Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Launch Party!
Friday, April 27
7:30 PM
VICTORIA SWEET
GOD’S HOTEL:
A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine
Twenty years ago, a brilliant doctor took what she thought was a short-term assignment at an old-fashioned charity hospital. Today, she is still there. What she found at Laguna Honda Hospital in San Francisco captivated and astonished her – not just the remarkable cases that doctors rarely see anymore, but the opportunity to practice a time-honored form of “slow medicine” that was attentive to the soul as well as the body, that often brought about stunning cures, and that offered abundant lessons for the efficiency-obsessed model of medicine that now dominates our healthcare system. Revealing her dazzling literary gifts as much as her incisive medical insights, Victoria Sweet tells the dramatic and moving stories of her patients, her hospital, and her own journey as a physician in her first book,GOD’S HOTEL
Sweet knew instantly that Laguna Honda – with its open wards, gardens, greenhouse, aviary, and barnyard – was very different from your typical modern hospital, and she quickly fell under its spell. It lacked the high-tech equipment of a state-of-the-art facility, but it also lacked the grinding emphasis on speed, bureaucratic protocol, and cost cutting. The patients had weirder and more extreme illnesses than any Sweet had ever encountered, but she got to work with them in ways that doctors hardly ever do anymore – over long periods of time that allowed her to observe them carefully, listen to their stories, and treat them as whole human beings.Her patients included Mrs. Muller, for whom a simple x-ray reversed months of suffering and disability due to a series of inappropriate diagnoses and costly treatments. Mr. Grenz’s protruding tongue and an almost-forgotten vital sign called the “paradoxical pulse” were the clues Sweet needed to save him from heart failure. Mr. Bramwell suffered from severe dementia, but his undiminished ability to dance testified to the almost miraculous persistence of his spirit.
As Sweet learned, Laguna Honda’s values were inspired by the Hôtels-Dieu, or God’s Hotels, of medieval Europe. Founded by nuns and monks, these were the first Western institutions to care for the sick. Long interested in the fascinating history of pre-modern medicine, Sweet made a pilgrimage to Switzerland and wrote her Ph.D. thesis about the most prominent medieval healer, a nun called Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard saw the doctor more as a gardener than a mechanic, and her keenly perceptive observations of the body’s natural healing processes are still instructive today.
As Sweet chronicles, however, this unusual hospital – perhaps the last of its kind in the United States – could not remain forever beyond the reach of the bureaucrats, the politicians, and the efficiency experts. In recent years, they descended on Laguna Honda, determined to transform it into a modern health care facility, and the hospital has been completely rebuilt. But it remains an open question whether the spirit of the old institution can be transplanted into the new one. In a very real sense, the hospital is the ultimate hero of Sweet’s narrative, with a story as engaging, revelatory, and sometimes heartbreaking as those of the patients and staff.
Sweet beguiles us with tales so gripping and a voice so intimate that we barely notice that lessons are being imparted. Yet as she recounts dozens of case histories and explains how her patients at Laguna Honda have profoundly changed the way she practices medicine, she suggests steps to make healthcare not only more humane for both patients and medical professionals, but often vastly less expensive. In addition, she offers trenchant and thought-provoking commentary on the healthcare reform bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Obama in 2010, as well as other reform efforts.
“Victoria Sweet writes beautifully about the enormous richness of life at Laguna Honda, the chronic [care] hospital where she has spent the last twenty years, and the intense sense of place and community that binds patients and staff there. Such community in the medical world is vanishingly rare now, and Laguna Honda may be the last of its kind. . . . God’s Hotel is a most important book which raises fundamental questions about the nature of medicine in our time. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the “business” of health care—and especially those interested in the humanity of health care.”
-- Oliver Sacks
Victoria Sweet has been a physician at San Francisco’s Laguna Honda
Hospital for more than twenty years. An associate clinical professor
of medicine at UC San Francisco, she also holds a Ph.D. in history and social medicine.
We’re honored to have Dr. Paul Linde, Health Sciences Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, UCSF School of Medicine, with us this evening to introduce Victoria Sweet and her book.Monday, June 4
7:30 PM
JUSTIN HALPERN
I SUCK AT GIRLS
The day before Justin Halpern proposed to his now wife, he told his father what he was about to do. In typical fashion, his dad was unimpressed by this life-changing decision. “You’ve been dating her four years,” he said. “It ain’t like you found a parallel fucking universe.”But his dad could tell he was nervous and needed a push, so he gave Justin some advice: to take an entire day, go off somewhere on his own, think about all the things he’d learned about women, relationships, and himself over the years, and make an “educated guess” as to whether proposing was the right decision. This conversation, and Halpern’s resulting trip down memory lane, is the subject for his hilarious new book – the follow up to his phenom, Sh*t My Dad Says – I SUCK AT GIRLS. A funny and touching series of stories, I SUCK AT GIRLS is an exploration of Halpern’s romantic adventures (read: mostly failures) – from his first kiss, to getting engaged, and every awkward moment in between.
Halpern became an Internet sensation in 2008 after creating a Twitter feed called shitmydadsays, where he captured the absurd and expletive-ridden words of wisdom that came out of his father’s mouth. What began as an attempt to keep his mind off things and make a couple friends laugh, however, quickly exploded: within two months he had over half a million followers, a book deal and a TV deal. As his Twitter following grew, the book Sh*t My Dad Says became a massive bestseller. Halpern co-created and co-executive produced the TV adaptation for CBS and Warner Brothers TV, starring William Shatner.
His hilarious new book, told chronologically through his romantic past, opens with “I Like It,” the story of a seven-year-old Halpern presenting a crude drawing of his second-grade crush to his second-grade crush – of a red-headed stick figure above whose head hovered a dog, going Number Two on her face. Summoned to school by his son’s teacher, Justin’s father was furious, but not for the reasons that you’d expect. “You have to draw a hill or something under the dog. A dog can’t just float up into the atmosphere and take a shit on someone’s head. I mean, I know you’re six or seven or whatever, but that’s just pretty basic physics right there.”
I SUCK AT GIRLS charts the life-changing experiences that shaped Halpern into the awkward, yet happily married man that he is today, including: his nine-year-old fear that on his wedding night not only would his wife see him naked, but that he would also be obligated to have sex with her; being the last of his friends to lose his virginity at age twenty to a Hooters waitress who broke up with him almost immediately after; taking a trip to Europe in hopes that maybe women were easier to talk to overseas, only to find that the only person with whom he could carry on a conversation was an Asian man who wore all denim; and finally, his first date with Amanda, where, at a party in her own house, he forced her to guard the bathroom door while he loudly and painfully emptied his bowels, with a line of people waiting on the other side of the door.
Halpern, who tried to ask a girl to homecoming in high school by asking her if she’d “ever taken flaming hot Cheetos and dumped nacho cheese on them?” learns a few things along the way, however, and I SUCK AT GIRLS captures them all.
Justin Halpern, 31, is a bestselling author and TV/writer producer, who has appeared on Chelsea Lately, the CBS Early Show, Last Call with Carson Daly, and Countdown with Keith Olbermann. He was most recently a co-producer on “How to Be a Gentleman,” for Paramount and CBS TV studios. He runs and regularly contributes to the very funny website, These Fries Are Good. He recently married his lovely wife Amanda, and splits his time between Los Angeles and San Diego. Follow him on Twitter: @justin_halpern
Tuesday, June 5
7:30 PM
WAJAHAT ALI and BARAKA BLUE
ALL AMERICAN: 45 American Men on Being Muslim
Who are American Muslim men?
What do they think, do, and say?
We live in volatile times, where hysteria and scapegoating have reduced the rich diversity of Muslim experience to humiliating and disempowering stereotypes. The narratives of American Muslim men in particular seem forever anchored by stories of extremism, violence, terrorism, and intolerance. In the revealing ALL AMERICAN, 45 unique stories from American Muslim men represent the gamut of America’s diversity, and their stories shatter the misconceptions surrounding American Muslim men through honest, accessible, personal essays.
Join the conversation this evening with editor Wajahat Ali and contributor Baraka Blue.
“Finally, a chance for American Muslims to seize the mic from the pundits and politicians who claim to know what Islam is and what Muslims wants, and to speak for themselves about their hopes and aspirations, their trials and tribulations, and, above all else, their unique identity as Americans. At a time when anti-Muslim sentiment is growing in this country, there could be no more vital book than this.” -- Reza Aslan, author of No god but God and Beyond Fundamentalism
“Important, necessary, eloquent and humane, All-American is an eye-opening, heartfelt journey through the stupendous diversity of the American Muslim experience. Superb.” -- Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“These are essential stories, each one a world, taken together a cosmos. America is a nation rejuvenated by immigrants. Islam is a tradition at its best when it travels. These pieces show that the hyphen between American and Muslim is a bridge not a barrier, that this young nation and that ancient tradition can be mutually enriching rather than mutually exclusive.” -- Eboo Patel, Founder and President, Interfaith Youth Core
Wajahat Ali is a playwright, attorney, essayist and humorist. “The Domestic Crusaders”, his first full-length play, was published by McSweeney’s in 2011. Ali’s essays and interviews on contemporary affairs, politics, the media, popular culture and religion frequently appear in a variety of publications. He is the associate editor of altmuslim.com, and contributing editor to Illume Magazine. Ali, a practicing attorney in the Bay Area, is a frequent consultant on Islam and Muslims, post 9-11 Muslim American identity and politics, multicultural art and activism, and New Media Journalism.
Baraka Blue is an emcee and spoken word artist living in Oakland. Part of Muslim musicians collective Remarkable Current, Blue has performed all over the US as well as the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. His first album, “Sound Heart” was released in 2010. He is acclaimed for his original synthesis of spoken word poetry with the tradition of Sufi poets such as Rumi and Hafiz. He is the author of Disembodied Kneelings. In addition to his performances he has taught classes and led creative writing workshops internationally. Baraka Blue is currently pursuing a master’s degree with a focus on Sufism and psychology. His sophomore album “Majunun’s Lost Memoirs” will be released soon.
Wednesday, June 6
7:30 PM
MARK COGGINS
PROM NIGHT, and Other Man Made Disasters
David Sedaris meets Bill Bryson meets Chelsea Handler
If Mark Coggins’s life were a supermarket, the stories from Prom Night and Other Man-made Disasters would be the aisle markers. Meander through the nostalgic, riotous, and sometimes cringe-inducing wares Coggins offers up in his version of Whole Fool. Whether he’s staking out the house of his two-timing, belly-dancing girlfriend, deep sea diving with equipment fashioned from tire chains, a trash can and a garden hose, or donning an oversize waterfowl outfit to win the heart of the one who got away, Coggins writes with honesty, self-effacing humor and warmth.
Mark Coggins’s work has been nominated for the Shamus and the Barry crime fiction awards and selected for best of the year lists compiled by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Detroit Free Press, among others. His novels Runoff and The Big Wake-Up won the Next Generation Indie Book Award and the Independent Publisher Book Award (IPPY) respectively, both in the crime fiction category. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Linda.