Enjoy recent author events, interviews, and bookseller series. Visit our website to learn more: www.skylightbooks.com
Episodes
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
SKYLIT: Kevin Mattson, "WE'RE NOT HERE TO ENTERTAIN" w/ Mike Foley
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Wednesday Nov 04, 2020
Many remember the 1980s as the era of Ronald Reagan, a conservative decade populated by preppies and yuppies dancing to a soundtrack of electronic synth pop music. In some ways, it was the "MTV generation." However, the decade also produced some of the most creative works of punk culture, from the music of bands like the Minutemen and the Dead Kennedys to avant-garde visual arts, literature, poetry, and film. In We're Not Here to Entertain, Kevin Mattson documents what Kurt Cobain once called a "punk rock world" --the all-encompassing hardcore-indie culture that incubated his own talent. Mattson shows just how widespread the movement became--ranging across the nation, from D.C. through Ohio and Minnesota to LA--and how democratic it was due to its commitment to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) tactics.
Mattson is in conversation with fellow punk rock historian Mike Foley.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Monday Nov 02, 2020
SKYLIT: Carol Hay, "THINK LIKE A FEMINIST" w/ Samia Hesni
Monday Nov 02, 2020
Monday Nov 02, 2020
Think Like a Feminist is an irreverent yet rigorous primer that unpacks over two hundred years of feminist thought. In a time when the word feminism triggers all sorts of responses, many of them conflicting and misinformed, Professor Carol Hay provides this balanced, clarifying, and inspiring examination of what it truly means to be a feminist today. She takes the reader from conceptual questions of sex, gender, intersectionality, and oppression to the practicalities of talking to children, navigating consent, and fighting for adequate space on public transit, without deviating from her clear, accessible, conversational tone. Think Like a Feminist is equally a feminist starter kit and an advanced refresher course, connecting longstanding controversies to today’s headlines.
Hay is in conversation with Boston University professor Samia Hesni.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Friday Oct 30, 2020
SKYLIT: Johnny Ray Huston & Bradford Nordeen, "BECAUSE HORROR"
Friday Oct 30, 2020
Friday Oct 30, 2020
For over a decade, Johnny Ray Huston was Arts and Entertainment Editor at the San Francisco Bay Guardian. As a writer, artist and curator he has read or shown work at venues including SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, SF Camerawork, Artists’ Television Access and [2nd Floor Projects]. A book of stories, published by Straight to Hell, is due in 2021.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Oct 28, 2020
SKYLIT: Jason Horton, "ABANDONED AND HISTORIC LOS ANGELES" w/ Rebecca Leib
Wednesday Oct 28, 2020
Wednesday Oct 28, 2020
Somewhere between the Hollywood sign and the Pacific Ocean, underneath the palm trees and above the crowded highways, there they are. You may have seen one in your favorite movie, or walked by one a thousand times. They're the landmarks, buildings, storefronts, and vintage signs that are part of what make LA and its surroundings so iconic. Not only can you see the history of Los Angeles, you can see history. Every historic location, abandoned storefront, and vintage sign is a lesson in LA's past.
Among the flickering neon portraits are essays, anecdotes, and stories from artists, writers, actors, and musicians about their own personal LA. Take a journey to the towns, cities, and neighborhoods that define Los Angeles culture, one photo at a time.
Author Jason Horton discusses his new book, Abandoned and Historic Los Angeles: Neon and Beyond with writer and comedian Rebecca Leib.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Monday Oct 26, 2020
SKYLIT: Jennifer L. Knox, "CRUSHING IT" w/ Sarah Manguso
Monday Oct 26, 2020
Monday Oct 26, 2020
The poems in Jennifer L. Knox's darkly imaginative collection, Crushing It, unearth epiphanies in an unbounded landscape of forms, voices and subjects--from history to true crime to epidemiology--while exploring our tenuous connections and disconnections. From Merle Haggard lifting his head from a pile of cocaine to absurdist romps through an apocalypse where mushrooms learn to sing, this versatile collection is brimming with dark humor and bright surprise. Alongside Knox's distinctive surrealism, Crushing It also reveals autobiography in poems about love, family, and adult ADHD, and Knox's empathetic depictions of the ego's need to assert its precious, singular "I" suggest that a self distinct from the hive, the herd, the flock, is an illusion. With clear-eyed spirit, Crushing It swallows all the world, and then some.
Knox is in conversation with American writer and poet Sarah Manguso.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Friday Oct 23, 2020
SKYLIT: Hayley Gene Penner, "PEOPLE YOU FOLLOW" w/ Kathryn Borel
Friday Oct 23, 2020
Friday Oct 23, 2020
Singer-songwriter Hayley Gene Penner's memoir takes a brutally honest yet humorous look at the dark, intimate truths we spend our lives running from. Like a map of beautiful mistakes, Hayley's stories of questionable sexual encounters, artistic aspirations, and emotional abuse trace her coming of age in the music industry.
Hayley explores all her relationships -- from her childhood as the daughter of a celebrity, to the destructive and coercive relationship with her boss, to her encounter with the actor we all know but who mustn't be named -- and brings them together in a series of sharp, touching vignettes. People You Follow straddles the delicate boundary between ethical and unethical behaviour, self-protection and self-destruction, power and weakness, giddiness and despair.
Penner is in conversation with writer, editor and radio producer Kathryn Borel.
Stream "People You Follow," Penner's title track from her upcoming album, here.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Oct 21, 2020
SKYLIT: Roy A. Meals, "BONES" w/ Vernon Tolo
Wednesday Oct 21, 2020
Wednesday Oct 21, 2020
A lively, illustrated exploration of the 500-million-year history of bone, a touchstone for understanding vertebrate life and human culture.
Human bone is versatile and entirely unique: it repairs itself without scarring, it’s lightweight but responds to stresses, and it’s durable enough to survive for millennia. In Bones, orthopedic surgeon Roy A. Meals explores and extols this amazing material that both supports and records vertebrate life.
Inside the body, bone proves itself the world’s best building material. Meals examines the biological makeup of bones; demystifies how they grow, break, and heal; and compares the particulars of human bone to variations throughout the animal kingdom. In engaging and clear prose, he debunks familiar myths—humans don’t have exactly 206 bones—and illustrates common bone diseases, like osteoporosis and arthritis, and their treatments. Along the way, he highlights the medical innovations—from the first X-rays to advanced operative techniques—that enhance our lives and introduces the giants of orthopedic surgery who developed them.
After it has supported vertebrate life, bone reveals itself in surprising ways—sometimes hundreds of millions of years later. With enthusiasm and humor, Meals investigates the diverse roles bone has played in human culture throughout history. He highlights allusions to bone in religion and literature, from Adam’s rib to Hamlet’s skull, and uncovers its enduring presence as fossils, technological tools, and musical instruments ranging from the Tibetan thighbone kangling horn to everyday drumsticks. From the dawn of civilization through to the present day, humankind has repurposed bone to serve and protect, and even to teach, amuse, and inspire.
Approachable and entertaining, Bones richly illuminates our bodies’ essential framework.
Meals is in conversation with Dr. Vernon Tolo, MD.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Monday Oct 19, 2020
SKYLIT: Donna Miscolta, "LIVING COLOR" w/ Alex Espinoza
Monday Oct 19, 2020
Monday Oct 19, 2020
We first meet Angie Rubio at age five, being scolded by her kindergarten teacher for not knowing how to skip properly.
Set in California in the 1960s and '70s, Living Color takes Angie year by year from kindergarten through high school, offering a portrait of the artist as a shy, awkward Mexican-American girl.
Taking place against the backdrop of the Cold War and civil rights eras--the Cuban missile crisis, the Watts riots, Beatlemania, the Black Power salute at the 1968 Olympics--Living Color also surveys the milestones of American girlhood. We see Brownies, slumber parties, training bras, cheerleader tryouts, and proms through the eyes of a "brown, skinny, and bespectacled" Latina who soon learns that pageant winners as well as high school cheerleaders are always white.
Donna Miscolta's new book traces Angie's formation as a writer, from the child who loves Scrabble and jots down new words she learns in a notebook to the teenager publishing controversial opinions about success and belonging, a person whose voice is now "loud-enough-to-be-heard."
Miscolta is in conversation with fellow author Alex Espinoza.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Friday Oct 16, 2020
SKYLIT: Kaela Green, "SCOTTIE ON THE SPACE STATION"
Friday Oct 16, 2020
Friday Oct 16, 2020
Ellie and her family love living on the space station With a mother who is an intergalactic doctor and a father who studies the stars, Ellie's life on the station is a blast. They can do anything you can do on Earth... except they can do it with alien visitors in zero gravity. Sometimes the aliens don't know how to play or talk with Ellie's little brother, Scottie, because he is a person with disabilities. But this doesn't stop Ellie from introducing them and showing them that Scottie is a great friend Come join Ellie and Scottie as they meet a young alien who has just arrived on the station...
Scottie on the Space Station author Kaela Green is in conversation with Skylight events manager Maddie Gobbo.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
SKYLIT: Kazim Ali, "THE VOICE OF SHEILA CHANDRA" w/ Kiki Petrosino
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
Titled for the influential singer left almost voiceless by a terrible syndrome, The Voice of Sheila Chandra brings sweet melodies and rhythms as the voices blend and become multitudinous. There's an honoring of not only survival, but of persistence, as this part research-based, pensive collection contemplates what it takes to move forward when the unimaginable holds you back.
Author Kazim Ali is in conversation with fellow poet Kiki Petrosino.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
SKYLIT: Xialuo Guo, "A LOVER'S DISCOURSE"
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
A Chinese woman moves from Beijing to London for a doctoral program--and to begin a new life--just as the Brexit campaign reaches a fever pitch. Isolated and lonely in a Britain increasingly hostile to foreigners, she meets a landscape architect and the two begin to build a life together.
A Lover's Discourse by Xialuo Guo is an exploration of romantic love told through fragments of conversations between the two lovers. Playing with language and the cultural differences that her narrator encounters as she settles into life in post-Brexit vote Britain, the lovers must navigate their differences and their romance, whether on their unmoored houseboat or in a cramped and stifling apartment in east London. Suffused with a wonderful sense of humor, this intimate and tender novel asks what it means to make a home and a family in a new land.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
SKYLIT: Lawrence Rosenthal, "EMPIRE OF RESENTMENT" w/ Harry Levine
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
Wednesday Oct 14, 2020
Since Trump's victory and the UK's Brexit vote, much of the commentary on the populist epidemic has focused on the emergence of populism. But, Lawrence Rosenthal argues, what is happening globally is not the emergence but the transformation of right-wing populism.
Rosenthal, the founder of UC Berkeley's Center for Right-Wing Studies, suggests right-wing populism is a protean force whose prime mover is the resentment felt toward perceived cultural elites, and whose abiding feature is its ideological flexibility, which now takes the form of xenophobic nationalism. In 2016, American right-wing populists migrated from the free marketeering Tea Party to Donald Trump's "hard hat," anti-immigrant, America-First nationalism. This was the most important single factor in Trump's electoral victory and it has been at work across the globe. In Italy, for example, the Northern League reinvented itself in 2018 as an all-Italy party, switching its fury from southerners to immigrants, and came to power.
Rosenthal paints a vivid sociological, political, and psychological picture of the transnational quality of this movement, which is now in power in at least a dozen countries, creating a de facto Nationalist International. In America and abroad, the current mobilization of right-wing populism has given life to long marginalized threats like white supremacy. The future of democratic politics in the United States and abroad depends on whether the liberal and left parties have the political capacity to mobilize with a progressive agenda of their own.
Rosenthal discusses his new book, Empire of Resentment, with sociologist Harry Levine.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Handsell, Ep. 17: "Dynasty Typewriter"
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Sunday Oct 11, 2020
Mick and Maddie have a spook szn reunion to talk about Halloween costumes and Skylight's new Indiegogo campaign with Punk Rock Martha's! Then, Maddie sits down with the folks at Hayworth Theater's Dynasty Typewriter to talk about marketing and events for independent venues.
Indiegogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/la-public-school-virtual-book-fair#/
Dynasty Typewriter: www.dynastytypewriter.com
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Friday Oct 09, 2020
SKYLIT: Jacquelyn Stolos, "EDENDALE" w/ Madeline Stevens
Friday Oct 09, 2020
Friday Oct 09, 2020
“Edendale is a sly and smart novel that contains multitudes—itʼs strange, funny, dark, violent, frightening, compelling, and mysterious. Jacquelyn Stolos takes many exciting risks on the page, and together these risks accumulate to become a powerful and unique story about young, alienated people trying to find their way in an inhospitable world.”
--Edan Lepucki, New York Times bestselling author of California
Stolos is in conversation with novelist Madeline Stevens.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
SKYLIT: Ken Kwapis, "BUT WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT" w/ David Ulin
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
Wednesday Oct 07, 2020
He is among the most respected directors in show business, but getting there wasn’t easy. He struggled just like everyone else. With each triumph came the occasional faceplant. Using his background and inside knowledge, But What I Really Want To Do is Direct tackles Hollywood myths through Ken Kwapis’s highly entertaining experiences. It’s a rollercoaster ride fueled by brawls with the top brass, clashes over budgets, and the passion that makes it all worthwhile.
This humorous and refreshingly personal memoir is filled with inspiring instruction, behind-the-scenes hilarity, and unabashed joy. It’s a celebration of the director’s craft, and what it takes to succeed in show business on your own terms.
Kwapis is in conversation with critic David Ulin.
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Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski
Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang.
Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.