Events

Raymond Carver was the most beloved American short-story writer of
the late twentieth century. Two decades after his death, this
definitive biography tells the story of Carver's uncanny ambition,
legendary life, and enduring work.

Carol Sklenicka draws on hundreds of interviews with people who knew
Carver, prodigious research in libraries and private collections, and
all of Carver's poems and stories for Raymond Carver, which
took ten years to write. Her portrait is generous and wise without
swerving from discordant issues in Carver's private affairs. Above all
Sklenicka shows how Carver's quintessentially American life fostered
the stories that knowing readers have cherished from their first
publication until the present day.

Start your garden off right in 2010 with Del Mar's favorite gardener - beginning with rose-planting in January and taking you an entire year of organic gardening. 

“Pat Welsh’s Southern California Organic Gardening, Month by Month”, takes local gardeners by the hand and helps them grow a beautiful pest-and-disease-free garden while living in harmony with nature, caring for the environment, and protecting people and pets as well. This book is packed with easy-to-follow practical advice on how to amend the soil, feed plants, and control pests using a multitude of organic techniques. Boxes and sidebars throughout highlight tips and hints and step-by-step methods for solving all your gardening problems without resorting to synthetic fertilizers or chemical pesticides. Instead, Pat suggests safe, proven, and effective—though often little-known—organic solutions. The best commercial organic products are recommended by brand name, but many cost-free substitutes and recipes for inexpensive homemade concoctions are also included. This new, all-organic book written specifically for our area is a compendium of useful ideas that can help you live green and save money as well.

"She walks in beauty, like the night/Of Cloudless climes and starry skies;/And all that's best of dark and bright/Meet in her aspect and her eyes"                                                                                                - Lord Byron

Join The Book Works for a night of love as we host the Solana Beach Art Associations' adult poetry reading. Cheese, wine and appetizers will be served as participants read their favorite love poems. If interested in reading, please contact Sharon Leib at srleib@roadrunner.com. Limited to first 25 people who sign up.

A balanced, plain-English guide to this politically charged topic. This practical guide cuts away the hype and clearly presents the facts on stem cells. It explains what stem cells are and what they do, the legalities of harvesting them and using them in research, the latest research findings from the United States and abroad, and the prospects for medical stem cell therapies in the short and long term. It also discusses the ethical and moral considerations involved with the topic. But Goldstein presents us with the endless possibilities in using stem cells. Discover how stem cells are projected to make medical advances in the understanding and improved treatment of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and more.

31 Hours by Masha Hamilton*

Hosted by San Diego's StyleSubstanceSoul.com at the Book Works.  

"Hamilton's novel tracks the 31 hours before Jonas, a sensitive young man raised by idealistic, now divorced parents, straps on a vest of explosives and enters the New York City subway system to martyr himself. The novel begins with Jonas's mother, Carol, knowing that something is wrong with her son. Thus begins an odyssey that takes her back to her ex-husband, Jake; to Jonas's girlfriend, Vic; and to the authorities. Hamilton touches on many perspectives of the characters who know Jonas. Through all of this, Jonas ritually prepares for this final act of his life, but without the single-minded fanaticism one expects. It's a very tense narrative, vividly imagined and eerily plausible. 

Masha Hamilton has worked as a foreign correspondent in the Middle East for The Associated Press, in Moscow, as a correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and NBC/Mutual Radio, and as a reporter in Afghanistan in 2004. She recently founded the Afghan Women's Writing Project, which helps young Afghan women learn about writing, find their voices, and share their work in a safe forum. Hamilton is the author of three previous novels: Staircase of a Thousand Steps; The Distance Between Us, and The Camel Bookmobile. She lives in Brooklyn. 

For more information from StyleSubstanceSoul.com, click here. 

Lattin is a
former reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, and The
Harvard Psychedelic Club is the true story of Timothy Leary,
Richard Alpert (Ram Dass), Andrew Weil, and Huston Smith at Harvard in the
early 1960s. Leary, Alpert, and Smith sought spiritual enlightenment
through a controversial series of experiments with psychedelic drugs, but
Weil was excluded due to his undergrad status, so he secretly plotted to get
Alpert and Leary fired from the university. Providing us with an expansive study of the four figures that helped shape the 1960's, Lattin will show us how the visionaries changed American culture.