This is Your Brain. This is Your Brain on Stocks

Barry Ritholtz is an American author, newspaper columnist, blogger, equities analyst, CEO of Fusion IQ and guest commentator on Bloomberg Television. He is also a former contributor to CNBC and TheStreet.com. He is one of the few strategists who saw the housing implosion and derivatives disaster far in advance. Ritholtz is the author of Bailout Nation.

Hollywood Sketch: A Century of Costume Illustration

Remember Michael Jackson’s iconic red jacket in the Thriller video and Indiana Jones’ khaki garb in Raiders of the Lost Ark? Meet the creative force behind those costumes (and many more), Deborah Nadoolman Landis. Landis was recently a Senior Guest Curator of the 'Hollywood Costume' exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She will discuss her new book, Hollywood Sketchbook: A Century of Costume Illustration, the first volume published on costume design illustration for the movies.

The Table Comes First

Adam Gopnik might be the ultimate New Yorker. He has been writing for The New Yorker since 1986 and became its art critic in 1987. During his tenure at the magazine, he has written fiction and humor pieces, book reviews, profiles, reporting pieces, and more than a hundred stories for “The Talk of the Town” and “Comment.” His new book, The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food is a beguiling tour of the morals and manners of our present food mania, in search of eating’s deeper truths.

Stem Cells: The Future of Medicine

An internationally known stem cell expert, Hans Keirstead has pioneered a number of efforts in the field. He led his team of researchers to successfully develop a stem cell-based treatment for paralyzed rats. This treatment marked the first such stem cell-based clinical trial ever approved by a regulatory body, worldwide. Dr. Keirstead also helped develop a therapy for the treatment of ulcerative collitis and rheumatoid arthritis, that has successfully met primary endpoints in Phase II clinical trials. He developed a stem cell-based therapy for the motor neuron diseases ALS and spinal muscular atrophy that will soon enter clinical testing, and made headlines for creating a 3D retina derived from stem cells for the treatment of retinal diseases. More recently, he has taken on a stem cell-based project for late stage cancers, a technology that has met primary endpoints in Phase II clinical trials.

The Canadian-born neuroscientist received his Ph.D. from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. His Ph.D. thesis formed the basis of several worldwide patents, the formation of a company, and constituted the first demonstration of functional regeneration of the injured adult spinal cord. For his achievements he received the Cameron Award for the best Ph.D. thesis in Canada.

Dr. Keirstead then moved to Cambridge England, where he conducted 4 years of Post-Doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge, with both Canadian and British Fellowships. He received the distinct honor of election to two senior academic posts, Fellow of the Governing Body of Downing College, and Senate Member of the University of Cambridge, and was the youngest member to have been elected to those positions.

The Forgetting Tree

From Tatjana Soli, The New York Times bestselling author of The Lotus Eaters, comes a breathtaking novel of a California ranching family, its complicated matriarch, and the enigmatic caretaker who may destroy them

Hello, Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand

Once again, acclaimed Hollywood biographer William Mann has taken on an iconic character from an entirely new angle, completely redefining her public persona—and once again, the results are spectacular. This latest offering from the bestselling biographer of Katharine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor chronicles Barbra Streisand’s climb to fame during her New York years. Mann brilliantly showcases the electrifying story of how Streisand broke all the showbiz rules to transform herself into the greatest superstar of her era, a feat which is virtually impossible today, and he recreates a vibrant piece of New York theatrical history—the dinner clubs and the birth of Off-Off-Broadway that made Streisand’s breakout possible.

The New Civic Center: A Vision for the Future

Meet the architect behind the new Civic Center design. Learn about his vision for this multifaceted facility, the inspiration behind his contemporary design, and the distinctive features that will serve the community for years to come.

Peter Bohlin is a founding principal of Bohlin Cywinski Jackson which opened in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania in 1965. From a single office, the firm has grown to five offices: Wilkes-Barre, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Seattle and San Francisco. Their work is known for an extraordinary aesthetic, its responsiveness to particularity of place and user, and a quiet rigor that is both intellectual and intuitive. The 175-person architectural practice is the recipient of more than 500 regional, national and international design awards for projects ranging from private houses to urban libraries, commercial buildings, and civic centers.

The Conservative Assault on the Constitution

Dr. Erwin Chemerinsky is the founding dean and distinguished professor of law at the University of California, Irvine School of Law, with a joint appointment in Political Science.

Previously, he taught at Duke Law School for four years, during which he won the Duke University Scholar-Teacher of the Year Award in 2006. Before that he taught for 21 years at the University of Southern California School of Law, and served for four years as director of the Center for Communications Law and Policy. Chemerinsky has also taught at UCLA School of Law and DePaul University College of Law.

His areas of expertise are constitutional law, federal practice, civil rights and civil liberties, and appellate litigation. He is the author of seven books, most recently, The Conservative Assault on the Constitution (October 2010, Simon & Schuster), and nearly 200 articles in top law reviews. He frequently argues cases before the nation’s highest courts, and also serves as a commentator on legal issues for national and local media.

Chemerinsky holds a law degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University.

Paris: A Love Story

In this remarkably honest and candid memoir, award-winning journalist and distinguished author Kati Marton narrates an impassioned and romantic story of love, loss, and life after loss. Paris is at the heart of this deeply moving account. At every stage of her life, Marton finds beauty and excitement in Paris, and now, after the sudden death of her husband, U.S. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the city offers a chance for a fresh beginning. With intimate and nuanced portraits of Peter Jennings, the man to whom she was married for fifteen years and with whom she had two children, and Holbrooke, with whom she found enduring love, Marton paints a vivid account of an adventuresome life in the stream of history. Inspirational and deeply human, Paris: A Love Story will touch every generation.  This is a memoir for anyone who has ever fallen in love in Paris, or with Paris.

In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin

Erik Larson has been widely acclaimed as a master of narrative non-fiction, and in his new book, the bestselling author of Devil in the White City turns his hand to a remarkable story set during Hitler’s rise to power.

The time is 1933, the place, Berlin, when William E. Dodd becomes America’s first ambassador to Hitler’s Germany. Dodd brings along his wife, son, and flamboyant daughter, Martha. At first Martha is entranced by the parties and pomp, and the handsome young men of the Third Reich with their infectious enthusiasm for restoring Germany to a position of world prominence. Enamored of the “New Germany,” she has one affair after another, including with the surprisingly honorable first chief of the Gestapo, Rudolf Diels. But as evidence of Jewish persecution mounts, confirmed by chilling first-person testimony, her father telegraphs his concerns to a largely indifferent State Department back home. Dodd watches with alarm as Jews are attacked, the press is censored, and drafts of frightening new laws begin to circulate. As that first year unfolds and the shadows deepen, the Dodd’s experience days full of excitement, intrigue, romance—and ultimately, horror, when a climactic spasm of violence and murder reveals Hitler’s true character and ruthless ambition.

Googled: The Future of Media

Ken Auletta has been on the frontlines of the new communications revolution since 1992 with his “Annals of Communications” columns and profiles for the prestigious New Yorker magazine. He is the author of eleven books, including five national bestsellers: Three Blind Mice: How the TV Networks Lost Their Way; Greed and Glory on Wall Street: The Fall of The House of Lehman; The Highwaymen: Warriors of the Information Super Highway; World War 3.0: Microsoft and Its Enemies; and Googled: The End of the World As We Know It.

Auletta was among the first to popularize the so-called information superhighway with his February 1993 profile of Barry Diller's search for something new. He has profiled the leading figures and companies of the Information Age, including Google, Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch, AOL Time Warner, John Malone, Harvey Weinstein and The New York Times. His 2001 profile of Ted Turner won a National Magazine Award as the best profile of the year. He also covered the Microsoft antitrust trial for the magazine.

Google has arguably changed the world as we know it, as Steve Jobs did with Apple. Auletta has spent his career analyzing and reporting on what it all means and where it is going.

Framed

For more than four decades, Greg Gorman has continued to master the art of photography. His work documents the contemporary obsession of the 20th century celebrity. From personality portraits and advertising campaigns to magazine layouts and fine art work, Mr. Gorman has developed and showcased a discriminating and unique style in his profession.

Many of his advertising endeavors have enlisted the talents of celebrities including his award-winning l.a. Eyeworks campaign. Portraits of Divine, Grace Jones, Andy Warhol, John Waters, and David Hockney have graced the pages of Interview, Wallpaper, Paper and Details for l.a.Eyeworks.

Mr. Gorman will show some of his iconic images from his forty year photographic career as well as recent work from photo projects around the world. He will present the work featured in his latest two book projects, In Their Youth, which features young actors at the start of their careers and Framed, the compilation of his imagery for the l.a.Eyeworks ad campaign.

Searching for Democracy

Professor Richard Beeman is one of the most respected constitutional scholars in the nation and an engaging speaker. We are honored to bring him to the stage on April 24th where he will speak about what no citizen should be without: an understanding of Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

About the Searching for Democracy Initiative

How do we create a healthy democracy in a time of political polarization? How do we carry out our responsibilities as citizens in an increasingly interdependent world? To help us answer these questions, Cal Humanities has launched Searching for Democracy, a statewide initiative designed to animate public conversation on the nature of democracy through diverse public programs leading into the 2012 elections and beyond. With various partners, the initiative will provide Californians with many options to explore how the humanities provide insights and opportunities to have conversations about the state of our democracy.

The book selected by California Reads for the Searching for Democracy initiative is The Penguin Guide to the United States Constitution by Professor Richard Beeman. The book is a compact, fully annotated copy of the Declaration of Independence, Constitution and Bill of Rights.

About Richard Beeman
Professor Beeman is an American historian specializing in the American Revolution and is currently the John Walsh Centennial Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of the most respected constitutional scholars in the nation and is the author of seven books and several dozen articles on the history of Revolutionary America.

About Mary Menzel
Mary Menzel is the director of the California Center for the Book. Ms. Menzel teaches a Readers’ Advisory course at UCLA. She holds a BA in Creative Writing: Poetry from Stanford University and a Masters of Library and Information Science from UCLA.

To watch a video of the program click here.

Rebels in Paradise

Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, a Los Angeles-based art critic and journalist, writes about art, design and architecture. Full Bloom: The Art and Life of Georgia O’Keeffe, her first book and the most definitive biography of the artist to date, was published by W.W. Norton in September, 2004. Her most recent book, Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s, was published in 2011 by Henry Holt and Company and was on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list in the non-fiction category for twelve weeks.

Drohojowska-Philp’s monographs include the text for Modernism Rediscovered, the three-volume set of architectural photographs by Julius Shulman published by Taschen in the fall of 2007; the text for Pedro Guerrero, a book of his photographs published by Cattletrack Press in 2009. Her text for Sensual Mechanical, a monograph of the work of Craig Kauffman will be published by Frank Lloyd Gallery in 2012. She has written catalogue essays on the work of many contemporary artists including John Baldessari, Alexis Smith, Robert Graham and Craig Kauffman.

She is a weekly contributor to Art Talk on KCRW radio, 89.9, and regularly writes for Artnet, ArtNews and the Los Angeles Times.

Friendships and Rivalries in Modern Art

Sebastian Smee has been the Boston Globe’s art critic since May 2008. In 2011 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism for his "vivid and exuberant writing about art, often bringing great works to life with love and appreciation.” Smee is widely appealing to both veteran art aficionados to the curious but not quite sure about modern art. Always at the center of major art happenings, Smee informs without pretention and is witty without trivializing.

Previously, he was national art critic at The Australian. Prior to that, between 2000 and 2004, he was an art critic at the Daily Telegraph in London, where he also wrote for The Art Newspaper, The Guardian, Prospect Magazine, The Independent on Sunday, The Times, The Financial Times, Art Review and Modern Painters, as well as the Spectator (for which he continues to write book reviews). Smee has written a book called Side by Side: Picasso v Matisse (2001) and five books on Lucian Freud.

Glimpse into the Googleplex

Drawing on unprecedented access to Google’s top management, from legendary co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page on down, acclaimed technology journalist and Hackers author Steven Levy tells the inside story of the astonishing success, influence, and ambition – as well as the embarrassing blunders – of what is arguably the most important and forward-looking company in the world today. For almost three years, Levy – who has covered Google from its earliest days for Wired and Newsweek – immersed himself in the company’s culture and corporate life, to report how it really operates, how it develops its products, and how it is managing its stunning growth. Levy also wanted to assess how Google was handling increasingly controversial issues such as its involvement in China, Net neutrality, its massive collection of private data, its plan to scan all the world’s books, and its bitter feud with Apple.

The New Hollywood with Robert D. Kline

Producer, director and former studio head, Robert Kline, returns for his annual hosting of “A Night of the Oscars”. He will take us through an evening of the top movies and screen roles as well as behind-the-scenes stories of Hollywood and film. For a special new highlight, Mr. Kline will present a feature on the new Hollywood power brokers and how a new generation of film and stars are being born. DVDs of classic films courtesy of Warner Bros. will be given away as prizes during the Q&A so brush up on your movie savvy!

Forecasting and Analyzing Geopolitics

Dr. Friedman is a political scientist and the Chief Executive Officer and founder of STRATFOR. Since 1996 he has driven the strategic vision guiding STRATFOR to global prominence in private geopolitical intelligence and forecasting.

Challenging the popular notion that China will soon become the next superpower, Dr. Friedman defends his contrary viewpoint in his bestselling books. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller The Next Decade: Where We’ve Been…and Where We’re Going , which forecasts the major events and challenges that will test America and the American President over the course of the next decade. His previous book The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century was also a New York Times bestseller and was published in over 20 languages. His other books on warfare and intelligence have included America’s Secret War, The Future of War and The Intelligence Edge.

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The Colorado River: Flowing through Conflict

Native Coloradan Pete McBride has spent almost two decades studying the world with his camera. A self-taught, award-winning photographer and filmmaker, he has traveled on assignment to over sixty countries for the publications of the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian, Outside, Men’s Journal, Esquire, and many others. While working abroad, Pete has often pointed his lenses toward water and how it shapes landscapes and humans – whether it is revered and sacred by a remote people, crashing down mountains or vanishing due to over allocation. His most recent project took over two years documenting his local river — the Colorado. One of the most loved and litigated in the rivers in the world, it ceases to reach to sea. McBride’s journey culminated in an acclaimed coffee table book: The Colorado River: Flowing through Conflict, and an award-winning short film, Chasing Water.

So Stressed: The Ultimate Stress-Relief Plan for Women

As a thinker, author, practicing physician, inventor, businesswoman, and internationally known advocate for women’s health and wellness, Dr. Stephanie McClellan has built a reputation as a thoughtful and caring women’s health expert. Though the focus of her practice has been the delivery of exceptional clinical medicine to her patients, Dr. McClellan has consistently made time for community service projects outside the office. She played a major role, from visioning to fundraising, in the realization of the Hoag Women’s Pavilion.

So Stressed: The Ultimate Stress-Relief Plan for Women, is a timely book that identifies four basic stress types in women, reveals the patterns of potential illness and disease for each type and offers practical programs for prevention and reversal. So Stressed gives a clear picture of what stress is doing to every cell in women’s bodies and how it disrupts the intricate balance of the body’s systems, leading to disease and illness, including heart disease, cancer, eating and metabolic disorders, gynecological problems, chronic pain, decreased libido, depression and anxiety. Filled with instructive case studies from their clinical experience as women’s healthcare specialists, the authors bridge the gap between the lab bench and the bedside, speaking to women in language that makes sense.

The Way of Baseball

Shawn Green’s career statistics can be found on the backs of baseball cards in shoe boxes across America:
328 home runs, 1,071 RBIs, .282 career batting average, All-Star, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger—but numbers tell only part of the story.

His path to success was as grounded in philosophical study as in ballpark wisdom. Striving to find stillness within the rip-roaring scene of Major League Baseball—from screaming fans to national scandals—Green learned to approach the sport with a clear mind. In the tradition of Phil Jackson’s Sacred Hoops, Green shares the secrets to remaining focused both on and off the field, shedding light on a signature approach to living. By using his remarkable baseball experiences, Green exemplifies how one can find full awareness, presence, and, ultimately, fulfillment in any endeavor.

About Jean Hastings Ardell
Ardell grew up in New York City, rooting for the Yankees. In 1964, she moved her home—and her baseball allegiance—to Southern California. Her book Breaking into Baseball: Women and the National Pastime has appeared on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list, is housed in more than 600 libraries, and continues to be taught in sports history courses at New York University and the University of San Francisco, and others.

Dreams of Joy

A continuation of Shanghai Girls finds a devastated Joy fleeing to China to search for her real father while her mother, Pearl, desperately pursues her, a dual quest marked by their encounters with the nation’s intolerant Communist culture. 

Lisa See is the author of six previous novels, including the critically acclaimed New York Times bestsellers Shanghai Girls, Peony in Love, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Flower Net (which was nominated for an Edgar Award), The Interior and Dragon Bones. She is also the author of the widely acclaimed memoir On Gold Mountain. 

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is a feature film directed by Wayne Wang for Fox Searchlight and is in theatres now.

Readings from Ballistics

Billy Collins is famous for conversational, witty poems that welcome readers with humor but often slip into quirky, tender or profound observation on the everyday, reading and writing, and poetry itself. His work has appeared in a variety of periodicals including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The American Scholar, he is a Guggenheim fellow and a New York Public Library “Literary Lion.” His last three collections of poems have broken sales records for poetry. His readings are usually standing room only, and his audience – enhanced tremendously by his appearances on National Public Radio – includes people of all backgrounds and age groups. The poems themselves best explain this phenomenon. The typical Collins poem opens on a clear and hospitable note but soon takes an unexpected turn; poems that begin in irony may end in a moment of lyric surprise. No wonder Collins sees his poetry as “a form of travel writing” and considers humor “a door into the serious.” It is a door that many thousands of readers have opened with amazement and delight.

Clara and Mr. Tiffany

During the Gilded Age at the turn of the twentieth century, Louis Comfort Tiffany, the American artist in glass whose leaded-glass windows, lamps, and mosaics are known throughout the world, established a style unique to him, blending Art Nouveau and the Aesthetics Movement. Until recently, it was assumed that he was the designer of the lamps. However, two collections of letters reveal that an unrecognized woman, Clara Driscoll, designed the floral shades in leaded glass. Suffering losses in love, as Tiffany had, and yearning to establish herself as a creator of unique art pieces in an atmosphere increasingly commercial, Clara was a vibrant and intelligent woman whose challenge, like that of many women, was to decide what makes her happy--the professional world of her hands or the personal world of her heart. The novel interprets her creative and personal life against the backdrop of her relationship and collaboration with this giant of American decorative arts.

Susan Vreeland taught high school English and ceramics in the San Diego City Schools for 30 years before becoming an internationally renowned best-selling author. Her first novel, What Love Sees, was published in 1988 and became a CBS television movie in 1996 starring Richard Thomas. That same year, Vreeland was diagnosed with lymphoma and it was during this period of treatment that she pored over art books and, inspired by the art, began writing Girl in Hyacinth Blue, which became a New York Times Bestseller, a Book of the Year finalist and winner of the Theodore Geisel Award. Her other novels include The Forest Lover, The Passion of Artemisia, Life Studies, and Luncheon of the Boating Party, about which she spoke at the library in 2007.

Lecture With Landscape Architect Peter Walker

Meet the landscape architect who is designing the new Civic Center Park project and learn how art has influenced his work and that of his firm.

Peter Walker and Associates has a worldwide practice designing projects ranging from sculpture gardens to new cities, and has collaborated with renowned architects such as Norman Foster, Arata Isozaki, Renzo Piano, and Bohlin, Cywinski, Jackson, the architects of the Newport Beach Civic Center.

Educated at the University of California, Berkeley, and at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Walker has designed hundreds of projects, taught, lectured, written, and served as an advisor to numerous public agencies. The scope of his concerns is expansive—from the design of small gardens to the planning of cities—with a particular emphasis on corporate headquarters, plazas, cultural gardens, academic campuses, and urban-regeneration projects.

Co-founder of the firm Sasaki, Walker and Associates (established in 1957), Walker opened its West Coast office, which became The SWA Group in 1976. As principal, consulting principal, and chairman of the board, he helped to shape The SWA Group as a multidisciplinary office with an international reputation for excellence in environmental design. In 1983, he formed Peter Walker and Partners, now known as PWP Landscape Architecture.

Walker has served as consultant and advisor to numerous public agencies and institutions: the Sydney 2000 Olympic Coordination Authority; the Redevelopment Agency of San Francisco; the Port Authority of San Diego; Stanford University; the University of California; the University of Washington; and the American Academy in Rome. He played an essential role in the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University as both the chairman of the Landscape Architecture Department and the acting director of the Urban Design Program. He was head of the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, from 1997 to 1999. A Fellow of the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Institute for Urban Design, Walker has been granted the Honor Award of the American Institute of Architects, Harvard’s Centennial Medal, the University of Virginia’s Thomas Jefferson Medal, the ASLA Medal, and the IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Gold Medal. He is co-designer with Michael Arad of the National September 11th Memorial.
 

The Marriage Artist

Andrew Winer is the author of two novels, The Marriage Artist and The Color Midnight Made. He is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Fiction.

About The Marriage Artist:

When the wife of renowned art critic Daniel Lichtmann plunges to her death, she is not alone. Lying next to her is her suspected lover, Benjamin Wind, the very artist Daniel most championed. Tormented by questions about the circumstances of their deaths, Daniel dedicates himself to uncovering the secrets of their relationship and the inspiration behind Wind's dazzling final exhibition. What Daniel discovers is a web of mysteries leading back to pre-World War II Vienna and the magnificent life of Josef Pick, a forgotten artist who may have been the twentieth century's greatest painter of love. But the most astonishing discovery is what connects these two artists across half a century: a remarkable woman whose response to the tragedy of her generation offers Daniel answers to the questions he never knew to ask.

Life Would Be Perfect

Author of Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House (published by Alfred A. Knopf)

From the acclaimed author and columnist: a laugh-out-loud journey into the world of real estate—the true story of one woman’s “imperfect life lived among imperfect houses” and her quest for the four perfect walls to call home.

After an itinerant suburban childhood and countless moves as a grown-up—from New York City to Lincoln, Nebraska; from the Midwest to the West Coast and back—Meghan Daum was living in Los Angeles, single and in her mid-thirties, and devoting obscene amounts of her time not to her writing career or her dating life but to the pursuit of property: scouring Craigslist, visiting open houses, fantasizing about finding the right place for the right price. Finally, near the height of the real estate bubble, she succumbed, depleting her life savings to buy a 900-square-foot bungalow, with a garage that “bore a close resemblance to the ruins of Pompeii” and plumbing that “dated back to the Coolidge administration.”

From her mother’s decorating manias to her own “hidden room” dreams, Daum explores the perils and pleasures of believing that only a house can make you whole. With delicious wit and a keen eye for the absurd, she has given us a pitch-perfect, irresistible tale of playing a lifelong game of house.

About Meghan Daum:
Meghan Daum is the author, most recently, of Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived In That House, a memoir about real estate addition, published in May 2010 by Knopf.

Since 2005, she has been a weekly opinion columnist at the Los Angeles Times. That column is distributed widely to numerous newspapers across the country and in 2006 was a finalist for a National Journalism Award and the winner of the Southern California Journalism Award in column writing.

Meghan is also the author of the essay collection, My Misspent Youth and the novel, The Quality of Life Report. She has contributed to public radio programs such as This American Life and Marketplace, and her articles and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper's, GQ, Vogue and The New York Times, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.

Notes on a Life

Eleanor Coppola is an accomplished documentary filmmaker, artist and writer. In 1962, she worked on a low-budget independent film, Dementia 13, as assistant art director. There she met the film’s writer/director Francis Coppola. The following year, Francis and Eleanor were married.

While in the Philippines for the making of Apocalypse Now, Eleanor shot the documentary footage for the acclaimed, Emmy award winning film, Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse. She published a journal of her experiences in 1979, titled Notes. During the 1995 filming of John Grisham’s The Rainmaker, Eleanor shot a documentary that focused on Coppola’s techniques for working with actors, The Making of “The Rainmaker” which aired on HBO. She has made documentaries of her daughter’s and son’s films – The Making of the Virgin Suicides, On the Set of CQ and The Making of Marie Antoinette. In 2007 her documentary about Francis Coppola, Coda: Thirty Years Later was released. She shot documentary material for the DVD of Tetro, released in 2010. Her book Notes on a Life was published in May, 2008.

She has designed costumes and stage décor for the ODC Dance Company of San Francisco and her drawings, photographs and conceptual art pieces have been exhibited in many galleries and museums. Her installation Circle of Memory, a public space for visitors to commemorate children who are missing or have died, originated in the Oakland Art Gallery. It has also been installed in San Diego, CA, Santa Fe, NM, and in Montpellier, France, and Salzburg, Austria.

She is active in the management of Rubicon Estate Winery and store. She is a past member of the board of the San Francisco Art Institute and is an honorary board member of the Napa Valley Museum.

The Lotus Eaters

From Janet Maslin of The New York Times:

“Haunting debut…tough and lyrical… artfully uses Helen’s autodidactic approach to photography as a way of raising questions that her readers need to answer too. What is a war photographer’s mission? In ways that bring to mind the feverishness of the Iraqi war film “The Hurt Locker,” with its very different locations, job descriptions and wartime imperatives — she has been utterly transformed. She is no longer a witness to history. As Ms. Soli makes her readers understand very viscerally, Helen has become part of the history that she set out to record.”
 
About the author:
Tatjana Soli is a novelist and short story writer. Born in Salzburg, Austria, she attended Stanford University and the Warren Wilson MFA Program. Her stories have appeared in The Sun, StoryQuarterly, Confrontation, Gulf Coast, Other Voices, Nimrod, Third Coast, Carolina Quarterly, Sonora Review, and North Dakota Quarterly among other publications. Her work has been twice listed in the 100 Distinguished Stories in Best American Short Stories and nominated for the Pushcart Prize. She was awarded the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Prize, the Dana Award, finalist for the Bellwether Prize, and received scholarships to the Sewanee Writers’ Conference and Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference. She lives with her husband in Orange County, California, and teaches through the Gotham Writers’ Workshop.

The End of Overeating

David A. Kessler, M.D. is the former Commissioner of the United States Food and Drug Administration, serving from 1990 until 1997. He has also served as the Dean of the medical schools at Yale and U.C. San Francisco. He is now Professor of Pediatrics, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at UCSF. Kessler, who reinvented the food label and tackled the tobacco industry, now reveals how the food industry has hijacked the brains of millions of Americans in his bestselling book The End of Overeating. Dr. Kessler explains how our bodies and minds are changed when we consume foods that contain sugar, fat, and salt. Food manufacturers create products by manipulating these ingredients to stimulate our appetites, setting in motion a cycle of desire and consumption that ends with a nation of overeaters.

OC Noir

OC Noir with Gordon McAlpine, Robert Ward & Mary Castillo

Life, Inc.

CD with audio of entire lecture is available at the Newport Beach Central Library Reference Desk for use in the library.

At Home in Tuscany

CD with audio of entire lecture is available at the Newport Beach Central Library Reference Desk for use in the library.
 

The Inheritance

Hear highlights of the program. DVD with audio-visual of entire lecture is available at the Newport Beach Central Library Reference Desk for use in the library.
 

Love Child

At four, Allegra Huston was a precocious, “proper little English girl,” growing up in a comfortable London home with her adored Mum, her older siblings Anjelica and Tony and Nurse, her Irish nanny. This seemingly idyllic life—even without the requisite daddy—was shattered by the death of her mother in a freak automobile accident. From that day until late adolescence, the orphaned daughter became an involuntary nomad, shuttled across a continent and a country as a temporary guest in other people’s homes.

LOVE CHILD: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found (Simon & Schuster; April 7, 2009), is the author’s poignant and exquisitely rendered chronicle of her radically altered young life and her struggle to recover the essence of a mother whose reality faded by the day. That longed-for mother, the extraordinarily beautiful Ricki Soma, had been a celebrated dancer with the New York City Ballet and at her death was the estranged fourth wife of the brilliant, eccentric and notoriously womanizing filmmaker John Huston.

My Life in the Theatre

At 80, Richard Seff is a living museum of theater history and a lifelong New Yorker through and through. A celebrated theatrical agent, he has worked closely with such greats as Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison in the original My Fair Lady, with Chita Rivera and the original cast of West Side Story, Kander and Ebb for the original Cabaret and the likes of Bob Fosse, Ethel Merman, and Jerome Robbins.

His recent book, Supporting Player-My Life Upon the Wicked Stage is a charming memoir by an actor who began his career alongside Claude Rains in Darkness at Noon, worked as a talent agent for 22 years and then returned to the stage and screen. Colorful but never gossipy, the book is also a trove of trivia-for example, the story of how Rex Harrison influenced the title of My Fair Lady, by bellowing "It cannot say REX HARRISON in Lady Liza on a marquee!"

Rubies in the Orchard

Lynda Resnick began her career at the age of nineteen, when she founded a full-service advertising agency. Successfully running this business so early in her career enabled her to gain invaluable and practical marketing experience, which, coupled with her sound entrepreneurial instincts and quick wit, has been the hallmark of her 40-year career. Dubbed the "POM Queen," she is behind the marketing success of POM Wonderful, the wildly popular 100% pomegranate juice. She and her husband Stewart also own Teleflora (the world's largest floral-by-wire company) and FIJI Water (the leading imported bottled water brand in the United States).

Lynda reveals her secrets for creating memorable brands and pioneering fresh approaches to launch and promote them in her new book, Rubies in the Orchard.

Follow the Roar

With his career at a standstill and his golf game a shadow of its former mediocrity, TV writer and ESPN.com contributor Bob Smiley decided the time had come to turn to the one person who might be able to help: Tiger Woods. So, in January of 2008, Smiley set out to follow the game's greatest player from the gallery for every hole of an entire season and to absorb all that he could.

Smiley chronicles every dramatic and often hysterical moment of his journey with Tiger, including his off-course run-ins with Arabian sandstorms, ex-con ticket scalpers, and the motley assortment of strangers who became friends along the way. Told from the perspective of a true golf fan, Follow the Roar is a once-in-a-lifetime adventure through the most spectacular and inspiring season in Tiger Woods's celebrated career.

The Trouble with Islam Today

The New York Times calls Irshad Manji "Osama bin Laden's worst nightmare." Oprah Winfrey has given her the first annual Chutzpah Award for "audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction." She takes both as a compliment.

Irshad is Director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University. It develops young leaders who will challenge conformity and champion creativity. They include reform-minded Muslims, whom Irshad is strengthening through her books and films.

She is the internationally bestselling author of the Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith. In those countries that have banned her book, Irshad is reaching readers by posting free translations on her popular blog. In just over a year, the Arabic translation has been downloaded 300,000 times and circulated by youth throughout the Middle East.

Irshad is also creator of the acclaimed PBS documentary, Faith Without Fear, which follows her journey to reconcile Islam with freedom and human rights. It is now being screened in Europe and shown via digital technologies in many parts of the Muslim world.

For her pioneering work, Irshad receives death threats and distinctions:

• The World Economic Forum has selected her as a Young Global Leader;
• The European Foundation for Democracy has made her a Senior Scholar; and
• The Jakarta Post in Indonesia - the world's largest Muslim country - identifies Irshad as one of three Muslim women creating positive change in Islam today.

Honeymoon with My Brother

The bestselling author of Honeymoon with My Brother hits the road again to learn about love and finally finds it closer to home. When you've been jilted at the altar and forced to take your pre-paid honeymoon with your brother, it's fair to say you could learn a thing or two about love. And that's what Franz Wisner sets out to do-traveling the globe with a mission: to discover the planet's most important love lessons and see if they can rescue him from the ruins of his own love life. Even after months on the road, he's still not sure he's found the secret. But a disastrous date with a Los Angeles actress and single mom keeps popping into Franz's head. While researching ideal love, could he have missed a bigger truth: that something unplanned and implausible could actually make him happy?

Uproarious, tender, and studded with eye-opening insights on love, How the World Makes Love is the story of one average man's search for happiness-a search that turns into an improbable love story in the author's own backyard.

About the Author
Franz Wisner got dumped at the altar and turned the experience into a career. Wisner has written for a variety of publications, including The Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He lives in Connecticut.

Losing My Religion

William Lobdell has been a journalist for more than two decades, including 18 years with the Los Angeles Times and its sister newspapers, including a decade as editor of the Newport Beach/Costa Mesa Daily Pilot.

Lobdell's new memoir, Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America - and Found Unexpected Peace, will be published 2/24/2009 by HarperCollins. It has garnered glowing early reviews and endorsements from such disparate people as atheist Christopher Hitchens and Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer, and a variety of well-known Pentecostal and evangelical pastors and Christian talk radio hosts.

The Travel Detective on Tough Times, Great Travels

Peter Greenberg, NBC's"Travel Detective" will speak about his new book, Tough Times, Great Travels: The Travel Detective's Guide to Hidden Deals, Unadvertised Bargains, and Great Experiences

With airlines cutting service, hotel rates soaring, and one of the most unstable economies this country has seen, the thought of taking a trip might seem out of reach. But in Tough Times, Great Travels, the Travel Detective, Peter Greenberg, lets you in on money-saving secrets like: the best day to purchase airline tickets; car rental companies almost willing to pay you to rent their cars; the best hour on the best day to book a hotel room; free activities in 30 cities; cruise ships that discount cabins on the day of the cruise; how to redeem airline miles for flights that are supposedly full; avoiding luggage check-in fees; places where kids can eat and stay for free.

Traveling during an economic meltdown shouldn't result in a personal one for you. With Greenberg's help, you can get packing while the market is crashing.

About the Author
Peter Greenberg is the nation's preeminent expert on travel - no other journalist brings his level of expertise and extensive experience to the travel process. And while other travel experts focus on the destination, Peter offers something different, something truly unique. His focus is on the journey, providing insider's tips and recommendations to an increasingly savvy and demanding traveler. And Peter's keen investigative journalist skills enable him to go beyond the mundane and everyday to reveal unique perspectives, timely travel information and valuable insights.

An Emmy award-winning writer and producer, Peter Greenberg is the Travel Editor for NBC's Today show, CNBC and MSNBC, a best-selling author and host of the nationally syndicated Peter Greenberg Worldwide Radio show. Greenberg is contributing editor to Men's Health and Forbes, and was also Contributing Editor for America Online (AOL), a contributor to The New Yorker magazine and a frequent guest on ABC's Oprah Winfrey Show and The View.

Harvard Humanitarian Initiative

The mission of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative is to relieve human suffering in war and disaster by advancing the science and the practice of humanitarian response worldwide.

The VanRooyens are regarded as heroes on many fronts, but most recently have come to the aide of Dr. Denis Mukwege and the Panzi Hospital in Bukavu were they have faced a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. They will be here in Newport Beach to tell their story.

The violent civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) originated in 1996 in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide and the resulting destabilization of the surrounding region, dubbed the African World War. The conflict has claimed the lives of over 4 million people, over ten times the number killed in Darfur, Sudan, making this the most destructive war in recent African history. Despite the signing of peace agreements and the election of a new government, the violence and insecurity continue.

Dr. Julie VanRooyen is a gynecologic surgeon, with subspecialty training in female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery. She has worked in several international settings. While at Johns Hopkins, she developed training programs in reproductive health in Azerbaijan. Other international experience includes work in Somalia, Kenya, Russia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Chad.

Dr. Michael VanRooyen has worked extensively in disaster relief and humanitarian assistance in over thirty countries, including recent crises in Bosnia, Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, Congo, Honduras, and Iraq.

To read a recent New York Times article on Dr. Mukwege and his work in the DRC, click here.

When Markets Collide

Mohamed A. El-Erian is CEO of PIMCO. He returned to PIMCO in December 2007 after serving for two years as President and CEO of Harvard Management Company (HMC), the entity that manages Harvard's endowment and related accounts. Harvard recruited El-Erian to fill the void left in September 2005 by the departure of 15-year investment chief Jack Meyer. El-Erian rebuilt the staff and guided the fund to a 23 percent gain, adding $5.7 billion to the world's biggest university endowment.

Dr. El-Erian also served as a member of the faculty of Harvard Business School and as deputy treasurer of the University. Dr. El-Erian earned a B.A. in economics from Cambridge University and doctoral and master's degrees in economics from Oxford University. He spent fifteen years at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington D.C. before moving to the private sector where he served as managing director at Salomon Smith Barney/Citigroup in London. In 1999, he joined PIMCO where he was a managing director and a senior member of PIMCO's portfolio management and investment strategy group.

Dr. El-Erian has published widely on international economic and finance topics and has served on several boards and committees, including the Emerging Markets Traders Association (EMTA) and the IMF's Committee of Eminent Persons. He is currently a board member of the International Center for Research on Women and the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He is also a member of the U.S. Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee and the IMF's Capital Markets Consultative Group, and chairs Microsoft's Investment Advisory Committee.

Dr. El-Erian is the son of an Egyptian diplomat and is fluent in Arabic, English and French.

Retrospective of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer’s work

David Hume Kennerly, a contributor for NBC News, has been shooting on the front lines of history for four decades. He has photographed eight wars, seven U.S. presidents, and has traveled to more than 140 countries along the way. He is an authentic global photographer, as much in his element in the desert covering combat as he is capturing dramatic and intimate behind-the-scenes photos of the world's leaders in the corridors of power.

Kennerly was recently named, "One of the Most 100 Most Important People in Photography" by American Photo Magazine, and last year was selected as the 2007, "Photography Person of the Year," by Photo Media Magazine.

At age 25 Kennerly won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for his photos of the Vietnam War, and two years later was appointed President Gerald R. Ford's personal photographer. He has also won the Overseas Press Club's Olivier Rebbot Award for "Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad," for his coverage of Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev's historic summit meeting in Geneva. He also won first prizes in the World Press contest for his dramatic and powerful photos of the war Cambodia just before it fell to the Khmer Rouge.

He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy as executive producer of NBC's, "The Taking of Flight 847," and was writer and Executive Producer of a two-hour NBC pilot, "Shooter," starring Helen Hunt, based on his Vietnam experiences. "Shooter" won the Emmy for "Outstanding Cinematography." He is executive producer of the recent short documentary, "Portraits of a Lady," starring former Justice Sandra Day O'Conner, which made the short list of films eligible for the 2008 Academy Award nominations.

For more information about David Hume Kennerly go to www.kennerly.com

A Proper Knowledge

Michelle Latiolais is a Professor of English at the University of California at Irvine. She is the author of the novel Even Now which received the Gold Medal for Fiction from the Commonwealth Club of California. Her second novel, A Proper Knowledge, was published this last spring by Bellevue Literary Press. She has published writing in three anthologies, Absolute Disaster, Women On The Edge: Writing From Los Angeles and Woof! Writers on Dogs (November 2008). Her stories and essays have appeared in Zyzzyva, The Antioch Review, Western Humanities Review and the Santa Monica Review. She has work in up-coming issues of the Iowa Review and the Northwest Review.

Criminal Paradise

The literature of larceny welcomes a newcomer with some serious chops, as Steven M. Thomas, former editor of the OC Metro magazine, muscles his way to a place at the table—elbow-to-elbow with Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen—courtesy of a harrowing, hilarious, two-fisted, hard-boiled thriller that’s pure heaven for anyone who loves a great crime novel.

Orange County readers will love the setting of Criminal Paradise. It takes place in Newport Beach—and is filled with scenes set on Balboa Island, Balboa Peninsula, Corona del Mar and other local spots. A number of Orange County readers have commented on how much they enjoyed the local, seaside setting of the book.

About the Author
Steven M. Thomas is the award-winning author of many short stories, essays, and poems that have been published in more than fifty literary and small-press magazines in the United States and England. Until recently, he served as editor of OC Metro, a high-circulation magazine based in Orange County, where he lives. Criminal Paradise is his first novel.

Mother on Fire

SANDRA TSING LOH is a writer/performer whose previous books include A Year in Van Nuys; Depth Takes a Holiday; If You Lived Here, You’d Be Home By Now; and Aliens in America. Her new book, MOTHER ON FIRE: A True Motherf%#$@ Story About Parenting! was published by Crown Publishers in August 2008. Her off-Broadway solo shows include "Aliens in America" and "Bad Sex With Bud Kemp"; the original solo stage version of "Mother on Fire" ran for seven months in Los Angeles. She has been a regular commentator on NPR’s "Morning Edition," on PRI’s “Marketplace,” and on Ira Glass’ "This American Life." Currently, her weekly radio commentary series "The Loh Life" runs on KPCC (89.3 FM) in Los Angeles, as does her daily "Loh Down on Science" (syndicated). Her awards include a Pushcart Prize in fiction and two National Magazine Award nominations for her work as a contributing editor for The Atlantic Monthly. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two daughters, and two cats.

Deep Economy

Editor of the Harvard Crimson (Harvard University's newspaper) in his 20s, McKibben went on to write the "Talk of the Town" column in The New Yorker from 1982-1987. Los Angeles Times book critic Susan Salter Reynolds says of McKibben:

"Bill McKibben's writing -- part art, part essay, part journalism with more than a smidgen of harangue -- has framed the thinking on environmental issues for more than a generation. Two new books out this spring, The Bill McKibben Reader: Pieces From an Active Life and American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau, will impress on the reader how calmly, if not always quietly, he has illuminated paths to the future, thinking alongside us about what might be possible, even as information hurtles toward us, technology blinds us and being human seems to mean something entirely different than what any of us would consciously want."