Charles Faulhaber, who recently oversaw the $64 million renovation of the Bancroft Library, announced this week that he will retire from his post in June 2011. Faulhaber, 68, will have spent 42 years on the UC Berkeley campus by that time – the last 16 as director of the Bancroft. It’s time to move on, [...]
Posts under ‘Books’
Tonight in Berkeley (drum roll, please)
When this book trailer, purporting to be a video promoting Gary Shteyngart’s new novel, Super Sad True Love Story, hit the Internet, it immediately went viral. With cameos by actor James Franco, writers Mary Gaitskill, Jeffrey Eugenides, Edmund White and Jay McInerney, and bevy of beautiful blondes, the trailer is a hilarious send up of [...]
The Berkeley public library: a few facts
First library in Berkeley opened in 1893 with 264 books Rose Shattuck donated site of her old rose garden for library in 1905 John Galen Howard designed the original building built at Kittredge and Shattuck Andrew Carnegie donated $40,000 to build the structure In 1934, James Plachek designed building that is now called Central Placheck [...]
Berkeley is at the center of new novel
Allegra Goodman exploded onto the literary scene in 1996 with the publication of her first novel, The Family Markowitz, and followed up that success with Kaaterskill Falls in 1998. Both novels centered on Jewish families, and the latter was set in an Orthodox community in upstate New York. Goodman was born in Hawaii in 1967, [...]
Eagerly awaiting the Mark Twain tell-all
The entire world, it seems, is waiting for the unveiling of Mark Twain’s autobiography, which the Bancroft Library and UC Press will publish in November, 100 years after Twain’s death. Here PBS’s Spencer Michaels takes a tour of the vault holding the Twain papers.
New book: A look into the murder of Nina Reiser
Henry Lee’s byline is one of the most familiar in the San Francisco Chronicle. He’s covered crime in the East Bay for 16 years and is known to have the best police sources around. He writes so fast that his words are often online shortly after the report of a crime comes across the scanner. [...]
Berkeley celebrates James Joyce and Bloomsday
As every self-respecting Joyce lover knows, today is Bloomsday. What is that, you ask? Bloomsday is the day that much of the world celebrates the life of Irish writer James Joyce, whose major work, Ulysses, takes place in a single day in Dublin: June 16, 1904. The novel centers around Leopold Bloom, hence the term [...]
David Sedaris makes ‘em laugh at Berkeley Rep
In Berkeley, David Sedaris could walk on the stage and grab the audience by just saying “hello.” In fact, that’s what happened Monday night, the opening of Sedaris’ seven-day run at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. From the time Sedaris strode out on the stark stage, dressed in a button down shirt and tie and carrying [...]
Michael Lewis is Washington’s new darling
Well, savvy Berkeleyside readers already know that Michael Lewis’ new book, The Big Short, sold 162,000 copies in its first month. But now there’s news that the book has captured the attention of our country’s lawmakers. According to a story on the website Politico, The Big Short has been mentioned at least 15 times in [...]
Mark Twain’s true thoughts will soon be revealed
When Mark Twain died in 1910, he asked that his autobiographical writings not be released for 100 years. Twain, who had become one of America’s most celebrated humorists, apparently had a lot of nasty things to say about the world. He spent the last six months of his life writing those thoughts down. Some of [...]
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