Monday, May 12
ANDREW SEAN GREER

ANDREW SEAN GREER talks about his novel, THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE. It is 1953 and Pearlie Cooke, a dutiful housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset district of San Francisco, struggling to understand the world around her, most especially her husband, Holland. Pearlie's story is a meditation not only on love but also on the effects of war—with one war just over and another in Korea coming to a close. In a climate of fear and repression—political, sexual, and racial—THE STORY OF A MARRIAGE portrays three people trapped by the confines of their era, and the desperate measures they are prepared to take to escape them.

"This is a haunting book of breathtaking beauty and restraint. Greer's tone-perfect prose conjures an unforgettable woman who exists both within and somehow above the stifling class, racial and sexual constraints of 1950s America—and who must unravel the great mystery of her place within it."

"Andrew Sean Greer, one of the most talented young writers of our time, has written a beautiful and moving tale of war, sacrifice, race, and motherhood. But ultimately, as with The Confessions of Max Tivoli, this is a book about love, and it is a marvel to watch Greer probe the mysteries of love to such devastating effect."

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of the bestselling novel The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named a best book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle. His stories have appeared in Esquire, the Paris Review, and the New Yorker. He lives in San Francisco.

7:00 PM in the store

Wednesday, May 14
RICK PERLSTEIN

RICK PERLSTEIN discusses NIXONLAND: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Told with urgency and sharp political insight, NIXONLAND recaptures America's turbulent 1960s and early 1970s, and reveals how Richard Nixon rose from the political grave to seize and hold the presidency. Perlstein's epic account begins in the blood and fire of the 1965 Watts riots, nine months after Lyndon Johnson's historic landslide victory over Barry Goldwater appeared to herald a permanent liberal consensus in the United States. Between 1965 and 1972, however, America experienced no less than a second civil war. Out of its ashes, the political world we know now was born. Throughout NIXONLAND we get tantalizing glimpses of Jimmy Carter, George H. W. Bush, Jesse Jackson, John Kerry, and even of two ambitious young men named Karl Rove and William Clinton—and a not so ambitious young man named George W. Bush. Filled with prodigious research and driven by a powerful narrative, Rick Perlstein's magisterial account of how America divided confirms his place as one of our country's most celebrated historians.

Rick Perlstein is the author of the best-selling Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus. From 2003 until 2005, he covered the presidential campaigns as chief national political correspondent for the Village Voice, and later wrote a biweekly column for The New Republic Online. He is now senior fellow at the Campaign for America's Future.

7:00 PM in the store

Thursday, May 15
SHEILA WELLER

SHEILA WELLER talks about GIRLS LIKE US: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon—And the Journey of a Generation, a groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists, who remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Their epic stories trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation. GIRLS LIKE US is an epic look at three women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them—confessors in song, rock superstars, and determined adventurers. The Boston Globe notes "Sheila Weller's new book…is a page-turner of the first order. Weller stretches ambitiously to create three overlapping biographies of these pop stars. She succeeds by sheer force of will and by inner-circle access that helps her to interview seemingly all the friends, colleagues, and family members who knew them.”

Sheila Weller is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning magazine journalist. She is the author of five previous books. She is the senior contributing editor at Glamour, and a contributor to Vanity Fair.

7:00 PM in the store

Friday, May 16
RAJ PATEL

RAJ PATEL discusses STUFFED AND STARVED: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System.

"One of the most dazzling books I have read in a very long time. The product of a brilliant mind and a gift to a world hungering for justice."

Half the world is malnourished, the other half obese—both symptoms of the corporate food monopoly. To show how a few powerful distributors control the health of the entire world, Raj Patel conducts a global investigation. What he uncovers is shocking—the real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa, an epidemic of farmer suicides, and the false choices and conveniences in supermarkets. Yet he also finds hope—in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable, and joyful food system. From seed to store to plate, STUFFED AND STARVED explains the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.

Raj Patel, former policy analyst for Food First, a leading food think tank, is a visiting scholar at the UC Berkeley Center for African Studies. He has written for the Los Angeles Times and the Guardian, and though he has worked for the World Bank, WTO, and the UN, he's also been tear-gassed on four continents protesting them.

7:00 PM in the store

Monday, May 19
BILL CARTER

BILL CARTER discusses RED SUMMER: The Danger, Madness, and Exaltation of Salmon Fishing in a Remote Alaskan Village. Set in the tiny Native village of Egegik on the shores of Alaska's Bristol Bay, Bill Carter's RED SUMMER is the thrilling story of one man's journey from novice to seasoned fisherman over the course of four beautiful, brutal summers in one of the earth's few remaining wild places. As millions of salmon race toward their annual spawning grounds, Carter learns the ancient, backbreaking trade of the set net fisherman, one of the most exhilarating and dangerous jobs in the world.

"Red Summer is a wonderful book about a rare subject, the mysterious pleasure of brutally hard work. Bill Carter proves again that he is a first-rate writer in the fascinating tradition of Junger and Krakauer."

Bill Carter is the author Fools Rush In, and the director of Miss Sarajevo, the award-winning documentary film. He has written for Rolling Stone, Men's Journal, Gear and Spin magazine.

7:00 PM in the store

FOR YOUNG ADULTS, TOO!
Wednesday, May 21
CORY DOCTOROW

CORY DOCTOROW reads from LITTLE BROTHER. Marcus, a.k.a "w1n5t0n," is only seventeen years old, but he figures he already knows how the system works—and how to work the system. Smart, fast, and wise to the ways of the networked world, he has no trouble outwitting his high school's clumsy surveillance systems. But his whole world changes when he and his friends find themselves caught in the aftermath of a major terrorist attack on San Francisco. In the wrong place at the wrong time, Marcus and his crew are apprehended by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison where they're mercilessly interrogated for days. When the DHS finally releases them, Marcus discovers that his city has become a police state. He knows that no one will believe his story, which leaves him only one option: to take down the DHS himself.

"I'd recommend Little Brother over pretty much any book I've read this year."

Cory Doctorow is a coeditor of Boing Boing and writes columns for Make, Information Week, the Guardian online, and Locus. He has won the Locus Award three times, been nominated for the Hugo and the Nebula, and was named one of the Web's twenty-five influencers by Forbes magazine. He hopes you'll use technology to change the world.

7:00 PM in the store

Friday, May 23
JOHN STRALEY

JOHN STRALEY, the twelfth Writer Laureate of Alaska, reads from THE BIG BOTH WAYS. It's 1935. Jobs are scarce. Yet Slippery Wilson walks off his job at a logging camp afer a gruesome accident kills a co-worker. He's headed for Seattle with his savings, planning to buy a piece of farmland and be his own boss. But when he stops to help a woman get her car out of a ditch, his life takes a serious detour. The woman is Ellie Hobbs, an anarchist from the docks of Seattle who looks after her young niece, and dreams of flying planes. But right now she's got a busted nose and has just stuffed a dead man's body into the trunk of her car. So begins the action that will take Slip, Ellie, and her niece on a heart-stopping adventure up the Inside Passage from Puget Sound to Alaska.

John's first book, Woman Who Married a Bear, won the Shamus Award for the Best First Mystery of 1993. His third book, The Music of What Happens, won the 1997 Spotted Owl Award for Best Northwest Mystery.

7:00 PM in the store