Highly regarded Jungian analyst, noted scholar and Port Townsend resident Janet O. Dallett comes down for one night only, to discuss her latest work. We have come to expect penetrating analysis; the surprise with this book is its accessible, decidedy non-academic tone. To wit:

"Dr. Dallett's latest book seems both a departure from her earlier work, and a further development of it. The departure is her writing style, which feels rougher, more urgent and direct, which supports her compelling subject matter." -- Nicholas French

"Don't be deceived by the small size of the book or the informality of the language. Only a profound understanding can put forth such subtle and complex ideas in such apparently plain talk." -- Deborah A. Wesley

Thusly Dr. Dallett's notion to title this talk "Can the Writer Change Her Spots?" We will consider it a new facet for what was already fascinating and multidimensional subject matter -- let us add writers established and aspiring to our expected audience of Jungians and mind enthusiasts!  

Listening to the Rhino (Paperback)

By Dallett, Janet

$16.00

ISBN-13: 9781929355457
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Published: Aequitas Books, 09/01/2008

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Rod Coronado was already one of America's most notorious radical environmentalists when he launched Operation Bite Back, a war on fur farming that left a trail of burned-out labs and farms across the country and made him the subject of an intense, years-long FBI manhunt. Now his legacy has made him part of a legal battle over whether or not environmentalists like him should be prosecuted as terrorists.

Dean Kuipers takes us deep into the heart of the campaign that gave rise to the Animal Liberation Front and its spinoff the Earth Liberation Front, groups of anonymous eco-radicals responsible for over 1200 acts of sabotage and a billion dollars in damages and now among the FBI's top domestic priorities -- even in the wake of 9/11.

From his teenage association with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Earth First! to his brazen arson campaign to his reconnection with his Native American heritage among the Yaqui, Coronado's story redefines what it means to be green. Neither a biography nor a polemic about animal rights, Operation Bite Back tells the outlaw tale of a man who acted on well-defined principles and put his life on the line for an environmental movement that was ultimately forced to turn its back on him.

Operation Bite Back: Rod Coronado's War to Save American Wilderness (Hardcover)

By Kuipers, Dean

$25.00

ISBN-13: 9781596914582
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Published: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 06/01/2009

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"An engaged and engaging account of one of the most interesting chapters in American environmental history, this book will make you reexamine some perhaps superficial beliefs about protest and nonviolence and radicalism."

-- Bill McKibben

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Simon & Schuster has just released Joanna Smith Rakoff's first novel, about a group of Oberlin graduates trying to keep their lives from unraveling in 1990s Brooklyn. Lucky you -- Ms. Rakoff is visiting Olympia ever so briefly, and we have shoe-horned her into a chunk of Saturday the 11th for your exclusive entertainment! Her work is already drawing comparisons to Mary McCarthy; get your meet on while you can.

A Fortunate Age (Hardcover)

By Rakoff, Joanna Smith, Smith Rakoff, Joanna

$26.00

ISBN-13: 9781416590774
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Published: Scribner Book Company, 04/01/2009

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"A wonderful, funny and spot-on portrait of my clumsy generation that brings to mind such hallmarks as Mary McCarthy's "The Group," Jay McInerney's "Brightness Falls" and Claire Messud's "The Emperor's Children."

-- Gary Shteyngart ("Absuurdistan," "The Russian Debutante's Handbook")

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Need something good to read?  Check out what people around Olympia are reading this week!

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance-Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem (Paperback)

By Grahame-Smith, Seth, Austen, Jane

$12.95

ISBN-13: 9781594743344
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Quirk Books, 04/01/2009

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The Animal Dialogues: Uncommon Encounters in the Wild (Paperback)

By Childs, Craig

$14.99

ISBN-13: 9780316066471
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Published: Back Bay Books, 03/01/2009

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In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto (Paperback)

By Pollan, Michael

$15.00

ISBN-13: 9780143114963
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Published: Penguin Books, 04/01/2009

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The Other (Paperback)

By Guterson, David

$15.00

ISBN-13: 9780307274816
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Vintage Books USA, 06/01/2009

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B Is for Beer (Hardcover)

By Robbins, Tom

$17.95

ISBN-13: 9780061687273
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Ecco, 05/01/2009

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During a recent  workshop at Sam Weller's Bookstore in Salt Lake City I was turned onto graphic novels.    I confess I have been somewhat snobby about graphic novels, considering them "not real books".  But last night , in one sitting, I read Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel www.dykes to watchoutfor.com and was blown away.  Created from her old journals, family photos & letters, literary illusions and images of growing up in her typical (ie dysfunctional ) family this is one of the most engrossing memoirs I've read.  Mainly she explores her complex relationship with her-in-the closet, funeral director, English teacher, interior decorator Father. She manages to come to terms with her family and her father by portraying  the richness of the many worlds and co-existences they inhabit. Nothing is simple.

Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (Paperback)

By Bechdel, Alison

$13.95

ISBN-13: 9780618871711
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Mariner Books, 06/01/2007

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War Child: A Child Soldier's Story (Hardcover)

By Jal, Emmanuel, Davies, Megan Lloyd

$24.95

ISBN-13: 9780312383220
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Published: St. Martin's Press, 02/01/2009

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I have not read this book.  Let's just come clean on that right off the bat.  It's brand new. 

I
corresponded for a while with Emmanuel Jal while living in Oxford and
trying to figure out a way to use music, and hip-hop especially, to
document life and stem the rising tide of gang violence among Sudanese
refugee youth in Cairo who had fled the civil war, the genocide in
Darfur, or any number of other threats in the Sudan and along the way. 
I had spent the previous year with one of the gangs, hearing stories of
transit and tragedy, hope and reconnection, and ultimately desperation
and frustration (refugees have rights under international law, but
nobody actually provides them, and Sudanese certainly aren't 'priority'
refugees).

Emmanuel Jal came to my attention as an up-and-coming rapper in
London who was working to draw attention to Sudanese refugees and
battling the 'weak and helpless' refugee-camp stereotype used to
promote guilt-reduction-through-your-wallet TV ads.  Jal's story
is simultaneously unique and replicated everyday.  Only the luckiest of
refugees make it to Europe (and have books and documentaries about
them), but this doesn't belittle the journey.  Understanding what
happens to refugees in the world is, unfortunately, an understanding of
how dark international politics really is.

Why not start with War Child and see how the journey begins?

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This review doesn't come in the 'official' format because I can't seem to get the ISBN recognized, but here it goes (email us if you'd like it!):

Who Takes a Feather - Tara Jane ONeil

Ex-olympian Tara Jane ONeil is a great person, a great musician, and a great artist who has left little bits of herself (tangible and otherwise) all over the world.  Having shown her work in Europe, Asia, and North America, TJO has gained a significant following.  This collection of paintings, sketches, and drawings is a limited-edition muse of visual creativity collected over some years and presented by Japanese imprint Map Press in 2003.  As a bonus, the collection includes a mini-CD of songs showing off her other talents. 

Fans of TJO, or those familiar with her affiliated former musical projects (Rodan, Retsin, the King Cobra, and more) should take this opportunity to get to know her visual side. 

Very highly recommended.

Themba

The Yacoubian Building (Paperback)

By Al Aswany, Alaa, Davies, Humphrey

$13.95

ISBN-13: 9780060878139
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Harper Perennial, 08/01/2006

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Cairo's city center is a crumbling testament to a more opulent time.  Its rooftop terraces are cracked and its marble staircases grooved and rounded by countless feet too nervous to trust ornate iron elevators last serviced too many years ago.   The Greek Club, an exclusive and smokey gathering place for beer-drinking artists and the late-night wealthy set, is perched above the city's wide main circle, poised with a view to the monument below.  It was in this hall, surrounded by an inconceivable and surreal cast of people, that I first heard about The Yacoubian Building.  At the table was an American expat translator who had just finished the English version of the new book by Alaa al-Aswany, and he was reluctant to say much about it.  The unspoken and internalized, it turns out, is a persistent theme.

The novel unfolds in layers, much of it in the streets around the Greek Club, intertwining personalities and brashly exposing the seething private pressures and vices that flow through the massively populated metropolis: things many in Cairo are reluctant to say much about.  Introducing an array of characters that includes a respected elderly gentleman, a policeman, a business owner, and two lovers whose lives diverge dramatically, the novel explores loneliness, desperation, religion, and nostalgia through the crossing of barriers and and the intersection of lives.  Corruption, homosexuality, fundamentalism, terrorism, and sexual dynamics are omnipresent unspoken realities in Cairo.  This novel exposes them.

The hugely successful (at least in Egypt) film adaptation was quickly restricted to a handful of theatres upon release and censored by order of the government.  That means it has to be good.

Themba

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Rhea Melina thrives on complications. In one poem she will seamlessly flow between subjects, give you reasons to get up in the morning and reasons why you should just end it now. She is clever and funny, looking at the world as if she already knows what's going to happen. Make a joke of r(h)eality, reminds us that we all create our own worlds, each interpretation being different, how we are all islands in that way. She makes good waves.

 *since this book doesn't have an isbn, it is only sold in store.