Dinner and Reading Gatherings on the fourth Monday of each month
Join us around UPB’s great table, where we will eat and talk about reading in the slow lane. We will enjoy wine and edibles prepared by the Musical Offering’s genius chef Erick Balbuena, featuring many ingredients gathered from the Berkeley Hills. We ask everyone to bring a paragraph or a few words you love that must be read carefully, and savored slowly. Martin Holden and Bill McClung, hosts
6 to 8 on March 22 and April 26
$40 per person, wine, tax, and gratuity included
($15 for students and starving artists)
Reservations please at outreach@universitypressbooks.com
Or at the UPB Front Counter, or reply to this posting.
UNIVERSITY PRESS BOOKS/BERKELEY
2430 BANCROFT WAY 548-0585
Juan Garcia reading from "Soil and Civilization, January 2010
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“We too must write Bibles, to unite again the heavenly and the earthly world.”
That’s Emerson on Goethe in Richardson, First We Read, Then We Write (Iowa, 2009), which I am nominating for UPB’s Best Gift Book of the Year.
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Now that the weather is turning cold, the type of book I seek out is one in which I can lose myself on a rainy day. For this purpose I highly recommend Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy (HarperCollins, 1994). At 1474 pages (and 2.5 pounds), this is not a book to be picked up lightly. But this sprawling, absorbing and occasionally comic novel has plenty of rewards for those who do. It’s surprising— 15 years after the novel was published and 57 after it is set— how many of the themes and events are echoed in today’s headlines from South Asia: Hindu-Muslim violence, Congress Party politics, and, of course, arranged marriages. The story is essentially about Lata, our heroine, and her mother’s attempts to find her a “suitable boy.” Encompassing four extended families, politicians, courtesans, judges, shoemakers, Calcutta high society and Ganges pilgrimages, the connecting threads of this book are a pleasure to discover. This book reminded me how much pleasure it is possible to get from the simple act of reading. I ended the novel not exhausted from the length but instead wanting to read more about the characters- and fortunately for me, a sequel has been announced, entitled- what else?- A Suitable Girl. I’ve ordered a copy for the store in case this sparks interest. Nicola DeRobertis-Theye, UPB Author Events Coordinator.
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• • •
“You should start,” he told his young friend, “with no skeleton or plan. The natural one will grow as you work. Knock away all scaffolding. Neither have exordium or peroration. What is it you are writing for, anyway? Because you have something new to say? It is the test of the universities and I am glad you have made it yours.”
From Richardson, First We Read, Then We Write: Emerson’s Creative Process, page 25, “Practical Hints” (University of Iowa Press, 2009)
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• • •
The estimable Harvard/MIT/Yale representative, Patricia Nelson, writes this week:
What’s a day without a bookstore? We cherish you all as wonderful retreats, browsing heavens, the perfect place to meet, the perfect date, the perfect outing with children, a wonderful daily oasis, a welcoming place of solitude, a magic theater of words, a generous place of discussion and shared passions, a constantly surprising calendar of authors and ideas, a communitarian center, a place of democracy in action.
The Guardian UK has been posting favorite bookstores for years, may I echo the sentiments of the Guardian’s Jeremy Mercer saying:
“Bookstores are sanctuaries. Places to lose yourself, escape the harsh demands of daily life, find new ways to dream and new sources of inspiration. I love all booksellers; anybody who helps spread the word is doing noble work. But my favourite bookstores are the small eccentric independents run by passionate and usually slightly mad book lovers.”
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• • •
- Kaja Silverman reads Flesh of My Flesh, in conversation with Judith Butler and Anne Wagner.
From the description of Flesh of My Flesh (Stanford University Press):
What is a woman? What is a man? How do they—and how should they—relate to each other? Does our yearning for “wholeness” refer to something real, and if there is a Whole, what is it, and why do we feel so estranged from it? For centuries now, art and literature have increasingly valorized uniqueness and self-sufficiency. The theoreticians who loom so large within contemporary thought also privilege difference over similarity. Silverman reminds us that this is but half the story, and a dangerous half at that, for if we are all individuals, we are doomed to be rivals and enemies. A much older story, one that prevailed through the early modern era, held that likeness or resemblance was what organized the universe, and that everything emerges out of the same flesh.
From the book:
“All of our stories really are part of the same great volume: the Book of Life. And unlike the logos, the words in this book do not have to become flesh in order to save us. They are flesh.” Introduction, page 14.
Some 125 people crowded into the Musical Offering Cafe on October 29 to hear a riveting discussion of this new book.
From the discussion:
“I never write about books I don’t love.” Kaja Silverman
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• • •
Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan, $11 paper, Penguin Books, 2009
Eating wisdom from a Berkeley sage in bite-sized morsels we can enjoy every day. May save our lives, or at least make them better. William McClung, UPB
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