Skylight Books Podcast Series

In recognition of Black History Month, join us as we remember the contributions of Black Queer writers past and present. Frederick L. Smith (Play It Forward) Sheree L. Greer (Let The Lover Be), Rebekah Weatherspoon (Treasure), and Fiona Zedde (Desire at Dawn) discuss their current novels--courtesy of Bold Stroke Books--as well as the past, present, and future of Black LGBTQ literature.

Originally from Detroit, Michigan, Frederick Smith is a graduate of the Missouri School of Journalism and Loyola University Chicago. He lives in Los Angeles and is also the author of Down for Whatever and Right Side of the Wrong Bed. Readers can contact him at www.FrederickLSmith.com.

A Milwaukee, Wisconsin native, Sheree L. Greer has been published in Hair Trigger, The Windy City Times, Reservoir, Fictionary, and the WindyCity Queer Anthology: Dispatches from the Third Coast. She has performed her work across selected venues in Milwaukee, New York, Miami, Chicago, and Tampa, where she hosts Oral Fixation, the only LGBTQ Open Mic series in TampaBay. She received a Union League of Chicago Civic Arts Foundation Award, earned her MFA at Columbia College Chicago, and currently teaches writing and literature at St. Petersburg College. Ms. Greer is an Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund grantee and completed a VONA residency at University of Miami. She recently published a short story collection, Once and Future Lovers and an excerpt from her novel What Has Never Been Taught appears in Best Lesbian Romance 2012.

After years of meddling in her friends’ love lives, Rebekah Weatherspoon turned to writing romance as a means to surviving a stressful professional life. She has worked in various positions from library assistant, meter maid, middle school teacher, B movie production assistant, reality show crew chauffeur, D movie producer, and her most fulfilling job to date, lube and harness specialist at an erotic boutique in West Hollywood. Her interests include Wonder Woman collectibles, cookies, James Taylor, quality hip-hop, football, American muscle cars, large breed dogs, and the ocean. When she’s not working, writing, reading, or sleeping, she is watching Ken Burns documentaries and cartoons or taking dance classes. If given the chance, she will cheat at UNO. She was raised in Southern New Hampshire and now lives in Southern California with an individual who is much more tech savvy than she ever will be. Member RWA.

Jamaican-born Fiona Zedde currently lives and writes in Atlanta, Georgia. She is the author of several novellas and novels of lesbian love and desire, including the Lambda Literary Award finalists Bliss and Every Dark Desire. Her novel, Dangerous Pleasures,was winner of the About.com Readers’ Choice Award for Best Lesbian Novel or Memoir of 2012. Her short fiction has appeared in various anthologies including the Cleis Press Best Lesbian Erotica series, Wicked: Sexy Tales of Legendary Lovers, Iridescence: Sensuous Shades of Lesbian Erotica, and Fist of the Spider Woman. Writing under the name "Fiona Lewis," she has also published a novel of young adult fiction called Dreaming in Color with Tiny Satchel Press. And as “Lindsay Evans,” she has written multiple novels for Harlequin Kimani Romance. Her latest novel, Desire at Dawn, is available now.

***Unfortunately our little podcast recording device ran out of digital space before this event reached completion.  We regret the omission but trust the listener will enjoy the hour of recorded material that is available***

Bon Appetempt: A Coming of Age Story (with Recipes!) Grand Central Publishing

When Amelia Morris found a beautiful chocolate cake in Bon Appétit and took the recipe home to recreate it for a Christmas day brunch, it collapsed into a terrible (but delicious) mess that had to be served in an oversized bowl. It also paralleled the never-quite-predictable situations she's gotten herself into throughout her life, from her one-day career as a six-year-old lady wrestler to her ill-fated job at the School of Rock in Los Angeles.

Now author of a blog named one of the best of 2012 by TIME magazine and awarded “Best Food Humor Blog” 2012 by Saveurmagazine, Amelia has woven those stories into Bon Appetempt: A Coming-of-Age Story (with Recipes!) – a funny and poignant memoir about collapsing cakes and coming of age in your twenties and thirties.

Full of hilarious and touching observations about food, family, unemployment, romance, and the excesses of modern L.A., and incorporating recipes as basic as Toasted Cheerios and as advanced as gâteau de crêpes, Bon Appetempt follows Amelia as she finds that even if some of her attempts fall short of the standard set by a food magazine, they can still bring satisfaction to her and her family and friends.

Praise for Bon Appetempt

"Bon Appetempt is a charming, thoughtful, and touching memoir about growing up and becoming the person and artist you've always wanted to be--both inside and outside the kitchen. It made me laugh, it made me cry, and I could not put it down. It also made me very, very hungry for crepes!"--Edan Lepucki, author of California

"Amelia Morris's debut, Bon Appetempt, is one of the most compulsively readable books I've picked up in years. It's spirited, funny, smartly nostalgic, wistful, real. I've never seen another author break a reader's heart, make them laugh, and offer up a recipe for broccolini in the span of two pages. It's all here: big love, big sadness, superb self-aware writing, and cake. Indulge in all of it as fast as you can, and enjoy the rewarding fullness of this incredible book."--Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise and Almost Famous Women

"Amelia Morris uses her trademark humor and fierce honesty to tell a wry and touching coming-of-age story. It made me laugh, wrenched my heart and gave me an instant craving for beans and rice in coconut milk."--Luisa Weiss, founder of The Wednesday Chef and author of My Berlin Kitchen

"Morris adopts an interest in cooking as an adult, grabbing food glossies at grocery checkouts and trying to re-create the meals they picture. The impetus for the blog she starts, with which this book shares its name, was a growing realization that if words failed her, food wouldn't: cooking, as opposed to writing, became a place to lightheartedly attempt great things, and not feel personally hurt if she failed. . . Some recipes are described in the text, too, like the toasted cheerios Morris makes, immediately summoning childhood memories. Sure to appeal to fans of her personable blog, and to round up new ones."--Booklist

Amelia Morris is the creator of Bon Appétempt, which TIME magazine named as one of the twenty-five best blogs of 2012. Her work has also been featured in the Los Angeles Times, The Splendid Table, Saveur.com, BonAppetit.com, and McSweeney's. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, where she was the recipient of the Margaret Shannon Morton Fellowship. She currently lives on the east side of Los Angeles with her husband, baby son, and small dog. Visit her at www.bonappetempt.com and on Twitter @bonappetempt

The Plum in Mr Blum's Pudding (Penny Ante Editions)

“My hours of leisure I spent in reading the best authors, ancient and modern, being always provided with a good number of books; and when I was ashore, in observing the manners and dispositions of the people, as well as learning their language; wherein I had a great facility, by the strength of my memory.”

- Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels

The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding is Los Angeles native Tosh Berman’s first printed collection of poetry. In 1989, Berman left the United States behind, moving to Japan after learning his wife's (artist Lun*na Menoh) mother was ill in Kitakyushu. The Plum in Mr. Blum’s Pudding was penned while both rapt and lost by this transition. Gracefully toiling between the quirky and earnest, these poems describe the liminal space of the foreigner caught between the strange and the familiar. The result is surreal and unclassifiable, a book of love poems overshadowed by isolation and underscored with curiosity and lust.

Originally published in 1990 by “Cole Swift & Sons” (Japan) as a small hardcover edition of two hundred copies, this new edition acts to preserve this work and features an introduction by art critic and curator Kristine McKenna and an afterword by Ruth Bernstein.

Tosh Berman is a publisher and writer. His press, TamTam Books, has published works by Boris Vian, Guy Debord, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Mesrine, artist Lun*na Menoh, and Ron Mael & Russell Mael (Sparks). He is the author of Sparks-tastic: 21 Nights with Sparks in London. As the son of artist Wallace Berman, Tosh has delivered talks and various essays toward furthering his late father’s artistic legacy including his influential folio series, Semina (1955–1964). He resides in Los Angeles.

Ruth Bernstein lives in Highland Park where she writes postcards and collects books.

TEX (Penny Ante Books)

Skylight Books' very own Beau Rice joins us for the release of his documentary novel, Tex!

An experiment between the epistolary and the ectype, Tex is a performance act in print. Featuring walk-ons by various interlocutors, this archival outpour demonstrates the potentiality of relationships in the digital age. Metonymic displacements, grammatical violations and verbal spillage form the book's rowdy non-narrative about a young LA artist’s sexual explorations, his attachment to a Texas-based former fling, Matt G, and the energy and opportunism involved with the continually forthcoming publication of this, his first book.

Rated X for strong language and sexual content.

Beau Rice is a writer and artist living in Los Angeles.

By 2015, Tracy Jeanne Rosenthal will have three books, Close (Sibling Rivalry Press), Ri Ri (Re)Vision (Publication Studio), and This Is The ENDD (Wilner Books). She is Beau's friend, an art critic for Rhizome.org, and a bratty bottom.

The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion (Farrar Straus Giroux)

A master of the personal essay candidly explores love, death, and the counterfeit rituals of American life. For tonight's event Meghan Daum will be joined by Bernard Cooper!

In her celebrated 2001 collection, My Misspent Youth, Meghan Daum offered a bold, witty, defining account of the artistic ambitions, financial anxieties, and mixed emotions of her generation. The Unspeakable is an equally bold and witty, but also a sadder and wiser, report from early middle age.

It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide," Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital. Elsewhere, she writes searchingly about cultural nostalgia, Joni Mitchell, and the alternating heartbreak and liberation of choosing not to have children.

Combining the piercing insight of Joan Didion with a warm humor reminiscent of Nora Ephron, Daum dissects our culture's most dangerous illusions, blind spots, and sentimentalities while retaining her own joy and compassion. Through it all, she dramatizes the search for an authentic self in a world where achieving an identity is never simple and never complete.

Praise for The Unspeakable: And Other Subject of Discussion:

“The Unspeakable is a fantastic collection of essays: funny, clever and moving (often at the  same time), never more universal than in its most personal moments (in other words, throughout), and written with enviable subtlety, precision and spring. As if that weren’t enough, Meghan Daum very nearly persuaded me to listen to Joni Mitchell again!”– Geoff Dyer

“The Unspeakable speaks with wit and warmth and artful candor, the fruits of an exuberant and consistently surprising intelligence. These are essays that dig under the surface of what we might expect to feel in order to discover what we actually feel instead. I was utterly captivated by Daum’s sensitive fidelity to the complexity of lived experience.” – Leslie Jamison

"For several years now, I've kept copies of some of these essays . . . by my desk . . . Her writing has a clarity . . . that just makes you feel awake." --Ira Glass

"A Joan Didion for the new millennium, Meghan Daum brings grace, wit, and insight to contemporary life, love, manners, and money." --Dan Wakefield

Meghan Daum is a columnist for the Los Angeles Times and the author of the essay collection My Misspent Youth. She is also the author of Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House and The Quality of Life Report, a novel. Her essays and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, The New York Times Book Review, Vogue, and other publications. She has also contributed to NPR’s Morning Edition, Marketplace, and This American Life. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Bernard Cooper is the author of the forthcoming memoir, My Avant-Garde Education. He is also the author of The Bill From My Father, Maps To Anywhere, A Year of Rhymes, Truth Serum, and a collection of short stories, Guess Again. Cooper is the recipient of the PEN/USA Ernest Hemingway Award, the O. Henry Prize, a Guggenheim grant, and a National Endowment of the Arts fellowship in literature.  His work has appeared in several anthologies, including The Best American Essays of 1988, 1995, and 1997, 2002, and 2008.  His work has also appeared in magazines and literary reviews including, Granta, Harper's Magazine, The Paris Review, Story, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine.  He has contributed to National Public Radio's "This American Life" and for six years wrote monthly features as the art critic for Los Angeles Magazine

The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. (Picador)

Adelle Waldman, whose novel The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. has been on our bestseller list for months, discusses her book with film director Marc Webb (500 Days of Summer, The Amazing Spider-Man).

A debut novel by a brilliant young woman about the romantic life of a brilliant young man.

Writer Nate Piven's star is rising. After several lean and striving years, he has his pick of both magazine assignments and women: Juliet, the hotshot business reporter; Elisa, his gorgeous ex-girlfriend, now friend; and Hannah, "almost universally regarded as nice and smart, or smart and nice," who holds her own in conversation with his friends. When one relationship grows more serious, Nate is forced to consider what it is he really wants.

In Nate's 21st-century literary world, wit and conversation are not at all dead. Is romance? Novelist Adelle Waldman plunges into the psyche of a flawed, sometimes infuriating modern man--one who thinks of himself as beyond superficial judgment, yet constantly struggles with his own status anxiety, who is drawn to women, yet has a habit of letting them down in ways that may just make him an emblem of our times. With tough-minded intelligence and wry good humor The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is an absorbing tale of one young man's search for happiness--and an inside look at how he really thinks about women, sex and love.

Praise for The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.:

"Deliciously funny, sharply observed, elegantly told, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. is the best debut I've encountered in years, the best novel about New York, and the best novel about contemporary manhood and the crazy state of gender roles and just "contemporary" life. With a pitch perfect balance of satire and sympathy, reminiscent of Mary McCarthy's The Group, Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End, and Jay McInerney'sBrightness Falls, Adelle Waldman's voice is nevertheless entirely--and unabashedly--her own." --Joanna Smith Rakoff, author of the novel A Fortunate Age

"Novelist Adelle Waldman does a very tricky thing: she succeeds in crossing the gender line, imagining the world from behind the eyes of a male character both sympathetically and unsentimentally. This former young-literary-man-in-Brooklyn found himself cringing in recognition." --William Deresiewicz, author of A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter

"I can't remember the last novel this good about being young and smart and looking for love in the big city. The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. reads as if one of the top tier 19th-century novelists zeroed her social x-ray eyes onto present-moment Brooklyn. Up-and-coming writers and artists everywhere will be squirming with uncomfortable recognition of themselves, their friends, and their psyches; far more readers will be thanking Adelle Waldman for this hilarious, big-hearted, ruthlessly intelligent, and ridiculously well-written novel." --Charles Bock, author of the best-selling novel Beautiful Children

""Bracing and astute. Waldman writes these crisp, smart sentences that are every bit as thoughtful as her characters--people whose relationships founder and flourish in ways that will captivate readers from page one." --Fiona Maazel, author of Last Last Chance and "Woke Up Lonely

Adelle Waldman is the author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P. Her articles have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, Slate, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband.

Filmmaker Marc Webb most recently directed The Amazing Spider-Man 2, after helming the critically acclaimedThe Amazing Spider-Man which grossed over $750 million worldwide. Webb will direct the third installment in the series, The Amazing Spider-Man 3, scheduled for release in 2018. Webb made his feature film debut with the two-time Golden Globe nominated (500) Days of Summer for which he received The National Board of Review’s Spotlight Award, recognizing outstanding directorial debuts.

Dissident Gardens (Vintage Books) Mermaids in Paradise (W.W. Norton & Company)

Jonathan Lethem, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction and the MacArthur Fellowship whose writing has been called "as ambitious as [Norman] Mailer, as funny as Philip Roth, and as stinging as Bob Dylan" ("Los Angeles Times"), returns with an epic yet intimate family saga.

Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an unreconstructed Communist who savages neighbors, family, and political comrades with the ferocity of her personality and the absolutism of her beliefs. Her equally passionate and willful daughter, Miriam, flees Rose's influence for the dawning counterculture of Greenwich Village. Despite their differences, they share a power to enchant the men in their lives: Rose's aristocratic German Jewish husband, Albert; her feckless chess hustler cousin, Lenny; Cicero Lookins, the brilliant son of her black cop lover; Miriam's (slightly fraudulent) Irish folksinger husband, Tommy Gogan; and their bewildered son, Sergius. Through Lethem's vivid storytelling we come to understand that the personal may be political, but the political, even more so, is personal.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet returns to redefine “comedy of errors” in Mermaids In Paradise, the genre-bending satire of a tropical honeymoon hijacked by mermaids, kidnappers, and mercenaries.

In this hilarious novel, a honeymooning couple makes friends with a marine biologist who discovers genuine mermaids in a coral reef—and who, the next night, apparently drowns in her hotel bathtub. As a resort chain swoops in to corner the market on mermaids, the newlyweds (opinionated, skeptical narrator Deb and handsome online gamer Chip, the world’s friendliest man) join forces with other vacationers—including an ex–Navy SEAL with a love of explosives and a hipster Tokyo VJ—to protect the mermaids from the corporate “Venture of Marvels” that wants to turn their habitat into a theme park.

Mermaids in Paradise is Millet’s funniest book yet, tempering the sharp satire of her early career with the empathy and emotional power of her more recent, critically acclaimed novels and short stories. This is an unforgettable, mesmerizing tale, comic on the surface and deeply solemn at its core.

Praise for Dissident Gardens:

"Dissident Gardens seamlessly weaves together three generations, yet it doesn't broadcast itself as a multigenerational epic, nor is it afflicted by the desire to pose as the next great American novel. It's an intimate book."--The New York Times Book Review

"A tour de force, a brilliant, satiric journey through America's dissident history."--The Star Tribune

"Lethem has artfully blended, redefined, ignored, satirized and enriched the traditional categories of fiction."--The Plain Dealer

"Remarkable. . . . Lethem's best novel since "Motherless Brooklyn." . . . Crackle[s] with wordplay and intelligence."--The Miami Herald

"The writing soars. . . . Lethem can riff with the best, spinning knockout lines that make you stop and stare . . . while you admire a sentence's every turn."--The Seattle Times

"An assured, expert literary performance by one of our most important writers. . . . Magnificent."--Los Angeles Review of Books

Praise for Mermaids in Paradise:

"Mermaids in Paradise makes brilliant comedy out of a honeymoon trip that veers from the absurd to the sublime and back again. Lydia Millet is a stone-cold genius. --Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

"I laughed so hard all over town. Leave it to Lydia Millet to capsize her human characters in aquamarine waters and upstage their honeymoon with mermaids. I am awed to know there's a mind like Millet's out there. She's a writer without limits, always surprising, always hilarious. --Karen Russell, author of Swamplandia! andVampires in the Lemon Grove

Jonathan Lethem is the "New York Times" bestselling author of nine novels, including Chronic City, The Fortress of Solitude, and Motherless Brooklyn, and of the nonfiction collection The Ecstasy of Influence. A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist, a recipient of the MacArthur Fellowship and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Lethem's work has appeared in "The New Yorker," "Harper's Magazine," "Rolling Stone," "Esquire," and "The New York Times," among other publications. 

Lydia Millet is the author of twelve previous books of fiction. Her novel Ghost Lightswas a New York Times Notable Book; its sequel Magnificence was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle and Los Angeles Times Awards in fiction; and her story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. She lives outside Tucson, Arizona. 

Peter, Paul and Mary: Fifty Years of a Music Life (Imagine Publishing)

Peter Yarrow and Noel Stookey of Peter, Paul, and Mary celebrate the release of the first book to detail the intimate story of the trio and their music.

Here is the first and only book that visually tells us the intimate story of Peter, Paul, and Mary and their music, with stirring images that follow their passionate fifty-year journey to the center of America’s heart.

The very best of thousands of photographs, many rare and never before published, taken over five decades by some of the world’s top photographers, show them at their earliest performances in the 1960s, when Mary was the most desired, beautiful, and charismatic performer and a new role model for women. Follow the trio as they lead America to discover the passionate soul of folk music. Join the struggle for racial equality, social justice, and freedom in this memorable journey, from the historic 1963 March on Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr., to the trio’s appearance before half a million people in 1969 to end the Vietnam War, to their singing at the Hollywood Bowl for Survival Sunday in 1978, helping to launch the antinuke movement, the world’s first international environmental movement.

Through these images, you can feel and almost hear the trio’s songs calling for a more caring, better world as you see photos of them performing with a courage and conviction that became, for so many, the embodiment and soundtrack of their generation’s awakening to conscience, to activism, and to a new dream for all humankind.

Peter, Paul, and Mary’s songs of defiant hope and a certain unmasked innocence are still a powerful part of our American consciousness. This book reenacts the history of how the trio marked our lives with their indelible stamp of honesty—the sort we yearn to recapture and recreate in our own time, for ourselves, our children, and the generations to come.

Peter, Paul, and Mary came into being at the dawn of John F. Kennedy's presidency, as America entered one of its most dramatic periods of social and political change. With music being one of the great forces that brought them together, Americans united in unprecedented ways to create a more just and peaceful society. Folk music, with its ability to reach people's hearts, became the sound track of this remarkable quest, and Peter, Paul, and Mary became standard-bearers of America's new hopes and dreams.

Grace's Guide: The Art of Pretending to be a Grown-Up (Touchstone Books)

"One of the sharpest, funniest voices on YouTube" ("Forbes"), comedian Grace Helbig offers an irreverent and illustrated guide to life for anyone faced with the challenge of growing up.

Face it--being a young adult in the digital era is one of the hardest things to be. Well, maybe there are harder things in life...but being an adult is difficult! So Grace Helbig has written a guide that's perfect for anyone who is faced with the daunting task of becoming an adult. Infused with her trademark saucy, sweet, and funny voice, Grace's Guide is a tongue-in-cheek handbook for millennials, encompassing everything a young or new (or regular or old) adult needs to know, from surviving a breakup to recovering from a hangover. Beautifully illustrated and full-color,Grace's Guide features interactive elements and exclusive stories from Grace's own misadventures--like losing her virginity solely because her date took her to a Macaroni Grill--and many other hilarious lessons she learned the hard way.

Amusing and unexpectedly educational, this refreshing and colorful guide proves that becoming an adult doesn't necessarily mean you have to grow up.

Praise for Grace's Guide

"This book is just like Grace Helbig--hilarious, bright, and will cut you when you least expect it. Seriously, paper cuts are no joke. This is high-quality paper stock."--Mamrie Hart, Host of You Deserve a Drink on YouTube

"Grace Helbig is a sparkly vessel of wit and fun!"--Andy Cohen, author of Most Talkative

"One of YouTube's most endearing personalities."--Variety

"I've always looked up to Grace Helbig--and not only because she's a giantess!--because she has the extraordinary ability to accomplish whatever she sets out to do. I think this book is a testament to that."--Hannah Hart, author ofMy Drunk Kitchen

"Grace Helbig is my spirit animal and I would gladly take her to lunch at Macaroni Grill so we could talk Latin conventions, first love, and hangover remedies. I wouldn't even expect her to put out."-Jenny Han, author of To All the Boys I've Loved Before

"Hilariously honest without missing a beat, Grace brings her irresistible voice and lovable personality to Grace's Guide. #MustReadImmediately."--Tyler Oakley

Grace Helbig is a comedian, actress, and YouTube personality. She previously hosted "DailyGrace "on My Damn Channel, before leaving in January 2014 to create her own YouTube channel, it'sGrace which has more than 1.7 million subscribers and 150 million views. Helbig is the executive producer and star of the feature film "Camp Takota." She is the winner of the People's Choice Webby Award for Best First Person Format and the Streamy Award for Personality of the Year and Best First-Person Series. Helbig has been named one of "Fast Company's "100 Most Creative People in Business, "Forbes"' 30 under 30, "Time "magazine's 140 Best Twitter feeds, and BuzzFeed's 11 Awesome Up-and-Coming Funny Ladies You Should Know. A graduate of Ramapo College, she lives in Los Angeles.

This Is A Book For Parents of Gay Kids (Chronicle Books)

"An excellent and much-needed resource." −School Library Journal

This important book is the first of its kind—it is currently the only book to speak to parents who want practical, straightforward advice on how to communicate and better parent their gay child. Authors Dannielle Owens-Reidand Kristin Russo have been dialoguing with lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth, and supportive families and friends, for more than four years through their award-winning website, Everyone Is Gay. Expanding on the support and advice for LGBTQ youth and their families that Dannielle and Kristin offer on their website, the book’s question-and-answer format means readers can turn straight to the questions most relevant to them, or read cover to cover to discover answers to everything from profoundly personal religious questions to practical day-to-day issues. With two authors who truly understand gay youth, this book breaks down the issues that many families face when their child comes out.

This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids speaks to parents who want practical, straightforward advice on how to communicate and better parent their LGBTQ child. For tonight's event, Danielle and Kristin will be joined by Canadian author Vivek Shraya who will read from his book, God Loves Hair, a compilation of short stories following a tender, intellectual, and curious child as he navigates complex realms of sexuality, gender, racial politics, religion, and belonging.

Dannielle Owens-Reid and Kristin Russo dialogue daily with LGBTQ youth and families through their award-winning website, Everyone is Gay. Dannielle lives in Los Angeles, and Kristin lives in New York City.

Vivek Shraya is an artist working in the mediums of music, performance, literature, and film. Winner of the We Are Listening International Singer-Songwriter Award, Vivek has released albums ranging from acoustic folk-rock to electro synthpop, the most recent of which is I Could Be Good for You. His most recent film, What I LOVE about being QUEER, expanded to include an online project and book with contributions from around the world. He lives in Toronto.

Does Santa Exist? A Philosophical Investigation (Dutton Books)

A humorous philosophical investigation into the existence of Santa--from a co-executive producer of "The Big Bang Theory," the #1 sitcom on television.

Metaphysics isn't ordinarily much of a laughing matter. But in the hands of acclaimed comedy writer and scholarEric Kaplan, a search for the truth about old St. Nick becomes a deeply insightful, laugh-out-loud discussion of the way some things exist but may not really be there. Just like Santa and his reindeer.

Even after we outgrow the jolly fellow, the essential paradox persists: There are some things we dearly believe in that are not universally acknowledged as real. In Does Santa Exist? Kaplan shows how philosophy giants Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein strove to smooth over this uncomfortable meeting of the real and unreal--and failed. From there he turns to mysticism's attempts to resolve such paradoxes, surveying Buddhism, Taoism, early Christianity, Theosophy, and even the philosophers at UC Berkeley under whom he studied. Finally, this brilliant comic writer alights on--surprise--comedy as the ultimate resolution of the fundamental paradoxes of life, using examples from "The Big Bang Theory," Monty Python's cheese shop sketch, and many other pop-culture sources.

Finally Kaplan delves deeper into what this means, from how our physical brains work to his own personal confrontations with life's biggest questions: If we're all going to die, what's the point of anything? What is a perfect moment? What can you say about God? Or Santa?

Praise for Does Santa Exist?

"Eric Kaplan's Does Santa Exist? is the funniest book of philosophy since...well, ever."--Matt Groening, creator of "The Simpsons" and "Futurama "and author of "Life in Hell"

"If you can put this book down, you should see a doctor. Kaplan's message burrows into the mind, beats up a few beliefs and then leaves with a triumphant bang."--Michael Gazzaniga, Professor of Psychology University of California Santa Barbara, Director of the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind, and Founder of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society

"Exceptionally interesting, rigorous and I found it not only weirdly funny but deeply moving."--Hubert Dreyfus, Professor of Philosophy, University of California Berkeley, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

"This is truly a book that I wish I had written. Eric brings great clarity of thought to some of the deepest questions of the mind and our understanding of the world. And he's really funny." --Daniel Levitin, New York Times Bestselling author of This is Your Brain on Music, Professor of Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience at McGill University, Dean of Arts and Humanities, Minerva Schools at KGI

"Eric Kaplan is more than a talented comedy writer. He is a deep soul, an intellectual master, and a brilliant communicator of the subtleties of the intersections between faith and logic. He will have you laughing, thinking harder than you've ever thought, and falling in love with the process of intellectual exploration all over again. A masterpiece."--Mayim Bialik, PhD (neuroscience, UCLA), actress known for her roles as Blossom Russo in "Blossom" and Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler in "The Big Bang Theory"

Eric Kaplan is a co-executive producer of (and writer for) the CBS sitcom The Big Bang Theory. Previously he wrote for The Late Show with David Letterman, Futurama, and Flight of the Concords. Kaplan graduated from Harvard and is currently completing his dissertation in philosophy at UC Berkeley.

Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle that Set Them Free (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

When the San Jose mine collapsed outside of Copiapo, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. The entire world watched what transpired above-ground during the grueling and protracted rescue, but the saga of the miners' experiences below the Earth's surface--and the lives that led them there--has never been heard until now.

For Deep Down Dark, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hector Tobar received exclusive access to the miners and their tales. These thirty-three men came to think of the mine, a cavern inflicting constant and thundering aural torment, as a kind of coffin, and as a church where they sought redemption through prayer. Even while still buried, they all agreed that if by some miracle any of them escaped alive, they would share their story only collectively. Hector Tobar was the person they chose to hear, and now to tell, that story.

The result is a masterwork of narrative journalism--a riveting, at times shocking, emotionally textured account of a singular human event. Deep Down Dark brings to haunting, tactile life the experience of being imprisoned inside a mountain of stone, the horror of being slowly consumed by hunger, and the spiritual and mystical elements that surrounded working in such a dangerous place. In its stirring final chapters, it captures the profound way in which the lives of everyone involved in the disaster were forever changed.

Praise for Deep Down Dark

"Hector Tobar takes us so far down into the story and lives of the Chilean miners that his reconstruction of a workplace disaster becomes a riveting meditation on universal human themes. Deep Down Dark is an extraordinary piece of work." --George Packer

"In this masterful dissection of the 2010's dramatic sixty-nine day ordeal by thirty-three trapped Chilean miners, Hector Tobar weaves a suspenseful narrative that moves back and forth between the waking nightmares of the buried men, and those of their families on the earth's surface. In Deep Down Dark, Hector Tobar takes us deftly to the very cliff-edge of human survival." --Jon Lee Anderson

"It's almost hard to believe that Hector Tobar wasn't himself one of the trapped Chilean miners, so vivid, immediate, terrifying, emotional, and convincing is his Homeric narration of this extraordinary incident. Deep Down Dark is a literary masterpiece of narrative journalism, surgical in its reconstruction, novelistic in its explorations of human personality and nuance. In a manner that feels spiritual, Tobar puts himself at the service of his story, and his fidelity to and unquenchable curiosity about every fact and detail generates unforgettable wonderment and awe." --Francisco Goldman

"A gripping narrative, taut to the point of explosion." --"Kirkus Reviews "(starred review)

Hector Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a novelist. He is the author of The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of the city of Los Angeles, where he lives with his wife and three children.

Perfidia (Knopf)

Please welcome back to Skylight one of L.A.'s most iconic crime writers, James Ellroy!

The Japanese have bombed Pearl Harbor. The United States teeters on the edge of war. The roundup of allegedly treasonous Japanese Americans is about to begin. And in L.A., a Japanese family is found dead. Murder or ritual suicide? The investigation will draw four people into a totally Ellroy-ian tangle: a brilliant Japanese American forensic chemist; an unsatisfiably adventurous young woman; one police officer based in fact (William H. "Whiskey Bill" Parker, later to become the groundbreaking chief of the LAPD), the other the product of Ellroy's inimitable imagination (Dudley Smith, arch villain of "The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, White Jazz)." As their lives intertwine, we are given a story of war and of consuming romance, a searing expose of the Japanese internment, and an astonishingly detailed homicide investigation. In "Perfidia," Ellroy delves more deeply than ever before into his characters' intellectual and emotional lives. But it has the full-strength, unbridled story-telling audacity that has marked all the acclaimed work of the "Demon Dog of American Crime Fiction."

Praise for Perfidia

"Perfidia is a brilliant, breakneck ride. Nobody except James Ellroy could pull this off. He doesn't merely write--he ignites and demolishes."
--Carl Hiaasen

"A return to the scene of Ellroy's greatest success and a triumphant return to form. . . . His character portrayals have never been more nuanced or--dare we say it--sympathetic. . . . A disturbing, unforgettable, and inflammatory vision of how the men in charge respond to the threat of war. It's an ugly picture, but just try looking away."
--"Booklist", starred review

"A sprawling, uncompromising epic of crime and depravity."
--"Publishers Weekly"

James Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. He is the author of the Underworld U.S.A. Trilogy-American Tabloid, The Cold Six Thousand, and Blood's a Rover-and the L. A. Quartet novels, The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L. A. Confidential, and White Jazz. He lives in Los Angeles.

Stray (Greenwillow Books)

A cross between The Handmaid's Tale and Wicked, with a dash of Grimm and Disney thrown in, Stray is part coming-of-age story, part fairy tale, part adventure, part sweet romance.

 

Princess Aislynn has long dreamed about attending her Introduction Ball, about dancing with the handsome suitors her adviser has chosen for her, about meeting her true love and starting her happily ever after.

 

When the night of the ball finally arrives and Nerine Academy is awash with roses and royalty, Aislynn wants nothing more than to dance the night away, dutifully following the Path that has been laid out for her. She does not intend to stray. But try as she might, Aislynn has never quite managed to control the magic that burns within her--magic brought on by wicked, terrible desires that threaten the Path she has vowed to take. After all, it is wrong to want what you do not need. Isn't it? 

 

Elissa Sussman received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and in a previous life managed animators and organized spreadsheets at some of the best animation studios in the world, including Nickelodeon, Disney, DreamWorks, and Sony Imageworks. You can find her name in the credits of The Croods, Hotel Transylvania, The Princess and the Frog, and Tangled. She lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend and their rescue dog, Basil. Stray is her first novel.

The Book With No Pictures (Dial Books for Young Readers)

We're delighted to present the Los Angeles launch event for The Book With No Pictures, the new children's book from actor and author B.J. Novak (One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories).

NOTE: As with all Skylight Books events, this reading is free and open to the public (first come, first served). But, because we're expecting a large crowd at this event, we'll be giving out numbered tickets to the signing line to keep things organized. To get a ticket to the signing line, you must purchase a copy ofThe Book With No Pictures here at Skylight Books. Signing line tickets will become available the day the book goes on sale: Tuesday, September 30, 2014. They will be available in-store, or you can order on our website and leave a note in the "Order Comments" field. We will also hold a ticket for you if you order and pay for a book over the phone.

Once you have your signing line ticket, these are the guidelines for the signing:

• For every copy of The Book With No Pictures purchased, B.J. Novak will sign one copy of One More Thing
• Only The Book With No Pictures will be personalized; copies of One More Thing will be signed only
• This signing is for books only; please leave other memorabilia at home
• We won't be able to accommodate posed photos, but you are welcome to take photos from the line as he signs (no flash, please)

Thank you for your cooperation!

B.J. Novak's The Book With No Pictures turns the turns the notion of the picture book on its head, by delivering a text-only story book for young children. You might think a book with no pictures seems boring and serious. Except . . . here’s how books work. Everything written on the page has to be said by the person reading it aloud. Even if the words say . . .

BLORK. Or BLUURF.

Even if the words are a preposterous song about eating ants for breakfast, or just a list of astonishingly goofy sounds like BLAGGITY BLAGGITY and GLIBBITY GLOBBITY.

Cleverly irreverent and irresistibly silly, The Book with No Pictures is one that kids will beg to hear again and again. (And parents will be happy to oblige.)

B.J. Novak is well known for his work on NBC’s Emmy Award-winning comedy series The Office as an writer, actor, director, and executive producer. He is also known for his work as a standup comedian and his performances in motion pictures such as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds and Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks. Novak’s collection of short stories One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories (Knopf) was published earlier this year to rave reviews. The New York Times Book Review called it “hugely pleasurable...droll and smart in spades, but often humane and vulnerable, too..." The Washington Post called Novak “a gifted observer of the human condition and a very funny writer capable of winning that rare thing: unselfconscious, insuppressible laughter.” He is a graduate of Harvard University with a degree in English and Spanish literature.