Events

This fascinating treatise examines how Western ideals of democracy have evolved and emerged through the ages and across continents.  Craig S. Barnes shares the inspiring stories of a diverse group of men and women (whether they be leaders, poets, or peasants) who pioneered due process, habeas corpus, and the balance of powers.  Exploring the premise that "democracy is not a given in social evolution," Barnes contrasts the heroic figures of history to those in recent administrations who he argues have ignored the precious nature of our inheritance and have placed democracy at risk.  Democracy at the Crossroads: Princes, Peasants, Poets, and Presidents in the Struggle for (and against) the Rule of Law is a stirring reminder of the fragility of our rule of law and the need for vigilant protection of our hard-won liberties.

Wyman Ford is tapped for a secret expedition to Cambodia... to locate the source of strangely beautiful gemstones that do not appear to be of this world.

While he searches for the origin of these dangerous jewels, a young woman in Maine borrows her father’s boat to search the outer islands for the meteorite that lit up the sky in her small town.

Meanwhile, a scientist at the National Propulsion Facility discovers an inexplicable source of gamma rays in the outer Solar System. He is found decapitated, the data missing.

Ford soon realizes the jewel mine he seeks is much more than it seems… and it is strangely connected to the events happening on the other side of the world. High resolution images from NASA soon reveal an unnatural feature hidden in the depths of a crater on Mars—but will Ford have time to stop another meteroid from making IMPACT?

Preston is a Research Associate at the Laboratory of Anthropology in Santa Fe, a member of PEN New Mexico, and a board member of the School of American Research in Santa Fe.

Reviews: 

Join us the second Wednesday of every month for the Bookworks Book Club meeting at 7pm!  This month, we're reading the incredibly popular The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson, the first in a trilogy of mysteries.  You may have read the Vanity Fair piece about Larsson (maybe a little farfetched, but a great article nonetheless), or one of the numerous pieces about the controversy surrounding Larsson's will.

It should promise to be a great night - feel free to drop by, no RSVP necessary. 

An astonishing, hotly anticipated new novel from the great literary fantasist and creator of Thursday Next, Jasper Fforde. As long as anyone can remember, society has been ruled by a Colortocracy. From the underground feedpipes that keep the municipal park green to the healing hues viewed to cure illness to a social hierarchy based upon one's limited color perception, society is dominated by color. In this world, you are what you can see. Part satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, this is the new world from the creative and comic genius of Jasper Fforde.

A former Hollywood film exec, Jasper Fforde has switched from the silver screen to the page, earning a reputation as a "grown up J. K. Rowling" with his literary fantasies The Eyre Affair and Lost in a Good Book.

Join us at the Marble Brewery January 13 at 7pm.

If you think the Israel-Palestine conflict is too complex to understand, think again.  Palestine, Israel and the US Empire, written without academic jargon by the author and activist Richard Becker, provides a solid introduction to key events in the history underlying today's current events.  Palestine, Israel and the US Empire is unabashedly partisan toward the Palestinian cause, but the author's claims are well reasoned and documented.

Richard Becker is a noted writer and commentator on Middle East affairs.  He has been a featured speaker at political forums and conferences in the United States 

Becker is the Western Regional Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism).  ANSWER has organized mass protests of hundreds of thousands of people against the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine from mid-2002 to the present.  He is a regular contributor to Liberation newspaper and PSLweb.org.

According to archaeologist Stephen H. Lekson, much of what we think we know about the Southwest has been compressed into conventions and classifications and orthodoxies.  This book challenges and reconfigures these accepted notions by telling two parallel stories, one about the development, personalities, and institutions of Southwestern archaeology, and the other about interpretations of what actually happened in the ancient past.

Lekson is the Curator and Professor of Anthropology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

Events ongoing at the Coronado Center February 1-March 31, 2010

Bookworks is happy to provide books for sale and donations for distribution, as well as donating 25% of the profits from books sold at the event site.  See how you can donate!

View a printable list of events

Anne Frank: A History for Today

Elizabeth Gilbert returns to Albuquerque for the release of her new book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage.

$30 includes one admission and a copy of Committed

$35.50 includes two admissions and one copy of Committed

See information below in order to purchase online, and refer to our Order FAQ if having problems.

Our monthly knitting circle is every first Thursday at 10:30 am.  See Connie's blog for what we'll cover!

Curious about what your neighbors have been writing?  Join us for our monthly local author fair - it's been a great success, and we love showcasing local talent.  This month's lineup includes Nancy King, Ray Michael Baca, Robert Wasserman, Alfred Planco, and Pamela Christie.

February 7 at 3pm 

The Bookworks Book Club meets every second Wednesday at 7pm.  This month, they're reading Julie and Julia and My Life in France - come discuss these with us!

A lyrical and romantic story of love, fate and family

In the high desert of the American southwest during the summer of 1982, the Finley family is awaiting the arrival of the baby boy they're due to adopt. Oliver, just seven, is eager for another playmate to join him and his sister in their idyll of swimming pools, climbing trees, and playing tag. But one hot afternoon, Dr. Finley dies suddenly and everything changes. Mrs. Finley, newly widowed, decides she cannot proceed with the adoption alone.

After the first atomic bomb burst over the New Mexican desert in 1945 and as the Cold war developed, the American myth of the Wild West expanded to encompass atomic sheriffs saving the world for democracy.  Jon Hunner's brisk, engaging biography documents the emergence of the Atomic West and the life of J. Robert Oppenheimer, who came to feel at home in the American West.  Against the backdrop of the physicist's life twining with the region's history, Hunner explores the promise and peril of the atomic age.

If there was ever a 'ring-tailed roarer' of the backwoods of New Mexico, he was Quentin Hulse, who lived and worked most of his life in the Gila River country of southwestern New Mexico - but his reputation spread far and wide.  Hulse led a lion hunt, witnessed a point-blank shooting, and appeared on a tourist postcard and souvenir license plate in the 1950s.  With compassion, Nancy Coggeshall tells the compelling biography of a rural western rancher constantly adjusting to the inroads of modernity in his traditional way of life.  She brings this unique westerner, and New Mexican to life.

Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea and Stones into Schools, is donating $5,000 of his books to APS libraries!  Bookworks will present his gift after a screening of Pennies for Peace, a short film about building girls' schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We'll also offer 10% off any of Greg's books and audiobooks during this event.  Join us and help continue Greg's message: Books - not bombs.

Jon Turk has kayaked around Cape Horn and paddled across the Pacific Ocean to retrace the voyages of ancient people.  But, the strangest trip he ever took was the journey he made as a man of science into the realm of the spiritual.  In a remote Siberian village, Turk met an elderly Koryak shaman named Moolynaut, who mended his fractured pelvis.  Finding no rational explanation, Turk sought understanding in the frozen tundra.  Framed by high adventure across the vast and forbidding Siberian landscape, The Raven's Gift creates a vision of natural and spiritual realms interwoven with one man's awakening.

Billy the Kid—a.k.a. Henry McCarty, Henry Antrim, and William Bonney—was a horse thief, cattle rustler, charismatic rogue, and cold-blooded killer. A superb shot, the Kid gunned down four men single-handedly and five others with the help of cronies.