I have an embarrassing confession to make. Last week I made not one, but two mistakes in my SF events post. First off, the Chris Cleeve event that I thought was happening last Wednesday is in fact happening next week. The obvious good thing about this is that now all of you out there that want to go can still get tickets. The real disappointment is the fact that I neglected to mention that Dave Eggers apparently spoke at the Berkeley Rep. last Monday. I really have no idea how I missed it. Stephanie, thank you for pointing it out and ruining my credibility. Just teasing, I don’t think I really had any to begin with. I will though attempt to redeem myself by ignoring all other events this week (there aren’t really any others worth mentioning) and only discussing the Eggers event this week that is on Thursday.
Before I get to that though, there is something I’d like to discuss with you all out there. It is a topic which has been troubling me for a little while now. Don’t pretend to be surprised, I know you’re not. This time around it’s the proliferation of self help, motivational and life strategy books that are popping up all over the show.
I guess what stemmed my current issue with this genre of books is the fact that these authors are making more and more appearances at local book shops. Each week I research what’s going on in the cities of my choosing (SF & LA). More often than not, more than half of these signings are for these exact type of books. I’m actually nearing the point where I want to go to one of these just to see the sort of turnout that accompanies them. I’m not going to go through my calendar and count the number of these events, you’ll just have to trust me on this one. It’s gotten to the point where I can’t really take these books seriously. Now whenever I see one of these books on display, I immediately dismiss it as a farce and silly attempt by someone to make themselves more wealthy. I’m sure some of them out there are good reads and can truly enrich the lives of some but until someone is willing to weed through all the crap, I’m boycotting. Point made.
I’ve decided to ignore all the events this week, as mentioned, except for the Dave Eggers event. In part due to my neglecting of his event last week and in part due to my aforementioned boycott.
Thursday, February 11th
@ 8 – 930pm
- Dave Eggers, author and all round do gooder, will be speaking at Sibley Auditorium at UC Berkeley. The event is being put on by the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Not only will Eggers be discussing his latest book Zeitoun, he will be joined by writers and editors of his publishing house Mcsweeney’s. In pertinent part, they will talk about the San Francisco Panorama which was a one time massive newsprint project that went on sale in December in SF. Mcsweeney’s put the project together to demonstrate the importance of print media. I didn’t get a chance to pick one up but am pretty eager to check it out at some point. The topics of discussion don’t actually stop there, other things on the slate include The Believer, Mcsweeney’s Quarterly, and Best American Non-required Reading. Pretty impressive line-up if you ask me. There will be a multimedia presentation, Q & A session and some product peddling. If that’s not enough to motivate you to get there I’m not quite sure what it would take to get you to an event. Even if you think or have thought Mr. Eggers to be “wordy,” I think you should be there.
