 |
|
Laurel Book Store
1423 Broadway, Oakland, CA 94612
Mon-Th10-6 Fri-Sat 10-7
Sun for events
|
Dear Reader,
Reminder! The
Peeps Diorama Contest is happening! Please head over to the website to see the rules and guidelines. And get your entry ready and here by April 12! It's going to be a fun project and what better thing to do than attend the announcement on Saturday, April 15 at noon? Tax day should always be this fun!
We've had a number of people sign up for the newsletter lately so I want to welcome you to it. It's a mix of new books, upcoming titles we are anticipating, and events. Please join us for all that sound interesting.
It's easy to unsubscribe too, and I understand that it's not for everyone.
Some great books have arrived and more are on the way! Spring is shaping up to be quite delightful with both authors in the store and new books being released. I always write this having to leave many off and just include a few. Great problem to have, isn't it?
I'm starting to put more videos up from our events, so go the the
website and take a look. Or take a look at
our channel on Youtube.
Happy reading and take care of each other,
4-1-17
|
New and Notable
Strong is the New Pretty, A Celebration of Girls Being Themselves by Kate T. Parker $17.95 This is a great pictorial representation of just how varied and amazing girls are. This is a great book to have in the family to just thumb through for inspiration and fierce lessons. Girls and boys should grow up with these images of awesome girls just doing their thing. Seriously, you have to see it.
The Rules Do Not Apply, A Memoir by Ariel Levy $27 In 2012, at age 38, when she left on a reporting trip to Mongolia, Ariel Levy thought she had figured it out: she was married, pregnant, successful on her own terms, financially secure. A month later, none of that was true. 'People have been telling me since I was a little girl that I was too fervent, too forceful, too much. I thought I had harnessed the power of my own strength and greed and love to a life that could contain it. But it has exploded.' In gorgeous, moving, humorous, sharp, and unforgettable prose, with pointillist portraits of a girl and then a young woman coming of age, Levy describes her own ill-fated assumptions: thinking that anything is possible, that the old rules do not apply; that marriage doesn't have to mean monogamy; that gender and sexuality are fluid; that aging doesn't have to mean infertility. This is a searing story, written with humor, brilliance, and insight, that is at once personal and universal--a story about realizing that life is so often beyond our control, and how we forge ahead despite that.
Fever Swamp, A Journey Through the Strangest Neverland of the 2016 Presidential Race by Richard North Patterson $26.99 I think we'll be seeing books examining this spectacle for quite some time. By fall 2015, the rise of Donald Trump as the likely Republican nominee confirmed that, for better or worse, Americans had been transported to a strange new land populated by mysterious creatures, where the normal laws of the political universe no longer applied. Fascinated, amused, and appalled, bestselling novelist Richard North Patterson accepted an invitation to write one column per week for the Huffington Post on the presidential race.
Before long, thousands of Americans were reading Patterson's weekly descriptions of the campaign, a gauntlet without rules in which the projected psyches of the candidates reflected--and stirred--the roiling emotions of a substantially disgruntled electorate. Smart, prescient, funny, and deeply informed by extensive background research, these pieces form a narrative that captures the race as it occurred--the bald-faced lies, the painful truths, the pivotal issues, and the astonishing personalities that made the election of 2016 utterly unpredictable and uniquely consequential.
Cork Dork, A Wine-Fueled Adventure Among the Obsessive Sommeliers, Big Bottle Hunters, and Rogue Scientists Who Taught Me to Live for Taste by Bianca Bosker $17 Just out in paperback. Like many of us, tech reporter Bianca Bosker saw wine as a way to unwind at the end of a long day, or a nice thing to have with dinner-and that was about it. Until she stumbled on an alternate universe where taste reigned supreme, a world in which people could, after a single sip of wine, identify the grape it was made from, in what year, and where it was produced-down to the exact location, within acres. Where she tasted "wine," these people detected not only complex flavor profiles, but entire histories and geographies. Astounded by their fanatical dedication and seemingly superhuman sensory powers, Bosker abandoned her screen-centric life and set out to discover what drove their obsession, and whether she, too, could become a "cork dork."
Never Liked It Anyway, A Fun and Fiesty Guide to Beating the Breakup Blues by Annabel Acton $16.99 Never Liked It Anyway is the very first breakup wreck-it-journal designed to unlock your super powers. It's yours to play with, trash, love, abuse and use-and, of course, have fun with. It'll get you moving, shaking, working, and twerking out of those breakup blues with a collection of quirky, quick, and future-focused challenges. It'll shake things up and help you step outside your habitual patterns so there's no room for moping! And it'll entertain you with fascinating trivia about random things like heart metrics, tear production, and even the love lives of animals who definitely had it worse than you. Sad as it sounds, this will make a great gift for someone you care about.
Somebody With A Little Hammer, Essays by Mary Gaitskill $25.95 Gaitskill is a perennial staff favorite and this volume of stories will be no different. Here is Mary Gaitskill the essayist: witty, direct, penetrating to the core of each issue, personality, or literary trope (On Updike: "It's as if [he] has entered a tiny window marked 'Rabbit,' and, by some inverse law, passed into a universe of energies both light and dark, expanded and contracted, infinite and workaday." On Elizabeth Wurtzel: "If this kooky, foot-stamping, self-loathing screed is meant to be, as it claims, a defense of 'difficult women,' i.e. women who 'write their own operating manuals' . . . all I can say is, bitches best duck and run for cover.") Gaitskill writes about the ridiculous and poetic ambition of Norman Mailer, about the sociosexual cataclysm embodied by porn star Linda Lovelace, and, in the deceptively titled "Lost Cat," about how power and race can warp the most innocent and intimate of relationships. Appearing in chronological order, the essays offer their thoughts and reactions, always with the heat-seeking, revelatory understanding for which we value the author's fiction.
And finally- something really cool! Yes, even cooler than those above!
Featuring stories by Kim Addonizio, Katie Gilmartin, Nayomi Munaweera, Harry Louis Williams III, Dorothy Lazard and many more, this is a great addition to your all too small shelf of Oakland books.
|
|
Postcards
Here are our Laurel Book Store exclusive postcards for sending to
elected officials who might need to hear your concerns.
The creations of illustrator
Eve Aldridge are on our website and they fit the bill for anyone who
wants a bit more pointed message. .60 each. Limited quantity on hand for now.
Yes, you can order them individually or as a mixed pack.
Click here.
|
Book Club pick for March 16
Eleanor Roosevelt, The War Years and After by Blanche Wiesen Cook
Historians, politicians, critics, and readers everywhere have praised Blanche Wiesen Cook's biography of Eleanor Roosevelt as the essential portrait of a woman who towers over the twentieth century. The long-awaited third and final volume takes us through World War II, FDR's death, the founding of the UN, and Eleanor Roosevelt's death in 1962. It follows the arc of war and the evolution of a marriage, as the first lady realized the cost of maintaining her principles even as the country and her husband were not prepared to adopt them. Eleanor Roosevelt continued to struggle for her core issues-economic security, New Deal reforms, racial equality, and rescue-when they were sidelined by FDR while he marshaled the country through war. The chasm between Eleanor and Franklin grew, and the strains on their relationship were as political as they were personal. She also had to negotiate the fractures in the close circle of influential women around her at Val-Kill, but through it she gained confidence in her own vision, even when forced to amend her agenda when her beliefs clashed with government policies on such issues as neutrality, refugees, and eventually the threat of communism. These years-the war years-made Eleanor Roosevelt the woman she became: leader, visionary, guiding light. FDR's death in 1945 changed her world, but she was far from finished, returning to the spotlight as a crucial player in the founding of the United Nations.
|
EVENTS
Here is what we have scheduled so far.
Please join us for any or all of our literary events.
Click on links for more info.
April 6 Earth Expo on the Plaza
Please come by our booth and meet Liz Cunningham
author of Ocean Country
launch of her new mystery
Water Signs, set in Oakland (don't miss this!)
April 8 Rita Liberti and Maureen Smith
San Francisco Bay Area Sports: Golden Gate Athletics, Recreation, and Community
April 11
Meredith May, author of
I, Who Did Not Die
An epic story of war, redemption, and hope. It tells the incredible story of two men-one from Iraq, the other from Iran-who were destined to be mortal enemies, but instead found in each other mercy, kindness, and hope. **There will be a video presentations and live music too!**
April 15 Dick Cluster with Kill the Ampaya, the Best Latin American Baseball Writing
& Sandra Tavarez
April 15 at the Impact Hub
Paul Hawken,
a pre-book launch of his new book
Drawdown:The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.
Preorders for the book will be taken at the event.
April 21 6:30
Lei Ming Life Beyond My Body: A Transgender Journey to Manhood in China
with Willy Wilkinson
April 29
INDIE BOOK STORE DAY!
______________________________________________________
Not yet finalized but in the works:
- Mindfulness for a New Reality
- How to Build Stronger Communities
- How to Read the News So Your Head Doesn't Explode
- How to Be a Better Ally to Those Potentially in Danger
|
Quick Links to
Places We Like
|
|
See what's happening on our social sites:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
