Books Inc Palo Alto

Join the Picture Book Pals for a very exciting reading from kids book Illustrator J. Otto Seibold when he shares his latest story, Seamore, The Very Forgetful Porpoise.

Bio:
J. Otto Seibold, author/illustrator of Olive the Other Reindeer, was one of the first children's book artists to create computer-generated ... (more)art and is considered the master of that medium. He lives in San Francisco, California.

Inked Books is a drop-in discussion group for those interested in graphic novels and comics. They meet on the second Wednesday of each month at 4:00. This month they will discuss Alan Moore’s The Watchmen. A group of super heroes plagued by all-too-human failings falls from grace while the concept ... (more)of the super hero is dissected and inverted as strangely realistic characters are stalked by an unknown assassin.

8 Steps to a Pain Free Back
Meet Palo Alto acupuncturist and Yoga instructor, Esther Gokhale, author of 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back, a fresh approach to overcoming back pain which advocates adopting the natural, healthy posture of athletes, young children, and people from traditional societies. Arguing ... (more)that most of what we’ve been taught about posture is misguided—even unhealthy—Esther Gokhale debunks many of the commonly cited reasons for the degeneration of spinal discs and the stress on muscles that leads to back pain.

Bio:
Esther Gokhale ( pronounced Go-clay) has been involved in integrative therapies all her life. As a young girl growing up in India, she helped her mother, a registered nurse, treat abandoned babies waiting to be adopted. This early interest led her to study biochemistry at Harvard and Princeton and, later, acupuncture at the San Francisco School of Oriental Medicine. After crippling back pain during her first pregnancy and unsuccessful back surgery, she began her lifelong crusade to find a solution to back pain. Her studies at the Aplomb Institute in Paris and years of research in Burkina Faso, India, Portugal, and elsewhere led to her development of the Gokhale Method, which she has been teaching at her Palo Alto Wellness Center for the past fifteen years.

Join Not Your Mother’s Book Club when they welcome Cassandra Clare. She will discuss the latest in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Ashes, the breathtaking sequel to City of Bones. Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York City's Downworld, where love is never safe ... (more)and power becomes the deadliest temptation.

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go -- especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil -- and also her father.
To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings -- and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

Bio:
Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood traveling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father's backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old. Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called "The Beautiful Cassandra" based on the eponymous Jane Austen short story (and from which she later took her current pen name).
After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina's world travels and Britney Spears' wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favorite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.
Cassie's first professional writing sale was a short story called "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" in an anthology of humor fantasy. She also has a short story published in the anthology So Fey, from Haworth Press, and another in the anthology Magic in the Mirrorstone from Mirrorstone Books. Cassie hates working at home alone because she always gets distracted reality TV shows and the antics of her two cats, so she usually sets out to write in local coffee shops and restaurants. She likes to work in the company of her friend Holly Black, who sees that she sticks to her deadlines.

Join Not Your Mother’s Book Club when they welcome Cassandra Clare. She will discuss the latest in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Ashes, the breathtaking sequel to City of Bones. Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York City's Downworld, where love is never safe ... (more)and power becomes the deadliest temptation.

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go -- especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil -- and also her father.
To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings -- and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

Bio:
Cassandra Clare was born to American parents in Teheran, Iran and spent much of her childhood traveling the world with her family, including one trek through the Himalayas as a toddler where she spent a month living in her father's backpack. She lived in France, England and Switzerland before she was ten years old. Since her family moved around so much she found familiarity in books and went everywhere with a book under her arm. She spent her high school years in Los Angeles where she used to write stories to amuse her classmates, including an epic novel called "The Beautiful Cassandra" based on the eponymous Jane Austen short story (and from which she later took her current pen name).
After college, Cassie lived in Los Angeles and New York where she worked at various entertainment magazines and even some rather suspect tabloids where she reported on Brad and Angelina's world travels and Britney Spears' wardrobe malfunctions. She started working on her YA novel, City of Bones, in 2004, inspired by the urban landscape of Manhattan, her favorite city. She turned to writing fantasy fiction full time in 2006 and hopes never to have to write about Paris Hilton again.
Cassie's first professional writing sale was a short story called "The Girl's Guide to Defeating the Dark Lord" in an anthology of humor fantasy. She also has a short story published in the anthology So Fey, from Haworth Press, and another in the anthology Magic in the Mirrorstone from Mirrorstone Books. Cassie hates working at home alone because she always gets distracted reality TV shows and the antics of her two cats, so she usually sets out to write in local coffee shops and restaurants. She likes to work in the company of her friend Holly Black, who sees that she sticks to her deadlines.

Meet NPR correspondent Doug Fine when he discusses his latest book, Farewell, My Subaru: an Epic Adventure in Local Living, the story of how he decided to give up modern conveniences to move to a ranch in New Mexico where he'd grow all his own food--never mind that he has no practical experience or mechanical ... (more)skills. This is both a hilarious account and an inspiring call to action for anyone who wants to live greener.

Like many Americans, NPR correspondent Doug Fine enjoys his creature comforts, but he also knows full well they keep him addicted to oil. So he wonders: Is it possible to keep his Netflix and his car, his Wi-Fi and his subwoofers, and still reduce his carbon footprint?
In Farewell, My Subaru: An Epic Adventure in Local Living (A Villard Books Hardcover; On Sale: March 25, 2008), Fine attempts to find out, taking readers along for the ride as he moves to a remote ranch in New Mexico and brazenly vows to grow his own food, use sunlight to power his world, and drive on restaurant grease.
Whether installing Japanese solar panels, defending the goats he found on Craigslist against coyotes, or co-opting waste oil from the local Chinese restaurant to try and fill the new “veggie oil” tank in his R.O.A.T. (short for Ridiculously Over-sized American Truck), Fine’s extraordinary undertaking makes one thing clear: It ain’t easy being green. In fact, his journey uncovers a slew of surprising facts about alternative energy, organic and locally grown food, and climate change.
Funny and thoughtful, Farewell, My Subaru ultimately makes a profound statement about trading today’s instant gratifications for a deeper, more enduring kind of satisfaction.

Bio:
After college, Doug Fine strapped on a backpack and traveled to five continents, reporting from remote forests and war zones in Burma, Rwanda, Laos, Guatemala, and Tajikistan. He is a contributor to NPR and PRI and the author of Not Really an Alaskan Mountain Man. His print work has appeared in The Washington Post, Wired, Salon, U.S. News and World Report, The Christian Science Monitor, and Outside. Fine lives in an obscure valley in New Mexico among a few goats and many coyotes.

Meet novelist Zachary Mason, author of The Lost Books of the Odyssey, which features alternative episodes, fragments, and revisions of Homer's original Odyssey and, equipped with a faux-authoritative scholarly introduction, richly carries off the illusion of being the lost ur-text of Homer's masterpiece. ... (more)Justifying comparison with the great postmodern fictive hoaxes of Borges, Nabokov, and Coover, this is a one-of-a-kind book destined to become a classic in its own right.

Bio:
Zachary Mason is a computer scientist specializing in artificial intelligence. He got his B.S. at Harvey Mudd and his Ph.D. at Brandeis. He works for a Silicon Valley start-up. In recent months he has had short stories accepted by Pleiades and The Journal of Literary Imagination. This is his first novel. He is currently working on another novel about the mythology and culture of AI's.

Meet best-selling author Anne Perry when she reads from and discusses her latest Thomas Pitt novel, Buckingham Palace Gardens, featuring an inside view of Buckingham Palace in the aftermath of a bloody murder.

Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries are perhaps the best loved of all her Victorian ... (more)bestsellers, luring us into the multi-layered richness of London, from the great mansions and secluded drawing rooms to the city's festering slums. Now, in her most mesmerizing novel yet, she invites us to a house-party at Buckingham Palace.
The Prince of Wales has asked four wealthy entrepreneurs and their wives to the palace to discuss a fantastic idea: the construction of a six-thousand-mile railroad that would stretch the full length of Africa. But, alas, the prince's gathering proves disastrous when the mutilated body of a prostitute hired for a late-night frolic (after the wives have retired to bed) turns up among the queen's monogrammed sheets in a palace linen closet.
With great haste, Thomas Pitt, brilliant mainstay of Special Services, is summoned to resolve the crisis. The Pitts' cockney maid, Gracie, is also recruited-to pose as a palace servant and listen in on the guests' conversations, scan their bedrooms, and scrutinize their troubled faces for clues to hidden rivalries and attachments that could have lead to murder. If Pitt and Gracie fail to find out who brutally murdered the young woman-as seems increasingly likely-Pitt's career will be over, and the scandal may just cause the monarchy to fall.
With a cast of wonderful characters, among them the gentle Princess of Wales, and a twisting plot that takes us into the hidden world of the royal family, Anne Perry probes deeply the hearts of men and women ensnared by their own emotions. Never has this distinguished novelist told a story with more truth and passion.

Join the Picture Book Pals for a celebration of National Poetry Month with crafts and poems by Shel Silverstein, Dr. Seuss and more.

The 4th Tuesday Book Group is a drop in book discussion, which meets every month. This Month they’ll be discussing The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller.

The author of the iconic The Good Mother and the best-selling While I Was Gone takes readers deep into the private lives of women with this mesmerizing ... (more)portrait of two marriages, exposed in all their shame and imperfection and in their obdurate, unyielding love.

Meet New York University psychologist Gary Marcus when he discusses Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind. Marcus argues that the mind is a clumsy, cobbled-together contraption, and ponders the accidents of evolution that caused this structure and what we can do about it.

Why are we ... (more)subject to irrational beliefs, inaccurate memories, even war? We can thank evolution, Marcus says, which can only tinker with structures that already exist, rather than create new ones. Marcus (The Birth of the Mind), director of NYU's Infant Language Learning Center, refers to this as “kluge,” a term engineers use to refer to a clumsily designed solution to a problem. Thus, memory developed in our prehominid ancestry to respond with immediacy, rather than accuracy; one result is erroneous eyewitness testimony in courtrooms. In describing the results of studies of human perception, cognition and beliefs, Marcus encapsulates how the mind is contaminated by emotions, moods, desires, goals, and simple self-interest.... The mind's fragility, he says, is demonstrated by mental illness, which seems to have no adaptive purpose. In a concluding chapter, Marcus offers a baker's dozen of suggestions for getting around the brain's flaws and achieving true wisdom.

Bio:

Gary Marcus is a professor of psychology at New York University and director of the NYU Infant Language Learning Center. A high school dropout, Marcus received his Ph.D. at age twenty-three from MIT, where he was mentored by Steven Pinker. He was a tenured professor by age thirty. The author of The Birth of the Mind and editor of the Norton Psychology Reader, he has been a fellow at the prestigious Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, Newsday, the Los Angeles Times, and other major publications.

Celebrate National Poetry Month with a special open mike night featuring young poets from Palo Alto schools. Poets grades 1-5 are invited to read their own poems or a favorite poem. Come by & meet the next generation's best & brightest of aspiring poets!

Meet Andrew Altschul when he reads from and discusses his spectacular debut novel, Lady Lazarus, where Calliope Bird is the daughter of legendary punk-rock star Brandt Morath, whose horrific suicide devastates the world.

The novel is narrated by both Calliope and her obsessive biographer, who follows ... (more)her from her silent childhood to her first tortured, manic public statements about her father; from her highly publicized publication of a book of poetry to her mysterious disappearance; from her reappearance as the mute leader of a cult-like brigade known as The Muse to her spectacular showdown with the biographer.
A disturbing and razor-sharp meditation on twenty-first-century celebrity culture, Lady Lazarus is also a funny and moving story about the age-old question of the nature of the self.

Bio:
Andrew Foster Altschul is a Jones Lecturer and former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in Fence, Swink, Story Quarterly, One Story and other journals, as well as the anthologies Best New American Voices 2006 and The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007. He lives in San Francisco.

Meet Andrew Altschul when he reads from and discusses his spectacular debut novel, Lady Lazarus, where Calliope Bird is the daughter of legendary punk-rock star Brandt Morath, whose horrific suicide devastates the world.

The novel is narrated by both Calliope and her obsessive biographer, who follows ... (more)her from her silent childhood to her first tortured, manic public statements about her father; from her highly publicized publication of a book of poetry to her mysterious disappearance; from her reappearance as the mute leader of a cult-like brigade known as The Muse to her spectacular showdown with the biographer.
A disturbing and razor-sharp meditation on twenty-first-century celebrity culture, Lady Lazarus is also a funny and moving story about the age-old question of the nature of the self.

Bio:
Andrew Foster Altschul is a Jones Lecturer and former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His work has appeared in Fence, Swink, Story Quarterly, One Story and other journals, as well as the anthologies Best New American Voices 2006 and The O. Henry Prize Stories 2007. He lives in San Francisco.

Meet James Sheehan when he discusses his latest legal-thriller, Law of Second Chances.

Before trial lawyer Jack Tobin can help an impoverished New York inmate, he must tackle one of the most explosive cases of his career. The clock is ticking, and two innocent men are facing the death penalty in ... (more)this harrowing legal thriller.

"Fast moving and tightly written...boasts a gripping story and characters who will make the reader care." -Richard North Patterson

Bio:
James Sheehan has been a trial lawyer in Tampa/St. Petersburg, Florida, for twenty-nine years. His first novel was The Mayor of Lexington Avenue.

Join the Picture Book Pals for a special story time featuring the Nicholas books by Rene Goscinny, creator of Astrix. Famous in France for decades and now available in the states, these worldwide classics are part of a five-book series that bring to life the day-to-day adventures of a young schoolboy--amusing, ... (more)endearing, and always in trouble. We'll have croissants, hot chocolate and plenty of fun!

Meet Stanford Professor of Education Bill Damon when he discusses Path to Purpose: Helping our Children Find their True Calling in Life.

Drawing on the revelatory results of a landmark study, William Damon -- one of the country's leading writers on the lives of young people, whose book Greater Expectations ... (more)won the Parents' Choice Award -- brilliantly investigates the most pressing issue in the lives of youth today: why so many young people are "failing to launch" -- living at home longer, lacking career motivation, struggling to make a timely transition into adulthood, and not yet finding a life pursuit that inspires them.

Bio:
William Damon, Ph.D is Professor of Education and Director of the Center on Adolescence at Stanford University. He is also Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace. Prior to coming to Stanford, Damon was University Professor and Director of the Center for the Study of Human Development at Brown University. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard and his doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of California at Berkeley.

Join us as we welcome acclaimed food writer Patricia Wells and her husband Walter, authors of We’ve Always Had Paris . . . and Provence: A Scrapbook of Our Life in France, their charming memoir of their pursuit of happiness in Paris and the French countryside. Filled with the tastes, sounds, and soul ... (more)of France, this work also includes more than 30 recipes that reflect aspects of their life abroad. Photos throughout.

Patricia Wells, long recognized as the leading American authority on French food, and her husband, Walter, live the life in France that many of us have often fantasized about. After more than a quarter century, they are as close to being accepted as "French" as any non-natives can be. In this delightful memoir they share in two voices their experiences--the good, the bad, and the funny--offering a charming and evocative account of their beloved home and some of the wonderful people they have met along the way. Full of the flavor and color of the couple's adopted country, this tandem memoir reflects on the life that France has made possible for them and explores how living abroad has shaped their relationship.

Written in lyrical, sensuous prose and filled with anecdotes, insights, and endearing snapshots of Walter and Patricia over the years, We've Always Had Paris . . . and Provence beautifully conveys the nuances of the French and their culture as only a practiced observer can. Literally a moveable feast to be savored and shared, including more than thirty recipes that will delight readers and cooks alike, the couple's valentine to France and to each other is delicious in every way.

Bio:
Patricia Wells is the food critic for the International Herald Tribune and the author of ten books, including The Provence Cookbook, Bistro Cooking, Patricia Wells at Home in Provence, and the Food Lover's Guide to Paris, now in its fourth edition. She is a frequent guest on national television shows. She has lived in France for more than twenty-five years.

Books Inc. welcomes Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Chabon for the paperback release of The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, an homage to the stylish menace of 1940s noir, a novel that imagines if Alaska, not Israel, had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II.

For sixty years, Jewish refugees ... (more)and their descendants have prospered in the Federal District of Sitka, a "temporary" safe haven created in the wake of revelations of the Holocaust and the shocking 1948 collapse of the fledgling state of Israel. Proud, grateful, and longing to be American, the Jews of the Sitka District have created their own little world in the Alaskan panhandle, a vibrant, gritty, soulful, and complex frontier city that moves to the music of Yiddish. For sixty years they have been left alone, neglected and half-forgotten in a backwater of history. Now the District is set to revert to Alaskan control, and their dream is coming to an end: once again the tides of history threaten to sweep them up and carry them off into the unknown.
But homicide detective Meyer Landsman of the District Police has enough problems without worrying about the upcoming Reversion. His life is a shambles, his marriage a wreck, his career a disaster. He and his half-Tlingit partner, Berko Shemets, can't catch a break in any of their outstanding cases. Landsman's new supervisor is the love of his life--and also his worst nightmare. And in the cheap hotel where he has washed up, someone has just committed a murder--right under Landsman's nose. Out of habit, obligation, and a mysterious sense that it somehow offers him a shot at redeeming himself, Landsman begins to investigate the killing of his neighbor, a former chess prodigy. But when word comes down from on high that the case is to be dropped immediately, Landsman soon finds himself contending with all the powerful forces of faith, obsession, hopefulness, evil, and salvation that are his heritage--and with the unfinished business of his marriage to Bina Gelbfish, the one person who understands his darkest fears.
At once a gripping whodunit, a love story, an homage to 1940s noir, and an exploration of the mysteries of exile and redemption, The Yiddish Policemen's Union is a novel only Michael Chabon could have written.

Bio:
Michael Chabon is the bestselling author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and their children.

Join Inked Books: The Graphic Novel Book Club at Books Inc. in Town & Country Village for a lively discussion of Strangers in Paradise by Terry Moore.

Katchoo is a beautiful young woman living a quiet life with everything going for her. She's smart, independent and very much in love with her best ... (more)friend, Francine. Then Katchoo meets David, a gentle but persistent young man who is determined to win Katchoo's heart. The resulting love triangle is a touching comedy of romantic errors until Katchoo's former employer comes looking for her and $850,000 in missing mob money. As her idyllic life begins to fall apart, Katchoo discovers no one can be trusted and that the past she thought she left behind now threatens to destroy her and everything she loves, including Francine. This is the first edition in the series - don't miss it!

Bio:
Terry Moore began writing and drawing his award winning comic book series Strangers In Paradise in the fall of 1993. Since then he has produced over 75 issues of the true to life saga featuring Francine and Katchoo. Except for the first 3 issues with Antarctic Press and a brief run with Homage Comics, Terry has self-published every issue of SiP under his own imprint, Abstract Studio. Today SiP is available in 8 languages and is one of the strongest selling comic book titles in trade paperback format, with 12 books collecting the romantic saga to date. SiP has won many awards worldwide, including the Eisner Award for Best Continuing Series and the GLAAD Media Awards for Best Comic Book.

Picture Book Pals will read from Clinton Gregory has a Secret, by Bruce Whatley, and the classic Where the Wild Things are by Maurice Sendak. Picture book Pals meet on the first and third Saturday of each month for stories and crafts.

Clinton Gregory has a Secret:
Clinton Gregory has a secret. Actually, ... (more)Clinton Gregory has at least seven secrets, one for each night of the week. For the daydreamer in every child, this adventurous fantasy by the author of Noises at Night is filled with lush details to discover in each illustration.

Where the Wild Things Are:
In this Caldecott Medal winner Max, a wild and naughty boy, is sent to bed without his supper by his exhausted mother. In his room, he imagines sailing far away to a land of Wild Things. Instead of eating him, the Wild Things make Max their king.

Meet US National gymnastics Champion Jennifer Sey, when she discusses Chalked Up: Inside Elite Gymnastics' Merciless Coaching, Overzealous Parents, Eating Disorders, and Elusive Olympic Dreams.

The true story of the 1986 U.S. National Gymnastics champion whose lifelong dream was to compete in the ... (more)Olympics, until anorexia, injuries, and coaching abuses nearly destroyed her.
Fanciful dreams of gold medals and Nadia Comaneci led Jennifer Sey to become a gymnast at the age of six. She was a natural at the sport, and her early success propelled her family to sacrifice everything to help her become, by age eleven, one of America's elite, competing at prestigious events worldwide alongside such future gymnastics luminaries as Mary Lou Retton.
But as she set her sights higher and higher--the senior national team, the World Championships, the 1988 Olympics--Sey began to change, putting her needs, her health, and her well being aside in the name of winning. And the adults in her life refused to notice her downward spiral.
In Chalked Up Sey reveals the tarnish behind her gold medals. A powerful portrait of intensity and drive, eating disorders and stage parents, abusive coaches and manipulative businessmen, denial and the seduction of success, it is the story of a young girl whose dreams would become eclipsed by the adults around her. As she recounts her experiences, Sey sheds light on the destructiveness of our winning-is-everything culture where underage and underweight girls are celebrated and on the need for balance in children's lives.

Bio:
Jennifer Sey began competing in gymnastics at the age of six and went on to become 1986 National Gymnastics Champion and seven-time national team member. A graduate of Stanford University, Sey was named one of the "Top 40 Marketers under 40" by "Advertising Age" in 2006 for her work at Levi Strauss & Co. She has also written and produced two short films. She lives with her husband and two sons in San Francisco.

Meet Marisa Silver, discussing her coming-of-age story, The God of War—set in the 70's in the California desert, an indelible novel of the end of childhood.

The year is 1978. Ares Ramirez, age 12, lives with his mother, Laurel, and his younger brother Malcolm in a trailer at the edge of the Salton ... (more)Sea, an unintentionally man-made body of water in the middle of the Southern California desert. It is a desolate, forgotten place, whose inhabitants thrive amidst seemingly impossible circumstances.
Where birds fly by day across the desert sky, by night government fighter planes and helicopters make training runs using live ammunition, and an anonymous dead body floats in from the sea. These events inspire Ares, on the cusp of his adolescence, to enact elaborate fantasies of mortal combat. His membership in a troubled family marks Ares as a casualty of a different kind of war. Malcolm, age 7, is mentally handicapped, and his mother chooses not to do anything about it.
Ares' struggle with the burden of responsibility -- to himself and to others -- draws him into a world of drugs, violence, and sex that he is not prepared for, launching him into a very personal battle for his own identity, one that has a lethal outcome.

"Marisa Silver's The God of War is a novel of great metaphorical depth and beauty. It stays with you like a lesson well and truly learned." –Richard Russo, author of Empire Falls

"Marisa Silver is the author for whom we've all been waiting. With unabashed voice she steadily, bravely, unerringly tells a heartbreakingly beautiful story for our time. The God of War is the truest novel I've read in ages." –Alexandra Fuller, author of Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight

“The God of War is such a stunning dive into a desert landscape few have understood and loved as deeply as Marisa Silver. It is no man's land, and every man's land -- there, her people wage epic battles for their lives, for their loyalties, and for their very fierce versions of love." –Susan Straight, author of A Million Nightingales

Bring your dog in their favorite disguise for a story time and book signing with author and photographer Vivienne Flesher for her delightful new picture book Alfred's Nose, about a French bulldog whose on a quest to find the perfect nose!

Everyone loves Alfred--with his silly, round face and his big, ... (more)wet, sloppy kisses.
Everyone except Alfred. Alfred "especially" doesn't like his nose. It's just not a true dog nose.
Maybe a costume could give him a new look. Or perhaps a mask.
Can Alfred really find the perfect nose?
Vivienne Flesher's winsome story and humorous photographs capture the sometimes-bumpy road it takes to realize one's true self.

Bio:
Vivienne Flesher is an artist and photographer and the creator of numerous books for children. The story of Alfred's Nose is based on her own French bulldog, who grew to love his nose.

The 4th Tuesday Book Club will discuss Astrid & Veronika by Linda Olsson. The 4th Tuesday Book Club is a drop in book discussion that meets on the 4th Tuesday of every month.

With extraordinary emotional power, Linda Olsson’s stunningly well-crafted debut novel recounts the unusual and unexpected ... (more)friendship that develops between two women. Veronika, a young writer from New Zealand, rents a house in a small Swedish village as she tries to come to terms with a recent tragedy while also finishing a novel. Her arrival is silently observed by Astrid, an older, reclusive neighbor who slowly becomes a presence in Veronika’s life, offering comfort in the form of companionship and lovingly prepared home-cooked meals. Set against a haunting Swedish landscape, "Astrid & Veronika" is a lyrical and meditative novel of love and loss, and a story that will remain with readers long after the characters secrets are revealed.

Bestselling author of Confederates in the Attic, Tony Horwitz, discusses his latest, A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World, a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America, an irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure.

The bestselling author of Blue Latitudes ... (more)and Confederates in the Attic, takes us on a thrilling and eye-opening voyage to pre-Mayflower America.
On a chance visit to Plymouth Rock, Tony Horwitz realizes he's mislaid more than a century of American history, from Columbus's sail in 1492 to Jamestown's founding in 16-o-something. Did nothing happen in between? Determined to find out, he embarks on a journey of rediscovery, following in the footsteps of the many Europeans who preceded the Pilgrims to America.
An irresistible blend of history, myth, and misadventure, A Voyage Long and Strange captures the wonder and drama of first contact. Vikings, conquistadors, French voyageurs--these and many others roamed an unknown continent in quest of grapes, gold, converts, even a cure for syphilis. Though most failed, their remarkable exploits left an enduring mark on the land and people encountered by late-arriving English settlers.
Tracing this legacy with his own epic trek--from Florida's Fountain of Youth to Plymouth's sacred Rock, from desert pueblos to subarctic sweat lodges--Tony Horwitz explores the revealing gap between what we enshrine and what we forget. Displaying his trademark talent for humor, narrative, and historical insight, A Voyage Long and Strange allows us to rediscover the New World for ourselves.

Bio
Tony Horwitz is a native of Washington, D.C., and a graduate of Brown University and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He worked for many years as a reporter, first in Indiana and then during a decade overseas in Australia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, mostly covering wars and conflicts as a foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. After returning to the States, he won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting and worked as a staff writer for The New Yorker before becoming a full-time author.
His books include Baghdad Without a Map, a national bestseller about the Middle East; Confederates in the Attic, a national and New York Times bestseller about the Civil War; and Blue Latitudes, a national and New York Times bestseller about the Pacific voyages of Captain James Cook.
Horwitz has been a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and a visiting scholar at the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University. He lives with his wife, Geraldine Brooks, and their son, Nathaniel, on the island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.

Join the Picture Book Pals for a special story time and craft activity about Father’s Day. The Picture Book Pals meet on the first and third Saturday of the month. For children ages 3 through 6.

Inked Books: the Graphic Novel Book Club will discuss Batman: the Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. Inked Books is a drop-in graphic novel discussion group, which meets on the second Wednesday of the month. All are welcome.

A tour de force of powerful storytelling and intense characterization, ... (more)Batman: The Dark Knight Returns is the tale of a tortured man's effort to save a city spiraling into chaos. An aging, time-worn Batman struggles with the acceptance of a new Robin while facing the latest generation of vicious, hyper-violent criminals. Old foes like the Joker and Two-Face add to the maddening mayhem which Batman must face and somehow conquer. Even Batman's relationship with his friend and ally Superman takes a fresh and inventive turn that would have been unthinkable outside of Frank Miller's richly imagined vision of the Dark Knight's future.

Meet W. Hodding Carter author of Off the Deep End.

Hodding Carter dreamed of being an Olympian as a kid. He worshiped Mark Spitz, swam his heart out, and just missed qualifying for the Olympic trials in swimming as a college senior. Although he didn't qualify for the 1976, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, ... (more)1996, 2000, or 2004 Olympics, he never stopped believing he could make it. And despite past failures and the passage of time, Carter began his quest once more at the age of forty-two.
Maybe he's crazy. But then again, maybe he's onto something. He entered the Masters Championships. He swam three to four miles each day, six days a week. He pumped iron, trained with former Olympians, and consulted with swimming gurus and medical researchers who taught him that the body doesn't have to age. He swam with sharks (inadvertently) in the Virgin Islands, suffered hypothermia in a relay around Manhattan, and put on fifteen pounds of muscle. Amazingly, he discovered that his heartbeat could keep pace with the best of the younger swimmers'. And each day he felt stronger, swam faster, and became more convinced that he wasn't crazy.
This outrageous, courageous chronicle is much more than Carter's race with time to make it to the Olympics. It's the exhilarating story of a man who rebels against middle age the only way he can--by chasing a dream. His article in Outside magazine, on which this book is based, was the winner of a Lowell Thomas award from the Society of American Travel Writers Foundation.

Meet novelist Rebecca Stott, author of Ghostwalk.

In 2002, a Cambridge historian is found dead, floating down the river Cam, a glass prism in her hand, after researching a book about a series of suspicious circumstances surrounding Newton's appointment as a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, in ... (more)1667. That year, two Fellows had died by falling down staircases, apparently drunk; another died in a field, apparently drunk; and a fourth was expelled, having gone mad-leaving vacancies for new appointments and paving the way for Newton's extraordinary scientific discoveries. When Lydia Brooke, at the request of her ex-lover, the historian's son, steps in to finish the book, strange shows of light begin to play on the walls, and papers disappear only to reappear elsewhere. And when events escalate to murder, and Lydia's rekindled romance appears increasingly implicated in the danger, the present becomes entangled with the seventeenth century, with Isaac Newton at the center of the mystery.
Filled with evocative descriptions of Cambridge, past and present, of seventeenth-century glassmaking, alchemy, the Great Plague, and Newton's scientific innovations, Ghostwalk centers on a real historical mystery that Rebecca Stott has uncovered, involving Newton's alchemy. A riveting literary thriller, Ghostwalk is a rare debut that will change the way most of us think about scientific innovation, our perception of time, and the force of history.

Join The Picture Book Pals for a summer themed story time with crafts. The picture book pals meet on the first and third Saturday of the month. For children ages 3 through 6.

Meet professor Gayle Greene author of Insomniac, a fascinating look into the world of sleep written from an insomniac’s perspective.

"A fascinating and unusual look at the world of insomnia and sleep science. Written from the perspective of an insomnia sufferer, this exhaustively researched book ... (more)critically and thoughtfully examines what we know (or claim to know) about sleep and the treatment of insomnia. Required reading for insomnia sufferers, clinicians treating the disorder, and anyone interested in the science of sleep."--Nicholas Rosenlicht, Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine
"This work provides a rich account of insomnia, weaving together the personal journey of the author, experiences of other insomniacs, and solid scientific research. No other work on insomnia provides such a fresh perspective, which is also informative, compelling, and entertaining."--Richard Lewis, Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience, Pomona College
"This is a very well researched, in-depth book on insomnia, written with much empathy and from the patient's point of view. I would recommend it to all who are plagued by this malady or who professionally try to treat it."--Peter Hauri, author of No More Sleepless Nights
"Insomniac is an impassioned work--an inspired amalgam of academic and first-hand research, memoir, analysis, and the kind of obsessive brooding we associate with the insomniac state. Much here is fascinating, and much is upsetting; here is a "cri de coeur" from a lifetime insomniac that is sure to appeal to the vast army of fellow insomniacs the world over."--Joyce Carol Oates
"As a clinical psychologist afflicted by insomnia for many years, I was delighted to read Insomniac. Doing so has already helped me and my insomniac clients immensely. Gayle Greene 'gets it' as only another insomniac can. She educates, advises, and comforts with a steady, sympathetic hand."--Timothy Miler, PhD
"The good news is that Gayle Greene's book is all you ever need to read on the subject of sleeplessness; the bad news for fellow insomniacs is that reading it --even in bed--will fail to lull you to sleep."--Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the U.S.

BIO
Gayle Greene is Professor of Literature and Women's Studies at Scripps College, Claremont California. She has published books on Shakespeare, women writers, and scientific issues. Her most recent books are Doris Lessing: The Poetics of Change and The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation. She is a member of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM), a professional medical society for researchers and clinicians, and is the patient representative on the board of the American Insomnia Association, an organization within AASM.

July 5, 10:30 am
Picture Book Pals
The picture book pals meet for stories, fun, and crafts every Saturday of the month. For children ages 3 through 6.

With a cold beer swaddled in his sleeping bag, Jim Malusa bicycled alone to the lowest point on six continents, a six-year series of anti-expeditions to the anti-summits. His first trip took him to Lake Eyre in the arid heart of Australia. Next he followed Moses’ route from the valley of the Nile to ... (more)the Jordanian shore of the Dead Sea, and then raced against winter through Russian farmlands, from Moscow to the Caspian Sea. Later journeys found him pedaling across the Andes to Salina Grande in Argentine Patagonia, and around tiny Djibouti to Lac Assal in the Horn of Africa. He polished off the “pits” by riding from his Tucson home to Death Valley.
Malusa will read from his new book, Into Thick Air (Sierra Club Books), and show slides of the land and people along the road to the world’s great depressions. Learn more at www.IntoThickAir.com.

July 9, 4:00 pm
Inked Books: The Graphic Novel Book Club will read Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.
Satrapi shares her experiences of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution in this thoughtful, entertaining, and moving memoir. Inked Books is a drop-in graphic novel discussion group, which ... (more)meets on the second Wednesday of the month. All are welcome.

Meet Peter Gosselin author of High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families. Gosselin discusses why Americans report feeling more economically insecure than ever and what to do about it.

Saturday, July 19 10:30 am
Join us for a special Picture Book Pals with special guest Corduroy! We'll have stories, activities and picture taking with our favorite teddy bear, Corduroy. A percentage of sales from this event will benefit the Palo Alto Junior Museum & Zoo.

July 29, 7:00 pm
The 4th Tuesday Book Group moves to the 5th Tuesday for this month to discuss Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott. Filled with evocative descriptions of Cambridge, 17th-century glassmaking, and Newton's scientific innovations, Ghostwalk centers on a real historical mystery that Stott has uncovered ... (more)involving Newton's alchemy. The 4th Tuesday Book Group is a drop-in Book discussion group, which meets on the fourth Tuesday of the month. All are welcome.

Friday August 1st 11:00 pm
Not Your Mother's Book Club Midnight Release Parties for Breaking Dawn. Be one of the first people on your block to get your hot little hands on a copy of one of the most highly anticipated books of the year! Grab your friends and join us in the City at Books Inc. Laurel ... (more)Village or on the Peninsula at Books Inc. Palo Alto to celebrate all things TWILIGHT! Stay tuned to www.notyourmothersbookclub.com for more details.

Wednesday September 3rd
Books Inc. welcomes Nena Baker, author of The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-Being.

We are running a collective chemical fever that we cannot break. Everyone everywhere now carries a dizzying array of chemical contaminants, ... (more)the by-products of modern industry and innovation that contribute to a host of developmental deficits and health problems in ways just now being understood. In The Body Toxic, investigative journalist Nena Baker explores the many factors that have given rise to this condition--from manufacturing breakthroughs to policy decisions to political pressure to the demands of popular culture. While chemical advances have helped raise our standard of living, making our lives easier and safer in many ways, there are costs to these conveniences that chemical companies would rather consumers never knew about. Baker draws back the curtain on this untold impact and assesses where we go from here.

"This important book will make it impossible to ignore the inconvenient truths about products we use everyday. Be prepared to be amazed at what is known and not known about thousands of chemicals that are used in our clothes, our homes, our pizza boxes, and just about everything else." -- Diana Zuckerman, Ph.D., President, National Research Center for Women & Families

"Nena Baker makes an exciting and eye-opening contribution to the growing public awareness of environmental health. The intimate communion between our bodies and the world around us is revealed here with uncommon clarity. Be astonished. Send The Body Toxic to everyone you care about."--Sandra Steingraber, author of Living Downstream: An Ecologist Looks a Cancer and the Environment

Bio:
Nena Baker is a former staff writer for "The Arizona Republic "and "The Oregonian." Her award-winning investigation of Nike's Indonesian factories led to numerous improvements for workers.

Picture Book Pals
The picture book pals meet for stories, fun, and crafts every Saturday of the month. For children ages 3 through 6.

Tuesday, September 9th
Books Inc. Palo Alto welcomes David Harris, author of The Genius: How Bill Walsh Reinvented Football and Created an NFL Dynasty.

The Genius is the gripping and definitive account of Bill Walsh's career and how he built a football dynasty from the rubble of a fallen franchise. ... (more)David Harris gives a stellar account of the silver-haired sophisticate from humble working-class roots who was hired as head coach and general manager of the San Francisco Forty Niners in January 1979 and became the architect of what is arguably the greatest ten-year run in NFL history.
With unmatched access to players, fellow coaches, executives, the reporters who covered the Niners' heyday, and Walsh himself, Harris recounts how Walsh, through tactical and organizational genius, created a football juggernaut. There were also the demons that pushed and haunted Walsh throughout his career: his clash with his former mentor, Paul Brown, who denied Walsh his first pro head-coaching job with the Cincinnati Bengals; Walsh's struggle with self-doubt and criticism; the toll his single-minded devotion to football exacted on his family; and his complex relationship with the Forty Niners' owner, Edward DeBartolo, Jr.
In the annals of sport, few individuals have had as great an impact on their game-or on its relevance to life outside the lines-as Bill Walsh. With knowledge, skill, passion, and a critical eye, David Harris reveals the brilliant man behind the coaching legend.

Wednesday, September 10th
Inked Books, The Graphic Novel Book Group will discuss Frank Miller’s Ronin.

An unspeaking, unstoppable Japanese warrior of the 13th century is reborn into 21st-century New York as the city is being conquered by his ancient enemy, the demon Agat. This fast-paced graphic ... (more)novel sends the Ronin into battle against futuristic gangs and malevolent, computerized overlords as he attempts to redeem his soul.

Picture Book Pals
The picture book pals meet for stories, fun, and crafts every Saturday of the month. For children ages 3 through 6.

Picture Book Pals
The picture book pals meet for stories, fun, and crafts every Saturday of the month. For children ages 3 through 6.

Picture Book Pals
The picture book pals meet for stories, fun, and crafts every Saturday of the month. For children ages 3 through 6.