Octavia Books

Join Jessie Haas for a book signing and projects from Horse Crazy! Jessie will bring in some of the crafts she's done from the book, for inspiration. Also she'll bring in baling twine, and teach kids how to make emergency rope halters. Each child will go home with her own personal piece of baling twine, ... (more)fully equipped to steal a pony of her own. Bring in horse models or even stuffed horses. Jessie will provide yarns, and you and she can make halters for the toy horses. And there will be a lesson on drawing horses using some of the tricks from the book. All ages are welcome to take part.

Please stop by for a tasting and booksigning with pastry chef David Guas as we celebrate his new cookbook, DAMGOODSWEET: Desserts to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth, New Orleans Style. Part memoir, part travelogue and all cookbook, DamGoodSweet transports cooks from their home kitchens into the giant dessert ... (more)gumbo that is New Orleans. Beignets, Bananas Foster, Lemon Icebox Pie, Red Velvet Cake, Salted Caramels and Syrup-Soaked Sno-Balls are just a few of the sweet endings that bring David back home every time. Including 50 delicious recipes, DamGoodSweet offers David’s version of these classics and also re-introduces us to some almost lost traditons, like Calas Fried Rice Fritters, a fritter just about as popular as beignets during the 19th century. If for any reason you are unable to come to our in-store Monday evening event (or if you just want another taste), not to worry! We will be featuring Chef Guas at the Tuesday morning Crescent City Farmers Market at Uptown Square where he will give a demonstration and sign more books.

"Who would have guessed that one of the most fascinating books of the year would be a discussion of environmental lawsuits from around the world?"
- Denis Hayes, President, Bullitt Foundation, and National Coordinator of the first Earth Day Please join us for a talk and booksigning by distinguished ... (more)Tulane University environmental law professor Oliver Houck as we celebrate the release of his new book. TAKING BACK EDEN is the saga of an idea--that ordinary people can go to court to defend their environment--told through lawsuits brought in eight countries around the world. Starting in the United States, this idea has traveled the planet at warp speed, carrying protections for threatened environments and new notions of justice and democracy as well. Author Oliver Houck describes the sites at issue in their place and time, the project promoters, the people who rose up against them, their lawyers, strategies, obstacles, setbacks, and victories. Along the way we meet Consolidated Edison, the Japanese Ministry of Construction, the agricultural juggernaut of Thessaly, the military regime of Chile, and the decaying Taj Mahal. We encounter hard-nosed fisherman, activists and dreamers, sabotage, media spectacles, a Cree Indian flotilla from northern Quebec to New York City, a lawyer in the Philippines descending by helicopter to arrest an illegal logging ship, a woman who dared sue the Russian state, and a colleague killed on the doorstep of his home. These legal actions, largely spontaneous, brought in the days before the Internet and without communication among them, created a new brand of public rights and hope for a more sustainable world. After them, there is no turning back. "Oliver Houck is a most unusual law professor: he writes with wit and even humor but also great brilliance and compassion. Read him and learn."
- Mark Hertsgaard, author of EARTH ODYSSEY: Around the World In Search of Our Environmental Future

You are invited to join us for a special afternoon when bestselling New Orleans native author Walter Isaacson stops by Octavia Books to sign his just released book, AMERICAN SKETCHES, perhaps his most personal book to date.

Please join Octavia Books at the New Orleans Jewish Community Center for a booksigning & reading with children's book author Jonah Winter featuring his delightful and colorful picture book, You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!

Join our Science Fiction bookclub for what is sure to be a thought-provoking discussion of this month's selection, Sparrow.

Santa is coming to the Bookloft for the 1st time. He will be here Sunday December 14th and will host a very special reading of "The Polar Express" at 2:45pm by the fireplace for the kids. You can meet personally with Santa and take pictures. So come all for a perfect afternoon with Santa

Join us for a special afternoon as one of our most talented New Orleans-based children's book illustrators returns to Octavia Books to sign THE SOUND OF KWANZAA. Come close, gather round, and discover what Kwanzaa is all about.

Join us for a signing of Historic Photos of New Orleans Jazz, a beautiful coffee table book that celebrates such a uniquely New Orleanian tradition.

Join our Science Fiction Book Club in the new year for their discussion of 2010's first pick, Eifelheim!

Join our Book Club as they discuss a classic, Charles Dickens' novel, Bleak House.

Our Science Fiction Book Club meets this month to discuss The Transmigration of Timothy Archer by influential novelist, Philip K. Dick. Join them for coffee and scintillating conversation!

"Help us celebrate Easter and the 40th Anniversary of Corduroy, one of our favorite children’s book characters, at Octavia Books!

Join us March 15, 2008 at 12:30 for Easter Fun and Corduroy’s Party! From 12:30 to 1:30, we will have an Easter Egg Hunt in the store with 1st and 2nd place winners ... (more)receiving prizes. We will also have a “Guess How Many Buttons” contest. The winner will receive a large “Corduroy” bear!!"

This month, the Octavia Books Books Club's pick is ENTOMBED by Linda Fairstein. Please come and participate in our discussion.

The Octavia Books Book Club meets on the 3rd Saturday of each month at 10:30AM.

And don't forget to mark your calendar now for the MaY 17th book club discussion of THE RUSSIAN ... (more)CONCUBINE by Kate Furnivall.

The Octavia Books Science Fiction Book Club will conclude its discussion of David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest .

The Science Fiction Book Club meets on the 2nd Saturday of each month at 10:30 AM.

The Octavia Book Club will be discussing Kate Furnivall debut novel, THE RUSSIAN CONCUBINE.

The Octavia Books Book Club meets on the 3rd Saturday of each month at 10:30AM.

We hope you will be able to join us.

The Science Fiction Book Club's selection for June is GLASSHOUSE by Charles Stross. We invite you to join us for our second Saturday discussion.

Documenting the most famous brothel in America, The Everleigh Club, and how it was run, Sin in the Second City is an intriguing non-fiction account of life on the seamy side. Discussing the both the famous clients and the famous reformers who tried to put the brothel out of business, this book reads ... (more)like fiction while being informative.

Please join us as gifted author and historian, Karen Abbott, celebrates the paperback release of her excellent book, Sin in the Second City, Madames, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul.

Please join our Bookclub in discussing Irene Nemerovski's book, Suite Francaise.

The Malibu Book Group will be reading and discussing Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. This event is free and all are welcome to attend.

The Science Fiction Book Club's selection for July is Elizabeth Moon's Nebula Award winning novel, THE SPEED OF DARK. We invite you to join us for our second Saturday discussion.

The July selection for our bookclub is Jonis Agee's The River Wife. We invite you to join in the discussion or to come meet the author when he visits in June.

Please join us for an evening with Bret Lott -- bestselling
author of Jewel (an Oprah Book Club pick) and A Song
I Knew by Heart. Lott will read from and his haunting new novel, Ancient Highway, about a family whose lives are shaded ... (more)by a lost dream of Hollywood
stardom.

In 1927, a fourteen-year-old
boy hops a boxcar in a dusty Texas town, headed for Hollywood, with
a dream of life in the movies, far away from the farmland that he thinks
holds nothing for him.

In 1947, a
ten-year-old girl has dreams of a real home, with a real family, in
a Texas town as far from the crowded streets of Los Angeles where her handsome cowboy father chases an impossible
dream of stardom and her mother holds a dark secret.

In 1980, a
young man returns home from the navy, not to the estranged mother he ran away from, but to his colorful
grandparents in Los Angeles, the ones who might have been a movie actor and a band singer.

In ANCIENT
HIGHWAY: A Novel Bret Lott weaves together stories from three
generations of a single family. Inspired by his own family, as was his
previous novel, Jewel, this meditation on home, familial ties, and the mesmerizing business
of dreams shows once again that Bret Lott is an accomplished portraitist
of the lives of ordinary people. I hope you will consider for
timely review coverage.

Bret Lott is
the author of the novels A Song I Knew by Heart, Jewel,
Reed’s Beach, A Stranger’s House, The Man Who Owned
Vermont, and The Hunt Club; the story collections How
to Get Home, A Dream of Old Leaves, and The Difference
Between Men and Women; and the memoirs Fathers, Sons, and Brothers,
and Before We Get Started: A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life. His writing has appeared in The Southern Review, The
Yale Review, The Iowa Review, Chicago Tribune, and
Story, and has been widely anthologized.
Editor of The Southern Review from 2004 to 2008, he lives
with his wife in Charleston, South Carolina.

Help us welcome author, Jack Pendarvis, as he reads from and signs his newest book, Awesome.

Join us as author Jay Hakes discusses and signs his new book, A Declaration of Energy Independence, an indictment of our country's dependence on foreign oil and the government's role in keeping up the status quo.

The Science Fiction Book Club's selection for August is SPIN STATE by Chris Moriarty. We invite you to join us for our second Saturday discussion.

We hope you will join us for a reading, discussion and book signing featuring Phil Steinberg, co-editor of What Is a City?
Rethinking the Urban after Hurricane Katrina along with contributors Jordan Flaherty and Jacob Wagner.

The devastation brought upon New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina and the ... (more)subsequent levee system failure has forced urban theorists to revisit the fundamental question of urban geography and planning: What is a city? Is it a place of memory embedded in architecture, a location in regional and global networks, or an arena wherein communities form and reproduce themselves?

Planners, architects, policymakers, and geographers from across the political spectrum have weighed in on how best to respond to the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina. The twelve contributors to What Is a City? are a diverse group from the disciplines of anthropology, architecture, geography, philosophy, planning, public policy studies, and sociology, as well as community organizing. They believe that these conversations about the fate of New Orleans are animated by assumptions and beliefs about the function of cities in general. They unpack post-Katrina discourse, examining what expert and public responses tell us about current attitudes not just toward New Orleans, but toward cities. As volume co-editor Phil Steinberg points out in his introduction, "Even before the floodwaters had subsided . . . scholars and planners were beginning to reflect on Hurricane Katrina and its disastrous aftermath, and they were beginning to ask bigger questions with implications for cities as a whole."

The experience of catastrophe forces us to reconsider not only the material but the abstract and virtual qualities of cities. It requires us to revisit how we think about, plan for, and live in them.

Phil Steinberg is an associate professor of geography at Florida State University. He is the author of The Social Construction of the Ocean and coauthor of Managing the Infosphere.

We are happy to have Stay Local! + The Urban Conservancy as co-sponspons of this event.

Join in with our Book Club as they discuss their selection for August, Nancy Horan's Loving Frank.

Andrei Codrescu and the New Orleans Klezmer AllStars electrify fans
in an unparalleled multimedia release

Please join us for a special evening with Andrei Codrescu reading from his just released poetry book, Jealous Witness. Codrescu will be accompanied by music by members of the New Orleans Klezmer ... (more)AllStars (whose CD is included with the book).

ANDREI CODRESCU AND JEALOUS WITNESS

Born in Romania, Andrei Codrescu understands the spirit of his adopted New Orleans, a city that steadfastly "refuses to conform to anything that is known about it." When Hurricane Katrina slammed into his hometown, Codrescu hosted scores of refugees in his Baton Rouge home, filed stories and commentary for National Public Radio, and released his essay collection New Orleans Mon Amour, a celebration of the city’s culture. Now he and the New Orleans Klezmer AllStars bring us the poetry -- and the music -- of the city's wreckage and recuperation. A raucous homage to the Big Easy, a spirited lament for its dispossessed, and a wry record of its slow road to recovery, this new book contains "Maelstrom: Songs of Storm & Exile," poems written in the wake of Katrina and brought to life by the New Orleans Klezmer AllStars on the accompanying CD. These poems form the heart of a collectionthat also honors the artists, lovers, and cultural icons who have influenced Codrescu’s life.

THE NEW ORLEANS KLEZMER ALLSTARS AND MAELSTROM: SONGS OF STORM & EXILE

Formed in 1991,The New Orleans Klezmer AllStars (a "genre-crossing, heroically nutty Crescent City ensemble" —Billboard) have fired up people of all ages with their funky interpretation of traditional Jewish folk music. For this special release (made possible with funding from B’nai Brith International and the Tipitina’s Foundation), they tailored original compositions around the lyrics of Andrei Codrescu's poems and teamed up with a number of guest singers and musicians, including Harry Shearer, of Spinal Tap and AMighty Wind, the beloved New Orleans vocalist John Boutte, the legendary Bluesman Coco Robicheaux, and the incomparable Ivan Neville.

Scheer, whose profiles of and interviews with U.S. presidents have helped shape journalism history, will be presenting his newest book, THE PORNOGRAPHY OF POWER on Sunday, September 7.

In it, he takes aim at America's defense policy and bloated military budget with a pugnacious and rigorously researched ... (more)polemic, vigorously arguing that war cannot defeat terrorism.

About the Author:
Robert Scheer is currently Editor-in-Chief of Truthdig.com, 2007 Webby Award winner for best political blog.

Between 1964 and 1969, he was Vietnam correspondent, managing editor and editor in chief of Ramparts magazine. From 1976 to 1993, he served as a national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, writing on diverse topics such as the Soviet Union, arms control, national politics and the military. In 1993 he launched a nationally syndicated column based at the Los Angeles Times, where he was named a contributing editor. That column ran weekly for the next 12 years and is now based at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Scheer can be heard on the political radio program Left, Right and Center on KCRW, the National Public Radio affiliate in Santa Monica, CA. He has written seven books, including With Enough Shovels: Reagan, Bush and Nuclear War.
He is a contributing editor for The Nation as well as a Nation Fellow. He has also been a Poynter fellow at Yale, and was a fellow in arms control at Stanford.

Join us for this special evening – "Indignation Day" -- as we show a live Webcast of Philip Roth being interviewed about his new book, Indignation, by author Ben Taylor in New York City. This broadcast is only being shown at select bookstores across the country, and Octavia Books was one of the chosen ... (more)few.

Publishers Weekly has already hailed Indignation as "brilliant and disconcerting...It's a melancholy triumph and a cogent reflection on society in a time of war."

Indignation, Philip Roth's 29th book, is a story of inexperience, foolishness, intellectual resistance, sexual discovery, courage, and error. It is a story told with all the inventive energy and wit Roth has at his command.

A studious, law-abiding, intense youngster from Newark, New Jersey, Marcus Messner, is beginning his sophomore year on the pastoral, conservative campus of Ohios Winesburg College in 1951, the second year of the Korean War. And why is he there and not at the local college in Newark where he originally enrolled? Because his father seems to have gone mad with fear of the dangers he sees in every corner for his beloved boy.

He leaves them and, far from Newark, in the Midwestern college, has to find his way amid the customs and constrictions of another American world.

Several dozen signed copies of Indignation will be available for purchase, but it's first come, first served!

Join our bookclub for coffee and conversation as they discuss Ian McEwan's novel, Saturday.

Join us as author, Jewell Parker Rhodes, returns to read from and sign her new New Orleans novel, Yellow Moon.

We hope you can join us as Rheta Gimsley Johnson reads from and signs here recent book, Poor Man’s Provence: Finding Myself in Cajun Louisiana.

For over a decade, syndicated columnist Rheta Grimsley Johnson has been spending several months a year deep in the heart of Cajun Louisiana. Unlike many other ... (more)writers who have parachuted into the swampy paradise for a few days or weeks, Rheta fell in love with the place, bought a second home and set in planting doomed azaleas and deep roots. She has found an assortment of beautiful people in the homely little town of Henderson, right on the edge of the Atchafalaya basin.

You are invited to an author reading and book signing celebrating the release of William Conescu's debut novel, Being Written.

"Conescu's light, swift, and nicely structured dark comedy puts to the test a character's ability to outwrite his own author. In the end, the author wins."
-- Publishers Weekly

Come by after school and meet Young adult author Leslie Blum as she discusses and signs her marvelous depression era novel, Tennyson.

Red, White & Brew is the ultimate beer run across the United States. From fifth-generation family-run brewing companies to first-wave microbreweries, this book is a travelogue, guide and genealogical study of beer families and home brewers from Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. It is filled with eclectic ... (more)characters and shrewd businesspeople who produce liquid philanthropy, one keg at a time. Join the author, Brian Yaeger, and the Book Rack at Choice City Deli for this event and a special unveiling of a seasonal New Belgium Brew.

Our sci-fi bookclub meets to discuss Babylon Babies.

Join Diesel Bookstore for a green event with Van Jones, author of Green Collar Economy!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Van Jones is the founder and president of Green For All, based in Oakland. The mission is to help build an inclusive, green economy - strong enough to lift millions of people out of poverty. Van ... (more)is a tireless advocate, championing "green-collar jobs and opportunities" for disadvantaged people. He is committed to creating "green pathways out of poverty," while greatly expanding the coalition fighting global warming.

He's worked to combine solutions to America's two biggest problems: social inequality and environmental destruction. Under the slogan "green-collar jobs, not jails," he is calling for green economic development in urban America.

As an advocate for the toughest urban constituencies and causes, he has won many honors, which include the 1998 Reebok International Human Rights Award, the international Ashoka Fellowship, selection as a World Economic Forum "Young Global Leader," and the Rockefeller Foundation "Next Generation Leadership" Fellowship.

He's also served on the boards of numerous national environmental organizations. Presently, he is a board member of the National Apollo Alliance, which advocates for clean energy jobs. He is also a founding board member of 1Sky, a national coalition working to avert catastrophic climate change.

In 2007, Van helped the City of Oakland pass a "Green Jobs Corps" proposal; the City allocated funds to train Oakland residents in eco-friendly "green-collar jobs."

At the national level, Van worked successfully in 2007 with U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis (D-CA), U.S. Rep. John Tierney (D-MASS) to pass the Green Jobs Act of 2007. That path-breaking, historic legislation authorized $125 million in funding to train 35,000 people a year in "green-collar jobs." Van is also a co-founder of a new national coalition that promotes the idea of a national "Clean Energy Jobs Corps." This multi-billion-dollar federal initiative would put hundreds of thousands of people to work rewiring and retrofitting the energy infrastructure of the United States.

In 2005, Van produced the "Social Equity Track" for the United Nations' World Environment Day celebration. UNWED 2005 drew dozens of mayors from around the world to San Francisco, where they developed policies promoting the concept of "Green Cities."

In 1996, Van co-founded (with Diana Frappier) the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, now located in Oakland, California. Named for an unsung civil rights heroine, the award-winning Center promotes alternatives to violence and incarceration. The Center, for which Van serves as board president, incubated Green For All in 2007 and spun it off in 2008.

His many media appearances includes the popular Peabody award-winning show, The Colbert Report.PURCHASE OF THE BOOK RESERVES YOU A SEAT AT THE EVENT!

Join our bookclub as they discuss the pulitzer prize winning first novel of Juniot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Join Clare Langley-Hawthorne at Diesel Bookstore as she presents the second book in her fantastic new historical mystery series! Featuring the strong, outspoken, intelligent and sassy Ursula Marlow, THE SERPENT AND THE SCORPION is a thrilling story of scandal and betrayal that's richly detailed and ... (more)action-packed.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:Clare Langley-Hawthorne was raised in England and Australia. She practiced law in Melbourne until 1995 when she emigrated moved to the United States and began work as a health economist. Clare has since put her pursuit of a PhD on hold to focus on her career as a writer. She lives in the San Francisco bay area with her husband and twin sons. This is her second novel.

For more information, visit her web site at www.clarelangleyhawthorne.comPURCHASE OF THE BOOK RESERVES YOU A SEAT AT THE EVENT!

Join us as soon as it's polite to drink some ale and discuss the travelogue, Red, White, and Brew: An American Beer Odyssey with author, Brian Yaeger.

Join with other people all across the city as the group One Book/One New Orleans discusses their selection for 2008, Tom Piazza's City of Refuge.

There will be a limit of 15 people that can join the discussion group. Please call in advance to reserve a space. It is first come, first served.

Come and welcome the ghouls and ghosts of Halloween as we celebrate the holiday with Got Milk?. There will be a Spooktacular Halloween Tale. Get a free chocolate Milk Mustache souvenir photo. Sample delicious chocolate milk. Receive terror-ific prizes.

Octavia Books bookseller Alden Eagle will ... (more)read VUNCE UPON A TIME and other Holloween selections.
Costumes are encouraged!

You are invited to join our Science Fiction Book Club discussion of Michael Chabon's The Yiddish Policemen's Union. The Octavia Book Science Fiction Book Club meets on the second Saturday of each month.

Our bookclub welcomes anyone with an opinion as they discuss November's pick, Gods in Alabama. Come by for coffee and jump right in!

Please join us for a book signing with photographer Richard Sexton (and possibly other contributors including Eugene D. Cizek andJohn H. Lawrence).

For well over two centuries, the name Destrehan has been intricately linked with the history of Louisiana. Destrehan: The Man,
the House, the Legacy relates ... (more)a story that is also Louisiana’s, from
French colony to modern American state.

Jean Baptiste Destrehan arrived from France in the early 1700s
and achieved prominence as treasurer of the Louisiana colony. In
the next generation, Destrehan's youngest son, Jean Noël, took up
residence in the beautiful house that we know today as Destrehan
Plantation. The house was built by Charles, a free man of color, for
Jean Noël's father-in-law, Robert Antoine Robin de Logny according to a building contract signed by Charles and Robin de Logny
in 1787. In 1793, Jean Noël Destrehan and his wife, Marie Céleste
Robin de Logny, moved to the house after the death of Marie
Céleste's father. Thus began the family's long association with
Destrehan Plantation, one of the finest of the old manor houses on
the great Mississippi River Road. By the time of the Louisiana
Purchase, Destrehan was one of the largest sugar-producing plantations on the German Coast, as the area was known, and Jean Noël
had become a leading citizen of the region.

The plantation house that Charles built, distinguished by a double-pitched, hipped roof and French Creole details, was remodeled
in the 1840s in the popular Greek Revival style. Destrehan is one
of the few examples of a colonial Louisiana house that has changed
substantially and yet remained a functioning house for the past
empires of indigo and sugar--and, eventually, oil and petrochemical
production after the property was sold in the early years of the
twentieth century. And finally, after neglect and vandalism, the
historic property, now restored, is in the capable hands of the River
Road Historical Society.

Illustrated with stunning photographs, Destrehan: The Man, the
House, the Legacy is the portrait of a place of unusual beauty that is
forever woven into the fabric of Louisiana’s history. The incomparable setting emerges page by page, together with the chronicle of
the family that brought prominence to Destrehan Plantation.

Please join us in celebrating the release of Tom Varisco's brilliant new picture book, Signs of New Orleans. He will be joined by John Biguenet whose short essay is included in this impressive book along with contributions from Anne Gisleson, Jackson Hill and Nick Marinello.

Several years back, graphic ... (more)designer Tom Varisco toyed with the idea of producing a "Signs of New Orleans" book and four years ago he began in earnest to gather images. Then Hurricane Katrina halted the process -- though the aftermath of the storm led him to create Spoiled -- and instant favorite which captured signs of another sort -- post Katrina refrigerator graffiti.

Now Varisco has produced an elegant treasure of a book that may have only become more vibrant through through time. The book that has emerged is not meant to be a complete record of New Orleans' signs -- yet it is a worthy record nonetheless. It documents some of the city's unique words and images before the get painted over, destroyed by another catastrophe, eroded by the ravages of time or distorted by imprecise memory. If you are a New Orleanian or a frequent visitor, you will recognize some obvious choices that are included in the book. You will also be surprised to discover many new perspectives which have been captured by Varisco's keen eye. Ultimately, Varisco meant his book to entertain -- and at that is succeeds as well.

Join us for a delicious afternoon when author Pamela Lyles brings in a dish from her new cookbook, Da Cajn Critter: The Lifestyles, The Rules, and Makin' Groceries.

Please join us in celebrating the release of Frank Durham's debut novel, CAIN'S VERSION, a stunning tale of imaginative, southern fiction that tells the story of a woman who moves to a quiet Louisiana town, only to be swept into the dramatic return of a son who after centuries of wandering the sea confronts ... (more)his Mother over a boyhood act of cruelty.

Join us as we celebrate the newest J.K. Rowling book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. We will have refreshments and fun for all ages!

Join us as Elsa Hahne brings in a local dish in her cookbook and exploration of New Orleans culture, You Are Where You Eat: Stories and Recipes from the Neighborhoods of New Orleans.

Please join us for our regulard 3rd Saturday of the month Science Fiction Book Club discussion of Samual R. Delany's Nova.

"The Bhagavad Gita" by local Vedic scholar and Sanskritist George Thompson is a new translation that is easily accessible to all and a delight for those familiar with one of the world's greatest religious and philosophic classics. PS, George also works at our Peterborough store!

Please join us for a tasting and book signing with Chef Michael Saxer.

If every meal tells a story, then Michael Saxer's eight-year career as a private chef is an epic.

A private chef works for a single family as if it were a restaurant, serving family dinners, creating comfort for guests, or preparing ... (more)food for elegant gatherings. Chef Saxer travels with his employer as the family moves between homes in the lively heart of New Orleans and among the sparkling seasons of Newport, R.I.

No matter where Saxer is, he is at home in a kitchen. Usually you'll find him working up a menu or testing a new flavor profile.

"Even as a youngster, I could feel that the kitchen was a fun place," says Saxer. He grew up at his mother's elbow as she prepared meals with food grown in the family's back yard.

Chef Saxer received his culinary training at Delgado Community College and spent time in the Army, after which he entered the culinary world in New Orleans. He worked at legendary restaurants such as Commander's Palace, La Provence and NOLA. After three years as both sous chef and chef at renowned Gautreau's, Saxer was weary of the business and exhausted from the demanding work. On the verge of entering a new profession, he learned of an opportunity to be a private chef.

Eight years ago, Saxer created his first meal for his employing family, an intimate, meticulously planned, Valentines Day dinner for four. Year after year, he has worked his magic, turning out sensational meals based on fresh, seasonal and organic ingredients for the family and their guests, whom he refers to as "an ever-changing list of distinctive cultural and social leaders, ranging anywhere from British royalty to New Orleans Mardi Gras royalty."

Chef Saxer has access to the finest and freshest local and imported ingredients. His polished technique, command of detail, and soaring creativity turn great foods into extraordinary meals that satisfy. Like any cook, he savors the compliments from his employers and their guests.

"Being a private chef is like being chef at the most posh, exclusive restaurant," explains Saxer. Except that there is no mad rush at meal time, and the guests never see a bill.

The Octavia Books Science Fiction Book Club will discuss Thomas Disch's 334. We hope you will consider joining us!

Join our book club for scintillating conversation and delectable coffee as they discuss Richard Russo's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Empire Falls.

Join us for a afternoon reading and signing with children's author Dianne de Las Casas featuring her new book. Rascally raccoons, feisty foxes, and artful alligators aren't the only creatures running wild in the bayou. With a peppercorn nose, a boudin mouth, chili-pepper eyes, and no small amount of ... (more)cayenne pepper, the Cajun cornbread boy sprints through the swamps in shrimp boots and a cast-iron skillet hat, shouting as he dodges a number of perils along his way. When the boy meets an alligator who'd really like to have him for lunch, one of them is in for a truly spicy surprise!
In this flavorful rendition of the classic Gingerbread Man tale, award-winning international storyteller and folksinger Dianne de Las Casas presents a clever story in true Cajun style. Accompanied by Marita Gentry's fresh and fun illustrations, this engaging and beautifully narrated folktale will be an unforgettable and delicious delight to all. Complete with a glossary of Cajun terms and a cornbread recipe, this zesty story will make mouths water as it brings the flavors of the Cajun country to every home.

The second saturday of February, please join our Science Fiction Book Club for coffee and good conversation as they discuss J.G. Ballard's book, Atrocity Exhibition.

You are invited to join us for the book release celebration of New Yorker writer Dan Baum's NINE LIVES: Death & Life in New Orleans. In addition to a reading and book signing, there will be live music performed by the Gypsy Jazz Allstars (formerly Vavavoom).

NINE LIVES is a defining take on the story ... (more)of New Orleans in the tradition of major novelisitic nonfiction works like Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, Isaac’s Storm, The Executioner’s Song, and A Bright, Shining Lie. A magesterial and elegiac nonfiction narrative from a New Yorker writer about nine lives in New Orleans over forty years, bookended by two epic hurricanes. A stunning work of journalism, this is the deeply felt story of a lost American outpost and the idiosyncratic, heroic, beautiful, and tragic people who call it home.

come by and join our books club as they discuss the timeless themes of William Makepeace Thackeray's masterpiece, Vanity Fair.

Welcome to the new wild west. Deputy Sheriff Hood, from L.A. Outlaws is back hunting for justice any way he can find it in this next installment.
Help us to welcome Edgar award-winning author, T. Jefferson Parker, reads from and signs his newest thriller, The Renegades!

"Louis Maistros has written a lyrical, complex, and brave novel that takes enormous risks and pulls them all off" -Peter Straub "Easily one of the finest and truest pieces of New Orleans fiction I've ever read" - Poppy Z. Brite It is 1891 in New Orleans, a young Typhus Morningstar cycles under the light ... (more)of the half-moon to fulfill
his calling, rebirthing aborted fetuses in the fecund waters of the Mississippi River. He cannot know that nearby,
events are unfolding that will change his life forever--events that were set in motion by a Voodoo curse gone
wrong, forty years before he was born. In the humble home of Sicilian immigrants, a one-year-old boy has been possessed by a demon. His father
dead, lynched by a mob, his distraught mother at her wits' end, this baby who yesterday could only crawl and
gurgle is now walking, dancing, and talking -- in a voice impossibly deep. The doctor has fled, and several men of
the cloth have come and gone, including Typhus. father, warned off directly by the clear voice of his Savior. A
newspaper man, shamed by the part he played in inciting the lynch mob that cost this boy his father, appalled by
what he sees, goes in search of help. Seven will be persuaded, will try to help ... and all seven will be profoundly affected by what takes place in
that one-room house that dark night. Not all will leave alive, and all will be irrevocably changed by this demonic
struggle, and by the sound of the first notes blown of a new musical form: jazz. Vivid and complex, meticulously-drawn in lyrical prose, this tale of death and rebirth, devastation and
redemption, will draw you into a world of beauty and pain, as alluring as it is dangerous. Louis Maistros has
captured the essence of New Orleans, and set it free on these pages to work its magic on us all. Louis Maistros is a longtime resident of the 8th Ward. A writer with no formal
training, his work has appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Baltimore City Paper. He and his wife, Elly, currently own and operate Louie's Juke Joint, a combination jazz record shop and Voodoo botanica.

Join our Sci-Fi bookclub for scintillating conversation, coffee, and treats as they discuss Wizards a collection of stories edited by Jack Dann.

Thirteen years in the making, the Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook is ready for the audience that has long been awaiting it. The world's loudly proclaimed interest in New Orleans—its food, its culture, and most recently its struggle to rebuild after one of the greatest disasters in modern times—proves ... (more)that, now more than ever, there is tremendous demand for such a book. Poppy Tooker tells the story of the Crescent City Farmers Market through her distinctly New Orleans voice as one of a local food preservationist, Slow Food New Orleans founder, and longtime market collaborator. With a market tradition dating back to the late 1600s, the story of the rise and decline of New Orleans' city markets prior to the creation of the Crescent City Farmers Market is both educational and entertaining. Tooker recalls whimsical and wacky market events with both prose and archival photography. On a more serious note, she tells compelling stories of Hurricane Katrina's devastating impact on market vendors from an insider’s point of view. More than 70 profiles of key market vendors are included, humanizing the book’s recipes in a truly unique way. The Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook incorporates renowned New Orleans chefs' recipes inspired by the region's seasonal bounty, as well as family favorites from market vendors and shoppers. More than 125 recipes, ranging from Creole classics such as Oysters Rockefeller, Gumbo Z’Herbes, and Bread Pudding to Gator-Tater Salad, Asian Pear Slaw, Chevre-Stuffed Squash Blossoms, Kakurei Turnip and Pork Fricasse, Barbecue Shrimp Pie, and Satsuma- Chocolate Gelato reveal why New Orleans is one of the great food cities of the world. About the Author
Poppy Tooker
Poppy Tooker is a culinary activist who has worked tirelessly to promote and preserve the historic food ways of New Orleans. With her motto "Eat It to Save It," she has helped revive endangered foods across the U.S. and abroad in collaboration with Slow Food's Ark of Taste. She is a contributing editor for Hallmark Magazine and a regular columnist for Louisiana Cookin' magazine and also has written for Fine Cooking. Tooker's on-camera flair has made her a sought-after guest on the Food Network, on the History Channel, and in multiple PBS documentaries. She lives in New Orleans, not far from Octavia Books.

Please join us for a booksinging and celebration of the publication of the next book from the Neighborhood Story Project: THE HOUSE OF DANCE & FEATHERS by Ronald W. Lewis.

Join our book club for coffee and chat about this month's selection, The Clearing, by Tim Gautreaux.

This month, our sci-fi bookclub meets to discuss Escape From Earth. Join them for conversation and coffee!

You are invited to join us for a special evening of literature and music with Blair Kilpatrick to celebration of her new book, ACCORDION DREAMS: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music. She will give a reading from the book and sign copies. And there will a performance by by "The Sauce Piquante Duo" with ... (more)Blair doing accorion and vocals and Steve Tabak playing fiddle.

Join our Book Club the third saturday of this month as they discuss Mark Haddon's excellent novel, A Spot of Bother.A Spot of Bother is Mark Haddon's unforgettable follow-up to the internationally beloved bestseller "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,"
At sixty-one, George Hall is settling ... (more)down to a comfortable retirement. When his tempestuous daughter, Katie, announces that she is getting married to the deeply inappropriate Ray, the Hall family is thrown into a tizzy. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind.
As parents and children fall apart and come together, Haddon paints a disturbing yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

"As the country enters a fresh atmosphere around our latest president, Letters From Black America strikes a vital, rich chord in which to breathe the new air. –Karen R. Long, Cleveland Plain Dealer." Please join us for a talk an book siging with Pamela Newkirk featuring her recent book, Letters from ... (more)Black America Letters from Black America fills a literary and historical void by presenting the pantheon of African American experience in the most intimate way possible—through the heartfelt correspondence of the men and women who lived through monumental changes and pivotal events, from the 1700s to the twenty-first century, from slavery to the war in Iraq. Pamela Newkirk is the editor of A Love No Less and the author of Within the Veil, which won the National Press Club Award for Media Criticism. She is an award-winning journalist and an associate professor of journalism at New York University.

This is an interactive workshop. Bring a journal and come prepared to write.Co-sponsored with Body Mind and Soul and Spectrum Center.Here's all you will learn in this workshop:Learn how Writing Down Your Soul the practice and the book came to be (Janet’s story)What is writing down your soul? ... (more)Is it journaling? Meditation? Prayer?
What happens when you write down your soul: exit conscious mind; get in touch with your authentic story and self; connect with and activate your inner resource of truth, guidance, and creativityBrief overview of the science that explains what happens when you write this way How to enter the theta brain wave state while writing How to maximize the theta brain wave state while sleeping 10 minute experience of deep soul writing Share our experiences, ask questions Overview of the four steps in Writing Down Your Soul Next steps: How to use the Thirty Day Guide to Writing Down Your Soul, how to maintain your daily deep soul writing practice, and additional resources $35.00 per person;$30.00 per person if you attend with a friend workshop time: 1:00 - 3:00 pm. Please register for this workshop with Body Mind and Soul #713-993-0550. On Sunday, the workshop will be held at Spectrum Center.

Join our sci-fi bookclub as they meet to discuss Extraordinary Engines.

"What a terrific tale John Pipkin spins! He has taken a dramatic episode in the life of Henry David Thoreau and transformed it into a gripping and profound work of fiction" - Doris Kearns Goowin "Witty, bawdy, philosophical, touching, and humorous, Woodsburner is a novel I didn't want to end . . . This ... (more)book is packed with interesting ideas, vital characters, and vivid writing."" - Sena Jeter Naslund On April 30, 1844, Henry David Thoreau accidentally started a forest fire that destroyed 300 acres of the Concord woods. Against the background of Thoreau's fire, Pipkin's ambitious debut penetrates the mind of the young philosopher.

Our book club is meeting for coffee and scintillating discussion of Lee Smith's novel, Fair and Tender Ladies. Please come and join them!

Please join us for a presentation and book signing with Lou Hoffman featuring her biography of Josephine Marien Crawford (1878-1952), a New Orleans artist whose works were inspired by Cubism and the flattened forms and minimalist approach of modernism. Hoffman provides a glimpse of the personality of ... (more)Crawford and skillfully recreates the Parisian and New Orleans art worlds in the first half of the 20th century.

Whatever you do, don't miss this book! Jennifer Zdon, whose day-job is photographer for The Times-Picayune, has put her creative talents to work in creating this most endearing alphabet book which you cwill enjoy whether you are getting it for a child or simply sneaking a copy for yourself.

Join us for a lively discussion and signing of a book that discusses an important native resource, The Louisiana Seafood Bible by Jerald and Glenda Horst.

Join our Sci-Fi Bookclub as they have a lively discussion on their pick for June, Heavy Planet.

DIESEL, A Bookstore in Brentwood is pleased to welcome Barbara Isenberg as she discusses and signs Conversations with Frank Gehry. Culling the most candid, revealing, and entertaining interviews from her twenty years of talking with Frank Gehry, Isenberg gives us an intimate portrait of one of our most ... (more)influential working architects, and one who has left an indelible imprint on the Los Angeles skyline.

You are invited to a booksigning and tasting with Chef Donald Link celebrating his great new cookbook, REAL CAJUN:
Rustic Home Cooking from Donald Link's Louisiana. If you haven't picked out a gift for Father's Day, here is the perfect choice! This may be the top Louisiana cookbook of the season.

Come and discuss Joseph Boyden's luminous novel, Three Day Road with our book club. Everyone is welcome to join in the talk and in the coffee!

What if there had been an intelligent race of dinosaurs, gone dormant when the world’s climate changed? And what if the climate changed back to the climate in which they had flourished? James Stambaugh has written a science fiction novel with the answers and will be in the store to discuss ... (more)it. Come join us!

Bring your lunch and have a great hour with Maggie Sefton, New York Times bestselling author. Her new book is Dropped Dead Stitch, a mystery set in the fictional town of Fort Connor, although you might recognize spots like the Back Porch Café or the Lambspun Knitting Shop.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood is pleased to present Gregg Hurwitz as he discusses and signs his new novel, Trust No One. This event is free and all are welcome and encouraged to attend!About the Author:Gregg Hurwitz is the critically acclaimed, internationally bestselling author of The Tower, Minutes ... (more)to Burn, Do No Harm, The Kill Clause, The Program, Troubleshooter, Last Shot, and most recently, The Crime Writer, an instant international bestseller that was shortlisted for best novel of the year by International Thriller Writers and nominated for the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger. His novels have been feature selections for all four major literary book clubs, chosen as Book Sense Picks, and translated into fifteen languages. He has written screenplays for Jerry Bruckheimer Films, Paramount Studios, MGM, and ESPN, developed TV series for Warner Studios, written Wolverine, Punisher, and Foolkiller for Marvel, and published numerous academic articles on Shakespeare. He has taught fiction writing in the USC English Department, and guest lectured for UCLA, and for Harvard in the United States and Europe. In the course of researching his thrillers, he has sneaked onto demolition ranges with Navy SEALs, swam with sharks in the Galápagos, and gone undercover into mind-control cults.Hurwitz grew up in the Bay Area. While completing a BA from Harvard and a master's from Trinity College, Oxford in Shakespearean tragedy, he wrote his first novel. He was the undergraduate scholar-athlete of the year at Harvard for his pole-vaulting exploits, and played college soccer in England, where he was a Knox fellow. He now lives in L.A. where he continues to play soccer, frequently injuring himself.

Please join with Octavia Books and many of the contributing New Orleans artists as we celebrate the release of A Streetcar Named Inspire, a coffee table art photography book commemorating the recent public art festival marking the return of the New Orleans streetcar. The book contains over 200 pictures ... (more)of streetcar replicas created by local artists with quotes poignantly describing what it means to live in and love New Orleans.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Malibu is excited to welcome Norman Ollestad to the shop to discuss and sign his book, Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival. This event is free and all are welcome and encouraged to attend!

Come and partake in coffee and discussion as our Sci-Fi bookclub gathers to talk about July's selection, Beggars in Spain.

Come and partake in coffee and discussion as our Sci-Fi bookclub gathers to talk about July's selection, Beggars in Spain.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland presents Dean Kuipers as he discusses and signs his new book, Operation Bite Back: Rod Coronado's War to Save American Wilderness, an insider's look at the environmental movement's radical wing and its uneasy relationship with the mainstream.
Dean Kuipers is an editor at ... (more)the Los Angeles Times. Burning Rainbow Farm, about the 2001 FBI shooting of two libertarian pot activists on a farm in Michigan, was published in 2006. His work has also recently appeared in the 2008 titles, The Contenders, in which he wrote on Al Gore, and Red State Rebels, where the Rainbow Farm book is excerpted. He is the co-author of I Am A Bullet, a collaboration with photographer Doug Aitken on the acceleration of global culture. As a former editor at Spin and Raygun magazines, he wrote extensively on radical movements and rock’n’roll, with cover stories on Marilyn Manson, David Bowie, Neil Young, Iggy Pop, Smashing Pumpkins, Cypress Hill, the Rolling Stones and many others. As author and editor of the 1997 graphics/pop culture book, Ray Gun Out Of Control, he worked with contributors David Bowie, REM's Michael Stipe, cyberpunk writer William Gibson and the world's foremost graphic designers. His work has appeared in Playboy, Rolling Stone, the Los Angeles Times, Interview, Travel & Leisure, Outside, Spin, LA Weekly, and others.

Join us as world-renowned author Dave Eggers discusses his new non-fiction work, Zeitoun. We do anticipate that this will be a popular event and recommend that you reserve a copy before hand. To reserve a copy, please call us at 899-READ (7323).

"There is a poetic beauty in the images Bruce Keyes captured in his years of searching the city, a spiritual essence in the mingled tides of joy and sorrow, rhythms of daily life, carnivalia and the vistas of an urban terrain that, to those who truly know it, will always exist outside of time." --Jason ... (more)Berry Join us in celebrating the publication of Bruce Keyes' masterful book memorializing decades of the most compelling New Orleans street photography - as must-have for your coffee table.

Join our Book Club for an amazing discussion of Sara Gruen's popular book, Water For Elephants.

Come over and join us for a discussion and signing of Bruce Leininger's book, Soul Survivor.

For millions of working families, achieving basic middle-class comforts has begun to seem as distant a dream as winning the lottery. What is needed, and what veteran organizer and ACORN founder Rathke provides in this hard-hitting new book, is a comprehensive grassroots strategy to create what he calls ... (more)"citizen wealth"--an enduring foundation on which working people can build a future that extends beyond paying next month’s rent.

We'll be at the Wadleigh Library in Milford to cohost an event with MA author Dick Lehr. He'll be in town to sign and discuss his new true-crime expose, "The Fence: A Police Cover-Up Along Boston's Racial Divide". A portion of the event's book sales will benefit the library.

"One of our most promising writers." —Maya Angelou Please join us for an author reading and book signing with Clarence Nero, Baton Rouge based writer, featuring his new novel, TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING AIN’T BAD. It’s a follow-up to his 2006 novel, Three Sides to Every Story, which was based in ... (more)the Ninth Ward, where Clarence grew up.
He currently teaches English/fiction writing at LSU.

You are invited to join us for a booksinging and talk by Bill Dixon, author of THE LAST DAYS OF LAST ISLAND: The Hurricane of 1856, Louisiana’s First Great Storm. "The great storm of August 1856 was a pivotal event that disrupted lives throughout the Gulf Coast .... Bill Dixon's engrossing narrative ... (more)will captivate anyone who has ever experience a major storm."
-- Carl A. Brasseaux, author of French, Cajun, Creole, Houma: A Primer on Francophone Louisiana

You are invited to join us for a special night of poetry from native New Orleanian Robin Kemp, who will be reading and signing here new poetry collection, This Pagan Heaven. "There are powerful messages in
the music of This Pagan Heaven.
The measured notes of sonnets
carry the songs of love’s complications, ... (more)rewards, and the inevitable downbeat of loss. Soulful dirges rise from the tragic streets of a drowned New Orleans. Kemp's poems move through strict forms into jazzy improvisations without missing a beat or striking false notes. A distinguished company of women poets has been testing traditional forms and Kemp enters their number with this heartfelt work, clearly underscored by her craft and intelligence." --Eloise Klein Healy "In This Pagan Heaven, Robin Kemp displays her ability to present a powerful and
persuasive voice that maintains authenticity and authority, whether the poem is written in traditional form or free verse. In love sonnets, a political pantoum, an
extended free-verse sequence and other poems about the effects of Hurricane Katrina on her home city of New Orleans, as well as various compelling pieces on additional topics, Kemp's lovely lines address personal or public concerns in language demonstrat- ing both formal skill and a convincing conversational ease,
resulting in poetry readers will find energetic and engaging." --Edward Byrne, Valparaiso Poetry Review Robin Kemp was born in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day. A former print journalist who started her career at GAMBIT, later working as a CNN newswriter, she earned an MFA from the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop and is finishing her Ph.D. at Georgia State, where she teaches writing. Her poetry has appeared in New Orleans Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Texas Review, and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in Rites of Spring (Pecan Grove Press), The Maple Leaf Rag III(Portals Press), and Letters from the World: Poems from the WOM-PO Listserv (Red Hen Press). She was voted "Best Poet in New Orleans" for 2000 by the readers of GAMBIT. She lives outside Atlanta until she can get closer to the water.

The Octavia Books Science Fiction Book Club will discuss Revelation Space. Please join us.

Our Sci-Fi bookclub meets today to discuss their August selection, Revelation Space. Join us and them for coffee and intense debate!

Our book club meets this month to discuss the non-fiction book, The Zookeeper's Wife, by Diane Ackerman. There is always great discussion and coffee to be had!

Join us as several of the contributors sign and discuss their respective sections of the book Louisiana Women. Attending the event are Christina Vella, Kevin Fontenot, Karen Leathem, and more!

Please stop by Octavia Books to meet cartoonist Josh Neufeld who will be signing his just released graphic book, A.D.

Come to "A Gumbo Tasting Tour" at the Latter Library to kickoff the 2009 season for One Book One New Orleans campaign for literacy and community! The reading selection for this year is GUMBO TALES: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen. A fabulious lineup of New Orleans restaurants ... (more)will provide gumbo tastings; and you will be able to purchase copies of GUMBO TALES at the event through Octavia Books. We will also donate New Orleans cookbooks for door prizes. The challenge is to get the whole community involved in reading, discussing and otherwise participating in events surrounding about the book selection. The 2009 reading period is September 1st through October 29th.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood is excited to present local therapists Heather Belle, MFC, and Michelle Fiordaliso, MSW, to discuss and sign their new book, Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Ex, an eye-opening new guide for dealing with Exes of all kinds.

This month our Science Fiction Bookclub comes together to discuss To Marry Medusa. Come by and join us for coffee and conversation!

Join us after school as young adult author, Paula Morris, comes to the store to talk about her new novel, Ruined.

Join our book club as the read September's selection, The Lace Reader, Brunonia Barry's acclaimed debut novel!

KATRINA KENISON autographing and discussing THE GIFT OF AN ORDINARY DAY: A MOTHER'S MEMOIR in which she finds the times she treasures most are the ordinary unremarkable moments of everyday life.

On Sunday, Sept. 20, starting at 2:00 p.m., Katrina Kenison will sign and talk about her new book, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, an intimate memoir of a family in transition - boys becoming teenagers, careers ending and new ones opening up, an attempt to find a deeper sense of place, and a slower pace ... (more)- in a small New England town. If you've experienced the bittersweet intensity of life with teenagers or the desire to hold on while needing to let go, you'll certainly appreciate this.

You are invited to join us as Michael Buckley, author of the New York Times bestselling series and Today Show Al Roker Book Club pick The Sisters Grimm, visits Octavia Books to sign are read from the first book in his new series, NERDS -- National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society.

"The best account yet of why the levees failed. The authors also warn of more disasters to come if politicians and government agencies continue to promot huge engineering project along unstable coastlines."
--Bruce Babbitt, former Secretary of the interior Please join us at Octavia Books for a talk and ... (more)booksigning with co-authors Shirley Laska and Robert Gramling for the release of this groundbreaking book,
CATASTROPHE IN THE MAKING: The Engineering of Katrina and the Disasters of Tomorrow. Shirley Laska is a professor of Sociology at the University of New Orleans and director of the Center for Hazards, Assessment, Response and Technology (CHART) Robert Gramling is professor of Sociology and director of the Center for Socioeconomic Research at the University of Louisiana at Layayette.

The SF&F discussion group, meets every 2nd
& 4th Wednesday monthly, talks about the books they have read recently. Open to older teens and adults. Ends around 8:30 p.m.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Malibu is excited to present local resident and author Denise Doyen to the store in celebration of her first picture book for kids, Once Upon a Twice, with exquisite illustrations by Barry Moser.
Denise Doyen makes her debut as a children’s author with Once Upon a Twice. Denise ... (more)studied creative writing, poetry, and design at Stanford University, and later studied screenwriting and filmmaking at The American Film Institute. Prior to writing children’s books, Denise worked many years for Disney, directing children’s television programs such as “Welcome to Pooh Corner” and “Dumbo’s Circus.” She also worked as a choreographer for film, television, and commercials in Los Angeles. She lives in Pacific Palisades with her family.

Book Group #1 meets to discuss Ivan Klima's No Saints or Angels. This event is free and all are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Please join us for a reading, booksigning and book release celebration with veteran New Orleans columnist Angus Lind featuring his new book, PRIME ANGUS: Readers' Favorite Columns Reprinted From the Pages of The Times-Picayune. Armed with a major in handicapping racehorses and a minor in advanced 8-ball--thinly ... (more)disguised as a B.A. in English from Tulane University--native son Angus Lind set out to become a hustler. Luckily, he also had an interest in journalism. In 42 years in newspapers, 39 at The States-Item and The Times-Picayune, he covered the biggest stories of the 1970s--the Hale Boggs plane crash in Alaska, the Downtown Howard Johnson sniper incident, the Rault Center fire, the Upstairs Lounge fire, and the construction of the Superdome. For the past 32 years as a columnist for the Living Section, he tapped out occasionally irreverent, sometimes amusing stories chronicling the eccentricities and human comedy that is New Orleans. He concentrated not on celebrities, but on the characters, rogues and regular people he is so attracted to, their dialogues and dialects--and discovered that almost everybody has a story to tell. As his readers know, Angus is the ultimate storyteller. From Buddy D's Dilibonics, Abdul D. Tentmakur, St. Henry’s Church and Archbishop Hannan, to the "erster" dialect of our lovable Yats, memories of old Tulane Stadium and Fair Grounds characters such as Black Cat LaCombe, Angus Lind's columns and stories in The Times-Picayune kept readers in touch with the city's abnormal, unpredictable and often inexplicable pulse. Culled from almost 6,000 columns, you'll find Irma Thomas, Emperor of the Universe Ernie K-Doe, and the wacky world of Dr. Morgus all inside the covers of Prime Angus. So are Carnival supersleuth Deep Float and Karnak the Magnificent, keeper of mystic secrets about Tulane and LSU football. Take a look. "For New Orleans an Angus Lind column went with your morning cup of coffee like a crispy beignet...or a couple of aspirin. This compilation reminds us all how satisfying that combination was. Thankfully, because of this book, Angus is not just for breakfast any more."-- Jim Henderson, WWL-TV Channel 4 Sports Director
"If I'm the duke of Dixieland, Angus was the court jester, entertaining his audience with the antics of New Orleans wackos, politicos, and regular Joes. Most mornings, I'd be getting home just as the paper hit my porch, so for me, Angus always got the last laugh of the day."--Pete Fountain

Diesel, A Bookstore in Malibu is delighted to host an afternoon with psychological horror and suspense writer Richard Christian Matheson as he discusses and signs Dystopia, Created By, and Scars.
Richard Christian Matheson is an acclaimed novelist, short story writer and screenwriter/producer. He has ... (more)written and co-written feature film and television projects for Richard Donner, Ivan Reitman, Joel Silver, Steven Spielberg, Bryan Singer and many others. To date, Matheson has written and sold twelve original, spec feature scripts, considered a record. He has written pilots for comedy and dramatic series for SHOWTIME, FOX, NBC, ABC, TNT, HBO, FOX, SPIKE and CBS and served as head writer and Executive Producer for thirty network comedy and dramatic series. Matheson has had seven feature films produced, including the critically hailed, paranoid satire Three O'Clock High.
Matheson is considered a cutting-edge voice in surreal, psycho-logical horror fiction and master of the short story. His critically lauded fiction has been published in major, award-winning anthologies, including multiple times in Years Best Horror, Years Best Fantasy as well as Penthouse and OMNI magazines.

Please join us for an evening with Nevada Barr, New York Times bestselling author of the award-winning Anna Pigeon novels, as we celebrate the release of her New Orleans novel, 13 1/2. In 1971, the state of Minnesota was rocked by the 'Butcher Boy' incident, as coverage of a family brutally murdered ... (more)by one of their own swept across newspapers and television screens nationwide.Now, in present-day New Orleans, Polly Deschamps finds herself at yet another lonely crossroads in her life. No stranger to tragedy, Polly was a runaway at the age of fifteen, escaping a nightmarish Mississippi childhood.Lonely, that is, until she encounters architect Marshall Marchand. Polly is immediately smitten. She finds him attractive, charming, and intelligent. Marshall, a lifelong bachelor, spends most of his time with his brother Danny. When Polly's two young daughters from her previous marriage are likewise taken with Marshall, she marries him. However, as Polly begins to settle into her new life, she becomes uneasy about her husband's increasing dark moods, fearing that Danny may be influencing Marshall in ways she cannot understand.But what of the ominous prediction by a New Orleans tarot card reader, who proclaims that Polly will murder her husband? What, if any, is the Marchands' connection to the infamous 'Butcher Boy' multiple homicide? And could Marshall and his eccentric brother be keeping a dark secret from Polly, one that will shatter the happiness she has forever prayed for?

Join our Science Fiction Bookclubs lively discussion on October's selection, Heathern.

A local favorite, Ned Sublette, returns to Octavia Books with his new book, The Year Before The Flood. Please join us as he reads and signs his new book on the city!

"A warm and personal look at the entry point of American emigrant entrepreneurship. The Mom and Pop Store is part Studs Terkel, part Bill Bryson, as Spector mixes family history with his vast knowledge of retail."
—Paco Underhill, author of Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping Three New Orleans businesses ... (more)- Octavia Books, Rio Mar Restaurant and Vincent's Italian Cuisine - are featured in business journalist Robert Spector's book celebrating the history of small, independent retail stores and how, across the country, they still thrive on attentive customer service and renewed community support for local businesses. Please join Octavia Books, together with Rio Mar and Vincent's, for a special evening featuring Robert Spector who will discuss and sign the book. And there will be delicious things to taste provided by the two great restaurants! Robert Spector is author
of The Nordstrom Way,
The Nordstrom Way
to Customer Service
Excellence, Amazon.
Com: Get Big Fast, and
Category Killers. He has
appeared on CNN, CNBC,
ABC, Fox News, PBS,
Bloomberg Business,
NPR's Marketplace Report,
and numerous other radio
shows, and has written
on business for the Wall
Street Journal and USA
Today. He lives in Seattle.

You are invited to afternoon storytime, activities and booksigning as children's book debut, fine artist Alex Beard brings to life an African savanna filled with humor and misunderstandings. When Bird mixes up something Turtle says, he accidentally starts a rumor about the watering hole drying up. One ... (more)misunderstanding leads to another, with animals making their own hilarious assumptions. No one is hearing anything right, and soon the animals are in an uproar from one end of the jungle to the other. Elephant is trumpeting, Croc is snapping, and the Flamingos are fleeing! Beard's story will have every child wondering if peace can ever be restored in the animal kingdom. Alex Beard has two galleries, one in New Orleans and the other in New York City. Along with his paintings and prints, he has created a line of puzzles that was launched through national accounts in fall 2008 and spring 2009. Puzzles based on The Jungle Grapevine will be launched in conjunction with this book in fall 2009. Alex Beard is a painter whose work has been shown in New Orleans, Los Angeles, New York, and Hong Kong, among other cities. Alex grew up among some of the world's most interesting and influential people. Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, and their Pop World cohorts were familiar faces in the Beard household. His extensive travels through Africa inspired this book.

"These stories evoke places with a sharp, sensuous and at times magical skill. They also dramatize characters and states of mind with a fierce truthfulness and sense of understanding. Horack’s style has a beautiful edge to it; the range of his sympathy makes this a wonderful collection."--Colm Tóibín ... (more)"These stories are the real deal, the way Larry Brown's and Raymond Carver's stories are real. They move at depth with what can only be called a great and authentic soul. This is a special book, and the announcement of a wonderful writer and storyteller."
--Rick Bass Come meet writer Skip Horack who will be at Octavia Books to read from and sign his prize-winning debut collection of stories set in the Gulf South. Skip Horack was born in New Orleans and raised in Covington, attended Florida State University, and practiced law for five years in Baton Rouge. His work has appeared in Epoch, the Southern Review, Narrative Magazine, and other journals. He currently teaches at Stanford University, where he was also a Wallace Stegner Fellow. He lives in San Francisco.

Tis that time of year of year again, when ghosts and hauntings are everywhere! Come meet Renee Mallett and discuss local hautings with the books, "Manchester Ghosts" and "Ghosts of Portsmouth." It will spooktacular!

Neil Gaiman is having a contest for independent bookstores. Throw a Halloween party, themed around "The Graveyard book" document it and send it. The winning store gets to have Neil Gaiman coming in for a signing! So come party with us. We'll be having readings of orginal hauting works from local authors! ... (more)You don't want to miss this! The goodies and the hair raising tales are not to be missed! Come in costume!

Please join our bookclub in their monthly discussion. Coffee and good company are guarenteed as they discuss this month's selection, The Cavedweller, by Dorothy Allison.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland is pleased to present local author Taije Silverman to the store to celebrate the publication of her first book of poetry, Houses Are Fields.
Taije Silverman’s poems have appeared in Poetry, Shenandoah, Ploughshares, Five Points, Massachusetts Review, Prairie Schooner, ... (more)and other journals. The recipient of the 2005–2007 Emory University Creative Writing Fellowship, as well as residencies from the MacDowell Colony and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, she is now Assistant Visiting Professor at Ursinus College, outside of Philadelphia. Her first collection of poems, Houses Are Fields, was published by LSU Press in 2009, and selected as the debut book in their Sea Cliff Series. Thrice nominated for the Puschart Prize, she has received the Anais Nin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and her book has just been translated into Italian. Her own translations of Italian poetry are forthcoming in Pleiades.

Join us for a poetry reading as Dave Brinks reads from his celebrated volume, Caveat Onus.

Meet the author and help us celebrate the release of Robert Hastings' THE LAKES OF PONTCHARTRAIN - perhaps the first comprehensive exploration of the fascinating ecology and history of one of world's most complex and thriving estuaries (right in our own front yard. A vital and volatile part of the New ... (more)Orleans landscape and lifestyle, the Lake Pontchartrain Basin actually contains three major bodies of water--Lakes Borgne, Pontchartrain, and Maurepas. These make up the Pontchartrain estuary. Robert W. Hastings provides a thorough examination of the historical and environmental research on the basin, with emphasis on its environmental degradation and the efforts to restore and protect this estuarine system. He also explores the current biological condition of the lakes.
Hastings begins with the geological formation of the lakes and the relationship between Native Americans and the water they referred to as Okwa'ta, the "wide water." From the historical period, he describes the forays of French explorer Pierre Le Moyne D'Iberville in 1699 and traces the environmental history of the basin through the development of the New Orleans metropolitan area. Using the lakes for transportation and then recreation, the surrounding population burgeoned, and this growth resulted in severe water pollution and other environmental problems. In the 1980s the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation led a concerted drive to restore the lakes, an ongoing effort that has proved significant.
Robert W. Hastings is a retired professor of biological sciences from Southeastern Louisiana University currently working for the Auburn University Environmental Institute and the Alabama Natural Heritage Program. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, and his conservation efforts in Louisiana have been recognized with numerous awards.

Help us welcome photographer Charlie Hohorst Jr. and writer Marcelle Bienvenu as they sign their joint endeavor, Wings of Paradise: Birds of the Louisiana Wetlands, a book of beautiful photographs and delicious recipes!

"So bizarre, so absurd and so dikering that it could only be true. And only the truth is funny."
-Chris Rose Please join us for the release of New Orleans humorist Diana Grove's DOT.CONNED - The Outrageously Funny, 100% True Accounts of Conning Internet Con Men. Driven by mischief and a sense of the ... (more)absurd, author Diana Grove sees revenge on internet con men by beating them at their own game. Responding to spam email with outrageous fictional characters, she leads the cyber crooks on an uproarious journey of bait and switch.. As wild and weird as New Orleans - the city where it was written, Dot.Conned is more than just sweet revenge for victims of internet fraud, it's a laugh-out-loud joy ride that proves all it takes to con a con man is a computer and a twisted sense of humor. Diana Grove is a humorist living in New Orleans. Her work has appeared on such online literary magazines as Sweet Fancy Moses, Opium Magazine, Haypenny, Yankee Pot Roast, Captain Canard, Pig Iron Malt, and many more. She is also the creator of the comedy site AmericanSideshow.org. She got the idea to write Dot.Conned while trying to sell a motor scooter on line. Almost taken in by a fraudster's "advance fee scam," she decided to fight back with her own brand of cyber vigilantism. Inventing a fictional character and weaving an outlandish tale (complete with hilarious photos, phony IDs and an untimely demise with a rusty hack saw) she was able to bait the con man and keep him on the hook for over 2 1/2 months. Amazed at how far she could push the outrageousness, she quickly became addicted to "conning con men," so she answered every spam email she could find creating even more bizarre personas and scenarios. She even got her friends and neighbors in on the act. Dot.Conned features real New Orleaninas dressed up in costume posing as the characters "Phebus McPhadden - Taxidermist," "Dr. Bifida Hendrix - Spine Doctor," "Norman Dodd - Ventriloquist," "Bradlow Crumley - Coal Miner" and many more.

You are invited to join us for a talk and book signing with Peggy Scott Laborde and John Magill featuring their beautiful new must-have cofee-table book, Christmas in New Orleans. Oak trees are aglow with white twinkling lights, the scent of spicy gumbo
fills the air, and the jolly sounds of Benny Grunch ... (more)and the Bunch play on the
radio. These are the sure signs that it is Christmas in the Crescent City, and
naturally, New Orleanians celebrate the season with unique style. In this
inviting volume, authors Peggy Scott Laborde and John Magill explore how locals
of this eclectic city have observed the holiday from the 1800s to the present.
From Christmas day feasts to decorations adorning picturesque homes along the
avenue, this festive book fondly recalls a variety of traditions.
Readers are taken back two centuries, before the advent of electricity, when
lush trees were illuminated with candlesticks, pious Creoles prayed in a church
constructed of cypress logs, and eager children received presents of tin toys
and porcelain teapots. There are reflections on the musings of Mr. Bingle, City
Park's Celebration in the Oaks, and bonfires along the Mississippi River.
In twelve enlightening chapters, the authors cover many different aspects of
Christmas, such as the celebrations in the French Quarter, the favored cuisine
of the season, Hanukkah, and Twelfth Night. Complete with pictures from private
and public collections, a reveillon recipe from Chef John Besh, and
recollections from notable New Orleanians, including Anne Rice and Irma Thomas,
this stunning book is perfect for Louisiana locals, or those who simply love the
city.
About the Authors
Peggy Scott Laborde is the producer and host of Steppin' Out, which
airs on WYES-TV in New Orleans. Since earning a B.A. in political science from
the University of New Orleans, Laborde has produced a number of documentaries
based on the city she calls home. Her professional accomplishments have earned
her awards from the Press Club of New Orleans, Public Relations Society of
America, and American Women in Radio and Television. She has garnered praise for
her extensive efforts in conserving the arts and history of New Orleans.
As a curator at The Historic New Orleans Collection and the head of the
research services and the reading room at Williams Research Center, John Magill
has coordinated several exhibits for the museum. He graduated from the
University of New Orleans with a B.A. and M.A. in history. He has contributed
articles to The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly, New Orleans
Magazine, and Louisiana Cultural Vistas magazine. Magill is also the
author of Pelican’s Canal Street: New Orleans' Great Wide Way,
which he co-wrote with Peggy Scott Laborde.

Join us as internationally acclaimed chef John Besh comes to Octavia Books to discuss his new cookbook, My New Orleans: The Cookbook.

Help us throw a monster of a party & get the monstrously popular Neil Gaiman in the store! Author Neil Gaiman is having a contest. Whoever throws the best Halloween party using ideas from his novel, The Graveyard Book, is going to receive a visit from the author! So come one and all, Bods and ghouls! ... (more)There'll be tricks, treats, games, & contests! Keep an eye open for characters from the book. They'll be watching...

Please join us as Eugenia Kim presents and reads from her debut novel, The Calligrapher's Daughter. "Eugenia Kim beautifully chronicles both the lost world of a traditional Korea and the lost childhood of her remarkable heroine. A coming-of-age story that resonates with larger significance, the novel ... (more)movingly depicts the emotional cost of transformation and the love and sacrifice that make transformation possible. The Calligrapher's Daughter is at once the story of a single life as well as the changing life of a nation and, while the details are fascinatingly exotic, the narrative rings with the hard won truths of profound human experience. It is a note-worthy debut from a writer with great heart and real empathy."
Sheridan Hay, author of The Secret of Lost Things

This month our Science Fiction Bookclub comes together to discuss To Marry Medusa. Come by and join us for coffee and conversation!

Join us in welcoming local author Lorraine Liscio with her new book, "Paris and Her Remarkable Women". Lorraine is a writer and editor who has taught at Boston College, where she was the Director of Women’s Studies. This book evokes Paris from the Middle Ages through the twentieth century by tracing ... (more)sixteen exceptional women whose lives intersected with Paris in remarkable ways and whose eventual fame depended on the city itself.

Join our Science Fiction Bookclubs lively discussion on October's selection, Heathern.

Carolyn sets the stage for a beautiful love story with her 'letters'. It's the all true accounting of her parents fateful meeting and subsequent life together around the world with stops in Calcutta and the U.S. during WWII. A tribute to the human spirit and the power of family; please join us.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Brentwood is very excited to welcome Mark Weiss to the shop to discuss and sign the anthology of poetry he edited, The Whole Island: Six Decades of Cuban Poetry.
Cuba's cultural influence throughout the Western Hemisphere, and especially in the United States, has been disproportionally ... (more)large for so small a country. This landmark volume is the first comprehensive overview of poetry written over the past sixty years. Presented in a beautiful Spanish-English en face edition, The Whole Island makes available the astonishing achievement of a wide range of Cuban poets, including such well-known figures as Nicolás Guillén, José Lezama Lima, and Nancy Morejón, but also poets widely read in Spanish who remain almost unknown to the English-speaking world - among them Fina García Marruz, José Kozer, Raúl Hernández Novás, and Ángel Escobar-and poets born since the Revolution, like Rogelio Saunders, Omar Pérez, Alessandra Molina, and Javier Marimón. The translations, almost all of them new, convey the intensity and beauty of the accompanying Spanish originals. With their work deeply rooted in Cuban culture, many of these poets - both on and off the island - have been at the center of the political and social changes of this tempestuous period. The poems offered here constitute an essential source for understanding the literature and culture of Cuba, its diaspora, and the Caribbean at large, and provide an unparalleled perspective on what it means to be Cuban.

Martin Fletcher, NBC News Tel Aviv Bureau Chief, spent the last three decades covering wars, revolutions and natural disasters in the Middle East. In his memoir and biography, BREAKING NEWS, Fletcher describes his real life adventures and his growth from clueless adventurer to grizzled veteran of the ... (more)world's trouble spots and describes them all with humor and elegance. Mr. Fletcher received five Emmys, an Overseas Press club award, and the DuPont award. Following Mr. Fletcher's presentation will be a dessert reception and book autographing with the author. This event is part of the 10th anniversary "People of the Book" book fair, November 16-23 at the Uptown JCC and co-sponsored by Octavia Books. Please stop by the JCC and check out the impressive collection of books for sale.

This month our bookclub is coming together to discuss the first installment of Sandra Gulland's Josephine B trilogy. Join us for a great discussion of a great book!

In conjuntion with the New Orleans Opera Association and in celebration of National Opera Week, Octavia Books is host a booksigning with Nicolas Bazan, M.D., featurning UNA VIDA: A Fable of Music and the Mind.

Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland is pleased to present David Swanson as he discusses and signs his new book, Daybreak: Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming a More Perfect Union.
Swanson holds a master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and ... (more)as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, media coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now.

Please join us for a Sunday afternoon talk and book signing with Gay Gomez who has written the indespensable THE LOUISIANA COAST: : Guide to an American Wetland. With a native Louisiana naturalist as a guide, learn how best to enjoy, appreciate, and protect our fragile natural Louisiana coastal landscape. ... (more)GAY M. GOMEZ is associate professor of geography at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. A professional nature guide and longtime activist and champion for the preservation of the state’s wetlands, she has served on the board of directors for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana and the Louisiana Ornithological Society, and on the advisory board for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries’ White Lake Wetland Conservation Area.

Join us in welcoming both Kirby Larson and Mary Nethery along with Jean Cassels for a signing and reception in honor of their book, Two Bobbies:A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival! This is the first time all three will be together to discuss and sign their popular book, it will ... (more)be an event not to be missed!

Please join us for a presentation and booksigning featuring Bill Lavendar, editor of this most curious and intriguing book, DOGS IN MY LIFE: The New Orleans Photographs of John Tibule Mendes. Raised in New Orleans, John Tibule Mendes lived most of his life in a two-room house on Broad Street with his ... (more)beloved mother and their dogs. Only after his death in 1965 was it discovered that this lonely and socially awkward man had spent most of his free time documenting beautiful and unusual scenes of early 20th century New Orleans. His glassplate negatives, discovered after his death in the attic of his house and published here for the first time, captured subjects typically ignored by the photographers of the era: transvestites, demolition of historic buildings, working class children playing in their yards, the mean streets of New Orleans. His photographs are exceptional from both documentary and aesthetic perspectives, presenting what could accurately be classified as photographic folk art. The collection is complimented by excerpts from his self-published autobiography, Dogs in My Life, which add Mendes' sometimes tragic, sometimes hilarious, voice to the remarkable images.

Join us for an elegant reception celebrating the release of The Dictionary of Louisiana French. Editors will be present to answer your questions and to sign your copy of this indispensable reference book.

Octavia Book is proud to be bringing Chef John Besh to the Crescent City Farmers Market. Chef Besh, a long-time market supporter, will sign his brand new cookbook MY NEW ORLEANS and offer free samples of one of the 200 delicious dishes featured in it from 10am-12noon. Octavia Book will be selling the ... (more)book at the market. Chef Besh's first cookbook, "My New Orleans," is a celebration of the food he loved as a boy growing up on the bayous of Louisiana and later refined during his years studying around the world. It is a unique culinary tour of the flavors and ingredients found in New Orleans and Louisiana celebrated through festivals, feast days, and holidays. The 200 recipes preserve New Orleans' traditions and ingredients and include classics such as Seafood Gumbo, Crawfish Etouffee, Jambalaya and Shrimp and Grits to chef Besh's more contemporary dishes. Chef Besh will again return to Octavia Books on December 15, 2:30 PM, for another signing.