Events

Book Passage Class
Corte Madera store, $60
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Spiritual memoir uses the raw material of your life to reveal the deeper intelligence of your soul’s journey. In this workshop we weave into words as truthfully and tenderly as possible the ongoing thread of our lives that runs through our days. The workshop provides a relaxed and nonjudgmental space in which to share your work and to receive supportive feedback. You are welcome to bring work for which you would like feedback. To unearth the content of our story, we will sharpen the tools of style, language, metaphor and imagery. Spiritual memoir can fit easily into poetry, nonfiction, fiction, or journal writing. This workshop is suitable for beginners and also for writers with some experience.

Roger Housden’s work includes the Ten Poems series, the novella Chasing Rumi, Sacred Journeys in a Modern World, Seven Sins for a Life Worth Living, and How Rembrandt Reveals Your Beautiful, Imperfect Self. His new work Saved By Beauty: Adventures of an American Romantic in Iran, will be published in June 2011. Roger is from England and now lives in the Bay Area.

Preferred seating with purchase of book
Corte Madera store
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Alexander McCall Smith presents The Charming Quirks of Others ($24.95). A couple who are old friends of Isabel’s ask for her help in a tricky situation: A successor is being sought for the headmaster position at their alma mater, and one of the finalists has a serious skeleton in the closet. Smith’s The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series is a Book Passage favorite.

$5 members/$10 non-members per meeting
Corte Madera store

“No More Excuses—Write That Book!”:
with Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry

Speaker: Rachel Sarah, Author of Single Mom Seeking: Play Dates, Blind Dates, and Other Dispatches from the Dating World
Corte Madera store

This event is now SOLD OUT.

Cooks with Books Event!
Wayfare Tavern, San Francisco
Tickets: $125 per person ($200 per couple)
Reserve by phone at (415) 927-0960, ext. 1

Not attending the event? Order a signed copy

Join us for a very special evening with Tyler Florence, superstar chef, Food Network host, cookbook author, and the proprietor of Wayfare Tavern. Florence is famous for championing simplicity, freshness, and culinary honesty in the kitchen. In this new cookbook, he brings it all home to working with wholesome and locally fresh ingredients. Not only is this event a super launch for his latest cookbook but we will also be celebrating the opening of his new restaurant, Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco! The ticket price includes the meal, wine, coffee, tax, tip & a signed copy of the author’s book.

Free Event - Open to the Public
Corte Madera store
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Special for kids!
Peter Sis discusses Madlenka Soccer Star ($16.99). Madlenka—that little girl whose city block is a world of its own—is back and ready to play! When she dribbles her new soccer ball out the door, it seems that everyone wants to get in the game —the mailbox, a dog, even a parking meter, but especially all the neighborhood cats!

Speakers: Critique Group The Revisionaries, with Maria Van Lieshout, Gianna Marino, Jim Averbeck, Karen Ehrhardt, Lynn E. Hazen, & Yuyi Morales
Corte Madera store

Members of a 10 year-old Critique Group - The Revisionaries discuss their work, the pros and cons of critique groups, and what makes theirs work.

Maria Van Lieshout is the Author and Illustrator of the Critically acclaimed “Little Book” series, TUMBLE, PEEP, BLOOM, and SPLASH, which received starred reviews from PW and School Library Journal. She was born and lived in Holland until she fell head over wooden shoes in love with San Francisco, where she currently lives in a 100-year old Victorian with her husband Peter and their son Max.
www.mariavanlieshout.com

Gianna Marino has been a full time illustrator and writer in the San Francisco Bay Area for the last 20 years. After several years in a corporate box with no windows, Gianna left for good and was soon invited into the Revisionaries writer's group to expand her writing and illustration. She has published numerous articles for travel magazines and more recently, two picture books—Zoopa: An Animal Alphabet and One Too Many (Chronicle Books).
www.giannamarino.com

Jim Averbeck’s first book, In a Blue Room, won a Charlotte Zolotow Honor for writing. He is the illustrator of the serialized novel, A Long Walk to Water by Newbery winner Linda Sue Park. His second picture book, Except If, will be published by Atheneum in Spring 2011, OH NO! (Atheneum, Spring 2012) and The Market Bowl. (Charlesbridge, Fall 2012).
www.JimAverbeckBooks.com

Karen Ehrhardt’s swinging debut, This Jazz Man, landed on the N.Y. Public Library's list “100 Titles for Reading and Sharing,” and is one of the "Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know" (NEA). Featuring jazz immortals such as Louis Armstrong, this sing-along picture book was praised by The New York Times as, “a whole lot of fun,” and Publishers Weekly called it “just right as an uptempo introduction for the youngest music lovers.” Karen gives author talks and teaches writing workshops for kids.
www.ThisJazzMan.com

Lynn E. Hazen’s young adult novel, Shifty was chosen as VOYA’s top shelf fiction, a CCBC Choice, and a Smithsonian Notable. Her younger books include: Mermaid Mary Margaret (a middle grade novel which Kirkus called “a winner”), Cinder Rabbit, The Amazing Trail of Seymore Snail, and Buzz Bumble. Lynn teaches classes in writing at Stanford Continued Studies.
www.LynnHazen.com

Yuyi Morales is an award winning Illustrator/Author with such beautiful books as Little Night, My Abuelita, Harvesting Home, and Sand Sister. As of right now, she is the one member of the Revisionaries who is unable to join our panel. But we’re crossing our fingers she’ll figure out a way to make it work!
www.yuyimorales.com

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Kid Lit Salon
Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Salon • Led by Lissa Rovetch
4th Monday each month • 7:00-9:00 pm • $120 per year
The Kid Lit Salon is for both established and beginning children’s book writers and illustrators. Come socialize with like-minded, creative types in your field. Our evenings include a wildly diverse array of speakers, member updates, events, conferences, and insider tips. Writer and illustrator Lissa Rovetch is the author of Ook the Book and the Hot Dog and Bob chapter book series. She illustrated her 84 year-old mother's book There Was a Man Who Loved a Rat and Other Vile Little Poems, writes the "Ask Arizona" series for Highlights Magazine, and teaches at the California College of the Arts. Vist www.lissarovetch.com.

Free Event - Open to the Public
Corte Madera store
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Larry Colton talks about No Ordinary Joes: The Extraordinary True Story of Four Submariners in War and Love and Life ($26.00). On April 23, 1943, the 70-man crew of the USS Grenadier scrambled to save their submarine—and themselves—after a Japanese torpedo sent it crashing to the ocean floor. Miraculously, the men were able to bring the sub back to the surface, only to be captured by the Japanese.

From John Strawn (www.johnstrawn.com):
Larry Colton has a new book coming out next month, one he’s worked on for almost ten years.  Called No Ordinary Joes, it’s his fourth book and, unlike the others, doesn’t rely on Larry being a participant observer in the events he’s writing about to drive the narrative. No Ordinary Joes is about a group of men from his dad’s generation, the guys who fought WW II. I read an early draft, and was moved by it, and over the last couple of weeks have read the final version, which I think is superb. Continue reading

NOTE VENUE CHANGE:
This signing will now be held at Book Passage in the San Francisco Ferry Building Tues., Oct. 26 at 12:30 pm. For those attending the signing, books will be available for purchase at the Ferry Building before entering the signing line. Please purchase books there.

Can't attend the signing? Order a signed copy

San Francisco store
President Jimmy Carter signs copies of White House Diary ($30.00). The edited, annotated diary of President Carter—filled with his relationships with friends and foes, and his lasting impact on issues that still preoccupy America and the world—presents an astonishingly intimate view of his presidency.

Free Event - Open to the Public
San Francisco store
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Rosecrans Baldwin talks about You Lost Me There ($25.95). By turns funny, charming, and tragic, Rosecrans Baldwin's debut novel takes us inside the heart and mind of Dr. Victor Aaron, a leading Alzheimer's researcher at the Soborg Institute on Mount Desert Island in Maine. Victor spends his days alternating between long hours in the sterile lab and running through memories of his late wife, Sara. He has preserved their marriage as a sort of perfect, if tumultuous, duet between two opposite but precisely compatible souls.

But one day, in the midst of organizing his already hyperorganized life, Victor discovers a series of index cards covered in Sara's handwriting. They chronicle the major "changes in direction" of their marriage, written as part of a brief fling with couples counseling. Sara's version of their great love story is markedly different from his own, which, for the eminent memory specialist, is a startling revelation.

This event is canceled.
Free Event - Open to the Public
Corte Madera store
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Peter Orner presents Hope Deferred ($24.00). Zimbabwe represents one of the worst humanitarian emergencies today. This book asks the question: How did a country with so much promise—a stellar education system, a growing middle class, a liberal constitution, an independent judiciary—go so wrong? Orner is the author of Esther Stories.

Free Event - Open to the Public
Corte Madera store
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Special for kids!
James Dashner presents The Scorch Trials ($17.99). The Gladers are far from finished with running. Instead of freedom, they find themselves faced with another trial. They must cross the Scorch, the most burned-out section of the world, and WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them!

Free Event - Open to the Public
San Francisco store
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Aron Cramer and Zachary Karabell talk about Sustainable Excellence: The Future of Business in a Fast-Changing World ($25.99). The rise of emerging economies creates vast opportunities for companies—and better living standards for us all. In this work, Cramer and Karabell tell the stories of the companies who are responding to these shifts.

NOTE: This event is rescheduled to Tues., Nov. 23 at 7:00 pm. Due to the excitement & interest surrounding the Giants in the World Series Wednesday night, this event with Michael Krasny will be postponed until November.

Corte Madera store
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Michael Krasny talks about Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest ($22.95). Unlike recent authors who emphatically say “No!” or “Yes!” to God, Krasny is among the millions who know they don’t know. As a radio host, professor, and scholar, he has spent decades leading conversations on every imaginable topic. He takes readers on an exploration of morality, mortality, why we do good, and why evil sometimes triumphs.

Phil Cousineau's books include Stoking the Creative Fires: 9 Ways to Rekindle Passion and Imagination, The Art of Pilgrimage: The Seeker's Guide to Making Travel Sacred, and Wordcatcher: An Odyssey Into the World of Weird and Wonderful Words.

Free Event - Open to the Public
San Francisco store
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Myla Goldberg presents The False Friend ($25.95). From the bestselling author of Bee Season comes a complex psychological drama with a simple setup: two 11-year-old girls, best friends and fierce rivals, go into the woods. Only one comes out. Djuna disappeared, and for 20 years Celia blocked out how it happened.

Book Passage Class
Two Thursdays: Oct. 28 & Nov. 4, 6:30-8:45 pm, $130
Corte Madera store, $105
Register for Class

Free Event - Open to the Public
Corte Madera store
Order a signed copy

Ian Frazier discusses Travels in Siberia ($30.00). Frazier trains his eye for unforgettable detail on Siberia. He explores many aspects of this storied, often grim region, which takes up one-seventh of the land on earth. He writes about the geography, the resources, the native peoples, and the history. This work is also an account of Russia since the end of the Soviet Union.
(author photo credit Sigrid Estrada)

Tickets $35 ($25 members/$15 students)
Reserve at www.imow.org or by phone at (415) 543-4669, ext. 27
Schwab Center, San Francisco
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Book Passage and the International Museum of Women present Ingrid Betancourt
Moderated by Jeanne Carstensen
Join us as Ingrid Betancourt discusses Even Silence Has an End: My Six Years of Captivity in the Colombian Jungle. Betancourt tells the story of her six and one-half years of captivity in the Colombian jungle, describing her resilience, resistance, and faith. In 2002, while campaigning as a candidate in the Colombian presidential elections, she was abducted by the FARC. Chained day and night for much of her captivity, she never stopped dreaming of escape. Attending as intimately to the landscape of her mind as she does to the events of her capture and captivity, this work is a meditation on the very stuff of life—fear and freedom, hope and what inspires it.

The ticket price of $55 includes lunch and a signed book
Call (415) 927-0960 ext. 1 to reserve
Corte Madera store

Isabel Allende talks about her new novel Island Beneath the Sea. This tale, set in Haiti and the southern United States during the 18th Century, follows the life of a young woman sold into slavery at age nine to the head of a large sugar plantation. Allende is the author of many internationally acclaimed novels, including House of the Spirits, Portrait in Sepia, and Daughter of Fortune. She has written three memoirs, including My Invented Country, Paula, and The Sum of Our Days, as well as a trilogy of children’s novels. Her books have been translated into more than 27 languages.

Corte Madera store
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Co-presented with the Marin School
In celebration of 10 years of partnership with The Marin School
Maya Khosla & Ravi Chandra talk about Indivisible: An Anthology of Contemporary South Asian American Poetry ($24.95). The first anthology of its kind, Indivisible brings together 49 American poets who trace their roots to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Maya Khosla received the Dorothy Brunsman Poetry Prize for her first poetry collection, Keel Bone (Bear Star Press, 2003). Her other publications include a chapbook of poetry, Heart of the Tearing (Red Dust Press, 1996), and a collection of nonfiction, Web of Water (Golden Gate National Park Association, 1997). Her poems have appeared in the Wisconsin Review, the Seneca Review, the New Orleans Review, the Literary Review, and Permafrost, and she has received the Ludwig Vogelstein Award and residencies from the Headlands Center for the Arts and the Sanskriti Foundation in New Delhi. Having lived in Bangladesh, Burma, Bhutan, England, India, and several places in the United States, she now works as a consultant in biology and toxicology in California. She has just completed her second collection of poetry, Clingstone (working title).

Having graduated from Brown University with a degree in biology, Ravi Chandra subsequently attended Stanford Medical School. He now practices psychiatry at a community mental health clinic, where he serves predominantly an Asian and Russian immigrant population, and is also in private practice. He was awarded first prize in a poetry contest at Stanford Medical Center, which also published his poetry in its chapbook. Slam poetry then became his passion, and he was an alternate on the 2002 San Francisco Slam Team. He is involved with the biennial Asian Pacific Islander American Poetry Summit. He lives in San Francisco, where he writes a blog, “Memoirs of a Superfan,” for the International Asian American Film Festival.

Free Event - Open to the Public
San Francisco store
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Market to Table Event!
Laura Stec talks about Cool Cuisine: Taking the Bite Out of Global Warming ($24.99) and presents a cooking demo.

On Saturday mornings, chefs and cookbook authors lead free cooking demonstrations using seasonal ingredients from the Farmers Market. Join them in the CUESA kitchen (North Arcade) for tips, recipes, and a sample. We’ll be there with the books.

Book Passage Class
Corte Madera store, $45
Register for Class

Free Event - Open to the Public
Corte Madera store
Order a signed copy

Cosponsored by Marin Humane Society
Trainer of the First Dog, Bo Obama, Dawn Sylvia-Stasiewicz talks about The Love That Dog Training Program ($23.95). Sylvia-Stasiewicz draws on lessons she learned from raising three children to train dogs to be joyful, obedient, and devoted members of a family.

Corte Madera store
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Kurt Hoelting discusses The Circumference of Home: One Man’s Yearlong Quest for a Radically Local Life ($25.00). After realizing the gaping hole between his convictions about climate change and his own carbon footprint, Hoelting embarked on a yearlong experiment to rediscover the heart of his own home: He traded his car and jet travel for a kayak, a bicycle, and his own two feet.

Corte Madera store

Speaker: Jeff Greenwald, author of Snake Lake

A Literary Salon • Led by Linda Watanabe McFerrin
1st Monday each month • 7:00-9:00 pm • $120 per year
Left Coast Writers provides literary connections, support, counsel, readings, writing tips, literary chat, unabashed networking, and great fun. Many local authors are active members of this group. Meetings feature presentations by Bay Area literary figures. LCW hosts a variety of other activities to launch the books of members, explore publishing alternatives, and network with others in the industry.

San Francisco store
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Steven Winn presents Come Back Como: Winning the Heart of a Reluctant Dog ($13.99). Based on a beloved ten-part series in the San Francisco Chronicle, Come Back, Como is a tender and hilarious story of one man’s uncommonly rich experience with a dog who wants nothing whatsoever to do with him.

Corte Madera store
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A Buddhist Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse
Bodhipaksa presents Living as a River ($18.95). In this Day of the Dead presentation, Scottish-born meditation teacher Bodhipaksa will reveal that zombies are everywhere. In fact, he says, we are the living dead, often locked into habitual patterns of thought, feeling, and action. Introducing his latest book, Living as a River, Bodhipaksa will suggest how we can use mindfulness and reflection to free ourselves from our deadening emotional patterns.

Corte Madera store

Bill Pronzini talks about his thriller The Hidden ($24.00). Two couples are soon caught in a night of unrelenting terror as a series of murders along the northern California coast is being committed by an unknown killer. Marcia Muller talks about Coming Back ($24.99). San Francisco private eye Sharon McCone is shot in the head and suffers from locked-in syndrome in this latest riveting thriller by Muller.

San Francisco store

Book critic Oscar Villalon leads the discussion National Book Critics Circle: The Future of Books. Join the conversation among stakeholders in an NBCC-sponsored conversation touching on a wide range of topics, including the challenges facing publishing and the value of literature in an Internet culture.

Corte Madera store

Michael Castleman talks about his mystery novel A Killing in Real Estate ($24.00). The morning after a huge arson blaze terrorizes San Francisco’s Mission District, Rosenberg finds his friend and colleague Ryan Duffy dead! Patricia Morin discusses Mystery Montage: A Collection of Short-Story Mysteries ($14.95). These stories take place from a small village in Africa’s Maasai Mara to under the boardwalk in Atlantic City.

San Francisco store
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Kelly Valen presents The Twisted Sisterhood: Unraveling the Dark Legacy of Female Friendships ($25.00). There are many stereotypes about “mean girls” and “competitive women.” Valen talks about female relationships, discussing the findings from her survey of more than three thousand women from all walks of life.

Corte Madera store
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Carlos Eire presents Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy ($26.00). In a follow-up to his 2003 National Book Award–winning Waiting for Snow in Havana, Eire describes his early years in the U.S. In 1962, he was among 14,000 children airlifted from Castro’s Cuba to Florida. Eire is a history and religious studies scholar at Yale.

San Francisco store
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Armistead Maupin talks about Mary Ann in Autumn: A Tales of the City Novel ($25.99). Building on the success of 2007’s New York Times bestseller Michael Tolliver Lives, Maupin presents a new addition to the Tales of the City series that brings readers up to date on a beloved character: the woman who started it all, Mary Ann Singleton.

San Francisco store
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Christopher Kimball discusses Fannie’s Last Supper: Two Years, Twelve Courses, and Creating One Amazing Meal from Fannie Farmer’s 1896 Cookbook ($25.99). Kimball recreates an extravagant 12-course Christmas dinner taken from Fannie Farmer’s The Boston Cooking School Cookbook, published in 1896. The book ties in with a PBS special airing in November.

Corte Madera store
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Geoffrey Wolff discusses his biography The Hard Way Around: The Passages of Joshua Slocum ($26.95). Joshua Slocum escaped a Dickensian childhood in Nova Scotia in 1860 by becoming, at the age of 16, an ordinary seaman. In 1895 he became the first man to circumnavigate the globe solo. Wolff is the acclaimed author of The Age of Consent.

• How to listen to your body and become more aware of how food affects it.
• The six ingredients that weigh the body down, cause disease, discomfort and excess weight.
• Simple ways of substituting ingredients to your diet that fit into your lifestyle.
• Easy and delicious food preparation, the most important tools for success.
• How Raw fuel increases strength, performance and endurance.
• The Acid/Alkaline Balance- how loving your body is the best medicine!
  

Book Passage Class
Corte Madera store, $105
Register for Class

Intermediate to advanced writers, who are serious about creating fantastic, dynamic scenes in which every sentence pops, are invited to this workshop. Each participant will bring a scene from her/his current work-in-progress, with the intention of putting the scene under the microscope to discover the multitude of tiny factors that, if handled properly, create tremendous impact. Through writing exercises, discussion, and mini-critiques, we’ll talk about: where a scene begins and ends; how to track every emotional shift; what it means if we get stuck; how to interpret feedback; and how to check for the factors that should be in every scene, thus ensuring consistency. Although the workshop is designed to follow Grow a Great Character, Grow a Great Plot! on Oct. 9, in which writers learn to more fully develop their characters, all writers are welcome.

Martha Engber is an editor, and author of the novel The Wind Thief and Growing Great Characters from the Ground Up.

San Francisco store
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Margo True of Sunset magazine talks about The Sunset Cookbook ($34.95) and presents a cooking demo.

On Saturday mornings, chefs and cookbook authors lead free cooking demonstrations using seasonal ingredients from the Farmers Market. Join them in the CUESA kitchen (North Arcade) for tips, recipes, and a sample. We’ll be there with the books.

Book Passage Class
Corte Madera store, $60
Please register by phone at (415) 927-0960, ext. 1

Corte Madera store
Order a signed copy

Noam Shpancer talks about his novel The Good Psychologist ($24.00). A psychologist reluctantly takes on a new client—an exotic dancer whose severe anxiety is keeping her from the stage. The psychologist, a solitary man, helps the client confront her fears. But as treatment unfolds, her struggles and secrets begin to interfere with his own life.

Corte Madera store

Special for kids! Annie Barrows hosts Ivy & Bean Day Celebration! Join us for a day of fun with the author of the Ivy & Bean series. Barrows’ Ivy & Bean books include Ivy & Bean Doomed to Dance, Bound to Be Bad, Ivy and Bean Take Care of the Babysitter, Ivy & Bean and the Ghost That Had to Go, and the latest, What’s the Big Idea?

Corte Madera store
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Li Miao Lovett presents her novel In the Lap of the Gods ($15.95). A dam rises on the Yangtze, uprooting a million lives in a government-made disaster, and a poor salvager who has lost everything finds an abandoned baby girl. Lovett presents a tale of defiance, of a lost man finding his place in modern China, and of a rich man reclaiming his soul.

Osher Marin JCC
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Joseph Telushkin talks about Hillel: If Not Now, When? ($24.00). From the bestselling author of Jewish Literacy comes a provocative biography of one of the greatest rabbis of the Talmudic era and a figure of prophetic importance to today’s world. This bold new look at Hillel is certain to generate passionate discussion and debate.

Tickets available at (415) 444-8000
or online at www.marinjcc.org/performing_arts.html

Corte Madera store, $40
Register for class

Want to strengthen the practical writing you do—for school, for work, for everyday emailing? Have questions about grammar, word choice, punctuation? Here’s your chance to gain info that makes sense and stays with you. Janis Bell, author of Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences, has been teaching academic and business writing for over three decades. She’ll leave you well informed and eager to impress your teachers, clients, and email friends!

Corte Madera store
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Ted Kerasote discusses Pukka: The Pup After Merle ($18.95). The author of Merle’s Door brings us stunning photos. Pukka is a love story as well as Kerasote’s take on raising a puppy. Kerasote shows how dogs thrive when treated as peers. He shows the many ways that dogs open the door to our hearts.

Corte Madera store
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40th Anniversary of Be Here Now!
Rameshwar Dass, and Ram Dass live via Skype, present Be Love Now: The Path of the Heart ($27.99). Following Be Here Now and Still Here, Rameshwar and Ram show us the way to unconditional spiritual love.

Corte Madera store
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Thea Cooper talks about Breakthrough: Elizabeth Hughes, the Discovery of Insulin, and the Making of a Medical Miracle ($24.99). It is 1919 and Elizabeth Hughes, the 11-year-old daughter of America’s most distinguished jurist and politician, Charles Evans Hughes, becomes one of the first diabetics to receive insulin injections.

Corte Madera store
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Ari Berman presents Herding Donkeys ($26.00). Berman tells the improbable tale of the grassroots resurgence that transformed the Democratic Party. He chronicles Howard Dean’s visionary 50-state strategy, charting his unpredictable journey from insurgent presidential candidate to chairman and conscience of the Democratic Party.

Corte Madera store
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Seth Harwood discusses his mystery novel Young Junius ($14.95). Young Junius sets out to find his brother’s killer in the Boston projects. After shooting someone to protect his friend, Junius is told to run. Shocked by the violence that he’s created, yet determined to see its consequences through, he refuses. Harwood is the author of Jack Wakes Up.

San Francisco store
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Rebecca Traister presents Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women ($26.00). Though the 2008 presidential election didn’t give us our first woman president or vice president, Traister describes how the exhilarating campaign nonetheless transformed American women and a nation.

Corte Madera store
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Steve Dublanica presents Keep the Change: A Clueless Tipper’s Quest to Become the Guru of the Gratuity ($24.99). Dublanica presents a hilarious and eye-opening follow-up to the homegrown smash-hit Waiter Rant, an irreverent, pavement-pounding exploration of a huge but neglected part of the American economy: tipping.

Corte Madera store
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Special for kids!
Mac Barnett presents The Ghostwriter Secret (Brixton Brothers #2) ($14.99). Steve Brixton is fast becoming America’s top detective. After saving the U.S. in The Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity, he has opened his own agency. Steve gets a call to solve the case of the Fairview diamond, but it turns out to be a bigger mystery than he expected!

San Francisco store
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Matt Taibbi presents Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America ($26.00). Taibbi says that the grifter class—made up of large players in the financial industry and the politicians who do their bidding—has been growing in power, transferring wealth upward through complex financial mechanisms and political maneuvers.

Dominican University of California, Angelico Hall
Receive preferred seating with purchase of any Rick Steves product
(Please bring your receipt if you pre-purchase a book. Books will also be available for purchase at the event.)
Browse Rick Steves' titles

Rick Steves—author of over 50 European travel guidebooks and host of the PBS-TV series, Rick Steves' Europe—believes that thoughtful travel expands our world view and shapes how we address the challenges confronting our nation politically. Having spent four months a year overseas for the last 25 years, Rick feels that travel helps us "challenge truths we were raised to think were self-evident and God-given." His classes have helped millions of Americans not only enjoy maximum travel thrills per mile, minute and euro…but become better citizens of our planet. Rick shares how the other 96 percent of humanity sees our nation and explores how his social activism has grown naturally out of his travel experiences. He's fresh back from lots of travels (including a TV production trip to Iran) and will be on hand after his talk for questions and autographs.

Corte Madera store
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Mark Kurlansky discusses Edible Stories: A Novel in Sixteen Parts ($16.00). Kurlansky brings a keen eye and unerring sense of humanity to these stories. And throughout, his love and knowledge of food shows just how important a role what we eat plays in our lives. Kurlansky is the author of The Last Fish Tale, Cod, and Salt.

Corte Madera store
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Dennis Lehane presents his thriller Moonlight Mile ($26.99). Acclaimed mystery author Lehane delivers an explosive tale of vengeance and redemption in this sequel to Gone, Baby, Gone—heralding the long-awaited return of beloved P.I.s Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro. Lehane’s novels include Mystic River and Shutter Island.

San Francisco store
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Nicole Richie signs copies of her new novel Priceless ($24.99). When people think of Nicole Richie, they think of a woman who wears many hats. She’s a philanthropist, a designer, a fashionista, an actress, and a mother of two. She is also an accomplished writer.

When her first novel, The Truth About Diamonds was published in 2005, it captivated countless readers—giving them a glimpse into the rarified world of society’s young elite. Now, Richie picks up her pen again and offers Priceless, a contemporary novel that explores one woman’s search for herself and what is most important to her. In typical Richie style, Priceless is replete with vivid imagery, intelligent humor, and tantalizing scenarios. But it also plumbs the more serious topics of self-esteem, self-reliance, and finding one’s way in life.

Corte Madera store
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Linda Nathan talks about The Hardest Questions Aren’t on the Test: Lessons from an Innovative Urban School ($16.00). The Boston Arts Academy comprises a diverse student body, yet 94 percent of its graduates are accepted to college. Principal Linda Nathan doesn’t claim to have all the answers, but seeks to share her insights.

How and why does a school develop a shared vision of what it stands for? What makes a great teacher, and how can a principal help good teachers improve? Why must schools talk openly about race and achievement, and what happens when they do?

Award-winning educator Linda Nathan gives insights into the process of grappling with these questions, attempting to implement solutions, and evaluating the outcomes. Stories that are inspirational as well as heartbreaking reveal the missteps, failures, and successes.

Linda Nathan consults and speaks on educational issues internationally, and teaches a graduate course at Harvard University on building democratic schools. She is also the founder of Boston Arts Academy, where 95% of the socio-economically diverse student body continues on to college.

For more information, please visit www.lindanathan.com.

Book Passage Class
Corte Madera store, $105
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When it’s time to write outside the box, venture out the door. From the canals of Venice to a mall near home, writing in the moment has vitality and specificity that makes readers feel they’re in the scene. Learn how to take notes and do writing on the spot, wherever you are, then transform it into engaging memoir, fiction, and articles. For all levels.

Laura Deutsch is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the N.Y. Times and S.F. Chronicle. She has taught writing at U.C. Berkeley, and she leads writing retreats from Tassajara to Tuscany.

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Laura Werlin talks about Laura Werlin’s Cheese Essentials ($24.95) and presents a demo.

On Saturday mornings, chefs and cookbook authors lead free cooking demonstrations using seasonal ingredients from the Farmers Market. Join them in the CUESA kitchen (North Arcade) for tips, recipes, and a sample. We’ll be there with the books.

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Includes a Free Knitting Class & Trunk Show of finished projects from the book! Bring light colored, smooth, worsted weight yarn, and knitting needles size 8 or 9.
Debbie Stoller discusses Stitch ‘n Bitch Superstar Knitting: Go Beyond the Basics ($17.95). Writing with the clarity that makes her such an effective teacher and the attitude that inspired the S.F. Chronicle to dub her “knitting superstar,” Stoller gives readers the tools and techniques to create cool designs that put a whole new spin on knitting. Free class on beginning lace will demonstrate how yarn overs and decreases interact to produce lace.

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Special for kids! Jonathan Stroud talks about Bartimaeus: The Ring of Solomon ($17.99). Thousands of years before his service to the magician Nathaniel in London, Bartimaeus served as djinni to hundreds of masters, from Babylon and Ancient Egypt to the modern Middle East. History is revealed in this prequel as readers travel alongside Bartimaeus for his most exciting adventure yet!

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Who says writers have to starve? When writing with passion, you should also get paid. Ying Compestine shows you how to be a productive writer, how to find the right agent and editors, and how to build a financially rewarding career. She is a successful, award-winning author of novels, picture books, cookbooks, magazine articles and online media. Her books include Revolution is Not a Dinner Party, A Banquet for Hungry Ghosts, and Boy Dumplings.

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Randall Fleming presents Light at the Edge ($30.00). With artful images rich in visual poetry, Fleming brings the reader into the beautiful and ephemeral landscapes of Point Reyes, California. Breaking new ground in landscape photography, the images throughout this work have the power to convey the land’s beauty and the magic of experiencing it.

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Left Coast Writers Launch!
Jessica O’Dwyer talks about Mamalita: An Adoption Memoir ($16.95). At 32, O’Dwyer experiences early menopause, seemingly ending her chances of becoming a mother. Years later, married but childless, she comes across a photo of a twomonth- old girl on a Guatemalan adoption Web site—and feels an instant connection. From the get-go, Jessica and her husband face numerous obstacles.

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Thaisa Frank talks about her novel Heidegger’s Glasses ($25.00). It’s the end of WWII and the Third Reich’s strong reliance on the occult has led to the formation of an underground compound of scribes. Into this covert compound comes a letter written by eminent philosopher Martin Heidegger to his optometrist. How will the scribes answer this letter?

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An imaginative writing workshop for kids 8-12 years-old who want to create poems they can take home to share. Karen Benke has inspired kids’ creative journeys in the form of poem-making for 16 years as a California Poet in the Schools and authoring a free writing guide for adults. She’s the author of Rip the Page! Adventures in Creative Writing.

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Gary Noy & Rick Heide present The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology ($19.95). Noy and Heide present the literary Sierra Nevada as seen by writers from Muir to Twain to Stegner and Snyder. This work collects more than 50 inspired pieces, from Indian tale to modern story.

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Speaker: Mary Mackey, author of The Year the Horses Came

A Writing Group • Led by Dawn Yun
2nd Sunday each month • 5:00-8:00 pm. • $120 per year
The Writing Mamas is where motherhood meets writinghood and finds a happy neighborhood at Book Passage. Improve your writing! Meet great mothers who are writers! Learn to perform your work before
the public! Get published! We will write, workshop, gab, and hear speakers. Many members have gone on to be published. Why not you? Let the other mothers/writers help you, while the speakers inspire you. This year lots of Writing Mamas are getting their books, articles, and blogs published. Inspiration is found in the fabulous speakers we have lined up. For a complete list of all speakers, go to www.writingmamas.com.

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Join us as famed travel writers present Lonely Planet’s A Moveable Feast: Life-Changing Food Encounters Around the World ($14.99). This collection of travel tales set around the world transforms the planet into an endless all-you-can-eat buffet for mind, soul, and stomach!

Book Passage Class
Four Mondays: Nov. 15-Dec. 6
Corte Madera store, $120
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The ancient Sufis believed there are three worlds: the intellect, the senses, and a world they called the “imaginal world,” which was the place where they received visions and creative insights. As we immerse in winter’s darkness, the portals to the imaginal are more available. In this course, we employ myth, metaphor, innovative exercises, and visual imagery to explore the imaginal realm. Kim Hermanson, Ph.D. teaches at several universities and at Esalen Institute. Her most recent book is Getting Messy.

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Joel Richard Paul talks about his biography Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright, and a Spy Saved the American Revolution ($16.00). Paul presents the story of three remarkable historical figure—Silas Deane, Caron de Beaumarchais, and Chevalier d’Eon—who successfully used espionage and sexual deception to win the American Revolution.

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Special for kids!
Kathryn Otoshi presents Zero ($17.95). As budding young readers learn about numbers and counting, they are also introduced to accepting different body types, developing social skills and character, and learning what it means to find value in one’s self and in others. Otoshi is the author of One and Simon and the Sock Monster.

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Simon Winchester discusses Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories ($27.99). Blending history and anecdote, geography and reminiscence, science and exposition, the author of Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman tells the saga of the magnificent Atlantic Ocean.

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Thomas Sanders talks about The Last Good War:The Faces and Voices of World War II ($45.00). Sixty years after World War II, a young Sanders began traveling the country photographing hundreds of veterans. Veronica Kavass, a writer and interviewer with StoryCorps, joined the project and spent countless hours with these men and women, recording their vivid accounts as Sanders recorded their storied faces.

World War II magazine praises The Last Good War, "hits home like a one-two punch."

Full praise:
Nearly 12 million Americans served in the armed forces during World War II; about 2 million are still with us. Here are some of their stories. With heartfelt, perceptive variety, the remarkable portraits that distinguish this book reflect the range of their subjects’ experience. The concise text recounting each veteran’s reminiscences amplifies the impact. The combo hits home like a one-two punch

Starred Review from Publishers Weekly:
"Just the cover of this book can break your heart: an aged man in closeup, every wrinkle and blemish visible, holding a U.S. Navy emblem to his forehead, and he appears above the title: The Last Good War. The veterans of that war, WWII, are captured in Sanders's debut—in their 80s and 90s, male and female, black and white. Some wear parts of their original uniforms; others hold artifacts of the time, like battalion photos, newspapers, or canteens. One sailor, dressed in white shirt and tie, still wears his cap at a jaunty angle. Oral historian Kavass has collected brief reminiscences from the veterans that don't underplay the horrors of war, from the Bataan march to the deaths of friends. But most memorable are the faces: solemn, proud, occasionally smiling, some looking directly into the camera, others looking off to the distance as if remembering the events of long ago. Anyone who is close to a member of the "greatest generation" will treasure these wizened faces captured before the entire generation is gone. (Oct.)

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SARK presents Glad No Matter What: Transforming Loss and Change Into Gifts and Opportunities ($18.95). When grief, sadness, and other strong emotions seem overwhelming, this book shows how to skillfully work with those feelings and access their significant healing power.

Book Passage Class
Four Thursdays: Nov. 18-Dec. 17 (no class Nov. 25)
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What exactly was Modernism? From our vantage point a century later we shall be examining the avant-garde movements in the visual arts in Europe from 1900 to 1940. Modernism had its roots in the late nineteenth century when artists like Cezanne, Gauguin and Van Gogh began a move toward abstraction. We will begin with the Austrian Secession; Klimt, Schiele and Kokoschka and move on to Germany: The artists of Die Brucke and Der Blaue Reiter. We'll encounter the Fauves in France: Matisse, Derain, et al. The pioneers of Cubism: Braque and Picasso, Orphism and the Delaunays will be followed by a study of the Italian Futurists. A special emphasis on the Women artists of the Russian Avant-Garde will be followed by a study of the Surrealists whose notion of reality fell entirely outside traditional views of reality versus the artists of Neue Sachlichkeit who addressed the problems of Weimar society.

Kerrin Meis taught art history at SFSU for ten years, lectured for the College of Marin, Exploritas, Dominican University, and leads study tours in France.

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Tickets $25 (plus ticket service fee)
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YOU Deserve an Evening of Fabulous Food, Wonderful Wine and LOL Laughter

Attend the MAMA MONOLOGUES!!!!!!!!

Join our nationally renowned group of mothers, The Writing Mamas, who meet monthly at Book Passage to write, whine and wine, and our very special guest, Kelly Corrigan!!!!! the New York Times best-selling author of Lift and The Middle Place. Let us entertain you with stories of REAL-life parenthood. (Otherwise known as—survival!)

Leave the kids at home, bring your special someone, your BFFS, or meet new ones during this friendly, hilarious, LOL party created just for YOU! Fabulous Puerto Rican cuisine will be lovingly prepared and donated by Sol Food, one of Marin's most popular and hippest restaurants, along with complimentary wine, red or white, maybe both? And the entertainment—OMG!!!!!

ALL profits are donated to charity. Meet Kelly—she is one very funny mama—and have her personally sign a book for you!

Cost: An amazingly low $25 (plus ticket service fee) for EVERYTHING—Food, Wine, Entertainment!!!! 
Buy now. Tickets will sell out!

Questions: Contact Writing Mamas and Mama Monologues Founder, Dawn Yun, @ dawnyun1@gmail.com, or (415) 233-2483.

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Robert Michael Pyle talks about Mariposa Road: The First Butterfly Big Year ($27.00). Part road-trip tale, part travelogue of lost and found landscapes, all good-natured natural history, this volume tracks Pyle’s journey across the United States as he races against the calendar in his search for as many of the 800 American butterfly species as he can find.

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Buddy Valastro presents Cake Boss : Stories and Recipes from Mia Famiglia ($25.99). Television viewers have fallen in love with Valastro, master cake maker, and his funny and fiery family, proprietors of Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken, New Jersey, on the smash hit television series Cake Boss. In this heartfelt memoir, Valastro tells his inspiring story.

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Adair Lara discusses Naked, Drunk, and Writing: Shed Your Inhabitions and Craft a Compelling Memoir or Personal Essay ($14.99). The material is right there in front of you. You’ve known yourself for, well, a lifetime—and you finally feel ready to share your story with the world. Yet when it actually comes time to put pen to paper, you find that you’re stumped. Enter Adair Lara—beloved writing coach.

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Ann Louise Gittleman presents Zapped: Why Your Cell Phone Shouldn't Be Your Alarm Clock and 1,268 Ways to Outsmart the Hazards of Electronic Pollution ($25.99). We’re being zapped: Today 84 percent of Americans own a cell phone, 89 million of us watch TV beamed in by satellite, and we can’t sip a cup of coffee at our local cafÉ without being exposed to Wi-Fi. The very electronic innovations that have changed our lives are also exposing us, in ways big and small, to an unprecedented number of electromagnetic fields. Invisible pollution surrounds us twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, interrupting our bodies’ natural flow of energy. And for some, that pollution has reached the point of toxicity, causing fatigue, irritability, weakness, and even illness.

But we don’t have to simply surrender. Ann Louise Gittleman brings forth the latest research into electromagnetic fields to create this groundbreaking guide for every citizen of the wireless age. With the proactive, levelheaded approach that has made her one of our most respected health experts, she not only clarifies the risks but also offers specific, step-by-step information for how anyone can minimize them. 

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Cosponsored by Hospice by the Bay
Judith Redwing Keyssar presents Last Acts of Kindness: Lessons for the Living from the Bedsides of the Dying ($15.95). In these chronicles of a midwife to the dying, Keyssar speaks eloquently and from her heart about her extensive experience in the field of palliative care.

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Gary Kamiya presents Shadow Knights ($19.99). Kamiya reveals the exhilarating illustrated story of Britain’s secret Special Operations Executive and the everyday men and women who risked their lives to sabotage Hitler. David Talbot discusses Devil Dog ($19.99). Talbot shares the thrilling illustrated tale of Smedley Butler, a Marine who fought across the globe, restored order to Philadelphia, and foiled a plot against FDR.

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Anne Germanacos presents her novel In the Time of the Girls ($14.00). Set in Greece, this innovative debut uses discrete, telling moments to create fast-paced stories that are richly pleasurable to read. Germanacos has lived between Greece and San Francisco for thirty years. Her stories are just as strange and tragic as the Greek myths they riff on.

Catch Anne's interview with Michael Krasny on November 17, 10:30-11:00 am on KQED-FM 88.5!

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Speaker: Becky Levine, author of The Writing & Critique Group Survival Guide: How to Give and Receive Feedback, Self-Edit, and Make Revisions

The Marin branch of the California Writers Club meets monthly at Book Passage, typically the third Sunday from 2:00-4:00 pm. Meetings are $5 for members and $10 for non-members. The Marin branch was chartered in 1999 and celebrates ten years with California Writers Club and with Book Passage. CWC, a 501c educational corporation, is the nation’s oldest professional club for writers. More info at: http://www.calwriters.org.

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Leonard Pitt talks about Paris: A Journey Through Time ($29.95). With an array of archival and contemporary photos, Pitt peels away the layers of old Paris to document the city’s transformation. Painstakingly researched, this work is a tour through Paris, seen through the lens of photographers who witnessed ages of both demolition and construction.

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Ken McAdams and Marian Bingham talk about Bon Courage: Rediscovering the Art of Living in the Heart of France ($22.95). One year into their marriage, Ken and Bing head to the French countryside. When they fall in love with the village of La Montagne Noire, they find themselves buying a fixer-upper and starting all over again—but this time, in French!

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Lissa Rovetch will lead writing exercises! Bring a pen, a notebook, and an appetite for home- made goodies!

Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators Salon • Led by Lissa Rovetch
4th Monday each month • 7:00-9:00 pm • $120 per year
The Kid Lit Salon is for both established and beginning children’s book writers and illustrators. Come socialize with like-minded, creative types in your field. Our evenings include a wildly diverse array of speakers, member updates, events, conferences, and insider tips. Writer and illustrator Lissa Rovetch is the illustrator of There Was a Man Who Loved a Rat and Other Vile Little Poems and author of Ook the Book and the Hot Dog and Bob book series.

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Don LePan discusses his novel Animals ($13.95). More than 100 years in the future, the horrors of factory farming, combined with the widespread abuse of antibiotics, have led to mass extinctions. As paranoia about the food supply spreads, a forceful new logic takes hold. In the blink of a millennial eye, the disenfranchised have become food!

Michael Krasny talks about Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic’s Quest ($22.95). Unlike recent authors who emphatically say “No!” or “Yes!” to God, Krasny is among the millions who know they don’t know. As a radio host, professor, and scholar, he has spent decades leading conversations on every imaginable topic. He takes readers on an exploration of morality, mortality, why we do good, and why evil sometimes triumphs.

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Join Book Passage President (and grandmother) Elaine Petrocelli and Children’s Book Buyer Susan Kunhardt to talk about the best new and classic children’s books. Find out about Book Passage programs to help you share books with your grandchildren or with other children no matter where they live. Share the love of reading with the next generation!

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Tim Palmer talks about Rivers of California: Natural Lifelines of the Golden State ($39.95). With 176 photos and original prose, Palmer showcases the variety, vitality, and majesty of streams large and small through all four seasons, from rainforest to desert, from high country source to the Pacific, taking us on a journey that changes the way we think about water.

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Books will be available for purchase
at the signing

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Olympic speed skater and television's Dancing with the Stars winner Apolo Ohno signs copies of Zero Regrets: Be Greater Than Yesterday ($26.00). Over three consecutive Olympic games, Apolo Ohno has come to symbolize the very best of the competitive spirit—remaining equally gracious in victory and defeat, always striving to improve his performance, and appreciating the value of the hard work of training as much as any reward it might bring. In Zero Regrets, Apolo shares the inspiring personal story behind his remarkable success.

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Gerald Blaine, Lisa McCubbin, and Clint Hill talk about The Kennedy Detail: JFK’s Secret Service Agents Break Their Silence ($28.00). The Secret Service has a single mission: to protect the president of the U.S. On November 22, 1963, this team failed—and the country would never be the same. A member of JFK’s Secret Service reveals the inside story.

Book Passage Class
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What does it take to write a book review that will get published? Former San Francisco Chronicle Book Editor and McSweeney’s publisher Oscar Villalon shows how to write a smart, entertaining book review. He explains what works best in long and brief reviews, what to keep in mind when assessing a book, and how to shape the tone of your review. Villalon’s reviews have appeared on NPR.org and on radio for KQED’s The California Report. He’s served on the board of the National Book Critics Circle and on the jury for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction.

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Russ Baker discusses Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty, America’s Invisible Government, and the Hidden History of the Last Fifty Years ($20.00). After eight years, George W. Bush leaves office as one of the most unpopular presidents in American history. Baker goes deep behind the scenes to deliver an arresting new look at the Bush legacy.

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Fen Montaigne talks about Fraser’s Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica ($26.00). Towering mountains and iceberg-filled seas of the western Antarctic Peninsula have for decades formed the backdrop of scientist Bill Fraser’s study of Advélie penguins. Montaigne spent five months working on Fraser’s field team, and here presents a moving tale of the wildest place on earth.

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Elisabeth Antoine Crawford talks about Flavors of Friuli: A Culinary Journey Through Northeastern Italy ($29.95). Gnocchi stuffed with plums? Pasta with dried figs and ricotta? Crawford brings us news of the culinary gems of Italy’s Northeast.

Osher Marin JCC
Tickets available at (415) 444-8000 or online at www.marinjcc.org/performing_arts.html
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Todd Gitlin and Liel Leibovitz present The Chosen Peoples: America, Israel and the Ordeals of Divine Election ($26.00). The authors discuss the origins, consequences, and attendant burdens of a belief central to the identities of Americans and Israelis—that they are God’s favored people.

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Peter Menzel and Faith D’Aluisio presents What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets ($40.00). This compelling blend of photography and reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.

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San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll (winner of the National Association of Newspaper Columnists Ernie Pyle Award for Lifetime Achievement) shares his wit, wisdom, and essay-writing talents. This is a chance to learn humorous writing from one of the best. One student wrote, “Jon Carroll is witty, patient, knowledgeable, inspiring. He anticipates people’s concerns in their questions and problems they can’t express. Gives tons of examples. He’ll be a hard act to follow…”

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Find the “flow” in your story. This workshop will include exercises to open up your creativity, uncover the best material for your project, and see the storylines. There’ll be writing, feedback, a little artistic expression, and more. This workshop is open to all levels.

Laura Deutsch is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the N.Y. Times and S.F. Chronicle. She has taught writing at U.C. Berkeley, and she leads writing retreats from Tassajara to Tuscany.

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John Addiego presents his novel Tears of the Mountain ($25.95). It is July 4th, 1876, and Jeremiah McKinley is looking forward to a great day of festivity and celebration among friends, family, and heroes in Sonoma County, California. Highlighting the day: his only teacher, Professor Elijah Applewood, is returning to California from the East Coast to visit after an absence of twenty-five years. 

However, Jeremiah’s celebration of the American centennial is troubled by the words of the dead, who seem intent on contacting him in dreams and through the seeming transmigration of his father’s soul into the body of a small boy. Further, a series of puzzling notes and messages follows him throughout the day and when a visiting senator is found dead, suspicion leads directly to Jeremiah’s mentor Professor Applewood—whose sudden disappearance makes Jeremiah a suspected accessory to murder. 

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This class is canceled. We will look forward to a future class with Linda Boccia.

Corte Madera store, $105

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Kate Morton talks about her novel The Distant Hours ($26.00). A long lost letter arrives in the post and Edie Burchill finds herself on a journey to Milderhurst Castle, a great old house, where the Blythe spinsters live and where her mother was billeted 50 years before as a 13-year-old child during WW II. Morton is the author of The House At Riverton.

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Multi-author, end of the year celebration!

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Elaine Petrocelli and a team of Book Passage booksellers lead a discussion of books for the holidays. Come join us as we present new books for all the readers on your holiday shopping list this season, from children’s books to the latest literary fiction, and art books to thrillers—we’ll have the best recommendations for readers of all ages and interests!

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Speaker: Canyon Sam, author of Sky Train: Tibetan Women on the Edge of History

A Literary Salon • Led by Linda Watanabe McFerrin
1st Monday each month • 7:00-9:00 pm • $120 per year
Left Coast Writers provides literary connections, support, counsel, readings, writing tips, literary chat, unabashed networking, and great fun. Many local authors are active members of this group. Meetings feature presentations by Bay Area literary figures. LCW hosts a variety of other activities to launch the books of members, explore publishing alternatives, and network with others in the industry.

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Andrew Lam talks about East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres ($14.95). In this collection of 21 personal essays, Lam, the award-winning author of Perfume Dreams, continues to explore the Vietnamese diaspora, this time concentrating not only on how the East and West have changed but how they are changing each other.

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Edmund Morris discusses Colonel Roosevelt ($35.00). This biography by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author of The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex is itself the completion of a trilogy sure to stand as definitive. It recounts the last decade of one of the most amazing lives in American history.

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Thomas Larson talks about The Saddest Music Ever Written: The Story of Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings ($26.95). Larson exlpores the cultural impact of Barber’s Adagio for Strings—the “pieta” of music. This year marks the centenary of Samuel Barber’s birth. Larson is the author of The Memoir and the Memoirist.

Preferred seating with
puchase of the book
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An Italian Musical Celebration!
Lin Arison and Michael Tilson Thomas, co-founders of the New World Symphony, present Feast for the Senses: A Musical Odyssey in Umbria (includes 3 DVDs) ($40.00). Inspired by her lifelong love of Italy, Arison takes readers on a journey through Umbria in the company of Michael Tilson Thomas—conductor and music director of the San Francisco Symphony and artistic director of the New World Symphony—and members of the New World Symphony orchestra. Part memoir, part travelogue, this lushly illustrated work features the scintillating sites, foods, and crafts of Umbria.

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Wendell Potter presents Deadly Spin: An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out on How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care and Deceiving Americans ($26.00). Since Wendell Potter walked away from his executive position at a top health insurance company in May of 2008, he has worked tirelessly as an outspoken critic of corporate PR and the distortion and fear manufactured by America’s health insurance industry. It is a PR juggernaut that is bankrolled by millions of dollars, rivaling lobbying budgets and underwriting many “non-partisan” grassroots organizations. How would Potter know? He wrote many of the industry’s talking points himself.

Every ugly tactic is revealed in Deadly Spin. From clandestine meetings carefully organized to leave no paper trail to creating third party front groups, Potter lets the reader in on the dirty secrets most big corporations would rather have the masses be in the dark about because the stakes are high and the profits even higher.

Deadly Spin is not just an exposé of health insurers but a stark warning that corporate spin is distorting our democracy.
   

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Nina Lesowitz talks about The Courage Companion: How to Live Life with True Power ($15.95). From world-class athletes to spiritual teachers, to cancer patients, to ordinary people who took extraordinary action to transform their lives, these “courage warriors” will show you how to turn apprehension into action.

Book Passage Class
One week advanced registration required
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James Dalessandro is the author of the bestselling novel 1906, and screenwriter of the Warner Brothers film currently in production with Pixar’s Oscar winner Brad Bird directing. A 24-year veteran of the Writer’s Guild, James is one of the most popular screenwriting instructors in the Bay Area. He has sold more than 20 feature film and television projects. In this fast-paced workshop, he covers structure, scenes, and character development, as well as pitching, polishing, and marketing the finished screenplay.

This event is canceled. We will look forward to a future event with Carol Denker.

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Local Author Day!
Carol Denker talks about Autumn Romance: Stories and Portraits of Lover after 50 ($29.95). Denker traveled for three years interviewing and photographing 29 senior couples whose lives had been transformed by love, then writing their stories. This book is a celebration of love found later in life.

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Local Author Day!
Cindy Bailey talks about The Fertile Kitchen Cookbook: Simple Recipes for Optimizing Your Fertility ($29.99). Understanding first-hand the challenge of fertility issues, Bailey provides expert advice, easy-to-follow recipes, and dietary guidelines that helped her (and her partner Pierre) beat the odds and bring home a baby.

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Local Author Day!
Nancy Forster presents Encounters: A Lifetime Spent Crossing Cultural Frontiers ($15.95). Forster’s husband Cliff, a prisoner of the Japanese at 17, became a fervent advocate of public diplomacy throughout his long career as a Foreign Service officer. Forster shares her husband’s story.

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Local Author Day!
Revelations of a runaway housewife who rose to the top of the magazine field in the 1960s and 1970s women’s liberation era
Leda Sanford discusses her memoir Pure Moxie. Pure Moxie is memoir about an Italian-American woman who rejected her traditional suburban life and upbringing at age 33 and reinvented herself as an independent career woman. Spurred by the feminist writings of the period, Leda Sanford began a daring climb in the fast paced 1970s male-dominated magazine business. Through a series of unorthodox encounters with risk-oriented entrepreneurs, Sanford seized challenges that catapulted her to the top. As the first woman to become the publisher of a major American magazine, Sanford juggled her personal life and bounced back from personal defeats, rebuilding from each and demonstrating a unique capacity for resilience. Her career serves as a guide for any woman who longs for a second chance and wants to discover her own path to self fulfillment.

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Local Author Day!
Wayne Farquhar, an expert in homicide/sexual assault investigations and police procedures, talks about his thriller Blood Over Badge ($17.95). Two police detectives are assigned to catch a cold-blooded rapist and killer. The unrelated mysteries of two murderers seem to come together but make little sense. What does a man rotting in Angola Penitentiary have to do with a rapist and killer on the run?

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Left Coast Writers Launch! Wanderland Writers read from Wandering in Costa Rica. When workshop leaders Linda Watanabe McFerrin and Joanna Biggar gathered a baker’s dozen of their favorite travelers and writers, they had no idea how transformative the journey would be. Nurtured and inspired in an environment beyond compare, the assembled explored Costa Rica, gathering tales from across the country.

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Local Author Day!
Keven Bellows discusses The Blue Darter ($14.00). California poet Bellows’ book of poems, her second book, is dedicated to her husband, legendary editor Jim Bellows, who died of Alzheimer’s last year. It reprises a wonderful marriage and the shadow cast on its last years by Alzheimer’s. The poems are strong, candid and moving.

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Local Author Day! Elspeth Benton talks about her mystery novel Crucial Time ($16.95). The son of a now-deceased Zimbabwean chief suffers a brutal warning on the eve of his departure from Harare for the United States. Unaware of being under Mugabe’s ZANU government surveillance, he soon winds up dead and his young son goes missing.

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Local Author Day! Robert Fischer discusses his novel Plane Jane ($14.00). Discharged from the Air Force for refusing to wear a veil off-base in Saudi Arabia, fighter pilot Mary Jane contracts to repossess a luxury Boeing 747 from a powerful Saudi prince. She partners with co-pilot Jesus Martinez and together they risk capture and execution.

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Local Author Day!
Marilyn Nemzer talks about Energy for Keeps: Creating Clean Electricity from Renewable Resources ($24.95). Nemzer describes the energy issues that now loom large in our daily news. With engaging language and illustrations, she explains renewable energy sources, the science of electricity generation, and the environmental impacts.

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Local Author Day!
Gemma Whelan talks about Fiona: Stolen Child ($16.95). Fiona Clarke, an Irish writer living in New York, has been running away from her past since she left rural Cregora, Ireland, for boarding school. That past finds her, many years later, when her thinly veiled autobiographical novel is optioned for a movie.

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Local Author Day!
James Waste presents Don’t Shoot the Ice Cream Man: A Cold War Spy in the New World Disorder ($17.99). At the height of the Cold War, Waste was recruited after his career with Bechtel to serve as a covert observer for the CIA. He combines a vivid look at his experiences with a compelling behind-the-scenes portrait.

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Left Coast Writers Launch!
Left Coast Writers presents Bay Area poets Molly Fisk and Rebecca Foust for a book release celebration and reading, with a special guest appearance by Robin Ekiss. Fisk will read from her new book of poems, The More Difficult Beauty (Hip Pocket Press 2010). Foust will read from God, Seed (Tebot Bach Press 2010), a book of environmental poetry with art by Lorna Stevens, who will attend to answer questions. The event is free and open to the public and refreshments will be served. Parking is available on the street or in an adjacent paid lot (Washington & Embarcadero).

Robin Ekiss is a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford, recipient of a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award for emerging women writers, and author of The Mansion of Happiness, winner of the 2010 Shenandoah/Glasgow Prize and a finalist for both the 2010 Northern California and California Book Awards.

Molly Fisk is also the author of Listening to Winter and a recipient of fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council and Marin Arts Council grants in poetry, and the Robinson Jeffers Tor House, Billee Murray Denny, and Dogwood Prizes. She teaches on-line at www.poetrybootcamp.com and www.voiceofyourown.com, and provides weekly radio commentary at community station KVMR in Nevada City.
 
Artist William Wiley calls God, Seed ""Good for the eye, mind, and heart." Rebecca Foust’s previous book, All That Gorgeous Pitiless, Song, won the 2008 Many Mountains Moving Book Prize. Her chapbooks, Dark Card and Mom’s Canoe won the Robert Phillips Poetry Chapbook Prizes in consecutive years and were published by Texas Review Press in 2008 and 2009.

Lorna Stevens received her MFA in sculpture from Columbia University. She exhibits widely in galleries and public spaces. Her work has been featured or reviewed in The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Marin Independent Journal, and Artweek, and has been acquired by the Brooklyn Museum, the New York Public Library, and the di Rosa Preserve in Napa, California.

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Debra Giusti, Steve Bhaerman, and Marilyn Schlitz discuss Transforming Through 2012. This book is an anthology of minds, looking forward into the future in an attempt to discern the course of humankind as we emerge from history into the next phase of our evolution.

33 Top Authorities report on the Truth about the 2012 Shift!

Featuring core messages from prominent authorities, from a wide variety of backgrounds: scientists, researchers, futurists, mystics, astrologers, artists, luminaries and indigenous elders and healers from the Maya, Aztec, Hopi, Inka and Hawaiian traditions. They share timley information and valuable resources about the 2012 shift that can be source of clearing confusion, cultivating wisdon, and empowering you to embrace the new opportunities in reaching your highest potential, while co-creating our positive future.

Some of the Featured Authors Are:
George Noory, Jean Houston, Daniel Pinchbeck, Bruce Lipton, Peter Russell, Paul & Lillie Weisbart, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Nassim Haramein, John Peterson, Carl Johan Calleman, Sri Ram Kaa and Kira Raa, Bob Frissell, Gabriel Cousens, Marilyn Schlitz, Steve Bhearman, Christine Page, Paco Alarcon–Kahan and Indigenous elders and healers from the Hopi, Mayan, Inka, Aztec and Hawaiian Traditions, and many more.

Corte Madera store, $60
Register by phone: (415) 927-0960, ext. 1

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Abby Wasserman presents Mary Tuthill Lindheim: Art & Inspiration ($32.00). This is the first book on the American sculptor and ceramist Mary Tuthill Lindheim (1912- 2004) who, with contemporaries Edith Heath, Peter Voulkos, Marguerite Wildenhain and others, awakened the art world and public to the exciting potential of clay as a fine art medium.

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Special for kids & parents!
Nouzha Evans discusses the making of the first of a children’s book series, Cooper the Compost Worm, The Butterflies Are Teasing Me ($16.95), organized by the Early Discovery Program about living in harmony with the environment and endangered species. The setting of the book is a reflection of the children's small school garden. The children’s discussion and interpretation of why we raise butterflies and take care of our compost worms was documented and incorporated into the book. Conceptually unique, this book stands alone by having children not only take part in creating the characters of the story, but also by coming to the event and joining their teacher in signing the book. Their parents, family members and friends will be there too! Come and meet them and sign up for the next book workshop.
 

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Speakers: Lisa Brown, author of Vampire Boy’s Good Night, and LeUyen Pham, author of All the Things I Love about You