ELLEN ULLMAN presents Life in Code
in conversation with Scott Rosenberg
Tuesday, August 15, 7:30PM
at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. in Berkeley
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
"Modern human beings have existed for two hundred thousand years;
human beings who have used the modern web have existed for twenty years.
There was a world before the internet, and there will be a world after it." *
Ellen Ullman wrote her first computer program in 1978. Self-taught, she went on to have a twenty-year career as a programmer and software engineer living in San Franciscos South of Market district, the underground of the early internet and the engine of the modern start-up culture. As a writer, Ullmans booksthe memoir Close to the Machine and novels The Bug and By Blood have become landmark works describing the social, emotional, and personal effects of technology.
Ullmans new book, LIFE IN CODE: A Personal History of Technology, follows the changes in technology, and her own insights into those changes, in an evolving story told over seventeen stunning personal essays, beginning with the first chapter, written in 1994, through to the last, written in 2017.
The arc of Ullman's story begins just as the internet is about to enter our lives in the form of early personal computers like Ullmans own TRS-80; continues on to the wild, heady days of the internet's first rise; the lead-up to Y2K when society realized the perils of its dependence upon technology; the quiet that followed the internets fall; and finally to our exuberance as we welcomed the launch of the first iPhone and apps. Throughout the book, we are reminded of how the internet has become our very atmosphere: our companion, our entertainment, our helper, as well as a tool for surveillance and political control.
What helps to give Ullman's work its depth and unique power is her dual stance as insider - as a software engineer - and outsider - as a woman in a world of young men. Ullman tells us that code can be expressive, that algorithms may possess a kind of beauty, a rare blend of creativity and precision. She explores the nature of memory, both human and digital. We follow her as she guides us into the intricacies of artificial intelligence, the complexities that are both technical and philosophical, which ask us to question the very definition of life.
Ullman lets us enter the closed culture where the future uses of technology are decided, one overwhelmingly populated by very wealthy men. She envisions a new army of programmers, coming from all economic strata, ethnicities, and fields of study, who will invade that closed world, demystify the algorithms that envelop us, understand that code is written by human beings and can be changed by human beings - who will "stick a needle into the shiny bubble of the technology world's received wisdom."
Throughout LIFE IN CODE, Ullman lends her sharp mind, her wit, and her beautifully crafted prose to help us look back two decades and see the forces - technical, economic, political - that have led us to where we are now.
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Important signing details coming soon. Tickets on sale at this link.
*From Life in Code, "While I Was Away."
in conversation with Scott Rosenberg
Tuesday, August 15, 7:30PM
at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. in Berkeley
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
"Modern human beings have existed for two hundred thousand years;
human beings who have used the modern web have existed for twenty years.
There was a world before the internet, and there will be a world after it." *
Ellen Ullman wrote her first computer program in 1978. Self-taught, she went on to have a twenty-year career as a programmer and software engineer living in San Franciscos South of Market district, the underground of the early internet and the engine of the modern start-up culture. As a writer, Ullmans booksthe memoir Close to the Machine and novels The Bug and By Blood have become landmark works describing the social, emotional, and personal effects of technology.
Ullmans new book, LIFE IN CODE: A Personal History of Technology, follows the changes in technology, and her own insights into those changes, in an evolving story told over seventeen stunning personal essays, beginning with the first chapter, written in 1994, through to the last, written in 2017.
The arc of Ullman's story begins just as the internet is about to enter our lives in the form of early personal computers like Ullmans own TRS-80; continues on to the wild, heady days of the internet's first rise; the lead-up to Y2K when society realized the perils of its dependence upon technology; the quiet that followed the internets fall; and finally to our exuberance as we welcomed the launch of the first iPhone and apps. Throughout the book, we are reminded of how the internet has become our very atmosphere: our companion, our entertainment, our helper, as well as a tool for surveillance and political control.
What helps to give Ullman's work its depth and unique power is her dual stance as insider - as a software engineer - and outsider - as a woman in a world of young men. Ullman tells us that code can be expressive, that algorithms may possess a kind of beauty, a rare blend of creativity and precision. She explores the nature of memory, both human and digital. We follow her as she guides us into the intricacies of artificial intelligence, the complexities that are both technical and philosophical, which ask us to question the very definition of life.
Ullman lets us enter the closed culture where the future uses of technology are decided, one overwhelmingly populated by very wealthy men. She envisions a new army of programmers, coming from all economic strata, ethnicities, and fields of study, who will invade that closed world, demystify the algorithms that envelop us, understand that code is written by human beings and can be changed by human beings - who will "stick a needle into the shiny bubble of the technology world's received wisdom."
Throughout LIFE IN CODE, Ullman lends her sharp mind, her wit, and her beautifully crafted prose to help us look back two decades and see the forces - technical, economic, political - that have led us to where we are now.
--
Important signing details coming soon. Tickets on sale at this link.
*From Life in Code, "While I Was Away."
BILL NYE the Science Guy presents Everything All at Once
Sunday, September 10, 7PM
at the UC Theater, 2036 University Ave in Berkeley
TICKETS ARE SOLD OUT!
Booksmith is hosting Bill Nye at 1pm on 9/10 (same day) @ Castro Theatre--for tickets to the Castro event, click here.
Everyone has an inner nerd just waiting to be awakened by the right passion. In Everything All at Once, Bill Nye will help you find yours. With his call to arms he wants you to examine every detail of the most difficult problems that look unsolvable that is, until you find the solution. Bill shows you how to develop critical thinking skills and create change, using his everything all at once approach that leaves no stone unturned.
Whether addressing climate change, the future of our society as a whole, personal success, or stripping away the mystery of fire walking, there are certain strategies that get results: looking at the world with relentless curiosity, being driven by a desire for a better future, and being willing to take the actions needed to make change happen. Moving through the lessons he learned as a full-time engineer at Boeing, a stand-up comedian, CEO of The Planetary Society, and of course, as Bill Nye The Science Guy, we'll learn how to tackle big problems the Bill Nye way.
We have the power to make real change. Join him in dare we say it changing the world.
In conversation with Bill is Ransom Stephens, Ph.D., author of The Left Brain Speaks, The Right Brain Laughs: a look at the neuroscience of innovation & creativity in art, science, & life.
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Important signing details coming soon. Tickets on sale at this link.
MASHA GESSEN presents The Future is History
Monday, October 9, 7:30PM
at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. in Berkeley
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
A major new narrative nonfiction work by the bestselling author of Putin's biography and "one of the most important activists and journalists Russia has known in a generation” (David Remnick, The New Yorker), Masha Gessen's The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia is a cautionary tale for our time. Over the past three decades, Russia, having seemingly shed its Soviet incarnation for good and embarked on a journey toward democracy, devolved into a frightening retro-totalitarian state run by Putin with an iron fist. As Gessen writes, "The crackdown, the wars, and even Russia's reversion to type on the world stage are things that happened that I witnessed and I wanted to tell this story. But I also wanted to tell about what did not happen: the story of freedom that was not embraced and democracy that was not desired. How do you tell a story like that? Where do you locate reasons for the absences? When do you begin, and with whom?"
Gessen captures this pivotal era through the stories of several Russians whose lives spanned these decades; who blossomed with its embrace of unprecedented freedoms, then were crushed by its war on the very means by which they had come to understand themselves. By giving us the arc of these individual lives, The Future is History pushes past the abstractions and headlines, providing an illuminating, in-depth perspective on daily life under a regime that has turned on its own people.
--
Important signing details coming soon. Tickets on sale at this link.
Monday, October 9, 7:30PM
at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. in Berkeley
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
A major new narrative nonfiction work by the bestselling author of Putin's biography and "one of the most important activists and journalists Russia has known in a generation” (David Remnick, The New Yorker), Masha Gessen's The Future is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia is a cautionary tale for our time. Over the past three decades, Russia, having seemingly shed its Soviet incarnation for good and embarked on a journey toward democracy, devolved into a frightening retro-totalitarian state run by Putin with an iron fist. As Gessen writes, "The crackdown, the wars, and even Russia's reversion to type on the world stage are things that happened that I witnessed and I wanted to tell this story. But I also wanted to tell about what did not happen: the story of freedom that was not embraced and democracy that was not desired. How do you tell a story like that? Where do you locate reasons for the absences? When do you begin, and with whom?"
Gessen captures this pivotal era through the stories of several Russians whose lives spanned these decades; who blossomed with its embrace of unprecedented freedoms, then were crushed by its war on the very means by which they had come to understand themselves. By giving us the arc of these individual lives, The Future is History pushes past the abstractions and headlines, providing an illuminating, in-depth perspective on daily life under a regime that has turned on its own people.
--
Important signing details coming soon. Tickets on sale at this link.
CRISTINA GARCIA and ELIZABETH ROSNER
Tuesday, November 7, 7:30PM
at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. in Berkeley
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Join us as we welcome beloved Bay Area authors Cristina Garcia and Elizabeth Rosner in conversation about their new books. Garcia's novel, Here in Berlin, is a meditation on war and mystery fueled by the stories and ghosts of contemporary Berlin, while Rosner's Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Mystery is a work of nonfiction that examines the ways survivors, witnesses, and post-war generations talk about and shape traumatic experiences. We're very excited to bring these brilliant minds together for a one-time-only conversation—don't miss it!
Survivor Cafe
"Survivor Cafe takes on important issues of atrocity, trauma, and memory, rendering them all with such great clarity and intimacy that the reader will not soon forget them, or this powerful book." -- Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer
As firsthand survivors of many of the twentieth century's most monumental events -- the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, the Killing Fields – begin to pass away, Survivor Cafe addresses urgent questions: How do we carry those stories forward? How do we collectively ensure that the horrors of the past are not forgotten?
Elizabeth Rosner organizes her book around three trips with her father to Buchenwald concentration camp – in 1983, in 1995, and in 2015 – each journey an experience in which personal history confronts both commemoration and memorialization. She explores the echoes of similar legacies among descendants of African American slaves, descendants of Cambodian survivors of the Killing Fields, descendants of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the effects of 9/11 on the general population. Examining current brain research, Rosner depicts the efforts to understand the intergenerational inheritance of trauma, as well as the intricacies of remembrance in the aftermath of atrocity. Survivor Cafe becomes a lens for numerous constructs of memory -- from museums and commemorative sites to national reconciliation projects to small-group cross-cultural encounters.
Beyond preserving the firsthand testimonies of participants and witnesses, individuals and societies must continually take responsibility for learning the painful lessons of the past in order to offer hope for the future. Survivor Cafe offers a clear-eyed sense of the enormity of our twenty-first-century human inheritance -- not only among direct descendants of the Holocaust but also in the shape of our collective responsibility to learn from tragedy, and to keep the ever-changing conversations alive between the past and the present.
Tuesday, November 7, 7:30PM
at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. in Berkeley
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Join us as we welcome beloved Bay Area authors Cristina Garcia and Elizabeth Rosner in conversation about their new books. Garcia's novel, Here in Berlin, is a meditation on war and mystery fueled by the stories and ghosts of contemporary Berlin, while Rosner's Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Mystery is a work of nonfiction that examines the ways survivors, witnesses, and post-war generations talk about and shape traumatic experiences. We're very excited to bring these brilliant minds together for a one-time-only conversation—don't miss it!
Survivor Cafe
"Survivor Cafe takes on important issues of atrocity, trauma, and memory, rendering them all with such great clarity and intimacy that the reader will not soon forget them, or this powerful book." -- Viet Thanh Nguyen, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sympathizer
As firsthand survivors of many of the twentieth century's most monumental events -- the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor, the Killing Fields – begin to pass away, Survivor Cafe addresses urgent questions: How do we carry those stories forward? How do we collectively ensure that the horrors of the past are not forgotten?
Elizabeth Rosner organizes her book around three trips with her father to Buchenwald concentration camp – in 1983, in 1995, and in 2015 – each journey an experience in which personal history confronts both commemoration and memorialization. She explores the echoes of similar legacies among descendants of African American slaves, descendants of Cambodian survivors of the Killing Fields, descendants of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the effects of 9/11 on the general population. Examining current brain research, Rosner depicts the efforts to understand the intergenerational inheritance of trauma, as well as the intricacies of remembrance in the aftermath of atrocity. Survivor Cafe becomes a lens for numerous constructs of memory -- from museums and commemorative sites to national reconciliation projects to small-group cross-cultural encounters.
Beyond preserving the firsthand testimonies of participants and witnesses, individuals and societies must continually take responsibility for learning the painful lessons of the past in order to offer hope for the future. Survivor Cafe offers a clear-eyed sense of the enormity of our twenty-first-century human inheritance -- not only among direct descendants of the Holocaust but also in the shape of our collective responsibility to learn from tragedy, and to keep the ever-changing conversations alive between the past and the present.
Here in Berlin
"A brilliant novel, by turns hilarious and haunting, gorgeous and brutal, entertaining and profound. Cristina Garcia masterfully weaves an intricate web of history and passion, finely tuned to the subtle music of the soul. Here in Berlin demonstrates exactly why Garcia has so long been an international treasure, one who never ceases to astonish." -- Carolina De Robertis, author of Perla and Gods of Tango
Here in Berlin is a portrait of a city through snapshots, an excavation of the stories and ghosts of contemporary Berlin -- its complex, troubled past still pulsing in the air as it was during World War II. Critically acclaimed novelist Cristina Garcia brings the people of this famed city to life, their stories bristling with regret, desire, and longing.
An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character -- vibrant and post-apocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine only to return home to a family who doesn't believe him; the young Jewish scholar hidden in a sarcophagus until safe passage to England is found; the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation in the bombed-out suburbs of Berlin who still defends those accused of war crimes; a young nurse with a checkered past who joins the Reich at a medical facility more intent to dispense with the wounded than to heal them; and the son of a zookeeper at the Berlin Zoo, fighting to keep the animals safe from both war and an increasingly starving populace.
A meditation on war and mystery, this an exciting new work by one of our most gifted novelists, one that seeks to align the stories of the past with the stories of the future.
--
Elizabeth Rosner is the author of three novels and a poetry collection. The Speed of Light was translated into nine languages and won several awards in the US and in Europe, including being shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Femina. Blue Nude was named among the best books of 2006 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Electric City was named among the best books of 2014 by NPR. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Elle, the San Francisco Chronicle and others She lives in Berkeley.
Cristina Garcia is the author of seven novels, including: Dreaming in Cuban -- a finalist for the National Book Award -- The Aguero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, The Lady Matador's Hotel, and King of Cuba. Garcia has edited two anthologies, Cubanisimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. Garcia's work has been translated into fourteen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. Garcia has taught at universities nationwide. Recently, she completed her tenure as University Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University-San Marcos and as Visiting Professor at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
"A brilliant novel, by turns hilarious and haunting, gorgeous and brutal, entertaining and profound. Cristina Garcia masterfully weaves an intricate web of history and passion, finely tuned to the subtle music of the soul. Here in Berlin demonstrates exactly why Garcia has so long been an international treasure, one who never ceases to astonish." -- Carolina De Robertis, author of Perla and Gods of Tango
Here in Berlin is a portrait of a city through snapshots, an excavation of the stories and ghosts of contemporary Berlin -- its complex, troubled past still pulsing in the air as it was during World War II. Critically acclaimed novelist Cristina Garcia brings the people of this famed city to life, their stories bristling with regret, desire, and longing.
An unnamed Visitor travels to Berlin with a camera looking for reckonings of her own. The city itself is a character -- vibrant and post-apocalyptic, flat and featureless except for its rivers, its lakes, its legions of bicyclists. Here in Berlin she encounters a people's history: the Cuban teen taken as a POW on a German submarine only to return home to a family who doesn't believe him; the young Jewish scholar hidden in a sarcophagus until safe passage to England is found; the female lawyer haunted by a childhood of deprivation in the bombed-out suburbs of Berlin who still defends those accused of war crimes; a young nurse with a checkered past who joins the Reich at a medical facility more intent to dispense with the wounded than to heal them; and the son of a zookeeper at the Berlin Zoo, fighting to keep the animals safe from both war and an increasingly starving populace.
A meditation on war and mystery, this an exciting new work by one of our most gifted novelists, one that seeks to align the stories of the past with the stories of the future.
--
Elizabeth Rosner is the author of three novels and a poetry collection. The Speed of Light was translated into nine languages and won several awards in the US and in Europe, including being shortlisted for the prestigious Prix Femina. Blue Nude was named among the best books of 2006 by the San Francisco Chronicle. Electric City was named among the best books of 2014 by NPR. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Elle, the San Francisco Chronicle and others She lives in Berkeley.
Cristina Garcia is the author of seven novels, including: Dreaming in Cuban -- a finalist for the National Book Award -- The Aguero Sisters, Monkey Hunting, A Handbook to Luck, The Lady Matador's Hotel, and King of Cuba. Garcia has edited two anthologies, Cubanisimo: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Cuban Literature and Bordering Fires: The Vintage Book of Contemporary Mexican and Chicano/a Literature. Garcia's work has been translated into fourteen languages. She is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers' Award, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University, and an NEA grant, among others. Garcia has taught at universities nationwide. Recently, she completed her tenure as University Chair in Creative Writing at Texas State University-San Marcos and as Visiting Professor at the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas-Austin. She lives in the San Francisco Bay area.
Enjoy our recent event with Rebecca Solnit and Jeff Chang:
[The Mother of All Questions]
Rebecca Solnit examines how women have been silenced and the changes occurring within the feminist movement today. She speaks with with author Jeff Chang.
