Join MaryCatherine McDonald and Anne Lamott for a powerful conversation on healing, survival, and transformation.

A profound new approach to healing trauma, grounded in a radical reframing of how we understand this nearly universal experience

For centuries, we’ve been taught that being traumatized means we are somehow broken—and that trauma only happens to people who are too fragile or flawed to deal with hardship. But as a researcher, teacher, and survivor, Dr. MaryCatherine McDonald has learned that the only thing broken is our society’s understanding of trauma. “The body’s trauma response is designed to save our lives—and it does,” she says. “It’s not a sign of weakness, but of our function, strength, and amazing resilience.”

With Unbroken: The Trauma Response Is Never Wrong, Dr. McDonald overturns the misconceptions about trauma with the latest evidence from neuroscience and psychology—and shares tested practices and tools to help you work with your body’s coping mechanisms to accelerate healing. Here, you’ll explore:

• What is trauma? The latest science that undoes the stigmas of shame, blame, and humiliation
• Moral injury—having our basic sense of how the world should work overturned
• The truth about triggers—what they really are and how they can guide the healing journey
• Traumatic patterns—new findings to help break free from recurring habits and toxic dynamics
• Why we can always rewrite our inner narratives, no matter how much time has passed
• Finding a “relational home” for trauma—how we can help each other return to wholeness

Dr. McDonald’s case studies reveal the many ways trauma can manifest and persist in our lives, yet there’s one factor every case has in common: the trauma response itself reveals the path to healing. “Our traumatic experiences reveal that we can be bent, dented, or bruised,” she says, “but we cannot be broken.” For anyone who has gone through trauma or wants to help others who are struggling, here is an empowering resource for finding our way home to our bodies, rebuilding our relationships, and returning to full engagement with life.

MaryCatherine McDonald, PhD, is a research professor and life coach who specializes in the psychology and philosophy of trauma. She has been researching, lecturing, and publishing on the neuroscience, psychology, and lived experience of trauma since the beginning of her PhD in 2009. She’s published two academic books and many research papers, and she is the creator of a trauma-based curriculum designed to serve previously incarcerated folks and veterans.

Anne Lamott is the author of The New York Times bestsellers Almost Everything; Hallelujah Anyway; Small Victories; Stitches; Help, Thanks, Wow; Some Assembly Required; Grace (Eventually); Plan B; and Traveling Mercies, as well as several novels. A past recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and an inductee to the California Hall of Fame, she lives in Northern California.

MaryCatherine McDonald photo courtesy of the author; Anne Lamott photo courtesy of the author.

In God on Psychedelics, veteran journalist Don Lattin trains his eye on some previously unexamined questions. Why do relatively few people in the burgeoning psychedelic renaissance connect chemically induced mystical states with their own religious traditions? Can sacred plant medicines be a source of renewal for Christians, Jews and other people of faith?

Some clergy and laity think they can. Judaism and Christianity each have centuries-old mystical paths. Yet since the early 1960s, and in the current psychedelic revival, countless North American psychonauts have turned to Buddhism, Hinduism or Native American spirituality to understand the revelatory experience they encountered on magic mushrooms, LSD and other psychoactive drugs.

Today, psychedelics are increasingly used as therapeutic tools to help those suffering from depression, trauma and substance abuse. Meanwhile, decriminalization campaigns and cognitive freedom crusades are sprouting up across the nation, inspiring churches and other fellowships to move beyond the divisive doctrine and denominationalism of old-time religion.

God on Psychedelics takes the reader on a magical mystery tour across the nation's changing religious landscape, exploring a new kind of trinity that blends psychedelic insight, psychological healing and spiritual revival.

Don Lattin has been writing about altered states of consciousness since the 1970s - first as an award-winning religion reporter for daily newspapers in San Francisco and more recently as a bestselling author.

Praise for some of Don Lattin's previous works:

"I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy just about every page," NY Times critic Dwight Garner on The Harvard Psychedelic Club.

"Carefully researched and disarmingly honest," religion scholar Huston Smith on Distilled Spirits.

"Reaches beyond market themes to social issues, culture wars, the search for community, and the varieties of spirituality," American religion historian Martin Marty on Shopping for Faith.

Don Lattin photo courtesy of the author.

Inspiring lessons learned from a lifetime of honor, service, and leadership from Captain Brett Crozier, the former commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt and renowned Navy officer.

Amid one of the darkest times in American history, it was a moment that captured the attention of the nation. Brett Crozier, captain of the most powerful and prestigious aircraft carrier in the United States Navy, walked off his ship for the last time while thousands of his sailors saluted and chanted his name in admiration.

This remarkable moment occurred after Crozier made the decision to try to protect his sailors by pleading with his superiors for help when COVID-19 swept through the vessel. Two days later, he was relieved of command.

Now, Crozier reflects on his life, career, and commitment to doing the right thing in a book that celebrates the power of kindness, the importance of teamwork, and the value of standing up for what you believe in. Through a series of captivating stories set all around the world, Crozier takes us along on the grand adventures of his extraordinary career and introduces the incredible people he met along the way.

From his days as fighter pilot facing near-death experiences to commandeering suspected pirate vessels in the Persian Gulf, and of course, seizing any opportunity to enjoy one of his favorite hobbies—surfing—Crozier distills the lessons he has learned and the principles that have guided him, showing how you can apply them to your personal and professional life.

Brett Crozier grew up in California, graduated from the United States Naval Academy, and embarked on a thirty-year career in the Navy, flying dozens of combat missions over Iraq and leading at the highest levels of operational command. He served as the commanding officer of a combat F/A-18 strike fighter squadron, the world’s largest and most advanced communications ship, and ultimately the USS Theodore Roosevelt before retiring from the Navy in 2022. Surf When You Can is his first book.

Brett Crozier photo courtesy of Rich Soublet II.

Join us to welcome Kristin Jakob and celebrate an installation of her exquisite botanical drawings in the Gallery space!

Kristin will have prints and cards available, perfect for mother's day!

Kristin started to draw plants at the age of twelve, inspired by the native species of California, which remain her favorite subjects. She received an M.A. from the Royal College of Art in London in 1981. Her award-winning art has graced educational posters, numerous journals, several books, and commercial packaging, and she self-publishes a line of greeting cards and fine art prints. In 2013, Kristin was awarded a Milley for creative achievement in the visual arts by the Mill Valley Arts Commission, and in 2018 was the invited Featured Artist at the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival.

Photos courtesy of Kristin Jakob.

In this debut collection, Jesse Nathan matches an exquisite feeling for the music of lines and sentences with his profound explorations of the idea of home. The book’s title comes from the word for a bit of cartilage on a baby bird’s beak, a growth that helps it break out of the egg. Shortly after the bird hatches, the tooth disappears. Like an eggtooth, Nathan’s poems are often figures for birth, for the violence of birth and, in his case, rebirth. They follow an unusual and passionate boy from his childhood on a wheat farm in the watershed of the Running Turkey Creek in rural southcentral Kansas — “the land was always the solace” — to his life years later in a coastal city.

Ecology, family, history, sexuality, and poetry itself are his subjects, but in all these matters, Nathan’s rich formal imagination travels our fundamental feelings of alienation and belonging. In a style somehow both lavish and plainspoken, in free and traditional verse forms, Eggtooth takes us from straw-bale fortresses in the hayloft, from fishing in streams and days so hot the “blank road shimmers” as the heat drives you out of your “strawfrail” mind, to the respite and loneliness of a far-off city plaza, to the “waves in their folding” at the edge where an ocean comes “boiling” onto sand.

With verbal precision and abiding sympathy, Nathan’s poems announce a capacious and deeply compelling new voice in American letters.

Jesse Nathan was raised in northern California and rural Kansas. He teaches literature at UC Berkeley, and he was a founding editor of the McSweeney's Poetry Series. His poems have appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, and The New Republic. Nathan's work has been supported by fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Bread Loaf, the Ashbery Home School, and the Kansas Voices Award. Eggtooth is his first book.

Robert Hass is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection Summer Snow. His work has been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award, a National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, among others. Hass's most recent collection of essays is What Light Can Do. He was poet laureate of the United States from 1995-1997, and for many years taught literature at UC Berkeley. 

Jesse Nathan photo courtesy of the author; Robert Hass photo courtesy of the author.

Wisdom and guidance to face the climate emergency from the most influential spiritual and environmental leaders of our time.

When the Dalai Lama and Greta Thunberg spoke for the first time in January 2021, millions of people around the world took notice. “It is encouraging to see how you have opened the eyes of the world to the urgency to protect our planet, our only home,” the Dalai Lama wrote to Greta before their meeting.

A Future We Can Love shares the words of these two great figures, generations apart, bringing them into dialogue with cutting-edge climate scientists, activists, and spiritual leaders to start a world-changing conversation. Readers embark on a four-part journey toward active hope in the face of the climate crisis: from knowledge of climate science through the capacity for change, to the will that is needed and the actions we can take. The book will help you:
 

• use interdependence as a lens for understanding both the climate crisis and its solutions

• clarify why feedback loops leave us no time to wait on climate action

• metabolize climate anxiety, grief, or burnout into useful energy

• develop your own rituals and practices for connecting to Earth and renewing hope

• overcome common obstacles to speaking and acting clearly on behalf of the human and wild communities most affected by the climate crisis

SUSAN BAUER-WU is an organizational leader, clinical scientist, and mindfulness teacher whose lifework has been dedicated to alleviating suffering and fostering well-being through contemplative wisdom. She is the president of the Mind & Life Institute and previously was the Kluge professor of contemplative end-of-life care at the University of Virginia. She is an avid gardener and hiker who is nourished by trees and animals and awed by our reciprocal connection with nature. She is deeply committed to the care of our planet and to policies and personal actions that will ensure a future we can love for our children and grandchildren. She lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is also the author of Leaves Falling Gently.

Susan Bauer-Wu photo courtesy of he publisher.

MARIN CITY'S BLACK COMMUNITY BATTLES AGAINST POWER, MONEY, AND POLITICS FOR 80 YEARS. 

A Brand New Start...This Is Home documents Marin City’s founding as a shipbuilding community during WWII, as workers migrated from the American South & Midwest to create Marin County’s only Black enclave. This book focuses mainly on housing and social challenges from 1942 to the present day, showing the community’s fierce strength and resilience.

Felecia Gaston is the Founder & Executive Director of Performing Stars, a non-profit organization, founded in 1990, to provide enrichment programs for low-income children, families and communities. The organization has transformed the lives of 3,000 of youth for over a period of 32 years.

To celebrate its 80 year history in 2022 Felecia has created the Marin City Historical & Preservation Society to tell the largely untold story of African American perseverance in Marin County.

Some of Felecia’s awards include the Marin Women & Hall of Fame (1999) and the Marin Human Rights Commission - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Award (2002). She also has been featured on television in ABC7 Salutes by Cheryl Jennings, Anchor, KGO-TV (2006) and the Hallmark Channel-New Morning Television (2006). In 2012, Felecia was recognized with a Cultural Treasures Award by the Marin County Cultural Services Commission, as an honoree for the National Coalition of 100 Black Women’s “Bridging the Generations” event, and as a Role Model Hero of Marin by the Pacific Sun newspaper and Circle Bank. In 2015, Felecia was presented with recognition into the House of Representatives Congressional Record by the Honorable Jared Huffman. In 2020 Felecia received the Center for Volunteers and Nonprofit Leadership’s Achievement in Nonprofit Excellence award. And most recently, in 2023 The HER Community Service Award, sponsored by HERPRENUER Network. 

Felecia Gaston photo courtesy of the author

It’s crazy how a moment in time can change the course of an entire family.

Them Before Me is the story of a child innocently born into a family living in emotional chaos.  Nancy’s parents lived in the shadow of historical trauma from immigration, family deaths, abuse, and divorce, and were unable to deliver the parental structure and dependable love this child so desperately needed. Events beyond all their control, together they were led down a path of intergenerational loss, grief, and pain.

From a very young age, Nancy, bewildered and concerned, and with the monumental challenge to live a normal childhood, somehow still managed to see her world as a glass-half-full. As her heart expanded, she found her way to a place of genuine compassion and forgiveness, which led her to live out of earnest gratitude and unfeigned love. Nancy turned hardship into opportunity, until she found herself living a self-fulfilled life of meaning and joy, one that she lives today. 

As Nancy put her personal puzzle pieces together, although often painful and heartbreaking, but totally worth the journey, telling her story of Them Before Me was a gift. Not just for herself, but for those who need the permission and tools to find their own paths of healing their hearts and souls.

Nancy Zimmerman Pechner, M.S., Counseling Psychology, always needing to keep it fresh, is somewhat of a Renaissance woman. Her careers have been many. She is a professional mother, artist, community lay-leader and Founder of the Jewish Community High School of the Bay, curriculum developer, teacher – using art as a vehicle towards self-awareness, facilitator, counselor, officiant, massage therapist, and now, author. Holding space for growth and change is the common thread that runs through her lifetime of personal research on the human condition, and putting what she has observed into action for the greater good. Nancy lives in Maui, Hawaii, and is married to her husband of 33 years. They have three adult children.

Vivien Braly has a lifetime love of reading and sharing stories. She works as the Director of PJ Library Bay Area, a family engagement and book program of the San Francisco based Jewish Community Federation. She has developed longstanding partnerships with Bay Area Jewish organizations and has fourteen years of experience in relationship building and programming around Jewish stories for families. She currently serves on the Board of Directors of Shalom Bayit, the Bay Area’s center for domestic violence prevention and healthy relationships education in Berkeley. She has lived with her family in Marin County for 27 years.  
 

Nancy will be donating all proceeds from the book to the following charities and kindly asks that you consider contributing to them as well:

Click the links below to donate:

Beverly Shirlee Zimmerman Bock Fund for Girls and Women At Risk

Nā Keiki O Emalia - Helping Children Heal
Providing support for grieving children, teens and their families.

Nancy Zimmerman Pechner photo courtesy of Richard Pechner.

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Genius of Birds and The Bird Way, a brilliant scientific investigation into owls—the most elusive of birds—and why they exert such a hold on human imagination

For millennia, owls have captivated and intrigued us. Our fascination with these mysterious birds was first documented more than thirty thousand years ago in the Chauvet Cave paintings in southern France. With their forward gaze and quiet flight, owls are often a symbol of wisdom, knowledge, and foresight. But what does an owl really know? And what do we really know about owls? Though our fascination goes back centuries, scientists have only recently begun to understand in deep detail the complex nature of these extraordinary birds. Some two hundred sixty species of owls exist today, and they reside on every continent except Antarctica, but they are far more difficult to find and study than other birds because they are cryptic, camouflaged, and mostly active in the dark of night.

Jennifer Ackerman illuminates the rich biology and natural history of these birds and reveals remarkable new scientific discoveries about their brains and behavior. She joins scientists in the field and explores how researchers are using modern technology and tools to learn how owls communicate, hunt, court, mate, raise their young, and move about from season to season. We now know that the hoots, squawks, and chitters of owls follow sophisticated and complex rules, allowing them to express not just their needs and desires but their individuality and identity. Owls duet. They migrate. They hoard their prey. Some live in underground burrows; some roost in large groups; some dine on black widows and scorpions.

Ackerman brings this research alive with her own personal field observations about owls and dives deep into why these birds beguile us. What an Owl Knows is an awe-inspiring exploration of owls across the globe and through human history, and a spellbinding account of their astonishing hunting skills, communication, and sensory prowess. By providing extraordinary new insights into the science of owls, What an Owl Knows pulls back the curtain on the nature of the world’s most enigmatic group of birds.

Jennifer Ackerman has been writing about science and nature for more than three decades. Her most recent book, What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World's Most Enigmatic Birds (forthcoming from Penguin Press, June 2023), explores recent findings on the biology, behavior, and conservation of owls. Her previous book, The Bird Way: A New Look at How Birds Talk, Work, Play, Parent, and Think, was a finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award. Her New York Times bestselling book, The Genius of Birds, has been translated into 25 languages and was named one of the best nonfiction books of 2016 by The Wall Street Journal, a Best Science Book by National Public Radio's "Science Friday", and a Nature Book of the Year by the London Sunday Times. Her other books include Birds by the Shore: Observing the Natural Life of the Atlantic Coast (2019 reissue by Penguin Press of her first book, Notes from the Shore), Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body, and Chance in the House of Fate: A Natural History of Heredity. Ackerman's articles and essays have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times Magazine, Scientific American, and many other publications. She is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships, including a National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Nonfiction, a Bunting Fellowship, and a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Jennifer Ackerman photo courtesy of Sofia Runarsdotter.

From the author of the bestselling memoir Wild Game comes a riveting novel about Cape Cod, complicated families, and long-buried secrets—for fans of the New York Times bestsellers The Paper Palace and Ask Again, Yes.

Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined. Ken is a successful businessman with political ambitions and a picture-perfect family and Abby is a talented visual artist who depends on her brother’s goodwill, in part because he owns the studio where she lives and works.

As the novel opens, Adam is approaching his seventieth birthday, staring down his mortality and fading relevance. He has always managed his bipolar disorder with medication, but he’s determined to make one last scientific breakthrough and so he has secretly stopped taking his pills, which he knows will infuriate his children. Meanwhile, Abby and Ken are both harboring secrets of their own, and there is a new person on the periphery of the family—Steph, who doesn’t make her connection known. As Adam grows more attuned to the frequencies of the deep sea and less so to the people around him, Ken and Abby each plan the elaborate gifts they will present to their father on his birthday, jostling for primacy in this small family unit.

Set in the fraught summer of 2016, and drawing on the biblical tale of Cain and Abel, Little Monsters is an absorbing, sharply observed family story by a writer who knows Cape Cod inside and out—its Edenic lushness and its snakes.

Adrienne Brodeur is the author of the memoir Wild Game, which was selected as a Best Book of the Year by NPR and The Washington Post and is in development as a Netflix film. She founded the literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story with Francis Ford Coppola, and currently serves as executive director of Aspen Words, a literary nonprofit and program of the Aspen Institute. She splits her time between Cambridge and Cape Cod, where she lives with her husband and children.

Adrienne Brodeur photo courtesy of Tony Luong.