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Harvard Book Store is an independently run bookstore serving the greater Cambridge area. The bookstore is located in Harvard Square and has been family-owned since 1932. We are known for our extraordinary selection of new, used and remaindered books and for a history of innovation. In 2009, we introduced same-day "green delivery" and a book-making robot capable of printing and binding any of millions of titles in minutes. Find out more about us at www.harvard.com.

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Chuck Palahniuk: Tell All

Wed, May 5, 2010

Chuck Palahniuk acclaimed novelist discusses of his newest book, *Tell All*, a novel inspired by the life of Lillian Hellman. *Tell-All* is a Sunset Boulevard–-inflected homage to Old Hollywood when Bette Davis and Joan Crawford ruled the roost; a veritable Tourette’s syndrome of rat-tat-tat name-dropping, from the A-list to the Z-list; and a merciless send-up of Lillian Hellman’s habit of butchering the truth that will have Mary McCarthy cheering from the beyond. Our Thelma Ritter–ish narrator is Hazie Coogan, who for decades has tended to the outsized needs of Katherine “Miss Kathie” Kenton—veteran of multiple marriages, career comebacks, and cosmetic surgeries. But danger arrives with gentleman caller Webster Carlton Westward III, who worms his way into Miss Kathie’s heart (and boudoir). Hazie discovers that this bounder has already written a celebrity tell-all memoir foretelling Miss Kathie’s death in a forthcoming Lillian Hellman–penned musical extravaganza; as the body count mounts, Hazie must execute a plan to save Katherine Kenton for her fans—and for posterity.

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Stephen Prothero: God Is Not One

Thu, May 6, 2010

Stephen Prothero, religion scholar and bestselling author, discusses his new book,* God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—And Why Their Differences Matter*.

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Nino Ricci: The Origin of Species

Mon, May 10, 2010

Nino Ricci reads from his new novel, *The Origin of Species*, which was awarded the 2008 Governor General's Award for Fiction and is now being published in the United States for the first time. Montreal during the turbulent mid-1980s: Chernobyl has set Geiger counters thrumming across the globe, HIV/AIDS is cutting a deadly swath through the gay population worldwide, and locally, tempers are flaring over the recent codification of French as the official language of Quebec. Hiding out in a seedy apartment, Alex Fratarcangeli, an awkward, 30-something grad student, is plagued by the sensation that his entire life is a fraud. Scarred by a distant father and a dangerous relationship with his ex, Liz, and consumed by a floundering dissertation linking Darwin's theory of evolution with the history of human narrative, Alex has come to view love and other human emotions as "evolutionary surplus, haphazard neural responses that nature had latched onto for its own insidious purposes." When Alex receives a letter from Ingrid, the beautiful woman he knew years ago in Sweden, notifying him of the existence of his five-year-old son, he is gripped by a paralytic terror. Whenever Alex's thoughts grow darkest, he recalls Desmond, the British professor with dubious credentials whom he met years ago in the Galapagos. Treacherous and despicable, wearing his ignominy like his rumpled jacket, Desmond nonetheless caught Alex in his thrall and led him to some life-altering truths during their weeks exploring Darwin's islands together. It is only now that Alex can begin to comprehend these unlikely life lessons, and see a glimmer of hope shining through what he had thought was meaninglessness.

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The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates

Mon, May 17, 2010

Wes Moore, combat veteran and former White House Fellow, discusses chance, fate, family, and accountability and his new book *The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates*. He then introduces representatives from non-profit organizations that work to provide opportunity for at-risk students. In December 2000, the *Baltimore Sun* ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local student who had just received a Rhodes Scholarship. The same paper also ran a series of articles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police officer in a spectacularly botched armed robbery. The police were still hunting for two of the suspects who had gone on the lam, a pair of brothers. One was named Wes Moore. Wes couldn't shake off the unsettling coincidence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same newspaper. After following the story of the robbery, the manhunt, and the trial to its conclusion, he wrote a letter to the other Wes, now a convicted murderer serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His letter tentatively asked the questions that had been haunting him: Who are you? How did this happen? That letter led to a correspondence and relationship that have lasted for several years. Over dozens of letters and prison visits, Wes discovered that the other Wes had had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in similar neighborhoods and had had difficult childhoods, both were fatherless; they'd hung out on similar corners with similar crews, and both had run into trouble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across similar moments of decision, yet their choices would lead them to astonishingly different destinies.

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Claude Steele: How Stereotypes Affect Us

Tue, May 25, 2010

Claude Steele, acclaimed social psychologist, discusses identity and his new book *Whistling Vivaldi and Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us.* Through illustrative personal stories, Claude Steele shares the experiments and studies that show, again and again, that exposing subjects to stereotypes—merely reminding a group of female math majors about to take a math test, for example, that women are considered naturally inferior to men at math—impairs their performance in the area affected by the stereotype. Steele’s conclusions shed new light on a host of American social phenomena, from the racial and gender gaps in standardized test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men. Steele explicates the dilemmas that arise in every American’s life around issues of identity, from the white student whose grades drop steadily in his African American studies class to the female engineering students deciding whether or not to attend predominantly male professional conferences. *Whistling Vivaldi* offers insight into how we form our senses of identity and ultimately lays out a plan for mitigating the negative effects of “stereotype threat” and reshaping American identities.

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Jill McCorkle: Going Away Shoes

Tue, Oct 6, 2009

Jill McCorkle reads from her new collection of short stories, *Going Away Shoes*. With her trademark wit and intelligence, McCorkle's new collection provides variations on the theme of women confronting the dark and difficult sides of love. From a woman about to embark on her first adulterous affair to the siblings who struggle with their widowed father's new love interest, the lives these stories follow can be full of heartbreak, but McCorkle's tenderness and humor make them feel lived in and purely believable.

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Dan Ariely: The Upside of Irrationality

Thu, Jun 10, 2010

Behavioral economist Dan Ariely discusses his new book, *The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic at Work and at Home*. The 2008 economic crisis taught us that irrationality is an influential player in financial markets. But it is often the case that irrationality also makes it way into our daily lives and decisionmaking—in slightly different and vastly more subtle ways. In this follow-up to his *New York Times* bestseller *Predictably Irrational*, Dan Ariely shows how irrationality is an inherent part of the way we function and think, and how it affects our behavior in all areas of our lives, from our romantic relationships to our experiences in the workplace to our temptations to cheat. Blending everyday experience with new research into our how we actually make decisions, Ariely explains how expectations, emotions, social norms, and other invisible, seemingly illogical forces skew our reasoning abilities. Using data from original experiments, he draws invaluable conclusions about how—and why—we behave the way we do, and reflects on ways we can make ourselves and our society better.

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Travels in a Gay Nation: Portraits of LGBTQ Americans

Fri, Jun 11, 2010

Award-winning writer and teacher Philip Gambone holds a discussion of his new book, *Travels in a Gay Nation: Portraits of LGBTQ Americans*, a snapshot of the variety of gay lives and culture in America today. For two years, Philip Gambone traveled the length and breadth of the United States, talking candidly with LGBTQ people about their lives. In addition to interviews with David Sedaris, George Takei, Barney Frank, and Tammy Baldwin, *Travels in a Gay Nation* brings us lesser-known voices--a retired Naval officer, a transgender scholar and "drag king," a Princeton philosopher, two opera sopranos who happen to be lovers, an indie rock musician, the founder of a gay frat house, and a pair of Vermont garden designers. In this age when contemporary gay America is still coming under attack, Gambone captures the humanity of each individual. For some, their identity as a sexual minority is crucial to their life's work; for others, it has been less so, perhaps even irrelevant. But, whether splashy or quiet, center-stage or behind the scenes, Gambone's subjects have managed--despite facing ignorance, fear, hatred, intolerance, injustice, violence, ridicule, or just plain indifference--to construct passionate, inspiring lives.

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William Powers: Twelve by Twelve

Tue, Jun 15, 2010

Critically acclaimed author and activist William Powers discusses his experiences escaping from society, chronicled in his new book, *Twelve by Twelve: A One-Room Cabin Off the Grid and Beyond the American Dream*. Why would a successful American physician choose to live in a twelve-foot-by-twelve-foot cabin without running water or electricity? To find out, William Powers visited Dr. Jackie Benton in rural North Carolina. No Name Creek gurgled through Benton’s permaculture farm, and she stroked honeybees’ wings as she shared her wildcrafter philosophy of living on a planet in crisis. Powers, just back from a decade of international aid work, then accepted Benton’s offer to stay at the cabin for a season while she traveled. There, he befriended her eclectic neighbors—organic farmers, biofuel brewers, eco-developers—and discovered a sustainable but imperiled way of life. In the pages of *Twelve by Twelve*, Powers not only explores this small patch of community but draws on his international experiences with other pockets of resistance. This tale of Powers’s struggle for a meaningful life with a smaller footprint proposes a paradigm shift to an elusive “Soft World” with clues to personal happiness and global healing.

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Stephen Kinzer: Iran, Turkey, and America’s Future

Tue, Jun 8, 2010

Foreign correspondent and Boston University professor Stephen Kinzer discusses his book *Reset: Iran, Turkey, and America's Future*, which examines the complex state of Middle East politics. What can the United States do to help realize its dream of a peaceful, democratic Middle East? In *Reset*, Stephen Kinzer offers a surprising answer. Two countries in the region, he argues, are America's logical partners in the 21st century: Turkey and Iran. Besides proposing this new "power triangle," Kinzer also recommends that the United States reshape relations with its two traditional Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. In *Reset*, Kinzer introduces us to larger-than-life figures, like a Nebraska schoolteacher who became a martyr to democracy in Iran, a Turkish radical who transformed his country and Islam forever, and a colorful parade of princes, politicians, women of the world, spies, oppressors, liberators, and dreamers.

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