
KRISTI YAMAGUCHI
Dream Big, Little Pig!
Olympic champion skater Kristi Yamaguchi will be talking about and signing copies of her very first book for children, Dream Big, Little Pig!
Poppy has big dreams—lots of them! But following her dreams isn’t as easy as it sounds. Poppy wants to be a ballerina, a singer, and a supermodel but people just keep telling her no!
It’s a good thing Poppy’s friends and family—who love her no matter what—encourage her to keep believing in herself and pursuing her dreams. Poppy achieves her dreams and will inspire readers to believe that they can too!
Kristi Yamaguchi is an ice skating Olympic gold medalist and world champion who knows about dreaming big. The motto, Always Dream, serves as Kristi’s personal inspiration as well as the name of her charitable foundation for children. This philosophy has contributed to Kristi’s success on and off the ice, and is one that she aspires to instill in the hearts of children.
DETAILS TK
Sunday, March 27
4:00 PM
TRACY SEELEY
My Ruby Slippers:
The Road Back to Kansas
Sure, there’s no place like home—but what if you can’t really pinpoint where home is? By the time she was nine, Tracy Seeley had lived in seven towns and thirteen different houses. Her father’s dreams of movie stardom, stoked by a series of affairs, kept the family on edge, and on the move, until he up and left.
Thirty years later, settled in what seems like a charmed life in San Francisco, a diagnosis of cancer and the betrayal of a lover shake Seeley to her roots—roots she is suddenly determined to search out. My Ruby Slippers, from the American Lives series edited by Tobias Wolff, tells the story of that search, the tale of a woman with an impassioned if vague sense of mission: to find the meaning of home.
Seeley finds herself in a Kansas that defies memory, a place far more complex and elusive than the sum of its cultural myths. On back roads and in her many back years, Seeley also finds unexpected forgiveness for her errant father, and, in the face of mortality, a sense of what it means to be rooted in place, to dwell deeply in the only life we have.
“Under Tracy Seeley’s cool, clear gaze, the fractured landscape of America’s rootlessness is seen whole again. She reminds us that place is both on the horizon and within our memories. . . . My Ruby Slippers is a complete pleasure to read.” -- Lewis Buzbee, author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
“There is a sensitivity and patience and persistent thoughtfulness in Tracy Seeley’s prose that makes her memoir unique to this cultural moment. In her capable hands we are in no hurry to get anywhere, but happy to follow her lead down every digressive and revelatory path.” -- Phillip Lopate, author of Getting Personal: Selected Essays
Tracy Seeley lives and writes in Oakland, with her husband, filmmaker Frederick Marx and three formerly feral cats. An avid if amateurish organic gardener, she longs for a flock of backyard chickens. In her free time, she’s an English Professor at the University of San Francisco.
Thursday, March 31
7:30 PM
MARK CHILDRESS
Georgia Bottoms
Mark Childress’s novel, One Mississippi, was greeted with widespread and enthusiastic acclaim. Stephen King called it the “funniest book I have read in ten years.” Another Childress novel, Crazy in Alabama, was made into a feature film starring Melanie Griffith, has been published in fifteen countries, and has more than a million copies in print worldwide. Childress has proven himself both an astute chronicler of southern life and a critical and popular literary success. Now, from one of the most beloved of American authors writing today comes Georgia Bottoms, a hilarious and heartfelt story about an Alabama socialite with an unusual secret.
Georgia Bottoms is known in her small community of Six Points, Alabama, as a beautiful, well-to-do, and devoutly Baptist southern belle. Nobody realizes that the family fortune has long since disappeared, and a determinedly single woman like Georgia needs an alternative, and discreet, means of income. In Georgia’s case it is six well-heeled lovers — one for each day of the week, with Mondays off — none of whom knows about the others. But when the married preacher who has been coming to call (Saturdays) decides to confess their affair in front of the whole congregation, Georgia must take drastic measures to stop him. Mark Childress displays once again his unmistakable skill for combining the hilarious and the absurd to reveal the inner workings of the rebellious human heart.
“Childress (One Mississippi) is sassy magnolia lit's Truman Capote--sharply observant, unrelentingly honest, and downright hilarious--and his Georgia peach is the freshest bad girl to rise from the South since Scarlett O'Hara.” – from Publishers Weekly’s starred reveiw
“Move over, Flannery O’Connor, and make room for a new master. Mark Childress has written yet another laugh-out-loud Southern classic." -- Fannie Flagg"Georgia Bottoms is one of my favorite characters in recent years ... , in a story filled with serious challenges and fabulous people, good and bad, rich and poor, stunning and appalling, sometimes all at once." – Anne Lamott, author of Imperfect Birds
“This is Mark Childress's finest novel. I adore Georgia Bottoms, novel and character. Her story is funny, smart, serious and engaging beginning to end. A must read.” – Lynn Freed, author of The Servants' Quarters
“A sparkling novel... Mark Childress once again proves himself the master of American comic fiction.” – Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander
Mark Childress was born in Monroeville, Alabama. He is the author of six previous novels and three books for children. Childress has received the Thomas Wolfe Award, the University of Alabama’s Distinguished Alumni Award, and the Alabama Library Association’s Writer of the Year. He is a staff member and a director of the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. He has lived in Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana, Georgia, California, Costa Rica, and currently lives in Key West, Florida.