Thursday, May 17, 2012, 7:00 – 8:30pm
Great Hall; enter on 8th Avenue. Free, no tickets required.
Celebrated author John Irving reads from his new book, In One Person, which has evoked eager “firsts” and “mosts” even before its publication. The novel-which is narrated by Billy, a bisexual man-marks Irving’s first first-person work since 1989’s A Prayer for Owen Meany and has been called his “most political” work since 1985’s The Cider House Rules.
Monday, May 21, 2012, 7:30 – 9:00pm
Downstairs at Town Hall; enter on Seneca Street. $5.
The bestselling Seattle author of The Devil in the White City brings another past world alive—this time, the ominous realm of Nazi Berlin. With its focus on William E. Dodd, a mild-mannered history professor who becomes America’s first ambassador to Nazi Germany, and Dodd’s flirtatious and free-spirited 24-year-old daughter Martha, Erik Larson’s new book In the Garden of Beasts examines the people, politics, and social life of Berlin during Hitler’s first full year as chancellor
Tuesday, May 22, 2012, 7:30 – 9:00pm
Great Hall; enter on 8th Avenue. $5.
Ten years ago, Augusten Burroughs totally redefined the modern memoir with Running With Scissors; now he takes on the self-help genre. This Is How, not surprisingly, is not your usual self-help book; you’ll find no therapist-approved solutions or tips to cynically mollify pain or make yourself feel better. Instead, by demonstrating how only rigorous, sometimes-uncomfortable honesty truly can set a person free, Burroughs explains that some problems are, in fact, insurmountable—and that recognizing this can be the next best thing to overcoming them.
Thursday, May 24, 2012, 7:30 – 9:00pm
Downstairs at Town Hall; enter on Seneca Street. $5. Free with book purchase from UBS.
Salon CEO David Talbot delivers a bloody Valentine to San Francisco in his new book Season of the Witch, which recounts the civil strife and tragedies that rocked the city from 1967-82—but ultimately led to its rebirth and triumph.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012, 7:30 – 9:00pm
Downstairs at Town Hall; enter on Seneca Street. $5.
In his new memoir Hotels, Hospitals & Jails, Anthony Swofford struggles to make sense of what his military service meant, and to decide—after nearly ending it—what his life can and should become.
Francis Slakey: To the Highest Peaks and Beyond
Thursday, May 17, 2012, 6:00 – 7:00pm
Downstairs at Town Hall; enter on Seneca Street. $5.
Georgetown Professor Francis Slakey (To the Last Breath) journeys to the most extreme points on Earth—and deep inside the human psyche. Before he decided to climb the highest mountain on every continent and surf every ocean, Slakey was, basically, detached. But as his travels veered off course, he was ambushed by guerillas, threatened by a storm in Antarctica, and confronted by a fatal decision on Everest