Geoff Dyer

Kepler's was pleased to have Geoff Dyer read from his book, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanisi: A Novel.

Event host Terry Meagher writes about the event in his own inimitable style:

The real* Geoff Dyer arrived unescorted on a full stomach** around 7:10P. After the requisite pleasantries, he asked that I direct him to the remainder bin. I was concerned that Taschen had usurped all the bargain book tables; fortunately, there was the one at the South door.

A modest and gracious (not to mention tall – 6’6’’) Brit, Geoff read three excerpts from his novel: one involving a monkey, a pair of sunglasses, three bananas, and some intense negotiations; another in which the main character encounters the ferocious paintings of Tintoretto while high on cocaine; and a third in which Jeff and a German tourist have a fierce face-off while waiting in a queue at an A.T.M. .

The author was clearly sincere when he paused after the first two excerpts to thank the audience for its kind reception; his readings had been met with ripples if not laugh out loud laughter – particularly from the woman to my immediate right who seemed to do that George Bush shoulder jiggle every 15 seconds.

During Q& A Geoff discussed the origin of the idea for his novel. Having attended the 2004 Venice Biennale he couldn’t help but recall Thomas Mann’s classic novel and was soon musing about how he could rework it for the modern era. After he’d had something of a rough draft, he and his wife visited Varanasi and he was so struck by the watery cities similarities (both pilgrimage sites – one secular the other religious) that he restructured his novel into 2 long stories, their relationship intentionally ambiguous.

He mentioned the SF Chron review as the most insightful regarding his intent to link the two stories through subtle “invisible filaments” with “echoes” of the first story present in the second (Indeed, he hoped when people finished the novel, they would then reread the first story – one audience member [the guy from the Metro] actually had.) He liked the New Yorker article but didn’t quite appreciate James Woods’ attempt to also examine the book in context of his previous work (he feels all his books - fiction and nonfiction - are quite distinct and prefers to think of his oeuvre as thesis-proof).

About his writing process, Geoff said that while he is adept at noticing things others perhaps miss, he struggles with imagining stories - so he simply starts with an interesting scene and sees where it leads; there is no
pre-planned story arc diligently plotted on some excel spread sheet (i.e., Marisha Pessl, William T. Vollman). Once a basic draft is complete, he loves revising: editing, polishing, really nailing sentences. He did say that over the years he has come to realize how difficult, how much work, writing is and that it has become, ironically, an increasingly forbidding process (...aren't those encouraging words for the budding writer!).

Asked what he’s working on currently, Geoff mentioned he’s contemplating a nonfiction book on the game of tennis, his other passion.


*According to events coordinator, Pam, someone phoned the store early in the day claiming to be the author. His story was that he had to unexpectedly attend a funeral in Texas and had inadvertently left his wallet and cell phone on a plane now headed to California. Stranded, he asked that Kepler’s quickly wire him the funds to purchase a plane ticket so that he wouldn’t miss the evening’s event. Thanks to an A.B.A “alert” about just such a scam, Clark Kepler was suspicious and crank caller dealt with.* When I related the story to Geoff, he was rightly stunned and added “jeezz…and I don’t even own a cell phone!”

*Don’t these scammers realize that with just a few probing questions they’d be quickly exposed? (Had I been on the phone I would have immediately asked: “In your latest book what is the full name* of the woman that Jeff Atman – high as a kite on cocaine - seduces while on a Gondola at the 2004 Venice Biennale?”)

*The author never reveals her full name, she’s just Laura.

**Our colleague Rich had spotted the 6' 6" Geoff on Santa Cruz Ave. (he recognized the author from his jacket photo) apparently looking a bit overwhelmed by the plethora of restaurants on our humble Main Street. Rich directed him to the Left Bank which the author later told me in his charming British accent was "absolutely scrumptious!" Thx. Rich!

Alva Noe

Alva Noe came to Kepler's on April 16, 2009 to read from his book Out of Our Heads: Why you are not your brain and other lessons from the biology of consciousness. Event host Marilyn Alexander filed this report:

The author was passionate about the ideas he discussed and was pleased with the turnout. Alva Noe (pronounced no-a (long A)) began his presentation by quoting from Francis Crick who believes that consciousness is nothing more than brain cells. Noe argues that we need a broader perspective. The brain is necessary but not sufficient. Consciousness comes about in the dynamic interaction between our brain, our body, and the world. People don't develop in isolation but rather are gradually integrated into the world, learning and expanding their understanding as the go. He used the example of going to an art museum. One person might look at a painting and not really "get it". Another with more knowledge of the artist might find it meaningful and in a sense see more in it. To illustrate that what we bring to a situation can affect what we see, he showed a projected image, saying that part of it was changing. The image was of a street scene showing a man and part of several cars. It turned out that as we watched the color of the car in the foreground changed gradually from blue to red. Most people do not see it because they don't expect it to change.

Noe said that consciousness is more like dancing than digestion, i.e., more of an interaction than a simple, mechanistic, input/output model. In his book he describes the work of air traffic controllers and shows that the awareness they develop is cooperative work, a combination of the individual mind, tools and other people - their co-workers. Noe said that before computers can compete with humans they will have to develop habits. There are many things we do in a day that we don't have to figure out from scratch. We respond to cues from the environment and over time develop habits and skills. "The hallmark of expertise is its fluency: it is engaged and precisely non-deliberative..." Noe feels that rather than being confined to neuroscience, discussion of consciousness needs to expand to include biology, psychology, and cultural anthropology.

Tina Seelig - What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20

Host Bobbi Emel describes Dr. Tina Seelig's visit to Kepler's:



Wow, the April 17th event with local author and Stanford professor Tina Seelig was unlike any other I’ve hosted! Tina (“please don’t call me Dr. Seelig, I’m just Tina,”) seen at right with me getting my picture on the blog again, teaches courses on entrepreneurship and innovation at Stanford and is an extremely popular professor on campus. She’s popular just about everywhere, it seems, as evidenced by the large crowd of almost 200 people who turned out for the event, about 60% of whom knew Tina personally. All were in good spirits as Tina and her husband, Mike, graciously brought champagne for the audience members who wasted no time in partaking.


Introduced by fellow Stanford professor, Bob Sutton (The No Asshole Rule,) Tina started out as if this were an innovation class at Stanford by having the audience do a warm-up exercise. They were to find someone they didn’t know in the audience and take 3 minutes to find “one amazing thing about that person.” Soon, little groups of people were chatting eagerly and learning intriguing aspects of each other. One person shared that she had talked with a man who had invented a new application for the iPhone. The man then held up his iPhone to show the amused audience his rolling banner text on his own iPhone. (When he came up to Tina in the signing line after the event, he showed her the phone which was scrolling, “Good job, Tina!” across the screen.) Another woman said her conversation partner had invented a new kind of snowshoe. Tina knew him as she interviewed him and relates his story in her book.



The only one who wasn't energized by this opening was canine guest, Juno, seen below, who was a quiet and gracious member of the audience during the entire event.

After the warm-up, Tina took a short time to tell the “real, secret story” behind the motivation and publishing of her book and then answered questions from the audience. She is a very high-energy, outgoing, friendly person and I was pleased, but not surprised, when we sold out of her books.

What I Wish I Knew When I Was Twenty is an easily read book that encourages the reader to look at problems as opportunities and to open up one’s imagination to possibilities. Rife with stories of successful entrepreneurs and her own students at Stanford, Seelig expands the creativity genre started by A Whack on the Side of the Head and Thinkertoys.

Tina told me that she never knows how the assignments she gives her students will turn out and that she never gives the same assignment twice. For example, one of the assignments she gave her students was to form teams which were then given five dollars and the assignment to generate as much money as possible from those five dollars in two hours. The students came up with amazing ideas including standing in line at popular restaurants for reservations, then selling those reservations to people farther back in line. Another team stood outside the Stanford Shopping Center with a sign that read, “Stanford Students for Sale: Buy One, Get Two Free.” They did everything from helping carry shopping bags to providing an impromptu brainstorming session for a woman with a business problem.

However, the next time Tina gave this assignment, she handed the student teams ten paper clips and gave them a few days to generate as much value as they could from the clips. Again, the responses were amazing. But, you’ll have to read the book to find out what happened…

Fora.tv covering author events

Kepler's is pleased to have had web-based video producer Fora.tv covering some of our author events here at the store. We like their mission statement which says, in part, "FORA.tv helps intelligent, engaged audiences get smart. Our users find, enjoy, and share videos about the people, issues, and ideas changing the world."

We know our customers and community are intelligent, engaged, AND smart so we're glad to partner with Fora.tv to bring you video coverage of an author event that you'd like to see again or perhaps were not able to attend at the store.

Recently, Fora.tv taped William Lobdell talking about his book Losing My Religion and Julia Angwin on her book Stealing MySpace. Both videos can be accessed by clicking here.

Next up for Fora.tv at Kepler's will be the April 17th event with Stanford professor and author Tina Seelig on her new book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was Twenty: A Crash Course on Making Your Way in the World.

You can see Fora.tv's website at, of course, http://www.fora.tv/.

Antoinette May

Kepler's was pleased to host Antoinette May on April 3, 2009, reading from her newest book, The Sacred Well. Event host Pam Grange describes the evening:


Toni is quite a fascinating woman! Her good friend Lucy Sanna, who introduced her, said that she has broken the mold when it comes to independent women and that she has both an international, as well as a local following. Toni reads Tarot cards, chases ghosts, and collects myths. Her fascination with the unknown led her to write the bestselling Adventures of a Psychic, a biography of clairvoyant Sylvia Browne, which spent 42 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list.

Her love of travel took her to India at the age of 19 – by herself. Interest in archeology took her to the Yucatan for the first time over 20 years ago. While there, she ended up, by a strange combination of circumstances, spending a night alone in a dense jungle. She says she was visited by a ghost in the form of a woman, dressed in jodphurs, a shirt, tie and pith helmet. The ghost told her that Toni had read about her as a child in a book entitled “Digging in Yucatan” and that Toni would be fine during the night. Terrified and unable to go to sleep, Toni sat up until dawn when she could find her way out of the jungle.

Her love of the Yucatan launched her career as an award-winning travel writer, and she returned to the Yucatan many times while researching this book. In those days, flights were not crammed full as they are now, and she was often able to get a free ride on Mexicana when loads were light. She remains fascinated by the Mayan ruins and the history and myths surrounding them.

The audience was full of her friends and admirers, and it was quite a lively evening!

Julia Angwin

Host Bobbi Emel reports on the March 31st, 2009 visit by author Julia Angwin:

Pulitzer Prize-winning Wall Street Journal reporter Julia Angwin visited Kepler's to discuss her first book, Stealing MySpace: The Battle to Control the Most Popular Website in America. Julia is very personable and a good speaker. And creative, as well: she brought along a colleague from the Wall St. Journal to interview her rather than read from her book or just summarize Stealing MySpace.

Julia took two years to research and write her book and the result is an interesting look at the story behind MySpace. Unlike start-ups and entrepreneurial ventures here in the Silicon Valley, MySpace was started in Los Angeles, the product of two people who were more interested in marketing and making money than in creating the huge social networking craze they started. Stealing MySpace details the behind-the-scenes shenanigans of the two founders as well as the involvement of media mogul Rupert Murdoch and others trying to "steal" MySpace. Although Ms. Angwin invited the founders of MySpace and Mr. Murdoch to be interviewed for the book, all declined leaving the book to be an unauthorized recent history of the MySpace phenomenon.

Both the audience members and Julia were very patient with our unique set-up on March 31 as both BookTV from C-Span and Fora.tv were at the store to record the event. It took some tricky juggling of microphones, but it all went very smoothly. I'd also like to thank our audience members who had questions for bravely submitting themselves to talking into the microphones for both the P.A. and for the television cameras.

Nicolette Hahn Himan

Kepler's was pleased to have Nicolette Hahn Himan come to the store on March 26, 2009 to read from her book, Righteous Porkchop: Finding a Life and Good Food Beyond Factory Farms. Event host Liz Silver:

Though a vegetarian herself, Nicolette Hahn Niman makes an eloquent spokesperson for compassionate carnivorism, the alternative to the industrialized production of meat, poultry and dairy.

Nicolette and her husband Bill are a beautiful, glowing (maybe it's the imminent arrival of their first child) couple: they drip health.

Nicolette's presentation is crammed with facts, but they go down easy; she comes across as passionate, yet fair. Indeed, her Powerpoint pix could have been much more inflammatory.

Though we were prepared for a small presence from the pro-animal forces, it never materialized. The choir at this event was, indeed, already converted, which made for a very easygoing Q & A.