03 / 11
|
03 / 12
|
03 / 13
|
03 / 14
|
03 / 15
|
03 / 16
|
03 / 17
|
03 / 18
|
03 / 19
Start: 11:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
"Ogawa weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow in this exquisite novel. Narrated by the Housekeeper, the characters are known only as the Professor and Root, the Housekeepers 10-year-old son, nicknamed by the Professor because the shape of his hair and head that remind the Professor of the square root symbol. A brilliant mathematician, the Professor was seriously injured in a car accident and his short-term memory only lasts for 80 minutes. He can remember his theorems and favorite baseball players, but the Housekeeper must reintroduce herself every morning, sometimes several times a day. The Professor, who adores Root, is able to connect with the child through baseball, and the Housekeeper learns how to work with him through the memory lapses until they can come together on common ground, at least for 80 minutes. In this gorgeous tale, Ogawa lifts the window shade to allow readers to observe the characters for a short while, then closes the shade.
Receive 10% off your reading group book fromThe Book Works. We request that all groups who meet at The Book Workspurchase their selection from us.Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
03 / 20
Start: 10:00 am
End: 11:00 am
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton*
"The work presents a picture of upper-class New York society in the late
19th century. The story is presented as a kind of anthropological study
of this society through references to the families and their activities
as tribal. In the story Newland Archer, though engaged to May Welland, a
beautiful and proper fellow member of elite society, is attracted to
Ellen Olenska, a former member of their circle who has been living in
Europe but who has left her husband under mysterious circumstances and
returned to her family's New York milieu. May prevails by subtly
adhering to the conventions of that world. The novel was awarded a
Pulitzer Prize."
Receive 10% off when your order your
reading group book from The Book Works.
We request that all groups who meet at The Book Works purchase their
book group books from us in exchange for our dazzling hospitality.
Thanks.
* Author WILL NOT be present.
|
03 / 21
|
03 / 22
|
03 / 23
|
03 / 24
|
03 / 25
|
03 / 26
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03 / 27
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03 / 28
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03 / 29
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03 / 30
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03 / 31
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04 / 1
|
04 / 2
|
04 / 3
|
04 / 4
|
04 / 5
|
04 / 6
|
04 / 7
|
04 / 8
Start: 6:00 pm
End: 8:30 pm
INTERMEDIATE WRITING WORKSHOP WITH LISA FUGARD
This workshop is designed to give intermediate writers of both fiction and nonfiction the intensive review and analysis they need to make theirstories and essays richer and sharper. Writing exercises will be assigned for those students not engaged in works in progress and we will spend some time each session examining How Fiction Works by James Wood. A prerequisite for enrollment is completion of the six week session ‘The Basics’ or a prior workshop with Lisa Fugard. Enrollment is limited to 8 writers.
Dates and Time: Biweekly April 8 - June 10, 6 -8.30 p.m
Venue: The Book Works, Flower Hill Mall, Del Mar
Fee: $230 (Includes a copy of How Fiction Works)
To register or for more information please email lisa@lisafugard.com or call 760-213-5580
Lisa Fugard is the author of Skinner's Drift, a NY Times Notable Book of 2006, a finalist for the LA Times First Fiction Award and the runner up for the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her short stories have been
anthologies and featured on Selected Shorts on NPR. She has written numerous travel articles and book reviews for the NY Times, and is therecipient of a 2009 fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.
|
04 / 9
|
04 / 10
|
04 / 11
|
04 / 12
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
April 1865 by Jay Winik*
April 1865 analyzes the Civil War showing that there was nothing inevitable about the end of the Civil War, from the fall of Richmond to the surrender at Appomattox to the murder of Lincoln. Winik's vivid imagery makes the reader feel as if they were there, witnessing the events occurring.
Receive 10% off your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
04 / 13
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner*
"A beautiful account of a boy's attempt to reconcile his Alaskan wilderness
experience with modern society. Abe Hawcly came to Alaska in search of
his bush-pilot father, became enraptured with the wilderness, then moved
there with his wife to live in a sod igloo and subsist on his hunting
skills while he pursued his painting. Soon disenchanted with isolation
and hardship, his wife abandoned him, leaving him to rear and educate
their three children. Abe's youngest child, known by his Iñupiaq name,
Cutuk, grows to manhood and learns to hunt, gaining an intimate
knowledge of the frozen tundra. Eventually, Cutuk's brother, Jerry,
escapes to Fairbanks, and his sister, Iris, attends college and becomes a
teacher. Meanwhile, torn between two cultures, Cutuk chafes under
discrimination as a white in the midst of Native Americans; he is
deprived of both rights and respect by the locals. He also develops a
profound curiosity about the city, but once he makes it to Anchorage, he
is bewildered and confused by urban slang and modern mores. His
attempts to reconcile himself to his own race fail dismally as he is
drawn back to the north and the values inherent in the wildernes."
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
04 / 14
|
04 / 15
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Tamar: A Novel of Espionage, Passion, and Betrayal by Mal Peet*
"Intense and riveting, it is a mystery, a tale of passion, and a drama
about resistance fighters in the Netherlands during World War II. The
story unfolds in parallel narratives, most told by an omniscient
narrator describing the resistance struggle, and fewer chapters as a
narrative told by 15-year-old Tamar, the granddaughter of one of the
resistance fighters. The locale and time shift between Holland in 1944
and '45 and England in 1995. The constant dangers faced by the
resistance fighters as well as their determination to succeed in
liberating their country from German occupation come vividly to life.
Dart, Tamar, and Marijke are the main characters in this part of the
book. Their loyalty to one another and the movement is palpable though
love and jealousy gradually enter the story and painfully change the
dynamics. Other characters jeopardize the safety of the group and
intensify the life-threatening hazards they face. Peet deftly handles
the developing intrigue that totally focuses readers. After her beloved
grandfather commits suicide, modern-day Tamar is determined to
undercover the mystery contained in a box of seemingly unrelated objects
that he has left for her."
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
04 / 16
Start: 11:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
The Radiance of the King by Camara Laye*
"Clarence, a white man, has been shipwrecked and stranded on the coast of Africa. Brimful of self-importance, he demands to see the king, but the king has just left for the south of his realm. Traveling through an increasingly phantasmagoric landscape in the company of a beggar and two roguish boys, Clarence is slowly stripped of his pretensions, until he is sold as a slave to the royal harem. But in the end Clarence’s bewildering journey is the occasion of a revelation, as he discovers the image, both shameful and beautiful, of his own strange humanity in the alien figure of the king."
Receive 10% off your reading group book fromThe Book Works. We request that all groups who meet at The Book Workspurchase their selection from us.Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
04 / 17
Start: 10:00 am
End: 11:00 am
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald*
"The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and
certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz
Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the
spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place
in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby
embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding
obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings."
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
04 / 18
|
04 / 19
|
04 / 20
|
04 / 21
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Private Author Reception with Tatjana Soli,
Author
of The Lotus Eaters
Wednesday, April 21,
5:30 pm.
Meet author
Tatjana Soli in a small group setting before she presents a general
reading and booksigning for her new book, The Lotus Eaters.
Discuss literature over a glass of wine and light
Vietnamese appetizers (in keeping with the theme of the book) with Ms.
Soli, other authors and book lovers, and The Book Works staff.
Receive a signed copy of The Lotus Eaters
$35
(bring
a guest for an additional $15 - 1 book per twosome)
The Lotus Eaters will be featured on the cover of this Sunday's New York Times Book Review!
The Lotus Eaters: On
a stifling day in 1975, the North Vietnamese army is poised to roll
into Saigon. As the fall of the city begins, two lovers make their way
through the streets to escape to a new life. Helen Adams, an American
photojournalist, must take leave of a war she is addicted to and a
devastated country she has come to love. Linh, the Vietnamese man who
loves her, must grapple with his own conflicted loyalties of heart and
homeland. As they race to leave, they play out a drama of devotion and
betrayal that spins them back through twelve war-torn years.
- "a beautiful and harrowing novel" --
Richard Russo
- "Soli helps us to see and hear and feel the
terrible human costs of the collapse [of Vietnam and Cambodia]"
-- Tim O'Brien
Tatjana Soli was born in Austria. Her work has been
twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short
Stories and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She was awarded the
Pirate's Alley Faulkner Prize, the Dana Award, and was a finalist for
the Bellwether Prize. She presently teaches through the Gotham Writers'
Workshop. More information at www.tatjanasoli.com
Attendance
to the Private Reception is limited. Reserve your place by prepaying
(cash or check) at The Book
Works.
|
04 / 22
|
04 / 23
|
04 / 24
Start: 10:00 am
End: 11:00 am
The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly*
"A charming and inventive story of a child struggling to find her identity at the turn of the 20th Century. As the only girl in an uppercrust Texas family of seven children, Calpurnia, 11, is expected to enter young womanhood with all it's trappings of tight corsets, cooking, and handiwork. Unlike other girls her age, Callie is most content when observing and collecting scientific specimens with her grandfather.Callie's mother, believing that a diet of Darwin, Dickens, and her grandfather's influence will make Callie dissatisfied with life, set her on a path of cooking lessons, handiwork improvement, and an eventual debut into society. Callie's confusion and despair over her changing life will resonate with girls who feel different or are outsiders in their own society."
Please email Tammy Black at tamara@post.harvard.edu for further
information.
Fee: $10
per month and $5 for each additional child in a family.
Start: 11:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
Nana Cracks the Case! by Kathleen Lane*
"Nana is not your ordinary grandma. She never wears cloppy shoes, drinks prune juice, or worries about slippery surfaces. Nana would much rather join the circus, work as a backhoe operator, or maybe become a detective. Which is exactly what happens in this very funny chapter book. When Nana answers an ad in the local newspaper for a detective, she arrives at the police department just in time to investigate the theft of one entire case of delicious Yumdums candy. Can one little old lady find a way to save the day and stop the candy theif from striking again?"
Please email Tammy Black at tamara@post.harvard.edu for further
information.
Fee: $10
per month and $5 for each additional child in a family.
|
04 / 25
|
04 / 26
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:30 pm
Nonfiction book group, Moday April 26, 7:00 pm, Lost City of Z
|
04 / 27
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison*
"In this book she turns that mirror on herself. With breathtaking
honesty she tells of her own manic depression, the bitter costs of her
illness, and its paradoxical benefits. This is one of the best scientific autobiographies ever written, a
combination of clarity, truth, and insight into human character. Jamison's ability to live fully within
her limitations is an inspiration to her fellow mortals, whatever our
particular burdens may be."
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
04 / 28
Start: 6:00 pm
End: 8:30 pm
THE BASICS: A SIX WEEK WORKSHOP WITH LISA FUGARD
An aptly chosen word in a well made sentence in a lively paragraph that effortlessly leads the reader deeper into the narrative - this is one of our goals as writers, but the ‘how to do it’ often feels challenging.
This six-week workshop demystifies the ‘magic’ and offers writers of both fiction and nonfiction a solid grounding in the basics of the craft. We will use Francine Prose’s marvelous Reading Like a Writer as our workbook and classes will include exercises on narration, dialogue and details, as well as short discussions of selected texts.
Ideas for stories and personal essays will inevitably arise and participants will also have the opportunity, if they desire, to workshop a longer piece in an environment that is both supportive and constructive. Enrollment is limited to 10 participants.
Dates and Time: Wednesdays April 28 - June 2 6 -8.30 p.m
Venue: The Book Works, 2670 Via De La Valle, Del Mar.
Fee: $220 (The fee includes a copy of Reading Like A Writer by Francine Prose.)
To register or for more information please email lisa@lisafugard.com
or call 760-213-5580
Lisa Fugard is the author of Skinner's Drift, a NY Times Notable Book of 2006, a finalist for the LA Times First Fiction Award and the runner up for the 2007 Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Her short stories have been
anthologies and featured on Selected Shorts on NPR. She has written numerous travel articles and book reviews for the NY Times, and is therecipient of a 2009 fellowship to the Bread Loaf Writers Conference.
|
04 / 29
|
04 / 30
Start: 8:00 pm
End: 10:00 pm
Jazz Pianist Robert Parker will be playing from 8:00 to 10:00pm in Pannikin Coffee & Tea.
www.robertparkerpiano.com
If you are a musician and would like to play for Friday Night Music for
Pannikin Coffee & Tea and The Book Works, please contact Jenn at
jenn@book-works.com
|
05 / 1
|
05 / 2
Start: 4:00 pm
End: 6:00 pm
"The
book, Kamin’s seventh, is a chronicle of his
experiences at Cincinnati's
churning Woodward High School in the 1960s, his troubled friendship
with a black classmate, and how the legacy of MLK led to their
eventual
reunion almost forty years later. It is ultimately a paean to his
spiritual mentor, M.L. King."
Ben
Kamin is a
nationally known rabbi, author, spirituality columnist, interfaith
specialist, lecturer, Op-ed contributor to The New York Times and
many other
publications. Kamin is also a scholar on the
life and values of Dr.
King. T George Harris, the
former bureau chief of TIME-LIFE, has said about Nothing Like
Sunshine: “No single writer living in America
can communicate the black-white story more evocatively than Ben Kamin.”
http://www.benkamin.com/index.html
|
05 / 3
|
05 / 4
|
05 / 5
|
05 / 6
|
05 / 7
Start: 8:00 pm
End: 10:00 pm
|
05 / 8
|
05 / 9
|
05 / 10
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson*
Niall Ferguson makes a strong, compelling case for the development of money and banking as a catalyst for the advancement of civilization. The Ascent of Money demonstrates how our current fiscal meltdown fits into the bigger historical picture and laments humanity's perennial inability to learn from this history.
Receive 10% off your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
05 / 11
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa*
"Narrated by the Housekeeper, the characters are known only as the
Professor and Root, the Housekeepers 10-year-old son, nicknamed by the
Professor because the shape of his hair and head remind the Professor of
the square root symbol. A brilliant mathematician, the Professor was
seriously injured in a car accident and his short-term memory only lasts
for 80 minutes. He can remember his theorems and favorite baseball
players, but the Housekeeper must reintroduce herself every morning,
sometimes several times a day. The Professor, who adores Root, is able
to connect with the child through baseball, and the Housekeeper learns
how to work with him through the memory lapses until they can come
together on common ground, at least for 80 minutes. In this gorgeous
tale, Ogawa lifts the window shade to allow readers to observe the
characters for a short while, then closes the shade. Snyder—who also
translated Pool—brings a delicate and precise hand to the
translation."
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
05 / 12
|
05 / 13
|
05 / 14
|
05 / 15
|
05 / 16
|
05 / 17
|
05 / 18
|
05 / 19
|
05 / 20
|
05 / 21
|
05 / 22
|
05 / 23
|
05 / 24
|
05 / 25
|
05 / 26
|
05 / 27
|
05 / 28
|
05 / 29
|
05 / 30
|
05 / 31
|
06 / 1
|
06 / 2
|
06 / 3
|
06 / 4
|
06 / 5
|
06 / 6
|
06 / 7
Start: 5:30 pm
End: 6:45 pm
The
Book Works is teaming up with educators from Connected Parenting to offer a book club (with pizza!) that
fosters a love of reading and also helps to develop strong communication
skills.
The boys will read Masterpiece,
by Elise Broach.
This workshop has two main features:
1.
Boys connect with a book -
they use their curiosity and imagination
to explore themes and character development. They are encouraged to
think deeply about how elements of the story
connect with their own thoughts and experiences. The boys read one book
across the 4-week program (tba).
2. Boys connect with each other- the literacy
discussion is used as a platform for building
confidence and enriching communication
skills: listening, asking questions, offering and soliciting opinions,
responding to and respecting the thoughts and ideas of others, and
sharing speaking time.
Dates:
Monday evenings in June from 5:30-6:45 pm: June 7, 14, 21, and 28. Each session will start with
pizza and soft drinks.
Participants:
Boys currently in 3rd or 4th grade. Minimum 10 participants.
Instructors: Connected
Parenting Coaches Rebecca Lindsay and Kelly Parisa will guide
the book group. Rebecca is also a 3rd Grade teacher at The Children's
School, La Jolla. Kelly is also a behavior and learning specialist.
Fee: $100 per child for the
four-week program (20% discount for siblings). Includes a copy of the
book club book, and pizza and soft drinks at each session.
Registration:
Please reserve a place for your child by pre-paying at The Book Works
(by check please, to Connected Parenting).
Questions? Please contact Rebecca
Lindsay (rebeccalindsay@connectedparenting.com).
Connected Parenting is
a highly regarded professional organization founded by
Canadian social worker and therapist Jennifer Kolari. Connected
Parenting helps families develop and maintain strong bonds, and helps
children develop strategies for navigating through their
ever-complicated social networks. The team teaches parenting courses and
provides workshops to schools and organizations across the U.S. and
Canada.
Keep your eyes out for
notices about other upcoming children's activities -- we are putting
together additional children's book groups and are developing a fabulous
Summer Saturdays program. More soon!
JOIN
THE BOOK WORKS CHILDREN'S MAILING LIST
|
06 / 8
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis*
This sense of exasperated, pointless yearning adds further
depth to the book's central theme by subtly introducing the element of
class. Though much more prevalent a matter in British society fifty
years ago, class and Jim never clash head-on. It is nonetheless a
struggle and the symptoms of the struggle are all the more dramatic for
it being unspoken. Beneath Jim's furious lack of faith in his own
attempts to resign himself to a life he's supposed to deserve lies his
genuine belief that there are some things beneath him and a whole bunch
more to which he must never aspire.
What I'm trying to get at is that, in Jim, Amis has built
something deeply true. Like all great art he has preserved a moment in
time, but here the external chronology (ie fifties Britain) is
overshadowed by the capture of the internal, which is to say the
Western male in his mid-twenties, angry, confused, inconvenienced with
intelligence. Both Amis' achievements affect the other, but it is the
latter which is the lasting glory.
Receive 10% off
your reading group book fromThe Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Workspurchase their selection from us.Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
06 / 9
|
06 / 10
Start: 6:30 pm
End: 8:00 pm
After reading "The Great Gatsby" last month, the Classics Book Group will now watch the 1974 rendition starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow on Thursday, June 10th at 6:30pm.
$2.00 fee for electronic set-up. Popcorn welcome!
|
06 / 11
Start: 8:00 pm
End: 10:00 pm
Jazz and Blues musician Billy Watson will be playing from 8:00 to 10:00 pm in Pannikin Coffee & Tea.
http://www.billywatson.com
|
06 / 12
Start: 10:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
Older Boys and Girls Book Group (5th and 6th Grades)
10:00-10:45am
The Wednesday
Wars by Gary Schimdt
Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero in THE WEDNESDAY
WARS—a wonderfully witty and compelling novel about a teenage boy’s
mishaps and adventures over the course of the 1967–68 school year.
Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who
must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the
rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn’t like
Holling—he’s sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of
William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to
worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be
on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But
how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with?
A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing
autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow
tights! As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds
Motivation—the Big M—in the most unexpected places and musters up the
courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself.
Younger Boys and Girls Book Group (3rd and 4th Grades)
11:00-11:45am
Comet in
Moominland: Can Moominland save his beloved valley? by Tove Jansson
and Elizabeth Portch
When Moomintroll learns that a comet will be passing by, he and his
friend Sniff travel to the Observatory on the Lonely Mountains to
consult the Professors. Along the way, they have many adventures, but
the greatest adventure of all awaits them when they learn that the comet
is headed straight for their beloved Moominvalley.
|
06 / 13
|
06 / 14
Start: 5:30 pm
End: 6:45 pm
The
Book Works is teaming up with educators from Connected Parenting to offer a book club (with pizza!) that
fosters a love of reading and also helps to develop strong communication
skills.
The boys will read Masterpiece,
by Elise Broach.
This workshop has two main features:
1.
Boys connect with a book -
they use their curiosity and imagination
to explore themes and character development. They are encouraged to
think deeply about how elements of the story
connect with their own thoughts and experiences. The boys read one book
across the 4-week program (tba).
2. Boys connect with each other- the literacy
discussion is used as a platform for building
confidence and enriching communication
skills: listening, asking questions, offering and soliciting opinions,
responding to and respecting the thoughts and ideas of others, and
sharing speaking time.
Dates:
Monday evenings in June from 5:30-6:45 pm: June 7, 14, 21, and 28. Each session will start with
pizza and soft drinks.
Participants:
Boys currently in 3rd or 4th grade. Minimum 10 participants.
Instructors: Connected
Parenting Coaches Rebecca Lindsay and Kelly Parisa will guide
the book group. Rebecca is also a 3rd Grade teacher at The Children's
School, La Jolla. Kelly is also a behavior and learning specialist.
Fee: $100 per child for the
four-week program (20% discount for siblings). Includes a copy of the
book club book, and pizza and soft drinks at each session.
Registration:
Please reserve a place for your child by pre-paying at The Book Works
(by check please, to Connected Parenting).
Questions? Please contact Rebecca
Lindsay (rebeccalindsay@connectedparenting.com).
Connected Parenting is
a highly regarded professional organization founded by
Canadian social worker and therapist Jennifer Kolari. Connected
Parenting helps families develop and maintain strong bonds, and helps
children develop strategies for navigating through their
ever-complicated social networks. The team teaches parenting courses and
provides workshops to schools and organizations across the U.S. and
Canada.
Keep your eyes out for
notices about other upcoming children's activities -- we are putting
together additional children's book groups and are developing a fabulous
Summer Saturdays program. More soon!
JOIN
THE BOOK WORKS CHILDREN'S MAILING LIST
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Descartes' Bones by Russell Shorto*
"On a brutal winter's day in 1650 in Stockholm, the Frenchman René
Descartes, the most influential and controversial thinker of his time,
was buried after a cold and lonely death far from home. Sixteen years
later, the French Ambassador Hugues de Terlon secretly unearthed
Descartes' bones and transported them to France. The great controversy Descartes ignited continues to our era: where
Islamic terrorists spurn the modern world and pine for a culture based
on unquestioning faith; where scientists write bestsellers that
passionately make the case for atheism; where others struggle to find a
balance between faith and reason.
Descartes’ Bonesis a
historical detective story about the creation of the modern mind, with
twists and turns leading up to the present day—to the science museum in
Paris where the philosopher’s skull now resides and to the church a few
kilometers away where, not long ago, a philosopher-priest said a mass
for his bones."
Receive 10% off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
06 / 15
|
06 / 16
|
06 / 17
|
06 / 18
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Kuraj by Silvia di Natale*
"Based on a true story, Di Natale's expansive debut chronicles the
journey of Naja, a Mongol girl taken from the Central Asian steppes to
Cologne, Germany, during WWII. This absorbing novel encompasses the far-flung war story that precedes the young
heroine's relocation, the details of her alienation in Europe and the
cultural history of her nomadic people. When her birth father, Ul'an, a
Tunshan khan, joins the Germans in protest of Stalin's collectivization,
he meets Lt. Günther Berger, with whom he lays siege to Stalingrad as
part of the Turkestan battalion. After the Russians capture and imprison
the two men, they escape and return to the steppes, only for Ul'an to
die. At Ul'an's behest, Günther adopts the 10-year-old Naja, and with
his wife, Siglinde, raises her in his bourgeois German postwar
household. The plot line is original and the writing lyrical, but the
number of shifts involved in Naja's journey back to her own identity
will leave less diligent readers behind."
Receive 10% off your reading group
book fromThe Book Works. We request that all groups who meet at The Book
Workspurchase their selection from us.Thanks.
*Author WILL
NOT be present.
Start: 8:00 pm
End: 10:00 pm
|
06 / 19
Start: 10:00 am
End: 11:00 am
The collection that established O'Connor's reputation as one of the American masters of the short story. The volume contains the celebrated title story, a tale of the murderous fugitive The Misfit, as well as
"The Displaced Person" and eight other stories.
We'll discuss "A Good Man is Hard to Find" plus one other short story of your choice by Flannery O'Connor.
Receive 10% off your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
Start: 11:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
Event Canceled!
Sorry, but this event has been canceled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused!
|
06 / 20
|
06 / 21
Start: 5:30 pm
End: 6:45 pm
The
Book Works is teaming up with educators from Connected Parenting to offer a book club (with pizza!) that
fosters a love of reading and also helps to develop strong communication
skills.
The boys will read Masterpiece,
by Elise Broach.
This workshop has two main features:
1.
Boys connect with a book -
they use their curiosity and imagination
to explore themes and character development. They are encouraged to
think deeply about how elements of the story
connect with their own thoughts and experiences. The boys read one book
across the 4-week program (tba).
2. Boys connect with each other- the literacy
discussion is used as a platform for building
confidence and enriching communication
skills: listening, asking questions, offering and soliciting opinions,
responding to and respecting the thoughts and ideas of others, and
sharing speaking time.
Dates:
Monday evenings in June from 5:30-6:45 pm: June 7, 14, 21, and 28. Each session will start with
pizza and soft drinks.
Participants:
Boys currently in 3rd or 4th grade. Minimum 10 participants.
Instructors: Connected
Parenting Coaches Rebecca Lindsay and Kelly Parisa will guide
the book group. Rebecca is also a 3rd Grade teacher at The Children's
School, La Jolla. Kelly is also a behavior and learning specialist.
Fee: $100 per child for the
four-week program (20% discount for siblings). Includes a copy of the
book club book, and pizza and soft drinks at each session.
Registration:
Please reserve a place for your child by pre-paying at The Book Works
(by check please, to Connected Parenting).
Questions? Please contact Rebecca
Lindsay (rebeccalindsay@connectedparenting.com).
Connected Parenting is
a highly regarded professional organization founded by
Canadian social worker and therapist Jennifer Kolari. Connected
Parenting helps families develop and maintain strong bonds, and helps
children develop strategies for navigating through their
ever-complicated social networks. The team teaches parenting courses and
provides workshops to schools and organizations across the U.S. and
Canada.
Keep your eyes out for
notices about other upcoming children's activities -- we are putting
together additional children's book groups and are developing a fabulous
Summer Saturdays program. More soon!
JOIN
THE BOOK WORKS CHILDREN'S MAILING LIST
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Reading and Book Signing
with Bestselling Author Claire Cook!
JUNE 21 IS THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER!
Celebrate
the beginning of Summer with
Bestselling Author Claire Cook
Monday,
June 21, 7:00 p.m.
Author Claire Cook will present and read from her new book, Seven Year Switch, and will be followed by a wine and cheese reception. This event is free and open to the public!
Claire
Cook is
the bestselling author
of six novels, The Wildwater Walking
Club, Summer Blowout, Life's a Beach, Multiple
Choice, Ready to Fall,
and Must Love Dogs, which
became a Warner Bros.
movie starring Diane Lane and John Cusack.
Her seventh novel is Seven Year Switch. More information
about Ms. Cook can be found here.
Claire
Cook is an inspiration for writers and, well, all of us: Read about Ms.
Cook and her theme of reinvention
here.
Seven Year Switch by Claire Cook*
Kick off the summer with Claire Cook's new perfect beach read novel!
"Jill Murray is content
living a man-free existence. She's got Anastasia, her ten-year-old
daughter, and a sweet little bungalow to call home. Life as a cultural
coach didn't turn out quite the way she planned, but between answering
phones for Great Girlfriend Getaways and teaching Lunch Around the World
classes, the dust in this Jill-of-all-trades life is starting to
settle.
Then her ex husband comes back.
They say that every seven
years you become a completely new person, and Jill has long ago stopped
wishing her deadbeat husband would return. Now she has to face the fact
there's simply no way she can be a good mom without letting Seth back
into their daughter's life. But why can't she seem to hold herself
together around him? And then there's Billy, the free-spirited,
bike-riding entrepreneur who hires Jill as a consultant. When their
business relationship seems destined for something more, Jill's
no-boys-allowed life is suddenly anything but."
- "With wit and
tenderness, Claire Cook sweeps us into
the life of Jill Murray, a feisty single mom trying to stitch together a
future after being abandoned by her husband. This is a delightful story
of love, loss, and the surprising events that healed her heart. I
cheered for Jill the entire way." -- Beth Hoffman, NYT bestselling author of Saving CeeCee Honeycutt
"A
perfect beach read. Claire Cook once again demonstrates that she's a
master in creating funny, warm, relatable characters you root for from
the very first page." -- Allison Winn Scotch, NYT best selling author of Time of My
Life and The One That I Want
Claire Cook is the bestselling author of six novels, The
Wildwater Walking Club, Summer Blowout, Life's a Beach, Multiple
Choice, Ready to Fall,
and Must Love
Dogs,
which became a Warner Bros. movie starring Diane Lane and John
Cusack. Her seventh novel is Seven Year Switch. More information at www.clairecook.com
|
06 / 22
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
A Case of Exploding Mangoes by Mohammed Hanif*
"Pakistan's ongoing political turmoil adds a piquant edge to this
fact-based farce spun from the mysterious 1988 plane crash that killed
General Zia, the dictator who toppled Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, father of
recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto. Two parallel assassination plots
converge in Hanif's darkly comic debut: Air Force Junior Under Officer
Ali Shigri, sure that his renowned military father's alleged suicide was
actually a murder, hopes to kill Zia, who he holds responsible.
Meanwhile, disgruntled Zia underlings scheme to release poison gas into
the ventilation system of the general's plane. Supporting characters
include Bannon, a hash-smoking CIA officer posing as an American drill
instructor; Obaid, Shigri's Rilke-reading, perfume-wearing barracks pal,
whose friendship sometimes segues into sex; and, in a foreboding cameo,
a lanky man with a flowing beard, identified as OBL, who is among the
guests at a Felliniesque party at the American ambassador's residence."
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
06 / 23
|
06 / 24
|
06 / 25
|
06 / 26
Start: 10:00 am
End: 12:00 pm
Older Girls' Book Group 10:00-10:45 AM
Shakespeare's Secret by Elise Broach
Starting sixth grade at a new school is never easy, especially when your
name is Hero. Named after a character in a Shakespeare play, Hero isn’t
at all interested in this literary connection. But when she’s told by
an eccentric neighbor that there might be a million dollar diamond
hidden in her new house and that it could reveal something about
Shakespeare’s true identity, Hero is determined to live up to her name
and uncover the mystery.
Younger Girls' Book Group 11:00-11:45 AM
Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo
One summer day, Opal goes into a supermarket and comes out with a
scraggly dog that she names Winn-Dixie. Because of Winn-Dixie, her
preacher father finally tells her ten things about her absentee mother,
and Opal makes lots of unusual friends in her quirky Florida town. And
because of Winn-Dixie, Opal grows to learn that friendship -- and
forgiveness -- can sneak up on you like a sudden storm. Now available in
a delightful tie-in edition, here is the original Newbery Honor-winning
book that inspired the major motion picture.
|
06 / 27
|
06 / 28
Start: 5:30 pm
End: 6:45 pm
The
Book Works is teaming up with educators from Connected Parenting to offer a book club (with pizza!) that
fosters a love of reading and also helps to develop strong communication
skills.
This workshop has two main features:
1.
Boys connect with a book -
they use their curiosity and imagination
to explore themes and character development. They are encouraged to
think deeply about how elements of the story
connect with their own thoughts and experiences. The boys read one book
across the 4-week program (tba).
2. Boys connect with each other- the literacy
discussion is used as a platform for building
confidence and enriching communication
skills: listening, asking questions, offering and soliciting opinions,
responding to and respecting the thoughts and ideas of others, and
sharing speaking time.
Dates:
Monday evenings in June from 5:30-6:45 pm: June 7, 14, 21, and 28. Each session will start with
pizza and soft drinks.
Participants:
Boys currently in 3rd or 4th grade. Minimum 10 participants.
Instructors: Connected
Parenting Coaches Rebecca Lindsay and Kelly Parisa will guide
the book group. Rebecca is also a 3rd Grade teacher at The Children's
School, La Jolla. Kelly is also a behavior and learning specialist.
Fee: $100 per child for the
four-week program (20% discount for siblings). Includes a copy of the
book club book, and pizza and soft drinks at each session.
Registration:
Please reserve a place for your child by pre-paying at The Book Works
(by check please, to Connected Parenting).
Questions? Please contact Rebecca
Lindsay (rebeccalindsay@connectedparenting.com).
Connected Parenting is
a highly regarded professional organization founded by
Canadian social worker and therapist Jennifer Kolari. Connected
Parenting helps families develop and maintain strong bonds, and helps
children develop strategies for navigating through their
ever-complicated social networks. The team teaches parenting courses and
provides workshops to schools and organizations across the U.S. and
Canada.
Keep your eyes out for
notices about other upcoming children's activities -- we are putting
together additional children's book groups and are developing a fabulous
Summer Saturdays program. More soon!
JOIN
THE BOOK WORKS CHILDREN'S MAILING LIST
Start: 7:00 pm
"As entertaining as it is thoughtful....Few contemporary writers have
Weatherford's talent for making the deep sweep of history seem vital and
immediate."
-- THE WASHINGTON POST
After 500 years, the world's huge
debt to the wisdom of the Indians of the Americas has finally been
explored in all its vivid drama by anthropologist Jack Weatherford.
He
traces the crucial contributions made by the Indians to our federal
system of government, our democratic institutions, modern medicine,
agriculture, architecture, and ecology, and in this astonishing,
ground-breaking book takes a giant step toward recovering a true
American history.
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book from The Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
06 / 29
|
06 / 30
|
07 / 1
|
07 / 2
Start: 8:00 pm
End: 10:00 pm
Jazz Guitarist Tony Taravella will be playing from 8:00 to 10:00 pm in
Pannikin Coffee and Tea. Come join us!
http://tonytaravella.com/
|
07 / 3
|
07 / 4
|
07 / 5
|
07 / 6
|
07 / 7
|
07 / 8
Start: 6:30 pm
End: 8:00 pm
The Classics Book Group Movie Night will be viewing the 1957 film 12 Angry Men starring Henry Fonda.
$3 for technical support.
|
07 / 9
Start: 12:00 pm
End: 1:00 pm
Brown Bag Writing Group
Every
2nd and 4th Friday, 12:00 to 1:00 pm.
This is an
ongoing, drop-in writing group sponsored by San Diego Writers, Ink and held at The Book Works.
It's fun, low stress, and facilitator/writer Victoria Melekian is
wonderful!
A drop-in writing practice group for North County writers. In
the tradition of the original Brown Bag group and Thursday Writers, San
Diego Writers, Ink is pleased to offer this regularly scheduled drop-in
group where all you have to do is show up and write. No need to
pre-register, just bring your notebook and join leader Victoria
Melekian for an hour of free-writing fun and writerly camaraderie.
We'll supply the prompts, you do the writing. It's fast, it's fun and
there's no critique. But there are always surprises. Brown Bag is a
friendly, safe group for writers of all genres and all levels of
experience. Bring a friend and join us.
Victoria Melekian
writes poetry and short fiction. Her work has appeared in various
anthologies including A Year In Ink,
SDWI's anthology, ONTHEBUS, Pearl, Magee Park Poets, and Passager
(Winners on the Web). You can hear her on First Friday: CD of Year
3 audio compilation. She has received two San Diego Book Awards
and currently serves on the board of San Diego Writers, Ink.
Click here for more information.
Start: 8:00 pm
End: 10:00 pm
Jazz and Blues musician Billy Watson will be playing from 8:00 to 10:00
pm in Pannikin Coffee & Tea.
http://www.billywatson.com
|
07 / 10
|
07 / 11
|
07 / 12
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
A History of Writing by Steven Roger Fischer*
"Fischer traces the history of writing with intensity and pleasure as he explores the astonishing tectonic shifts and catastrophes that have gone to make up the geography of the written
world. The history of writing is as full of dramatic accelerations as it is of
intriguing gaps, mysterious vanishings and tragic obliterations. Fischer's book is at its most fascinating when probing the darker
intimacy of writing and power."
Receive 10% off your reading group book from the Book Works. We request that groups who meet at The Book Works purchase their selection from us. Thank you.
*Author will NOT be present.
|
07 / 13
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Home by Marilynne Robinson*
"Marilynne Robinson returns to the small town in Iowa where her Pulitzer
Prize–winning novel, Gilead, was set. Home is an entirely
independent novel that is set concurrently in the same locale, this time
in the household of Reverend Robert Boughton, Ames’s closest
friend. Glory Boughton, aged thirty-eight, has returned to Gilead to
care for her dying father. Soon her brother, Jack—the prodigal son of
the family, gone for twenty years—comes home too, looking for refuge and
trying to make peace with a past littered with ongoing trouble and
pain. Jack, a bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who cannot hold a
job, is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his
traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton’s most beloved child.
Brilliant, lovable, and wayward, Jack forges an intense bond with Glory
and engages painfully with Ames, his godfather and namesake. Their
story is one of families, family secrets, and the passing of the
generations, about love, death, faith, and healing. "It is a book
unsparing in its acknowledgement of sin and unstinting in its belief in
the possibility of grave. It is at once hard and forgiving, bitter and
joyful, fanatical and serene. It is a wild, eccentric radical work of
literature that grows out of the broadest, most fertile, most familiar
native literary tradition. What a strange old book it is.”—The
New York Times Book Review
Receive 10%
off
your reading group book fromThe Book Works. We request that all groups
who meet at The Book Workspurchase their selection from us.Thanks.
*Author WILL NOT be present.
|
07 / 14
|
07 / 15
|
07 / 16
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
Little Money Street by Fernanda Eberstadt*
"After moving outside the French town of Perpignan--home to the largest
Gypsy population in Western Europe--Eberstadt, a fan of Gypsy music,
undertook a quest to interview members of the renowned Gypsy band
Tekameli. After 18 months of rebuffs, she finally managed to wangle an
invitation to visit with Tekameli's lead singer, Moise Espinas, inside
his home. Personally introduced to the elusive Gypsy culture, she does
readers a tremendous service by providing them with an intimate glimpse
into the vibrant social life, customs, and music of one of the world's
most reviled, misunderstood, and richly textured societies."
Receive 10% off your reading group
book fromThe Book Works. We request that all groups who meet at The Book
Workspurchase their selection from us.Thanks.
*Author WILL
NOT be present.
Start: 8:00 pm
End: 10:00 pm
|
07 / 17
Start: 10:00 am
End: 11:00 am
Justine by Lawrence Durrell*
"The city of Alexandria, Egypt, in the years between the First and Second
World Wars is hauntingly evoked in Justine, the first novel in
Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet. In fact, it might be more
accurate to describe Alexandria as a central character in Justine rather
than as a setting. The emphasis on place pervades the novel's formal
qualities. Durrell, like a number of his fellow modernists, does not
rely on a conventional linear narrative—within
Justine or within the quartet—but shifts continuously
between past and present. One result is that the story seems to have
substantial physical, but not temporal, boundaries. The novel achieves
many of its effects with images, so that it often reads more like poetry
than narrative. The foregrounding of place in the novel encourages us
to consider the extent to which our actions, and even our natures, are
determined by our surroundings. Insofar as these features of Justine
represent the patterns of memory, the book is an exploration of how we
understand and recall experience. Also central to the novel is Durrell's
notion of love. Justine, whose title alludes to the Marquis de Sade's
novel by the same name, attempts to redefine love, or to define it in
modern terms. But in many ways, the relationships the narrator describes—in which sexual desire as well as knowledge and
narcissism play a large part—raise more questions
than they answer about the nature of love."
Receive 10% off your reading group book from
the Book Works. We request that groups who meet at The Book Works
purchase their selection from us. Thank you.
*Author will NOT be present.
|
07 / 18
|
07 / 19
Start: 7:00 pm
End: 8:00 pm
BOOK AN EVENING WITH THE BOOK WORKS
-
PLEASE JOIN US ON MONDAY, JULY 19TH AT 7PM FOR AN EVENING WITH THE BOOK
WORKS TALENTED BOOKSELLERS.....
-
OUR AMAZING KNOWLEDGEABLE STAFF WILL MAKE SUGGESTIONS FOR YOUR BOOKCLUBS
-
WE WILL ASSIST YOU IN SELECTING CHOICES THAT WILL LEAD TO MEANINGFUL
DISCUSSIONS
|
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