Events

The Writer's Journey with Laura Davis

Is there a writer in you that wants to come out? If you have stories you want to tell or would like to explore writing as a way to know yourself better, join local author Laura Davis for her monthly introductory evening of writing practice. Being part of an impromptu writing community is inspiring, illuminating, and fun. You don't have to pre-register. Just bring a notebook, a pen, and the willingness to write; Laura will bring writing prompts that will open the channel from your heart to your head to your pen.

Gary Shteyngart is one of our staff's favorite authors. Edgy, pristine, funny, and simultaneously heartfelt, each of his novels have landed themselves in our newsletters and onto our staff favorite shelves. Shteyngart's new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, only confirms our admiration.

In what critics are calling the 1984 for our current generation, Super Sad True Love Story envisions a deliciously dark tale of America's dysfunctional coming years--and the timeless and tender feelings that just might bring us back from the brink. A love story set in the near future (think next week) this book explores how falling in love just might redeem a planet falling apart.

Santa Cruz's own Rick Kleffel will be here to facilitate the reading and will ask Gary just the right questions to get even more from this already fantastically funny and zany author. Rick is the host of The Agony Column, an hour of literary and theatrical talk Sundays on KUSP, 88.9 FM, and nationally broadcast NPR syndications. He is one of the most listened to and requested literary interviewers out there.

Please join us for what is sure to be a terrific event! 

Vendela Vida, author of the critically acclaimed novel And Now You Can Go, founding co-editor of The Believer magazine, and screenplay writer (with husband Dave Eggers) of the film Away We Go, has written an engrossing new novel. "Vida's The Lovers is a spare and haunting meditation on how travel can bring us full circle back to the place from which we have started. I read it over two days and dreamed about it the second night," writes Francine Prose.

Bookshop staff backs up Prose's praise all the way, and we're adding this as a "must read" for book groups. The plot follows Yvonne, a middle-aged woman suddenly widowed, as she journeys to Turkey to revisit the place of her honeymoon. In taut and seemingly spare language, Vida brings us hauntingly close to Yvonne's world, where suddenly everything is no longer what it was. When Yvonne befriends a young boy on her travels, the loss of her husband breaks through, and what happens next left us with our hearts pounding. This is a tale that beckons us to wonder if escape is possible in a world where human relationships rest in connection, love, and letting go.

We are delighted to welcome Ms. Vida to Bookshop Santa Cruz and hope that you'll join us for this reading and signing.

Bookshop Santa Cruz Community Book Group
Led by Julie Minnis
Guest speakers: Tandy Beal and Julie Boudreau
Book choice: Suki Miller's After Death

Tandy Beal is taking on the after-life. In her project “Here After Here,” somewhat inspired by Suki Miller’s book, After Death, Beal combines a long-term investigation of dance, visual narrative, circus, text and music to make a rich mosaic of both contemporary and traditional concepts of the afterlife. If there is one, where is it located? Why is it exclusionary? Why might it be for eternity? How do we get in and what’s the price of admission? While “Here After Here” is a work for the stage, Bookshop and Tandy wanted to come together to continue the dialogue about what should NOT be a taboo discussion: death, dying, and what happens afterwards. 

Using Suki Miller’s text as a starting point, Tandy Beal, Hospice’s Julie Boudreau, and Bookshop Santa Cruz’s Community Book Group facilitator, Julie Minnis, will be leading the entire community in dialogue about our own views of the here after, our stories of dying, & our opinions of death. 

After Death is already discounted and Bookshop has the last copies available in the entire country. Due to the limited supply of this book, copies will be available after July 20thand if we run out, we have a running list of other suitable titles that will be available at 10% off their cover price, until the August 24th meeting date (for those last minute readers!).
We hope you join us and share your stories, your hearts, and your ears for a Community Book Group that will be like no other.
PS—There will be snacks and tea!!

The Writer's Journey with Laura Davis

Is there a writer in you that wants to come out? If you have stories you want to tell or would like to explore writing as a way to know yourself better, join local author Laura Davis for her monthly introductory evening of writing practice. Being part of an impromptu writing community is inspiring, illuminating, and fun. You don't have to pre-register. Just bring a notebook, a pen, and the willingness to write; Laura will bring writing prompts that will open the channel from your heart to your head to your pen.