books: Boho Beat, North Bay Bohemian

May 14: Kevin Smokler at Copperfield's Books Petaluma

Leilani Clark — Thu, 09 May 2013 11:31:00 -0700

Of all the novels I read in high school, I remember only a handful. I loved Lord of the Flies, A Tale of Two Cities and Catcher in the Rye.…

Jan. 22: Tracy Kidder at Book Passage

Leilani Clark — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:54:00 -0800

Biographies are a dime a dozen, but Pulitzer Prize—winning nonfiction writer Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains—the story of renegade physician and Partners in Health cofounder Paul Farmer—stands out. Kidder is the type of writer that can teach the rest of us writers something real and, luckily, he’s written a new book, along with magazine and book editor Richard Todd, that does just that.…

Dec. 2: "Drinking Diaries: Women Serve Their Stories Straight Up" Reading at Book Passage (Featuring Pam Houston)

Leilani Clark — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:07:44 -0800

Come on, ladies, it’s time to admit it. We all have a drinking story or two, or 20.…

Nov.1: Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) at Copperfield's Petaluma

Leilani Clark — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 11:54:06 -0700

Fans of Lemony Snicket will be overjoyed (though the author himself would probably argue that they should be dismayed and very afraid) to find out that he’s got a new series on the horizon. Who Could It Be at This Hour?, the first in the four-book series All the Wrong Questions, acts as a prequel to the Series of Unfortunate Events, which told the story of the doomed Baudelaire family.…

Oct. 25: Daniel Coshnear at the River Reader

Leilani Clark — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 11:51:23 -0700

Learning about the closing of another independent bookstore is one of the most heartbreaking things to hear as a book lover. So it’s with heavy heart that we watch the River Reader, Guerneville’s only independent bookstore, shut its doors at the end of October.…

Oct. 7: Doris Bailey Murphy Book Celebration at Occidental Center for the Arts

Leilani Clark — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 14:32:27 -0700

Doris Bailey Murphy was a beloved figure around Occidental when she died in 2011. But before moving out West, Murphy lived a life of adventure from early on.…

Sept. 14: Daedalus Howell at Copperfield's Books

Gabe Meline — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:57:00 -0700

After a “middling” career in Hollywood, writer Daedalus Howell returned to Sonoma County, expecting the “rural, rolling hills of his youth.” What he found instead was a viticultured, grape-drunk wine country. I Heart Sonoma is the collection of personal essays that resulted from his journey to rediscover his childhood home, filled with much satire and laughter that even the most jaded Sonoma natives and residents will enjoy.…

Sept 8: Geoffrey Nunberg at Book Passage

Catherine Zaw — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:01:19 -0700

Jerks these days throw the a-word around like an overplayed One Direction song so often that the vulgar profanity has lost its 60 years of glory. Why, when I was your age, we called each other cads, bounders, heels; “asshole” was just for that one special person in life.…

July 19: Dave Eggers at Book Passage

Jay Scherf — Wed, 18 Jul 2012 10:49:00 -0700

Dave Eggers. Good writer guy.…

June 18: Terry Tempest Williams at Book Passage in Corte Madera

Jay Scherf — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 17:30:00 -0700

When President Bill Clinton dedicated the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 1996, ending a battle between mining interests and environmental activists, he held up Terry Tempest Williams’ anthology Testimony: Writers Speak on Behalf of Utah Wilderness and said, “This made a difference.” Both as an activist and a prolific writer, Williams, a sixth-generation Utah Mormon, has become a leading voice for the desert West. Williams presents her latest work, When Women Were Birds, on Monday, June 18, at Book Passage.…

May 17: Bill Bradley at Book Passage

Jennifer Cuddy — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:05:00 -0700

Everyone loves a success story: it’s inspirational to hear and gives everyone a little bit of hope that maybe one day they will have their story heard in a positive light. The 18-year New Jersey senator, former Olympic and NBA athlete, national radio host and author Bill Bradley comes to Marin to discuss his newest book, We Can All Do Better, which talks about his personal view on the current state of our nation.…

April 24: Melanie Thorne at Book Passage

Jennifer Cuddy — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 12:48:00 -0700

Sometimes things happen that are all too easy to turn a blind eye to, or just completely disregard, because it makes us uncomfortable. Local author Melanie Thorne addresses a personal topic that many people probably have some experience with.…

Jan 7: Robert Sandberg at Book Passage

Gabe Meline — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 11:05:08 -0800

A few weeks ago in the pages of this paper, our own Rachel Dovey spotlighted Tom Cooper, a man fascinated with chronicling in book form the tankhouses of Sonoma County. We are enamored of those with idiosyncratic relationships to the minute details of their own terrain, and consequently we love Robert Sandberg and his single-focus book ‘Steps, Lanes and Paths of Mill Valley.’ Of course, these are no ordinary steps, lanes and paths; created around the turn of the century as shortcuts in town, they were abandoned with the advent of car travel, only to be unearthed and rebuilt in the 1990s.…

Nov. 11: Gregory Maguire at Book Passages

Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:47:26 -0800

Redemption for the long-vilified Wicked Witch of the West finally came in 1995, at the compassionate hands of writer Gregory Maguire. His book Wicked reintroduced the witch as an easily relatable, misunderstood and recklessly teased youth just trying to find her footing as the outcasted “green girl”—to say nothing of the immensely popular Broadway musical it inspired.…

Aug. 25: Penn Jillette at Book Passage

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:57:11 -0700

Are you an atheist who doesn’t know it? According to Penn Jillette, the chances are pretty likely.…

Aug. 25: Mike Twohy at River Reader

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 09:55:04 -0700

“I just remember being delighted that the rejection letters addressed me as Mr. Twohy,” Mike Twohy once said in an interview. Now, however, the cartoonist has a lot more to be delighted about, having been published in the Saturday Review, TV Guide, Audubon, Esquire and ultimately inking a regular panel in the New Yorker.…

August 18: Jane Fonda at Book Passage

Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:43:28 -0700

How many times have you eaten breakfast with a two-time Oscar winner? Well, now’s your chance—Jane Fonda is just waiting to meet you.…

August 4: Author Steve Jones at Book Passage

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 09:39:09 -0700

The traditions of Burning Man, now one of the best known and least conventional festivals around, quickly gave rise to an entire culture extending beyond the week-long metropolis constructed each year in the Nevada desert. To wise up before this year’s festival, which starts Sept. 3, check out Steve Jones’ new book The Tribes of Burning Man, which explores the festival’s journey to popularity and the leaders who got it there.…

July 22: O.J. Simpson lawyer Marcia Clark at Book Passage

Wed, 20 Jul 2011 09:31:11 -0700

If you’re not sick of murder cases after the recent Casey Anthony trial, here’s another. Lawyer Marcia Clark, who rose to fame as prosecutor in the O. J. Simpson case—perhaps the only in recent history to top Anthony’s—knows a few things about murder trials and, lucky for us, is willing to share them in fictionalized form.…

July 9: The Diva Doctrine at Book Passage

Wed, 06 Jul 2011 09:23:48 -0700

Ladies, grab your gold hoops, hairspray, little black dress or whatever else it takes to make you feel like a star, and don’t forget your attitude. From Beyoncé to Rachel Berry, America has seen the rise and redefinition of the diva—a new role model for girls and women and a confident go-getter with all the sassy self-assurance of Glee’s Mercedes Jones and the fierceness worthy of Tyra Banks herself.…

June 28: Eva Gabrielsson at Book Passage

Thu, 23 Jun 2011 13:02:40 -0700

Eva Gabrielsson has a few things to get off her chest. In There Are Things I Want You to Know About Stieg Larsson and Me, her new memoir about her lifelong relationship with the late author, she tells a story only she could tell.…

June 21: Sally Wade at Book Passage

Gabe Meline — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:35:03 -0700

“Never argue during a circus.” That’s sound advice for any relationship, but for George Carlin, it held an extra significance: all of life often was a circus anyway. This and other relationship axioms, like “Compliment and flatter Sally all day long,” are found in the new book by Carlin’s wife Sally Wade, The George Carlin Letters: The Permanent Courtship of Sally Wade.…

May 27: Chris Adrian at Book Passage

Gabe Meline — Wed, 25 May 2011 13:51:31 -0700

One of The New Yorker’s 20 authors under 40, Chris Adrian writes novels that are alternately shimmering, gut-wrenching and grotesque. His latest work, The Great Night, re-envisions A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a tale of menace and gloom in modern-day San Francisco’s Buena Vista Park.…

May 15: Larry Flynt at Book Passage

Gabe Meline — Wed, 11 May 2011 10:00:41 -0700

He’s been considered obscene by middle America, convicted for engaging in organized crime, sent to jail, released to spend time with naked women 24/7, shot at and paralyzed, and had a biopic made of his life—and no, he is not Notorious B.I.G. Hustler publisher Larry Flynt has a new book out, One Nation Under Sex, which examines the role that presidents’ sex lives had in shaping White House policy and further exercises the right of free speech that he’s fought fiercely to defend. He and co-author David Eisenbach appear in discussion on Sunday, May 15, at Book Passage.…

Apr. 21: Maya Soetoro-Ng at Book Passage

Gabe Meline — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:14:04 -0700

Maya Soetoro-Ng, sister of President Barack Obama, has published a children’s book called Ladder to the Moon, a story that evokes fantasy and folklore with personal elements included. At a literary luncheon, Soetoro-Ng discusses the inspiration behind her book—as well as fields inevitable questions about her brother—on Thursday, April 21, at Book Passage.…