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Book Events Alumni Presenters |
For those of you who wish to learn more about some of our former Book Event presenters, here is a list of the writers, illustrators and other literary illuminaries who have appeared at a Gallery Bookshop Book Event in 2006. Links to the Book Events guest speakers' websites will open in a separate window, so you may easily return to the Gallery Bookshop website. |
Holly Brackman The Surface Designer's Handbook
Sunday, December 10, 2006, at 3:00 pm
Mendocino County textile artist Holly Brackman shared her traveling gallery of beautifully patterned fabrics and garments. The Surface Designer's Handbook, featuring work by several Mendocino Coast artists, includes a wealth of information on dyeing and surface design not found in any book currently in print. Learn to create richly patterned fabrics with the most comprehensive book for learning how dyes work and how they can be used with surface design techniques. The Surface Designer's Handbook features easy-to-follow photographs, step-by-step instructions and a color photo gallery from today's top fiber artists.
Orders/Information:
The Surface Designer's Handbook by Holly Brackman Interweave Press. Paperback with concealed spiral binding. $29.95 ISBN 193149990X
Nicholas Wilson Mendocino in the Seventies
Saturday, December 9, 2006, at 3:00 pm
Nicholas Wilson presented his long-awaited book of photographs, Mendocino in the Seventies. Nick showed slides of his work and shared the stories behind the images.
Nick moved to the Mendocino Coast in 1970, and soon became a professional photographer who documented the people, the places, and the interesting events going on around him. It was a time of major culture change, the beginning of a wave of migration from the cities to the country. Mendocino was a magnet for artists, writers, musicians, craftspeople, do-it-yourself homebuilders, poets, beatniks, hippies, bohemians and others who were drawn by the stunning natural beauty, the old sawmill towns dating from the mid 1800s, and the availability of cheap land and low rents, among other attractions.
The places in the book include the funky (pre-gentrification) old towns and gorgeous scenery of the central Mendocino Coast along the Coast Highway from Elk to Usal, inland to Comptche, and the Highway 128 corridor. There's a special effort to include notable businesses of the time that are now history, like the Pyewacket, the Uncommon Good, the Sea Gull, the Elk Oasis, Alphonso's, Accelerated Research, Toad Hall and more ... even Dostal's Clock Shop and Laundromat, and the Bank of America branch.
The people in the book include many who were part of the counterculture "scene," including musical groups like Cat Mother, The Mendocino All-Stars, Dirty Legs, Colors, Mooncoin and other musical groups, and individual musicians like Judy Mayhan, Gene Parsons, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, Bob Gibson, Joel Scott Hill, Philo Hayward, Billy Shay, Peter Oliva, Jerry "Coco" Cofrancesco -- too many to list in full. Of course it's not only musicians who are pictured, but many others including Bill Zacha, Dave Sverko, Joe Ponts, Sam Costa, Raymond Hee, Peter Lit, Dan Firpo, Jim Bertram, Jane Brandon, John Griffith, Byrd Baker, J.D. Mayhew, Kathy O'Grady, Kathy Underhill, Victor Biondo, Richard Mabbatt and many, many more, some of whom have departed this life.
The events; you want events? How about all those outdoor rock 'n roll picnic dance concert boogies at Bo's Land on Albion Ridge, the Grossman Ranch on Navarro Ridge, Toad Hall Meadow and the Mendocino Woodlands? Then there are parades, including the Portuguese Pentecost parade and of course the July 4 parade, maybe even Fort Bragg's Paul Bunyan Days parade on Labor Day weekend. The Mendocino Whale War of 1976 and the first Mendocino Whale Festival are included. There was even a storied psychedelic "ditch" party out on Comptche Road that people still talk about a third of a century later.
The book is a hard cover coffee table book with 160 pages and a full dust jacket. It's printed on heavyweight, high-quality coated paper.
More information about the book (including sample photos) can be found at http://www.nwilsonphoto.com/book.htm
Orders/Information:
Mendocino in the Seventies by Nicholas Wilson
Hardcover $59.96 (no ISBN)
Bobby Markels Summing Up
Sunday, November 5, 2006, at 3:00 pm
Local author Bobby Markels read from her latest collection of writings, Summing Up, which celebrates Bobby's ninth decade with stories, essays and poems never before gathered in book form. A resident of Mendocino since 1966, Bobby has an inimitable voice and presence that make her readings unforgettable.
Orders/Information:
Summing Up by Bobby Markels Paperback, $7.95 (no ISBN)
Margaret Fox Morning Food
Sunday, November 12, 2006, at 11:00 am
For more than 20 years, Margaret Fox served up some of California's tastiest breakfasts and brunches at her landmark restaurant Café Beaujolais on the Mendocino coast. The original Morning Food shared Fox's legendary dishes and became a comfort food classic.
Fully revised with the addition of 30 new recipes, evocative photographs, and a fresh look, the new edition of Morning Food has all the cozy appeal and culinary authority of the original in a charming new package.
"Wonderful and innovative. The simplest breakfast dish comes out tasting like nothing you've ever experienced before. Fox's enthusiasm for food -- and life -- is catching."
-- San Francisco ChronicleOrders/Information:
Morning Food by Margaret Fox
ISBN 1580087825 Ten Speed Press, Paperback $19.95
Linda Faillace Mad Sheep:
The True Story Behind the USDA's War on a Family FarmSunday, November 5, 2006, at 3:00 pm
Linda Faillace talks about her new book, Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA's War on a Family Farm.
Mad Sheep is the account of one family's struggle against a bullying and corrupt government agency that long ago abandoned the family farmer to serve the needs of corporate agriculture and the industrialization of our food supply.
In the mid-1990s Linda and Larry Faillace had a dream: they wanted to breed sheep and make cheese on their Vermont farm. They did the research, worked hard, followed the rules, and, after years of preparation and patience, built a successful, entrepreneurial business.
But just like that, their dream turned into a nightmare. The U.S. Department of Agriculture told them that the sheep they imported from Europe (with the USDA's seal of approval) carried a disease similar to the dreaded BSE or "mad cow disease." After months of surveillance -- which included USDA agents spying from nearby mountaintops and comically hiding behind bushes -- armed federal agents seized their flock. The animals were destroyed, the Faillace's lives turned upside down, all so that the USDA could show the U.S. meat industries that they were protecting America from mad cow disease -- and by extension, easing fears among an increasingly wary population of meat-eaters.
Similar to the national best-selling book, A Civil Action, readers will cheer on this courageous family in its fight for justice in the face of politics as usual and the implacable bureaucracy of the farm industry in Washington, DC.
Linda Faillace is a writer, shepherdess, songwriter, and owner of a country store dedicated to supporting local farmers and locally grown food. She has studied mad cow disease since the early 1990s. A champion of organic and sustainable farming, farmer's rights, and strong local communities, Linda lives with her husband, Larry, and their three children in East Warren, Vermont.
Orders/Information:
Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA's War on a Family Farm by Linda Faillace ISBN 1933392096 Chelsea Green Publishing, Hardcover $25.00
Lindsey Smith Hailing theTaxi Hopefully
Sunday, October 22, 2006, at 3 pm
Lindsey Smith read from her new chapbook of poems, Hailing the Taxi Hopefully. Lindsey is the current California High School Poet Laureate and has presented her poetry on West Coast Live, read on the steps of the Capitol Building in Sacramento, and received numerous awards for her writing. She is a graduate of Pacific Coast Charter School in Point Arena and currently attends Stanford University. Here's a short poem from her new book, Kitchen:
Last night, in the kitchen, I burned ice cubes
I picked up a shattered dish, washed it and put it away
I talked to my grandmother, cold for three years, about the price of tomatoes, while canning squash, corn and pineapple in our own sweat
I sat, like a child at the top of the stairs, with my fingers in my ears, listening intensely to the unsaid
How sweet bitterness tastes, after aging on the tongue a few days.
No longer is it bitterness, it then becomes fierce love.
Janet Lapierre Family Business
Sunday, October 15, 2006, at 3 pm
Set in 2002, LaPierre's crisply plotted ninth Port Silva mystery features mother-daughter sleuths Patience and Verity Mackellar (after 2004's Death Duties), who once again must deal with violence in the picturesque Northern California coastal town.
A rally against the march to war in Iraq turns ugly when several protesters struggling with police tumble off a cliff into the ocean. Among the casualties is Daniel Soto, a worker Verity has hired to help remodel her new home. Though Daniel is missing, he's presumed dead. But Soto's grief-stricken girlfriend, Grace Beaubien, refuses to accept his death and hires the Mackellars to find him -- and to uncover the past he had never disclosed to her. Lending support are Verity's hunky boyfriend, Det. Johnny Hebert, and her engaging soon-to-be-adopted daughter, nine-year-old Sylvie.
Blending contemporary issues and family conflicts with a solid mystery plot, the author reaffirms her fluid mastery of the cozy.
For more information, you can visit www.janetlapierre.com
Orders/Information:
Family Business by Janet Lapierre Adah Publishing, paperback $12.00 (no ISBN)
Leslie Larson Slipstream
Saturday, October 14, 2006, at 3 pm
Leslie Larson, Berkeley author of Slipstream, spoke at Gallery Bookshops.
In addition to reading from her riveting novel, Leslie discussed the development of her remarkable characters. Slipstream is "A genuinely startling novel ... Larson's people are alive on the page, and they pulled me along with them as things got scarier and scarier until ... Well, you have to read the book to learn that -- and trust me, it will be worth it." (Dorothy Allison).
In Slipstream, Larson traces the intersecting paths of five people as each struggles to stay afloat in the face of major setbacks, minor failures, and the reckless pursuit of an elusive second chance. When Rudy loses his job cleaning jets at the airport, his sanity and his marriage threaten to follow. While his wife, Inez, secretly saves her pennies and plots an escape, his coworker Wylie, a bartender at LAX, is about to receive the surprise of his life. Meanwhile, Wylie's brother, Logan, newly released from jail, tries desperately to stay out of trouble while traipsing through a minefield of temptations. And Logan's daughter, Jewell, is nursing a heart broken once by an unfaithful girlfriend and again by a father who can't seem to stick around. Though they don't know it, these five people are headed toward an explosive event that will have consequences for them all.
Orders/Information:
Slipstream by Leslie Larson ISBN 0307337995 Shaye Areheart Books, hardcover $23.95
Josie Iselin
With additional text by Margaret W. CarruthersBeach Stones
Sunday, October 1, 2006, at 3 pm
Beach stones are objects of contemplation and beauty. In her exquisite book Josie Iselin presents more than 200 exceptional stones from around the world and describes the fascinating natural processes that produced them. Her work may put readers in mind of the projects of Andy Goldsworthy, whose constructions made of found objects have inspired more than a few artists to work with found objects.
Beach Stones is both a gorgeous art book and a nature guide that will inspire artists and lovers of the natural world. Text is by Margaret W. Carruthers, noted author of several earth science books.
As a special treat for Gallery Bookshop guests, Josie Iselin brought her traveling studio to Mendocino and created a mini-gallery show of "Mendocino Stones." She demonstrated how she makes her images, and described how she created her book.
Josie Iselin is a San Francisco-based photographer and installation artist who uses a flatbed scanner to generate her imagery. Her work has been exhibited at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Intersection for the Arts, SF Camerawork, and art galleries in the Bay Area.
For more information, you can visit www.josieiselin.com
Orders/Information:
Beach Stones by Josie Iselin, additional text by Margaret W. Carruthers ISBN 0810955334 Abrams hardcover $17.95
Jessica Prentice
Full Moon Feast: Food & the Hunger for ConnectionSunday, June 18, 2006, at 3 pm
In Full Moon Feast accomplished chef and passionate food activist Jessica Prentice champions locally grown, humanely raised, nutrient-rich foods and traditional cooking methods.
Her book follows the thirteen lunar cycles of an agrarian year, from the midwinter Hunger Moon and the springtime sweetness of the Sap Moon, to the bounty of the Moon When Salmon Return to Earth in autumn.
Each chapter includes recipes that display the richly satisfying flavors of foods tied to the ancient rhythm of the seasons. Full Moon Feast is a call to reconnect to our food, our land, and each other.
Jessica Prentice is a professional chef, food activist, and founder of Wise Food Ways. She teaches classes in the San Francisco Bay Area that empower students to cook nourishing meals based on locally grown, ethically sound ingredients.
Her website is www.wisefoodways.com.
Orders/Information:
Full Moon Feast: Food & the Hunger for Connection by Jessica Prentice, with a foreword by Deborah Madison ISBN 1933392002 Chelsea Green paperback $25
Pam Houston
Sight HoundSunday, June 4, 2006, at 3:00 pm
Pam Houston, author of Sight Hound, visited Gallery Bookshop. From the bestselling local author of Cowboys Are My Weakness comes a very special love story between a woman and her dog, a wolfhound who teaches "his human" that love is stronger than fear. "Entertaining. ... It's a poignant and joyous novel."
Orders/Information:
Sight Hound by Pam Houston ISBN 0787943118 Price: $13.95.
Cowboys Are My Weaknessby Pam Houston ISBN 0393326357 Price: $13.95.
Leslene Della Madre Midwifing Death: Returning to the Arms of the Ancient Mother
and
Maggie Watson
A Graceful Farewell
Sunday May 21, 2006, at 3:00 pm
In recent history death has been viewed as an enemy to be defeated. In Midwifing Death, Leslene Della-Madre draws upon ancient wisdom to illuminate a sacred feminine view of death that both honors this experience we all share and allows us to live more fully. This book is truly a gift and guide in opening our eyes and hearts to the presence of Love that walks hand in hand with Death. Thanks to Leslene Della-Madre for re-framing Death with wisdom, love, compassion and brilliance. Read it, share it and allow its sacred feminine wisdom into your heart and mind.
-- Susyn Reeve, author of The Gift of the AcornThese powerful and very personal stories of death and dying go a long way to take away our fear of this inevitable process, and give us many tools to meet this profound journey with wisdom, compassion, and dignity.
-- Justine Willis Toms, co-founder of New Dimensions World Broadcasting Network.
Maggie Watson's book A Graceful Farewell is a step-by-step guide designed to give you and your loved ones the gift of peace of mind. It will enable you to gather all of your personal and financial data, organize your thoughts on how to disburse your belongings after you pass on, and state all your wishes with unmistakable clarity. Filling out the pages in this easy-to-use workbook will help you:
- collect all the information your loved ones and executors will need in one easily accessed location
- arrange your will, trust, and Power of Attorney for Health Care
- convey specific instructions to ensure that your wishes are known and carried out
- encourage clear communication among family members
- plan your own funeral and know how to deal with funeral-industry professionals
A unique special section for final wishes helps clarify matters of declining health, choosing where to live one's last years, and many other end-of-life issues. For the self-employed and the small-business owner, a section is provided for the essentials of taxes and licensing, employees, and liability. An extensive resource list is also included, and, for added convenience, the enclosed CD-ROM will allow computer users to print out additional copies of all the forms in this book, or fill them out electronically, print them, and save them on your hard drive.
I can only imagine the hardship my friends and family would face if I became too ill to care for myself, or died, and they had to locate my personal papers and last wishes among my many files, boxes, and hiding places. I've been using an early version of Maggie Watson's workbook and feel a great sense of ease because everything is now accounted for in one place.Orders/Information:
-- Erica Fielder, Artist, NaturalistThis thorough and thoughtful book, which I can leave for my survivors with great peace of mind, encouraged me to give serious thought to what I want to happen just before and after I die. Recently, I moved to a different state; the workbook was helpful as I located documents for packing, and the binder format made it easy to copy pages that needed updating. We all assume we'll live to a ripe old age, but no one knows when life will end. No adult is too young to start recording information in A Graceful Farewell.
-- Norine Newton, RetiredBeautifully organized and presented, this is a gift for your loved ones in the event of incapacitation or upon your final departure. It is a comprehensive, detailed guide for those left behind. I intend to use it myself.
-- G. A. Langer, M.D., Emeritus Professor of Medicine, Castera Professor of Cardiology, Geffen-UCLA School of MedicineA Graceful Farewell is like the hand of a friend: comforting while at the same time guiding me through the right steps. The workbook format makes the often difficult project of organizing data easy. Most important, this book moved me to begin an earnest contemplation of dying from an accepting and wholesome point of view. Thank you, Maggie!
-- Gail J. Davis, RDCS, Medical Imaging/Healthcare Provider
Midwifing Death by Leslene Della Madre ISBN 1891386425 Price: $18.95. Paperback.
A Graceful Farewell by Maggie Watson ISBN 978-1-879384-68-2 Cypress House. Price: $19.95. Paperback.
Tim Holt
On Higher Ground
and
The Simple LifeSaturday, May 13, 2006, at 3:00 pm
Author Tim Holt visited Gallery Bookshop to greet his fans and introduce himself to new readers.
Tim Holt has written a futuristic, back-to-the-land novel, On Higher Ground, set in Northern California, and a collection of essays, Songs of The Simple Life.
Tim lives in the Mount Shasta region of Northern California. Each spring he bicycles down the coast to the Bay Area to talk about his books and the simple life. This year his stops included Gallery Bookshop (May 13), the San Francisco Unitarians (May 21), and the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco (May 22).
Orders/Information:
On Higher Ground by Tim Holt ISBN 0914485199 Price: $13.95.
Songs of the Simple Life by Tim Holt ISBN 0914485202 Price: $11.95.
Michael Parenti
The Culture StruggleFriday April 7, 2006, at 3:30 pm
Drawing from cultures around the world, Michael Parenti, author of The Culture Struggle discussed how beliefs and practices are readily subjected to political manipulation, and that many parts of culture are being commodified, separated from their origins, and packaged and sold to those who can pay for them.
Orders/Information:
The Culture Struggle by Michael Parenti ISBN 1583227040 Price: $12.95. Paperback.
Frances Moore Lappé
Democracy's EdgeFriday March 17, 2006, at 3:30 pm
Frances Moore Lappé, author of Democracy's Edge, bestselling local author of Diet for a Small Planet, visited Gallery Bookshop to discuss her new book in which she reveals a secret revolution that is happening across America, where ordinary citizens are rising up to battle the forces of consolidation of power and exclusion.
Orders/Information:
Democracy's Edge a novel by Frances Moore Lappé ISBN 0787943118 $24.95, hardcover
Luke Breit
The Tumultuous Times of Jesus in The 21st CenturySunday, February 12, 2006, at 3 pm
Long-time friend and former local resident Luke Breit returned to Mendocino on Sunday, February 12 at 3 p.m. with his new book and first novel, The Tumultuous Times of Jesus in the 21st Century.
The Tumultuous Times of Jesus in the 21st Century is the satiric tale of a God grown angry and impatient with modern day moneylenders who have made Christianity unrecognizable and turned it into the indispensable component of the Republican Party's extreme right wing.
"You won't believe what God and His Son decide to do about it," Luke says.
This "wholly engaging romp" through the Second Coming is part adventure, religious thriller, political mystery. Its hero is a Camel-smoking Jesus whose disciples include a beautiful Asian hooker, an agnostic political consultant, the world's former top supermodel and the nation's first woman/Latina/Native American presidential candidate.
The book is funny, sexy and it will make you think.
Luke Breit is a widely published poet and journalist, author of five books of poetry, and columnist for several journals.
His work has appeared in dozens of literary journals and anthologies including The New Yorker, Haight Ashbury Literary Review, Poetry Now, Hika, Oro Madre Magazine, bombay gin, Mendocino Review, Kuksu, Beatitude, The California Bicentennial Poets Anthology, Editor's Choice II: Fiction, Poetry & Art from the U.S. Small Press, Watching from the Sky and Landing Signals.
Until his recent retirement to run his own consulting firm (Breit Strategies, running campaigns for progressive Democrats) he was Press Secretary to the Speaker of the California State Assembly. He also served on the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission.
Luke currently is President of the Board of Directors of the Sacramento Poetry Center and is a former Treasurer and member of the Board of Directors of California Poets In The Schools.
Luke's spot on the Internet is here: www.breitpoet.com
Orders/Information:
The Tumultuous Times of Jesus in The 21st Century a novel by Luke Breit ISBN 1-59926-564-8 (Trade Paperback)
PO Box 270
Main & Kasten Streets, Mendocino, CA 95460
707-937-BOOK (2665)
Email: Info@gallerybookshop.com
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