Events
| Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat |
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20
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Start: 6:00 pm
Port Commission Hearing Room Ferry Building (2nd Floor) The panel will include: - Hanna Neuschwander, author of Left Coast Roast ($16.95), a guide to artisan and iconic coffee roasters from San Francisco to Seattle (moderator) - Christopher Bacon, environmental social scientist and professor at Santa Clara University whose research compares alternative and conventional food systems using coffee as a case study - Stephen Vick, quality control manager of Blue Bottle Coffee Co. The discussion will be followed by a book signing (books for sale by Book Passage) and reception with farmers market refreshments. A $5 donation will be requested at the door (no one turned away for lack of funds) | 22
Start: 6:00 pm
Co-sponsored by CUESA Coming early for a reception with Ferry Plaza Farmers Market refreshments! Wenonah Hauter is the executive director of Food & Water Watch, but she also runs an organic family farm in Northern Virginia that provides healthy vegetables to over five hundred families in the Washington, D.C., area as part of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Despite this, as one of the nation’s leading healthy food advocates, Hauter believes that the local food movement is not enough to solve America’s food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. In Foodopoly ($26.95), she takes aim at the real culprit: the massive consolidation and corporate control of food production, which prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store. Wenonah Hauter has worked and written extensively on food, water, energy, and environmental issues at the national, state, and local levels. She owns a working farm in The Plains, Virginia. Start: 6:30 pm
End: 9:00 pm
Enrollment is Limited - Register Early Tuesdays: Jan. 22 - Mar. 5 (no class Feb. 19) • 6:30-9:00 pm • $350 
Don George’s six-week Intensive Travel Writing workshop is patterned on a graduate school creative writing program. The primary emphasis is on the craft of travel writing. Students read and critique writing assignments each week in class. Assignments progress from a few paragraphs to full-length articles, with the goal of writing publishable-quality pieces. George’s workshop also looks at the marketing of travel articles. Students learn to research stories, write query letters and work with editors. Don George is the former travel editor of the S.F. Chronicle-Examiner and was previously the global travel editor for Lonely Planet guide books. He is also the chairman of the annual Book Passage Travel, Food & Photography Conference. Start: 7:00 pm
Good Prose ($26.00) explores three major nonfiction forms: narratives, essays, and memoirs. Co-authors Tracy Kidder and Richard Todd draw candidly, sometimes comically, on their own experience—their mistakes as well as accomplishments—to demonstrate the pragmatic ways in which creative problems get solved.Like Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style, this book is a succinct, authoritative, and entertaining arbiter of standards in contemporary writing, offering guidance for the professional writer and the beginner alike. Tracy Kidder graduated from Harvard and studied at the University of Iowa. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award, and many other literary prizes. The author of Strength in What Remains, My Detachment, Mountains Beyond Mountains, Home Town, Old Friends, Among Schoolchildren, House, and The Soul of a New Machine, Tracy Kidder lives in Massachusetts. | 23
Start: 10:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
Eight Wednesdays: Jan. 23 - Mar. 13 • 10:00-12:00 pm • $235  The focus will be on French for travel, getting and giving information, and interacting on a basic level. Introduction to grammar and vocabulary. Texts: Barron’s and Grammaire Progressive du Francais, niveau debutant Josette Charbit Schwartz has taught French in Marin at the Lycée Français, The Branson school and French American International in San Francisco, where she currently teaches second grade and adult classes. Born in Paris, Josette has lived in Marin County for 30 years and has a degree in Bilingual Education from France. Start: 1:00 pm
John F. Rothmann presents Harold E. Stassen: The Life & Perennial Candidacy of the Progressive Republican ($45.00). This long-overdue biography follows Stassen from his time as governor of Minnesta in 1938 through his service in the Navy in World War II and later as a key cabinet member in the Eisenhower administration. Stassen was perhaps most famous for being a perennial candidate for the Republican Party nomination, seeking the presidency 10 times between 1944 and 1992. John F. Rothmann is on the faculty of the Fromm Institute at the University of San Francisco and is a talk show host on News Talk 910 AM in San Francisco. Start: 6:00 pm
Douglas Smith presents Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy ($30.00). Historically compelling and told with “brutal clarity,” Douglas Smith’s unprecedented account of the Russian aristocracy is the first book in any language to examine the fate of the nobility during and after the Bolshevik Revolution. Douglas Smith is an award-winning historian and translator and the author of three previous books on Russia. Before becoming a historian, he worked for the U.S. State Department in the Soviet Union and as a Russian affairs analyst for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Munich. He lives in Seattle with his wife and two children. Start: 6:30 pm
Online Registration is now closed. Please call (415) 927-0960 to inquire about remaining space. Left Bank Restaurant Admission: $110 per person | $170 per couple (one book) Joanne Weir, a James Beard award-winning chef, demystifies cooking techniques and gives the home chef 100 recipes for main courses that are easy, comprehensive and delicious. Written as the companion cookbook to her new TV show, Joanne Weir’s Cooking Confidence, it will put the mojo back into your kitchen. Weir is the author of From Tapas to Meze, You Say Tomato, and Recipes from the Wine Country. Price includes the meal, wine, tax, tip & a signed copy of the author’s book. Start: 7:00 pm
Oliver Burkeman discusses The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking ($25.00). Self-help books don’t seem to work. Few of the many advantages of modern life seem capable of lifting our collective mood. Wealth—even if you can get it—doesn’t necessarily lead to happiness. Romance, family life, and work often bring as much stress as joy. We can’t even agree on what “happiness” means. So are we engaged in a futile pursuit? Or are we just going about it the wrong way? Oliver Burkeman is a feature writer for The Guardian. He is a winner of the Foreign Press Association’s Young Journalist of the Year award, and has been short-listed for the Orwell Prize. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, “This Column Will Change Your Life,” and has reported from New York, London, and Washington. He lives in New York City. | 24
Start: 6:30 pm
End: 8:30 pm
World Travel Tips: Galapagos, Peru and Bolivia Thurs., Jan. 24 • 6:30-8:30 pm • $25 Discover the best ways to access Darwin’s ecological find; Peru—Machu Picchu, the Incan treasures, the beauty of the Andes and less traveled Bolivia with its rich Spanish colonial history. President of Cosmopolitan Adventure Tours, Rea Franjetic is a member of the International Ecotourism Society and president of San Francisco Travel Professionals. She was born in Croatia, raised in South America and became part of her family travel business. She is an avid photographer and leader of unique small travel groups. She has done travel presentations locally and internationally. World Travel Tips Series: Thurs., Jan. 10 • 6:30-8:30 pm • $25 Thurs., Jan. 17 • 6:30-8:30 pm • $25 Thurs., Jan. 31 • 6:30-8:30 pm • $25 Thurs., Feb. 7 • 6:30-8:30 pm • $25 Thurs., Feb. 21 • 6:30-8:30 pm • $25 Thurs., Feb 28 • 6:30-8:30 pm • $25 Start: 7:00 pm
Clayborne Carson presents Martin's Dream: My Journey and the Legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. ($27.00). Selected in 1985 by Coretta Scott King to edit the papers of her late husband, Dr. Carson has devoted most of his professional life to the study of MLK. In this candid and engrossing memoir, Clayborne Carson traces his evolution from political activist to activist scholar. He vividly recalls his involvement in the movement’s heyday and in the subsequent turbulent period when King’s visionary Dream became real for some and remained unfulfilled for others. He recounts his conversations with key African Americans of the past half century, including Black Power firebrand Stokely Carmichael and dedicated organizers such as Ella Baker and Bob Moses. His description of his long-term relationship with Coretta Scott King sheds new light on her crucial role in preserving and protecting her late husband’s legacy. Clayborne Carson is professor of History at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute, and also helped to design the King National Memorial. He has spoken about Dr. King and his legacy throughout the world, and has appeared on many national radio and television shows, including Good Morning America, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, The NewsHour, Fresh Air, Morning Edition, Tavis Smiley, Charlie Rose, Democracy Now, and Marketplace. Carson has also served as a historical advisory for numerous documentaries, including “Freedom on My Mind,” which was nominated for an Oscar in 1995. | 25
Start: 6:00 pm
Thien Pham presents Sumo ($14.99). Scott is a washed-up football player who never made it, and whose girlfriend abandoned him along with his dreams of playing pro football. But things have a way of working out, in this sweet, poetic tale--and a new chapter in Scott's life begins as the old one ends. Offered a position in a Japanese sumo training "stable," Scott abandons his old life, his old name, and even his old hair color, and becomes an aspiring sumo wrestler. And in so doing, he begins to find some kind of center in himself...a center that had seemed lost for good. Thien Pham, the acclaimed illustrator of Gene Luen Yang's Level Up, returns as the writer and artist of a unique new graphic novel. Highly poetic and structured to echo the slow build and sudden clash of a sumo match, Pham's Sumo is an unusual and beautiful book. It's nearly a contradiction in terms: a delicate, deft, tender tale about...sumo wrestling. Thien Pham is a comic book and visual artist, based in the Bay Area. He is also a high school teacher. Pham illustrated Gene Luen Yang's Level Up, a YALSA Great Graphic Novel and New York Times Notable Children's Book. Sumo is his first solo work. | 26
Start: 9:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
PLEASE NOTE: This class has been postponed. Please contact erabin@bookpassage.com to be informed as soon as we reschedule this class. Class limit of six 48-hour advance registration required You’ve written a brilliant story and can’t wait to hear what others think. You’re stuck and need a critique. What to do? Bring your manuscript—a picture book, a chapter, or even just an idea (ten-page limit) and we’ll workshop on the spot. Amy Novesky is an independent children’s book editor, author, and experienced workshop leader. Start: 10:00 am
End: 1:00 pm
Please note: this class is full! Sat., Jan. 26 • 10:00-1:00 pm Whether you’re writing about your life as memoir, personal essay or fiction, this three-hour workshop will offer you what every writer needs the most—inspiration and encouragement. Writing prompts and exercises will help you to get started or to dig deeper into your material, and anecdotes about other writers will let you know you’re not alone in your struggle to write. Taught by veteran writer and UCLA Extension teacher, Barbara Abercrombie, whose latest book A Year of Writing Dangerously was chosen as one of the “Best Books for Writers” by Poets & Writers magazine. Start: 1:00 pm
Erica Bauermeister shares The Lost Art of Mixing ($25.95). In prose to be savored, Bauermeister brings back some of the most engaging characters from School and introduces intriguing new personalities as she follows them around the seasons of a year. At the heart of her story once again is Lillian, the chef and restaurant owner with a remarkable ability to bring out the hidden essence of people as well as ingredients, and to combine both in surprising, delightful new ways Erica Bauermeister, the bestselling author of The School of Essential Ingredients and Joy for Beginners, is also the coauthor of 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide and Let’s Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14. She has taught literature and creative writing at the University of Washington, from which she holds a Ph.D. in literature, and is a graduate of Occidental College. Start: 1:00 pm
Lisa O'Donnell reads from The Death of Bees ($25.99). From the opening line of Lisa O’Donnell’s debut novel, you know you are in for something different. "Today is Christmas Eve. Today is my birthday. Today I am fifteen. Today I buried my parents in the backyard. Neither of them were loved.” You quickly learn that the parents buried in the backyard are Izzy and Gene, parents of Marnie and Nelly – two neglectful, selfish, generally heinous adults now moldering beneath loosely planted stalks of lavender. But you do not know how they got there. Not yet. The girls intend to keep the deaths a secret. Lisa O’Donnell won the Orange Screenwriting Prize in 2000 for The Wedding Gift, and in the same year was nominated for the Dennis Potter New Screenwriters Award. Originally from Scotland, she lives in Los Angeles with her family where she is now a full time novelist. Start: 2:30 pm
End: 4:30 pm
Adventures in Creative Writing for Fourth Grade Girls Only
In this “play-shop,” we’ll make word tickets to take home, create “just because” poem cards for special two and four-legged friends, and write a group poem quilt using images from the far corners of our imaginations. All materials provided. Please just bring your willingness to surprise yourself. Start: 4:00 pm
On the twentieth anniversary of Ian Rankin's first American publication comes a novel bursting with the vitality and suspense that made its author one of crime fiction's most dazzling stars. Standing in Another Man's Grave ($25.99) is the triumphant return of John Rebus, and a riveting story of sin, redemption, and revenge. It's every parent's nightmare: a fifteen-year old girl has disappeared. She was last seen hitch-hiking along a scenic highway in rural Scotland, and the only other clue is a photograph sent from her phone. Two detectives, one of them retired, are working the case when they learn that there may be other victims out there, stretching back a decade and more. The road itself may provide them with answers, but a complicated case is only made worse by interference from conflicting witnesses, the police department's own Internal Affairs division--and the ominous attentions of the missing girl's gangster stepfather. Ian Rankin is a #1 international bestselling author. Winner of an Edgar Award and the recipient of a Gold Dagger for fiction and the Chandler-Fulbright Award, he lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons. Start: 4:00 pm
This event is preceded by a yoga workshop with Dana across the courtyard at Yoga Tree. Click here for details on the workshop. After sending out Weekly Oms for over five years, Dana Damara compiled her Oms into what is now known as Oms from the Mat ($17.99). Through the opportunities of her life, she relates philosophical yoga principles in a way that allows all readers to truly relate and connect with the power and magic of this amazing practice. Dana Damara has embraced yoga as a lifestyle both on and off the mat. Through her children, writing, yoga, and creation of meaningful relationships with the community around her, Dana has facilitated that power of soulfulness and spiritual awakening through yoga, both for others and herself. Start: 7:00 pm
Susan C. Strong shares Move Our Message: How to Get America's Ear ($10.00). The 2012 election may be over, but the future of our country still hangs in the balance. What citizens do in 2013 and beyond will make the difference. That’s why progressives need to “speak American” about the issues, whether the focus is climate change, the environment, economic justice, or peace. Using a concept Strong calls "American Framing", this book takes readers through the necessary steps to reach a mainstream audience with your message. Susan C. Strong is the founder and executive director of The Metaphor Project, http://www.metaphorproject.org. She has been helping progressives and liberals mainstream their messages for the last 15 years. |
