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Title Pages
Book Talk
MEET THE AUTHORS ... Palo Alto author Joan Bigwood will read from her first novel, “Coopted,� a book “about love, friendship and the transforming effect of life at a co-op preschool,� as part of the Meet the Authors series at Avenidas, 450 Bryant St., Palo Alto, on Tuesday, Feb. 16, at 2 p.m. For information, call 650-289-5400 or visit www.avenidas.org. Bigwood (aka Joanie King) will also appear at Books Inc., 855 El Camino Real (Town & Country), Palo Alto, on Friday, Feb. 19, at 7 p.m.
SILICON VALLEY READS ... Palo Alto City Library is participating in Silicon Valley Reads, where readers throughout Santa Clara County will be reading and discussing the same book — Michel Pollan’s “In Defense of Food: an Eater’s Manifesto� — during February. The book, which topped the New York Times bestseller list for six weeks in 2008, deals with what’s wrong with the American diet. The library is planning three free programs: showing of the film “The Botany of Desire� (Saturday, Feb. 13, 3 p.m., Palo Alto Art Center Auditorium, 1313 Newell Road); P and T Puppet Theatre performing “Goldielocks and the Three Teddybears,� with the bears expounding on good food choices (Saturday, Feb. 20, 3 p.m., Mitchell Park Community Center, 3800 Middlefield Road, Palo Alto); and John Jeavons discussing Grow Biointensive mini-farming (Friday, March 12, 7 p.m., Palo Alto Art Center Auditorium).
Abigail and John wor ldwide bic ycling vac ations
(continued from page 14)
As part of our celebration of 80
February 25th, 2010 A wine and hors d’oeuvres evening with Trek Travel
years in business Palo Alto Bicycles would like to invite you to our ďŹ rst in a year long series of events
Please be our guest for an evening of wonderful wines and food from around the world and an extraordinary presentation by Trek Travel. The evening’s festivities will culminate with a drawing for a FREE TREK TRAVEL Trip (Three days/Two nights) for Two to the Napa Wine Country Space is limited Reservations Required Sign up on our website www.paloaltobicycles.com or call 650-328-7411
171 University Ave, Palo Alto Page 16ĂŠUĂŠ iLÀÕ>ÀÞÊ£Ó]ÊÓä£äÊUĂŠ*>Â?ÂœĂŠ Â?ĂŒÂœĂŠ7iiÂŽÂ?Ăž
within the colonies, John Adams was galvanized. His law practice was directly affected, and his livelihood threatened. Gradually, as Gelles shows us, John was drawn into public service. More and more often, he left Abigail and their family, which grew to five children who survived to adulthood, alone. “Abigail didn’t do ‘poor me,’ � Gelles said. She had convictions of her own about the country’s need for independence and the importance of John’s role in bringing it about. Together, she and John wove a kind of family myth of John’s indispensability to the revolution. In the meantime, she raided his library, and taught herself from its books. They kept up a daily — sometimes twice daily — correspondence, in which each offers advice and counsel to the other, as well as love and complaints and news. As the war began, John grew even busier. He was elected delegate to the First Continental Congress, and to the Second. He rarely went home at all. Abigail was left to raise the children, provide the income, pay the bills, manage the farm and see to all the details those
LOCAL ANGLES ... Coming to Kepler’s in February are local authors: Jon Reider, “Admission Matters: What Students and Parents Need to Know About Getting into College� (second edition), the book that demystifies the college-application process (Wednesday, Feb. 24, 7:30 p.m.); and Eric Puchner, a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and current Stanford University lecturer, “Model Home: A Novel,� which takes a family from its charmed life in the 1980s to its rudely interrupted California dream played out in an abandoned real-estate development in the desert (Wednesday, March 3, 7:30 p.m.). AUTHOR, AUTHOR ... Upcoming author talks at Kepler’s include: Heather Brewer, “The Chronicles of Vladimir Rod: 11th Grade Burns� (Friday, Feb. 12, 7 p.m.); Steven Amsterdam, “Things We Didn’t See Coming� (Thursday, Feb. 18, 7:30 p.m.); Kelli Stanley, “City of Dragons: A San Francisco Mystery� (Saturday, Feb. 20, 2 p.m.); Zachary Mason, “The Lost Books of the Odyssey: A Novel� (Tuesday, Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m.); Adam Haslett, “Union Atlantic: A Novel� (Thursday, Feb. 25, 7:30 p.m.). At Books Inc., 301 Castro St., Mountain View, upcoming authors include Lisa See, “Shanghai Girls� (Tuesday, Feb. 23, 7:30 p.m.). N
Items for Book Talk may be sent to Associate Editor Carol Blitzer, Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto, CA 93202 or e-mailed to cblitzer@paweekly.com by the last Friday of the month.
responsibilities entailed. When she gave birth to a stillborn daughter, he did not return. When her mother died, and a good many others he knew, in a dysentery epidemic, he did not come. Abigail coped, and accepted her situation. They loved one another. They were committed patriots, not plaster saints. Their lives included extraordinary sorrows and extraordinary successes, which brought them across the ocean to the courts of the old world, and to the pinnacle of power, the presidency, in the new. They regretted their separations, but each time reunited with gratitude and lack of rancor. Edith Gelles, in clear, masterly prose, lets us see their lives. She gets out of the way of her characters, allowing them to tell their own stories wherever possible. The book is exciting. Abigail and John were those rare people who faced so much life that they themselves became fully alive. They are worthy subjects of such a fine biographer. To write her book, Gelles read their letters on microfilm over a period of 10 years and copied portions of them by hand. “They went into my hand, into my brain,� and finally, she said, “into my heart.� N