Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
The Booksmith at Litquake!
Thursday, October 11
6:00 PM
THE OTHER CALIFORNIA:
SUSAN STRAIGHT AND MICHELLE TEA IN CONVERSATION
Susan Straight writes about American families who struggle with finances, fidelity, and familial relationships. Her characters are black, white, Mexican, Native American: a reflection of her own Southern California. Her latest novel Heaven and Here is her third set in the fictional SoCal town of Rio Seco. Here, Straight is in conversation with San Francisco’s Michelle Tea, author of nine books and founder of RADAR Productions and the Sister Spit literary performance tour.
At Z Space (450 Florida Street, San Francisco)
$8 (or $12 for this plus the following event); $8 tickets available here; $12 tickets available here
8:00 PM
GREER AND HANDLER? OR HANDLER AND GREER?
The vaudeville act of Daniel Handler and Andrew Sean Greer returns to the stage – actually for the first time together at Litquake – and we are blessed to receive their collective presence. Yes, they have written bestselling books (The Confessions of Max Tivoli, A Series of Unfortunate Events), and both are recipients of many awards and adulation. But at the heart of tonight’s program, they are just going to fool around, drawing questions from a fishbowl, as if to punctuate the randomness of life, which we can only hope will cause them to veer into personal attack. We are pretty sure there will also be a musical interlude.
At Z Space (450 Florida Street, San Francisco)
$8 (or $12 for this plus the preceding event); $8 tickets available here; $12 tickets available here
The Booksmith at Litquake!
Thursday, October 11
7:00 PM
FLIGHT OF POETS 2012
Wine and poetry have always made a delicious duet. At this reading, curated by Hollie Hardy and Tess Taylor, internationally renowned sommelier Christopher Sawyer pairs six talented poets -- Jennifer Foerster, Jeannine Hall Gailey, Glyn Maxwell, Katie Peterson,Dean Rader, Alexandra Teague -- with six exquisite wines carefully selected to illuminate their work.
Hotel Rex (562 Sutter Street, San Francisco)
$15 (includes 6-taste wine flight); tickets available here
What If Clowns Ran Litquake?
Friday, October 12
8:00 PM
LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY: LITQUAKE EDITION
Exhausted after a week chasing the lit scene across the 7x7? Come take the edge off.We're throwing a very special Litquake Edition of our monthly Literary Clown Foolery show! The clowns will scrape the bottom of the literary barrel. What they'll find down there is anyone's guess: a rollicking gay vampire-zombie dragon-slaying love story; a NASCAR-themed bodice-ripper; a rap cookbook (Gil Scott Herring, anyone?)... the lowbrow, the nobrow, the shameless - we'll take it on.
Open bar, 90-minutes of humor that pushes the boundaries of taste, live performances, and special guest Andrew Shaffer (aka Fanny Merkin), author of Fifty Shames of Earl Grey and Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love, all for $10 (tickets in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets online and 800-838-3006)
You've seen the best. Now, come see the rest.
__________________________________________________
A Launch Party!
Thursday, October 18
7:30 PM
DAVID THOMSON
THE BIG SCREEN:
The Story of the Movies
David Thomson has been called our “greatest living film critic and historian” (The Atlantic) and “the dean of film writing in the English language” (The New Republic). He has given us histories of Hollywood and biographies of some of its most fascinating and complex personalities, and his Biographical Dictionary of Film is a classic—or as Geoff Dyer puts it, “a great crazy masterpiece.” But he has never written anything quite like THE BIG SCREEN -- never put all of these pieces together into one story the way he has here -- and we are thrilled to welcome his discussion of it this evening.
THE BIG SCREEN is a landmark in Thomson’s career: it finds him drawing on all he has seen and written to consider the role movies have played in shaping the 20th (and early 21st) centuries. It is the story of the movies, but it’s just as much the story of what the movies have done to us -- and Thomson’s take on this is not as rosy as one might expect from such a well-known cinephile. Thomson’s celebration of movies is mixed with regret and even dread as he traces the rise of a medium that began as a natural extension of photography and graphic arts, but quickly began to transform our society and our perception of the world.
As Thomson puts it, this book is not Méliès to Melancholia so much as it is Muybridge to Facebook. It’s the story of screens: the enormous ones that brought Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, and feelings of togetherness to huddled masses; the smaller screens of television and laptops that have diminished much of movies’ aura; and the smartphones, e-readers and other handheld devices that surround us more with each passing year. Thomson effortlessly connects media and personalities around the globe and through time -- from Buster Keaton toSeven Samurai, from I Love Lucy to Steve Jobs, from Godard to internet pornography. Throughout, the story of the screen is the story of its power -- not only the power to dramatize life on a grand scale, but also to spellbind us in such a way that we forget to be the leading actors in our own lives. We used to believe the screen was there just to help us see the pictures, the story, and the illusion of life. But what has that illusion of life done to alter and threaten our perception of the real thing?
David Thomson, one of the great living authorities on the movies, is the author of The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, now in its fifth edition. His books include a biography of Nicole Kidman, a biography of Orson Welles, and The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. His latest work is the acclaimed Have You Seen . . ?: A Personal Introduction to 1,000 Films. Born in London, he now lives in San Francisco.
Monday, October 22
7:30 PM
DON LATTIN
DISTILLED SPIRITS
Getting High, Then Sober, with a Famous Writer, a Forgotten Philosopher, and a Hopeless Drunk
A famous writer, a forgotten philosopher, and a hopeless drunk walk into the life of a riding high newspaper man who writes about religion. So begins author Don Lattin’s DISTILLED SPIRITS, the prequel to his bestselling The Harvard Psychedelic Club: How Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Huston Smith and Andrew Weil Killed the Fifties and Ushered in a New Age for America. Searching through skepticism, self-help, altered states of consciousness, and all anonymous forms of spiritualism in between, Lattin serves an intoxicating concoction of how the work and friendship of three wildly different men -- Aldous Huxley, Gerald Heard, and Bill Wilson -- transformed the landscape of Western religion and spirituality in the twentieth century.
In DISTILLED SPIRITS, the stories of the prophetic author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception, the philosophizing Anglo-Irish mystic who laid the foundations for New Age, and the LSD-wielding founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, are brought together by veteran journalist Lattin, who reveals his own sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious misadventures as a religion writer "worshiping at the altar of drugs and alcohol." Lattin recounts his rocky personal journey from 1960s and 1970s counter-culture, through the fast-living, cocaine-fueled 1980s and 1990s, to his long struggle to get sober and find a faith that works for him. By weaving an intimate account of his own recovery with the lives of the book's three central characters, Lattin shows us the redemptive power of story telling, the strength of fellowship, and the power of living more compassionately, one day at a time.
Watch the video!
The Booksmith at the Swedish American Hall:
Tuesday, October 23
7:30 PM
MARK Z. DANIELEWSKI
THE FIFTY YEAR SWORD
The phenomenally talented author of House of Leaves and Only Revolutions has crafted a powerfully chilling novella -- a ghost story for grownup readers.
One Halloween night, at a party held at an East Texas ranch house, a local seamstress named Chintana finds herself thrown into the role of chaperone for five rambunctious orphans. Not surprisingly, the children’s energies prove barely containable, even with promises of cake and a storyteller.
The storyteller, however, is not what anyone expects.
Looming and cloaked in dark, he entertains the orphans with a tale twisted out of vengeance and violence. He does not come empty-handed, either. At their feet he sets a long, narrow box sealed with five latches.
“I am a bad man with a very black heart,” he warns them. “And it was only that badness and blackness which forced me to seek out what I have carried now for many years and brought this night for you.”
An unsettling thing to say to anyone, especially to children. But as Chintana soon discovers, this is just the beginning. Her concerns only mount as the storyteller offers more and more menacing details about what consequences lie hidden within that long, narrow box.
To make matters worse, the orphans, one by one, lean forward and lift the latches…
Tonight, Mark Danielewski brings his multimedia Fifty Year Sword show to the Swedish American Hall, with Chris O’Riley (master pianist and host of NPR’s From the Top)
Mark Z. Danielewski was born in New York City and lives in Los Angeles. He is the author of House of Leaves, Only Revolutions andThe Whalestoe Letters.
The Booksmith at the Swedish American Hall (above Café du Nord, 2170 Market Street, San Francisco)
Tickets $15 general, $35 seat plus one copy of The Fifty Year Sword, available in the store or at Brown Paper Tickets online or 800-838-3006.