Events
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar with Jim Hill
8pm
in conversation with Jim Hill
WRITINGS ON THE WALL:
Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS -SOLD OUT
$45 General Admission seat + a copy of Writings on the Wall
$50 Reserved Section Seat + a copy of Writings on the Wall
$20 General Admission seat
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm) + Reserved Section Seat
+ copy of Writings on the Wall
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and a Basketball Hall of Fame inductee. Since retiring, he has been an actor, a basketball coach and the author of eleven books, many of them New York Times best sellers, including What Color is My World?, which won the NAACP Image Award for Best Children’s Book. Abdul-Jabbar is also a columnist for Time Magazine and The Washington Post, writing on a wide range of subjects including race, politics, age and pop culture, and his essays and columns have also appeared in the Huffington Post, in the Los Angeles Times and on Esquire.com, among other publications. In 2012, he was selected as a U.S. Cultural Ambassador.
Since retiring from professional basketball, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar has become a lauded observer of culture and society. He now brings that keen insight to the fore in Writings on the Wall: Searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White. He uses his unique blend of erudition, street smarts and authentic experience in essays on the country’s seemingly irreconcilable partisan divide – both racial and political, parenthood, and his own experiences as an athlete, African-American, and a Muslim. The book is not just a collection of expositions; he also offers keen assessments of and solutions to problems such as racism in sports while speaking candidly about his experiences on the court and off.
Timed for publication as the nation debates whom to send to the White House, the combination of plain talk on issues, life lessons, and personal stories places Writings on the Wall squarely in the middle of the conversation, as many of Abdul-Jabbar’s topics are at the top of the national agenda. Whether it is sparring with Donald Trump, within the pages of TIME magazine, or full-length features in the The New York Times Magazine, writers, critics, and readers have come to agree on what The Washington Post observed: Abdul-Jabbar “has become a vital, dynamic and unorthodox cultural voice.”
Jim Hill has been a fixture on CBS 2 in Los Angeles for more than 30 years. He appears on the station’s weekday 6 and 11 p.m. newscasts and also hosts the weekend editions of “Sports Central” – Southern California’s most comprehensive sports newscast. In addition, he co-hosts “LTV,” the Los Angeles Lakers pre-game show on KCAL 9, where he joins Lakers legend James Worthy.
Hill, who played defensive back in the National Football League, draws upon his experience as a player, his talents as a broadcaster and relationships with top athletes and coaches to deliver his award-winning sports reports.
Penn Jillette
8pm
in conversation with Matt Donnelly
Presto!: How I Made Over 100 Pounds Disappear and Other Magical Tales
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission Section Seating
$43 Reserved Section seat + a copy of Presto!
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm) + Reserved Section Seat
+ 2 books (Presto! and Every Day Is an Atheist Holiday!
Terry McMillan with Lisa Napoli
8pm (Reception, 6:30-7:30pm)
in conversation with Lisa Napoli
I Almost Forgot About You
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$30 Reserved Section Seat
$43 Reserved Section Seating, copy of McMillan’s book
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm) Reserved Section seat + Book
Terry McMillan is the bestselling author of Waiting to Exhale, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, A Day Late and a Dollar Short, and The Interruption of Everything and the editor of Breaking Ice: An Anthology of Contemporary African-American Fiction. Each of Ms. McMillan’s seven previous novels was a New York Times bestseller, and four have been made into movies: Waiting to Exhale (Twentieth Century Fox, 1995); How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Twentieth Century Fox, 1998); Disappearing Acts (HBO Pictures, 1999); and A Day Late and a Dollar Short (Lifetime, 2014). McMillan fell in love with books as a teenager while working at the local library. She studied journalism at UC Berkeley and screenwriting at Columbia before making her fiction debut with Mama, which won both the Doubleday New Voices in Fiction Award and the American Book Award.
Visit her website.
In I Almost Forgot About You, Dr. Georgia Young’s wonderful life–great friends, family, and successful career–aren’t enough to keep her from feeling stuck and restless. When she decides to make some major changes in her life, quitting her job as an optometrist, and moving house, she finds herself on a wild journey that may or may not include a second chance at love. Like Waiting to Exhale and How Stella Got Her Groove Back, I Almost Forgot About You shows what can happen when you face your fears, take a chance, and open yourself up to life, love, and the possibility of a new direction.
Lisa Napoli is a career journalist who has worked at The New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, and has covered arts and culture for KCRW. She’s the author of the book, Radio Shangri-La, about her time in and around the kingdom of Bhutan, where she went to start a radio station at the dawn of democratic rule. She is the author of the upcoming book, The Man Who Made the McDonald’s Fortune and the Woman Who Gave It All Away, to be published November 2016. She is the proud recipient of the 2014 Halo Award from the Deutsch Family Foundation for a monthly volunteer cooking group she leads at the Downtown Women’s Center on Skid Row.
Patric Kuh with Antonia Lofaso
8pm
in conversation with Antonia Lofaso
Finding the Flavors We Lost:
From Bread to Bourbon, How Artisans Reclaimed American Food
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission Section Seat
$45 Reserved Section Seat + book
Kuh begins by narrating the entertaining stories of countercultural “radicals” who taught themselves the forgotten crafts of bread, cheese, and beer-making in reaction to the ever-present marketing of bland, mass-produced food, and how these people became the inspiration for today’s crop of young chefs and artisans. Finding the Flavors We Lost also analyzes how population growth, speedier transportation, and the societal shifts and economic progress of the twentieth century led to the rise of supermarkets and giant food corporations, which encouraged the general desire to swap effort and quality for convenience and quantity.
Kuh examines how a rediscovery of the value of craft and individual effort has fueled today’s popularity and appreciation for artisanal food and the transformations this has effected on both the restaurant menu and the dinner table. Throughout the book, he raises a host of critical questions. How big of an operation is too big for a food company to still call themselves “artisanal”? Does the high cost of handcrafted goods unintentionally make them unaffordable for many Americans? Does technological progress have to quash flavor? Eye-opening, informative, and entertaining, Finding the Flavors We Lost is a fresh look into the culture of artisan food as we know it today—and what its future may be.
Antonia Lofaso joined Joe Bastianich and Tim Love in the second season of CNBC’s ‘Restaurant Startup,’ as a consultant and the show is now in its third season. Best known for her role on Top Chef Season 4, Top Chef All Stars and Top Chef Duels, Chef Antonia Lofaso is one of America’s most loved chefs. Most recently, Lofaso has gone from television personality to business owner and is currently executive chef and owner of Black Market in Studio City, California and Scopa Italian Roots in Venice, California. With a lifelong passion for cooking, Lofaso chased her dreams and has managed to balance her busy career with being a single parent. She shares her secrets and tips in her book The Busy Mom’s Cookbook re-released in paperback and can be seen as a frequent judge on Food Network’s Cutthroat Kitchen.
Walter Mosley with Karen Grigsby Bates
7:30pm (Reception, 6-7:00pm)
Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of Easy Rawlins
& dramatic readings from Charcoal Joe and Devil in a Blue Dress
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$43 Reserved Section Seating, copy of Charcoal Joe
$95 Reception (6:30-7:30pm) Reserved Section seats, copy of Charcoal Joe
Twenty Five years ago, Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins came onto the literary scene—just back from World War II—and opened the door on a Los Angeles that had not been part of the signature Los Angeles noir novels written by the masters, Raymond Chandler and Ross MacDonald. Walter Mosley’s books on Easy Rawlins and his neighbors and friends touched a nerve; his deft capturing of the conversations, the deep connections and frustrations of his characters made his books both critical and popular successes.
Since Devil in A Blue Dress set Easy out on his first job of detection, Mosley has published close to 50 books across genres and formats. His characters’ popularity and the critical acclaim his books drew opened doors for another generation of writers of color, not only in the mystery field but in other genres as well.
At this quarter century mark, Mosley is being recognized for this series’ deep cultural importance and impact by his award of Grandmaster by the Mystery Writers of America organization. With the publication of the new Easy Rawlins, Charcoal Joe, we look forward to celebrating the anniversary of the Easy Rawlins series as well as the wider intellectual and political scope of the writer himself.
Walter Mosley’s indelible detective Easy Rawlins is back, with a new detective agency and a new mystery to solve. Picking up where Rose Gold left off in Los Angeles in the late 1960s, Easy Rawlins finds his life in transition. He’s ready to—finally—propose to his girlfriend, Bonnie Shay, and start a life together. And he’s taken the money he got from the Rose Gold case and has, together with two partners, started a new detective agency. But, inevitably, a case gets in the way: Easy’s friend Mouse introduces him to Rufus Tyler, a very old man everyone calls Charcoal Joe. Joe’s friend’s son, Seymour (young, bright, top of his class at Stanford), has been arrested and charged with the murder of a white man from Redondo Beach. Rufus tells Easy he will pay and pay well to see his nephew exonerated, but seeing as how Seymour was literally found standing over the man’s dead body at his cabin home and the racially charged motives behind it, that might prove to be a tall order.
Between his new company, a heart that should be broken but is not, a whole raft of new bad guys on his tail, and a bad odor that surrounds Charcoal Joe, Easy has his hands full, his horizons askew, and a life in shambles on the ground around his feet.
Karen Grigsby Bates is a Los Angeles-based correspondent for NPR News, where she covers race, ethnicity and culture and how they each affect several aspects of American life. In addition, Bates often reports on authors and their work for NPR shows, especially Morning Edition. She’s been a reporter and substitute host for the Tavis Smiley show, and a correspondent for Day to Day. In her spare time, Bates has written several books, including two mysteries featuring reporter-sleuth Alex Powell.
Stephanie Danler with Teri Hatcher
8pm
in conversation with Teri Hatcher
Sweetbitter
Ann and Jerry Moss Theatre
New Roads School
Herb Alpert Educational Village
3131 Olympic Boulevard
Santa Monica, CA 90404
PURCHASE TICKETS/RSVP for comp tix
Free General Admission
$30 Reserved Section Seat, 1 copy of Danler’s novel, Sweetbitter
$35 Two Reserved Section Seats, 1 copy of Sweetbitter
This event is part of our Newer Voices Series where we feature debut authors and authors with one or two books whose writing we’d like to draw more attention to. Free tickets are available 7-10 days before the event. We encourage purchasing advance tickets that include the book and a reserved section seat.
— “And Our Fiction Special Tonight Is…,” New York Times, Oct. 31, 2014
— “Stephanie Danler talks about her much-buzzed-about debut novel,” Time Out New York, Mar, 15, 2015
— “Restaurant Toil Serves O.C. Novelist Well,” Orange County Register, Jan. 7, 2015
Stephanie Danler is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York. She holds an MFA in creative writing from the New School. Sweetbitter is her debut novel.
“Stephanie Danler arrives on the literary scene with a fully-fledged, original voice that’s wry, watchful and wise beyond its years—acutely attuned to the pleasures of the senses and to the desperate stratagems of self-invention among young urban seekers. Sweetbitter is a stunning debut novel, one that seems destined to help define a generation.” —Jay McInerney
You will develop a palate. A palate is a spot on your tongue where you remember. Where you assign words to the textures of taste. Eating becomes a discipline, language-obsessed. You will never simply eat food again.
These are the words that introduce us to Tess, the twenty-two-year-old narrator of Sweetbitter—and you will never again read a debut coming-of-age novel as stunning as this one.
Shot from a mundane, provincial past, Tess comes to New York in the stifling summer of 2006. Alone, knowing no one, living in a rented room in Williamsburg, she manages to land a job as a “backwaiter” at a celebrated downtown Manhattan restaurant. This begins the year we spend with Tess as she starts to navigate the chaotic, enchanting, punishing, and privileged life she has chosen, as well as the remorseless and luminous city around her. What follows is her education: in oysters, Champagne, the appellations of Burgundy, friendship, cocaine, lust, love, and dive bars. As her appetites awaken—for food and wine, but also for knowledge, experience, and belonging—we see her helplessly drawn into a darkly alluring love triangle. With an orphan’s ardor she latches onto Simone, a senior server at the restaurant who has lived in ways Tess only dreams of, and against the warnings of coworkers she falls under the spell of Jake, the elusive, tatted up, achingly beautiful bartender. These two and their enigmatic connection to each other will prove to be Tess’s most exhilarating and painful lesson of all.
Stephanie Danler intimately defines the crucial transition from girl to woman, from living in a place that feels like nowhere to living in a place that feels like the center of the universe. She deftly conjures the nonstop and purely adrenalized world of the restaurant—conversations interrupted, phrases overheard, relationships only partially revealed. And she evokes the infinite possibilities, the unbearable beauty, the fragility and brutality of being young in New York with heart-stopping accuracy. A lush novel of the senses—of taste and hunger, seeing and understanding, love and desire—Sweetbitter is ultimately about the power of what remains after disillusionment, and the transformation and wisdom that come from our experiences, sweet and bitter.