LITERARY EVENTS: NEWS AND CALENDAR ITEMS FOR SAN DIEGO COUNTY BOOK LOVERS: 1ST 2 WEEKS OF JUNE

 

June 6, 2012 (San Diego) -- SAN DIEGO – The San Diego Public Library continues its poetry and spoken word series Downtown Verse during June. The next featured performance is by the Lake San Marcos Writers on Monday, June 11. The performance begins at 4:00 pm in the Lobby of the Central Library, located at 820 E Street in downtown San Diego. This event is free and open to the public.

 

Learn about other events at the San Diego Public Library’s Central Library and 35 branches, find links to numerous additional resources (including those for local authors), or search for materials online in the Library’s catalog at www.sandiegolibrary.org. 

 

June 8 (Friday, 6:00 pm) — Warwick's will host author of La Jolla/92037, Olivier Dalle for a book launch reception and signing of Hillcrest/92103. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed the book must be purchased from Warwick's.

     Background: Olivier Dalle moved to La Jolla from Paris several years ago and is currently working as a French professor at Palomar College in San Marcos. Aside from teaching his native language, he has always been interested in traveling and writing. He spent four years in the Middle East and has published several books about Cairo and Beirut, focusing on culture and local life instead of tourist sites. He then relocated to the UK and traveled extensively in Africa, Brazil, and Asia before finally arriving in the US, where he worked for a non-profit organization dedicated to staging contemporary art exhibitions in Washington DC. After a brief return to France, Olivier settled in California, where he was quickly inspired to create a new collection of books focused on the diverse local communities of San Diego County.

     Warwicks Books, 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, CA | 92037 | Ph. (858) 454-0347 | www.warwicks.com.

 

June 9 (Sunday, 7:00 pm) — Historian Patricia Pelfrey will discuss her new book Entrepreneurial President: Richard Atkinson and the University of California, 1995-2003 at D.G.Wills Books, 7461 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, 858-456-1800, www.dgwillsbooks.com. University of California President Emeritus Richard C. Atkinson will participate in the discussion.

     Richard C. Atkinson was named president of the University of California in August 1995, barely four weeks after the UC Regents voted to end affirmative action. How he dealt with the admissions wars – the political, legal, and academic consequences of that historic and controversial decision, as well as the issue of governance – is discussed in this book. Another focus is the entrepreneurial university – the expansion of the University's research enterprise into new forms of scientific research with industry during Atkinson's presidency. The final crisis of his administration was the prolonged controversy over the University's management of the Los Alamos and Livermore nuclear weapons research laboratories that began with the arrest of Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee on charges of espionage in 1999. Entrepreneurial President explains what was at stake during each of these episodes, how Atkinson addressed the issues, and why the outcomes matter to the University and to the people of California. Pelfrey's book provides an analysis of the challenges, perils, and limits of presidential leadership in the nation's leading public university, while bringing a historical perspective to bear on the current serious threats to its future as a university.

     Patricia Pelfrey is Senior Research Associate, Center for Studies in Higher Education, and Assistant to the President Emeritus, University of California. She is the author of A Brief History of the University of California and editor of The Pursuit of Knowledge: Speeches and Papers of Richard C. Atkinson.

 

June 10 (Sun. 1:00 to 2:00 pm) — Free Open Air Poetry Reading, Poetry Grove Poets, in San Diego's Balboa Park. Read/Hear Poems under Towering Trees. Enjoy the peaceful setting: no espresso machines! No fees, no sign-up, nothing to buy, no microphone. Lean your bike against a tree trunk; free parking close by for motorcycles and cars; near public transportation.

     All poets (first-time & seasoned), listeners, & kinds of poetry welcome, including rhyme, free verse, limericks, haiku, and more. Read your work and/or the work of others. Or, simply enjoy the variety of poets and

styles. Each poet may have two to five turns, reading 1 or 2 poems per turn. Bring up to 10 poems. Sit on the hardened clay Poetry Bench or : bring a blanket or chair – and a jacket (it's cooler under the trees).

     Find us 5 blocks north of Laurel Street, ¾ of a block east of Sixth Avenue, ¼ block west of Balboa Drive, 150 feet north of Quince. Search for 2 back-to-back garden sheds and the clay Poetry Bench beneath a grove of tall magnolia trees.

     For more detailed directions, location, a photo of the Bench where many of us sit, and more: http://www.PoetryGrove.weebly.com. Questions? Want to receive semi-monthly e-mailed reminders? Send first name & last initial to: Terra Lepore, PoetryGrove@att.net.

 

June 11 (Monday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's will host contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times Magazine, Annie Jacobsen, who will discuss and sign her book Area 51. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed the book must be purchased from Warwick's.

     Background: Area 51, it is the most famous military installation in the world. And it doesn't exist. Located a mere seventy-five miles outside of Las Vegas in Nevada's desert, the base has never been acknowledged by the U.S. government-but Area 51 has captivated imaginations for decades.

     Myths and hypotheses about Area 51 have long abounded, thanks to the intense secrecy enveloping it. Some claim it is home to aliens, underground tunnel systems, and nuclear facilities. Others believe that the lunar landing itself was filmed there. The prevalence of these rumors stems from the fact that no credible insider has ever divulged the truth about his time inside the base. Until now.

     Annie Jacobsen had exclusive access to nineteen men who served the base proudly and secretly for decades and are now aged 75-92, and unprecedented access to fifty-five additional military and intelligence personnel, scientists, pilots, and engineers linked to the secret base, thirty-two of whom lived and worked there for extended periods. In Area 51, Jacobsen shows us what has really gone on in the Nevada desert, from testing nuclear weapons to building super-secret, supersonic jets to pursuing the War on Terror.

     This is the first book based on interviews with eye witnesses to Area 51 history, which makes it the seminal work on the subject. Filled with formerly classified information that has never been accurately decoded for the public, Area 51 weaves the mysterious activities of the top-secret base into a gripping narrative, showing that facts are often more fantastic than fiction, especially when the distinction is almost impossible to make.

     Warwicks Books, 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, CA | 92037 | Ph. (858) 454-0347 | www.warwicks.com.

 

June 12 (Tuesday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's will host Professor of Political Science at the UCSD, Samuel Popkin, who will discuss and sign his book The Candidate. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed the author's most current book must be purchased from Warwick's.

Background: There are two winners in every presidential election campaign: The inevitable winner when it begins – such as Rudy Giuliani or Hillary Clinton in 2008 – and the inevitable victor after it ends. In The Candidate, Samuel Popkin explains the difference between them.

     While plenty of political insiders have written about specific campaigns, only Popkin – drawing on a lifetime of presidential campaign experience and extensive research – analyzes what it takes to win the next campaign. The road to the White House is littered with geniuses of campaigns past. Why doesn't practice make perfect? Why is experience such a poor teacher? Why are the same mistakes replayed again and again?

     Based on detailed analyses of the winners – and losers – of the last 60 years of presidential campaigns, Popkin explains how challengers get to the White House, how incumbents stay there for a second term, and how successors hold power for their party. He looks in particular at three campaigns – George H.W. Bush's muddled campaign for reelection in 1992, Al Gore's flawed campaign for the presidency in 2000, and Hillary Clinton's mismanaged effort to win the nomination in 2008 – and uncovers the lessons that Ronald Reagan can teach future candidates about teamwork. Throughout, Popkin illuminates the intricacies of presidential campaigns – the small details and the big picture, the surprising mistakes and the predictable miscues – in a riveting account of what goes on inside a campaign and what makes one succeed while another fails.

     A vision for the future and the audacity to run are only the first steps in a candidate's run for office. Presidential hopefuls can survive the most grueling show on earth only if they understand the critical factors that Popkin reveals in The Candidate.

     Warwicks Books, 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, CA | 92037 | Ph. (858) 454-0347 | www.warwicks.com.

 

June 13 (Wednesday, 7:30pm) —  Warwick's will host debut novelist Maggie Shipstead, who will discuss and sign Seating Arrangements. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed the book must be purchased from Warwick's.

     Background: Winn Van Meter is heading for his family's retreat on the pristine New England island of Waskeke. Normally a haven of calm, for the next three days this sanctuary will be overrun by tipsy revelers as Winn prepares for the marriage of his daughter Daphne to the affable young scion Greyson Duff. Winn's wife, Biddy, has planned the wedding with military precision, but arrangements are side swept by a storm of salacious misbehavior and intractable lust: Daphne's sister, Livia, who has recently had her heart broken by Teddy Fenn, the son of her father's oldest rival, is an eager target for the seductive wiles of Greyson's best man; Winn, instead of reveling in his patriarchal duties, is tormented by his long-standing crush on Daphne's beguiling bridesmaid Agatha; and the bride and groom find themselves presiding over a spectacle of misplaced desire, marital infidelity, and monumental loss of faith in the rituals of American life.

     Hilarious, keenly intelligent, and commandingly well written, Shipstead's deceptively frothy first novel is a piercing rumination on desire, on love and its obligations, and on the dangers of leading an inauthentic life, heralding the debut of an exciting new literary voice.

     Warwicks Books, 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, Ca | 92037 | Ph. (858) 454-0347 | www.warwicks.com.

 

June 13-15 and 17 (Wed.- Sun.) — Donations of used books are pouring in for the 12th Annual Used Book Sale of the Samuel & Rebecca Astor Judaica Library, which will take place at the Lawrence Family Jewish Community Center, JACOBS FAMILY CAMPUS, 4126 Executive Drive, La Jolla. Admission is free. There is a $10 Early Bird Special Buying Hours Wednesday June 13, 2012 9am to 12pm.Approximately 6,000 titles have been collected, which includes several large estate donations. Rare books and artwork will be included in a silent auction. The bidding will begin Wednesday, June 13st and end Sunday, June 17th at 3:00 PM sharp.

Proceeds from this event will aid the Astor Judaic Library which is a central community resource for Judaic information. The library houses approximately 16,000 volumes including a major Holocaust Collection and the Tillie Lawrence Israel Collection. It also is the home for the collection of the Woman’s Institute for Continuing Jewish Education, and the San Diego Jewish Genealogical Society. For additional information: www.sdcjc.org or Email: andread@lfjcc.com.

 

June 14 (Thursday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's will host local author and UCSD lecturer Louis Perry, who will discuss and sign his book Thank Evolution for God. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed the author's book must be purchased from Warwick's

     Background: The question, who to thank for the evolution of man, his morals and gods, God or Nature, is addressed is put forth in Louis Perry's book, Thank Evolution for God. The answer, as presented by the author, evolved from ten years of lectures and the responses of hundreds of students of many religious persuasions to lectures on the 'Conflicts of Religion with Science and Democracy' at the University of California San Diego.

     Warwick's Books, 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, Ca | 92037 | Ph. (858) 454-0347 | www.warwicks.com.

 

June 14 (Thursday, 7:30 pm) — Warwick's will host local author and UCSD lecturer Louis Perry, who will discuss and sign his book Thank Evolution for God. This event is free and open to the public. In order to be signed the author's book must be purchased from Warwick's.

     Background: The question, who to thank for the evolution of man, his morals and gods, God or Nature, is addressed is put forth in Louis Perry's book, Thank Evolution for God. The answer, as presented by the author, evolved from ten years of lectures and the responses of hundreds of students of many religious persuasions to lectures on the 'Conflicts of Religion with Science and Democracy' at the University of California San Diego.

     Warwicks Books, 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, Ca | 92037 | Ph. (858) 454-0347 | www.warwicks.com.

 

June 16 (Sat. 7:00 pm) — Professor Carlin Romano will discuss his new book America the Philosophical at D.G.Wills Books, 7461 Girard Avenue, La Jolla, 858-456-1800, www.dgwillsbooks.com.

     America the Philosophical is a bold, insightful book that rejects the myth of America the Unphilosophical, arguing that America today towers as the most philosophical culture in the history of the world, an unprecedented marketplace of truth and argument that far surpasses ancient Greece or any other place one can name. With verve and keen intelligence, Carlin Romano—Pulitzer Prize finalist, award-winning book critic, and professor of philosophy—takes on the widely held belief that ours is an anti–intellectual society. Instead, while providing a richly reported overview of American thought, Romano argues that ordinary Americans see through phony philosophical justifications faster than anyone else, and that the best of our thinkers abandon artificial academic debates for fresh intellectual enterprises, such as cyberphilosophy. Along the way, Romano seeks to topple philosophy’s most fiercely admired hero, Socrates, asserting that it is Isocrates, the nearly forgotten Greek philosopher who rejected certainty, whom Americans should honor as their intellectual ancestor.

     America the Philosophical introduces readers to a nation whose existence most still doubt: a dynamic, deeply stimulating network of people and places drawn together by shared excitement about ideas. From the annual conference of the American Philosophical Association, where scholars tack wise guy notes addressed to Spinoza on a public bulletin board, to the eruption of philosophy blogs where participants discuss everything from pedagogy to the philosophy of science to the nature of agency and free will, Romano reveals a world where public debate and intellectual engagement never stop.

     Readers also meet the men and women whose ideas have helped shape American life over the previous few centuries, from well-known historical figures like William James and Ralph Waldo Emerson, to modern cultural critics who deserve to be seen as thinkers (Kenneth Burke, Edward Said), to the iconoclastic African American, women, Native American, and gay mavericks (Cornel West, Susan Sontag, Anne Waters, Richard Mohr) who have broadened the boundaries of American philosophy. Smart and provocative, America the Philosophical is a rebellious tour de force that both celebrates our country’s unparalleled intellectual energy and promises to bury some of our most hidebound cultural clichés.

     Carlin Romano, Critic-at-Large of The Chronicle of Higher Education and literary critic of The Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty-five years, is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Ursinus College. His criticism has appeared in The Nation, The New Yorker, The Village Voice, Harper’s, The American Scholar, Salon, The Times Literary Supplement, and many other publications. A former president of the National Book Critics Circle, he was a finalist for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in Criticism.

 

June 16 (Saturday, 8:00 am) — Ultramarathonther Scott Jurek be participating in a special Group Run & Book Signing at Movin Shoes, 1892 Garnet Ave. Runners can join Scott at Movin Shoes for a group run returning to Movin Shoes at 9:00am. The run will be followed by a discussion, where Scott will also sign copies of his book Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness. This event is free and open to the public. Warwick's will be the onsite bookseller for this event

     Background:For nearly two decades, Scott Jurek has been a dominant force in the grueling and growing sport of ultrarunning. In 1999, as a complete unknown, he took the lead of the Western States Endurance Run, a 100-mile traverse over the old Gold Rush trails of the California Sierra Nevada. He won that race seven years in a row, setting a course record along the way. Twice he won the Badwater Ultramarathon, a 135-mile "jaunt" through Death Valley. He triumphed in the 153-mile Spartathlon in Greece three times. And he was one of the elite runners who traveled to Mexico to run with the Tarahumara Indians, as profiled in the runaway bestseller Born to Run. His accomplishments are nothing short of extraordinary, but that he has achieved all of this on a plant-based diet makes his story all the more so.

    In Eat and Run, Scott Jurek opens up about his life and career, as an elite athlete and a vegan, and inspires runners at every level. From his Midwestern childhood hunting, fishing, and cooking for his meat-and-potatoes family, to his early beginnings in running (he hated it), to his slow transition to ultrarunning and veganism, to his world-spanning, record-breaking races--Scott's story shows the power of an iron will and blows apart all the stereotypes of what athletes should eat to fuel optimal performance. Chock full of incredible, on-the-brink stories of endurance and competition as well as fascinating science and accessible practical advice, including his own favorite plant-based recipes, Eat and Run will motivate everyone to "go the distance," whether that means getting out for that first run, expanding their food horizons, or simply exploring the limits of their own potential.

     Warwicks, 7812 Girard Avenue | La Jolla, Ca | 92037 | Ph. (858) 454-0347 | www.warwicks.com