Events
Please note this class now starts one week later (on July 16) than as listed in our newsletter!
Four Mondays: July 16 - August 6
The four classes will review the basic structures of Beginning Italian the present tense, gender and number of nouns and adjectives and the always pesky articulated prepositions. Much conversation and laughter.
In Shakespeare's day, the story of King John was hugely popular on the Elizabethan stage. Today, the play is rarely produced. Join Marin Shakespeare Company's Lesley Currier and actor Barry Kraft in a discussion of the history and theatricality of this little known Shakespeare play. You can see Barry Kraft perform in King John at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre through August 12.
Lesley Currier is a founder of Marin Shakespeare Company, now in its 23rd year. She produces, directs and teaches Shakespeare with people of all ages, and run the Shakespeare at San Quentin program. Lesley is the director of this summer's main stage production of King John at Dominican University's Forest Meadows Amphitheatre.
Barry Kraft has been an actor and dramaturg at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 25 years, as well as performing as King Lear and Julius Caesar at Marin Shakespeare Company. Barry will be seen this summer as the King of France in King John.
Please note this class now starts one week later (on July 17) than as listed in our newsletter!
Four Tuesdays: July 17 - August 7
The four classes will review the basic structures of Italian the present tense, gender and number of nouns and adjectives and the always pesky articulated prepositions. Much conversation and laughter.
Please note this class now starts one week later (on July 17) than as listed in our newsletter!
Four Tuesdays: July 17 - August 7
In these four weeks students will intensively review the major tenses of the Indicative mood of this wonderful language: presente, passato prossimo, imperfetto, trapassato prossimo, futuro, [presente e passato] condizionale [presente e passato]. Much pratice and conversation.
An attorney, motivational speaker, and youth advocate, Carissa Phelps works as part of a global collective to help local and international survivors of sex trafficking rebuild their lives. Her life story was the subject of the award-winning documentary Carissa.
Karen Thompson Walker reads from The Age of Miracles ($26.00), a luminous, haunting, and unforgettable coming of age novel set against the backdrop of an utterly altered world…. On a seemingly ordinary Saturday in a California suburb, Julia and her family awake to discover, along with the rest of the world, that the rotation of the earth has suddenly begun to slow.
“The Age of Miracles spins its glowing magic through incredibly lucid and honest prose, giving equal care and dignity to the small spheres and the large. It is at once a love letter to the world as we know it and an elegy.”—Aimee Bender
Karen Thompson Walker is a graduate of UCLA and the Columbia MFA program and a recipient of the 2011 Sirenland Fellowship as well as a Bomb magazine fiction prize. A former editor at Simon & Schuster, she wrote The Age of Miracles in the mornings before work.
Tickets $55
(includes lunch & a signed book)
Call (415) 927-0960, ext. 1 to reserve
Join us for lunch as Chris Cleave, the author of Little Bee, talks about his new novel Gold, which asks “What would you sacrifice for the people you love?” With heart-in-throat storytelling, with humanity and glorious prose, Cleave examines the values that lie at the heart of our most intimate relationships, and the choices we make when lives are at stake and everything is on the line.
Chris Cleave is the author of Incendiary and the #1 New York Times bestseller Little Bee. He lives with his wife and three children in Kingston-upon-Thames, England.
Book Passage hosts literary luncheons with celebrated authors at our Marin store. These events are catered by the outstanding Insalata’s Restaurant of San Anselmo.
Andrea Nguyen presents Asian Tofu: Discover the Best, Make Your Own, and Cook it at Home ($30.00), whose nearly 100 recipes explore the culinary spirit of East, Southeast, and South Asia. Included are favorites from Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore, and India, as well as delicious dishes from the United States. Tofu goodies will be provided by Delica Restaurant.
“This book is worth buying just for the glorious Tofu Chicken Meatballs in Lemongrass Broth. But it is full of other tofu wonders from up and down the East Asian coast such as Soft Tofu and Seafood Hotpot and Savory Tofu Pudding. It will find much use on my shelf.” — Madhur Jaffrey
“Andrea Nguyen’s exquisite book restores tofu to its proper place.” — Deborah Madison
Andrea Nguyen is one of the country’s leading voices on Asian cuisine and the author of the acclaimed Asian Dumplings and the James Beard – and IACP-nominated Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. She has written for Saveur magazine, where she is also a contributing editor, the Los Angeles Times, and many more publications.
Abrahm Lustgraten is an award-winning reporter for ProPublica and a former writer for Fortune. He covers energy and environmental topics, and is a winner of numerous prizes, including the George Polk Award for environmental reporting. He has appeared frequently in national media to discuss energy issues, including NPR's Fresh Air, Rachel Maddow, and Hardball with Chris Mathews. In 2004 Lustgarten recieved a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to support his international reporting in China and Tibet, a project that led to his first book, China's Great Train. He lives in San Francisco.
Please note this class now starts one week later (on July 19) than as listed in our newsletter!
Four Thursdays: July 19 - Aug. 9Indicative and Subjunctive:The first two classes will be dedicated to the sequence of tenses in the Indicative; the following two weeks to that of the Subjunctive. Challenging with much drill and conversation.
Dave Eggers visits Book Passage to sign copies of acclaimed new novel, A Hologram for the King (McSweeneys, $25.00). We are excited, as the reviews have been stunning: Carmela Ciuraru, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, called Eggers' book “An extraordinary work of timely and provocative themes.... This novel reminds us that above all, Eggers is a writer of books, and a writer of the highest order….An outstanding achievement in Eggers's already impressive career, and an essential read.”
Please note: this is a booksigning only. If you cannot attend this special event and would like a signed 1st edition of A Hologram for the King, please follow < this link > and please note "signed 1st ed" in the comments field.
“Mr. Eggers uses a new, pared down, Hemingwayesque voice to recount his story... he demonstrates in Hologram that he is master of this more old-fashioned approach as much as he was a pioneering innovator with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.... A comic but deeply affecting tale about one man’s travails that also provides a bright, digital snapshot of our times.” — Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
Dave Eggers is the bestselling author of Zeitoun, winner of the American Book Award and Dayton Literary Peace Prize. His novel What Is the What was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won France’s Prix Medici.
Two Pre-Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference Classes
Best Laid Plans: What Were They Thinking?
Crime
fiction writers must learn to think like criminals. They must plot the
perfect crime so that when their protagonist solves the caper, he or she
will be a true hero. To do this the writer must answer several basic
questions: What goes on in a criminal’s mind when he decides that some
criminal activity is the only solution to his problems? What pushes him
to act? What steps does he take to plan, commit, and attempt to get away
with the crime? Where do his plans jump the tracks? In this lecture we
will look at several famous crimes and attempt to gain some insight into
what the criminal was thinking, the logic—or illogic—of his planning,
and the fatal flaws that unraveled his best laid plans.
And
Voice: Whose Story Is It?
What is voice? How do you find it and what do you do with
it? In this class we will discover the sound, the rhythm, and the feel
of a writer’s most powerful tool, his or her voice.
These classes are part of the pre-conference events leading up to the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference. The classes are open to both conference participants and non-particpants, although conference participants receive a discount. To learn more about the conference, please visit this link.
A Pre-Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference Class
Crime fiction writers must learn to think like criminals. They must plot the perfect crime so that when their protagonist solves the caper, he or she will be a true hero. To do this the writer must answer several basic questions: What goes on in a criminal’s mind when he decides that some criminal activity is the only solution to his problems? What pushes him to act? What steps does he take to plan, commit, and attempt to get away with the crime? Where do his plans jump the tracks? In this lecture we will look at several famous crimes and attempt to gain some insight into what the criminal was thinking, the logic—or illogic—of his planning, and the fatal flaws that unraveled his best laid plans.
This class is part of the pre-conference events leading up to the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference. The class is open to both conference participants and non-particpants, although conference participants receive a discount. To learn more about the conference, please visit this link.
A Pre-Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference Class
Almost everything you need to know about writing a great crime story can be learned from wisely analyzing this classic film. David Corbett will lead the class in a group analysis of the story to explore such techniques as: Charting the character arcs for the greatest dramatic impact; creating the exterior desire, the inner need and the "crisis of insight" that define a compelling hero; how to orchestrate the opposition from an offscreen villain; the love interest and her role in exposing the hero; employing "four-corner conflict" to create moral complexity; using secondary characters to flesh out major characters; the importance of a symbol system in intensifying your thematic concerns; and more. Student works will also be discussed to explore these same issues to examine how works-in-progress can be dramatically strengthened, thematically deepened, and better structured. (Class time will not permit a full viewing of the film, so students should reacquaint themselves with it before hand.)
This class is part of the pre-conference events leading up to the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference. The class is open to both conference participants and non-particpants, although conference participants receive a discount. To learn more about the conference, please visit this link.
A Pre-Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference Class
What is voice? How do you find it and what do you do with it? In this class we will discover the sound, the rhythm, and the feel of a writer’s most powerful tool, his or her voice.
This class is part of the pre-conference events leading up to the Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference. The class is open to both conference participants and non-particpants, although conference participants receive a discount. To learn more about the conference, please visit this link.
Discover All the Clues for a Successful Career as a Mystery or Suspense Writer!
This year's participants will spend four event-filled days in beautiful Northern California writing, workshopping, networking, and perfecting their craft with a celebrated faculty featuring prize-winning authors including conference keynote speaker Don Winslow (New York Times bestselling author of Savages--adapted to film by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone, The Dawn Patrol, and the forthcoming The Kings of Cool: A Prequel to Savages); Cara Black (Author of the Aimée Leduc Investigation series); Tarquin Hall (Author of the Vish Puri mysteries); Karin Slaughter (Internationally bestselling author of the Grant County series) and others.
View the complete faculty list >>
The evening events with Tarquin Hall, Don Winslow, and Karin Slaughter are free and open to the public, although priority seating is reserved for conference participants.
Tarquin Hall has lived and worked throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. He has also written dozens of articles and three works of nonfiction. He and his family live in Delhi.
Tarquin Hall is on the faculty of the 19th Annual Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference, which takes place July 19-22 at Book Passage. This event is part of the Conference. It is open to the public, though priority seating is reserved for Conference participants
Book Passage is thrilled to announce that the widely acclaimed, bestselling crime fiction writer Don Winslow will be the keynote speaker at the 2012 Mystery Writers Conference. Winslow is the author of the forthcoming The Kings of Cool: A Prequel to Savages ($25.00), due out from Simon & Schuster in June. Winslow’s new novel is being published to coincide with the release of the film adaption of Savages, directed by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone. Set to hit theaters in July, Stone’s widely anticipated film stars John Travolta, Blake Lively, Benecio Del Toro, Uma Thurman, Emile Hirsch, Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Johnson, and Salma Hayek.
In Savages, Winslow introduced Ben and Chon, twenty-something best friends who risk everything to save O, the girl they both love. Among the most celebrated literary thrillers in recent memory, Savages was selected as a Top 10 Book of 2010 by Janet Maslin in The New York Times and Stephen King in Entertainment Weekly, as well as other publications around the world. Now, in his high-octane prequel, Winslow reaches back in time to tell the story of how Ben, Chon, and O became the people they are. A series of breakneck twists and turns puts two generations on a collision course, culminating in a stunning showdown that will ultimately force them to choose between their real families and their love for each other.
Don Winslow is The New York Times bestselling author of more than a dozen novels, including The Gentlemen’s Hour, Satori, The Dawn Patrol, The Winter of Frankie Machine, The Power of the Dog, California Fire and Life, and The Death and Life of Bobby Z.
The 19th Annual Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference takes place July 19-22 at Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA. This event is open to the public, though priority seating is
reserved for Conference participants.
Karin Slaughter is the New York Times and #1 internationally bestselling author of twelve thrillers. She is a native of Georgia.
Karin Slaughter is on the faculty of the 19th Annual Book Passage Mystery Writers Conference, which takes place July 19-22 at Book Passage. This event is part of the Conference. It is open to the public, though priority seating is reserved for Conference participants
World Travel Tips: Plan Your Own Trip
Arctic and Antarctica
In part one of this six-class series, Rea will take you on a fascinating photographic journey contrasting these two remarkable regions. She'll share the beauty, flora, fauna and diverse habitas she discovered on her expeditions.
This registration is for Arctic and Antarctica only. Please click here to register for the entire series, or to select other individual installments.
Six Mondays: July 23 - August 27
Please note: This registration page is for the entire six-class series, which runs $130. If you do not wish to take the entire series, click on any of the individual sessions ($25 each) below to be taken to their registration pages. Take the full series and save!
July 23 Arctic and Antarctica
In part one, Rea will take you on a fascinating
photographic journey contrasting these two remarkable regions. She'll
share the beauty, flora, fauna and diverse habitas she discovered on her
expeditions.
July 30 Patagonia, Argentina & Chile
In
part two, see remote and scenic areas of the
world and stay in special Estancias and hotels in the region.
Aug. 6 Galapagos, Peru & Bolivia
In
part three, discover the best ways to access
Darwin's ecological discovery, the Incan treasures, the beauty of the
Andes and less traveled Bolivia with its rich Spanish colonial history.
Aug. 13 Africa: Beyond Safaris
In
part four, go beyond your average safari.
Learn about gorilla and chimpanzee tracking, climbing Kilimanjaro and
walking with lions.
Aug. 20 Southern Europe
In
part five, discover Rome, Florence, Paris,
Madrid, Barcelona and more. Organize an itinerary around art, culture,
food and wine.
Aug. 27 Northern Europe
In
part six, go from Germany to the Arctic,
Russia and Iceland. Learn the best way to get around and the highlights
that are not to be missed.
Rea Franjetic was born in Croatia, raised in South America and became part of her family's travel business. She is an avid photographer and leads unique small travel groups.
Anne Mendel grew up in Arkansas and attended Miss Ashleigh’s Charm School, where she learned absolutely nothing about dealing with disasters (unless breaking a high heel counts as a disaster). Before she began writing full time she used her Master’s Degree in Community Organizing to advocate for women and girls.
Building on the principles and tools discussed in Unstuff Your Life, this workshop offers participants one-to-one coaching and interaction with professional organizer Andrew Mellen. Jam-packed with useful tips, tools and suggestions, you will learn new skills to tackle anything from paper, mail and email to the sad, scary corner of your basement, attic or garage. You’ll leave with a clear action plan for budgeting time, managing your day, planning projects and living your passion and your values in everything you do.
Adrienne Kane presents United States of Pie: Regional Favorites from East to West and North to South ($24.99), a collection of heirloom American pies, including long-lost recipes and classic favorites, illustrated, and chock-full of time-tested baking tips and secrets for perfect pies including Meyer Lemon Cream Pie, Concord Grape Pie, and Burnt Sugar Meringue Pie.
United States of Pie was selected by National Public Radio (NPR) as one of the Top 10 Summer Cookbooks for 2012, and, it was just recently featurted on the radio - <listen here>. "The charming book offers pies that reflect the country's varying palates and personalities, from Concord Grape pie in New England to Hoosier Pie in the Midwest to Olallieberry in the Pacific Northwest...Pies like this make me proud to be American." - Marissa Rothkopf Bates
Adrienne Kane is the author of the memoir Cooking and Screaming and of the popular food blog www.nosheteria.com. She is a food writer, recipe developer, and food photographer whose work has appeared in Natural Health and Prevention and on Chow and foodandwine.com. Originally from the Bay Area, she now lives and cooks in New Haven, Connecticut.
The author of two previous novels, The Lace Makers of Glenmara, and Snow in July, Heather Barbieri has won international prizes for her short fiction. She lives in Seattle.
Eddie Campbell presents 44 Horrible Dates ($14.99). For anyone who knows what it's like to be on at least one crappy date, this book is for you. For everyone who wants that dinner back, this book is for you. For everyone who sat through a boring movie only to realize the person you were with was not your type, this book is for you.
“This book is a hilarious romp of true life (unfortunately). Read it to prepare for your next date!” -James Van Praagh, author of Talking to Heaven
Eddie Campbell was born and raised in Los Angeles. He has a bachelor's degree from USC Annenberg School of Communication and USC School of Cinema-Television. His background is in art direction for both TV and film, creative direction, and graphic design.
Nancy Mullane discusses Life After Murder: Five Men in Search of Redemption ($26.99). Once a murderer, always a murderer? Or can a murderer be redeemed? An award-winning journalist found herself facing these questions when she accepted an assignment to report on the exploding costs of incarceration.
Nancy Mullane develops, reports, and produces feature stories for Public Radio International’s This American Life, National Public Radio, and the NPR affiliate KALW News-Crosscurrents in San Francisco. With the support of the Open Society Foundation, she is producing a two-hour, four-part, radio documentary telling the stories of men and women convicted of murder which will air nationally in 2012. She is a member of the Society for Professional Journalists, the Association of Independents in Radio, and the International Women’s Media Foundation. In 2011, Nancy was the recipient of a National Edward R. Murrow Award.
Mark Haskell Smith presents Heart of Dankness: Underground Botanists, Outlaw Farmers, and the Race for the Cannabis Cup ($14.00). "A genially gonzo ride to the top of the cannabis world. Smith's prose crackles with unputdownable verve …. This book will change the way you look at the Cannabusiness." --Heather Donahue, author of Growgirl
Reporting for the Los Angeles Times on the international blind tasting competition held annually in Amsterdam known as the Cannabis Cup, novelist Mark Haskell Smith sampled a variety of marijuana that was unlike anything he’d experienced. It wasn’t anything like typical stoner weed, in fact it didn’t get you stoned. This cannabis possessed an ephemeral quality known to aficionados as “dankness.”
Armed with a State of California Medical Marijuana recommendation, he begins a journey into the international underground where super-high-grade marijuana is developed and tracks down the rag-tag community of underground botanists, outlaw farmers, and renegade strain hunters who pursue excellence and diversity in marijuana, defying the law to find new flavors, tastes, and effects. This unrelenting pursuit of dankness climaxes at the Cannabis Cup, which Haskell Smith vividly portrays as the Super Bowl/Mardi Gras of the world's largest cash crop.
Mark Haskell Smith is the author of four novels, Moist, Delicious, Salty, and Baked, and has written for film and televsion. A contributor to the Los Angeles Times and a contributing editor to the Los Angeles Review of Books, Smith is an assistant professor in the MFA program for Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside, Palm Desert Graduate Center.
Jack Gibson has been on the board of directors of the Marin Municipal Water District since 1995. He is an avid historian, a former history teacher, and a practicing Marin County attorney.
Zoë Ferraris moved to Saudi Arabia in the aftermath of the first Gulf War to live with her then husband and his extended family of Saudi-Palestinian Bedouins. She has an MFA from Columbia University and is the author of two previous novels, Finding Nouf and City of Veils. She lives in San Francisco.
Lawrence Baldassaro is a professor emeritus of Italian at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. He is the author of numerous articles on baseball, coeditor of The American Game: Baseball and Ethnicity, and editor of Ted Williams: Reflections on a Splendid Life.
Deanne Stillman is a widely published writer. Her books include Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West, a Los Angeles Times "Best Book 2008," and winner of the California Book Award silver medal for nonfiction, and Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave, a Los Angeles Times "Best Book 2001" which Hunter Thompson called "A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer." Now a cult classic, it's out in a new, updated edition with a foreword by T. Jefferson Parker and preface by Charles Bowden
Colleen Morton Busch received her M.F.A. in poetry but writes and publishes fiction and nonfiction. A yoga student and Zen practitioner, Busch has worked as a college instructor-and as a magazine editor. Her work has appeared in Yoga Journal, where she was a senior editor, Tricycle: A Buddhist Review, the San Francisco Chronicle, Huffington Post, and numerous literary magazines.
World Travel Tips: Plan Your Own Trip
Patagonia, Argentina & Chile
In part two of this six-class series, see remote and scenic areas of the world and stay in special Estancias and hotels in the region.
This registration is for Patagona, Argentia & Chile only. Please click here to register for the entire series, or to select other individual installments.
Marianne Gage reads from The Putneyville Fables ($18.95). In today's world of collapsing economies and ecosystems, can the ageless wisdom of Aesop still apply? In her captivating new novel, Gage explores this question and bestows some timely wisdom of her own. Gage will be accompanied by actress Laurellee Westaway.
Marianne Gage is a San Francisco Bay Area artist, teacher, and writer. In the 50’s and 60’s she taught in the Oakland and Contra Costa County schools. Retiring from teaching, she worked as a portrait painter and printmaker for many years. With Plain View Press, she has published two novels. A third novel, about a woman portrait artist, is forthcoming.
Laurellee Westaway majored in theatre arts at UC Berkeley and graduated from The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in NYC. After acting in summer stock and Off-Broadway, she returned to the Bay Area and became a founding member of the One Act Theatre Company in San Francisco, performing there for thirteen years. She has recorded audio books and has appeared in episodic television and movies.
Six Wednesdays: August 1 to September 5
From the Hittites to Suleyman the Magnificent, we study her architecture, sculpture, paintings, mosaics and illustrated manuscripts , beginning with the archaeological museum in Ankara. After Hittite Yazilkaya it's off to Lycia, Pergamon, Ephesus, Aphrodisias, and to Constantinople where we study Hagia Sophia, and other Byzantine monuments, including the 14 century art in the Chora church. Highlights include the frescoes of Cappadocia ,and the caravansaries, and medrese of the Selcuk Turks .In Eastern Turkey we delight in the sculpture of the 10th century Church on Ahtamar Island and the megalomaniac Antiochus 'Nemrut Dag. We return to Istanbul for the splendid mosques of the architect Sinan, Topkaki Palace, and the Blue Mosque. Kerrin Meis has traveled extensively in Turkey and has taught classes in Byzantine and Islamic Art.
Madeline Levine, Ph.D., has been a practicing clinical psychologist in Marin County for the past twenty-five years. She is the author of Viewing Violence and See No Evil: A Guide to Protecting Our Children from Media Violence. A frequent lecturer on child and adolescent issues, she lives in California with her husband and three sons.
Ken Weaver presents The Northern California Craft Beer Guide ($21.95), the definitive handbook to the artistry, people, and culture of the region's craft beer scene. Encompassing breweries, beer bars, restaurants, bottle shops, and homebrew shops, this new book highlights the best the region has to offer. This event includes a beer tasting.
This special event, which includes an author talk, will take place in the Book Passage Cafe. Come raise a glass!
Ken Weaver is a beer writer, fiction writer, and technical editor based in Northern California. Previously, he has worked as a particle physicist, a renewable energy consultant, and a creative writing professor in a remote Miskito village in Nicaragua. He believes beer people are good people, and he's happy to be among them. Ken received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland, and his M.S. in physics from Cornell. He's a Certified BJCP beer judge and a frequent contributor to All About Beer.
Gerald Chertavian is the founder and CEO of Year Up. He serves on the boards of Bowdoin College, the Boston Foundation, the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative, and the Massachusetts State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
"LaSalle understands how women in French movies are allowed to be deeper, older, and more real than most Hollywood characters."—Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Mick LaSalle has been the film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1985. He is the author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood (2000) and Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man (2002), both of which were named "Book of the Month" by Turner Classic Movies. LaSalle has been a panelist at the Venice and Berlin Film Festivals and has served on the jury for the Cinema for Peace Gala in Berlin.
After the event, Mick LaSalle wrote about the event on his blog on SFGate.
Strategies, Tools and Choices
Today, the web is exploding with powerful (often FREE) tools you can use to develop author platform and promote and sell your books. But what are these tools? How work, and how do you choose the strategies and tools that are right for you and project? If you want to learn more about blogs, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, GoodReads, Pinterest, Google+ and more and how they can help you, this class is for you.
Judith Horstman is the author of The Scientific American Day in the Life of Your Brain, The Scientific American Brave New Brain, and The Scientific American Book of Love, Sex, and the Brain. She is an award-winning science journalist whose work has been widely published, and is the author of four other books.
Today, if you don’t have a web presence, you don’t exist. But how do you develop this presence, this site—your home on the web? What should it include and why? This course, in plain “author speak,” will take you “under the hood” of successful author blogs and blogsites and show you how they work and why. Even more, you will learn how to avoid the most common costly mistakes authors make and save yourself a lot of headaches, time and money!
M.L. Stedman reads from her debut novel The Light Between Oceans ($25.00), the story of a lighthouse keeper and his wife who make one devastating choice that forever changes two worlds. Stedman’s compelling characters, still trying to make sense of life in the wake of so much death in WWI, are imperfect people seeking to find their north star in a world of incomprehensible complexity.
M.L. Stedman was born and raised in Western Australia and now lives in London. The Light Between Oceans is the Indie Next List pick for August, 2012.
Bring your laptop! Join blogger extraordinaire Sophie Epstein, from the young adult book blog MrsMagooReads.com and her mother Liz Epstein (LiteraryMasters.net) as they present a fun and friendly workshop where you will learn how to use Facebook and Twitter to promote your blog or business, or just to keep in touch with friends. Before leaving, you will create your own Facebook Page and your own Twitter account, and you will learn how to navigate them and how to link them to your existing (or future) blog or website.
Michele Dunkerley presents Houses Made of Wood and Light: The Life and Architecture of Hank Schubart ($50.00). Schubart was regarded as a genius for finding the perfect site for a house and for integrating its design into the natural setting, so that his houses appear to be as native to the forest around them as the trees and rocks.
Michele Dunkerley was introduced to Schubart’s work in 2003. She drew on Schubart’s copious files and notes, as well as files at the Frank Lloyd Wright Archives and the Friedman Archives at the University of California, Berkeley, and interviews with family, clients, and contractors, to author this exploration of his life and works. Dunkerley is a business attorney whose current portfolio of work involves helping revitalize a historic downtown square.
Robert Holmes discusses A Traveller's Wine Guide to California ($22.00). This guidebook gives you everything you need to know when touring California’s beautiful wine country, including spectacular photography as well as easily-accessible information on such topics as The Winery Experience and The System of Classification and Grape Varieties.
Raymond Winery is co-sponsoring this special event: wine will be served.
Robert Holmes is an award-winning photographer and author. He has been named Travel Photographer of the Year by the Society of American Travel Writers for an unprecedented three years in 1990, 1992 and 2010. He has written four books and supplied the photographs for more than 40 others, the latest being Passion for Pinot.
World Travel Tips: Plan Your Own Trip
Galapagos, Peru & Bolivia
In part three of this six-class series, discover the best ways to access Darwin's ecological discovery, the Incan treasures, the beauty of the Andes and less traveled Bolivia with its rich Spanish colonial history.
This registration is for Galapagos, Peru & Bolivia only. Please click here to register for the entire series, or to select other individual installments.
Four Tuesdays: Aug. 7 - 28
We'll use prompts and experiments from Karen Benke's forthcoming book Leap Write In! Adventures in Creative Writing to s-t-r-e-t-c-h and surprise your one-of-a-kind mind. The focus will be on what's required to truly surprise ourselves and turn our wild lines into poems, mini memoirs, and imaginative sketches. Snacks included! Camp limited to 12 students.
Shakespearean actor Barry Kraft reads from The Complete Poems ($40.00) of Philip Larkin. Regarded as one of the great English poets of the latter half of the 20th century and called "the saddest heart in the post-war supermarket," Larkin (1922–1985) wrote of diminished expectations in work marked by a glum accuracy about emotions, places, and relationships.
Barry Kraft has been a professional actor for 45 years. He has acted in all 38 of Shakespeare's plays, playing more than 100 roles in 85 full productions. In addition to many seasons at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has had seasons with San Diego’s Old Globe, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Utah Shakespearean, Marin Shakespeare, and A.C.T. Barry is also a dramaturg, guest lecturer, educator, an avid Chess and Go player, and a poetry lover.
A Pre-Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference Class
Join award-winning photographer Robert Holmes for a day in San Francisco. After meeting at Book Passage in Corte Madera, the group will take the ferry to San Francisco and head to North Beach to photograph and document one of the city’s most colorful and historic neighborhoods. Participants will return to Book Passage to review the day and look at some of the photographs taken by participants. Digital cameras are recommended so that participants can get instant feedback at the end of the day. Lunch and round-trip ferry ticket included. Enrollment is limited.
This class is part of the pre-conference events leading up to the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference. The class is open to both conference participants and non-particpants, although conference participants receive a discount. To learn more about the conference, please visit this link.
A Pre-Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference Class
Join National Geographic Traveler writer and editor at large Don George for a day of exploration and travel writing around San Francisco Bay. This group will meet at Book Passage in Corte Madera at 9:00 am and take the ferry to the historic Ferry Building. Don will talk about the art of finding, researching and writing travel stories, then participants will continue to S.F.’s lively and atmospheric North Beach, where they will take a short guided group walk led by Don. After that, they will be let loose to find their own stories before reconvening for lunch to discuss what they found. After lunch each participant will write a short piece based on the day’s discoveries. The group will then return to Book Passage, where they’ll meet workshop-style to enjoy and evaluate each other’s literary creations. Lunch and roundtrip ferry ticket included. Enrollment is limited.
This class is part of the pre-conference events leading up to the Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference. The class is open to both conference participants and non-particpants, although conference participants receive a discount. To learn more about the conference, please visit this link.
Roger Housden grew up in the Cotswolds on the edge of Bath, in England. He has led contemplative journeys all over the world, and has been a freelance writer for The Guardian newspaper and an interviewer for the BBC. Housden is the author of numerous books on poetry, art, and travel, including the bestselling Ten Poems series, as well as the novella Chasing Rumi. Since 1998, he has made his home in Sausalito.
Tickets $10
Call (415) 927-0960, ext. 1 to reserve
Peter Greenberg is the travel editor for CBS News, and appears on The Early Show and CBS Evening News. He is a New York Times bestselling author, travel expert, Chief Contributing Editor for Michelin Travel, and contributing editor to Men’s Health, and has been a featured guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show, The View, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and Larry King Live. He is also the author of the recently released The Best Places for Everything: The Ultimate Insider's Guide to the Greatest Experiences Around the World ($19.99), an all-access pass to the most unique, inspiring, and life-changing experiences on Earth.
Peter Greenberg will be in conversation with Phil Cousineau. Peter Greenberg and Phil Cousineau are on the faculty of the 21st Annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which takes place August 9-12 at Book Passage. This event is part of the Conference. Tickets are $10.00 for the public, free for conference participants.
Tickets $10
Call (415) 927-0960, ext. 1 to reserve
Actor, director, and travel writer Andrew McCarthy is a two-time Lowell Thomas Award winner, and was named the SATW Foundation 2010 Travel Journalist of the Year. He has twice been cited for “notable” work in the Best American Travel series, and is a contributing editor at National Geographic Traveler. His travel writing has also appeared in Travel+Leisure, Afar, Men’s Journal, Islands, National Geographic Adventure. His forthcoming book is The Longest Way Home: One Man's Quest for the Courage to Settle Down ($26.00).
Andrew McCarthy will be in conversation with Don George. Andrew McCarthy and Don George are on the faculty of the 21st Annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which takes place August 9-12 at Book Passage. This event is part of the Conference. Tickets are $10.00 for the public, free for conference participants.
Oksana Marafioti moved from the Soviet Union when she was fifteen years old. Trained as a classical pianist, she has also worked as a cinematographer, and now lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Oksana Marafioti is on the faculty of the 21st Annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which takes place August 9-12 at Book Passage. This event is part of the Conference. It is open to the public, though priority seating is reserved for Conference participants.
Tickets $10
Call (415) 927-0960, ext. 1 to reserve
Susan Orlean has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1992. She is the author of seven books, including Saturday Night, My Kind of Place: Travel Stories from a Woman Who's Been Everywhere, and The Orchid Thief, which was made into the Academy Award–winning film Adaptation. Her most recent book is Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend. She lives with her family and her animals in upstate New York (with occasional stints in Los Angeles and in New York City).
Susan Orlean will be in conversation with Don George. Susan Orlean and Don George are on the faculty of the 21st Annual Book Passage Travel Writers & Photographers Conference, which takes place August 9-12 at Book Passage. This event is part of the Conference. Tickets are $10.00 for the public, free for conference participants.
World Travel Tips: Plan Your Own Trip
Africa: Beyond Safaris
In part four of this six-class series, go beyond your average safari. Learn about gorilla and chimpanzee tracking, climbing Kilimanjaro and walking with lions.
This registration is for Africa: Beyond Sarafaris only. Please click here to register for the entire series, or to select other individual installments.
Jennie Fields reads from The Age of Desire ($27.95), a sparkling glimpse into the life of Edith Wharton and the scandalous love affair that threatened her closest friendship. Wharton’s real letters and intimate diary entries are woven throughout this richly nuanced novel, which takes us on a vivid journey through the Gilded Age. Want a taste of this delicious novel? Check out this NPR feature on the book.
Jennie Fields received an MA in creative writing from the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and is the author of the novels Lily Beach, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, and The Middle Ages. An Illinois native, she spent twenty-five years as an advertising creative director in New York and currently lives with her husband in Nashville, Tennessee.
For decades, December 21, 2012, has been a touchstone for doomsayers worldwide. It is the date, they claim, when the ancient Maya calendar predicts the world will end. Dustin Thomason, co-author of the two-million copy mega-bestseller The Rule of Four, has written a riveting new work of fiction with a brilliant premise based on the notion of a 2012 apocalypse — it’s a book perfect for readers of Steve Berry, Preston and Child, and Dan Brown. Don’t miss this special event with Dustin Thomason, who will read from his thrilling new novel, 12.21 ($27.00).
“The most exciting novel of its kind since the days of Michael Crichton, 12.21 takes us from the frontiers of modern neuroscience to the riddles of ancient Maya texts, with nothing less than the future of our civilization at stake.” — Vince Flynn
Dustin Thomason graduated from Harvard College and received his M.D. from Columbia University. He is the co-author of the international bestseller The Rule of Four, and has written and produced several television series, including Lie to Me.
Three Thursdays: Aug. 16 - 30
If the hardest part of writing is "showing up," the second hardest may be figuring how to begin. This class will help you get started, whether you're writing for family or a wider audience. You'll learn how to find the juice in your material and turn it into a page-turner. Includes instruction, in-class writing and feedback.
Laura Deutsch's personal essays, memoir and feautres have appeared in the L.A. Times, S.F. Chronicles, and More magazine, among others. Her next book, Writing From the Senses, will be published by Shambhala in 2013. Laura has taught writing at U.C. Berkeley, and leads writing retreats from Tassajara to Tuscany.
Laura Lippman reads from her new novel And When She Was Good ($25.99), the gripping, intensely emotional story of a suburban madam, a convicted murderer whose sentence is about to be overturned, and the child they will both do anything to keep. Lippman has been described as “a writing powerhouse.” Here’s why.
Laura Lippman grew up in Baltimore and returned to her hometown in 1989 to work as a journalist. After writing seven books while still a full-time reporter, she left the Baltimore Sun to focus on fiction. She is the author of eleven Tess Monaghan books, five stand-alone novels, and one short story collection. Praised as “a writing powerhouse” (USA Today) and “among the select group of novelists who have invigorated the crime fiction arena with smart, innovative, and exciting work” (George Pelecanos), this New York Times bestselling author is constantly sending reviewers back to their thesauruses in search of new and greater accolades. Her new stand-alone novel, And When She Was Good, reinforces the fact that she stands among today’s bestselling elite—including Kate Atkinson, Tana French, Jodi Picoult, and Harlan Coben (who raves, “I love her books!”). Lippman has already won virtually every prize the mystery genre has to offer—the Edgar®, Anthony, Agatha, and Nero Wolfe Awards, to name but a few.
Tickets $55
(includes lunch & a signed book)
Call (415) 927-0960, ext. 1 to reserve
Join us for lunch as Gail Tsukiyama celebrates the publication of A Hundred Flowers ($24.99), a powerful new novel centering on the misfortunes which befall a family at the start of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. With this new work, Tsukiyama once again brings us a powerfully moving story of ordinary people facing extraordinary circumstances with grace and courage.
The year is 1957, and Chairman Mao has declared a new openness in society: “Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend.” Many intellectuals fear it is only a trick, and Kai Ying’s husband, a teacher named Sheng, has promised not to jeopardize their safety or that of their young son, Tao. One July morning, just before his sixth birthday, Tao watches helplessly as his Father is dragged away and sent off to a labor camp for “reeducation” after writing a letter criticizing the Communist Party.
Gail Tsukiyama is the bestselling author of six previous novels, including The Street of a Thousand Blossoms, Women of the Silk and The Samurai’s Garden, as well as the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award. She lives in El Cerrito.
Book Passage hosts literary luncheons with celebrated authors at our Marin store. These events are catered by the outstanding Insalata’s Restaurant of San Anselmo.
Marin County poet Terri Glass hosts the first Bay area reading of Fault Lines, a new West Coast journal which includes work from 70 poets from British Columbia to San Francisco. Among those participating are editor Tony Pfannenstiel and Bay Area contributors Samuel Iniguez, Trina Drotar, Lenore Wilson, Suzanne Brooks, and Patrick Cahill.
Fault Lines is a journal of West Coast poetry. Terri Glass is a poet and writer who has been teaching poetry writing in the Bay Area for twenty years. She studied poetry writing at the University of Washington, Portland State University and mentored with the poet William Stafford. Glass currently coordinates the Marin program for California Poets in the School and served as their statewide director from 2008-11.
World Travel Tips: Plan Your Own Trip
Southern Europe
In part five of this six-class series, discover Rome, Florence, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona and more. Organize an itinerary around art, culture, food and wine.
This registration is for Southern Europe only. Please click here to register for the entire series, or to select other individual installments.
Seven Mondays: Aug. 20 - Oct. 8 (no class Sep. 3)
Continuation of grammar and language immersion through conversation. Must have prior Spanish experience. Please speak to the instructor if you have questions about joining.
Selden Edwards began writing The Little Book as a young English teacher in 1974, and continued to layer and refine the manuscript until its completion in 2007. It was his first novel. He spent his career as headmaster at several independent schools across the country.
Eight Thursdays: Aug. 23 - Oct. 11
For beginning students who have had some Spanish study. Workbook available to purchase during class.
Six Thursdays: Aug. 23 - Sep. 27
Have you started a book but haven't been able to finish it? Leslie Keenan has 28 years of experience helping writers get their books done. She has worked on over 80 published books. She knows the most frequent reasons writers get stuck, and can help writers discover how to get back in flow and write effortlessly again. Students will leave with a strategy for completing their book. Also covered is advice on the best way to get a book published, with suggstions for agents, editors, publishers, and printers. A student wrote, "Thank you for your honesty, your courage, your support and your kindness. I needed you to help me complete my book."
Eight Fridays: Aug. 24 - Oct. 12
Prerequisite: Spanish I or Spanish II. Conversation will focus on Spanish and Latin American literature. There will also be a review of Spanish grammar.
3 Minute Reads
from San Francisco Grotto Writers
50+ Writers, 3 Minutes Each!
Joins us for a fast-paced and irreverent evening, showcasing new work from the students of the San Francisco Writer's Grotto writing classes. On this Friday evening, both fiction and nonfiction writers will read their work — but only for 3 minutes each! Their instructors (Grotto authors) will enforce the time limit. Join us for wine, fun, and fresh new writing.
Daniel Wolff discusses The Fight For Home: How (Parts Of) New Orleans Came Back ($26.00). After Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans became ground zero for the reinvention of the American city, with urban planners, movie stars, anarchists, and politicians all advancing competing visions. This book tells the story of New Orleans’ road to recovery.
Daniel Wolff is the author of How Lincoln Learned to Read, a Chicago Tribune Editor's Choice pick; 4th of July, Asbury Park, a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice pick; You Send Me: The Life and Times of Sam Cooke, a national bestseller; and two volumes of poetry, among other books. His writing has appeared in publications ranging from Vogue to Wooden Boat to Education Weekly. He is the co-producer, with Jonathan Demme, of several documentary film projects on New Orleans.
From the satirical masterminds behind the New York Times best-seller Goodnight Bush comes this scathingly funny political parody of a contemporary children's classic. In Don't Let the Republican Drive the Bus! ($14.99), Erich Origen and Gan Golan take on the Republican political machine, represented here by a cartoonish (yet uncannily realistic) vulture who desperately wants to drive the bus—even though he hates public transit... in fact, hates anything with the word "public" in it. Will you let him drive?
Don't miss this not-to-be-missed event!
Erich Origen is a New York Times bestselling humorist. His first book, Goodnight Bush, which he co-created with friend Gan Golan, was a hilarious yet poignant bedtime story about the Bush Administration that sold more than 125,000 copies and whose words were sung by jubilant choirs across the country. His second book, The Adventures of Unemployed Man, a superhero parody about the economic crisis (co-created with Golan) was an international bestseller and one of the best-reviewed graphic novels of the year. Origen has a special connection to Don't Let the Republican Drive the Bus! His mother was a charter bus driver whose livelihood was devastated by Republican union-busting.
Tamara McClintock Greenberg, PsyD, MS is a licensed clinical psychologist (PSY16206) in San Francisco, and an Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Her writing has focused on health psychology, psychoanalytic psychology, and coping with illness. She supervises and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area on topics such as the culture of Western Medicine, psychotherapy, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, and medical consultation. She is the author of The Psychological Impact of Acute and Chronic Illness: A Practical Guide for Primary Care Physicians and Psychodynamic Perspectives on Aging and Illness.
Poets Susan Kirsch and Jane Mellor read from their recent books. Kirsch will read from Simply Go*D - Praise Poems Celebrating The Divine In Daily Life ($14.95). Mellor will read from Delicate Availability: Prose and Poetry ($11.95). Each book is a gift. Each is an evocation and a celebration.
Susan Kirsch (left) was raised in the Midwest. Jane Mellor (right) was raised in the Bay Area. Each brings their life experiences to their work.
Stephanie Marohn is a medical journalist, non-fiction writer, and the author of the Healthy Mind series.
Dietrich Stroeh discusses Three Months: A Caregiving Journey from Heartbreak to Healing ($19.95). This new book looks beneath the surface of caring for a loved one with a terminal illness. Additionally, the author shares intimate stories, and offers tips and resources for those who want to make this poignant journey as gentle and meaningful as possible.
An engineer by trade, J. Dietrich “Diet” Stroeh has headed up projects great and small, and managed the Marin Municipal Water District in the midst of one of the worst droughts on record. That experience was the basis for his first book, The Man Who Made it Rain, co-written with Michael McCarthy. Stroeh’s life came apart after learning that his wife had pancreatic cancer. The Stage Four diagnosis took him on the roller coaster ride of his life. Overnight, this successful Marin business man became a caregiver powerless over the course of his wife’s illness. He had to face internal weaknesses and external obstacles in order to take care of her and, when the time came, lovingly let her go. Three Months: A Caregiving Journey from Heartbreak to Healing is both a love story and a guidebook.
Marty Brounstein’s new book came about after learning the details of his wife's birth in the Netherlands during the Holocaust, and the people who saved her parents as well as other Jews. He is a speaker and management consultant based in the San Francisco Bay area, and the author and contributing author to seven books in the field of management and communication.
“A brave and gifted therapist asks his former patients what helped -- and what didn't help -- in the course of his work with them. Their answers, and his reflections on their answers, have produced a breathtakingly honest, profoundly informative, and enormously readable book. I love it.” —Judith Viorst, author of Necessary Losses
Louis Breger is an American psychologist, psychotherapist and scholar. He has been a Professor of Psychoanalytic Studies in the Humanities and Social Sciences Division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Breger's previous books include A Dream of Undying Fame: How Freud Betrayed His Mentor and Invented Psychoanalysis, Freud: Darkness in the Midst of Vision, and Dostoevsky: The Author as Psychoanalyst.
“In Thought and Action: The Enigmatic Life of S. I. Hayakawa traces the fascinating life of an iconic American writer, teacher, politician, and family man. In the process, authors Gerald W. Haslam and Janice E. Haslam tell us a lot about the culture wars of the 20th century—and of American identity itself.”— Jonah Raskin
Gerald W. Haslam, a former student of Hayakawa, is a professor emeritus of English at Sonoma State University and the author and editor of numerous books, including Workin’ Man Blues: Country Music in California and the anthology Many Californias: Literature from the Golden State. Janice E. Haslam is the coauthor, with her husband, of the fiction collection Manuel and the Madman and An Instructor's Guide to Many Californias.
This event has been rescheduled and will now take place on November 11th at 4 pm. See you then!
Joy Reichard presents Celebrate the Divine Feminine: Reclaim Your Power with Ancient Goddess Wisdom ($15.95), an introduction to the Sacred Feminine, and a history, or "her-story," of the evolution of the goddess. This new book brings together background information along with practical “how-to” suggestions, as well as profiles of significant goddess figures.
As a Certified Clinical Alchemical Hypnotherapis with a Master's in Women's Spirituality, Joy Reichard empowers her clients through hypnotherapy, spiritual guidance and Reiki at her office in San Mateo.
Lian Gouw was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, then a Dutch colony known as the Netherlands’ East Indies. Her short stories and poems have appeared in Quietus Magazine, Writing for our Lives, Voices and Visions, The Highland’s Low Down and Reflections. Her "Predicament," an earlier version of the first chapter of her novel, was included in the 2006 anthology of the SF Writers Conference, Building Bridges from Writers to Readers.
Peter Fairfield presents Deep Happy: How to Get There and Always Find Your Way Back ($16.95). This book is based on quantum physics and the belief that we are intimately and infinitely connected to the larger universe. Its stories and exercises show how to understand and communicate with a deeper intrinsic reality.
Peter Fairfield LAc has taught Meditation, Qigong, Chinese medicine, Acupuncture, East/West Neuroenergetic physiology, German homeopathy, and other transformational systems. He has studied spiritual and healing systems in Nepal, Tibet, India, Thailand, and China, and worked with many great Tibetan Lamas and yogis in Nepal and Asia. He has been the acupuncturist at the Esalen Institute, founded an acupuncture school, taught acupuncture to the doctor of the king of Bhutan, and toured with Pink Floyd and other celebrities. At one time he was also a bio-feedback therapist at UCLA.
Geraldine Boyce is a British American playwright and the author of the novels Homefront and Here and There. She lives in Marin County.
World Travel Tips: Plan Your Own Trip
Northern Europe
In part six of this six-class series, go from Germany to the Arctic, Russia and Iceland. Learn the best way to get around and the highlights that are not to be missed.
This registration is for Northern Europe only. Please click here to register for the entire series, or to select other individual installments.
Gregg Hurwitz, the #1 international bestselling author of You’re Next, unleashes his most accomplished, compelling thriller yet, The Survivor ($25.99). It's a rollercoaster ride of a read populated by masked gunmen, an escaped killer, Russian mobsters and the threat of losing everything. The Survivor is guaranteed to grab readers by the throat and not relinquish its grip.
Gregg Hurwitz is the author of twelve novels. His books have been nominated for numerous awards, shortlisted for best novel of the year by International Thriller Writers, nominated for CWA's Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, chosen as feature selections for all four major literary book clubs, honored as Book Sense Picks, and translated into twenty languages. He's currently developing his Tim Rackley series for TNT/Sony. He is a producer and writer for television and films and has written characters ranging from Wolverine to Batman for both Marvel and DC comics. Originally from the Bay Area, he now lives in Los Angeles.
Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass talks about What Light Can Do: Essays on Art, Imagination, and the Natural World ($29.99), a wide-ranging collection of considerations on topics including writers (ranging from Jack London to Allen Ginsberg), the art of photography, the state of California, and much else.
Robert Hass will be introduced by poet Giovanni Singleton.
Robert Hass' books of poetry include Time and Materials, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 and the National Book Award in 2008; Sun Under Wood, for which he received the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996; Human Wishes; Praise, for which he received the William Carlos Williams Award in 1979; and Field Guide, which was selected by Stanley Kunitz for the Yale Younger Poets Series. Hass has worked with Czeslaw Milosz to translate a dozen volumes of the Nobel Prize winner's poetry. While his translations of the Japanese haiku masters have been collected in The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa. Hass' books of essays include Twentieth Century Pleasures: Prose on Poetry, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism in 1984, and Now and Then: The Poet's Choice Columns, 1997-2000. From 1995 to 1997 Hass served as poet laureate of the United States.
Rebecah Freeling is a storyteller, experienced early childhood educator, and parent coach. New to California, she recently joined the faculty of The Mountain School Early Childhood Center in Corte Madera. For thirteen years she was owner, Director and Lead Teacher of Briar Rose Children's Center in her home state of Ohio. Her magical stories, both original and drawn from the folk and fairy tale traditions, are enhanced by her own handmade table puppets and simple marionettes.
Louise Penny reads from The Beautiful Mystery: A Chief Inspector Gamache Novel ($25.99), the brilliant new eighth novel in the New York Times bestselling, Agatha Award-winning, and critically revered mystery series from one of the most acclaimed crime fiction writers of our time. Deceptively charming, exquisite, stellar – don’t miss it!
Louise Penny is the bestselling author of seven previous novels featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. Her debut, Still Life, won the John Creasey Dagger and the Arthur Ellis, Barry, Anthony, and Dilys Awards, and was named one of the five Mystery/Crime Novels of the Decade by Deadly Pleasures magazine. Penny was the first author ever to win the Agatha Award for Best Novel four times—for A Fatal Grace, The Cruelest Month, and The Brutal Telling (which also received the Anthony Award for Best Novel), and Bury Your Dead (which also won the Dilys, Arthur Ellis, Anthony, Macavity, and Nero Awards). Penny's 2011 novel, A Trick of the Light, is a 2012 Macavity Award Nominee.
Ann Garrett is a Marin County writer, watercolor artist and printmaker. When Ann began painting in 1997, her pieces were full of hearts—large ones and small, as details in the design or the focus of the piece itself. She began experimenting with fine art printmaking in 1998. Her current show is a collection of hand-made prints of her watercolors, many of them heart-themed
"Ann Garrett Watercolors" runs September 1 through November 30. A reception with the artist will take place on November 2nd from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm.
Claudia Sternbach, Editor in Chief of Memoir Journal
Book Passage hosts the monthly meetings of Left Coast Writers® at our Corte Madera store. This Literary Salon is led by author/teacherLinda Watanabe McFerrin. The monthly meetings provide an evening of literary connections, support, counsel, provocative readings, writing tips, literary chat, unabashed networking, and great fun. Each meeting also features a presentation by one of several Bay Area literary figures. The fee includes membership in Left Coast Writers®, a group of new and experienced writers. LCW has its own lively newsletter and website atwww.leftcoastwriters.com/.
Join Marin Shakespeare Company Artistic Director Robert Currier and Hula dancer, teacher and Hawaiian chant composer Shawna Kealameleu'uleialoha Alapa'i as they talk about collaborating on Marin Shakespeare's Hawaiian version of "A Midsummer Night's Dream", playing at the Forest Meadows Amphitheatre at Dominican University through September 30. Learn about Hawaiian gods, beliefs, practices, and the origin of hula and how the magic, mystery and romance of Hawaii melds with Shakespeare's fairy-filled comedy. Aloha!
Jane Hodges is a Seattle-based writer whose work on business and personal finance has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Reuters, MSNBC.com, Money, Fortune, and many other national and local media.
Amanda Coplin was born in Wenatchee, Washington. She received her BA from the University of Oregon and MFA from the University of Minnesota. A recipient of residencies from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and the Omi International Arts Center at Ledig House in Ghent, New York, she lives in Portland, Oregon.
Sold Out! Some Signed Books Available
Join us for lunch as Jonathan Kozol discusses Fire in the Ashes: Twenty-Five Years Among the Poorest Children in America. In this powerful and culminating work, Kozol returns to the scene of his earlier prize-winning books and to the group of inner-city children he has so vividly portrayed in earlier works; here, he shares the fascinating and unexpected story of their life journeys.
Jonathan Kozol is the National Book Award-winning author of Savage Inequalities, Death at an Early Age, The Shame of the Nation, and Amazing Grace. He has been working with children in inner-city schools for nearly fifty years.
Book Passage hosts literary luncheons with celebrated authors at our Marin store. These events are catered by the outstanding Insalata’s Restaurant of San Anselmo. This special event is co-sponsored with 10,000 Degrees and Dominican University of California Institute for Leadership Studies. A portion of the proceeds will benefit 10,000 Degrees. Can't attend the event? Order a signed copy.
10,000 Degrees believes everyone should have a chance at college. They advocate for equal educational opportunity and support students in need to successfully access, pursue and complete higher education. 10,000 Degrees creates college graduates who change the world.
Eight Thursdays: Sept. 6-Oct. 25
New York Times bestselling crime writer Laurie R. King writes both series and standalone novels. In the Mary Russell series (first entry: The Beekeeper's Apprentice), fifteen-year-old Russell meets Sherlock Holmes on the Sussex Downs in 1915, becoming his apprentice, then his partner. The series follows their amiably contentious partnership into the 1920s as they challenge each other to ever greater feats of detection. King has won the Edgar and Creasey awards, the Nero, and the MacCavity; her nominations include the Agatha, the Orange, the Barry, and two more Edgars.
Geoffrey Nunberg discusses Ascent of the A-Word: Assholism, the First Sixty Years ($25.99). It first surfaced in the gripes of GIs during World War II and was captured early on by the typewriter of a young Norman Mailer. Within a generation it had replaced older reproaches like lout and heel – and showed up in just about everyone’s vocabulary.
Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist, is a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information. Since 1987, he has done a language feature on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” and his commentaries have appeared in the New York Times and many other publications. He is the emeritus chair of the Usage Panel of the American Heritage Dictionary and a winner of the Linguistic Society of America’s Language and the Public Interest Award. His previous books include Talking Right and Going Nucular.
Jonathan and Margaret Kathrein talk about Surviving the Shark: How a Brutal Great White Attack Turned a Surfer into a Dedicated Defender of Sharks ($24.95). This jolting and inspiring true-life story of Jonathan Kathrein’s encounter with a great white shark describes his incredible experience and the changes it brought in the author’s life.
Jonathan Kathrein grew up outside San Francisco. He’s always enjoyed surfing, especially at Stinson Beach, the site of his attack. In 2009 he collaborated with his mother, Margaret Kathrein, on Far From Shore, which is a retelling of the event from her perspective. They live in San Rafael, California.
Clint Wilder is a veteran business and technology journalist who won the 2002 American Society of Business Publications Editors award for best feature series. He is also co-author of The Clean Tech Revolution: The Next Big Growth and Investment Opportunity. Currently Wilder is senior editor at Clean Edge, a research and strategy firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area and Portland, Oregon, which focuses on the commercialization of renewable energy and other clean technologies.
Left Coast Writers® Book Launches at Book Passage in Corte Madera
Jerry Parrick, author of Beyond Animal, Ego and Time
Winner of 2012 Book Awards:
Nautilus Book Award in Science/Cosmology, Independent Publisher Book Award (“IPPY”) in Classical Studies/Philosophy and an Eric Hoffer Book Award
In Beyond Animal, Ego and Time Jerry Parrick takes you on a journey of personal discovery. Believing human belief systems must mirror the knowledge of their time, he challenges readers to re-examine what we think we know in the 21st century. Together you see truths emerge that identify what is most important to the future; a re-definition of human purpose, how best to cope with life's challenges, and what some call a scientific justification for a belief in reincarnation.
Jerry Parrick has at various times been a CEO and corporate executive, high tech entrepreneur, Stanford Sloan Fellow, inventor, and husband and father. He also is the editor of the www.iamaguardian.com blog focusing on world issues such as climate change, ozone depletion, nuclear weapons and synthetic biology.
Book Passage welcomes the public to this Local Author Event, featuring a published member of our Left Coast Writers® Literary Salon!
You can find out more about membership in Left Coast Writers® at Book Passage here. LCW has its own lively newsletter and website at www.leftcoastwriters.com/.
Sherri Dobay is a Northern California artist, designer, and wine-maker.
Phyllis Stowell, Ph.D., is a Professor Emerita and Founding Member of Saint Mary's College of California MFA. She is the author of five small press poetry collections of poetry. Her poems have appeared in over forty traditional and avant-garde reviews. She is co-editor of APPETITE, Food as Metaphor, An Anthology of Women's Poetry.
Judith Horstman, Author of The Scientific American Healthy Aging Brain
Book Passage hosts the monthly meetings of Left Coast Writers® at our Corte Madera store. This Literary Salon is led by author/teacherLinda Watanabe McFerrin. The monthly meetings provide an evening of literary connections, support, counsel, provocative readings, writing tips, literary chat, unabashed networking, and great fun. Each meeting also features a presentation by one of several Bay Area literary figures. The fee includes membership in Left Coast Writers®, a group of new and experienced writers. LCW has its own lively newsletter and website atwww.leftcoastwriters.com/.
Please note this event takes place at our Ferry Building location!
Join us for a spectacular evening
with Three-Time Caldecott Honoree, Mo Willems!
The ticket price ($17.99 + tax) admits up to four family members. Includes one signed copy of the book.
Space extremely limited! Please call to inquire about availability: (415) 927-0960
Mo Willems presents Goldilocks and The Three Dinosaurs ($17.99). The Caldecott Honor-winning author of Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny, and Knuffle Bunny Too presents his zany new work, based on a classic fairy-tale. Once upon a time, there were three hungry Dinosaurs: Papa Dinosaur, Mama Dinosaur...and a Dinosaur who happened to be visiting from—Norway. This new take on the fairy-tale classic is so funny and so original—it could only come from the brilliant mind of Mo Willems. Bring the whole family for this fantastic evening!
Eight Tuesdays: Sep. 11 - Oct. 30
This class is for advanced students who want to gain proficiency and confidence communicating in French using nuances and idiomatic expressions. The text offers selections from French authors and a review of French grammar. Articles from the French press and videos from TV5 will also be discussed in class. Text: En Bonne Forme, Simone Renaud-Dietiker, 8th ed. Schaum's Outline of French Grammar, 4th or 5th ed.
Sylvie Simmons is one of the best-known names in rock journalism. She has written for Q, Rolling Stone, Sounds, Blender, and Creem, among others. She also writes for MOJO, in which she has a monthly American column and has had cover stories about Neil Young, Pink Floyd, The Beach Boys and Johnny Cash. She also writes for British newspapers including Times and the Guardian.
Granta contributors Kay Ryan and Victoria Sweet join Julie Lindow, Medical Humanities Literary Event Coordinator at the University of California, San Francisco Medical School, to explore storytelling as medicine and how we express and understand illness and the natural world. The event is part of the US-wide launch series that marks the publication of Granta 120: Medicine. Co-hosted by the UCSF Medical Humanities Initiative.
"Quite simply, the most impressive literary magazine of its time." – Daily Telegraph.
Internationally known investigative journalist Dennis Bernstein reads from his first book of poems Special Ed: Voices From a Hidden Classroom ($14.95). Welcome to the special classroom, where the kids who don't fit in anywhere else spend their day. For these kids, pistols, switchblades, police cars and hunger are more instructive than textbooks. These poems reflect that setting.
Dennis J. Bernstein lives in San Francisco and has been a longtime front line reporter specializing in Human Rights. His articles have appeared widely including in the Boston Globe, New York Times, The Progressive, and The Nation. Bernstein was chosen by Pulse Media as one of "20 Top Global Media Figures of 2009." Bernstein's artist books, co- authored with Warren Lehrer, are in the Special Books Collections of the Museum of Modern art in New York City and other major museums around the world. Bernstein's poetry has appeared in the New York Quarterly, Bat City Review, Texas Observer, and ZYZZYVA.
Van Jones presents Rebuild the Dream ($25.99). In this new book, the green economy pioneer reflects on his journey from grassroots outsider to White House insider. He shares intimate details of his time in government – and reveals why he chose to resign his post as a special “green jobs” advisor to the Obama White House.
“Van Jones has made it his life’s work to speak truth to power.” — Nancy Pelosi in Time Magazine.
“Van has successfully brought together urban youth with clean-tech entrepreneurs, labor leaders with business leaders, civil rights activists with environmentalists.” —Arianna Huffington, on the Huffington Post.
Van Jones is founding president of Rebuild the Dream, a pioneering initiative to restore good jobs and economic opportunity. A Yale-educated attorney, he worked as the green jobs advisor to the Obama White House in 2009. There, he helped run the inter-agency process that oversaw $80 billion in green recovery spending. Time Magazine has named Jones one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Ellen Hopkins is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Crank, Burned, Impulse, Glass, Identical, Tricks, Fallout, and Perfect, as well as the adult novels Triangles and Collateral. She lives with her family in Carson City, Nevada.
Phil Cousineau talks about The Painted Word: A Treasure Chest of Remarkable Words and Their Origins ($15.95). In this delicious new book, a favorite local logophile and mythologist has prepared a banquet of words (whose menu is made of brief definitions, a tint of etymology and a smattering of quotes) which untangles the interlocking meanings of words both old-fangled or new.
Phil Cousineau is an award-winning writer and filmmaker, teacher and editor, independent scholar and travel leader, storyteller and TV host. His fascination with art, literature, and the history of culture has taken him from Michigan to Marrakesh, Iceland to the Amazon, in a worldwide search for what the ancients called the “soul of the world.” With more than 25 books and 15 scriptwriting credits to his name, the "omnipresent influence of myth in modern life" is a thread that runs through all of his work.
Jeffrey Fleishman reads from his new thriller Shadow Man ($15.95). Told from the perspective of a man betrayed by his own mind, Shadow Man is a novel of identity and suspense that travels across continents and deep into the pasts that make us each who we are. Though a work of fiction, this haunting novel has, strikingly, been compared to The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.
Jeffrey Fleishman, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, is a foreign correspondent for The Los Angeles Times, currently serving as the paper's Cairo bureau chief. He has covered wars in Kosovo, Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. His first novel, Promised Virgins: A Novel of Jihad, was published in 2009.
Tony Broadbent reads from his latest Jethro mystery Shadows in the Smoke ($14.95). Laurie R. King describes this new story of the honest Cockney cat burglar, jewelry thief extraordinaire, womanizer, and rogue this way, “Tony Broadbent's style glints in this darkly humorous tale played out in the stark realism of post-war London, a welcome third in this one-of-a-kind series.”
Tony Broadbent was born in Windsor, England. He was an art student in London in the late-sixties (from Revolver to Let It Be). He then worked as copywriter and creative director at some of the best advertising agencies in London, New York, and San Francisco, before opening his own agency. Now a consulting brand strategist, planner, and ideator for clients in the U.S. and Europe, Broadbent is married and lives in Mill Valley.
Renowned scientist Caleb Scharf discusses Gravity's Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes Rule Galaxies, Stars, and Life in the Cosmos ($26.00). We’ve long understood black holes to be so destructive and unforgiving that not even light can escape their deadly wrath. Recent research, however, has led to new discoveries that have revealed an entirely different side to black holes. They blow bubbles.
Caleb Scharf is the director of the Columbia Astrobiology Center. He writes the Life, Unbounded blog for Scientific American, and has written for New Scientist, Science, and Nature, among other publications; and has served as a consultant for the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel, and The New York Times. Scharf is the author of Extrasolar Planets and Astrobiology, winner of the 2011 Chambliss Astronomical Writing Award from the American Astronomical Society.
