SEPTEMBER READING GROUP

Our next book club selection is Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. As usual, it's available for a 10 % discount.

Here's an NPR story on the book.

The next meeting will be Sunday, September 13th at 5:30. It will be our fifth year anniversary, so there's a good chance of celebratory cake.

Please join us.

BILL AYERS AND BERNARDINE DOHRN

Friday, August 14 at 7 pm educator/activists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn present their new book Race Course Against White Supremacy at Northtown Books.

White supremacy and its troubling endurance in American life is debated in these personal essays by two American veteran political activists. Arguing that white supremacy has been the dominant political system in the United States since its earliest days and that it is still very much with us. The discussion points to unexamined bigotry in the criminal justice system, election processes, war policy, and education. The book draws upon the authors' own confrontations with authorities during the Vietnam era, reasserts their belief that racism and war are interwoven issues, and offers personal stories about their lives today as parents, teachers, and reformers.

Reactionaries stuck in the 60s conjure Scooby-doo ghosts to chase. But the real William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn are fully in the present, fighting on behalf of the disempowered and dispossessed.

-Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation

"Having made an extraordinary journey together from Sixties militants to accomplished scholars, Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers bring to the subject of race a special sensibility. Their work is a troubling challenge to white people to
examine, not only the world round them, but their own psyche, their own behavior, and to act accordingly."

-Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States

UPDATE: Heidi Walters of The North Coast Journal recently interviewed Bill and Bernardine.

AUGUST BOOK GROUP

We have chosen The Post-American World by Fareed Zakaria for our August meeting. Copies are available behind the counter at a 10% discount.

Here are some links to peruse from the New Yorker, Wikipedia, and our local North Coast Journal on the book.

And here's a BBC interview with Zakaria:



Join us to discuss foreign affairs here at Northtown Books August 9th, the second Sunday of the month, at 5:30.


Image of a typical reader of the book from The NY Times book blog, Paper Cuts.

URSULA OSBOURNE

On Friday, July 10 at 7 pm, Northtown Books welcomes Ursula Osbourne, who will talk about her translation of Heinrich F. Liebrecht's memoir, Not To Hate But To Love, That Is What I Am Here For: My Path Through The Hell Of The Third Reich.

She recently talked to the Times-Standard about the book:

Liebrecht became a friend of Osborne's parents in Hamburg, after she and her two younger siblings had been sent to safety in England. Her parents were fortunate: In 1941 they obtained a U.S. visa and left Germany, among the very last Jews to escape Nazi-occupied Europe. For Liebrecht and his family, the border was sealed.

A long search for legal and illegal escape proved futile for Liebrecht, his wife, Lies, and their infant daughter, Eva-Maria. Liebrecht was arrested. Lies placed Eva-Maria with a trusted friend, then committed suicide.

During interrogations, Liebrecht endured brutal beatings and near starvation until he was sent to the concentration camp Theresienstadt. There, as was to prove true throughout his entire ordeal, he found inspiration. Even though many -- Germans and prisoners alike -- sank to subhuman levels, others displayed courage and humanity amid the deprivation and disorder.

”Despite these miserable circumstances,” Liebrecht wrote, “the accomplishments
by camp inmates are as worthy of remembrance as any other honorable acts of this war.”

Physicians stemmed the tide of epidemics, youth leaders schooled children, and workers of all descriptions strove to improve physical conditions. Musicians, writers and other artists, along with philosophers and clergy, nurtured spiritual and artistic enlightenment.

Among them was the kind-hearted chief rabbi of Germany, Dr. Leo Baeck, to whom Liebrecht, a Jew who converted to Catholicism, was most grateful. It was Baeck's philosophical lectures that were known for their depth and clarity that helped him stay connected to faith and reason -- reason to stay alive.

”That is where the wellsprings of our strength lay, that is where the conviction grew that we still had some kind of calling,” he wrote. “From here came the impulse to really endure, and the belief that we were able to do so.”

Liebrecht's mother arrived in the camp, unwell but content to spend her last days near her son. Later, his toddler daughter and her caretaker also arrived at Theresienstadt, affording a brief family reunion before Liebrecht's mother died in the infirmary.

Eva-Maria -- whom most at the camp endearingly called “little fawn” -- became sickly when the caretaker was sent to Auschwitz. Again, the determined effort of a fellow camp inmate, a nurse named Böszi, helped the child recover and thrive.

The family's next destination was Auschwitz, where father and daughter were separated. Liebrecht was among the men who avoided the gas ovens and was sent to hard labor at yet another camp -- but only after a dehumanizing physical inspection by the infamous SS physician Josef Mengele.

Life for the survivors was one of unending burden.

”We were no longer human individuals,” Liebrecht wrote. “We were merely numbers ... sad humans, sights of misery.”

In time, rumors of the war's end mounted as refugees flooded past the camp and gunfire grew ever closer. Meager food and medical supplies dwindled even further, weakening the disheartened prisoners. Liebrecht found himself in a sick room with a severely infected foot.

”I saw black in front of my eyes. I lost consciousness,” he wrote. “Then I caught myself: This is not how the end is supposed to be! See it through! Don't give up! Not now -- perhaps it's only a few more weeks before our liberation!”

He was right. The Holocaust ended with the Russians liberating the camp. The grief, however, was not over for Liebrecht: He learned of the death of his “little fawn.” She had been gassed at Auschwitz, along with her beloved Böszi, who despite the opportunity, refused to leave the child's side.

It was a chance reunion with Dr. Leo Baeck, and an in-depth, thought-provoking discussion on vengeance and forgiveness, that lead Liebrecht to find renewed faith to continue on. Yes, Hitler's influence was like an infectious disease that made “the real Germany into an unworthy nation,” Baeck told Liebrecht. But, he added, “injustice cannot be healed by injustice.”

Liebrecht took these words to heart. There was something extraordinary about the man, remembers Osborne, who met him in person in 1969 in Freiburg, Germany, while she and her family lived in Germany for a year.

”He was such a pleasant man,” she said. “Not only my husband and I, but our two sons, aged 14 and 16 at the time, became friends with him. Each of them went back to visit him again.”

Twenty-five years later, a few years after Liebrecht's death, Osborne received a copy of his memoir, which had been published posthumously. Widowed by then, Osborne was temporarily away from her Arcata home, serving in the Peace Corps in Papua New Guinea. There, the book gained popularity with her German-speaking colleagues.

In 2003, Osborne formed a California public benefit nonprofit corporation in order to save documentation concerning her family's dispersal all over the globe after Hitler came to power. One of the volunteers helping with this archive expressed interest in writing a book about the family's history. Osborne thought the volunteer would benefit from reading Liebrecht's book.

”So, in January 2008, I started translating it for her, and while working on the translation, I began to realize the book's wider importance and decided I'd like to publish it,” she said.

Osborne believes this memoir will be especially helpful as supplementary reading for college students in a variety of courses. She believes its lessons are as timeless as the advice Baeck gave Liebrecht more than 60 years ago:

”Your task, the purpose of your life,” he said, “is to participate, to the best of your ability, so that brute force, force of any type, is not ever the victor.”

JULY BOOK GROUP

We have chosen Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov for our next book group meeting. The books are available behind the counter for a 10% discount and our next meeting will be July 12th at 5:30 here at Northtown Books.

Here are some links to augment your reading experience or help you make a more informed decision about your participation:

Random House's official site for the book.

Martin Amis on Lolita.

The Lit Lover's guide to Lolita.

A video interview from Canadian television with Vladimir Nabokov about Lolita:

RAY RAPHAEL AND JAIMAL YOGIS

This weekend brings two author events to Northtown Books.

Ray Raphael will present his new book, Founders: The People Who Brought You a Nation, at Northtown Books on Friday, June 12 at 7 pm.

Founders is Raphael’s largest and most ambitious book, a daring attempt to recreate an “honest history” of our nation’s founding by skipping over nineteenth century distortions and returning to primary sources from Revolutionary times. It’s a sweeping narrative, starting with the beginnings of unrest in 1761 and ending with the ratification of the Bill of Rights thirty years later. To keep his rendition intimate, Raphael focuses of seven lead characters — not the usual cast, but a far more diverse lot. For the first time, Raphael interweaves the new bottom-up approach, the favorite of social historians in recent years, with traditional top-down history, moving back and forth between leading figures inside chambers and the people “out-of-doors.”

Ray Raphael has written many books, several of which are about local Humboldt history. His first book, An Everyday History of Somewhere, won the Commonwealth Club award for the best book of the year about California. He recently collaborated with Freeman House on the first part of a projected multi-volume history of Humboldt County, Two Peoples, One Place.

For more info on Ray Raphael, go here.

On the very next night, author Jaimal Yogis presents his new book, Saltwater Buddha: A Surfer’s Quest to Find Zen on the Sea, Saturday, June 13th at 7:30 at Northtown Books.

Here's what Publisher's Weekly had to say about it:

A journalist, photographer, surfer and Zen Master, Yogis began the life of a roving seeker his junior year of high school, when he ran away from his Sacramento, Calif. home to learn how to surf in Hawaii. His subsequent travels include a handful of prime surfing spots, but Yogis’s more arresting journey is spiritual, taking him to monasteries in France and Berkley, Calif., and deep into the living tradition of Zen Buddhism. Captured here in short chapters and wonderful, visual prose, Yogis’s coming-of-age odyssey also takes readers into the culture of indigenous Hawaiians, who believe the gods were surfers. Yogis’s long-time surfing mentor Rom provides insight into the science of surfing, ocean swells, the bathymetry of the continental shelf, deep water canyons and sea mounts. Even land lovers will find Yogis’s lessons resonant and entertaining, but surfers will find this a quick, surprisingly deep tribute to the quest for surf and serenity.

Here's a short film on Jaimal and the book:

Max and Mandy at the Beach

For those who wonder what Max is up to when he's not behind the counter at Northtown, here he is in action on Trinidad State Beach with his pal Mandy in a video filmed by Dante and edited by Ric.

WICKED PLANTS

Local author Amy Stewart will discuss and sign her new book Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities at Northtown Books May 17th at 3 pm.

A tree that sheds poison daggers; a glistening red seed that stops the heart; a shrub that causes paralysis; a vine that strangles; and a leaf that triggered a war. Stewart takes on over two hundred of Mother Nature's most appalling creations in an A to Z of plants that kill, maim, intoxicate, and otherwise offend.

Menacing botanical illustrations and splendidly ghastly drawings create a fascinating portrait of the evildoers that may be lurking in your own backyard. Drawing on history, medicine, science, and legend, this compendium of bloodcurdling botany will entertain, alarm, and enlighten even the most intrepid gardeners and nature lovers.

Here's a video preview of the book:

Please help us welcome Amy back to Northtown Books.

For much more information on this and Amy's other books and articles, go to her own website.

UPDATE: The New York Times comes to visit Amy in Eureka. (link via NCJ Blogthing)

BARBARA KERLEY

Friday, May 8th at 6 pm, Northtown Books welcomes local author Barbara Kerley.

A former Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal, and a one-time resident of Guam, she brings a unique life experience to her work.

She's written a wide variety of books for young people, on subjects as various as Walt Whitman, the artist who introduced dinosaurs to the world, and the importance of water in the world.

Her new book from National Geographic Books, One World, One Day, follows children around the world as they get up, wash up, and start a new day. It's an elegant picture book with contributions from top international photographers.

Her book What to Do About Alice? was recently reviewed in the New York Times, and you can read an interview with her here.

NORTHTOWN BOOKS READING GROUP

We have copies of our next selection for the Northtown Books Reading Group, The Persian Boy by Mary Renault, behind the counter for a 10% discounted price.

Our next meeting will be May 10th (Mother's Day!--let us know if anyone has a conflict with this date) at 5:30 here at Northtown Books.

In the meantime, here are some links to peruse.