Laguna Beach Books
                                                February 2011

Book Group

 Hours 

Join us to discuss The Hours by Michael Cunningham on Wednesday, February 16 at 6:30 pm.
 

 

 
Greetings! 
With only a few more days until Valentine's Day, we were inspired to select a few titles related to love in its many forms. From aphrodisiac meals to Shakespeare's sonnets, we hope these suggestions will whet your appetite for romance.

We're looking forward to our upcoming February events, which include Lisa Napoli on February 13, who will be speaking about her experiences living in Bhutan. The following Sunday, February 20, is our event with C.B Shiepe, author of Cliff Falls. Cliff Falls is the best selling self-published book at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, and we're hoping for similar success with his book here.

We also have a new addition to our events calendar: Shayne Moore, author of Global Soccer Mom, will be at the store on February 17. And we'll be donating a portion of the proceeds from the event to Grower's First, a Laguna-based organization who supports rural coffee farmers and transforms poor communities.
OCOC Hotlist Contest
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Thanks to all of our wonderful customers and friends, last year we won for Best Bookstore! We're hoping to do the same again this year with your support. Polls are now open, and all you need to do is click here to vote. It just takes a minute!
WhichWhich Chocolate for Your Sweetie?
ChocolatesValentine's Day is just a few days away, and our neighbor, The Chocolate Soldier, would like to help you select a gift for your loved one. All you need to do is ask your sweetie three questions about their favorite kind of chocolate:

1. Light or dark?
2. Nuts, or no nuts?
3. What flavors are you not fond of?

Come into The Chocolate Soldier with the answers to these questions and they can fit you with the perfect Valentine's Day chocolate gift. For more info, give them a call at 949-494-4462.

Lisa Napoli Event
SundayOn Sunday, February 13 at 5 pm we will welcome Lisa Napoli, author of Radio Shangri-la: What I Learned in Bhutan, the Happiest Kingdom on Earth. This book is scheduled to be released on February 8.

RadioLisa Napoli was in the grip of a crisis, dissatisfied with her life and her work as a radio journalist. When a chance encounter with a handsome stranger presented her with an opportunity to move halfway around the world, Lisa left behind cosmopolitan Los Angeles for a new adventure in the ancient Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan -- said to be one of the happiest places on earth.

Thousands of miles away from everything and everyone she knows, Lisa creates a new community for herself. As she helps to start Bhutan's first youth-oriented radio station, Kuzoo FM, she must come to terms with her conflicting feelings about the impact of the medium on a country that had been shielded from its effects. Immersing herself in Bhutan's rapidly changing culture, Lisa realizes that her own perspective on life is changing as well -- and that she is discovering the sense of purpose and joy that she has been yearning for.

Earlier in her career, Lisa was the Internet correspondent for MSNBC, a columnist for MSNBC.com, and the first staff reporter/columnist at the NY Times Cybertimes, now defunct. She began her career at CNN in 1984. A native of Brooklyn, New York, Lisa is a graduate of Hampshire College. Check out her website for more info about her travels to Bhutan.


Shayne Moore Event
OnOn Thursday, February 17 from 5 to 7 pm we will welcome Shayne Moore, author of

Global Soccer Mom, to the store. Come for wine, noshy food, and learn what you can do to make a difference with issues of global need. Some proceeds from the event will be a gift to Growers First, a Laguna Beach-based organization who supports rural coffee farmers and transforms poor communities.

Global

Women are the caretakers of the world. Yet global HIV and AIDS and extreme poverty can seem overwhelming. Even if these things break our mother's hearts, how is a busy, full-time mom to get engaged and make a difference? In Global Soccer Mom, Shayne Moore uses the power of story and inspires people everywhere to start right where they are and make a real difference. 

  

Shayne Moore is an author, blogger, speaker, mama of three, and outspoken advocate in the fight against extreme poverty and Global AIDS. Shayne is one of the original members of the ONE Campaign, the Campaign to Make Poverty History and sits on the executive board of directors for Upendo Village, an HIV/AIDS clinic in Kenya. She also supports and works closely with Grower's First and World Vision. With an MA in theology, Shayne is an active speaker and writes for her blog, Global Soccer Mom. She is also a member of Redbud Writer's Guild.

C.B. Shiepe Event
FebruaryOn Sunday, February 20 at 4 pm we will welcome C.B. Shiepe, author of Cliff Falls, to the store.

CliffThe night of his eighteenth birthday, Clay Grant, exploited child star of 80's sitcom hit "Little Guy Mike", disappears after a mysterious fire destroys the Hollywood studio backlot. Chased by the media and haunted by his past, he's been on the run for fifteen years, until a fight with a determined photographer lands him in jail ending his self-imposed exile.

Just when the media is descending, motivational pastor Reagan Mitchell shows up in Clay's cell and offers him a deal to buy his freedom. Unsure if he can trust Reagan, but out of options, Clay arrives in majestic Cliff Falls under an overcast sky and quickly discovers no one escapes life. What happens when you run into everything you've been running from?

In a world where entertainment has become our religion and religion our entertainment, Cliff Falls wrestles with the question of what does it mean to be truly human; comfortable in your own skin when everyone wants you to be someone or something else? What Clay discovers will change his life and perhaps yours.

C. B. Shiepe is a writer who lives in Southern California. Understanding that "at one time or another we all go over the falls," he continues to write and speak to an inter-generational audience about the Cliff Falls experience. "It's one thing to believe in something when you don't need it to be true. It's another when everything is riding on it."
St. Mary's Reads Aloud Event
WeWe wanted to let you know about St. Mary's Reads Aloud, a monthly event that our community partner, St. Mary's Episcopal Church, is hosting on the third Thursday evening of every month.

The next event will be for The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan, who will be attending. Please note that while this was originally scheduled for February 24, the author will be traveling to the Middle East during this time, so it will be rescheduled to another date in March. Stay tuned for an annoucement of the new date.

Lemon TreeWe were fortunate enough to host an event with Sandy a couple of years ago, and it was an illuminating evening spent discussing this moving, well-crafted book. In 1967, Bashir Al-Khayri, a Palestinian twenty-five-year-old, journeyed to Israel, with the goal of seeing the beloved old stone house, with the lemon tree behind it, that he and his family had fled nineteen years earlier. To his surprise, when he found the house he was greeted by Dalia Ashkenazi Landau, a nineteen-year-old Israeli college student, whose family fled Europe for Israel following the Holocaust.

On the stoop of their shared home, Dalia and Bashir began a rare friendship, forged in the aftermath of war and tested over the next thirty-five years in ways that neither could imagine on that summer day in 1967. Based on extensive research, and springing from his enormously resonant documentary that aired on NPR's Fresh Air in 1998, Sandy Tolan brings the Israeli-Palestinian conflict down to its most human level, suggesting that even amid the bleakest political realities there exist stories of hope and reconciliation.

This event will be held at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, located at 428 Park Avenue in Laguna Beach. For more information, check out their website.
LoversLovers and Romantics
 
Joseph Skibell
$26.95
 
As far as romance goes, Dr. Jakob Sammelsohn is fairly incurable. Twice married, once divorced, once widowed -- all by the tender age of twelve -- he finally flees his small village and his pious, vengeful father. A Curable Romantic is a novel of personal and historical exile that could spring only from the literary imagination of a virtuoso. Often fantastical yet always grounded in tradition and history, it is that rare literary feat -- a truly incomparable tale, ingenuously told, peopled with characters who live on in the memory.
 

David Levithan
$18.00

How does one talk about love? Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves? Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time.
Classic Expressions of Love
 
William Shakespeare
$20.00
 
An elaborately annotated edition of Shakespeare's masterpieces of wit and erotic word-play. When a volume of poetry entitled Shakespeares Sonnets. Never before Imprinted appeared in 1609, Shakespeare was forty-five and most of his greatest plays had seen several performances. Appended to the sonnets is A Lover's Complaint, a beautiful poem in rhyme-royal in which a young woman is overheard lamenting her betrayal by a heartless seducer.


Maryam Mafi & Azima Melita Kolin
$15.95

Rumi, one of the most celebrated mystics of all time, chose poetry to communicate his deep spiritual experiences. His language, that of love in its purest form, speaks to us today as it did seven hundred years ago, surpassing time and bridging cultures. Arranged thematically, they take us on a journey of the soul. Persian calligraphy enhances the beauty of the poems. Discover the depths of a mystic's soul. Fly with him on his beloved's wings. Fall with him into the despair and fear of losing his beloved forever.

Culinary Ecstasies
 
Martha Hopkins
$29.95
 
Organized by type of aphrodisiac, this playful cookbook covers 19 sensual foods, ranging from traditional favorites like oysters and strawberries to lesser-known but just as potent foods such as pine nuts and asparagus. Including histories of aphrodisiacs, couples' anecdotes, and tantalizing photography, this 10th-anniversary edition of this beautiful and innovative cookbook features more than 55 new, couple-tested recipes and a completely revised appendix.

 

 

Cook
Nikki McClure
$15.95

Filled with beautiful images and simple recipes with head notes that inspire dreams of the perfect day, including a picnic rendezvous, afternoon tea, and a midnight snack. The book opens with the suggestion of a morning forage for whatever readers can find. A recipe for peaches and waffles follows, a dish the author's husband makes for his family every day. The book includes recipes for a lovely gingerbread cake, a curry potluck, and a celestial apple pie, all topped off with original Nikki McClure artwork gracing every page.
He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not...
 
Pat Mora
$15.99
 
Beloved children's book author and speaker Pat Mora has written an original collection of poems, each with a different teen narrator sharing unique thoughts, moments, sadness, or heart's desire. Each of the teens in these 50 original poems, written using a variety of poetic forms, will be recognizable to the reader as the universal emotions, ideas, impressions, and beliefs float across the pages in these gracefully told verses.


Jerry Williams
$14.95

A touching, angry, and hilarious anthology of the many facets of ruptured romance. Therapeutic and transformative, edgy yet sincere, enlightening, wide-ranging, female and male, gay and straight, innocent and guilty, It's Not You, It's Me: The Poetry of Breakup incorporates work from as many different perspectives as possible in order to explore the exquisite pain of heartbreak.
Top Sellers

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