William Lobdell at Kepler's March 25, 2009

Host Bobbi Emel (seen with Bill Lobdell in the picture at right) reports:

William Lobdell was a long time religion beat reporter for the Los Angeles Times and is currently a visiting professor at UC Irvine. His memoir, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting On Religion in America and Found Unexpected Peace, is a heartfelt story of his search for peace and meaning, first through Christianity, and then, eventually, atheism.

One of the aspects of his book that stood out for me was that there was no vitriol, none of the caustic anger at religion that can be seen in Hitchens’ God Is Not Great and Dawkins’ The God Delusion. Instead, with a journalist’s objectivity, Lobdell reports on his own story. His talk at Kepler’s on March 25th was a good example of Lobdell as an individual and as a reporter.

In person, he is gentle, funny, and well-spoken, entertaining the large audience with stories from his book and answering questions honestly about his journey from being “a mess” to born-again Christian to a doubting Christian trying hard to keep his faith and, finally, to a non-believer who finds peace as an atheist.

What caused him to “lose his religion?” Ironically, it was reporting on religion, a goal to which he had aspired for years as a young Christian. When he was given a full-time job as the LA Times’ religion reporter, he was ecstatic. He wrote on a variety of religions and faiths and was heartened by wonderful stories of people of faith doing amazing good works in spite of tremendous odds in their personal lives. However, he soon started investigating and reporting on the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals. As the years passed and the episodes of abuse he uncovered became worse and worse, he was unable to keep his faith in a God and a system that perpetuated such atrocities. Through careful and lengthy reasoning and soul-searching, he decided to forego his Christian faith.

Again, in contrast to Hitchens and Dawkins, Lobdell answered a question from the audience by saying that, while he is an atheist, he is not “anti-theist.” When the questioner asked him more about this, Lobdell simply said, “While I’ve seen a lot of bad that has happened because of religion, I’ve also seen people doing great things because of religion and I just don’t think it’s all bad.”

Losing My Religion is an easy read and cathartic for people who have taken the same journey while at the same time being a fascinating insider’s look at the sex abuse scandals within the Catholic Church.

Local authors Idris Anderson and Charlotte Muse

Pam Grange hosted local poets Idris Anderson and Charlotte Muse at Kepler's on March 19, 2009:

Poetry is alive and well at Kepler’s!

I really enjoy events like these: local authors who have tons of family, friends, and students/former students. I had sorely underestimated the turnout! People kept coming and coming and coming, and our staff kept setting up more and more and more chairs!

Idris Anderson is from Belmont, and a very large group of her students from Crystal Springs Upland School showed up – both to support her and to hear the “sexy” poem in her collection that she’d promised them she’d read. Her book was dedicated to her parents, who died within 10 months of each other, and who sounded like the world’s most extraordinary parents. Several of the poems Idris read were about them.

Charlotte Muse lives in Menlo Park. The Almanac wrote a great story about her the day before the event which also contributed to the attendance. There was a problem with getting her books printed, but, happily, they arrived several days before the event. She had given us 25 originally, on consignment, but luckily had more with her – as we sold out. Lots of her friends brought in small bouquets of flowers for her, and she was so delighted!

Sara Houghtelling event at Kepler's March 16th

Keplers' was pleased to host debut author Sara Houghtelling on March 16, 2009. Event host Pam Grange reports:

Pictures at an Exhibition, Sara’s first novel, tells the story of a family of Parisian Jewish art dealers whose art collection is looted during World War II. Much of it is based on real stories of people she met while on a Fulbright scholarship to Paris and on the historical documents that remain after the war.
Sara’s parents threw out the TV when she was eight, and she credits that act with starting her on the path to reading and writing. By the time she reached Paris, she knew she wanted to write about France in the post-war period, and that she wanted to write about Edouard Manet’s paintings, which she found beautiful and unsettling. A lot of doors opened up for her while she did research in France. For instance, she met a lawyer at a cocktail party at which neither of them knew anyone else. Sara told him about her novel, and he said, "That sounds like the story of a woman I know." She emailed him a picture of Paul Rosenberg, the art dealer for Picasso and Matisse on whom the novel is most closely based. A day later, she received a letter from Paul Rosenberg's granddaughter, Marianne, who not only knew a lot of the history of that time, but was also a great editor.

Rose Clément is the novel’s most important historical figure and her name and much of her story comes from Rose Valland (1898-1980), the curator of the Jeu de Paume. Valland stayed on in the Modern art museum after it was occupied by the Nazis and transformed into a sorting center for looted artwork. The Nazis couldn’t believe that such an unassuming woman could disobey their orders, and so even when they caught her writing down lists of paintings, she managed to convince them the notes weren’t important. Her prodigious memory, clandestine communication with the Free French, and meticulous documentation of looters, the looted, and the destination of the spoils saved thousands of paintings for their eventual repatriation. France had more artwork looted than any other country in Europe. Over one-third of all privately-held artwork was seized by the Nazis: in all, over 100,000 works of art and several million books.

Sara is fascinating and delightful, and I can only imagine how much fun high school freshmen must have in her English classes. She recently was engaged to Daniel Mason, the author of The Piano Tuner and A Far Country, who was raised in this area. The audience had a huge contingent of Sara’s in-laws to be, as well as a number of friends, who all seemed to have a wonderful time

Martin's Links

The Seattle PI printed its last edition this week. In this column, the book critic for the paper sums up a decade or so of coverage.

http://www.seattlepi.com/books/403854_marshall17.html?source=rss#

Martin's Links

Neil Gaiman and Steve Colbert face off on The Colbert Report. And, among other surprises, who knew that Tom Bombadil was so controversial?

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221843/march-16-2009/neil-gaiman



Working at Kepler’s over the last three years, I’ve noticed that books are occasionally missing from where they should be. Sometimes they are just gone, other times they are shelved in the wrong location. (Such as memorably when we found copies of Naked Lunch by William Burroughs in the cooking section.) Still, any problems we have pale in comparison to the story below:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/mar/17/british-library-books-mein-kampf

Words simply fail me here. Of all the books I would have imagined being turned into a musical, Das Kapital has to be close to the bottom of the list. And I thought Gotterdammerung was long.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/17/china-das-kapital-marx-stage


And, ending today’s post, a Publishers Weekly review of a book that comes out in May. This looks like one of the more interesting food books of the year.

The Food of a Younger Land: A Portrait of American Food—Before the National Highway System, Before Chain Restaurants, and Before Frozen Food, When the Nation's Food Was Seasonal, Regional, and Traditional—from the Lost WPA Files Mark Kurlansky. Riverhead, $27.95 (416p) ISBN 978-1-59448-865-8

A genuine culinary and historical keepsake: in the late 1930s the WPA farmed out a writing project with the ambition of other New Deal programs: an encyclopedia of American food and food traditions from coast-to-coast similar to the federal travel guides. After Pearl Harbor, the war effort halted the project for good; the book was never published, and the files were archived in the Library of Congress. Food historian Kurlansky (Cod; The Big Oyster) brought the unassembled materials to light and created this version of the guide that never was. In his abridged yet remarkable version, he presents what some of the thousands of writers (among them Eudora Welty, Zora Neale Hurston and Nelson Algren) found: America, its food, its people and its culture, at the precise moment when modernism and progress were kicking into gear. Adhering to the administrators' original organization, the book divides regionally; within each section are entries as specific as “A California Grunion Fry,” and as general and historical as the one on “Sioux and Chippewa Food.” Though we've become a fast-food nation, this extraordinary collection—at once history, anthropology, cookbook, almanac and family album—provides a vivid and revitalizing sense of the rural and regional characteristics and distinctions that we've lost and can find again here.

Martin's Links

On the subject of great internet search sites, Stop You’re Killing Me may be the most essential for mystery fans. Here in the store we use it quite a bit. Not only can you search by author, or character name, but the job of the protagonist, when or where the story takes place, and a host of other search options. No matter what you are looking for, if its mystery related, you’ll find it here. Stop You’re Killing Me also lists the titles in the order of the series, which is a huge help.

http://stopyourekillingme.com/

In an old, interesting essay, Neil Gaiman writes about the gender of books:

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/All_Books_Have_Genders

And about the personalities of cities (With a great description of San Francisco):

http://www.neilgaiman.com/p/Cool_Stuff/Essays/Essays_By_Neil/SIMCITY

Martin's Links - Warning: Addictive Link!

Martin says:

Other than talking to a bookseller at Kepler’s, this is the most fun way of finding authors similar to ones you really enjoy. Just be aware, this is a site that leads to continued browsing.

http://www.literature-map.com/

Blogger says:

This is the most fun and addictive link about authors that I've seen!

Martin's Links - Frank Delaney on The Today Show

Frank Delaney will be in the store on April 8, 2009, to read from his newest book, "Shannon." Catch him tomorrow, March 11th, on The Today Show. According to his newsletter, he'll be on during the 10 am (eastern) hour.

Martin's Links

Thanks to Jonathan Carroll for mentioning this article on his blog. The article is interesting -and why nobody is setting up speed reading events locally is beyond me (see my post from 2-21)-but the best part is the chat at the bottom of the article with a lot of debate over which books your date might be reading that would send you running for the exit. There seems to be more than a bit of controversy surrounding Jane Austen.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/05/books-date-impress

John Taylor: Getting Off Track

Kepler's was honored to have eminent economist, researcher, and scholar John B. Taylor speak at the store on March 3, 2009. Event host Bobbi Emel reports:

I was concerned that the inclement weather might deter people from attending this event but, apparently, the specter of the dark and stormy economy outweighed the dark and stormy night as a very large crowd came to hear John Taylor. Dr. Taylor is a distinguished economist, a fellow at the Hoover Institution and a Professor of Economics at Stanford University. He has received numerous awards both for teaching and for achievements in economics. He has served as an economic adviser to the Ford, Carter, and George H.W. Bush administrations as well as advising the Bob Dole, George W. Bush, and John McCain presidential campaigns. Dr. Taylor is currently a member of Governor Schwarzenegger’s Council of Economic Advisers.

Getting Off Track is a summary of Dr. Taylor’s research into the financial crisis. It is truly “hot off the presses” as he refers to events that happened in November of 2008. Although he is an eminent researcher and scholar, his writing style is such that I, who have no background in economics at all, was able to understand the complicated concepts that underlie our current economic predicament. His clear explanations are accompanied by graphs that help the reader see the trends he discusses.

Although he has served under Republican administrations and is very good friends with leading economists of the last decade, including Alan Greenspan, Dr. Taylor is quite frank in his opinion that the government caused the financial crisis by dropping interest rates too low too fast and then prolonged and worsened it by misdiagnosing the problem. This latter issue, he contends, is that the government saw the problem as one of liquidity rather than one of counterparty risk and “the balance sheets of banks.” Thus, the initial efforts to right the tilting economy were aimed at liquidity rather than reducing risk.

Dr. Taylor is a good speaker and he knew that the people in attendance would have many questions so kept his comments about his study fairly brief. True to form, the large audience was well-informed about economics and had many interesting and complex questions, each of which Dr. Taylor was able to handle knowledgeably.

Unfortunately, even Dr. Taylor has no simple answer to how to solve this economic problem. However, in answer to some of the questions, he said that he is disappointed that the current stimulus package of the Obama administration is not being utilized for infrastructure quickly enough. He believes it is a good course to emphasize infrastructure, but said that portion of the stimulus package will not go into effect until later and he thinks the time should be now.

Dr. Taylor is a fan of Kepler’s and, when I offered him a gift book, he and his wife smiled and said that they love to browse in Kepler’s so would take us up on the offer of a book when they had time to come back and browse at their leisure.