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Harvard Book Store is an independently run bookstore serving the greater Cambridge area. The bookstore is located in Harvard Square and has been family-owned since 1932. We are known for our extraordinary selection of new, used and remaindered books and for a history of innovation. In 2009, we introduced same-day "green delivery" and a book-making robot capable of printing and binding any of millions of titles in minutes. Find out more about us at www.harvard.com.

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Martha Nussbaum: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law

Fri, Mar 26, 2010

Distinguished professor of law and philosophy Martha Nussbaum discusses the status of gay rights in the context of constitutional law and her new book, *From Disgust to Humanity: Sexual Orientation and Constitutional Law*. In *From Disgust to Humanity*, Martha Nussbaum argues that disgust has long been among the fundamental motivations of those who are fighting for legal discrimination against lesbian and gay citizens. When confronted with same-sex acts and relationships, she writes, they experience "a deep aversion akin to that inspired by bodily wastes, slimy insects, and spoiled food--and then cite that very reaction to justify a range of legal restrictions, from sodomy laws to bans on same-sex marriage." Leon Kass, former head of President Bush's President's Council on Bioethics, even argues that this repugnance has an inherent "wisdom," steering us away from destructive choices. Nussbaum believes that the politics of disgust must be confronted directly, for it contradicts the basic principle of the equality of all citizens under the law.

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Nell Irvin Painter: The History of White People

Mon, Mar 29, 2010

Nell Irvin Painter, an American historian discusses her newest work, *The History of White People*. * In The History of White People*, Nell Irvin Painter tells perhaps the most important forgotten story in American history. Beginning at the roots of Western civilization, she traces the invention of the idea of a white race--often for economic, scientific, and political ends. She shows how the origins of American identity in the 18th century were intrinsically tied to the elevation of white skin into the embodiment of beauty, power, and intelligence; how the great American intellectuals--including Ralph Waldo Emerson--insisted that only Anglo Saxons were truly American; and how the definitions of who is "white" and who is "American" have evolved over time. *The History of White People closes* a gap in a literature that has long focused on the nonwhite, and it forcefully reminds us that the concept of "race" is a human invention whose meaning, importance, and reality have changed according to a long and rich history.

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Robert Whitaker: Rise of Mental Illness in America

Tue, Apr 13, 2010

Robert Whitaker, award-winning science and medicine journalist, discusses his new book, *Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America*. Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Every day, 1,100 adults and children are added to the government disability rolls because they have become newly disabled by mental illness, with this epidemic spreading most rapidly among our nation’s children. *Anatomy of an Epidemic* first investigates what is known today about the biological causes of mental disorders. Do psychiatric medications fix “chemical imbalances” in the brain, or do they, in fact, *create* them? Then comes the scientific query at the heart of this book: During the past 50 years, when investigators looked at how psychiatric drugs affected long-term outcomes, what did they find? Did they discover that the drugs help people stay well? Function better? Enjoy good physical health? Or did they find that these medications, for some paradoxical reason, *increase* the likelihood that people will become chronically ill, less able to function well, more prone to physical illness?

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Robin Black: If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This

Mon, May 3, 2010

Robin Black, award-winning short story writer, reads from her first full-length collection, *If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This*. Robin Black’s stories and essays have appeared in many publications and have been recognized as notable by the Pushcart Prizes, *The Best American Essays, and The Best American Non-required Reading*. In this, her first short story collection, she plumbs the depths of love, loss, and hope. A father struggles to forge an independent identity as his blind daughter prepares for college. A mother comes to terms with her adult daughter’s infidelity, even as she keeps a disturbing secret of her own. An artist mourns the end of a romance while painting a dying man’s portrait. An accident on a trip to Italy and an unexpected connection with a stranger cause a woman to question her lifelong assumptions about herself.

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Daniel Okrent: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition

Wed, May 12, 2010

Daniel Okrent, noted editor and historian author, discusses his new social history *Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition*. From its start, America has been awash in drink. The sailing vessel that brought John Winthrop to the shores of the New World in 1630 carried more beer than water. By the 1820s, liquor flowed so plentifully it was cheaper than tea. That Americans would ever agree to relinquish their booze was as improbable as it was astonishing. Yet Americans did, and *Last Call* is Daniel Okrent’s explanation of why they did it, what life under prohibition was like, and how such an unprecedented degree of government interference in the private lives of Americans changed the country forever. Okrent reveals how prohibition marked a confluence of diverse forces: the growing political power of the women’s suffrage movement, which allied itself with the antiliquor campaign; the fear of small-town, native-stock Protestants that they were losing control of their country to the immigrants of the large cities; the anti-German sentiment stoked by World War I; and a variety of other unlikely factors, ranging from the rise of the automobile to the advent of the income tax. Through it all, Americans kept drinking, going to remarkably creative lengths to smuggle, sell, conceal, and convivially (and sometimes fatally) imbibe their favorite intoxicants.

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Norris Church Mailer: A Ticket to the Circus

Thu, May 13, 2010

Norris Church Mailer, novelist and Norman Mailer's muse, discusses her new memoir, *A Ticket to the Circus*. Growing up a strict Free Will Baptist in the south of the 1950s, Norris Church, christened Barbara Jean Davis, was crowned "Little Miss Little Rock" at the age of three and always knew that life had more to offer her than the comforts of small-town Arkansas. But she could never have guessed that in her early 20's she would date future president Bill Clinton (and predict his national victory even after he lost his first run for Congress), or that the following year she would meet Norman Mailer, who was passing through town giving a lecture at the local college. They fell in love in one night--and their marriage lasted 33 years. Despite her enduring love for the man, Norris found life with the writer full of challenges--from carving out her own niche in the wake of five ex-wives and numerous former girlfriends, to easing her way into the hearts of her seven stepchildren, to negotiating the ferocious world of Mailer's fame, friends, and literary life. The couple's New York parties were legendary, and their social circle included such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, Jacqueline Kennedy, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, and Imelda Marcos. Their decades-long obsession with each other, as seen in the intimate letters that Norris reveals here for the first time, was not without tests and infidelities; theirs was a marriage full of friendship, betrayal, doubts, understanding, and deep, complicated, lifelong passion.

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Saturday Is for Funerals: AIDS in Botswana

Tue, May 18, 2010

Unity Dow, human rights activist and judge, and Max Essex, Harvard University's Lasker Professor of Health Sciences, discuss the AIDS crisis in Botswana and their new book, *Saturday Is for Funerals*. In the year 2000, the World Health Organization estimated that 85 percent of the 15-year-olds in Botswana would eventually die of AIDS. In *Saturday Is for Funerals* we learn why that won't happen. Unity Dow and Max Essex tell the true story of lives ravaged by AIDS--of orphans, bereaved parents, and widows; of families who devote most Saturdays to the burial of relatives and friends. We witness the actions of community leaders, medical professionals, research scientists, and the educators of all types to see how an unprecedented epidemic of death and destruction is being stopped in its tracks. This book describes how a country responded in a time of crisis. In the true-life stories of loss and quiet heroism, activism and scientific initiatives, we learn of new techniques that dramatically reduce rates of transmission from the mother to child, new therapies that can save lives of many infected with AIDS, and intricate knowledge about the spread of HIV, as well as issues of confidentiality, distributive justice, and human rights. The experiences of Botswana offer practical lessons along with the critical element of hope.

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Stephen Burt: Art of the Sonnet

Fri, May 21, 2010

Stephen Burt, Harvard professor of English, looks at one of the English language’s most beloved art forms and his new book, *The Art of the Sonnet.* Few poetic forms have found more uses than the sonnet in English, and none is now more recognizable. It is one of the longest-lived of verse forms, and one of the briefest. A mere 14 lines, fashioned by intricate rhymes, it is, as Dante Gabriel Rossetti called it, "a moment’s monument." From the Renaissance to the present, the sonnet has given poets a superb vehicle for private contemplation, introspection, and the expression of passionate feelings and thoughts. *The Art of the Sonnet * collects 100 exemplary sonnets of the English language (and a few sonnets in translation), representing highlights in the history of the sonnet, accompanied by short commentaries on each of the poems. The commentaries by Stephen Burt and his coauthor David Mikics offer new perspectives and insights, and, taken together, demonstrate the enduring as well as changing nature of the sonnet. The authors serve as guides to some of the most-celebrated sonnets in English as well as less-well-known gems by 19th and 20th century poets. Also included is a general introductory essay, in which the authors examine the sonnet form and its long and fascinating history, from its origin in medieval Sicily to its English appropriation in the sixteenth century to sonnet writing today in the US, the UK, and other English-speaking parts of the world.

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Nassim Nicholas Taleb: Impact of the Highly Improbable

Wed, May 19, 2010

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, renowned expert on risk and randomness, discusses *The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable*. This bestselling book is now out in paperback with a new essay, "On Robustness and Fragility." A black swan is a highly improbable event with three principal characteristics: It is unpredictable; it carries a massive impact; and, after the fact, we concoct an explanation that makes it appear less random, and more predictable, than it was. The astonishing success of Google was a black swan; so was 9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb, black swans underlie almost everything about our world, from the rise of religions to events in our own personal lives. Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of black swans until after they occur? Part of the answer, according to Taleb, is that humans are hardwired to learn specifics when they should be focused on generalities. We concentrate on things we already know and time and time again fail to take into consideration what we don’t know. We are, therefore, unable to truly estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the impulse to simplify, narrate, and categorize, and not open enough to rewarding those who can imagine the “impossible.” This lecture contains strong language.

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Walter Mosley Reads Known to Evil

Wed, Mar 24, 2010

Walter Mosley reads from his new installment about private investigator Leonid McGill, *Known to Evil*. Leonid McGill--the protagonist introduced in *The Long Fall*--is still fighting to stick to his reformed ways while the world around him pulls him in every other direction. He has split up with his girlfriend, Aura, because his new self won't let him leave his wife--but then Aura's new boyfriend starts angling to get Leonid kicked out of his prime, top-of-the -skyscraper office space. Meanwhile, one of his sons seems to have found true love--but the girl has a shady past that is all of a sudden threatening the whole McGill family--and his other son, the charming rogue Twilliam, is doing nothing but enabling the crisis. Most ominously of all, Alfonse Rinaldo, the mysterious power-behind-the-throne at City Hall, the fixer who seems to control everything that happens in New York City, has a problem that even he can't fix--and he's come to Leonid for help. It seems a young woman has disappeared, leaving murder in her wake, and it means everything to Rinaldo to track her down. But he won't tell McGill his motives, which doesn't quite square with the new company policy--but turning down Rinaldo is almost impossible to contemplate.

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