Youth Event: Lisa Brown

Friday, September 3, 7:00 p.m.

Picture the Dead  BUY NOW

A ghost will find his way home.

Jennie Lovell's life is the very picture of love and loss. First she is orphaned and forced to live at the mercy of her stingy, indifferent relatives. Then her fiancé falls on the battlefield, leaving her heartbroken and alone. Jennie struggles to pick up the pieces of her shattered life, but is haunted by a mysterious figure that refuses to let her bury the past.

When Jennie forms an unlikely alliance with a spirit photographer, she begins to uncover secrets about the man she thought she loved. With her sanity on edge and her life in the balance, can Jennie expose the chilling truth before someone-or something-stops her?

Against the brutal, vivid backdrop of the American Civil War, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown have created a spellbinding mystery where the living cannot always be trusted and death is not always the end.

Photo Credit: Darshan Stevens

Deborah Willis

Thursday, September 9, 7:00 p.m.

Vanishing  BUY NOW

This debut short story collection explores emotional and physical absences, the ways in which people leave and are left, and whether it’s ever possible to move on.  With a remarkable economy of words, moments of dark humor, and wisdom and dexterity far beyond her years, Willis captures an incredible array of characters that will linger in the imagination, proving that nothing is ever truly forgotten.  In these fourteen stories, secrets are both kept and unearthed, and lives are shaped by missing lovers, parents, and children.

Deborah Willis, 28, was born and raised in Calgary, Alberta. Her work has appeared in various journals and publications, and she was a winner of PRISM International’s annual fiction prize. She graduated from the University of Victoria, and has worked as a horseback riding instructor, a waitress, a short-order cook, a tour-guide in a French castle, a house-cleaner, and a newspaper reporter. She is fluent in French, and currently works as a bookseller at Munro’s Books in Victoria, British Columbia. Shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award and longlisted for the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, Vanishing and Other Stories is her first book of fiction. 

Photo Credit: Michael O'Shea

William Gibson

Friday, September 10, 7:00 p.m.

Zero History  BUY NOW

The iconic visionary returns with his first new novel since the New York Times bestseller Spook Country.

Hollis Henry worked for the global marketing magnate Hubertus Bigend once before. She never meant to repeat the experience. But she's broke, and Bigend never feels it's beneath him to use whatever power comes his way -- in this case, the power of money to bring Hollis onto his team again. Not that she knows what the "team" is up to, not at first.

Milgrim is even more thoroughly owned by Bigend. He's worth owning for his useful gift of seeming to disappear in almost any setting, and his Russian is perfectly idiomatic - so much so that he spoke Russian with his therapist, in the secret Swiss clinic where Bigend paid for him to be cured of the addiction that would have killed him.

Garreth has a passion for extreme sports. Most recently he jumped off the highest building in the world, opening his chute at the last moment, and he has a new thighbone made of rattan baked into bone, entirely experimental, to show for it. Garreth isn't owned by Bigend at all. Garreth has friends from whom he can call in the kinds of favors that a man like Bigend will find he needs, when things go unexpectedly sideways, in a world a man like Bigend is accustomed to controlling.

As when a Department of Defense contract for combat-wear turns out to be the gateway drug for arms dealers so shadowy that even Bigend, whose subtlety and power in the private sector would be hard to overstate, finds himself outmaneuvered and adrift in a seriously dangerous world. 

Mr. Gibson will sign copies of his older titles if you purchase a copy of Zero History from Kepler's. Please have your receipt with you.

David Kessler, M.D.

Tuesday, September 14, 7:00 p.m.

The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite  BUY NOW

Kessler’s groundbreaking examination of America’s battle with overeating and obesity reveals how today’s food industry is tapping into the fact that our brains are wired to respond to sugar, fat, and salt by creating foods that literally feed this desire—foods loaded and layered with these “salient stimuli.” Through a combination of food engineering and aggressive marketing, the industry is manipulating the American public to overeat in the same way that the tobacco industry manipulated it to smoke.

So what’s the solution? In THE END OF OVEREATING, Kessler outlines how we can stop the overeating crisis—both as individuals and as a society. The book has already changed the way thousands of people look at food, prompting them to think more carefully about their eating patterns and to recognize the long-term health implications of their choices. The next step is to bring real and lasting change to how food is produced, distributed, and marketed. If anyone can do it, it’s the man who took on Big Tobacco…and won.

David A. Kessler, MD, served as commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration under presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. He is a pediatrician and has been the dean of the medical schools at Yale and the University of California, San Francisco. A graduate of Amherst College, the University of Chicago Law School, and Harvard Medical School, Dr. Kessler is the father of two and lives with his wife in California.

Rachel Simmons: Be You! The Real Girl Tour

Tuesday, September 14, 7:00 - 8:30 p.m.

The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence  BUY NOW

Menlo-Atherton Center for Performing Arts, 555 Middlefield Rd., Atherton

Melanie Thernstrom

Wednesday, September 15, 7:00 p.m.

The Pain Chronicles: Cures, Myths, Mysteries, Prayers, Diaries, Brain Scans, Healing, and the Science of Suffering  BUY NOW

Each of us will know physical pain in our lives, but none of us knows when it will come or how long it will stay. Today as much as 10 percent of the population of the United States suffers from chronic pain. It is more widespread, misdiagnosed, and undertreated than any major disease. While recent research has shown that pain produces pathological changes to the brain and spinal cord, many doctors and patients still labor under misguided cultural notions and outdated scientific dogmas that prevent proper treatment, to devastating effect.

Interweaving first-person reflections on her own battle with chronic pain, incisive reportage from leading-edge pain clinics and medical research, and insights from a wide range of disciplines—science, history, religion, philosophy, anthropology, literature, and art—Thernstrom shows that when dealing with pain we are neither as advanced as we imagine nor as helpless as we may fear.

Melanie Thernstrom is a contributing writer to The New York Times Magazine and the author of The Dead Girl and Halfway Heaven: Diary of a Harvard Murder.

 

Photo Credit: Kim McElroy

Liz Wiseman & Greg McKeown

Thursday, September 16, 7:00 p.m.

Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter  BUY NOW

We've all had experience with two dramatically different types of leaders. The first type drain intelligence, energy, and capability from the ones around them and always need to be the smartest ones in the room. These are the idea killers, the energy sappers, the diminishers of talent and commitment. On the other side of the spectrum are leaders who use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around them. When these leaders walk into a room, lightbulbs go off over people's heads, ideas flow, and problems get solved. These are the leaders who inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations. These are the Multipliers. And the world needs more of them, especially now, when leaders are expected to do more with less.

In this engaging and highly practical book, leadership expert Liz Wiseman and management consultant Greg McKeown explore these two leadership styles, persuasively showing how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations—getting more done with fewer resources, developing and attracting talent, and cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation.