Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Wednesday, September 7
7:30 PM
MARY JO McCONAHAY
MAYA ROADS
One Woman’s Journey Among the People of the Rainforest
As a young expat studying Spanish in Mexico in the 1970s, Mary Jo McConahay fell in love with the haunting beauty and mystery of the rainforest. Determined to experience the jungle firsthand, McConahay traveled solo through the beautiful wild region that spans southern Mexico and northern Guatemala. She found her own way, encountering animals, snakes, archaeologists, and, most important, the indigenous Lacandón people, descendants of the ancient Maya.
Drawing upon three decades in Central America’s remote and dangerous landscapes, where she traveled, lived, and worked as a war correspondent, McConahay’s MAYA ROADS chronicles her intense relationships with the land, people, politics, archaeology and species of the cradle of Maya civilization. As she sleeps on mosquito-net-covered hammocks, hikes through the steamy jungle and views the autumnal equinox during a rainstorm, she also recognizes the effects of increased drug trafficking and the horrific violence brought about by revolution and uprisings. McConahay traces not only the lives of the jungle’s inhabitants -- the villagers and war survivors -- but also her own development and bittersweet regret at the transformations modern life has forced upon the Lacandón and the rainforest.
From Indiana Jones–like escapades to passionate Day of the Dead rituals, McConahay’s insights and gripping narrative make MAYA ROADS a personal story of discovery as well as a dramatic depiction of a changing culture.
“In this extraordinary travel memoir, McConahay journeys through beauty, history, disappearing cultures, and revolution… Her courage, keen observation, and open heart make her an unparalleled guide to this gorgeous, mysterious, sacred, and sometimes terrifying corner of the planet.” -- Laura Fraser, author of An Italian Affairand All Over the Map
Check out Don George’s review in National Geographic.
Mary Jo McConahay is a journalist who began covering Guatemala and Central America as a correspondent in the 1980s. Her work has appeared in more than 30 magazines and periodicals including Rolling Stone, Time, Vogue and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Talk with Us About Why “Local” Matters:
Thursday, September 8
7:30 PM
ANDREW LATIES Talks with CHRISTIN EVANS:
WHY INDIE BOOKSTORES REPRESENT EVERYTHING YOU WANT TO FIGHT FOR FROM FREE SPEECH TO BUYING LOCAL TO BUILDING COMMUNITIES
Andy Laties has launched five bookselling companies in the past thirty years. In 1987 he won the Women's National Book Association's Pannell Award for his innovative community outreach work at The Children's Bookstore in Chicago. After ten years as an American Booksellers Association School instructor, Andy wrote the original Rebel Bookseller, which won the 2006 Independent Publisher Award for best book about writing and publishing. He’s now revised and expanded that book, and teacher and educator Bill Ayers has added an afterword.
Laties tells how he got started, how he kept going, and why he believes independent bookselling has a great future. He alternates his narrative with short anecdotes, interludes between the chapters that give his credo as a bookseller. Along the way, he explains the growth of the chains, and throws in a treasure trove of tips for anyone who is considering opening up a bookstore.
Andy holds a Masters degree from the School of Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University. He co-founded and still manages the museum shop at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts.
Joining the conversation this evening is Booksmith’s co-owner Christin Evans.
REBEL BOOKSELLER is a must read for those who care about the book biz, a testament to the ingeniousness of one man’s story of making a life out of his passionate commitment to books and bookselling.
“Everything you always wanted to know about the book business but were afraid to ask.” -- Eric Carle, author of The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Sunday, September 11
4:00 PM
THIRTEEN WAYS
One of the Bay Area's longest-standing poetry groups arrives to read at The Booksmith and to film the event to post on YouTube. Thirteen Ways writers reading this afternoon are Idris Anderson, Beverly Burch, Lisa Gluskin-Stonestreet, George Higgins, Diane Kirsten-Martin, Zack Rogow, Melissa Stein, and Robert Thomas.
Individually the poets have won national prizes and awards. As a group, they meet one Sunday a month for a potluck and critique session. Thirteen Ways began in 1987, and though the members have changed over the years, the poets continue to enjoy one another's writing, company, and cooking, not to mention a little bit of literary gossip.
Monday, September 12
7:30 PM
ANN WILLIAMS
DOWN FROM CASCOMB MOUNTAIN
“This is a haunting and lovely book.” -- Andre Dubus III, author of Townie
Set in rugged New Hampshire in the aftermath of a fatal accident, this assured debut novel wrestles with grief and desire as a young woman finds her way over the course of one summer.
“There seems to be no element of these people and this landscape to which Williams is a stranger. She sees straight to the heart of her characters, and it is a pleasure to witness them yearning and grieving and loving their way through these pages, one living human presence after another, the mountain and the forest rising up around them in all their mystery and specificity.” -- Kevin Brockmeier, author of Illuminationand The Brief History of the Dead
Ann Joslin Williams grew up observing the craft of writing: her father, Thomas Williams, was a National Book Award-winning novelist. Many of his stories were set in the fictional town of Leah, New Hampshire, and on nearby Cascom Mountain, locations that closely mirrored the landscape of the Williamses’ real hometown. WithDOWN FROM CASCOM MOUNTAIN, she proves herself a formidably talented novelist in her own right, while paying tribute to her father by setting her debut novel in the same fictional world -- the New Hampshire he imagined and that she has always known.
Newlywed Mary Hall brings her husband to settle in the rural New Hampshire of her youth to fix up the house she grew up in and to reconnect to the land that defined her, with all its beauty and danger. But on a mountain day hike, she watches helplessly as her husband falls to his death. As she struggles with her sudden grief, in the days and months that follow, Mary finds new friendships -- with Callie and Tobin, teenagers on the mountain club’s crew, and with Ben, the gentle fire watchman. All are haunted by their own losses, but they find ways to restore hope in one another, holding firmly as they navigate the rugged terrain of the unknown and unknowable, and loves lost and found.
Ann Joslin Williams grew up in New Hampshire. She earned her MFA in fiction from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. She is the author of The Woman in the Woods, a collection of linked stories, which won the 2005 Spokane Prize for Short Fiction, and her work has appeared in StoreQuarterly, the Iowa Review, the Missouri Review, Ploughshares, and elsewhere. She was the winner of an NEA grant for her work on Down from Cascom Mountain. Williams is an assistant professor at the University of New Hampshire.
YUM!
Tuesday, September 13
7:30 PM
STEVEN GDULA
GOBBA GOBBA HEY:
A GOB COOKBOOK
Now that you can’t walk a city block without passing a cupcake vendor, it seems that these little desserts have sated the market, not to mention the public. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a new cake-like confection, small like a cupcake, with buttercream or cream cheese frosting (naturally), and cake on both sides of said frosting, like a little sandwich? A more delicious and sophisticated whoopie pie, without the to-be-expected marshmallow filling?
Enter the gob.
When Steven Gdula was growing up in western Pennsylvania, gobs were a staple dessert, found everywhere -- at church bake sales and birthday parties, and even stacked by convenience store cash registers, sparkling in cellophane. Transplanted to San Francisco, Steven found himself missing these sweet treats, but the only way he could satisfy his craving was to make them himself. Well, he could do that, and, even better, he’d share them with his new city. With a nod to the Ramones, he called his enterprise Gobba Gobba Hey, and, after starting out by having to explain to passersby what a gob was, he’s now a local food rock star, selling his gobs from a cart on the streets of San Francisco and beyond. In GOBBA GOBBA HEY, Steven introduces readers, bakers, and eaters to the gob.
Here you’ll find fifty-two recipes, one for every week of the year, from old-school chocolate and vanilla to matcha green tea with lemongrass ginger frosting, to orange cardamom ginger with saffron frosting, to chocolate fennel with raspberry absinthe. Heavenly! You may just have a tasting treat in store for you this evening…
Wednesday, September 14
7:30 PM
BEN FONG-TORRES
THE RICE ROOM
GROWING UP CHINESE-AMERICAN FROM NUMBER TWO SON TO ROCK 'N' ROLL
An instant best-seller when originally published in 1994, this expanded and updated edition of THE RICE ROOM tells of growing up with a double identity—Chinese and American. Ben Fong-Torres was torn between an alluring American lifestyle—including Elvis and rock ‘n’ roll—and the traditional cultural heritage his proud immigrant parents struggled to instill in their five children. Now illustrated with personal family photographs as well as photos of the author with various celebrities, Fong-Torres rounds out his life story with a new final chapter.
Ben Fong-Torres is the author of many books, including Becoming Almost Famous: My Back Pages in Music, Writing and Life, Not Fade Away: A Backstage Pass to 20 Years of Rock &’ Roll and The Hits Just Keep on Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio, plus the forthcoming The Eagles.
“Ben Fong-Torres ran and wrote the music section of Rolling Stone and at the same time kept his other foot in the dark, secret world of San Francisco’s Chinatown. It’s an amazing story.” -- Jann Wenner