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Books By Colin Marshall | Thu Sep 27, 2007 | 6:00am

It’s All The Stuff of Thought
for Steven Pinker

Nobody can accuse cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, best known as the author of How the Mind Works, of lacking ambition. The Harvard professor of psychology is not only tireless in asking probing questions about language and human behavior; he also makes bestselling tomes out of the answers. Pinker’s recently released The Stuff of Thought investigates how what we say exposes the way we think. I caught up with Pinker over the phone to discuss words, ideas, and his upcoming visit to Santa Barbara.

Books By Sam Kornell | Thu Sep 27, 2007 | 6:00am

Naomi Klein Takes on Deregulation in The Shock Doctrine

When Hurricane Katrina swept into New Orleans in late August 2005, it destroyed much of the city’s infrastructure, including many of its public schools. Soon after, a network of conservative think tanks led by Milton Friedman, the founder of modern neo-liberal economics, pushed the Bush administration to impose a charter system in New Orleans. Charter schools-publicly funded schools run by private entities-are a politically polarizing issue in the United States, and Friedman saw in the still-reeling city a window.

Books By Ellen O'Connell | Thu Sep 20, 2007 | 6:00am

Author Diana Raab Digs into Family History

Closets have a tendency to accumulate artifacts that eventually become buried in time and dust. Sometimes these mementos of vacations, friendships, and family history are carefully organized; more often, they’re deposited in a haphazard pile whose layers represent the various periods of an unfolding life. As Santa Barbara resident Diana Raab points out in her new book, Regina’s Closet, a journal is a similarly stratified record of the eras it describes.

Books By Elena Gray-Blanc | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

2007 Fall Arts Preview – Books and Lectures

Mysteries and memoirs, science and social commentary, politics and family relationships are all on the reading list this fall in Santa Barbara. Authors and speakers appearing in town range from veterans and Iraq War journalists to comedians, historians, and conservation writers. The days may be getting shorter, but they’re packed with literary events.

Books By Ellen O'Connell | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

Hot Off the Press

Santa Barbara may be known worldwide for its sunshine, beaches, and wineries, but those with the inside scoop know it’s the artistic and intellectual environment that really makes our city such a treasure. Among our greatest cultural gems are the many talented writers who live and work here in paradise. For this edition of Hot Off the Press, we have gathered recently published books by a few of the authors who make Santa Barbara such a richly creative community. The Independent contacted each writer for an exclusive interview.

Books By Perie Longo | Thu Sep 13, 2007 | 6:00am

California Poet Laureate Al Young to Read at Book & Author Festival

On September 29, the Santa Barbara Book & Author Festival, now in its ninth year, will be honored with the presence of California Poet Laureate Al Young. The poet will present work from his new book to be released October 1, Something About the Blues: An Unlikely Collection of Poetry (Sourcebooks), and will also be presented with the Glenna Luschei Distinguished Poet Fellowship.

Books By Brett Leigh Dicks | Thu Aug 30, 2007 | 6:00am

The Archer Files Features the City’s Favorite Detective

When it comes to the settings of classic detective stories, Santa Barbara doesn’t instantly spring to mind as offering a suitable web of intrigue. Yet for Ross Macdonald, the goings on in this seaside city provided the inspiration for what would become one of America’s celebrated series of detective novels. Macdonald-actually a pseudonym employed by longtime Santa Barbara resident Kenneth Millar-lived here with his wife, writer Margaret Millar, between 1946 and 1983.

Books By Colin Marshall | Thu Aug 23, 2007 | 6:00am

High School Teacher Marian Musmecci’s Debut Novel

To most women, Leah Callaghan’s life appears ideal: a custom-built house, two precocious tots, and a fulfilling job guiding troubled adolescents, not to mention a firefighter husband. The jealousy ebbs when a revelation shakes this charmed existence-and Leah’s stoic perfectionism-to their foundations: a sealed letter from Leah’s long-dead grandmother, if opened, threatens to bend her seamless world beyond recognition. In Marian Musmecci’s Thin Places, domestic idyll intersects the often ethereal, sometimes frightening planes of Celtic legend.

Books By Bill Kienzel | Thu Aug 16, 2007 | 6:00am

Arcadia Publishing Releases Carpinteria

You’ve seen those T-shirts: “If you’re rich, you live in Santa Barbara; if you’re famous, you live in Montecito; if you’re lucky, you live in Carpinteria.” (If you’re humorless, and not from what the Chumash long ago called Mishopshno, you may even have found them annoying.)

Books By Sam Kornell | Thu Aug 09, 2007 | 6:00am

Journalist Matthew Rothschild Discusses His New Book

In his new book, You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression, journalist and Progressive magazine editor Matthew Rothschild recounts the case of Maher Arar. A Syrian-born Canadian computer engineer, Arar was detained in 2002 by FBI agents during a stopover at JKF airport in New York. Believing him a member of Al Qaeda, the FBI sent Arar to Syria, where he was kept in the basement of a prison-in a room not much larger than a coffin-and beaten and tortured routinely for 10 months and 10 days.

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