Sunday January 11 7:30 pm
Max Byrd, the author the bestselling historical novels Jefferson and Grant, returns to Black Oak to read from his new novel, Shooting the Sun. In the spring of 1839, Charles Babbage, the eccentric creator of the Difference Engine, sets out on an expedition to prove that his machine can calculate the precise longitude of a solar eclipse. Accompanying him on his harrowing journey to the American Southwest is Selena Cott, an astronomer who has invented a revolutionary technique to photograph this solar event. But little in this race for fame and fortune is as it seems, and Babbage has allowed for neither romance nor treachery in his calculations.
Monday January 12 7:30 pm
Mikel Dunham, an acclaimed photographer and master thankgha painter, will show slides from his remarkable new book, Samye: A Pilgrimage to the Birthplace of Tibetan Buddhism. Founded in 770, this magnificent monastery withstood several major fires and over a thousand years of the harsh Tibetan winter, only to be devastated by the invading Red Army. The soldiers removed its golden roof, desecrated its frescoes, and expelled or killed the monks who called it home. Even so, as Dunham beautifully documents, Samye stills holds some of its historic treasures, and still attracts Tibetan pilgrims. “I welcome this book of photographs that seeks to convey the impression that Samye makes on pilgrims as they approach and make their way round the monastery. For those of us who are unable to go there ourselves, this is a valuable and moving substitute.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama
Tuesday January 13 7:30 pm
Peter Hart exposes a particularly egregious example of dishonest journalism in The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly, which was co-written with Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). With a nightly audience of more than 3 million viewers, O’Reilly has been highly successful at styling himself as a straight-talking man of the people, free of any political agenda. Hart draws on hundreds of hours of research, fact checking, and analysis to uncover both the hard-right political tilt and the crass opportunism that lies behind O’Reilly’s numerous contradictions and disregard for the truth.
Wednesday January 14 7:30 pm
David L. Kirp, Professor of Public Policy at UC Berkeley, will discuss his new book, Shakespeare, Einstein, and the Bottom Line. This is a wry and insightful look at the most powerful trend in academic life today-- the rise in business values and the belief that efficiency, immediate practical usefulness, and marketplace triumph are the best measure of a university’s success. Kirp looks into marketing incursions in places as diverse as New York University’s philosophy department and the University of Virginia’s business school, describing how schools “brand” themselves for greater appeal, how academic superstars are wooed at outsized salaries, and how the liberal arts shrink under the pressure to be self-supporting. Despite all this, Kirp believes that there may be a place for the market in higher education, as long as the market is kept in its place.
Thursday January 15 7:30 pm
Kevin Danaher, the co-founder of the human rights organization Global Exchange, and Jason Mark, an activist who has helped develop accountability campaigns targeting Starbucks, Nike, and Procter & Gamble, will discuss their compelling new book, Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power. This chronicle of the accomplishments of the budding corporate accountability movement has been praised by Jello Biafra as “Not another sad-faced whine telling us what we already know. It details real victories against corporate dictatorship, and how we can help do more.”
Sunday January 18 7:30 pm
Mary Tolman Kent enfolds almost eight decades of Berkeley history into her absorbing family memoir, The Closing Circle. “This unpretentious but graceful memoir by a privileged but open-hearted liberal perfectly illustrates how the personal blurs into the political, the local into the global, the immediate into the historical. In remembering an eighty-year Berkeley life, literally split in half by the 1960s, Kent uses her experiences to fill in the context that helps us make sense of more dramatic events. She is unfailingly generous toward those whose expectations and values ran counter to her own, but unsparing and unpitying of herself as she faces trials and tragedy.” Dorothy Bryant
Monday January 19 7:30 pm
Francis D. Adams and Barry Sanders take a devastating look at the nature of American society in their deeply researched and impassioned new book, Alienable Rights: The Exclusion of African Americans in a White Man’s Land, 1619-2000. The authors use specific examples from nearly 300 years of history to support their argument that equality for African-Americans has never had the support of the majority of white Americans. Demonstrating that even celebrated drives for racial equality have always been brief, and have always been followed by concerted efforts to restore white privilege, Adams and Sanders suggest that reparations may be the only true step towards racial reconciliation.
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Tuesday January 20 7:30 pm
Every year, the Teach for America program trains thousands of recent college graduates, many of whom have no experience teaching, and places them in needy school districts throughout the US. Molly Ness, a Teach for America alumna who spent two years teaching social studies at Roosevelt Middle School in Oakland, offers the inside story of this program in Lessons to Learn: Voices from the Front Lines of Teach for America. These interviews and essays, in which TFA corps members and alumni reflect on both their teaching successes and failures, provide important insights into the enormous challenges facing our public schools.
Wednesday January 21 7:30 pm
Rabbi Michael Lerner offers an important contribution to those who wish to break a terrible cycle of pain and retribution in his new book, Healing Israel/Palestine: A Path to Peace and Reconciliation. Rabbi Lerner suggests that it is possible to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, provided that one is willing to acknowledge that both sides have legitimate claims, and that both sides have been unnecessarily hurtful and cruel toward the other. He also argues that the best chance for a lasting and equitable security lies in a new spirit of generosity, open-hearted reconciliation, and a genuine commitment to nonviolence. This event is co-sponsored with the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center.
Thursday January 22 7:30 pm
Lisa Lenard-Cook proves herself to be a writer of great subtlety and imagination in her prize-winning first novel, Dissonance. When Anna Kramer, a piano teacher who lives in Los Alamos, New Mexico, inherits the journals and scores of composer Hana Weissova, she is mystified by this bequest from a complete stranger. Playing the music releases a flood of forgotten emotions in Anna, while the journals, which begin after Hana was released from a concentration camp, begin to reveal secrets that Anna’s family hid even from themselves. Russell Martin called this “A fine, clear, spare novel...a work of beauty.”
Sunday January 25 7:30 pm
Dennis E. Anderson captures some of the great unseen beauty that surrounds us in the stunning new book, Hidden Treasures of San Francisco Bay, a collection of his photographs which has recently been published by Heyday Books. Anderson will be joined by Jerry George, the author of the book’s richly informative text, for an evening of slides and discussion about the Bay’s history, conservation efforts, and the future of its many diverse habitats.
Monday January 26 7:30 pm
Bob Guter and John R. Killacky, the editors of Queer Crips: Disabled Gay Men and Their Stories will joined by contributors Danny Kodmur, Michael Perreault, and Blaine Waterman in readings from this powerful collection of first person essays and poems. The authors of these pieces have coped with conditions ranging from cerebral palsy to post-polio syndrome. Their voices (some exasperated, some bemused, some enraged) call across the boundaries of isolation and prejudice, challenging preconceived ideas about sexuality, comfort, desire, and love to insist on their gloriously unique humanity. If you wish to attend this event and require an ASL interpreter, please let us know by January 15.
Tuesday January 27 7:30 pm
After even only a few minutes with Kim Addonizio’s marvelous new book of poetry, What Is This Thing Called Love, you will be struck by how insistently these poems seem to demand being read out loud. Whether her subject is old boyfriends, or caring for an aging parent, or the biochemical loopiness of falling in love, her poems have an engaging lyrical swagger to them, a delicious jazziness even at their most delicate and formal; kind of like watching Baryshnikov performing Twyla Tharp. Don’t miss this great opportunity to hear them read by the poet herself.
Wednesday January 28 7:30 pm
Charlene Spretnak will discuss Missing Mary: The Queen of Heaven and Her Re-Emergence in the Modern Church. Forty years ago, the Roman Catholic Church “modernized” itself at Vatican II, resulting in numerous salutary effects and, according to Spretnak, a liberal Catholic, one profoundly wrong decision: the dethroning of the Virgin Mary as “Queen of Heaven.” Until that point Mary had been traditionally perceived as a multivalent, cosmological, more-than-human but less-than-divine spiritual presence, a mystical female embodiment of power. Henceforth, Mary was to be viewed solely as a “cipher” in the text and a Nazarene housewife, a far more “rational” interpretation. Illuminating several dynamics in the interface of religion and modernity, Spretnak both explains and advances the case for the current grassroots resurgence of Marian spirituality.
Thursday January 29 7:30 pm
Joan Steinau Lester will discuss Fire in My Soul, her highly acclaimed political biography of Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democratic Congresswoman from Washington D.C.. “No person has been more crucial to the cause of free speech and civil rights than Eleanor Holmes Norton. This fascinating book is the story of one remarkable woman’s journey to a distinguished career, spanning some of the most critical years in American history. I couldn’t put it down.” Vernon E. Jordan, Jr. |
