San Francisco Events

Dr. Neal Barnard - The Power Foods Diet (Ferry Building Store)

Friday, April 26, 2024 - 5:30pm

Dr. Neal Barnard

The Power Foods Diet

In-Person Event • Book Passage (SF Ferry Building)

Fri., April 26th, 2024 • 5:30pm PT

This event is free to attend and will be hosted in-person at Book Passage's SF Ferry Building Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding events.
 

Dr. Neal Barnard’s new diet and plan offers an evidence-based, food-as-medicine protocol for kickstarting weight loss and keeping it off.

Eat These Foods, Lose the Weight

Weight loss is one of our top health concerns, so much so that we keep looking for good ways to lose weight, preferably a way that is easy, effective, and permanent. It turns out that, when properly  chosen, certain foods cause weight loss, with no need for the deprivation and planning that most weight-loss regimens require. 

In his next book, leading nutrition researcher and author Dr. Neal Barnard reveals three breakthroughs that are supported by research, revealing that certain foods:
1.  can reduce the appetite
2.  trap calories so they are flushed away and cannot be absorbed, and,
3.  increase the body’s ability to burn calories for about three hours after each meal. 

These breakthroughs make weight loss incredibly easy, without calorie counting or deprivation. This diet encourages people to eat, not to stop eating. Dr. Barnard also reveals that some of the foods we think are good for us can actually be harmful, like salmon, goat cheese, and coconut oil, all of which pass easily into body fat...and often overstay their welcome. 

To make it easy, Dr. Barnard will include a simple to follow meal plan that includes delicious, and even indulgent recipes which include foods we have often been told to avoid, like potatoes and pasta, so you can eat real food, and still lose real weight. 


 

Dr. Neal D. Barnard, MD, FACC, is a faculty member of the George Washington University School of Medicine and President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, where he heads a research team investigating scientific issues in nutrition and health. His work revolutionized the dietary approach to type 2 diabetes; he now does the same for weight loss. Dr. Barnard is editor-in-chief of the Nutrition Guide for Clinicians, a nutrition textbook made available to all U.S. medical students. He is also editor of Good Medicine, a magazine with a circulation of 150,000. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Dr. Neal Barnard's Program for Reversing DiabetesPower Foods for the BrainThe 21-Day Weight-Loss Kickstart, and most recently Your Body in Balance, among many others.


 

“A comprehensive and invaluable resource for those seeking a lifelong path to better health and weight loss!” —Michelle O’Donoghue, MD, MPH, FACC, FAHA, FESC, Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Cardiologist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA

“With an evidence-based approach, Neal Barnard has created an encyclopedia of nutrition knowledge, defining and orchestrating the foremost use of food for taste and optimal health.”
 —Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Jr., MD, Cleveland Clinic Center of Wellness and Preventive Medicine, consultant, author Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease

 

Dr. Neal Barnard - photo credit Elliott O'Donovan.

Book Passage Ferry Building
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111

Linda Shiue, MD - Spicebox Kitchen (Ferry Building Plaza)

Saturday, April 13, 2024 - 12:00pm
author photo author photo

Linda Shiue, MD

Spicebox Kitchen
Eat Well and Be Healthy with Globally Inspired, Vegetable-Forward Recipes

Meet & Greet Book Signing Only • SF Ferry Building Plaza

Sat., April 13th, 2024 • 12:00pm PT

This event is a non-seated Meet & Greet signing only. This event will be hosted at the SF Ferry Building plaza. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding events.
 
Please join us for a special meet & greet signing event with renowned chef and physician Linda Shiue acompanying her Foodwise demo at SF Ferry Building marketplace plaza. This signing is in celebration of Spicebox Kitchen, a is a culinary wellness trip you can take in your own kitchen.
 

2022 Gold Award Winner, Nautilus Book Awards
2022 IACP Cookbook Awards Finalist


A renowned chef and physician shares her secrets to a healthy life in this cookbook filled with healthy recipes that will fuel and energize your body and mind.

"I like to think of a spicebox as the cook's equivalent of a doctor's bag--containing the essential tools to use in the art of cooking. Learning to use spices is the best way to add interest and vibrancy to simple home cooking."
—from the Introduction

In her first cookbook, chef and physician Linda Shiue puts the phrase "let food be thy medicine" to the test. With 175 vegetarian and pescatarian recipes curated from her own kitchen, Dr. Shiue takes you on a journey of vibrant, fresh flavors through a range of spices from amchar masala to za'atar. With a comprehensive "Healthy Cooking 101" chapter, lists of the healthiest ingredients out there, and tips for prevention, Spicebox Kitchen is a culinary wellness trip you can take in your own kitchen.

 


Linda Shiue is a physician, chef and founder of a teaching kitchen for patients. She believes that the best medicine is prevention. Her cooking classes showcase seasonal produce, lavishly flavored with spices and fresh herbs. Her food writing has been published widely and she has been interviewed frequently on television and in print. Dr. Shiue has served as faculty at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and Stanford University and serves on the board of the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. She is a graduate of Brown University, San Francisco Cooking School, UCSF and the kitchen of Michelin-starred restaurant, Mourad, in San Francisco. She also has a Certificate in Plant Based Nutrition from Cornell University.

 


"Dr. Shiue's recipes offer creative twists on traditional favorites, in some cases gently nudging them in more a vegetable-forward direction, which often actually means getting closer to their roots. I'm excited for you to begin cooking the wide-ranging recipes in this book, and I imagine you will learn a lot from the comprehensive and user-friendly overview of spices and healthy staple ingredients that form the basis of the dishes."—from the foreword by Bryant Terry, James Beard Award winner, author of Vegetable Kingdom

"Dr. Linda Shiue shows us what a holistic relationship between food and medicine looks, and, most importantly feels, like. Using our spiceboxes as veritable medicine cabinets, Dr. Shiue teaches us that healthy is ours to define and pleasure is vital to our wellbeing."—Julia Turshen, bestselling cookbook author and founder of Equity at the Table (EATT)

 

 

Linda Shiue photo courtesy of the author.

 

1 Ferry Building Plaza
San Francisco, CA 94111

Guzman with Conrad Amenta - Family Values: Kurt, Courtney & Frances Bean (Ferry Building Store)

Tuesday, June 25, 2024 - 5:30pm

Guzman
In conversation with Conrad Amenta

Family Values
Kurt, Courtney & Frances Bean

Book Passage (SF Ferry Building)
Tues., June 25th, 2024 • 5:30pm PT

This event is free to attend and will be hosted in-person at Book Passage's SF Ferry Building Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding events.
 

Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were notorious for representing the opposite of “Family Values.” To reframe their notoriety, they consented to a rare photoshoot for Spin magazine with their newborn, Frances Bean. Only 5 images were originally published; the rest of the photoshoot is seen here for the first time.

With an ineffable ability to connect with people through his music, Kurt Cobain was charismatic and full of pathos, something of a lost boy poet struggling against his personal demons while holding the world in thrall. And yet in the midst of his struggles with success, fame, fortune, drugs, and the wounds of a traumatic childhood, he managed in his brief adulthood to get married to Courtney Love—who of course had her own accomplishments as an electrifying and unrestrained lead singer and lyricist. The couple had already emerged as a cultural touchstone when their baby, Frances Bean, was born in 1992. Photographers Guzman captured, amidst toys and pajamas, the sweetness, humor, irony and the simple happiness of a new mom and dad at home with their baby girl.

Family Values is a photography book presenting approximately 90 images featuring Kurt, Courtney, and their baby Frances, one morning in their modest Hollywood home selected from a photoshoot that Guzman did for Spin magazine in 1992. Only five photographs from the shoot were published in the magazine at the time, including the cover. Another appeared in Rolling Stone at the time of Kurt Cobain’s death. In Spin, the photos originally accompanied an interview by Jonathan Poneman, which Guzman plans to license to reprint in the book. The book will also include a memoir of the photo shoot written by Guzman and an introduction by curator and music journalist Michael Azerrad.


Family Values is a photographic assignment that revealed two famous rock stars who during one brief moment transcended the magnifying glass of fame and were revealed, amidst all the chaos, as being just a mom and dad.

 


Guzman is the award-winning husband-and-wife image-making duo Constance Hansen and Russell Peacock. Known both in the U.S. and Europe for a highly sophisticated photographic style and an affinity for the eccentric, Guzman has worked across just about every category, with a concentration in advertising, fashion, music, sports, and celebrity portraits. Their advertising campaigns have included Puma, Nike, Adidas, L’Oreal, Louis Vuitton, Lancome, Givenchy, Evian, Perrier, Tag Heuer, and Absolut. Subjects in music have included: Iggy Pop, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Debbie Harry, Mariah Carey, Missy Elliott, Janet Jackson, Erykah Badu, Alicia Keys, Wyclef Jean, Wu-Tang Clan, 50 Cent, Hole, Sting, Soundgarden, k.d. lang and many more. Sports figures include Tom Brady, LeBron James, David Beckham, Lionel Messi, Christiano Ronaldo, Sergei Federov, and more. Stars of stage and screen include Rachel Weisz, Jamie Foxx, Julianne Moore, Willem Dafoe, Tracy Morgan, Harvey Fierstein, Matt Dillon, Susan Sarandon, Spike Lee, Ethan Hawke, and more. 

Hansen, a native of New York who attended the Pratt Institute, and Peacock, a native of England who attended the Rochester Institute of Technology and the Rhode Island School of Design, met in the 1980s and began working together as Guzman in 1985. They now live in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.

 

Conrad Amenta wrote for Cokemachineglow from 2005-2015. His article "A Few Thoughts on Nirvana's Induction into the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame" appears in the Archway Editions anthology Cokemachineglow: Writing Around Music 2005-2015. His work has also appeared in Motherboard, Kill Screen, Logic, the Mark, and a couple of dry health care policy journals. He lives in Oakland.

 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

Guzman photo courtesy of the publicist. Conrad Amenta photo courtesy of the publicist. 

Book Passage Ferry Building
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111

Karen Eber with Will Csaklos - The Perfect Story (Ferry Building Store)

Saturday, May 4, 2024 - 3:00pm

Karen Eber
In conversation with Will Csaklos

The Perfect Story
How to Tell Stories That Inform, Influence, and Inspire

Ferry Building Store
Sat., May 4th, 2024 • 3:00pm PT

This event is free to attend and will be hosted in-person at Book Passage's Ferry Building Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding events.
****

"Come for the engrossing content, and stay for the lessons that might just change how you talk, write, and lead." --Adam Grant

Learn how to take any story and make it perfect--from storytelling expert Karen Eber, whose popular TED Talk on the subject continues to be a source of inspiration for millions.

What makes a story perfect? How do you tell the perfect story for any occasion?

We live in a story world. Stories are a memorable and engaging way to differentiate yourself, build connection and trust, create new thinking, bring meaning to data, and even influence decision-making. But how do you turn a good story into a great story that informs, influences, and inspires?

In The Perfect Story, Karen Eber--leadership consultant, professional keynote storyteller, and TED speaker--shares the science of storytelling to teach you to:

  • Leverage the Five Factory Settings of the Brain to hack the art of storytelling
  • Build a toolkit of endless story ideas
  • Define the audience for your story
  • Apply a memorable story structure
  • Engage senses and emotions
  • Tell stories with data
  • Avoid common storytelling mistakes
  • Use your body to tell dynamic stories
  • Ensure your story doesn't manipulate
  • Navigate and embrace the vulnerability of storytelling

Without relying on complicated models or one-size-fits-all prescriptions, this book makes storytelling accessible with practical and impactful steps for anyone to tell the perfect story for any occasion.

Through interview vignettes, The Perfect Story also shares approaches from different storytellers, including the Sundance Institute cofounder, an executive producer of The Moth, the former creative director at Pixar, the TED Radio Hour podcast host, and many more.

Whether you are leading a team, giving a presentation, hosting a podcast, selling a product or service, interviewing for a job, or giving a toast at a wedding, The Perfect Story will help you take your stories and make them perfect.

 


 

Karen Eber is an author, leadership consultant, and keynote speaker. Her TED Talk on how your brain responds to stories continues to inspire millions. Her book, The Perfect Story: How to Tell Stories That Inform, Influence, and Inspire, is a Porchlight Books Bestseller and was selected as a Next Big Ideas Club must-read.

As the CEO and Chief Storyteller of Eber Leadership Group, Karen helps Fortune 500 companies like GE, Microsoft, and Kraft Heinz build leaders, teams, and culture, one story at a time.

Karen guest lectures at universities including MIT, Stanford, and London School of Business. She is a former Head of Culture, Learning, and Leadership Development at GE and Deloitte. Karen frequently contributes to and is featured in Fast Company, Quartz, Entrepreneur, MSN, Forbes, Inc, and Business Insider.
 

In her free time, she plays the flute the piccolo, hikes, and frequents musical theater. Karen lives in Atlanta with her family.

 

Will Csaklos is the former Senior Creative Executive and Story Consultant at Pixar Animation Studios.

In addition to providing story consulting and story repair on Finding Nemo, Monsters, Inc., Ratatouille and Open Season, Will taught his singular Story Development course to Directors, Heads of Story, Story Artists and Top Executives at Pixar, Sony and Disney and in publicly available classes in the San Francisco Bay Area where he was “discovered” by Andrew Stanton and recruited to Pixar.

During his career, Will has consulted and contributed to short films, independent films and corporate and product narratives. Employers and clients include, Pixar Animation Studios, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Marza Animation Planet, Sony Pictures Animation, Ogilvy Paris, Cube Creative and Barajoun Entertainment.

Today, Will focuses on writing, repairing and developing stories and scripts for all genres of live action projects, animated features, and shorts. His clients include studio and independent filmmakers as well as aspiring writers and filmmakers who are on their way to achieving their creative dreams.

 

 

 

 

 

Karen Eber photo courtesy of the author. Will Csaklos photo courtesy of the author.

1 Ferry Building Plaza
San Francisco, CA 94111

Frank H. McCourt, Jr. - Our Biggest Fight (Ferry Building Event)

Wednesday, April 3, 2024 - 5:30pm

Frank H. McCourt, Jr.

Our Biggest Fight
Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in the Digital Age

 

In-Person Event • Book Passage (SF Ferry Building)

Wed., April 3rd, 2024 • 5:30pm PT

This event is free to attend and will be hosted in-person at Book Passage's Ferry Building Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding events.
 

The internet as we know it is broken. Here’s how we can seize back control of our lives from the corporate algorithms and create a better internet—before it’s too late.

“In the spirit of Thomas Paine’s Revolution-era Common Sense, this manifesto challenges us to create new digital architectures to safeguard democracy.”—Walter Isaacson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Elon Musk

It was once a utopian dream. But today’s internet, despite its conveniences and connectivity, is the primary cause of a pervasive unease that has taken hold in the U.S. and other democratic societies. It’s why youth suicide rates are rising, why politics has become toxic, and why our most important institutions are faltering.
 
Information is the lifeblood of any society, and our current system for distributing it is corrupted at its heart. Everything comes down to our ability to communicate openly and trustfully with each other. But, thanks to the dominant digital platforms and the ways they distort human behavior, we have lost that ability—while, at the same time, we’ve been robbed of the data that is rightfully ours.

The roots of this crisis, argue Frank McCourt and Michael Casey, lie in the prevailing order of the internet. In plain but forceful language, the authors—a civic entrepreneur and an acclaimed journalist—show how a centralized system controlled by a small group of for-profit entities has set this catastrophe in motion and eroded our personhood.
 
And then they describe a groundbreaking solution to reclaim it: rather than superficial, patchwork regulations, we must reimagine the very architecture of the internet. The resulting “third-generation internet” would replace the status quo with a new model marked by digital property rights, autonomy, and ownership.

Inspired by historical calls to action like Thomas Paine’s Common Sense
Our Biggest Fight argues that we must act now to embed the core values of a free, democratic society in the internet of tomorrow. Do it right and we will finally, properly, unlock its immense potential.

 


Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is the executive chairman of McCourt Global, a private family enterprise working across the real estate, sports, technology, media, and capital investment industries. He is the founder and executive chairman of Project Liberty, a broad-based effort to build a better web for a better world. The project includes the development of an open internet protocol (the Decentralized Social Networking Protocol), which shifts data rights from platforms to people, and an institute—launched with founding partners Georgetown University, Stanford University, and Sciences Po—to advance research and develop a governance framework for the internet’s next era.

Michael J. Casey (not appearing) is Chief Content Officer at the award-winning media company CoinDesk, host of the “Money Reimagined” podcast, and the Chairman of the Consensus conference. He has worked as a journalist on five continents, including eighteen years with Dow Jones and The Wall Street Journal, and was a founding staffer at MIT's Digital Currency Initiative. Casey’s previous books include The Age of CryptocurrencyThe Social Organism, and The Truth Machine.

 

 

 

Frank H. McCourt, Jr. photo credit Dorothy Hong

1 Ferry Building Plaza
San Francisco, CA 94111

Gina Moffa - Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go (Ferry Building Event)

Saturday, April 27, 2024 - 3:00pm

Gina Moffa

Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go
A Modern Guide to Navigating Loss

 

In-Person Event • Book Passage (SF Ferry Building)

Sat., April 27th • 3:00pm PT

This event is free to attend and will be hosted in-person at Book Passage's Ferry Building Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding events.
 

Grief hurts. Don’t do it alone.  Learn to navigate any loss—a parent, a friendship, a job, a miscarriage—at your own pace with the help of a licensed grief and trauma therapist.
 
“A must read. Help your mind feel less heavy and open the door to deep personal growth" —Yung Pueblo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lighter and Clarity & Connection
 
After nearly two decades of clinical experience and her own journey after losing her mother to cancer, Gina Moffa, LCSW offers knows all too well how disorienting, painful, and lonely grief can be. 
 
In 
Moving on Doesn’t Mean Letting Go, she offers a heartfelt, practical map through loss—one that can shift the pain of your grief even when things feel unpredictable and overwhelming. With her help you’ll learn to:

  • Navigate the initial shock of the “griefall”
  • Recognize your unique grief rhythm
  • Get in touch with your needs, feelings, and boundaries
  • Mange social media and interactions with the outside world
  • Connect mind and body through somatic exercises and self-reflections

 
“A lifeline to the exhausted treading water in an ocean of loss" (Rabbi Steve Leder), Moving on Doesn’t Mean Letting Go is warm, compassionate, and perfect for readers of Grief Day by Day or It’s OK that You’re Not OK.

 


Gina Moffa, LCSW, MA, is a licensed psychotherapist, mental health educator, and media consultant in New York City. In practice for nearly two decades, she has helped thousands of people seeking treatment for trauma, grief, as well as challenging life experiences and transitions. This includes work with Holocaust survivors at 92Y, as well as being a clinical director for a Mt. Sinai Hospital Outpatient Program specializing in addictions. She received her master’s degree in social work with a specialty in trauma from New York University.

 


“A must-read book that will help your mind feel less heavy and open the door to deep personal growth."—Yung Pueblo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Lighter and Clarity & Connection

"This book is a lifeline to the exhausted treading water in an ocean of loss. Much like its author it is smart, kind, honest and without judgement. Anyone living with loss will find expert guidance and hope here." —Steve Leder, New York Times bestselling author of For You When I am Gone, and The Beauty of What Remains

 

 

Gina Moffa photo credit Jenny Moloney

1 Ferry Building Plaza
San Francisco, CA 94111

Rowena Scherer - A Taste of the World (Ferry Building Store)

Sunday, June 2, 2024 - 1:00pm
author photo author photo

Rowena Scherer

A Taste of the World
Celebrating Global Flavors

Meet & Greet Book Signing Only

Book Passage (SF Ferry Building Store)
Sun., June 2nd, 2024 • 1:00pm PT

This event will be hosted live at Book Passage's San Francisco Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding live events.
 

Join us for a special meet and greet signing with Rowena Scherer, for new cookbook celebrating culinary flavors from around the world in A Taste of the World. 

 


Take a culinary trip around the world from the comfort of your very own kitchen! This globetrotting tome includes 60 delicious recipes meant to introduce new flavors and new cultures to cooking companions of all ages.

AS SEEN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

"A Taste of the World is an attractive global cooking introduction—an amuse-bouche to give budding cooks a taste for international flavors and world cultures." —Foreword Reviews

From Rowena Scherer, founder of Eat2Explore, 
A Taste of the World is a carefully curated collection of recipes celebrating global cuisine and designed to be made by families with kids of all ages. Each recipe is a full meal and includes step-by-step instructions so parents can safely have their kids join in the fun while learning about other cultures through their traditional foods.

A Taste of the World offers:
• 64 kid-friendly recipes ranging from Pork Katsu from Japan and Vegetable Korma from India to Lamb Kebabs from Morocco and Black Bean Enchiladas from Mexico.
• Short selections of facts of twenty different countries as well as adorable in-color illustrations of their landmarks.
• Full-color photographs of each finished dish and the steps along the way.

A Taste of the World is a truly fun—and very tasty—cookbook for the whole family!

 


Rowena Scherer grew up in Malaysia and her fondest memories are from when she cooked in the kitchen with her family. Years later, after working on Wall Street and living all over the world, she decided she wanted to create the same lasting memories with her children. She attended the French Culinary Institute, began to source hard-to-find non-perishable ingredients that highlighted her cherished foods, and started eat2explore, an explorer box filled with authentic recipes, activities, and collectibles that offered a worldwide cultural education through the exploration of food. Rowena lives in New York City with her husband, Joshua, and their two children.

 


A Taste of the World is a palate-broadening, family-style cookbook."
— Florence Fabricant, New York Times

"A fantastic cookbook. Simple and fun recipes to introduce children and adults to different cultural cuisines."
— Bill Telepan, Culinary Director for The Metropolitan Museum of Art

 

 

Rowena Scherer photo courtesy of publisher

 

Book Passage Ferry Building
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111

Taleen Voskuni with Jessica Joyce - Lavash at First Sight (Ferry Building Store)

Tuesday, May 7, 2024 - 5:30pm

Taleen Voskuni
In conversation with Jessica Joyce

Lavash at First Sight

In-Person Event • Book Passage (SF Ferry Building)

Tues., May 7th • 5:30pm PT

This event will be hosted live at Book Passage's San Francisco Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding live events.
 

Sparks fly between two women pitted against each other in this delectable new romantic comedy by Taleen Voskuni, author of Sorry, Bro.

Twenty-seven-year-old Nazeli “Ellie” Gregorian enjoys the prestige of her tech marketing job but is sick of the condescending Patagonia-clad tech bros, her micromanaging boss, and her ex-boyfriend, who she’s forced to work with every day. When Ellie’s lovingly overbearing parents ask her to attend PakCon—a food packaging conference in Chicago—to help promote their company and vie to win an ad slot in the Superbowl (no big deal), she’s eager for a brief change and a delicious distraction.

At the conference, she meets witty, devil-may-care Vanya Simonian. Ellie can’t believe how easy it is to talk to Vanya and how much they have in common—both Armenian! From the Bay Area! Whose families are into food! Their meet-cute is cut short, however, when Ellie’s parents recognize Vanya as the daughter of the owners of their greatest rival, whose mission (according to Ellie’s mother) is to whitewash and package Armenian food for the American health-food crowd.
 
Sworn as enemies, Ellie and Vanya must compete against each other under their suspicious parents' scrutiny, all while their feelings for each other heat to sizzling temps.

 


Taleen Voskuni is an award-winning writer who grew up in the Bay Area Armenian diaspora. She graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in English and currently lives in San Francisco, working in tech. Other than a newfound obsession with writing rom-coms, she spends her free time cultivating her kids, her garden, and her dark chocolate addiction. Her first novel, Sorry, Bro, received starred reviews from Kirkus and Booklist, was named an Amazon editor's pick, and was favorably reviewed in The New York Times. Sorry, Bro is also winner of the 2023 Golden Poppy award for best romance. Lavash at First Sight is her second published novel.

 

Jessica Joyce lives happily-ever-ongoing with her husband and son in the Bay Area. When she’s not writing character-driven, realistic and relatable tales of millennials who are just Doing Their Best while falling in love, you can find her listening to one of her dozens of chaotically curated Spotify playlists, trying out a new skincare face mask, crying over cute animal TikToks, or watching the 2005 version of Pride & Prejudice.

 

 

 

 

 

 


"Lavash at First Sight is a heartfelt and dazzling love story that's good enough to eat. Taleen Voskuni deftly weaves together multiple narrative threads as loyal, intelligent, and overworked Armenian-American tech employee Nazeli sets out to woo the beautiful and charming Vanya—whose parents happen to be the sworn enemies of Nazeli's parents. A competition at a Chicago food packaging conference provides an entertaining and dramatic setting, and the themes of family bonds, generational change, and finding a healthy balance in all aspects of life add poignant layers to the story. I devoured this fun, witty, and romantic book and can't wait for whatever Voskuni writes next!"—Sarah Hawley, author of A Demon's Guide to Wooing a Witch
 
"Lavash at First Sight is a hilarious and heartwarming romance about finding your authentic self while celebrating where you came from. The chemistry between Ellie and Vanya sparked and sizzled--they were an absolute joy to read. Filled with forbidden love, family rivalry, and cooking competition shenanigans that will leave you with serious food cravings, I adored this deliciously sweet sapphic romance!"—Tori Anne Martin, USA Today bestselling author of This Spells Disaster

 

 

Taleen Voskuni photo credit Clouds Inside Photography. 

1 Ferry Building Plaza
San Francisco, CA 94111

Jessica Shattuck - Last House: A Novel (Ferry Building Store)

Thursday, May 23, 2024 - 5:30pm

Jessica Shattuck

Last House
A Novel

In-Person Event • Book Passage (SF Ferry Building)

Thurs., May 23rd, 2024 • 5:30pm PT

This event will be hosted in-person at Book Passage's SF Ferry Building Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding events.
 

"An ambitious historical epic that doubles as an intimate family saga. Jessica Shattuck captures and connects it all—the imperial ambitions of the postwar generation, the rebellion of their offspring in the Sixties, and the fallout we’re still sifting through today. . . . This is a wide-ranging novel to savor.” — TOM PERROTTA

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Women in the Castle comes a sweeping story of a nation on the rise, and one family’s deeply complicated relationship to the resource that built their fortune and fueled their greatest tragedy, perfect for fans of The Dutch House and Great Circle.

The war is over, and America has entered a golden age: The Age of Oil.

It’s 1953, and for Nick Taylor, WWII veteran turned company lawyer, oil is the key to the future. He takes the train into the city for work and returns to the peaceful streets of the suburbs and to his wife, Bet, former codebreaker now housewife, and their two children, Katherine and Harry. Nick comes from humble origins but thanks to his work for American Oil, he can provide every comfort for his family, including Last House, a secluded country escape. Deep in the Vermont mountains, the Taylors are free from the stresses of modern life. Bet doesn’t have to worry about the Russian H-bombs that haunt her dreams, and the children roam free in the woods. Last House is a place that could survive the end of the world.

It’s 1968, and America is on the brink of change. Protestors fill the streets to challenge everything from the Vietnam War to racism in the wake of MLK’s shooting—to the country's reliance on Big Oil. As Katherine makes her first forays into adult life, she’s caught up in the current of the time and struggles to reconcile her ideals with the stable and privileged childhood her Greatest Generation parents worked so hard to provide. But when the Movement shifts in a more radical direction, each member of the Taylor family will be forced to reckon with the consequences of the choices they’ve made for the causes they believed in.

Spanning multiple generations and nearly eighty years, Last House tells the story of one American family during an age of grand ideals and even greater downfalls. Set against the backdrop of our nation’s history, this is an emotional tour de force that digs deeply into questions of inheritance and what we owe each other—and captures to stunning effect the gravity of time, the double edge of progress, and the hubris of empire.

 


Jessica Shattuck is the New York Times bestselling author of The Women in the CastleThe Hazards of Good Breeding, a New York Times Notable Book and finalist for the PEN/Winship Award; and Perfect Life. Her writing has appeared in the New York TimesThe New YorkerGlamourMother Jones, and Wired, among other publications.

 


"Last House is an ambitious historical epic that doubles as an intimate family saga. Jessica Shattuck captures and connects it all—the imperial ambitions of the postwar generation, the rebellion of their offspring in the Sixties, the fallout that we’re still sifting through today. Shattuck writes incisively about marriage, siblings, social activism, and the self-deceptions that allow us to preserve our belief in our own innocence despite all the evidence to the contrary. This is a wide-ranging novel to savor.” — Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of Tracy Flick Can't Win

"Ambitious in its historical sweep yet intimate in its portrayal of a family's trials, Jessica Shattuck's moving new novel brings to life the '50s and '60s in America in such a way that we feel powerfully their contemporary relevance. Last House is utterly compelling."
— Claire Messud, New York Times bestselling author of The Burning Girl

 

 
 

Jessica Shattuck - photo credit Sharona Jacobs Photography.

Book Passage Ferry Building
1 Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA 94111

Stacie Grey - She Left: A Novel (Ferry Building Event)

Sunday, May 26, 2024 - 2:00pm

Stacie Grey

She Left
A Novel

 

In-Person Event • Book Passage (SF Ferry Building)

Sun., May 26th, 2024 • 2:00pm PT

This event will be hosted live at Book Passage's San Francisco Store. Please contact events@bookpassage.com with questions regarding live events.
 

Twenty years ago, she survived. This time she may not be so lucky.

On the night that changed everything, Amy Brewer walked out of a house party, trudging angrily away from the friends who made her feel like she didn't belong. Within the next hour, all five of those friends would be dead.

The Memorial Day Massacre, as it came to be called, rocked their small California community and Amy—the girl who had walked away just in time—couldn't escape the media circus...or the guilt.

Twenty years later, ten people with connections to the crime have been invited to a remote cliffside house by a journalist looking to do a story on the murders. But the group quickly learns the event is not what it seems. As a storm closes in and guests begin to die, Amy realizes there is someone in the house who knows more than they admit about what happened that night long ago… and they will stop at nothing to protect their secrets.

 


STACIE GREY is an author and fan of mysteries who lives in Alameda, California, with her husband and dog. In what passes for normal life, she works in biotech research. She mostly posts to Instagram and Mastodon, and occasionally writes a newsletter. She is currently learning to play the Murder, She Wrote theme on the harp. SHE LEFT, publishing in May will be her adult Thriller debut.

 


"Deliciously twisty—Agatha Christie would be spellbound." — M.M. Chouinard, USA Today Bestselling author of The Dancing Girls

"In this engrossing mystery, a vividly drawn cast of characters, claustrophobic setting, and propulsive pacing will keep you flipping the pages until the final twist that will leave you reeling. Grey skillfully and lovingly plays within the rules of the genre while also bringing a fresh voice and perspective to the And Then There Were None premise that will delight not just Agatha Christie fans but fans of tense, clever and goosebump-inducing stories, as well. Clear your calendar for the day, because this is a one-sitting read!" — Brianna Labuskes, best-selling author of A Familiar Sight

"Knives Out meets Lucy Foley's The Hunting Party in this tense, locked-room mystery. Be wary of invitations where everyone could be a suspect." — Georgina Cross, author of One NightNanny Needed, and The Stepdaughter

 

 

Stacie Grey - photo credit Daisy Bateman

1 Ferry Building Plaza
San Francisco, CA 94111

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