Wednesday June 2 7:30 pm
Michael Ryan, and his wife, Doreen, endure an emotional roller coaster as they undergo fertility treatments in an attempt to conceive a child. Baby B is a week-by-week account of their experience, in which they face the prospect of failure one day and quadruplets the next. “By turns harrowing and sweet, frightful and full of hope, Baby B turns out to be a surprisingly magical love story.” Louise Erdrich
Friday June 4 7:30 pm
The inimitable Calvin Trillin returns to Black Oak to regale us from his newly published collection of verse, Obliviously On He Sails: The Bush Administration in Rhyme. Originally appearing week by week in The Nation, this collection takes its title from the poem “The Effect On His Campaign of the Release of George W. Bush’s College Transcript.” (“Obliviously on he sails / With marks not quite as good as Quayle’s.”) Trillin’s wickedly astute sense of humor and political insight have produced what can rightly be called “doggerel for the ages.”
Sunday June 6 7:30 pm
In No Debate: How the Republican and Democratic Parties Secretly Control the Presidential Debates, George Farah exposes the ways in which the presidential debate has become a glorified news conference rather than the public forum it was meant to be. In collusion with the commission that is supposedly nonpartisan, the two major parties exert tight control through scripting, the prohibition of candidate-to-candidate exchanges and cross-examinations, severe time limits, and the exclusion of third-party candidates. “At last, a full-scale, documented report on how the Commission on Presidential Debates rigs the process to prevent the public from hearing independent voices not connected with the Republican and Democratic parties.” Nat Hentoff
Monday June 7 7:30 pm
Reveling in what she refers to as “the supple genre of Creative Nonfiction,” a style of writing in which “the authentic and the factual may not always be the same,” Melita Schuam finds the perfect vehicle for examining what it means to be a woman in midlife. The essays contained in A Sinner of Memory range through Paris, Venice, and Australia; desert and mountains; love, mortality, and loss. “She is a writer to be reckoned with—and thanked for these graceful and poignant reckonings.” Ron Hansen
Tuesday June 8 7:30 pm
In 1986 Penelope Grenoble O’Malley left her frantic city life and moved to the small beach town of Malibu, hoping it would be a peaceful haven. But caught between the two extremes of ultra-urban L.A. and the wild open land of California, Malibu had more to teach her about enlightenment by way of sewage system proposals and fractious town council meetings. In her eloquent, impassioned memoir, Malibu Diary: Notes from an Urban Refugee, O’Malley convinces us that no matter where we live, we have to struggle with the essential problem of how to live responsibly. John A. Murray, editor of American Nature Writing, hails O’Malley as “every bit the literary equal of such contemporary luminaries as Linda Hogan and Barbara Kingsolver.”
Wednesday June 9 7:30 pm
Journalist, broadcaster, and writer Peretz Kidron, who has lived in Israel for twenty years, brings us the anthology Refusenik!: Israel’s Soldiers of Conscience, which he edited and compiled. This moving collection brings us the voices of Israeli soldiers who have refused orders, from the 1982 invasion of Lebanon up to the current Palestinian situation, and have thereby faced prison sentences for their stance as conscientious objectors. These writings draw from a broad spectrum of Israelis—officers, ordinary soldiers, men and women, from various ethnic backgrounds and classes.
Thursday June 10 7:30 pm
Although California didn’t get its first major league baseball team until 1958, the sport itself arrived a century earlier, brought by New Yorkers drawn west by the Gold Rush. From the sandlot games of the 1850s through the present, this has been the birthplace and proving ground for more major league players than any other state. Kevin Nelson captures 120 years of this glorious history in his new book, The Golden Game: The Story of California Baseball, which is both richly illustrated and impeccably researched. Slides will be shown at this event.
Sunday June 13 7:30 pm
James Lee Burke returns to Black Oak with his new novel, In the Moon of Red Ponies. This resonant tale of evil and redemption marks the fourth appearance of Billy Bob Holland, attorney and former Texas Ranger. This time around, a battle in Montana between Indian activists and a ruthless tycoon draws Holland and his family into a harrowing cycle of murder and deception. Lushly atmospheric and steeped in history, In the Moon of Red Ponies displays Burke’s gift for depicting human folly and fragility, along with a haunting sense of the Western landscape.
Monday June 14 7:30 pm
On the Viking Trail: Travels in Scandinavian America, by Don Lago, mixes together memoir, travel writing, and history to create a fascinating exploration of the ways immigrants have integrated their lives into the American continent. He encounters Icelanders living in the Utah desert, a Titanic victim buried beneath a gigantic Swedish coffeepot in Iowa, a real-life Legoland in Southern California, and other remnants of America’s Scandinavian past. James P. Leary, professor of Scandinavian studies at the University of Wisconsin, calls On the Viking Trail “an erudite, witty, affecting read—as bracing as a cup of strong coffee or a swallow of aquavit.”
Tuesday June 15 7:30 pm
Charles Derber, professor of sociology at Boston College, explores the history and current state of what he calls “the corporate regime” in his new book, Regime Change Begins at Home: Freeing America from Corporate Rule. Pointing to job insecurity for millions of workers, skyrocketing personal and national debt, and a dangerous quest for global domination, Derber calls for creative strategies to unite progressives and conservatives in a new politics. “Derber aims directly at the very heart of the problem of illegitimate authority, reveals its workings and grim consequences with clarity, insight, and understanding, and lays out a practical and feasible course of action to create a far more free and democratic society that offers real hope for decent survival.” Noam Chomsky |
Wednesday June 16 7:30 pm
Jamison Green, a leading activist in the transgender movement, offers his unique insight of the female-to-male transsexual experience in Becoming a Visible Man. Combining elements of his own journey to claim his authentic self with his considered perspective on the politics of gender, Green offers his story to illustrate and elaborate on the complexity of gender identity. “Jamison Green has given a great gift—based on experience born of a great personal journey, he demystifies gender in a way that transfixes the reader…. This is an essential contribution to the growing body of literature on gender identity and expression.” Elizabeth Birch
Thursday June 17 7:30 pm
The incredible success and influence of MoveOn.org has certainly been one of the most stunning developments in recent American politics. It has attracted more than two million members, raised millions of dollars to back political campaigns and projects, and, along the way, created a new kind of grassroots activism that has given average citizens a powerful means for effecting social change. MoveOn’s 50 Ways to Love Your Country collects in book form the personal experiences and practical advice from fifty members of MoveOn.org. Three of these writers—Arthur Blaustein, Skip Robinson, and Michael Rosenthal—join us for an evening of inspiration and strategizing.
Monday June 21 7:30 pm
Harriet Lerner, author of the bestselling The Dance of Anger, takes on some more unsettling emotions in Fear and Other Uninvited Guests: Tackling the Anxiety, Fear, and Shame That Keep Us from Optimal Living and Loving. Far from focusing on ways to conquer these emotions, she instead contends that the problem actually lies in our attempts to be rid of them. In our misguided efforts to get comfortable as quickly as possible, we often make things worse for ourselves, our relationships, and the world we live in. With empathy and humor, Lerner encourages us to live more fully by working open-heartedly with those awful experiences that make us uneasy and afraid.
Tuesday June 22 7:30 pm
Kevin Griffin, a Buddhist meditation teacher and long-time Twelve Step practitioner, has integrated these experiences in One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps. He is emphatically not rewriting the Steps from a Buddhist perspective, nor is he recasting Buddhist thought into the Twelve Steps philosophy. Rather, he has written a graceful interweaving of the two by linking various Buddhist beliefs and teachings with each of the Twelve Steps. “In a wise and honest way, Kevin Griffin has written a book that is truly helpful to Buddhist practitioners and the Twelve Step community alike.” Jack Kornfield
Wednesday June 23 7:30 pm
Barbara Sjoholm (who has written previously as Barbara Wilson) returns to Black Oak to read from her new book The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O’Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea. Traveling from the wild Irish coast to the magnificent Scandinavian fjords, Sjoholm investigates the extraordinary women who have lived off the North Atlantic coast as pirates, explorers, and sailors in disguise. “In a series of pilgrimages to often remote—and spectacular—regions, Barbara Sjoholm rediscovers the stories of some of the remarkable lives that have slipped between the cracks of popular sea-lore. By evoking these large-living heroines, The Pirate Queen also teases out the enduring, harsh, and sometimes mystical relationship between women, men, and the sea.” Caroline Alexander. Slides will be shown at this event.
Thursday June 24 7:30 pm
Stephen Policoff’s engaging novel, Beautiful Somewhere Else, relates in a somewhat delirious fashion the tale of Paul Brickner, editor of the Journal of Impression Management and secret scholar of the vanished illusionist Sung Soo. He is thrashing through memories of his two failed marriages as he tries to enjoy a vacation on Cape Cod, where he is joined by his much younger lover, Nadia, and her ex-lover Fred, who is busy contacting UFOs. Meanwhile, there is the threat of a tropical storm coming in from Cuba . . . “Beautiful Somewhere Else is the literary equivalent of riding out a hurricane on the beach in a lawn chair with a beer in your hand: enormously fun, more than slightly insane, and—though you might suffer mild injuries in the course of it all—an ardent, tonic embrace of otherworldly beauty.” Susan Choi
Monday June 28 7:30
Richard Steven Street, one of America’s preeminent labor historians, gives us the definitive account of the emergence of migratory farmworkers and the development of California agriculture in Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769 – 1913. A companion volume by Street, Photographing Farmworkers in California, presents more than 200 images, by some of the most famous photographers of our time, which by their power raise difficult moral questions about our relationship to an entire class of people. Slides will be shown at this event.
Tuesday June 29 7:30 pm
In Living with the Devil: A Meditation on Good and Evil, Stephen Batchelor offers a fresh look at humankind’s greatest struggle—the struggle to be good. The author of the influential Buddhism Without Beliefs, Batchelor here examines the possible ways we have to contend with the figure of the devil, and the evil he represents. Drawing on such classic works as Paradise Lost and Les Fleurs du Mal, as well as popular world myths, Buddhism, and the Bible, he makes a case for the devil as the force that helps us create a meaningful spiritual and ethical path in life.
Wednesday June 30 7:30
Drawing from her working-class, Italian-American background, Paola Corso’s first book of poems, Death by Renaissance, explores her life and family, and the Pittsburgh river town where she was born and where her immigrant father and grandfather worked in the steel mill. “Death by Renaissance evokes and invokes a time that is gone and a place that is becoming unrecognizable. Powerful currents run through this book—anger, love for a community, commemoration of their way of life.” Michael Palma |
