SCOTT SHIGEOKA presents SEEK: HOW CURIOSITY CAN
TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE AND CHANGE THE WORLD
In-Conversation with JASON MARSH
Presented with UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center
Thursday, March 14, 2024, 7pm PDT
Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley
Tickets are on sale now!
Maximize your potential for connection, healing, and personal growth with this "timely bridge for our divided world." (Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential)
"We've been hiding from each other for far too long. Seek offers us an empathic, practical, and heartfelt road map forward." – Seth Godin, Author of The Song of Significance and Tribes
If you've felt alienated and alone in recent years, you're in good company. Whether it's a rift in your family, polarization at your workplace or just a sense that society isn't as connected as it once was, many of us feel painful chasms in our connections. Internationally-recognized curiosity expert and bridge builder Scott Shigeoka knows that there's only one cure: Deep Curiosity.
Rooted in a desire to understand, rather than to know, a practice of Deep Curiosity can help us leverage something we think of as an intellectual force or personality trait into a heart-centered daily practice to transform our well-being and our lives.
In Seek, Shigeoka blends cutting-edge research with electric, vulnerable storytelling to teach readers their signature DIVE model. With his guidance, you'll learn more than a dozen practical strategies to:
TRANSFORM YOUR LIFE AND CHANGE THE WORLD
In-Conversation with JASON MARSH
Presented with UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center
Thursday, March 14, 2024, 7pm PDT
Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley
Tickets are on sale now!
Maximize your potential for connection, healing, and personal growth with this "timely bridge for our divided world." (Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential)
"We've been hiding from each other for far too long. Seek offers us an empathic, practical, and heartfelt road map forward." – Seth Godin, Author of The Song of Significance and Tribes
If you've felt alienated and alone in recent years, you're in good company. Whether it's a rift in your family, polarization at your workplace or just a sense that society isn't as connected as it once was, many of us feel painful chasms in our connections. Internationally-recognized curiosity expert and bridge builder Scott Shigeoka knows that there's only one cure: Deep Curiosity.
Rooted in a desire to understand, rather than to know, a practice of Deep Curiosity can help us leverage something we think of as an intellectual force or personality trait into a heart-centered daily practice to transform our well-being and our lives.
In Seek, Shigeoka blends cutting-edge research with electric, vulnerable storytelling to teach readers their signature DIVE model. With his guidance, you'll learn more than a dozen practical strategies to:
- Detach -- Let go of your ABCs (assumptions, biases, certainty),
- Intend -- Prepare your mindset and setting,
- Value -- See the dignity of every person, including yourself,
- Embrace -- Welcome the hard times in your life.
Scott Shigeoka is an internationally-recognized curiosity expert and speaker. He is known for translating research into strategies that promote positive well-being and connected relationships around the globe, including at the UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and through his groundbreaking courses at the University of Texas at Austin. Scott has spread his curiosity practices to public officials, health care professionals, artists, activists, writers, media organizations, educators, community leaders and businesses. Originally from Hawai'i, Scott now lives in California.
Jason Marsh is the executive director of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center and the founding editor in chief of the center’s award-winning online magazine, Greater Good, which engages 1 million readers each month. He is also the founding producer of the GGSC's online course and podcast—both called The Science of Happiness—which have reached millions of students and listeners worldwide. Marsh has co-edited three anthologies of Greater Good articles, and his writing has also appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the opinion section of CNN.com.
Please note:
- Masks will not be required for this event, but we are limiting capacity somewhat. For that reason, we can't guarantee we'll have space for walk-ins. The best way to ensure you’ll get a seat and a copy of the book night-of is to order the Book + Seat ticket.
- We are happy to offer *signed copies* of Seek: order a Book + Seat ticket bundle if you'd like to pick up a signed copy at the event, or order here if you just want a signed copy and no admission.
- Safety protocols are subject to change. If we feel it is not safe to gather, as the event gets closer, we will pivot to a virtual event and your registration will remain valid.
- Questions? Accessibility requests? Write tickets@booksmith.com.
R. O. KWON presents EXHIBIT
Thursday, May 23, 2024, 7pm PDT
Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley
Tickets are on sale now!
At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love Philip, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.
Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She’s been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self irrevocably changed. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Vital, bold, powerful, and deeply moving, Exhibit asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?
Thursday, May 23, 2024, 7pm PDT
Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley
Tickets are on sale now!
At a lavish party in the hills outside of San Francisco, Jin Han meets Lidija Jung and nothing will ever be the same for either woman. A brilliant young photographer, Jin is at a crossroads in her work, in her marriage to her college love Philip, and in who she is and who she wants to be. Lidija is an alluring, injured world-class ballerina on hiatus from her ballet company under mysterious circumstances. Drawn to each other by their intense artistic drives, the two women talk all night.
Cracked open, Jin finds herself telling Lidija about an old familial curse, breaking a lifelong promise. She’s been told that if she doesn’t keep the curse a secret, she risks losing everything; death and ruin could lie ahead. As Jin and Lidija become more entangled, they realize they share more than the ferocity of their ambition, and begin to explore hidden desires. Something is ignited in Jin: her art, her body, and her sense of self irrevocably changed. But can she avoid the specter of the curse? Vital, bold, powerful, and deeply moving, Exhibit asks: how brightly can you burn before you light your life on fire?
R. O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling novel The Incendiaries, which was translated into seven languages, named a best book of the year by over forty publications, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Award. With Garth Greenwell, Kwon coedited the bestselling Kink, a New York Times Notable Book and the recipient of the inaugural Joy Award. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and elsewhere. She has received fellowships and awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, and MacDowell. Born in Seoul, Kwon has lived most of her life in the United States. Photo by Jesse Dittmar.
ANNALEE NEWITZ presents STORIES ARE WEAPONS:
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE & THE AMERICAN MIND
Tuesday, June 18, 2024, 7pm PDT
Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley
Tickets are on sale now!
In Stories Are Weapons, best-selling author Annalee Newitz traces the way disinformation, propaganda, and violent threats—the essential tool kit for psychological warfare—have evolved from military weapons deployed against foreign adversaries into tools in domestic culture wars. Newitz delves into America’s deep-rooted history with psychological operations, beginning with Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War–era fake newspaper and nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, and reaching its apotheosis with the Cold War and twenty-first-century influence campaigns online. America’s secret weapon has long been coercive storytelling. And there’s a reason for that: operatives who shaped modern psychological warfare drew on their experiences as science fiction writers and in the advertising industry.
Now, through a weapons-transfer program long unacknowledged, psyops have found their way into the hands of culture warriors, transforming democratic debates into toxic wars over American identity. Newitz zeroes in on conflicts over race and intelligence, school board fights over LGBT students, and campaigns against feminist viewpoints, revealing how, in each case, specific groups of Americans are singled out and treated as enemies of the state. Crucially, Newitz delivers a powerful counternarrative, speaking with the researchers and activists who are outlining a pathway to achieving psychological disarmament and cultural peace.
Incisive and essential, Stories are Weapons reveals how our minds have been turned into blood-soaked battlegrounds—and how we can put down our weapons to build something better.
PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE & THE AMERICAN MIND
Tuesday, June 18, 2024, 7pm PDT
Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar Street, Berkeley
Tickets are on sale now!
In Stories Are Weapons, best-selling author Annalee Newitz traces the way disinformation, propaganda, and violent threats—the essential tool kit for psychological warfare—have evolved from military weapons deployed against foreign adversaries into tools in domestic culture wars. Newitz delves into America’s deep-rooted history with psychological operations, beginning with Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War–era fake newspaper and nineteenth-century wars on Indigenous nations, and reaching its apotheosis with the Cold War and twenty-first-century influence campaigns online. America’s secret weapon has long been coercive storytelling. And there’s a reason for that: operatives who shaped modern psychological warfare drew on their experiences as science fiction writers and in the advertising industry.
Now, through a weapons-transfer program long unacknowledged, psyops have found their way into the hands of culture warriors, transforming democratic debates into toxic wars over American identity. Newitz zeroes in on conflicts over race and intelligence, school board fights over LGBT students, and campaigns against feminist viewpoints, revealing how, in each case, specific groups of Americans are singled out and treated as enemies of the state. Crucially, Newitz delivers a powerful counternarrative, speaking with the researchers and activists who are outlining a pathway to achieving psychological disarmament and cultural peace.
Incisive and essential, Stories are Weapons reveals how our minds have been turned into blood-soaked battlegrounds—and how we can put down our weapons to build something better.
Annalee Newitz is a journalist and author of science fiction and nonfiction, including the national best-seller Four Lost Cities. They write for the New York Times and New Scientist and co-host the Hugo Award–winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. They live in San Francisco. Photo by A Klass.