Archive
Friends,
below are some great events coming up at the Book Smith at 1644 Haight St. between Clayton & Cole (863-8688)
Friday, November 9
8:00 PM
LITERARY CLOWN FOOLERY
details TK
LAUNCH PARTY!
Monday, November 12
7:30 PM
TAMIM ANSARY
GAMES WITHOUT RULES:
The Often Interrupted History of Afghanistan
Tamim Ansary is the author of Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes and West of Kabul, East of New York, among other books. For ten years he wrote a monthly column for Encarta.com, and has published essays and commentary in the San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, Alternet, TomPaine.com, Edutopia, Parade, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere. Born in Afghanistan in 1948, he moved to the U.S. in 1964. He is director of the San Francisco Writers Workshop. We invite you to join us in celebrating his major new work.
Games without Rules is an enlightening, accessible history of modern Afghanistan from the Afghan point of view, showing how Great Power conflicts have interrupted its ongoing, internal struggle to take form as a nation.
Most Westerners still see the war in Afghanistan as a contest between democracy and Islamist fanaticism. That war is real; but it sits atop an older struggle, between Kabul and the countryside, between order and chaos, between a modernist impulse to join the world and the pull of an older Afghanistan: a tribal universe of village republics permeated by Islam.
Ansary draws on his Afghan background, Muslim roots, and Western and Afghan sources to explain history from the inside out, and to illuminate the long, internal struggle that the outside world has never fully understood. It is the story of a nation struggling to take form, a nation undermined by its own demons while, every 40 to 60 years, a great power crashes in and disrupts whatever progress has been made. Told as story, and focusing on key events and personalities, Games without Rules provides revelatory insight into a country at the center of political debate.
"In "Games Without Rules", Tamim Ansary has written the most engaging, accessible and insightful history of Afghanistan. With gifted prose and revealing details, Ansary gives us the oft-neglected Afghan perspective of the wars, foreign meddling and palace intrigue that has defined the past few centuries between the Indus and Oxus. This brilliant book should be required reading for anyone involved in the current war there -- and anyone who wants to understand why Afghanistan will not be at peace anytime soon." -- Rajiv Chandrasekaran, author of Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan
Tuesday, November 13
7:30 PM
MAKING A BOOK: ART & PROCESS
with SANJAY PATEL and EMILY HAYNES
featuring GANESHA’S SWEET TOOTH
Writer Emily Haynes and artist Sanjay Patel collaborated to make a book. How in the world does that work? Tonight, using theirGanesha's Sweet Tooth as a prime example, they'll discuss working together toward one end, incorporating each of their own disciplines, and how the book changed during its evolution. They'll offer a rare look at collaborative process and art and outcome. Whether you’re keen on all things biblio, or an artist or writer considering a book project, or a devotee of great picture books, this is an evening for you!
The bold, bright colors of India leap right off the page in this fresh and funny picture book adaptation of how Ganesha came to write the epic poem of Hindu literature, the Mahabharata. Ganesha is just like any other kid, except that he has the head of an elephant and rides around on a magical mouse. And he loves sweets, especially the traditional dessert laddoo. But when Ganesha insists on biting into a super jumbo jawbreaker laddoo, his tusk breaks off! Ganesha is terribly upset, but with the help of the wise poet Vyasa, he learns that what seems broken can actually be quite useful after all. With vibrant, graphic illustrations, expressive characters, and offbeat humor, this is a wonderfully inventive twist on a classic tale.
Sanjay Patel is an animator and storyboard artist for Pixar Animation Studios, where he has worked on many features including A Bug's Life, Ratatouille, and the Cars series. Sanjay is also the creator of Ramayana: Divine Loophole, The Big Poster Book of Hindu Deities, and The Little Book of Hindu Deities. His modern interpretations of Hindu epics have been exhibited at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum.
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Emily Haynes is an editor by day, specializing in entertainment and humor titles, and a children's writer by night. In her spare time she can often be found up to her elbows in clay, making functional ceramics. This is her first children's book.
Wednesday, November 14
7:30 PM
IAN FRAZIER
THE CURSING MOMMY’S BOOK OF DAYS
Based on his widely read columns for The New Yorker, Ian Frazier’s uproarious first novel, The Cursing Mommy’s Book of Days, centers on a profoundly memorable character, sprung from an impressively fertile imagination. Structured as a daybook of sorts, the book follows the Cursing Mommy -- beleaguered wife of Larry and mother of two boys, twelve and eight -- as she tries (more or less) valiantly to offer tips on how to do various tasks around the home, only to end up on the ground, cursing, surrounded by broken glass. Her voice is somewhere between Phyllis Diller’s and Sylvia Plath’s: a hilariously desperate housewife with a taste for swearing and large glasses of red wine, who speaks to the frustrations of everyday life.
Frazier has demonstrated an astonishing ability to operate with ease in a variety of registers: from On the Rez, an investigation into the lives of modern day Oglala Sioux written with a mix of humor, compassion, and imagination, to Dating Your Mom, a sidesplitting collection of humorous essays that imagines, among other things, how and why you might begin a romance with your mother. Here, Frazier tackles another genre with his usual grace and aplomb, as well as an extra helping of his trademark wicked wit. The Cursing Mommy’s failures and weaknesses are our own -- and Frazier gives them a loving, satirical spin that is uniquely his own.
"Ian Frazier is not a mommy, and as his best friend I can swear that he is not a curser in any way, yet this book, The Cursing Mommy's Book of Days, is the funniest book I have ever read on the subject of moms and the crazy bliss that makes up their life. Being and Nothingness? Read this instead, for it is even funnier than Frazier's other book: African-American Women Writers in the Diaspora: A Reconsideration of Morrison, Walker, Dove, and Frazier.”
-- Jamaica Kincaid
Ian Frazier is the author of quite a lot of remarkable books, including Travels in Siberia, Coyote v. Acme, The Fish’s Eye, and Great Plains. A frequent contributor to The New Yorker, he lives in Montclair, New Jersey.
Reserved seating tickets available with the purchase of a copy of The Cursing Mommy’s Book of Days at The Booksmith, while seats last!
Monday, November 26
7:30 PM
ELLEN FORNEY
MARBLES
Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, & Me: A Graphic Memoir
Ellen Forney has drawn ever since she can remember and has always been a storyteller. So, when, shortly before turning thirty, Forney was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she knew someday she would tell her story in comic form. In this dazzling graphic memoir, she takes readers through the electric highs and dark lows of her journey and asks a powerful, provocative question: for artists, are mental disorders a gift or a curse?
Marbles is the story of Ellen’s struggle with her bipolar disorder and her fear that treatment could cause her to lose her creativity and her livelihood, all told in vibrant, graphic detail.
Finding inspiration from the lives and work of other artists and writers that suffered from mood disorders – among them Vincent van Gogh, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Sylvia Plath -- Ellen explores the popular concept of the crazy artist to find out if it's a myth or a full-on way of life. Forney’s varied and bold, vivid artwork provides a completely fresh, visceral glimpse into the real-time effects of a mood disorder as the illustrations closely illuminate Ellen’s emotions. Marbles has a generosity of spirit and often reads like a letter from a friend, with a dark humor that keeps even the toughest parts of the story readable.
Forney has said, “This has been the biggest, most wrenching, most rewarding project I have done to date. The entire process was intense, squarely facing and trying to make sense of the most difficult period of my life.” When Ellen was first diagnosed, she found company and comfort in, William Styron’s Darkness Visible and Kay Jamison’s An Unquiet Mind. The memoirs about mood disorders were tough to read, but also inspiring, and gave her hope. She hopes that by writing Marbles she can give back, and will give her readers the same comfort Styron and Jamison gave her.
Ellen’s journey from mania to depression and back again is not just a compelling personal story – it is a struggle waged by millions of Americans everyday; and includes carefully researched information about the disease, the drugs associated and the many ways to cope. With bold, brilliant storytelling in the tradition of graphic memoirs like Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, Forney’s new work explores the fascinating relationship between “craziness” and creativity.
Ellen Forney collaborated with Sherman Alexie on National Book Award-winning The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, and created Eisner Award-nominated comic books I Love Led Zeppelin and Monkey Food: The
Complete "I Was Seven in '75" Collection. She teaches comics courses at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, Washington, where she has just won The Stranger’s Genius Award.
Wednesday, November 28
7:00 PM
FOURTEEN HILLS
The SFSU Review
Michael Rubin Book Award Release Party
The Michael Rubin Book Award is a contest open to students of San Francisco State University. It is held once a year and the winning manuscript is chosen by a different guest judge (usually a published author) every year. The winning manuscript is published by Fourteen Hills Press in a limited one-run printing. This evening, the editors, along with friends and family celebrate this year’s winner Stoyan Vassilev and his winning book, Hope Seven.
This evening features an introduction by prominent New Narrative writer Robert Gluck, with Vassilev reading selections from his freshly published first book. His collection of short stories explores the reality of living in post-communist Bulgaria and the dream of immigrating to America. The book is published by Fourteen Hills Press.
“Stoyan Vassilev is a rare, beautiful writer. His fiction is wise and engaging and seasoned with feeling and thought. He is at the nucleus of why we read fiction.” – Frederic Tuten
$12 donation for admission (the cost of your copy of the book; donations go to Fourteen Hills in their entirety)
Thursday, November 29
7:30 PM
PETER ORNER
LOVE AND SHAME AND LOVE
You celebrated Peter Orner’s Love and Shame and Love with us last fall, when it first landed, and now it’s time to celebrate its paperback release – because this is “a powerful and heartfelt family history, one that seems characterized as much by loss and longing as it is by shame and the double dose of love suggested by the book's title” (Chicago Tribune), by “an essential American writer” (Kevin Brockmeier), because Yiyun Li wrote, “Auden said that art is born of humiliation, which seems an ideal place to start appreciating Love and Shame and Love. A keen-eyed observer of American life and history, Peter Orner strips every layer of pretense from his characters, not to diminish but rather to reveal them. This is a real and memorable America.”, because Orner wrote this short and powerful snapshotof missing Victor Martinez, and because Ed Asner stars in the book’s trailer. If you, unfortunately, missed Love and Shame and Lovein its original incarnation, wait no longer – join us for a revisit of the Poppers and the writer who tells their tale.
Peter Orner is the 2002-2003 winner of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His story collection, Esther Stories, was a New York Times Notable Book, a Finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award, and winner of the Samuel Goldberg Prize for Jewish Fiction. Orner holds both an MFA from the University of Iowa and a degree in law. His work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories and the Pushcart Prize Anthology and has appeared in a number of national publications, including The Atlantic Monthly and The Paris Review. Orner currently lives in and teaches at San Francisco State University.