Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction 4/25 4/25/2017 4:00:00 PM UTC - 6/13/2017 6:15:00 PM UTC Posted By: Center for Stress Reduction  Stress Reduction, Rockridge,  4/25 Been wanting to learn to meditate but feel like you can't do it right? Join this class and see there is no wrong way. "Reba has compassion for people and genuine love. I will be recommending this workshop to friends." Evidence-based Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction class Tuesday mornings, 4/25-6/13/17, 9-11:15 am   Register here: www.centerforstressreduction.com/stress-reduction-class-oakland.html See Details

Lou Cove in conversation with Howie Gordon discussing "Man of the Year 6/16/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 6/16/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Lou Cove to the store to discuss and sign, Man of the Year: A Memoir, on Thursday, June 15th at 7:00 pm. Joining him in conversation will be the Man of the Year himself, Howie Gordon.  In 1978 Jimmy Carter mediates the Camp David Accords, Fleetwood Mac tops the charts with Rumours, Starsky fights crime with Hutch, and twelve-year-old Lou Cove is uprooted from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Salem, Massachusetts- a backwater town of witches, Puritans, and sea-captain wannabes. After his eighth move in a dozen years, Lou figures he should just resign himself to a teenage purgatory of tedious paper routes, school bullies, and unrequited lust for every girl he likes. Then one October morning an old friend of Lou's father, free-wheeling (and free-loving) Howie Gordon arrives at the Cove doorstep from California with his beautiful wife Carly. Howie is everything Lou wants to be: handsome as a movie star, built like a god and in possession of an unstoppable confidence. Then, over Thanksgiving dinner, Howie drops a bombshell. Holding up an issue of Playgirl magazine, he flips to the center and there he is, Mr. November in all his natural glory. Howie has his eye on becoming the next Burt Reynolds, and a wild idea for how to do it: win Playgirl's Man of the Year. And he knows just who should manage his campaign. As Lou and Howie canvas Salem for every vote in town - little old ladies at bridge club, the local town witch, construction workers on break and everyone in between - Lou is forced to juggle the perils of adolescence with the pursuit of Hollywood stardom. Man of the Year is the improbable true story of Lou's thirteenth year, one very unusual campaign, and the unexpected guest who changes everything. Lou Cove lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, and he hasn't seen a new copy of Playgirl since 1980. Howie Gordon (film name Richard Pacheco), is an American former pornographic film and video actor, writer and director who retired from the X-rated business in the mid-1980s. He appeared in more than 100 x-rated films and videos. He has won multiple adult film awards for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Director. He was Playgirl magazine's Man of the Year in 1979.   See Details

China Miéville discusses "October: Story of the Russian Revolution" 5/25/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 5/25/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes China Miéville to the store to discuss and sign,  October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, on Wednesday, May 24th at 7:00 pm. Award-winning writer China Miéville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history. In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later, it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions? This is the story of the extraordinary months between those upheavals, in February and October, of the forces and individuals who made 1917 so epochal a year, of their intrigues, negotiations, conflicts and catastrophes. From familiar names like Lenin and Trotsky to their opponents Kornilov and Kerensky; from the byzantine squabbles of urban activists to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire; from the revolutionary railroad Sublime to the ciphers and static of coup by telegram; from grand sweep to forgotten detail. Historians have debated the revolution for a hundred years, its portents and possibilities: the mass of literature can be daunting. Here is a book for those new to the events, told not only in their historical import but in all their passion and drama and strangeness. As well as a political event of profound and ongoing consequence, Miéville reveals the Russian Revolution as a breathtaking story.  China Miéville is the multi-award-winning author of many works of fiction and non-fiction. His fiction includes The City and the City, Embassytown and This Census-Taker, and has won the Hugo, World Fantasy and Arthur C. Clarke awards; his non-fiction includes the photo-illustrated essay London’s Overthrow and Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law. He has written for various publications, including the New York Times, Guardian, Conjunctions and Granta and he is a founding editor of the quarterly Salvage. See Details

Cole Hardware Sidewalk Sale 5/20/2017 5:00:00 PM UTC - 5/21/2017 1:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Cole Hardware Rockridge Summer is here and its the perfect time to shop outside! We have a lot of great stuff that needs to go. Come on down to Cole Hardware for big discounts on all kinds of cool merchandise. We have TONS of tools, toys, gift items, automotive supplies, housewares items, garden items, outdoor stuff, light fixtures, and even the kitchen sink, all at 50-75% off. If you get here at the beginning, you might even find a Vitamix blender or a Miele vacuum cleaner. We even have a giant vintage Benjamin Moore Paint sign for sale! Everything will be set up right out front so you can browse on your way to or from brunch. The sale is currently scheduled for Saturday only, but we may extend to Sunday depending on how much merchandise we have left.  See Details

Stephen Mikesell discusses and signs "A Tale of Two Bridges" 5/17/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 5/17/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Stephen Mikesell to the store to discuss and sign A Tale of Two Bridges: The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridges of 1936 and 2013 on Tuesday, May 16th at 7:00 pm. A Tale of Two Bridges is a history of two versions of the San Francisco--Oakland Bay Bridge: the original bridge built in 1936 and a replacement for the eastern half of the bridge finished in 2013. The 1936 bridge revolutionized transportation in the Bay Area and profoundly influenced settlement patterns in the region. It was also a remarkable feat of engineering. In the 1950s. the American Society of Civil Engineers adopted a list of the "Seven Engineering Wonders" of the United States. The 1936 structure was the only bridge on the list, besting even the more famous Golden Gate Bridge. One of its greatest achievements was that it was built on time (in less than three years) and came in under budget. Mikesell explores in fascinating detail how the bridge was designed by a collection of the best-known engineers in the country as well as the heroic story of its construction by largely unskilled laborers from California, joined by highly skilled steel workers.  By contrast, the East Span replacement, which was planned between 1989 and 1998, and built between 1998 and 2013, fell victim to cost overruns in the billions of dollars, was a decade behind schedule, and suffered from structural problems that has made it a perpetual maintenance nightmare.  This is narrative history in its purest form. Mikesell excels at explaining highly technical engineering issues in language that can be understood and appreciated by general readers. Here is the story of two very important bridges, which provides a fair but uncompromising analysis of why one bridge succeeded and the other did not. Stephen Mikesell is an historic preservation specialist and public historian living in Davis, CA. He is the former Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer for California and is the author of The Sierra Railway. See Details

Publication Party! Edan Lepucki discusses and signs "Woman No. 17" 5/10/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 5/10/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Edan Lepucki back to the store to discuss and sign her new novel, Woman No. 17, on Tuesday, May 9th at 7:00 pm. Edan will be in conversation with Lydia Kiesling, editor at The Millions. This will be her publication party and all are welcome to attend! High in the Hollywood Hills, writer Lady Daniels has decided to take a break from her husband. Left alone with her children, she's going to need a hand taking care of her young son if she's ever going to finish her memoir. In response to a Craigslist ad, S arrives, a magnetic young artist who will live in the secluded guest house out back, care for Lady's toddler, Devin, and keep a watchful eye on her older, teenage son, Seth. S performs her day job beautifully, quickly drawing the entire family into her orbit, and becoming a confidante for Lady, but in the heat of the summer, S's connection to Lady's older son takes a disturbing, and possibly destructive, turn. As Lady and S move closer to one another, the glossy veneer of Lady's privileged life begins to crack, threatening to expose old secrets that she has been keeping from her family. Meanwhile, S is protecting secrets of her own, about her real motivation for taking the job. S and Lady are both playing a careful game, and every move they make endangers the things they hold most dear.  Darkly comic, twisty and tense, this mesmerizing new novel proves Edan Lepucki to be one of the most talented and exciting voices of her generation. Edan Lepucki is the New York Times bestselling author of the novel California as well as the novella If You're Not Yet Like Me. A contributing editor and staff writer at The Millions, she has also published fiction and nonfiction in McSweeney's, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, The Cut, and elsewhere. She is the founder of Writing Workshops Los Angeles. See Details

Patricia Lockwood discusses and signs her memoir "Priestdaddy" 5/5/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 5/5/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Patricia Lockwood to the store to discuss and sign her memoir, Priestdaddy, on Thursday, May 4th at 7:00 pm. Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met--a man who lounges in boxer shorts, loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972".  His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the Church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.  In Priestdaddy, Lockwood interweaves emblematic moments from her childhood and adolescence--from an ill-fated family hunting trip and an abortion clinic sit-in where her father was arrested, to her involvement in a cultlike Catholic youth group--with scenes that chronicle the eight-month adventure she and her husband had in her parents' household after a decade of living on their own. Lockwood details her education of a seminarian who is also living at the rectory, tries to explain Catholicism to her husband, who is mystified by its bloodthirstiness and arcane laws, and encounters a mysterious substance on a hotel bed with her mother.  Lockwood pivots from the raunchy to the sublime, from the comic to the deeply serious, exploring issues of belief, belonging, and personhood. Priestdaddy is an entertaining, unforgettable portrait of a deeply odd religious upbringing, and how one balances a hard-won identity with the weight of family and tradition. Patricia Lockwood was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and raised in all the worst cities of the Midwest. She is the author of two poetry collections, Balloon Pop Outlaw Black and Motherland Fatherland Homelandsexuals, a New York Times Notable Book. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, The New Republic, Slate, and the London Review of Books. Lockwood lives in Lawrence, Kansas. See Details

Morgan Parker presents "There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé" 4/19/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 4/19/2017 3:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Morgan Parker, poet and winner of the 2016 Pushcart Prize, presents her new book of poetry, which uses political and pop-cultural references as a framework to explore 21 st century black American womanhood and its complexities: performance, depression, isolation, exoticism, racism, femininity, and politics. This event is free and all are welcome to attend! See Details

Community Breema this Friday! 4/11/2017 6:00:00 PM UTC - 4/15/2017 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Breema Clinic Revitalize your body, calm your mind and balance your emotions by receiving a complete 20 minute session of Breema bodywork in a group setting. Sessions are profoundly relaxing and energizing and can transform your day! Drop-ins welcome! Sessions: Sliding Scale $10-$20 http://breemahealth.com 510-428-1234 See Details

Marcus Thompson II discusses "Golden" 4/13/2017 2:00:00 PM UTC - 4/14/2017 3:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Marcus Thompson II spent ten seasons covering the Warriors as a beat writer, and is currently a sports columnist for the Mercury News and East Bay Times. Here he presents his sports bio, Golden: The Miraculous Rise of Steph Curry, an inside look at the phenomenal player who led the Warriors to seventy-three wins in the 2015-16 season. This event is free and all are welcome to attend. See Details

Siel Ju discusses and signs "Cake Time" 4/8/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 4/8/2017 3:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Korean-American writer , Siel Ju discusses and signs her novel-in-stories “ Cake Time,” winner of the 2015 Red Hen Press Fiction Manuscript Award. Joining her in conversation will be Brynn Saito, author and finalist for the 2013 Northern California Book Award, and Andrew Lam, author and finalist for the California Book Award.  This event is free and all are welcome to attend. See Details

Meredith May discusses and signs "I, Who Did Not Die" 4/7/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 4/7/2017 3:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Journalist and recipient of the PEN USA Literary Award for Journalism, Meredith May celebrates the publication of her new nonfiction book. “I, Who Did Not Die” is a story of the Iran-Iraq war, a child soldier, and the man whose life he spared. As a special treat, pianist John Steven Morgan will perform at the event. This event is free and all are welcome to attend! See Details

Science-Based Self-Care for the Resistance 2/14/17 2/14/2017 5:00:00 PM UTC - 4/4/2017 6:15:00 PM UTC Posted By: Center for Stress Reduction Want sustained energy for the resistance? Join us to explored personalized solutions that work for your brain in Better Mood, Naturally: Mindful Eating with the Brain in Mind on Tuesday mornings in Rockridge. http://www.centerforstressreduction.com/better-mood-class-oakland.html See Details

Jason Turbow discusses and signs "Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic" 3/22/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 3/22/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Jason Turbow to the store to discuss and sign, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic: Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin A's on Tuesday, March 21st at 7:00 pm. The Oakland A's of the early 1970's were the most transformative team in baseball history. Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions, let alone an indisputably winning record: five consecutive division titles and three straight championships. The drama that played out on the field was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office. But those A's, with their garish uniforms and outlandish facial hair, redefined the game for coming generations.  Under the visionary leadership of owner Charles O. Finley, the team assembled such luminaries as Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Rollie Fingers, and Vida Blue. Finley acted as his own general manager, his insatiable need for control dictating everything from the playlist of the ballpark organist to the menu for the media lounge. So pervasive was his meddling that one of his managers, Dick Williams, quit in the middle of the championship celebration following Oakland's Game 7 victory over the Mets in the 1973 World Series. The advent of free agency spelled the end of Finley's reign; within two years, his dynasty was lost.  A sprawling, brawling history of one of baseball's unforgettable teams, Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic is a paean to a turbulent, magical time. Jason Turbow is the author of the best-selling The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing & Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America's Pastime. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and SI.com. He lives in California. See Details

Melissa Febos discusses and signs "Abandon Me" 3/16/2017 2:00:00 AM UTC - 3/16/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Melissa Febos to the store to discuss and sign her memoir Abandon Me, on Wednesday, March 15th at 7:00 pm. In this dazzling new work, Melissa Febos captures the intense bonds of love and the need for connection -- with family, lovers, and oneself. First, her birth father, who left her with only an inheritance of addiction and Native American blood, its meaning a mystery. As Febos tentatively reconnects, she sees how both these lineages manifest in her own life, marked by compulsion and an instinct for self-erasure. Meanwhile, she remains closely tied to the sea captain who raised her, his parenting ardent but intermittent as his work took him away for months at a time. Woven throughout is the hypnotic story of an all-consuming, long-distance love affair with a woman, marked equally by worship and withdrawal. In visceral, erotic prose, Febos captures their mutual abandonment to passion and obsession -- and the terror and exhilaration of losing herself in another. At once a fearlessly vulnerable memoir and an incisive investigation of art, love, and identity, Abandon Me draws on childhood stories, religion, psychology, mythology, popular culture, and the intimacies of one writer's life to reveal intellectual and emotional truths that feel startlingly universal. Melissa Febos is the author of the memoir Whip Smart. Portions from Abandon Me have won prizes from Prairie Schooner, Story Quarterly, and the Center for Women Writers, and twice earned notice in the 2015 Best American Essays anthology. Febos serves on the executive board of VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and is an assistant professor of creative writing at Monmouth University and on the M.F.A. faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts. She lives in Brooklyn.  See Details

Clair Brown discusses and signs "Buddhist Economics" 3/10/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC - 3/10/2017 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Clair Brown to the store to discuss and sign Buddhist Economics: An Enlightened Approach to the Dismal Science, on Thursday, March 9th at 7:00 pm. In the tradition of E. F. Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful, renowned economist Clair Brown argues persuasively for a new economics built upon equality, sustainability, and right living. Traditional economics measures the ways in which we spend our income, but doesn't attribute worth to the crucial human interactions that give our lives meaning. Clair Brown, an economics professor at U.C. Berkeley and a practicing Buddhist, has developed a holistic model, one based on the notion that quality of life should be measured by more than national income. Brown advocates an approach to organizing the economy that embraces rather than skirts questions of values, sustainability, and equity. Complementing the award-winning work of Jeffrey Sachs and Bill McKibben, and the paradigm-breaking spirit of Amartya Sen, Robert Reich, and Thomas Piketty, Brown incorporates the Buddhist emphasis on interdependence, shared prosperity, and happiness into her vision for a sustainable and compassionate world. Buddhist economics leads us to think mindfully as we go about our daily activities, and offers a way to appreciate how our actions affect the well-being of those around us. By replacing the endless cycle of desire with more positive collective activities, we can make our lives more meaningful as well as happier. Inspired by the popular course Professor Brown teaches at U.C. Berkeley, Buddhist Economics represents an enlightened approach to our modern world infused with ancient wisdom, with benefits both personal and global, for generations to come. Clair Brown is a professor of economics and director of the Center for Work, Technology, and Society at the University of California, Berkeley. An economist focusing on work and economic justice, she is a past director of the Institute of International Relations at Berkeley, and chair of the Committee on Education Policy of the UCB Academic Senate. She lives in Richmond, CA. See Details

James Sherry discusses and signs "Entangled Bank" 2/24/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC - 2/24/2017 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes James Sherry to the store to discuss and sign his latest poetry collection, Entangled Bank on Thursday, February 23rd at 7:00 pm. Joining him in conversation will be local poet Sara Larsen.  "Entangled Bank opens with a set of five line poems dedicated to the 'beauty' of various poets, a nuanced and generous version of Joseph Kaplan's infamous Kill List, and concludes with a wrenchingly honest prose piece on Sherry's correspondence with the late poet Stacy Doris on the limits of empathy. Between these gestures toward a troubled yet significant human connection, Sherry places poems in a variety of styles, as if styles were species in an ecosystem, a veritable 'entangled bank'. Often he writes with scathing wit on the degradation of the environment and the fraudulence of the financial system. One line admonishes, 'Wake up, this is about you.' And it is. You're going to want it." - Rae Armantrout  James Sherry is the author of eleven previous books of poetry and prose, including Oops! Environmental Poetics. He is publisher of Roof Books and started the Segue Foundation, Inc., a multi arts producer, in 1977 in New York City. See Details

Publication Party! Christine Hyung-Oak Lee 2/16/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC - 2/16/2017 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Christine Hyung-Oak Lee to the store to discuss and sign Tell Me Everything You Don't Remember: The Stroke That Changed My Life, on Wednesday, February 15th at 7:00 pm. This will be her publication party and all are welcome and encouraged to attend. Christine Hyung-Oak Lee woke up with a headache on New Year's Eve 2006. By that afternoon, she saw the world quite literally upside down. By New Year's Day, she was unable to form a coherent sentence, and after hours in the ER, days in the hospital, and multiple questions and tests, she learned that she had had a stroke. For months, Lee outsourced her memories to her notebook. It is from these memories that she has constructed this frank and compelling memoir. In a precise and captivating narrative, Lee navigates fearlessly between chronologies, weaving her childhood humiliations and joys together with the story of the early days of her marriage; and then later, in painstaking, painful, and unflinching detail, her stroke and every upset, temporary or permanent, that it causes. Lee processes her stroke and illuminates the connection between memory and identity in an honest, meditative, and truly funny manner, utterly devoid of self-pity. As she recovers, she begins to realize that this unexpected and devastating event provides a catalyst for coming to terms with her true self. Christine Hyung-Oak Lee is a writer who lives in Berkeley, California. Born in New York City, Christine earned her undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and her MFA at Mills College. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in The New York Times and on BuzzFeed and The Rumpus, among other publications. She has been awarded a Hedgebrook residency, and her writing has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.  See Details

Michael McClure discusses and signs "Mephistos and Other Poems" 2/5/2017 11:00:00 PM UTC - 2/6/2017 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Michael McClure to the store to discuss and sign Mephistos and Other Poems, on Sunday, February 5th at 3:00 pm. A landmark work of bio-romanticism, Mephistos and Other Poems is the first completely new collection in five years from legendary Beat and SF Renaissance poet Michael McClure, reflecting his interests in mammal consciousness and ecological survival. The title sequence stems from McClure's ongoing "grafting" experiment, growing new poems from fragments of previously ones. Some Fringes is a series of haiku-like nature poems, while the seventeen-part Rose Breaths derives from the poet's practice of meditation. The freestanding poems grouped under the title Being pay homage to many of McClure's collaborators and fellow travelers like Bruce Conner, Terry Riley, and Dave Haselwood. The book climaxes with Song Heavy, recounting McClure's recent encounter with a beached whale in Rockport, Massachusetts, and recalling his classic For the Death of 100 Whales, which he read at the Six Gallery in 1955, the inaugural moment of American eco-poetics. Michael McClure is an award-winning American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving from Kansas to San Francisco as a young man, he was one of the five poets who participated in the Six Gallery reading that featured the public debut of Allen Ginsberg's landmark poem Howl. A key figure of the Beat Generation, McClure is immortalized as Pat McLear in Jack Kerouac's novels The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He also participated in the sixties counterculture alongside musicians like Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. McClure remains active as a poet, essayist, and playwright and lives with his second wife, Amy, in the San Francisco Bay Area. See Details

Free Intro to Better Mood, Naturally, Rockridge, 1/31/17 1/31/2017 5:00:00 PM UTC - 1/31/2017 7:15:00 PM UTC Posted By: Center for Stress Reduction Improve your mood in 2017 with cutting-edge brain science and mindfulness. Attend a free intro to decide if you want to take an 8-week class. Body-positive, food-positive.     More info at (510) 594-8224, www.centerforstressreduction.com Sign up for free orientation at https://bettermoodnaturally-freeorientation.eventbrite.com See Details

ZYZZYVA Winter Issue Release Party! 1/27/2017 3:00:00 AM UTC - 1/27/2017 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland is pleased to host the release of ZYZZYVA: The Winter Issue on Thursday, January 26th at 7:00 pm. Copies of this issue will be available for purchase at the event. Come celebrate ZYZZYVA's Winter issue with a reading featuring contributors Kathleen Alcott, Ella Martinsen Gorham, Matthew Zapruder,and Scott O'Connor. We promise a night of exemplary prose and verse, so please join us! See Details

Mark O'Connell discusses and signs "Modern Brides & Modern Grooms" 1/22/2017 11:00:00 PM UTC - 1/23/2017 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Mark O'Connell to the store to discuss and sign Modern Brides & Modern Grooms: A Guide to Planning Straight, Gay, and Other Nontraditional Twenty-First-Century Weddings, on Sunday, January 22nd at 3:00 pm. Joining him in conversation will be author of the forward, Liza Monroy. Yummy cupcakes and wine will be provided by  Sweet Adeline Bake Shop and  Paul Marcus wines! This book is for any couple, of the same or opposite sex, seeking a personalized wedding that dignifies the relationship and the individual self. This guide emboldens you to harness your unique, brazen, queer truth-to be creative and to plan your wedding your way. Every fiancé and fiancée faces the question, how do I become something new without losing myself? Using his own story, author Mark O'Connell reflects on conflicts that arrive during wedding transitions, as well as various other transitions throughout your lives. As a psychotherapist, O'Connell offers ideas to bridge relational gaps with your partner, family, and friends. As a professional actor, he also offers insight into the ways your wedding is a theatrical production and how this can help you to conceptualize the event, consolidate your efforts, and increase creative collaboration as a couple. This will serve you not only on your big day, but also for the rest of your time together. Whether we're straight, gay, or other, weddings inspire us to carve out more fun, freedom, recognition, life space, love space, and connubial space than we've ever had before. See Details

Cole Hardware December Events 12/2/2016 8:56:00 PM UTC - 12/20/2016 8:56:00 PM UTC Posted By: Cole Hardware Rockridge Hi Neighbors! We have all kinds of cool events happening at the store this month. We hope to see you at some or all of them! Hi Neighbors! We have all kinds of cool events happening at the store this month. We hope to see you at some or all of them! December 1st-10th - Cole Hardware has adopted 3 families through Woman Inc. We will be collecting gifts and gift cards for these families. Please email tessa@colehardware.com for more info. December 1st-20th - We are collecting toy for Toys for Tots. You can drop off NEW, UNWRAPPED toys in the bin near the door. December 3rd - Make a card for Santa! Kids can come in between 1pm and 3pm to decorate a holiday card to write a letter to Santa or anyone they choose. December 7th - Cole Hardware's Hippie Holiday Anniversary Sale. 20% off almost everything in the store, plus wine and brownies December 9th-12th - Warm Coat Drive benefiting Pantry for Hope. Drop off new or gently used warm coats, hats, gloves, and scarves for low income or homeless in the area. December 11th - Pictures with Santa Paws! Bring your friendly dog in between 2pm and 6pm to have his/her photo taken with Santa. $10 donation benefits the East Bay SPCA.  December 14th - Wreath Workshop. Make your own holiday wreath between 5pm and 7pm. MUST REGISTER at colehardware.eventbrite.com     Cole Hardware 5533 College Ave Oakland, CA  510-463-2653 Cole Hardware 5533 College Ave Oakland, CA  510-463-2653 See Details

Michael Chabon discusses and signs "Moonglow" 12/15/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 12/15/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland warmly welcomes Michael Chabon back to the store to discuss and sign his new book, Moonglow on Wednesday, December 14th at 7:00pm. **Please note** This is a ticketed event. Attendance to this event is free, but each copy of Moonglow purchased reserves one seat. Reserved seats are held until the start of the event, at which point standing guests are invited to fill vacant places. Please contact DIESEL at 510-653-9965 with questions. Following on the heels of his New York Times bestselling novel Telegraph Avenue, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon delivers another literary masterpiece: a novel of truth and lies, family legends, and existential adventure and the forces that work to destroy us. In 1989, fresh from the publication of his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Michael Chabon traveled to his mother's home in Oakland, California, to visit his terminally ill grandfather. Tongue loosened by powerful painkillers, memory stirred by the imminence of death, Chabon's grandfather shared recollections and told stories the younger man had never heard before, uncovering bits and pieces of a history long buried and forgotten. That dreamlike week of revelations forms the basis for the novel Moonglow. Moonglow unfolds as the deathbed confession of a man the narrator refers to only as my grandfather. It is a tale of madness, of war and adventure, of sex and marriage and desire, of existential doubt and model rocketry, of the shining aspirations and demonic underpinnings of American technological accomplishment at midcentury, and, above all, of the destructive impact and the creative power of keeping secrets and telling lies. It is a portrait of the difficult but passionate love between the narrator's grandfather and his grandmother, an enigmatic woman broken by her experience growing up in war-torn France. It is also a tour de force of speculative autobiography in which Chabon devises and reveals a secret history of his own imagination. From the Jewish slums of prewar South Philadelphia to the invasion of Germany, a Florida retirement village to the penal utopia of New York's Wallkill prison, and from the heyday of the space program to the twilight of the American Century, the novel revisits an entire era through a single life and collapses a lifetime into a single week. A lie that tells the truth, a work of fictional nonfiction, an autobiography wrapped in a novel disguised as a memoir, Moonglow is Chabon at his most moving and inventive. Michael Chabon is the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, A Model World, Wonder Boys, Werewolves in Their Youth, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Summerland, The Final Solution, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, Maps & Legends, Gentlemen of the Road, Telegraph Avenue, and the picture book The Astonishing Secret of Awesome Man. He lives in Berkeley, California, with his wife, the novelist Ayelet Waldman, and their children. See Details

8th Annual Rockridge in the Snow 11/26/2016 11:00:00 PM UTC - 11/27/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Rockridge Business Improvement District Shop, dine and be merry along the avenue! Holiday Shopping & Dining Stroll Live Music & Caroling Photos with Santa Pony Rides & Petting Zoo (nominal fee) Holiday Treats Gift Card Raffle Donation Drives- Toys for Tots and One Warm Coat  See Details

Alan Bernheimer discusses and signs "Lost Profiles" 11/16/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 11/16/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes poet/translator Alan Bernheimer, to the store to discuss and sign, Lost Profiles on Tuesday, November 15th at 7:00pm.  Poet Alan Bernheimer provides a long overdue English translation of the French literary classic, Philippe Soupault's Lost Profiles. It is a retrospective of a crucial period in modernism written by Soupault, the co-founder of the surrealist movement. Opening with a reminiscence of the international Dada movement in the late 1910s and its transformation into the beginnings of surrealism, Lost Profiles ushers its readers into encounters with a variety of literary lions: We meet an elegant Marcel Proust, renting five adjoining rooms at an expensive hotel to "contain" the silence needed to produce Remembrance of Things Past; an exhausted James Joyce putting himself through grueling translation sessions for Finnegans Wake; and an enigmatic Apollinaire in search of the ultimate "objet trouve." Soupault sketches lively portraits of surrealist precursors like Pierre Reverdy and Blaise Cendrars, a moving account of his tragic fellow surrealist Rene Crevel, and the story of his unlikely friendship with right-wing anti-Vichy critic George Bernanos. The collection ends with essays on two modernist forerunners, Charles Baudelaire and Henri Rousseau. With an afterword by Ron Padgett recounting his meeting with Soupault in the mid 70's and a preface by Breton biographer Mark Polizzotti, Lost Profiles confirms Soupault's place in the vanguard of twentieth-century literature. Alan Bernheimer's most recent poetry collection is The Spoonlight Institute. He has lived in the Bay Area since the late 1970s, where he was active in Poets Theater and produced a radio program, In the American Tree, of new writing by poets. He has translated works by Robert Desnos and Valery Larbaud. See Details

Lawrence Levy discusses and signs "To Pixar and Beyond" 11/15/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 11/15/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Lawrence Levy to the store to discuss and sign his new book, To Pixar and Beyond: My Unlikely Journey with Steve Jobs to Make Entertainment History  on Monday, November 14th at 7:00pm.  "Hi, Lawrence?" the caller asked. "This is Steve Jobs. I saw your picture in a magazine a few years ago and thought we'd work together someday." After Steve Jobs was unceremoniously dismissed from Apple, he turned his attention to a little-known graphics art company that he owned called Pixar. One day, out of the blue, Jobs called Lawrence Levy, a Harvard-trained lawyer and Silicon Valley executive to whom he had never spoken before, in the hope of persuading Levy to help him get Pixar on the right track. What Levy found in Pixar was a company on the verge of failure. The never-before-told story of Pixar's improbable success, To Pixar and Beyond is the extraordinary story of what happened next: How Levy, working closely with Jobs and the Pixar team, produced and implemented a highly improbable roadmap that transformed the sleepy graphics art studio into one of Hollywood's greatest success stories. Set in the worlds of Silicon Valley and Hollywood, the book takes readers inside Pixar, Disney, law firms, and investment banks. It provides an up-close, first-hand account of Pixar's stunning ascent, how it took risks, Levy's enduring collaboration and friendship with Jobs, and how Levy came to see in Pixar deeper parallels that apply to all aspects of our lives. Lawrence Levy is a Silicon Valley lawyer and executive hired by Steve Jobs in 1994 as CFO and member of the Office of the President of Pixar Animation Studios. Lawrence was responsible for Pixar's business strategy and IPO and guided Pixar's transformation from a money-losing graphics company into a multibillion-dollar entertainment studio. He later joined Pixar's board of directors. Lawrence left corporate life to study Eastern philosophy and meditation and their relevance to modern life. He now writes and teaches on this topic and co-founded  Juniper Foundation to pursue this work. Originally from London, England, Lawrence earned degrees from Indiana University and Harvard Law School. He lives with his wife, Hillary, in Palo Alto, California. See Details

Constance Hale discusses and signs "The Natives are Restless" - Live Hula Performance! 11/2/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 11/2/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Constance Hale to the store to discuss and sign her new book, The Natives are Restless: A San Francisco Dance Master Takes Hula Into the Twenty-First Century, on Tuesday, November 1st at 7:00pm. Joining her will be hula master, Kumu Patrick Makuakāne,founder of the dance troupe for Nā Lei Hulu i ka Wekiu, and as an extra special treat, some of his dancers will be performing in full costume!  The art of hula is thriving in cities all over the country and the world, but it is not always well understood. In  The Natives Are Restless, journalist Constance Hale presents the largely untold story of the dance tradition, using the twin keyholes of Kumu Patrick Makuakāne (a Hawai'i-born, San Francisco based hula master), and his 350-person arts organization, Na Lei Hulu i ka Wekiu. In the background, she weaves the poignant story of an ancient people and the resilience of their culture. In the foreground, she tells the story of an electrifying new form of hula that has emerged from a restless generation of artists like Makuakane. The crisp narrative is complemented by full-color photographs and illustrations. Her love for hula, and her history with the dance, inform Hale's prose on every level. She makes Makuakane's exuberant, fierce, sensuous dance style come alive on the page. Constance Hale is a Hawai'i-born, San Francisco-based journalist who has been writing about Hawai'ian culture for more than twenty-five years. Her award-winning features on slack-key guitar, the sovereignty movement, the Hawai'ian language, Big Island cowboys, and Spam sushi have appeared in the Atlantic, National Geographic Adventure, Afar, Smithsonian, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, andHonolulu. She has also worked as a staff reporter and editor at the Oakland Tribune, The San Francisco Examiner, Wired, and Health magazines.  Patrick Makuakāne is a creative force in the hula world, and is well known for his innovative choreography. His work is grounded in the traditions and fundamentals of hula, and he labors to keep traditional dances intact as they have been for generations. Born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai'i, Mr. Makuakāne began dancing at the age of 13 and went on to study with some of Hawai'i's most recognized hula masters. He has received numerous awards for his choreography, including several Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (“Izzies”). In 2006, he received a lifetime achievement award from the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival. See Details

Hua Hsu discusses and signs "A Floating Chinaman" 10/16/2016 10:00:00 PM UTC - 10/16/2016 11:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Hua Hsu to the store to discuss and sign, A Floating Chinaman: Fantasy and Failure Across the Pacific, on Sunday, October 16th at 3:00pm. Joining him in conversation will be hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang. Who gets to speak for China? During the interwar years, when American condescension toward barbarous China yielded to a fascination with all things Chinese, a circle of writers sparked an unprecedented public conversation about American-Chinese relations. Hua Hsu tells the story of how they became ensnared in bitter rivalries over which one could claim the title of America's leading China expert. The rapturous reception that greeted The Good Earth, Pearl Buck's novel about a Chinese peasant family, spawned a literary market for sympathetic writings about China. On the margins in Chinatowns, on Ellis Island, and inside FBI surveillance memos, a different conversation about the possibilities of a shared future was taking place. A Floating Chinaman takes its title from a lost manuscript by H. T. Tsiang, an eccentric Chinese immigrant writer who self-published a series of visionary novels during this time. Tsiang discovered the American literary market to be far less accommodating to his more skeptical view of U.S.-China relations. His floating Chinaman, unmoored and in-between, imagines a critical vantage point from which to understand the new ideas of China circulating between the world wars and today, as well. Hua Hsu received his PhD from the History of American Civilization program at Harvard University. He is an associate professor of English & Director of American Studies at Vassar College. Hsu is currently on the editorial board of the New Literary History of America and his scholarly interests include transpacific literary history, American intellectual history, cultural studies, and arts criticism. He is an occasional contributor to The New York Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Slate and The Wire. See Details

Kids' Morning with Lisa Brown and Annie Barrows! 10/15/2016 5:30:00 PM UTC - 10/15/2016 7:30:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland and Litquake are very pleased to welcome Lisa Brown and Annie Barrows to the store on Saturday, October 15th. At 10:30 AM, Lisa Brown will be reading her new picture book, The Airport Book. Annie Barrows will be here at 11:30 AM to celebrate her popular kids' series, Ivy and Bean. Follow a family and the youngest member's favorite sock monkey through all the inner and outer workings of an airport in The Airport Book. In a book that is as intriguing as it is useful and entertaining, we follow a family on its way through the complexities of a modern-day airport. From checking bags and watching them disappear on the mysterious conveyor belt, to security clearance and a seemingly endless wait at the gate to finally being airborne. But wait! There's more! The youngest family member's sock monkey has gone missing. Follow it at the bottom of the page as it makes a journey as memorable as that of the humans above. Sometimes people who are opposites can become the best of friends because they’re opposites. Ivy and Bean are very different. Bean is loud and wild and goofy. She loves to be involved in games and poke her nose in other people’s business. Ivy is quiet and full of ideas. She spends most of her time learning how to be a witch. Each girl thinks the other one is weird. Each girl thinks she could never be friends with the other. Especially because their parents keep nagging them about it. For Ivy and Bean, their differences mean that they have more fun together than they could ever have separately. It also means that, together, they do more wacky things than any one kid could ever dream up. The Ivy and Bean books are about the adventures-and disasters-created by this unlikely team. And since their motto seems to be “Why not?” there’s every reason to believe that their capers and catastrophes will continue for quite a while. Lisa Brown is The New York Times bestselling author/illustrator of a number of books for young readers including How to Be and Vampire Boy's Good Night and The Latke That Couldn't Stop Screaming. She also illustrated the critically acclaimed Emily's Blue Period. Lisa lives in San Francisco with her husband, Daniel Handler, and their son.  Annie Barrows is the co-author, with her aunt Mary Ann Shaffer, of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a runaway New York Times bestseller that was named one of the ten best books of the year by Time and USA Today. She is also the author of the children's series Ivy and Bean as well as The Magic Half and its sequel, Magic in the Mix. She lives in Berkeley, California. See Details

Friday Night Poetry! Featuring Rae Armantrout w/ Stephanie Y 10/15/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 10/15/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Rae Armantrout's  poetry comprises one of the most refined and visionary bodies of work written over the last forty years. These potent, compact meditations on our complicated times reveal her observant sensibility, lively intellect, and emotional complexity. This generous volume charts the evolution of Armantrout's mature, stylistically distinct work. In addition to 25 new poems, there are selections from her books  Up To Speed, Next Life , the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award winning volume  Versed, Money Shot, Just Saying , and  Itself.  Including some of her most brilliant pieces,  Partly  affirms Armantrout's reputation as one of our sharpest and most innovative writers. An online reader's companion is available at  raearmantrout.site.wesleyan.edu . See Details

Dansko Fall Trunk Show at Shoes On Solano Rockridge! 10/14/2016 5:30:00 PM UTC - 10/15/2016 1:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: Shoes on Solano You are invited to our Dansko Fall Trunk Show at our new location in Rockridge! Please stop by and see why Dansko is the premiere fashion-comfort footwear brand.  See you on College! Dansko  FALL Trunk Show College Ave. Fri, Oct 14 11-6 Solano Ave. Sat, Oct 15 10-6 "Spin & Win" prizes & discounts! Win a pair of Dansko shoes! Free gift with every  Dansko purchase Meet the Dansko representative Light Refreshments served!    Shoes for your lifestyle! Not your only shoes, just your favorites! See Details

Nell Zink discusses and signs "Nicotine" 10/13/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 10/13/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Nell Zink to the store to discuss and sign her new novel, Nicotine, on Wednesday, October 12th at 7:00pm. Joining Nell in conversation will be DIESEL'S co-manager,(and a huge Nell Zink fan),Brad Johnson! Nell Zink exquisitely captures the clash between Baby-Boomer idealism and Millennial pragmatism, between the have-nots and want-mores, in a riotous yet tender novel that brilliantly encapsulates our time. Recent business school graduate Penny Baker has rebelled against her family her whole life... by being the conventional one. Her mother, Amalia, was a member of a South American tribe called the Kogi and her much older father, Norm, long ago attained cult-like deity status among a certain cohort of aging hippies while operating a psychedelic "healing center." She's never felt particularly close to her much older half-brothers from Norm's previous marriage; one, wickedly charming and obscenely rich (but mostly just wicked), and one a photographer on a distant tropical island. All that changes when her father dies and Penny inherits his childhood home in New Jersey. She goes to investigate the property and finds it not overgrown and abandoned, but rather occupied by a group of friendly anarchist squatters whom she finds unexpectedly charming, and who have renamed the property "Nicotine." The Nicotine residents (united in defense of smokers' rights') possess the type of passion and fervor Penny feels she's desperately lacking, and the other squatter houses in the neighborhood provide a sense of community she has never felt before. She soon moves into a nearby residence, becoming enmeshed in the political fervor and commitment of her fellow squatters. As the Baker familys' lives begin to converge around the fate of the house now called Nicotine, Penny grows ever bolder and more desperate to protect it and its residents until a fateful night when a reckless confrontation between her old family and her new one changes everything. Nell Zink grew up in rural Virginia. She has worked in a variety of trades, including masonry and technical writing. In the early 1990s, she edited an indie rock fanzine. Her writing has also appeared inn+1. Her debut novel, The Wallcreeper, was published in 2014. She lives near Berlin, Germany. See Details

Colin Dickey discusses and signs "Ghostland" 10/7/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 10/7/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Colin Dickey to the store to discuss and sign, Ghostland: An American History in Haunted Places, on Thursday, October 6th at 7:00pm. Colin Dickey is on the trail of America's ghosts. An intellectual feast for fans of offbeat history, Ghostland takes readers on a road trip through some of the country's most infamously haunted places--and deep into the dark side of our history.  Crammed into old houses and hotels, abandoned prisons and empty hospitals, the spirits that linger continue to capture our collective imagination, but why? With his fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles--that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes"--Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. Some have established reputations as "the most haunted mansion in America," or "the most haunted prison"; others, like the haunted Indian burial grounds in West Virginia, evoke memories from the past our collective nation tries to forget.  With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living--how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made--and why those changes are made--Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers that the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark. Colin Dickey grew up in San Jose, California, a few miles from the Winchester Mystery House, the most haunted house in America. As a writer, speaker, and academic, he has made a career out of collecting unusual objects and hidden histories all over the country. He's a regular contributor to the LA Review of Books and Lapham's Quarterly, and is the co-editor (with Joanna Ebenstein) of The Morbid Anatomy Anthology. He is also a member of the Order of the Good Death, a collective of artists, writers, and death industry professionals interested in improving the Western world's relationship with mortality. With a PhD in comparative literature from the University of Southern California, he is an associate professor of creative writing at National University. See Details

Riad Sattouf discusses and signs "The Arab of the Future 2" 9/28/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 9/28/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Riad Sattouf to the store to discuss and sign his graphic memoir, The Arab of the Future 2: A Childhood in the Middle East, 1984-1985, on Tuesday, September 27th at 7:00pm. The highly anticipated continuation of Riad Sattouf's internationally acclaimed, #1 French bestseller, which was hailed by The New York Timesas a disquieting yet essential read. In The Arab of the Future: Volume 1, cartoonist Riad Sattouf tells of the first years of his childhood as his family shuttles back and forth between France and the Middle East. In Libya and Syria, young Riad is exposed to the dismal reality of a life where food is scarce, children kill dogs for sport, and his cousins, virulently anti-Semitic and convinced he is Jewish because of his blond hair, lurk around every corner waiting to beat him up. In Volume 2, Riad, now settled in his father's hometown of Homs, gets to go to school, where he dedicates himself to becoming a true Syrian in the country of the dictator Hafez Al-Assad. Told simply yet with devastating effect, Riad's story takes in the sweep of politics, religion, and poverty, but is steered by acutely observed small moments: the daily sadism of his schoolteacher, the lure of the black market, with its menu of shame and subsistence, and the obsequiousness of his father in the company of those close to the regime. As his family strains to fit in, one chilling, barbaric act drives the Sattoufs to make the most dramatic of changes. Darkly funny and piercingly direct, The Arab of the Future, Volume 2 once again reveals the inner workings of a tormented country and family, delivered through Riad Sattouf's dazzlingly original talent. Riad Sattouf is a best-selling cartoonist and filmmaker who grew up in Syria and Libya and now lives in Paris. The author of four comics series in France and a former contributor to the satirical publicationCharlie Hebdo, Sattouf is now a weekly columnist for l Obs. He also directed the films The French Kissers and Jacky in the Women's Kingdom. See Details

Juan Gabriel Vásquez discusses and signs "Reputations" 9/23/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 9/23/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Juan Gabriel Vásquez to the store to discuss and sign his latest novel, Reputations, on Thursday, September 22nd at 7:00pm. Javier Mallarino is a living legend. He is his country's most influential political cartoonist; the consciousness of a nation. A man capable of repealing laws, overturning judges' decisions, and destroying politicians' careers with his art. His weapons are pen and ink. Those in power fear him and pay him homage.  At fifty-six, after four decades of a brilliant career, he's at the height of his powers, but this all changes when he's paid an unexpected visit from a young woman who upends his sense of personal history and forces him to re-evaluate his life and work, questioning his position in the world.  In Reputations, Juan Gabriel Vásquez examines the weight of the past, how a public persona intersects with private histories, and the burdens and surprises of memory. In this intimate novel that recalls authors like Coetzee and Ian McEwan, Vasquez plumbs universal experiences to create a masterful story, one that reverberates long after you turn the final page. Juan Gabriel Vásquez's previous books include the 2014 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner and national bestseller, The Sound of Things Falling, as well as the award-winning The Informers, The Secret History of Costaguana, and the story collection Lovers on All Saints' Day. Vasquez's novels have been published in 28 languages worldwide. After 16 years in France, Belgium, and Spain, he now lives in Bogota.  See Details

Zach Wyner discusses and signs "What We Never Had" 9/16/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 9/16/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Zach Wyner, to the store to discuss and sign his new novel, What We Never Had  on Thursday, September 15th at 7:00pm.  Meet Josh, a paragon for the modern postcollegiate. He has a job with no upward path and a dysfunctional relationship with his ex. Through his work with teenagers, he begins to find definition through the haze, gradually discovering purpose and a measure of self-respect. After two shiftless friends take up residence in his apartment, using his couch as a podium to rail against the world, he takes stock of who he is versus who he wants to be, and when his troubled ex finds herself in real danger, Josh can't resist the allure of playing the savior, but now he may have a little wisdom on his side. Zach Wyner  is a writer and teacher who works with incarcerated youth in the San Francisco Bay Area. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco and lives in Oakland with his wife, stepdaughter, and infant son.​ See Details

Julia Claiborne Johnson discusses & signs "Be Frank with Me" 9/14/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 9/14/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Julia Claiborne Johnson to the store to discuss and sign, Be Frank with Me, on Tuesday, September 13th at 7:00pm. Reclusive literary legend M. M. Mimi Banning has been holed up in her Bel Air mansion for years, but after falling prey to a Bernie Madoff-style ponzi scheme, she's flat broke. Now Mimi must write a new book for the first time in decades, and to ensure the timely delivery of her manuscript, her New York publisher sends an assistant to monitor her progress. The prickly Mimi reluctantly complies with a few stipulations: No Ivy-Leaguers or English majors. Must drive, cook, tidy. Computer whiz. Good with kids. Quiet, discreet, sane. When Alice Whitley arrives at the Banning mansion, she's put to work right away as a full-time companion to Frank, the writer's eccentric nine-year-old, a boy with the wit of Noel Coward, the wardrobe of a 1930s movie star, and very little in common with his fellow fourth-graders. As she slowly gets to know Frank, Alice becomes consumed with finding out who Frank's father is, how his gorgeous piano teacher and itinerant male role model Xander fits into the Banning family equation and whether Mimi will ever finish that book. Full of heart and countless only-in-Hollywood moments, Be Frank with Me is a captivating and unconventional story of an unusual mother and son, and the intrepid young woman who finds herself irresistibly pulled into their unforgettable world. Julia Claiborne Johnson worked at Mademoiselle and Glamour magazines before marrying and moving to Los Angeles, where she lives with her comedy-writer husband and their two children. Be Frank with Meis her fiction debut. See Details

Cole Hardware's Hearthstone Fireside Gathering 9/3/2016 11:00:00 PM UTC - 9/4/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Cole Hardware Rockridge Hi Neighbors! Cole Hardware is hosting its first ever Fireside Gathering! If you are not familiar, this is a gathering for people to come together to play the online card game, Hearthstone. In honor of the release of Hearthstone's newest expansion, One Night in Karazhan, we will be hosting a little party.  Players of all ages and skill levels are welcome and play is casual. Several staff members will be on hand to help anyone new to the game get started. Players will need to bring their own device capable of connecting to wireless internet (phone, laptop, tablet). In addition to game play, we will have fun decorations, snacks, discounts, and a Sodastream demo! Anyone who plays at least one game will get a coupon for $5 off a purchase. The first eight players will receive a special Hearthstone doorprize! If you'd like more information on the game, go to   http://us.battle.net/hearthstone/en/  . You can also download the game for free on your phone. Search Hearthstone Heroes of Warcraft in the Google Play Store or Apple Apps Store.  Come play a game, have a snack, get a deal, and mingle with your neighbors at Cole Hardware's Fireside Gathering!  See Details

Publication Party! Erica Reischer, Ph.D., discusses and sign 8/18/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 8/18/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Erica Reischer, Ph.D., to the store to discuss and sign her new book, What Great Parents Do: 75 Simple Strategies for Raising Kids Who Thrive, on Wednesday, August 17th at 7:00pm. This will be her publication party and all are welcome to attend. A golden rule book to parenting best practices, What Great Parents Doconcisely presents key strategies to help parents reshape kids' challenging behaviors, create strong family bonds, and guide children toward becoming happy, kind, responsible adults. What Great Parents Do is an everything-you-need-to-know road map for parenting that you will consult again and again. Psychologist Erica Reischer draws on research in child development and cognitive science to distill the best information about parenting today into bite-size pieces with real examples, useful tips, and tools and techniques that parents can apply right away. This book will show you how to do what great parents do so well, including: - Great parents start with empathy - Great parents accept their kids just as they are - Great parents avoid power struggles - Great parents see the goal of discipline as learning, not punishment - Great parents know they aren't perfect A toolbox of the most effective parenting strategies known to man, What Great Parents Do is accessible, actionable, and easy to follow. Erica Reischer, Ph.D., is a psychologist and parent educator. She received her doctorate from the University of Chicago in Psychology/Human Development and is an honors graduate of Princeton University. A former consultant with McKinsey & Company, Dr. Reischer sits on the advisory board for Happy Healthy Kids and leads popular parenting classes at schools and organizations such as UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, Habitot Children's Museum, and the University of California. Her writing about children and families appears in Psychology Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Atlantic. She maintains a private psychology practice in Oakland, California where she lives with her husband and two children. See Details

Cole Hardware Hawaiian Happy Hour 7/27/2016 11:00:00 PM UTC - 7/28/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Cole Hardware Rockridge Aloha Neighbors! Join us for a tropical shopping adventure from 4pm to 8pm on Wednesday, July 27th! Mention the happy hour deal to get 50% off of one regular-price item under $30*. We will be serving our Cutting Edge wine, as well as some white wine spritzers concocted with SodaStream sparkling soda flavors. You can also enjoy a piece of our Cole Hardware chocolate! In addition, we will be having demonstrations of Christophe Pourney Furniture Tonic and Block Oil. Bring in a small wooden item that needs some love or a wood or bamboo cutting board for a free treatment with the tonic or block oil! Hope we see you there! See Details

"Ingredienti" Dinner with Victor Hazan at Oliveto 7/21/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 7/21/2016 5:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland is pleased to pair with Oliveto restaurant to host a special dinner with Victor Hazan where he will discuss and sign Ingredienti on Wednesday, July 20th at 7:00pm.   **Please note**- This is a ticketed event. The dinner will be Wednesday, July 20th at 7:00pm at Oliveto, 5655 College Ave, Oakland, 94618. The cost for the dinner with Victor Hazan and a copy of the book begins at $75, not including the tax and 15% service charge added at the end of the meal. In addition, you can order wine. Oliveto has an exceptional collection of older Italian wines, and Victor, an authority on Italian wine, will be able to provide commentary. Click here to purchase tickets.   The inimitable Marcella Hazan popularized Italian cuisine in America, and her simple and elegant manual on how to shop for the best ingredients and prepare the most delicious meals is a must-have for every home cook. When she died in 2013, the world mourned the passing of the Godmother of Italian cooking. Her legacy lives on though, through her cookbooks and recipes, and in the handwritten notebooks filled with her thoughts on how to select the best ingredients. Her husband and longtime collaborator, Victor, has translated and transcribed these vignettes on how to buy and what to do with the fresh produce, the elements of an essential pantry, and salumi.   Based on sixty years of almost daily visits to the market to choose the ingredients of that day's meal, Ingredienti is a life's work, a distilled expression of Marcella s judgments, advice, and suggestions. Uncomplicated and precise, this volume will be essential to home cooks eager to produce meals in the same delicious style that Marcella was the first to introduce to America.   See Details

Joy Williams discusses and signs "Ninety-Nine Stories of God 7/20/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 7/20/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Joy Williams to the store to discuss and sign her new collection of stories, Ninety-Nine Stories of God, on Tuesday, July 19th, at 7:00pm.   Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Joy Williams has a one-of-a-kind gift for capturing both the absurdity and the darkness of everyday life. In Ninety-Nine Stories of God, she takes on one of mankind’s most confounding preoccupations: the Supreme Being.   This series of short, fictional vignettes explores our day-to-day interactions with an ever-elusive and arbitrary God. It’s the Book of Common Prayer as seen through a looking glass-a powerfully vivid collection of seemingly random life moments. The figures that haunt these stories range from Kafka (talking to a fish) to the Aztecs, Tolstoy to Abraham and Sarah, O. J. Simpson to a pack of wolves. Most of Williams’ characters, however, are like the rest of us: anonymous strivers and bumblers who brush up against God in the least expected places or go searching for Him when He’s standing right there. The Lord shows up at a hot-dog-eating contest, a demolition derby, a formal gala, and a drugstore, where he’s in line to get a shingles vaccination. At turns comic and yearning, lyric and aphoristic, Ninety-Nine Stories of God serves as a pure distillation of one of our great artists.   See Details

Hassan El-Tayyab discusses "Composing Temple Sunrise" 7/15/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 7/15/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Hassan El-Tayaab to the store to discuss and sign his new memoir, Composing Temple Sunrise, on Thursday, July 14th at 7:00pm. As a special treat, Hassan may even play a song or two! This memoir by musician Hassan El-Tayyab recounts his trip across the US looking for that elusive muse. He arrives in Berkeley and hooks up with a group creating a metal sculpture called Fishbug. They go to Burning Man in the Nevada dessert and here he writes the musical piece Temple Sunrise. Hassan is a musician singer/songwriter with his group America Nomad. This is a book of travel, personal exploration, community, and that elusive finding of the creative source. A beautiful song comes of this journey as well as a beautiful, insightful book.  Hassan El-Tayyab is an award-winning singer/songwriter, author, teacher, and cultural activist currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area. His critically acclaimed Americana act  American Nomad performs regularly at festivals and venues up and down the West Coast and beyond. He teaches music in the Bay Area. See Details

Kim Addonizio discusses and signs "Bukowski in a Sundress" 6/30/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 6/30/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Kim Addonizio to the store to discuss and sign her memoir, Bukowski in a Sundress, on Wednesday, June 29th at 7:00pm. This is a dazzling, edgy, laugh-out-loud memoir from the award-winning poet and novelist that reflects on writing, drinking, dating, and more. What else would you expect? Kim Addonizio is used to being exposed. As a writer of provocative poems and stories, she has encountered success along with snark: one critic dismissed her as "Charles Bukowski in a sundress." ("Why not Walt Whitman in a sparkly tutu?" she muses.) Now, in this utterly original memoir in essays, she opens up to chronicle the joys and indignities in the life of a writer wandering through middle age. Addonizio vividly captures moments of inspiration at the writing desk (or bed) and adventures on the road--from a champagne-and-vodka-fueled one-night stand at a writing conference to sparsely attended readings at remote Midwestern colleges. Her crackling, unfiltered wit brings colorful life to pieces like What Writers Do All Day, How to Fall for a Younger Man, and Necrophilia (that is, sexual attraction to men who are dead inside). And she turns a tender yet still comic eye to her family: her father, who sparked her love of poetry; her mother, a former tennis champion who struggled through Parkinson's at the end of her life; and her daughter, who at a young age chanced upon some erotica she had written for Penthouse. At once intimate and outrageous, Addonizio's memoir radiates all the wit and heartbreak and ever-sexy grittiness that her fans have come to love--and that new readers will not soon forget. Kim Addonizio is a fiction writer, poet, and teacher. Her poetry collections include Tell Me, a finalist for the National Book Award, What Is This Thing Called Love, and Lucifer at the Starlite. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, two NEA Fellowships, and two Pushcart Prizes. She lives in Oakland, California. See Details

Max Porter w/Anthony Marra discuss and sign "Grief is the Th 6/25/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 6/25/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Max Porter to the store to discuss and sign his debut novella, Grief is the Thing with Feathers, on Friday, June 24th at 7:00pm. Joing him in conversation will be author Anthony Marra. Here he is, husband and father, scruffy romantic, a shambolic scholar--a man adrift in the wake of his wife's sudden, accidental death, and there are his two sons who, like him, struggle in their London apartment to face the unbearable sadness that has engulfed them. The father imagines a future of well-meaning visitors and emptiness, while the boys wander, savage and unsupervised. In this moment of violent despair they are visited by Crow--antagonist, trickster, goad, protector, therapist, and babysitter. This self-described "sentimental bird," at once wild and tender, who "finds humans dull except in grief", threatens to stay with the wounded family until they no longer need him. As weeks turn to months and the pain of loss lessens with the balm of memories, Crow's efforts are rewarded and the little unit of three begins to recover: Dad resumes his book about the poet Ted Hughes; the boys get on with it, grow up. Part novella, part polyphonic fable, and part essay on grief, Max Porter's extraordinary work combines compassion and bravura style to dazzling effect. Full of angular wit and profound truths, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is a startlingly original and haunting debut by a significant new talent. Max Porter works in publishing. He lives in South London with his wife and children. Grief Is the Thing with Feathers is his first book. See Details

Zoe Zolbrod discusses and signs "The Telling" 6/22/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 6/22/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Zoe Zolbrod to the store to discuss and sign her memoir, The Telling, on Tuesday, June 21st at 7:00pm. Joining her in conversation will be Brian Hurley, editor at The Rumpus. Zoe Zolbrod remained silent about her early childhood molestation for nearly a decade. When she finally decided to tell, she wasn't sure what to expect, or what to say. In a kaleidoscopic series of experiences, Zolbrod hitchhikes with a boyfriend from one coast to another, hangs out in a strip club in Philadelphia, meets and marries her husband, and gives birth to her children. She traces the development of her sexuality, her relationships with men, and the cultivation of her motherhood in the shadow of her childhood sexual abuse. Bolstered with research, Zolbrod argues passionately for the empowerment of sexual abuse victims and the courage it takes to talk about it. The Telling is an intimate examination of one woman's reckoning with a past she can't always explain, and a life lived in search for the right words. Zoe Zolbrod's work has appeared in Salon, The Nervous Breakdown, The Weeklings, and The Rumpus, where she serves as the Sunday Editor. Her debut novel Currency won a 2010 Nobbie Award and received an honorable mention by Friends of American Writers. Zolbrod lives in Evanston, Illinois, with her husband and children. See Details

Ramona Ausubel discusses "Sons & Daughters of Ease & Plenty" 6/16/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 6/16/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Ramona Ausubel to the store for her publication party as she discusses and signs her new novel, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, on Wednesday, June 15th at 7:00pm. Joining her in conversation will be author Edan Lepucki. Labor Day, 1976, Martha's Vineyard. Summering at the family beach house along this moneyed coast of New England, Fern and Edgar (married with three children) are happily preparing for a family birthday celebration when they learn that the unimaginable has occurred: there is no more money. More specifically, there's no more money in the estate of Fern's recently deceased parents, which, as the sole source of Fern and Edgar's income, had allowed them to live this beautiful, comfortable life despite their professed anti-money ideals. Quickly, the once-charmed family unravels. In distress and confusion, Fern and Edgar are each tempted away on separate adventures: she on a road trip with a stranger, he on an ill-advised sailing voyage with another woman. The three children are left for days with no guardian whatsoever, in an improvised Neverland helmed by the tender, witty, and resourceful Cricket, age nine. Brimming with humanity and wisdom, humor and bite, and imbued with both the whimsical and the profound, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty is a story of American wealth, class, family, and mobility, approached by award-winner Ramona Ausubel with a breadth of imagination and understanding that is fresh, surprising, and exciting. Ramona Ausubel is a graduate of the MFA program at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of the novel No One Is Here Except All of Us and the short story collection A Guide to Being Born. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, One Story, The Paris Review Daily, and The Best American Fantasy. She has been longlisted for The Frank O'Connor Short Story Prize, and a finalist for the New York Public Library Young Lions award and the Pushcart Prize. See Details

4/13/16 MMM…Mindfulness, Movement Rockridge 4/13/2016 4:00:00 PM UTC - 6/15/2016 5:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: Center for Stress Reduction MMM…Mindfulness, Movement, and Metta Weekly class will be Wednesdays 9-10 am, starting this Wednesday 4/13. Class includes:     •    yoga and walking meditation     •     meditation     •     lovingkindness (metta in Pali) and self-compassion     •     Gentle for all bodies Beginners and experienced meditators welcome. Call or register for door code. Register here for a month or a single class: http://www.centerforstressreduction.com/mmmmindfulness-movement-and-metta.html See Details

Cole Hardware 20% Off (almost) Everything Sale 6/4/2016 3:00:00 PM UTC - 6/5/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Cole Hardware Rockridge Saturday, June 4th, Cole Hardware will be having its annual 20% sale in honor of Dave Karp's birthday. While Dave passed earlier this year, we plan to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday as he would have wanted, with a sale and cake! If you donate $1 to Children's Miracle Network, you will be entitled to 20% off almost everything in the store*. If you spend $20 or more, you get a special CMN/Cole Hardware bucket. Not only is almost everything in the store 20% off, but we will also be having a special guest! Lloyd Ross from Oakland Dust will be grilling up some treats on the Big Green Egg from 11am to 2pm , using his Oakland Dust BBQ rubs. Both the Green Egg and the Oakland Dust products will be in stock and included in the 20% off sale!   While you're here, enter to win a hand made tool box, enjoy some free popcorn, and say hi to your neighbors. *Sale does not apply to stamps, clipper products, special orders, or items already on sale. Sale is limited to merchandise on hand. See Details

John Doe of X discusses and signs "Under the Big Black Sun" 6/4/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 6/4/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes John Doe to the store to discuss and sign his new book, Under the Big Black Sun: A Personal History of L.A. Punk,on Friday, June 3rd, at 7:00pm. Under the Big Black Sun explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement and its evolution to hardcore punk as it has never been told before. AuthorsJohn Doe and Tom DeSavia have woven together an enthralling story of the legendary West Coast scene from 1977-1982 by enlisting the voices of people who were there. The book shares tales from the authors along with personal essays from famous (and infamous) players in the scene. Additional authors include: Exene Cervenka (X), Henry Rollins (Black Flag), Mike Watt (The Minutemen), Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey (Go-Go's), Dave Alvin (The Blasters), Chris D. (The Flesh Eaters), Robert Lopez (The Zeros, El Vez), Jack Grisham (TSOL), Teresa Covarrubias (The Brat), as well as scenesters and journalists Pleasant Gehman, Kristine McKenna, and Chris Morris. Through interstitial commentary, John Doe "narrates" this journey through the land of film noir sunshine, Hollywood back alleys, and suburban sprawl, the place where he met his artistic counterparts Exene, DJ Bonebrake, and Billy Zoom and formed X, the band that became synonymous with, and in many ways defined, L.A. punk. L.A. punk was born from rock 'n' roll, from country and blues and Latin music, the true next step in the evolution of rock 'n' roll music. It was born of art, culture, and political and economic frustration. It spoke of a Los Angeles that existed when regionalism still reigned in the USA. It sounded like Los Angeles. For the first time, the stories and photos from this now-fabled era are presented from those on the front lines, stories most have never heard about the art that was born under the big black sun. John Doe has worked as a roofer, an aluminum siding mechanic, a manager of poetry readings, a musician, and an actor. He met Exene Cervenka at the Venice poetry workshop in 1976 and started working with Billy Zoom around the same time. When DJ Bonebrake joined X in mid-1977, the lineup was complete. As one of the last original punk rock bands standing, they continue to tour, most recently with Blondie and Pearl Jam in front of stadium-sized crowds and audiences born after the band's formation. He has recorded eight solo records with numerous renowned singers and musicians and as an actor has appeared in over fifty films and television productions, including Road House, Great Balls of Fire, Boogie Nights, and Roswell. He currently tours as both a solo artist and with X. Doe lives north of San Francisco. See Details

David Swanson discusses "War is a Lie" with Cindy Sheehan 5/29/2016 10:00:00 PM UTC - 5/29/2016 11:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland is pleased to welcome David Swanson on Sunday, May 29th at 3:00pm. Joining him in conversation will be Cindy Sheehan as they discuss War is a Lie.   War Is A Lie is a thorough refutation of every major argument used to justify wars, drawing on evidence from numerous past wars, with a focus on those that have been most widely defended as just and good. This is a handbook of sorts, an engaging, always informative manual that can be used to debunk future lies before the wars they're deployed to justify have any chance to begin. Veteran antiwar activist Daniel Ellsberg calls War Is A Lie "a terrific tool for recognizing and resisting war lies before it's too late." This updated and expanded edition outlines lessons from America's most recent wars, presents what can be done to end warmaking, and contains an epilogue that analyzes new trends in war lying and in resistance to it. No one you give this book to can claim they haven't been warned!   David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, public speaker, and radio host. His books include When the World Outlawed War, and War No More: The Case for Abolition. Swanson serves as director of World Beyond War, and host of Talk Nation Radio. He blogs at DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. In the early 2000s, he helped to expose the Downing Street Minutes and other attempts to lie the United States and its allies into the Iraq war. In 2015, he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.   Cindy Sheehan is an internationally known peace and social justice activist who gained fame (infamy?) after her son Casey was killed in Iraq in 2004 and she confronted then President George Bush in Crawford, TX demanding he meet with her and answer one simple question: "What Noble Cause?" Sheehan is an author/podcast host/activist and proud grandma to five wonderful and beautiful humans. She is also the editor in chief for The Soapbox People's Network. See Details

David Schneider discusses and signs "Crowded by Beauty" 5/26/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 5/26/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes David Schneider to the store to discuss and sign, Crowded by Beauty: The Life and Zen of Poet Philip Whalen,on Wednesday, May 25th at 7:00pm. Philip Whalen was an American poet, Zen Buddhist, and key figure in the literary and artistic scene that unfolded in San Francisco in the 1950s and 60s. When the Beat writers came West, Whalen became a revered, much-loved member of the group. Erudite, shy, and profoundly spiritual, his presence not only moved his immediate circle of Beat cohorts, but his powerful, startling, innovative work would come to impact American poetry to the present day.  Drawing on Whalen's journals and personal correspondence, particularly with Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, Kyger, Welch, and McClure, David Schneider shows how deeply bonded these intimates were, supporting one another in their art and their spiritual paths. Schneider, himself an ordained priest, provides an insider's view of Whalen's struggles and breakthroughs in his thirty years as a Zen monk. When Whalen died in 2002 as the retired Abbot of the Hartford Street Zen Center, his own teacher referred to him as a patriarch of the Western lineage of Buddhism. Crowded by Beauty chronicles the course of Whalen's life, focusing on his unique, eccentric, humorous, and literary-religious practice. David Schneider is the author of Street Zen: The Life and Work of Issan Dorsey. He was ordained as a Zen priest in 1977 and made an Acharya of Shambhala in 1995, a role in which he continues. See Details

Information on Solar Systems 5/22/2016 5:00:00 PM UTC - 5/22/2016 10:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: Cole Hardware Rockridge Cole Hardware will be hosting The Solar Company on Saturday and Sunday, May 22nd from 10am to 3pm each day. They will be in store to give customers information about solar systems and are offering free in-home consultations. If you've ever wondered if solar is right for your home, or you're just curious about how it works, come on down and meet the friendly folks from The Soloar Company! See Details

1st United Credit Union 1 Year Anniversary 5/13/2016 5:00:00 PM UTC - 5/13/2016 10:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: 1st United Credit Union It's been one year since we opened our Rockridge branch. As our way of saying thank you for the loyalty you've shown us, we're throwing an anniversary celebration. Even if you're not a member, you can join in the festivities - and take advantage of some sweet deals while you're here. 1st United Credit Union Rockridge Branch 1 Year Anniversary SPECIAL OFFERS  |  PRIZES  |  BARBEQUE Plus, enter to win a pair of Oakland A's tickets! Friday, May 13, 2016 10 a.m. - 3 p.m. We hope to see you there. See Details

Cole Hardware Easter Egg Hunt 3/27/2016 4:00:00 PM UTC - 3/28/2016 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Cole Hardware Rockridge Hi Neighbors! Please join us this Sunday, March 27th, for Cole Hardware's annual in-store Easter egg hunt! The store will be open 9am to 5pm, and the egg hunt lasts all day. There will be Easter eggs with candy, small toys, money, and a few special prizes hidden throughout the store for the kids. Adults can choose an egg at the door; these eggs have a discount on that day's purchase or an adult prize (like cool merchandise or a gift card!).  From 1pm to 5pm, we will be serving Cole Hardware wine and chocolates. Easter merchandise is 50% off ​***Children must be accompanied by an adult to participate in egg hunt. ***Limit of 18 eggs per child (so everyone can participate!). ***Limit of one big prize egg   (sparkly or gold) per child (if they find more than one we will substitute a regular prize egg). See Details

Chana Bloch, Christina García, and Jane Hirshfield! 3/18/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC - 3/18/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Chana Bloch, Christina García, and Jane Hirshfield to the store to discuss their contributions to Extraordianry Rendition: American Writers on Palestine on Thursday, March 17th at 7pm. Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine brings together the work of sixty-five prominent writers to examine America’s culpability in the denial of human rights and dignity to Palestinians in Israel/Palestine and beyond. The anthology includes pieces by writers such as Chana Bloch, Christina García, Jane Hirshfield, Colum McCann, Roger Reeves, George Saunders and Alice Walker. In writing that is always clear, and often startlingly beautiful, they cover a range of issues including the erasure and reconstruction of histories, the examination of identity, the rights, privileges, and responsibilities of speaking out as artists, the conditions of occupation, and the potential for activism. They also explore the way U.S. foreign policy towards Palestine regularly mirrors the harsh realities faced by many of America’s own minorities. The anthology as a whole counters the dehumanizing narrative about Palestine that has taken hold in the United States, often supported by mainstream news organizations, and makes a significant contribution toward an understanding of the ways people of conscience in general, and writers in particular, can take on one of the most pressing political questions of our time. See Details

Wes "Scoop" Nisker discusses "You Are Not Your Fault" 3/9/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 3/9/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Wes "Scoop" Nisker to the store for the publication party for his new collection of essays, You Are Not Your Fault and Other Revelations: The Collected Wit and Wisdom of Wes "Scoop" Nisker, on Tuesday, March 8th at 7:00pm. Wes "Scoop" Nisker is an award-winning broadcast journalist and commentator, a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher, a bestselling author and a captivating performer. In his new book, Wes draws on his diverse experiences to deliver a collection that brims with the insight, humor and wisdom he is famous for. Compiled here for the first time are his best known essays, as well as a selection of recent and never before published work. Wes takes readers on both a cultural journey (a tour through the 60s, through the modern environmental movement, the surge of Buddhism to the West) and a more personal one, exploring the motivation behind humanity's search for spiritual enlightenment.  Wes "Scoop" Nisker, is the author of the enduring classic, Crazy Wisdom, and the widely acclaimedBuddha's Nature. He is the editor of the Buddhist journal Inquiring Mind. An enduring San Francisco celebrity, having been on Bay Area radio for more than twenty-five years, Nisker is a teacher of Buddhist meditation and philosophy, and is located prominently in the group of our country's most influential voices of spiritual transformation. He lives in Berkeley. See Details

CMS Pancake Breakfast 2/27/2016 4:00:00 PM UTC - 2/27/2016 6:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: Rockridge Business Improvement District Claremeont Middle School 7th Annual Pancake Breakfast Includes full breakfast!  Kids under 5 eat free! Seatings at 8:00, 9:00 and 10:00 $10 in advance, $12 at the door. At the Rockridged Masonic Hall.   Tickets and details at www.claremontms.org Sponsored by: Oakland Durant Rockridge Lodge #188, F & AM Rockridge Dads Club Rockridge District Association See Details

Norman Fischer and Susan Moon discuss and sign "What is Zen? 2/24/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 2/24/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland is pleased to welcome Norman Fischer andSusan Moon on Tuesday, February 23rd at 6:30pm to discuss and sign What is Zen?: Plain Talk for a Beginner's Mind. The esteemed Zen teacher Norman Fischer and his old friend and teaching colleague Susan Moon (both of them in the lineage of Shunryu Suzuki, author ofZen Mind, Beginner's Mind) give this collaborative effort a playful tone: Susan asks a question on our behalf, Norman answers it, and then Sue challenges him. This question-and-answer format makes this introduction to Zen especially easy to understand and also to use as a reference, as you can easily look up just the question you had in mind. By the time you get through their conversations, you'll have a good basic education in Zen--not only the history, theory, and practice but also the contemporary issues, such as gender inequality, sexual ethics, and the tension between Asian traditions and the modern American reality. See Details

Idra Novey discusses and signs "Ways to Disappear" 2/17/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 2/17/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Idra Novey to the store to discuss and sign her debut novel, Ways to Disappear, on Tuesday, February 16th at 7:00pm. Deep in gambling debt, the celebrated Brazilian writer Beatriz Yagoda is last seen holding a suitcase and a cigar and climbing into an almond tree. She abruptly vanishes. In snowy Pittsburgh, her American translator Emma hears the news and, against the wishes of her boyfriend and Beatriz's two grown children, flies immediately to Brazil. There, in the sticky, sugary heat of Rio, Emma and her author's children conspire to solve the mystery of Yagoda's curious disappearance and staunch the colorful demands of her various outstanding affairs: the rapacious loan shark with a zeal for severing body parts, and the washed-up and disillusioned editor who launched Yagoda's career years earlier. Idra Novey's exhilarating debut is an international romp: a madcap blend of mystery, romance, noir, and humor. Idra Novey is an award-winning poet and translator. Born in western Pennsylvania, she has since lived in Chile, Brazil, and New York. Her collection Exit, Civilian was selected for the 2011 National Poetry Series. She currently teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Princeton University. This is her first novel. See Details

FIT Winter Sale 1/2/2016 7:00:00 PM UTC - 2/1/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Rockridge Business Improvement District LOOK!!! FIT is having their huge winter SALE!!!  Discount starting at 50% off.  Starts January 2nd, come in early for the best selection. See you there! FIT Clothes to fit a modern lifestyle. Open Monday - Saturday See Details

Health Insurance Open Enrollment Ends January 31,2016 11/1/2015 8:01:00 AM UTC - 2/1/2016 1:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Strahan Insurance Services, Inc. Strahan Insurance can assist you with your group or individual health insurance needs. We are a Certified Covered Ca agency and can assist with your policy inside the exchange or with all carriers directly. Please call us at 510-450-9050 or send an email to health@strahaninsurance.com. CA Insurance License # 0D34069 See Details

Ian Rankin discusses and signs "Even Dogs in the Wild" 1/29/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 1/29/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Even Dogs in the Wild brings back Ian Rankin's greatest characters in a novel that explores the darkest corners of our instincts and desires. Detective Inspector Siobhan Clarke is investigating the death of a senior lawyer during a robbery. The case becomes more complex when a note is discovered, indicating that this may have been no random attack. When local gangster Big Ger Cafferty receives an identical message, Clarke decides that the recently retired John Rebus may be able to help. Together the two old adversaries might just stand a chance of saving Cafferty's skin, but a notorious family tailed by a team of undercover detectives has also arrived in Edinburgh. There's something they want, and they'll stop at nothing to get it. As the cases collide, it's a game of dog eat dog--in the city as in the wild.  Ian Rankin is a #1 international bestselling author and winner of an Edgar Award. He is also the recipient of a Gold Dagger for fiction and the Chandler-Fulbright Award. Rankin lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with his wife and their two sons. See Details

Warren Zanes discusses and signs "Petty: The Biography" 1/27/2016 3:00:00 AM UTC - 1/27/2016 4:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker, writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise, but rock and roll changed his world. From meeting Elvis, to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, making records with Johnny Cash, and sending well more than a dozen of his own celebrated recordings high onto the charts, Tom Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic. Now in his mid-sixties, still making records and still touring, Petty, known for his reclusive style, has shared with Warren Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage. This is a book for those who know and love the songs, from American Girl and Refugee to Free Fallin' andMary Jane's Last Dance, and for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story. Dark and mysterious, Petty manages to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us. Warren Zanes holds a PhD in visual and cultural studies from the University of Rochester. He was a member of the Del Fuegos, and continues to record music. His work has appeared in The Oxford American, and he has served as a V.P. at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is currently the Executive Director of Steven Van Zandt's Rock and Roll Forever Foundation. See Details

Leif Wenar discusses and signs "Blood Oil".... 1/17/2016 11:00:00 PM UTC - 1/18/2016 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Leif Wenar to the store to discuss and sign his new political science book, Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World, on Sunday, January 17th at 3:00pm. Natural resources like oil and minerals are the largest source of unaccountable power in the world. Petrocrats like Putin and the Saudis spend resource money on weapons and oppression; militants in Iraq and in the Congo spend resource money on radicalization and ammunition. Resource-fueled authoritarians and extremists present endless crises to the West--and the source of their resource power is ultimately ordinary consumers, doing their everyday shopping at the gas station and the mall. In this sweeping new book, one of today's leading political philosophers, Leif Wenar, goes behind the headlines in search of the hidden global rule that thwarts democracy and development--and that puts shoppers into business with some of today's most dangerous men. Wenar discovers a rule that once licensed the slave trade, apartheid, and genocide, a rule whose abolition has marked some of humanity's greatest triumphs--yet a rule that still enflames tyranny, war and terrorism through today's multi-trillion dollar resource trade. Blood Oil shows how the West can now lead a peaceful revolution by ending its dependence on authoritarian oil, and by getting consumers out of business with the men of blood. The book describes practical strategies for upgrading world trade: for choosing new rules that will make us more secure at home, more trusted abroad, and better able to solve pressing global problems like climate change. Blood Oil shows citizens, consumers and leaders how we can act together today to create a more united human future. Leif Wenar holds the Chair of Philosophy and Law at King's College, London. He earned his degrees in Philosophy from Stanford and from Harvard, where he worked with John Rawls and with Robert Nozick. He has been a Visiting Professor at Princeton and at Stanford, and has been a Fellow of the Carnegie Council Program in Justice and the World Economy. See Details

That Time of Year Again! A Coat Drive 12/2/2015 2:00:00 AM UTC - 1/1/2016 2:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Sahaira We are collecting Coats again this seasonfor the One Warm Coat Drive. We are collecting gently warn and clean coats for the homeless and needy. All of the coats we collect are being donated to City Team Ministries in Oakland. Please help us create a huge collection this season for all the people who need your help and warmth. Starting December 1 to December 31. Let us spread our abundance to all. Thank you. We are collecting Coats at: SaHaira  5510 College Ave. Oakland Ca 94618  510-595-4227 See Details

Life Chiropractic Presents! Holiday Shopping Party! 12/19/2015 9:00:00 PM UTC - 12/20/2015 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Life Chiropractic Come SHOP for the holidays with LOCAL artists, craft and clothing makers! Enjoy food, drinks, music an fun for the Holiday Season. Some proceeds will be donated to the Super Stars Literacy Organization. See Details

Rockridge in the Snow 11/28/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC - 11/29/2015 2:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Rockridge Business Improvement District Join the merchants of Rockridge in celebrating the season with memorable meals, unique gifts, shopping opportunities and special holiday events! CHILDREN'S PLAY AREA WITH SNOW! PONY RIDES! LIVE HOLIDAY ENTERTAINMENT! VISIT WITH SANTA AND HIS HELPERS! Bring donations for One Warm Coat & Toys for Tots See Details

Mindful Eating for the Holidays 11/22/2015 9:30:00 PM UTC - 11/23/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: Center for Stress Reduction Mindful Eating for the Holidays playshop LAST DAY to register for early bird!  in Rockridge, Oakland, sliding scale. includes delicious holiday recipes food-positive, body-positive, size-positive Click to register online at: http://www.centerforstressreduction.com/holiday-mindful-eating.html See Details

Mindfulness for Stress, Pain, and IBS 9/22/15 Rockridge 9/22/2015 4:00:00 PM UTC - 11/17/2015 6:15:00 PM UTC Posted By: Center for Stress Reduction Mindful Eating, Mindful Nutrition: Eating with the Brain in Mind A delicious, juicy romp through the senses...mindful eating for people who eat!!! September 22-November 17, 2015 9 am-11:15 am Tuesdays by Rockridge BART Register here: http://www.centerforstressreduction.com/mindful-eating-class.html See Details

Life Chiropractic Presents! Gallery Opening w Anna Ludwig 11/14/2015 12:00:00 AM UTC - 11/14/2015 2:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Life Chiropractic Life Chiropractic Gallery presents it next amazing Artist -- Anna Ludwig, come an see her beautiful and diverse works. To learn more about her check out our website. http://www.oaklandlifechiro.com/#!ludwig/rk0uy or http://www.annaludwigart.com/ See Details

Ian F. Svenonious discusses and signs "Censorship Now!!" 11/4/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 11/4/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore In this outrageous and hilarious new essay collection, underground music icon Ian F. Svenonius tackles such diverse subjects as IKEA, Apple, the weather, the gentrification of punk by indie rock, Marion Barry, the filmHeathers, Christian pornography, vampires, hoarding, the role of sugar in empire-building, how to properly tip at restaurants, the return of the hat in men's fashion, and other highly topical matters. No one is left unscathed, and more than a few will be left scratching their heads even as they laugh. Ian F. Svenonius is the author of the underground best sellers Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group and The Psychic Soviet. He was also the host of VBS.tv's Soft Focus, a different breed of chat show, where he interviewed Mark E. Smith, Genesis P. Orridge, Chan Marshall, Ian MacKaye, and others. As a musician he has created eighteen albums and countless singles in various rock 'n' roll combos; Chain & the Gang, Weird War, The Make-Up, The Nation of Ulysses, etc. He lives in Washington, DC. See Details

Wow! Super Selection of Semi-Precious Beads!! 10/23/2015 6:00:00 PM UTC - 10/26/2015 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: High Strung Bead Shop High Strung is hosting a Trunk Show by Janu Gems on October 23rd, 24th and 25th. Cathy will have a fantastic selection of semi-precious beads, pearls and raw crystals at super-reasonable prices! Think holiday gift-making and gift-giving. Or perhaps something special just for you! Friday, October 23rd, 11am-6pm Saturday, October 24th, 11am-5:30pm Sunday, October 25th Noon-5pm And as a special thank you to our customers, pick up a 15% off coupon to be used on Small Business Saturday, November 28th, any time during the trunk show! See Details

Poetry Flash with Peter Neil Carroll and Lucille Lang Day 10/25/2015 10:00:00 PM UTC - 10/25/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Poetry Flash readings are wheelchair accessible; ASL interpreters may be requested one week in advance from editor@poetryflash.org. Visit Poetryflash.org for more events and reviews! Peter Neil Carroll’s new book of poems is Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land. Robert S. Fogarty says, “Peter Neil Carroll’s welcome volume of delicious poems, Fracking Dakota: Poems for a Wounded Land, is about American landscapes and the cartography of our inner worlds. He meditates at Grant’s Tomb, the Natchez Trace, and the Redwood Valley reminding us that what poets say echoes deep in the soul.” His two previous collections are Riverborne: A Mississippi Requiem and A Child Turns Back to Wave: Poetry of Lost Places. He has also written the memoirKeeping Time. A former professor of American History as well as a poet, he has also been a host ofBooktalk on Pacifica Radio.  Lucille Lang Day’s new books of poems are Becoming an Ancestor and the chapbook Dreaming of Sunflowers: Museum Poems, co-winner of the 2014 Blue Light Poetry Award. Of a previous collection, The Curvature of Blue, F. D. Reeve said, “Is the sky blue? Lucille Lang Day’s poems paint it a hundred different ways, full of geometry and change, structure and feeling, as plangent as a sunset, as secret as an electromagnetic field.” She has published a number of previous poetry collections and chapbooks, including her first book of poems, Self-Portrait with Hand Microscope, which won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award. She’s also author of the memoir Married at Fourteen. See Details

Caroline Heller discusses and signs "Reading Claudius" 10/21/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 10/21/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Caroline Heller to the store to discuss and sign her memoir, Reading Claudius, on Tuesday, October 20th at 6:30pm. A stunning elegy to a vanished time, Caroline Heller's memoir traces the lives of her parents, her uncle, and their circle of intellectuals and dreamers from Central Europe on the eve of World War II to present-day America.  In this unforgettable dual memoir of her parents' lives and her own, Caroline Heller brings to life the lost world of European cafe culture, and reminds us of the sustaining power of literature in the most challenging of times. Heller vividly evokes pre-war Prague, where her parents lived, loved, and studied. Her mother, Liese Florsheim, was a young German refugee initially drawn to Erich Heller, a bright but detached intellectual, rather than to his brother, Paul. As Hitler's power spreads and World War II becomes inevitable, their world is destroyed and they must flee the country and continent. Paul, who will eventually become the author's father, is trapped and sent to Buchenwald, where he survives under hellish conditions. Though Paul's life nearly ends in Europe, he reunites with Liese in the United States, where they marry. Their daughter Caroline, restless and insecure, carries the trauma of her parents' story with her, but her quest to make peace with her heritage is eased by her love of books and writers, part of her family legacy. Through the darkest years of Hitler's rule, Caroline's parents and uncle had turned time and time again to literature to help them survive, and so she does as well. Written with sensitivity and grace, Reading Claudius is a profound meditation on the ways we strive to solve the mysteries of our pasts, and a window into understanding the ones we love.  Caroline Heller is the director of the interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Educational Studies at Lesley University, where she is also a professor in the graduate school of education. She lives in Boston with her family. See Details

Steve Masover discusses and signs "Consequence" 10/18/2015 10:00:00 PM UTC - 10/18/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Steve Masover to the store for the publication party for his debut novel, Consequence, on Sunday, October 18th at 3:00pm. San Francisco activist Christopher Kalman has little to show for years spent organizing non-violent marches, speak-outs, blockades, and shutdowns for social and environmental justice. When a shadowy eco-saboteur proposes an attack on genetically engineered agriculture, Christopher is ripe to be drawn into a more dangerous game. His certainty that humankind stands on the brink of ecological ruin drives Christopher to reckless acts and rash alliances, pitting grave personal risk against conscientious passion. Steve Masover is an author, activist, and information technologist. His short fiction has appeared in Five Fingers Review and Christopher Street and his essay-length memoir piece is anthologized in Our Mothers' Spirits. Masover co-authored the screenplay of the anti-apartheid movement documentary Soweto to Berkeley. A native of Chicago, he and his family relocated to the Bay Area in 1970. Masover currently lives and works in Berkeley, California.  See Details

Lisa McGuiness discusses and signs "Catarina's Ring" 10/16/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 10/16/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Lisa McGuiness to the store to discuss and sign her new novel, Catarina's Ring, on Thursday, October 15th at 6:30pm. Born at the end of the nineteenth century and nestled in South Western Italy, Catarina Pensbene's life in Perdifumo is full of sun-drenched olive orchards, lush grape vines, delicious peasant food, family and love. Because of an unexpected plunge into an untenable situation, Catarina decides to take a huge risk to become a mail order bride and sets out across the ocean. Interwoven with Catarina's tale is the story is of her witty and self-deprecating granddaughter, Juliette Brice. Born and raised in Northern California, Juliette experiences an unfortunate tragedy that serves as the impetus for her to shake up her life, and travel to her grandmother's homeland, where she enrolls in a six-month cooking class in Lucca, Italy. While abroad, Julliette becomes romantically involved with a handsome Italian man, yet her own destiny dictates she is to return to California once her class ends. With an eye for vivid detail and employing both historically accurate and thoroughly modern storytelling, Catarina's Ring serves up Italian delicacies, luminous characters, and a delicious escape. Lisa McGuinness is the author of the Caffeinated Ideas Journal as well as the co-author of several children's books including the New York Times bestseller Bee & Me and Baby Turtle's Tale, both under the pen name Elle J. McGuinness. She is also the co-author of the Dictionary of Extraordinary Ordinary Animals. She lives in Walnut Creek, CA. See Details

Free, Free, Two Health Events this weekend. 10/10/2015 9:00:00 PM UTC - 10/10/2015 10:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: Dr. Mark Alan Heltemes Join me for two free events this weekend. Stick Stretching in the park. I will bring the sticks and the music. Learn how stick stretching for all ages and conditions can help relieve pain and improve joint function. Watch this video on Stick stretching: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbKC6I2WOJo In the spirit of the Rockridge street fair, "Out and About" I am offering a free 30 minute Mindfit session in my clinic Sunday from noon to 5pm. Learn how regulating your brain frequencies will help Insomnia, stress and anxiety. Watch this video on Mindfit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLUJ1V6LhNE6c2cH9_TEeXfl_dRCe3lwx_&v=CWqry6Tb2io&feature=player_detailpage Wishing you a wonderful weekend. Please RSVP both events. cell 510-610-0261 Dr. Mark. See Details

Author Luncheon with Jojo Moyes for "After You" 10/5/2015 7:00:00 PM UTC - 10/5/2015 9:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland is very excited to present a Literary Luncheon with author Jojo Moyes in celebration of her newest novel, After You, on Monday, October 5th at Marica in Oakland, at 12pm. This is one of her only two events in the Bay area, don't miss it! ***Please Note*** The luncheon will be held at the nearby Oakland restaruant, Marica, located at 5301 College Ave. Tickets for this event are $65.00 and include a signed copy of After You and lunch with Jojo Moyes. Please call DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland to purchase a ticket 510.653.9965. How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living? Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can't help but feel she's right back where she started. Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding - the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will's past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await. After You is quintessential Jojo Moyes - a novel that will make you laugh, cry, and rejoice at being back in the world she creates. Here she does what few novelists can do - revisits beloved characters and takes them to places neither they nor we ever expected. Jojo Moyes is the award-winning author of Me Before You, The Girl You Left Behind, Silver Bay, and The Horse Dancer, among other novels. She is a two-time winner of the Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Award. Jojo lives in Essex, England, with her husband and their three children. See Details

Patrick deWitt discusses and signs "Undermajordomo Minor" 9/20/2015 10:00:00 PM UTC - 9/20/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Patrick deWitt to the store to discuss and sign his literary fairy tale Undermajordomo Minor on Sunday, September 20th at 3:00pm. A love story, an adventure story, a fable without a moral, and an ink-black comedy of manners, Undermajordomo Minor is Patrick deWitt'slong-awaited follow-up to the internationally bestselling and critically acclaimed novel The Sisters Brothers. Lucien (Lucy) Minor is the resident odd duck in the bucolic hamlet of Bury. Friendless and loveless, young and aimless, Lucy is a compulsive liar, a sickly weakling in a town famous for producing brutish giants. Then Lucy accepts employment assisting the Majordomo of the remote, foreboding Castle Von Aux. While tending to his new post as Undermajordomo, Lucy soon discovers the place harbors many dark secrets, not least of which is the whereabouts of the castle's master, Baron Von Aux. He also encounters the colorful people of the local village: thieves, madmen, aristocrats, and Klara, a delicate beauty whose love he must compete for with the exceptionally handsome soldier, Adolphus. Thus begins a tale of polite theft, bitter heartbreak, domestic mystery, and cold-blooded murder in which every aspect of human behavior is laid bare for our hero to observe. Patrick deWitt is the author of the Booker shortlisted novel, The Sisters Brothers. He was born in 1975 on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and has also lived in California, Washington, and Oregon, where he currently resides with his wife and son. He has also worked as a laborer, a clerk, a dishwasher, and a bartender.  See Details

Life Chiropractic Presents - The Clothing Exchange 9/12/2015 7:30:00 PM UTC - 9/12/2015 9:30:00 PM UTC Posted By: Life Chiropractic Life Chiropractic - Business Clothing Swap Hello Ladies! Feel like you look in the closet and you have so many clothes that you love but never really seem to get into the rotation... and you just don't want to get rid of them?  Bring them to the exchange  - give someone else a fresh new look and get one for yourself at the same time!  We are aiming at your "business wardrobe" but don't feel shy to bring something out of the ordinary, fun, or creative - someone will love and wear it all the time.  You are welcome to bring clothes, shoes and accessories.  We will have snacks and libations, music and lots of smiles!  There is no minimum of things to bring, there is always a pleathora so feel free to just bring yourself.  I do ask to limit what you bring to about 20 items give or take of some quality swappable favorites. See Details

Publication Party for Ottessa Moshfegh's "Eileen" 8/21/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 8/21/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Ottessa Moshfegh to the store for the publication party of her psychological novel of suspense, Eileen, on Tuesday, August 18th at 6:30pm. The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father's messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at the prison, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings. Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen's story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from Boston. She was awarded the Plimpton Prize for her stories inThe Paris Review and granted a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is currently a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford. Ottessa is being touted as the one of the best new authors and  here are seven reasons why you should be reading her work. See Details

David Shields discusses "That Thing You Do with Your Mouth" 8/20/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 8/20/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes David Shields to the store to discuss and sign That Thing You Do with Your Mouth: The Sexual Autobiography of Samantha Matthews as Told to David Shields, on Wednesday, August 19th at 6:30pm. In That Thing You Do with Your Mouth, actress and voice-over artist Samantha Matthews offers (in the form of an extended monologue, prompted and arranged by New York Times bestselling author (and Matthews's cousin once removed) David Shields) a vivid investigation of her startling sexual history. From her abuse at the hands of a family member to her present-day life in Barcelona, where she briefly moonlighted as a dubber of Italian pornography into English, Matthews reveals herself to be a darkly funny, deeply contemporary woman with a keen awareness of how her body has been routinely hijacked, and how she has been formatted by her early trauma. Her story is a study of her uneasy relationships with female desire, her tormentors, and her lovers with whom she seeks out both the infliction and receipt of harm. This book is an attempt, sometimes self-thwarted, to break down barriers: sexual and emotional for Matthews, literary for Shields. For them, the only response to the unspeakable is to speak, to do that thing you do with your mouth, as directly and honestly as possible. Their provocative performance refuses neat resolution or emotional pornography; it will have readers, from literary critics to Jezebel commentators, raving, raging, celebrating, talking. David Shields is the author of 11 previous books, including Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, named one of the best books of 2010 by more than 30 publications, and The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead, a New York Times bestseller. His work has been translated into 15 languages. See Details

Richard Michael Levine discusses and signs "The Man Who Gave 7/19/2015 10:00:00 PM UTC - 7/19/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Richard Michael Levine to the store to discuss and sign his new short story collection, The Man Who Gave Away His Organs: Tales of Love and Obsession at Midlife, on Sunday, July 19th at 3:00pm. The eight stories and novella that make up The Man Who Gave Away His Organs have the cultural scope, time span and in-depth character development usually found only in novels. Their mostly middle-aged protagonists have reached some crisis in their lives, when an unexpected turn of events or twist of fate leads them in new, unanticipated directions. The situations are often both hilarious and tragic. The locations – a holiday party for celebrity lookalikes, a college senior's graduating peformance-arts piece, a support group for people named Irving Horowitz, a liver transplant ward – are intriguing and unique. The prose is at once lyrical and prickly, tender and sardonic, and always, sentence by sentence, read-aloud beautiful. Richard Michael Levine has written magazine articles for many national publications, including Harper’s, Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, New York, The New York Times Magazine and Esquire, where he was a contributing editor and wrote a monthly column on the media for a number of years. He has been a staff writer and editor at Newsweek and The Saturday Review and has taught at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of Bad Blood: A Family Murder in Marin County, and his poetry has been widely published in a variety of literary magazines. See Details

Liz Weibler - Exclusive Art Opening 7/18/2015 12:00:00 AM UTC - 7/18/2015 2:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Life Chiropractic Liz Weibler began classes at The School of the Art Institute while still in High School. She has studied a multitude of arts including sculpture, ceramics, screen printing and fiber arts. Always searching for new inspiration, Liz set out to explore new cities and geography.  It was through her travels that her vision as a painter became clear. Her dedication to that vision remains. Join us at Life Chiropractic for an exploration of geographic inspiration. www.oaklandlifechiro.com   www.seventhfish.com See Details

Linda Lambert discusses and signs "A Rapture of Ravens" 7/10/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 7/10/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Linda Lambert to the store to discuss and sign the third book in The Justine Trilogy, A Rapture of Ravens: Awakening in Taos, on Thursday, July 9th at 6:30pm. Anthropologist Justine Jenner travels to Taos in search of her great-grandfather, D. H. Lawrence, and her own identity. In Taos, she finds the peoples of the pueblo, archaeologists, Lawrence aficionados, and followers of Kateri, the Indian saint, who draw her into a riveting blend of cultures. The Justine Trilogy follows the quest of Justine into Egypt, Italy and Taos. Exploring bold themes of dominant human desires, fundamentalism, sexual awakening, feminism, and the pressures that lead to revolution, these novels form a spiral of interlocking mysteries and experiences, propelled by Justine’s increasing maturity and proactivity, her insatiable curiosity, and her sensitivities as an anthropologist. Linda Lambert, Ed. D., is professor emeritus, California State University, East Bay and the author of The Cairo Codex and The Italian Letters. She is an experienced administrator, history instructor, and international consultant, having served as State Department Envoy to Egypt. Linda and her husband Morgan live in Santa Rosa, California. See Details

Author, Jacqueline Wales - A discussion on Mindfulness 7/9/2015 1:00:00 AM UTC - 7/9/2015 2:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: Life Chiropractic THE FEARLESS FACTOR, WHEN THE CROW SINGS, THE INNERFLUENCE PROGRAM, and more... Jacqueline wrote these books to encourage, inspire and motivate you to move beyond the past, embrace the future, and play a bigger game in life, so you can be all you want to be, and more. She is going to give an intimate talk on Mindfulness at Life Chiropractic!  Be sure to be there. See Details

Liz Prato discusses "Baby's on Fire" with Ellen Sussman 7/1/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 7/1/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Liz Prato to the store to discuss and sign her new collection of short stories, Baby's on Fire, on Tuesday, June 30th at 6:30pm. Joining her in discussion will be author Ellen Sussman.   In Baby's on Fire, Liz Prato pulls off the ultimate balancing act: the stories are simultaneously beautifully written and compelling, and filled with characters so full of life that they feel as real as people we may know. They are typically on the edge of despair-a twenty-something suffering from depression who moves back home to find her childhood home has just burned down, a teen exploring her boundaries and her sexuality while stranded with extended family, and a woman dealing with the shock of her father's death. Despite their situations, it's not all discouraging as their struggles add to the sweeping rip current of prose.   Liz Prato's short stories and essays have appeared in over two-dozen literary journals and magazines. Her awards include the 2010 Minnetonka Review Editor’s Prize and first place in the 2005 Berkeley Fiction Review Sudden Fiction Contest. She began teaching at the Attic Institute in in 2008, and has taught creative writing for several literary organizations throughout Oregon. Liz lives with furry feline friends and her best friend/husband, who is a bookseller, musician, and writer. And, yes, she dreams of palm trees. Every day.   Ellen Sussman is the author of four national bestselling novels, A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons, and On a Night Like This. Ellen is also the editor of two critically acclaimed anthologies, Dirty Words: A Literary Encyclopedia Of Sex and Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave. She was named a San Francisco Library Laureate in 2004 and in 2009. She has taught at Pepperdine, UCLA and Rutgers University. Ellen now teaches through Stanford Continuing Studies and in private classes out of her home. She has two daughters and lives with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area See Details

Alex Dolan discusses and signs his thriller "The Euthanist" 6/24/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 6/24/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Alex Dolan to the store to discuss and sign his new thriller, The Euthanist, on Tuesday, June 23rd at 6:30pm. A young woman helps to end the lives of people with terminal diseases; her reasons are her own. When she helps the wrong person, she is roped into a plot to gain vengeance on behalf of dozens. They know her as Kali. She is there to see them off into the afterlife with kindness, with efficiency, and with two needles. She has been a part of the right-to-die movement for years, an integral member, complicit in the deaths of twenty-seven men and women, all suffering from terminal illnesses; and she just helped the wrong patient. Leland Moon has been with the Bureau for his entire career, but even as a respected agent, he was unable to keep his own son from being kidnapped on his way to school. When his boy finally came home, he told terrifying stories of his captors, and his nightmares haven't stopped since. Moon draws Kali into his mission, a mesmerizing cat-and-mouse game with two ruthless predators, one behind bars, one free who hold the secrets that could bring comfort to the families of their victims. This powerful journey towards grace and towards peace will force both Leland and Kali to question everything they believe to be true and just. Alex Dolan was raised in Boston, lived in New York City, and currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to writing for several publications, he has recorded four music albums, and has a master's degree in strategic communications from Columbia University. The Euthanist is his first novel. See Details

Mark Bittman 'A Bone to Pick' Book Signing at Market Hall 5/30/2015 9:00:00 PM UTC - 5/30/2015 10:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: Market Hall Foods at Rockridge Market Hall Please join us, Saturday, May30th, as Market Hall hosts Mark Bittman for a book signing of his newest book, A Bone to Pick.   Mark Bittman - A Bone to Pick Saturday, May 30th, 2-3pm Rockridge Market Hall 5655 College Avenue Mark Bittman is one of the country’s most widely respected food writers. HisHow to Cook Everything books are a mainstay in the modern kitchen, and his manifesto on pursuing a part-time vegan diet, VB6, debuted at #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Bittman's writings on food policy and cooking have appeared in the Dining and Op-Ed sections of the New York Times and New York Times Magazine. A Bone to Pick is an essential resource for every reader eager to understand not only the complexities inherent in the American food system, but also the many opportunities that exist to improve it. See Details

Poetry Flash with Richard Newmark and Lee Rossi! 5/24/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC - 5/25/2015 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland hosts another installment of the always excellent Poetry Flash, featuring guest poets, Richard Newmark and Lee Rossi on Sunday, May 24th at 3pm.  Poetry Flash readings are wheelchair accessible; ASL interpreters may be requested one week in advance from editor@poetryflash.org. Visit Poetryflash.org for more events and reviews! Richard Newman’s new book of poems is All the Wasted Beauty of the World. George Bilgere says of it, “Newman’s poems, with their formal, lapidary precision, their indelible portraits of life in the cheap bars, back alleys, and rough-hewn edges of the Midwest, surprise a hunger in us for a language larger, wilder, and unabashedly loftier than daily speech.” His two previous collections areDomestic Fugues and Borrowed Towns. His poetry has been widely recognized, on Garrison Keillor’s radio program, Writer’s Almanac, in Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He lives in St. Louis where he reviews books for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, edits River Styx, and plays in a junk-folk band, The Charflies. Lee Rossi’s most recent book of poems is Wheelchair Samurai. Ruth Schwartz says, “These poems are scintillant with wit, shot through with sudden revelations and the startling, brief gleam of compassion and truth. Like the crowd gathered around a suicide in ‘Almost Icarus,’ Rossi keeps us, his readers, ‘straining for a glimpse of that body/ its imperfect beauty as fragile as our own.” Among his previous collections is Ghost Diary. A staff reviewer and interviewer for the online magazine Pedestal, his poetry, reviews, and interviews have appeared widely, in Poetry Flash, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Poetry East, Chelsea, and elsewhere. See Details

Stacy Wakefield and Ash Thayer discuss and sign their books! 5/22/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC - 5/22/2015 3:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Stacy Wakefield and Ash Thayer to the store to discuss and sign their new books, The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory and Kill City on Thursday, May 21st at 6:30 pm. The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory tells the story of Sid, a young woman who gets swept up in the 1990s squatting movement in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, an area that continues to deal with issues of gentrification today. Stacy Wakefield's own experiences add a lot of legitimacy to the novel-she herself squatted in both New York City and Europe in the '80s and '90s, and the novel draws heavily from her own experiences and observations. She is probably best known for her seminal nonfiction book and underground classic Not For Rent, a compilation of interviews with women she met while living in squats-one of whom eventually became the basis for the character of Sid in The Sunshine Crust Baking Factory. Ash Thayer's Kill City perfectly complements the themes of Stacy's novel. The book is a compilation of photographs she took while she, too, squatted in New York City in the 1990s. After being kicked out of her apartment in Brooklyn in 1992, and unable to afford rent anywhere near her school, young art student Ash Thayer found herself with few options. Luckily she was welcomed as a guest into See Skwat. New York City in the '90s saw the streets of the Lower East Side overun with derelict buildings, junkies huddled in dark corners, and dealers packing guns. People in desperate need of housing, worn down from waiting for years in line on the low-income housing lists, had been moving in and fixing up city-abandoned buildings since the mid-80s in the LES. Squatters took over entire buildings, but these structures were barely habitable. They were overrun with vermin, lacking plumbing, electricity, and even walls, floors, and a roof. Punks and outcasts joined the squatter movement and tackled an epic rebuilding project to create homes for themselves. The squatters were forced to be secretive and exclusive as a result of their poor legal standing in the buildings. Few outsiders were welcome and fewer photographers or journalists. Thayer's camera accompanied her everywhere as she lived at the squats and worked alongside other residents. Ash observed them training each other in these necessary crafts and finding much of their materials in the overflowing bounty that is New York City's refuse and trash. The trust earned from her subjects was unique and her access intimate. Stacy Wakefield is the author of the underground classic Not for Rent. She is the cocreator, along with Nick Zinner of the band Yeah Yeah Yeahs and writer Zachary Lipez, of the photo/essay book Please Take Me Off the Guest List. Ash Thayer is a photographer and multimedia visual artist based in Los Angeles. She received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from The School of Visual Arts, and a Masters of Fine Art from Columbia University in New York. Thayer has exhibited her work at numerous galleries and venues including The Proposition Gallery in New York, the Berlin Art Fair, and The Chicago Art Institute. She has taught as an adjunct professor at New York University and Columbia University. She studied acting and directing at the Terry Schreiber Studio in New York, and has performed both on stage and in film. See Details

John Waters discusses and signs "Carsick"! 5/19/2015 1:30:00 AM UTC - 5/19/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes John Watersto the store to discuss and sign his hilarious travel adventure, Carsick, on Monday, May 18th at 6:30 pm. **Please note: Customers may reserve one seat at this event for each copy of Carsick purchased from DIESEL, A Bookstore. Please contact the Oakland store at 510.653.9965 for more information. John Waters is putting his life on the line. Armed with wit, a pencil-thin mustache, and a cardboard sign that reads "I'm Not Psycho," he hitchhikes across America from Baltimore to San Francisco, braving lonely roads and treacherous drivers. But who should we be more worried about, the delicate film director with genteel manners or the unsuspecting travelers transporting the Pope of Trash? Before he leaves for this bizarre adventure, Waters fantasizes about the best and worst possible scenarios: a friendly drug dealer hands over piles of cash to finance films with no questions asked, a demolition-derby driver makes a filthy sexual request in the middle of a race, a gun-toting drunk terrorizes and holds him hostage, and a Kansas vice squad entraps and throws him in jail. So what really happens when this cult legend sticks out his thumb and faces the open road? His real-life rides include a gentle eighty-one-year-old farmer who is convinced Waters is a hobo, an indie band on tour, and the perverse filmmaker's unexpected hero: a young, sandy-haired Republican in a Corvette. Laced with subversive humor and warm intelligence, Carsick is an unforgettable vacation with a wickedly funny companion--and a celebration of America's weird, astonishing, and generous citizenry. John Waters is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and visual artist best known for his cult films, including Hairspray, Pink Flamingos, and Cecil B. DeMented. He is also the author of a memoir, Role Models. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland. See Details

Literary Magazine 580 Split Publication Party! 5/17/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC - 5/18/2015 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes managing editor Rebecca Woolston and contributors, Rex Leonowicz, Nicole Trigg, Emily Kiernan, and Ivy Johnson of 580 Split Literary Magazine to the store to celebrate the publication of their latest issue on Sunday, May 17th at 3pm. 580 Split is an annual journal of arts and literature published by graduate students of the English Department at Mills College including innovative and risk-taking fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, and art. It is one of the few literary journals carried by the Oakland Public Library.  Come early, and enjoy refreshments and time to mingle. Seats will go fast! Rex Leonowicz- If dionysus were an intersectional feminist poet and a visual artist, then dionysus Rex Leonowicz would be. Rex is from Queens, NY, now living in Oakland, CA. Some of his work can be found inIt’s Night in San Francisco,Bbut it’s Sunny in Oakland, The Queer South: LGBTQ Writers on the American South, Lambda Literary’s Poetry Spotlight, Gertrude Journal, Shampoo, 580 split, and more. He loves e-mail and new friends, so get in touch at  leonowitch@gmail.com if you feel so inclined. Nicole Trigg is the author of a chapbook, Double Cup. She collaborated with strangers to make the literary magazine Birkensnake 6, and her recent writing is published in Macaroni Necklace. She organizes a reading group at the Bay Area Public School on feminine and/or feminist writing.She lives in Oakland and works at Small Press Distribution. Emily Kiernan is the author of a novel, Great Divide, and many short fictions. She is the prose editor at Noemi Press, and the curator of the Backyard Reading Series. She resides in Berkeley, CA, with her man and her dog. More information can be found at  emilykiernan.com Ivy Johnson lives in Oakland, CA where she is a poet and educator. She is a founding member of The Third Thing, an Oakland based feminist, performance art group. Her chapbook, Walt Disney’s Light Show Extravaganza, was published by Boog City in 2011 and her book As They Fall, a collection of notecards for aelatoric ritual, was published by Timeless, Infinite Light in 2013. She is currently working on a manuscript entitled Born Again. See Details

Reid Mitenbuler discusses and signs "Bourbon Empire" 5/15/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC - 5/15/2015 3:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Reid Mitenbuler to the store to discuss and sign his new book Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey, on Thursday, May 14th at 6:30 pm. Please Note: As an extra-special treat, customers who purchase a copy of the book in advance will get a flight of bourbon to sample during the event! Please contact the store for more information or to purchase your copy ofBourbon Empire, 510-653-9965 Unraveling the many myths and misconceptions surrounding America's most iconic spirit, Bourbon Empire traces a history that spans frontier rebellion, Gilded Age corruption, and the magic of Madison Avenue. Whiskey has profoundly influenced America's political, economic, and cultural destiny, just as those same factors have inspired the evolution and unique flavor of the whiskey itself. Taking readers behind the curtain of an enchanting--and sometimes exasperating--industry, the work of writer Reid Mitenbuler crackles with attitude and commentary about taste, choice, and history. Few products better embody the United States, or American business, than bourbon. A tale of innovation, success, downfall, and resurrection, Bourbon Empire is an exploration of the spirit in all its unique forms, creating an indelible portrait of both bourbon and the people who make it. Reid Mitenbuler has written about whiskey and drinking culture for The Atlantic, Slate, Saveur, Whisky Advocate, and other publications. He lives with his wife in Washington, D.C. See Details

Patrice Vecchione discusses and signs "Step into Nature" 5/13/2015 2:30:00 AM UTC - 5/13/2015 3:30:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Patrice Vecchione to the store to discuss and sign her new book Step into Nature: Nurturing Imagination and Spirit in Everyday Life, on Tuesday, May 12th at 6:30 pm. Step outside your door and reconnect with nature. From the author of Writing and the Spiritual Life comes a guide that will replenish your connection to the earth and inspire you to develop and strengthen your imagination. The natural world has inspired artists, seekers, and thinkers for millennia, but in recent times, as the pace of life has sped up, its demands have moved us indoors. Yet nature's capacity to lead us to important truths, to invigorate and restore our imagination and equilibrium, is infinite. Step into Nature makes nature personal again by stimulating awareness and increasing our understanding of the environment. Being in nature doesn't mean flying off to remote, faraway places. It is as close as opening your front door--and your heart--to the sky above, the miniature gardens that push their way up between the sidewalk cracks in our cities, and the small stream just down the road. Patrice Vecchione demonstrates how nature can support and enhance your creative output, invigorate your curiosity, and restore your sense of connection to and love of the earth. Included throughout the book is "The Cabinet of Curiosities," a collection of exercises and suggestions for practical and unexpected ways to stimulate your imagination, deepen your relationship with nature, and experience the harmony between creativity and the natural world. Patrice Vecchione is the author of Writing and the Spiritual Life, as well as two books of poetry. Vecchione has taught creative writing and collage workshops at universities, libraries, in community and spiritual centers, including the Esalen Institute, for over thirty years. She also teaches workshops outdoors through parks departments and recreation centers. She lives in Monterey, California. See Details

Party at the New Center Rockridge 5/9/2015 6:00:00 PM UTC - 5/9/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: iBar Party at New Corner Rockridge Right Angle Hair, iBar Threading, and Bella Vita Home is having a party at the New Corner Rockridge...and YOU benefit.  Experience a fun family event with a balloon artist and surprises for the kids. Get great deals, free samples, and win gift cards and gift basket! Please RSVP by Friday, May 8th http://partyrockridge.eventbrite.com See Details

Chris Scofield discusses and signs "The Shark Curtain" 5/3/2015 11:00:00 PM UTC - 5/4/2015 12:00:00 AM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore Diesel, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes Chris Scofield to the store to discuss and sign her new young adult novel, The Shark Curtain on Sunday, May 3rd at 3 pm. Joining her in conversation will be J.L. Powers. Set against the changing terrain of middle-class values and the siren calls of art and puberty, The Shark Curtain invites us into Lily Asher's wonderful, terrible world. The older of two girls growing up in suburban Portland, Oregon, in the mid-1960s, her inner life stands in quirky contrast to the loving but dysfunctional world around her. Often misunderstood by her flawed but well-intentioned parents, teenage Lily orbits their tumultuous love affair, embracing what embraces her back: the ghost of her drowned dog, a lost aunt, numbers, shoe boxes, werewolves, rituals, and stories she pens herself (including one about a miscarried sibling she dubs "Frog Boy"). With "regular" visits from a wisecracking Jesus, an affectionate but combative friendship is born--a friendship that strains Lily's grasp of reality as much as her patience. From the violence of a Peeping Tom and catching Mom in flagrante delicto with the neighbor, to jungles in her closet, butlers under her bed, and barking in public, Lily struggles to balance her family's expectations with the visions that continue to isolate her. Chris Scofield is a novelist and short story writer. She's worked with authors Ursula K. Le Guin and Tom Spanbauer and is a former special education, art, and preschool teacher. Scofield studies cello, travels internationally, and lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her husband and two goldfish. Visit her at http://chrisscofieldauthor.com/.  See Details

Author Luncheon with Thor Hanson for "The Triumph of Seeds"! 4/21/2015 8:00:00 PM UTC - 4/21/2015 10:00:00 PM UTC Posted By: DIESEL, A Bookstore DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland is very excited to present a Literary Luncheon with author Thor Hanson in celebration of his newest book, The Triumph of Seeds: How Grains, Nuts, Kernels, Pulses and Pips Conquered the Plant Kingdom and Shaped Human History, on Tuesday, April 21st at Soi4 Bangkok Eatery in Oakland, at 12pm. We live in a world of seeds. From our morning toast to the cotton in our clothes, they are quite literally the stuff and staff of life, supporting diets, economies, and civilizations around the globe. Just as the search for nutmeg and the humble peppercorn drove the Age of Discovery, so did coffee beans help fuel the Enlightenment, and cottonseed help spark the Industrial Revolution. From the Fall of Rome to the Arab Spring, the fate of nations continues to hinge on the seeds of a Middle Eastern grass known as wheat. In nature and in culture, seeds are fundamental--objects of beauty, evolutionary wonder, and simple fascination. How many times has a child dropped the winged pip of a maple, marveling as it spirals its way down to the ground, or relished the way a gust of wind (or a stout breath) can send a dandelion's feathery flotilla skyward? Yet despite their importance, seeds are often seen as a commonplace, their extraordinary natural and human histories overlooked. Thanks to Thor Hanson and this stunning new book, they can be overlooked no more. Spanning the globe from the Raccoon Shack--Hanson's backyard writing hideout-cum-laboratory--to the coffee shops of Seattle, from gardens and flower patches to the spice routes of Kerala, this is a book of knowledge, adventure, and wonder, spun by an award-winning writer with both the charm of a fireside story-teller and the hard-won expertise of a field biologist. A worthy heir to the grand tradition of Aldo Leopold and Bernd Heinrich, The Triumph of Seeds takes us on a fascinating scientific adventure through the wild and beautiful world of seeds. It is essential reading for anyone who loves to see a plant grow. Thor Hanson is a conservation biologist, Guggenheim Fellow, Switzer Environmental Fellow, and winner of the John Burrough Medal for excellence in nature writing and natural history. The author of Feathers andThe Impenetrable Forest, Hanson lives with his wife and son on an island in Washington State. ***Please Note*** Tickets for this event are $55.00, include a signed copy of The Triumph of Seeds and lunch with Thor Hanson. Please call DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland to purchase a ticket 510.653.9965. See Details