AUGUST AUTHOR EVENTS AT THE BOOKSMITH
in San Francisco
Welcome to the Booksmith calendar of events for August, 2007. Booksmith author events are free and located at our San Francisco store (1644 Haight Street in San Francisco, between Clayton & Cole), unless otherwise noted. For further information, call 415-863-8688 or visit www.booksmith.com If you cannot attend an event and would like to order a signed copy of a book by an author included in our calendar, please give us a call or email us at read@booksmith.com. We're happy to hold your book or ship it to you.
ELLEN KLAGES
reading & booksigning for Portable Childhoods
Thursday, August 2 at 7 pm
Portable Childhoods (softcover, $14.95) is short fiction that offers a tantalizing glimpse of what lies hidden just beyond the ordinary. Ellen Klages' new collection – which includes the Nebula Award winning "Basement Magic" – has been described by critics as "timeless," "delightful," "chilling," and "beautiful." In the words of writer Connie Willis, "Ellen Klages believes books can be magic, and now she's delivered the proof."
Ellen Klages is the author of The Green Glass Sea, which won the Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction. Her Nebula Award-winning short fiction has appeared in numerous science fiction and fantasy anthologies and magazines, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Strange Horizons. Klages lives in San Francisco.
JESSICA BRUDER
talk & booksigning for Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man
Friday, August 3 at 7 pm
It all began when a pair of friends burned an eight-foot-tall effigy on Baker Beach in front of an impromptu audience of twenty. Two decades later, Burning Man has evolved into an annual extravaganza dedicated to self-reliance and self-expression that attracts nearly forty thousand people. Jessica Bruder's Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man (hardback, $28.95) - illustrated with more than three hundred stunning photographs - is both a commemoration of the event's storied history and an enlightening companion for festivalgoers.
Jessica Bruder is a journalist who has written for the New York Times and Washington Post. She now writes for the Portland Oregonian.
ANITA THOMPSON
talk & booksigning for The Gonzo Way: A Celebration of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson
Monday, August 6 at 7 pm
Tom Wolfe once described Hunter S. Thompson as the finest comic writer of the 20th century. Thompson was this and more, an apt observer of the American scene, the founding father of "Gonzo journalism," and an inspiration to many. Anita Thompson new book, The Gonzo Way: A Celebration of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson (hardback, $14.00), explores the legacy of her late husband as a writer and as a citizen, through her own words and through interviews with those who knew him best.
Anita Thompson began working as Hunter's Thompson's assistant in 1999. In 2000, she moved in and three years later they were married. Today, she is the publisher of a magazine called The Woody Creeker. Anita Thompson lives in the town of Woody Creek outside of Aspen, Colorado where she is also helping edit Hunter's book Polo Is My Life.
REBECCA SOLNIT
reading & booksigning for Storming the Gates of Paradise: Landscapes for Politics
Tuesday, August 7 at 7 pm
Rebecca Solnit has made a vocation out of journeying into difficult territory and reporting back - as an environmentalist, public intellectual, and anti-globalization activist. Storming the Gates of Paradise (hardback, $24.95), a collection of her essays from the past ten years, comprise a unique guidebook to the American landscape after the millennium - not just the deserts, skies, gardens, and wilderness areas that have long made up Solnit’s subject matter, but the social landscape of democracy and repression, of borders, ruins, and protests.
Rebecca Solnit is the author of ten books – among them Wanderlust, Savage Dreams, and Hollow City – as well as numerous articles for which she has received awards and accolades. In 2003, she won the National Book Critics Circle Award for River of Shadows, as well as the Lannan Literary Award.
WILLIAM GIBSON ***
reading & booksigning for Spook Country
Wednesday, August 8 at 7 pm
William Gibson’s new novel involves pirates, the CIA, tramp freighters, weapons of mass destruction, big-time war profiteers, and vast amounts of cash leaving this country. Loosely speaking a "thriller," Spook Country (hardback, $25.95) takes place at the intersection where politics, technology, national security, cryptography and (sometimes) art collide. Picking up threads begun in the author’s bestseller novel Pattern Recognition, it continues its probe of cultural change in the United States since 9/11.
William Gibson is the author of Mona Lisa Overdrive, All Tomorrow’s Parties and other novels. He is credited as the creator of the term cyberspace. Entertainment Weekly has stated he "invented the future with Neuromancer".
*** This Booksmith sponsored event will take place at the All Saints Church (1350 Waller) in San Francisco. For further information, call 415-863-8688 or visit www.booksmith.com
KIM ADDONIZIO
reading & booksigning for My Dreams Out in the Street
Thursday, August 9 at 7 pm
"Kim Addonizio writes like Lucinda Williams sings, with hard-earned grit and grace about the heart's longing for love and redemption, the kind that can only come in the darkest dark when survival no longer even seems likely. My Dreams Out in the Street (hardback, $23.00) is one of the finest American novels I've read in some time, a night-blooming flower you will not be able to put down, so honestly rendered you'll wonder, as you turn the last page, why you feel so much hope." – Andre Dubus III
Kim Addonizio is the author of the novel Little Beauties and several acclaimed collections of poetry, including Tell Me, a finalist for the National Book Award. Her work has appeared widely in journals and anthologies, and she has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA grants, and a Pushcart Prize.
GREIL MARCUS
talk & booksigning for The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice
Tuesday, August 21 at 7 pm
In The Shape of Things to Come: Prophecy and the American Voice (softcover, $15.00), critic and author Greil Marcus traces the nation’s fable of self-invention from its earliest Puritan beginnings to its successive retellings in the work of diverse contemporary artists. The book – just out in paperback - is an exhilarating and kaleidoscopic investigation of American identity where past and the present merge in the most extraordinary and surprising ways.
Greil Marcus is the author of nine previous books, including Lipstick Traces, Mystery Train, and The Dustbin of History. According to author Michael Chabon, "Greil Marcus is the Lew Archer of cultural criticism."
RICHIE UNTERBERGER & ELLIS JONES
talk & booksigning for The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience
and The Better World Shopping Guide: Every Dollar Makes a Difference
Wednesday, August 22 at 7 pm
Sweatshops, fair trade, climate change, ethical investment, organic food . . . shopping can sometimes feel like a moral minefield. What can consumers do to make a difference? Join the discussion as author Richie Unterberger talks about The Rough Guide to Shopping with a Conscience (softcover, $16.99), and author Ellis Jones talks about The Better World Shopping Guide: Every Dollar Makes a Difference (softcover, $18.95).
Bay Area writer Richie Unterberger lives in Oakland and has authored a number of books on music history and travel. Ellis Jones has been teaching students to make a difference for the past 15 years. A scholar of social responsibility, social change and everyday activism, he founded and directs the Better World Network. He currently teaches sociology at University of California, Davis.
JEFF PARKER
reading & booksigning for Ovenman
Tuesday, August 28 at 7 pm
Jeff Parker’s uproariously funny debut novel, Ovenman (softcover, $14.00), follows the adventures of When Thinfinger - skateboarder, pizza slinger extraordinaire, and general ne’er-do well with a slightly tarnished heart of gold. His philosophy is that anything worth saying should fit on a Postit note - and, following too many beer-soaked nights, he comes to rely on these daily notes to himself to serve as memory. "This is a delight of a debut." – Aimee Bender
Jeff Parker fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The Best American Nonrequired Reading, Ploughshares, Tin House, and other books and journals. He currently teaches at the University of Toronto and is the program director of Summer Literary Seminars in St. Petersburg, Russia. He lives in Toronto, Canada, and Ypsilanti, Michigan.
Please join us for one or more of these upcoming events. Booksmith author events are free and located at our San Francisco store (1644 Haight Street in San Francisco, between Clayton & Cole), unless otherwise noted. Seating is offered on a first-come, first-served basis, approximately 45 minutes in advance. For further information, call 415-863-8688 or visit www.booksmith.com If you cannot attend an event and would like to order a signed copy of a book by an author included in our calendar, please give us a call or email us at read@booksmith.com. We're happy to hold your book or ship it to you.
We have a great line-up of author events scheduled. Coming to the Booksmith in the next few months are acclaimed writer GEORGE SAUNDERS (September 10), lost civilizations scholar and television commentator GRAHAM HANCOCK (September 26), Beat poet LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI (October 9), postsecret.com founder FRANK WARREN (October 17), NPR book critic ALAN CHEUSE (October 18), legendary NYC disc jockey COUSIN BRUCIE (November 12), Sesame Street's ROSCOE ORMAN (November 17), Dinotopia author JIM GURNEY (December 5) and many others.
We have new expanded hours. The Booksmith is now open from 10 am to 10 pm Monday through Saturday, and 10 am to 8 pm on Sunday.
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The Booksmith
1644 Haight Street
San Francisco, California 94117
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