Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Friday, February 10
8:00 PM
Literary Clown Foolery
An Evening of Satire, Cabaret and Amazing Feats of Comedy
Hosted by Dr. Schmidtt and Gretchen (Polina Smith and Tristan Cunningham)
This evening we welcome Bi-Rite Market’s Sam Mogannam, co-author of Eat Good Food: A Grocer’s Guide to Shopping, Cooking& Creating Community Through Food, and now the subject of our attention, and, we hope, wit. Check out Bi-Rite’s why-we-wrote-a-book video here!
Once a month, our very own Literary Clown Foolery troupe of trained, professional clowns (clowns, not seals) offers hilarious interpretations of a featured writer’s work as well as juggling, acrobatics, original music – and we offer you refreshments and a ton of fun! Celebrate the Bay Area’s literary and creative traditions through laughter – the fun starts at 8.
Tickets $10, available in the store and Brown Paper Tickets online.
Tuesday, February 21
7:30 PM
RABBI MICHAEL LERNER
EMBRACING ISRAEL/PALESTINE:
A Strategy to Heal and Transform the Middle East
A major modern conundrum is how the Arab/Israel conflict remains unresolved and, seemingly, unresolvable. In Embracing Israel/Palestine, Rabbi Michael Lerner examines how the mutual demonization and discounting of each sides’ legitimate needs drive the antagonism, and explores the underlying psychological dynamics that fuel the seeming intransigence on both sides. Lerner shows the importance of being both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, challenges the master narratives in both Israel and Palestine to the extent that they demean the other side, and exposes the false idea that “homeland security” (either for Israel or for the U.S.) can be achieved through military, political, economic, or cultural domination. Lerner argues that real security is best achieved through an ethos of caring and generosity toward “the other” and presents a Global Marshall Plan whose first location would be the Middle East.
Insisting that any agreement reached at the negotiating table will be worthless without a fundamental transformation of consciousness, Lerner shows how we in the West could play a central role in facilitating that change if we ourselves were to adopt a more rational approach to homeland security and foreign policy. Lerner’s approach, drawn from his own work as a psychotherapist with Israelis and Palestinians and addressing the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that politically cripples both societies, presents a vital and creative new direction that will provide hope and instruction to anyone who seeks a lasting peace for the Middle East and a healing of the U.S. as well.
Best-selling author Michael Lerner, PhD, is the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun synagogue in San Francisco and Berkeley and the editor of Tikkunmagazine. Lerner founded Tikkun in 1986 as “the voice of Jewish liberals and progressives” and as “the alternative to Commentarymagazine and the voices of Jewish conservatism.” From the start, the magazine was dedicated to Jewish ethics and to healing and repair of the world, but it has evolved into one of the leading interfaith intellectual magazines in the West and the spur to a new movement, the Network of Spiritual Progressives. In 2001, he was awarded a special PEN Award for his stance in breaking the censorship that effectively exists around Israel-Palestinian matters in the U.S. media, and in 2005 the Martin Luther King, Jr./Mahatma Gandhi Peace Award from Morehouse College.Wednesday, February 22
7:30 PM
MARTHA GROVER
ONE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE
Eight years in the making, ONE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE is the first collection of Martha Grover’s zine Somnambulist. Playful, wry, and conversational, ONE MORE FOR THE PEOPLE chronicles three generations in the life of the Grover family. As these idiosyncratic characters reluctantly confront adulthood, one Grover is always there to take notes. But after she’s diagnosed with a rare, potentially fatal disease (whose 81 side effects include dramatic changes to her appearance, not to mention the dreaded possibility of having to move back home), her story becomes something unexpected: a survival guide. In the spirit of Lucy Grealy’s Autobiography of a Face, Grover transforms her own misfortune into a tale as unsettling as it is entertaining.
Martha Grover is a genius. Her story is unique, but as I read Grover, some part of me always feels that this is everybody’s autobiography. This is what it means to fiercely love a changing self. – Ariel Gore, author of Bluebird and Atlas of the Human Heart
Martha Grover has a master’s degree in creative writing from California College of the Arts. Her work has appeared in The Coachella Review, Switchback, Broken Pencil, Never Have Paris Zine, Tom Tom Magazine, The Raven Chronicles, and her zine Somnambulist, which she has been publishing since 2003. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Thursday, February 23
7:30 PM
RICHARD MASON
HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKERFrom the acclaimed author of The Drowning People (“A literary sensation” —The New York Times Book Review) and Natural Elements(“A magnum opus” —The New Yorker), HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is an opulent, romantic coming-of-age drama set at the height of Europe’s belle époque, written in the grand tradition with a lightness of touch that is wholly modern and original.
Richard Mason’s tale opens in Amsterdam at the turn of the last century, moves to New York at the time of the 1907 financial crisis and proceeds onboard a luxury liner headed for Cape Town. It is about a young man—Piet Barol—with an instinctive appreciation for pleasure and a gift for finding it. Piet’s father is an austere administrator at Holland’s oldest university. His mother, a singing teacher, has died—but not before giving him a thorough grounding in the arts of charm. Piet applies for a job as tutor to the troubled son of Europe’s leading hotelier: a child who refuses to leave his family’s mansion on Amsterdam’s grandest canal. As the young man enters this glittering world, he learns its secrets—and soon, quietly, steadily, finds his life transformed as he in turn transforms the lives of those around him.
HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is a brilliantly written portrait of the senses, a novel about pleasure and those who are in search of it; those who embrace it, luxuriate in it, need it; and those who deprive themselves of it as they do those they love. It is a book that will beguile and transport you—to another world, another time, another state of being.
If Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited, Mann’s Buddenbrooks, Miller’s Tropic of Cancer or Wharton’s The Age of Innocence intrigued and caught you as a reader, Richard Mason’s new novel is a marvelous ‘literary romp’ to fall into.
“One of the best three books of the year” – Independent
“Piet Barol is a pure pulse of young manhood; not an everyman, but perhaps the fantasy everyman that every man would like to be.” – Times Literary Supplement
“Enthralling and perfectly paced” – The Observer
“A saucy, hugely entertaining romp of a young man making his fortune in 1907 Amsterdam’ – The Sunday Times
“Readers of a sensitive disposition beware” – The Lady
“Highly recommended as an engaging portrait of an individual, a family, and time.” -- Library Journal, starred
“This bildrungsroman is as smart as it is seductive . . . Readers will savor final scenes aboard the gilded ocean-liner Eugenie and welcome the undercurrent that perhaps Piet’s good fortune isn’t luck at all but a lesson that pleasure exists for those who seek it.” -- Booklist
Richard Mason was born in South Africa in 1978 and lives in New York City. His first novel, The Drowning People, published when he was twenty-one and still a student at Oxford, sold more than a million copies worldwide and won Italy’s Grinzane Cavour Prize for Best First Novel. He is also the author of Natural Elements, which was chosen by the Washington Post as one of the best books of 2009 and longlisted for the IMPAC Prize and the Sunday Times Literary Award. HISTORY OF A PLEASURE SEEKER is his fourth novel.
In 1999, with Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mason started the Kay Mason Foundation, which helps disadvantaged South Africans access quality education. He is the recipient of the Inyathelo Award for Philanthropy.Thursday, March 1
7:30 PM
DAVID WOLMAN
THE END OF MONEY:
Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers -- and the Coming Cashless Society
In today’s tough economic climate many of us have money on our mind. But in our efforts to put away a nest egg or at least earn a living, rarely do we take the time to think about how money actually works. We put our faith in the system, trusting the currency of the land—and especially our cash in hand—to retain value now and forever. Is our trust misplaced? Does this commitment to cash in particular make sense in the 21st century? Might there be a better way to transact—even more convenient than checks, credit cards, and PayPal? What if someone told you those better ways could also save lives and help countries pay their debts?
In The End of Money, David Wolman dares to take a critical look at cash, considering its liabilities and what our world would be like without those trillions of little numbered bits of paper and tiny metal disks. He starts by giving us a crash course in the rise and fall of physical money, beginning with Marco Polo’s fascination with the paper notes he saw circulating in China, then zooming through the ages to the end of the gold standard and the ascent of national currencies. Next, we follow him around the globe as he pieces together a cross-cultural picture of cash today. He takes us to Iceland, where he examines the connection between cash, cultural heritage, and emotional value; to India, where he explores a growing trend people in developing countries seem to be embracing faster than people in wealthy ones: using cell phones as replacements for both bank branches and cash; and to Tokyo, where he delves into the parallel worlds of counterfeiting and anti-counterfeiting technology.
With input from characters such as a Georgia pastor who sees the end of cash as the start of Armageddon, a convicted counterfeiter whom the Feds have labeled a “domestic terrorist,” a coin collector who seems to loathe his merchandise, and a British technologist who views cash as a “menace,” Wolman weaves a well-rounded analysis of tactile money and our relationship to it. He even explores the topic from health, environmental, and psychological angles, looking at cash as a host for bacteria, a contributor to everyone’s carbon footprint, and an elixir that makes people more confident and happy. Wolman’s journey ends with a glimpse of a future in which he (and others) see a rainbow of currencies—national, virtual, and alternative—being exchanged, and a reflection on his own (mostly successful) attempt to go a full year without using coins or bills.
David Wolman is a contributing editor at Wired. He has written for such publications as Outside, Mother Jones, Newsweek, Discover, Forbes, and Salon, and his work appeared in Best American Science Writing 2009. A former Fulbright journalism fellow in Japan and a graduate of Stanford University’s journalism program, he now lives in Portland, Oregon, where he received a 2011 Oregon Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship. His previous books are A Left-Hand Turn Around the World and Righting the Mother Tongue.