Events
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Start: 5:00 pm
--LATE BREAKING ADDITION!--
Poet and historian Tamam Kahn, one of the foremost authorities on the wives of Prophet Muhammad, joins us today to speak about her book, Untold: A History of the Wives of Prophet Muhammad (Monkfish), which demystifies the most influential women present at the dawn of Islam. The women include a merchant, the leader of an army, two Jewish war captives and a Coptic Christian diplomat. "In a sustained act of spirited research and imagination, Tamam Kahn brings Muhammad's wives and daughters out of the shadows and into the light. The women of Untold have at last found their perfect teller, in voices so gemlike and clear that one wants to chant them aloud." -Lesley Hazleton, author of After the Prophet.
Start: 7:00 pm
Co-presented with the WASHINGTON CENTER FOR THE BOOK AT THE SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY. From great white sharks, which she wrote about in her bestselling The Devil's Teeth to the big, 100-foot ocean waves she's faced in her newest book, The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks and Giants of the Ocean (Doubleday), Susan Casey has taken on a lot more dangerous adventure than she otherwise faces in her current day job as editor-in-chief of O, The Oprah Magazine. Just published, The Wave is making a big splash in book circles near and far. "The Wave is an amazing look at humble yet larger-than-life people who live by daring feats, honorable acts, and selfless denial—in short, these guys don't care if anyone is looking as they attempt what seems impossible: riding waves the size of ten-story skyscrapers. Casey was there in the middle of the action, and she writes with such precision about strange, wondrous things ... Terrifying, beautiful, her prose is shot through with the haunting half-life of a storm." - Doug Stanton. "Like the surfers and scientists she profiles, Casey lived and breathed giant waves for years. Combine this kind of insane passion for craft with an uncanny ability to describe the indescribable and whisk the reader off to unimaginably surreal settings and scenarios, and you have the rogue talent that is Susan Casey." - Mary Roach. Free admission is on a first-come, first serve basis. The Microsoft Auditorium at Seattle Public Central Library is located at 1000 Fourth Avenue (between Madison & Spring). $5 parking coupons for the Central Library garage are available on a limited basis for those attending. For more information, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600, The Seattle Public Library at (206) 386-4636, or see www.spl.org.
Start: 7:00 pm
Esteemed Columbia University historian Mae Ngai, whose first book (on illegal immigration of an earlier time) Impossible Subjects received the AHA Littleton-Griswold Prize and the OAH Frederick Jackson Turner Award for best first book on any topic in American history, focuses more on the Chinese American immigrant experience in her new book, The Lucky Ones: One Family and the Extraordinary Invention of Chinese America (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). "A thorough-going look at the historical record of early Chinese immigration to San Francisco unearths the heartening story of one rags-to-riches family. Ngai characterizes her work as history, situating the union of two young working people in San Francisco in 1875 within a larger frame of Chinese immigration, which had been encouraged by the California Gold Rush of the mid-19th century, attracting impoverished men, mostly from the Guangdong Province ... Ngai fashions a terrifically readable, compelling work about the little-known middle-class in the Chinese immigrant experience." - Publishers Weekly.
Start: 7:30 pm
Co-presented with the TOWN HALL FUTURE OF HEALTH series. What you say to a child in those first moments of pain or fear—after falling off a bike, having a bad dream, or an asthma attack—could make all the difference. In her book, Verbal First Aid: Help Kids Heal from Fear and Pain—And Come Out Strong (Berkley), Judith Simon Prager shares techniques taught to doctors, nurses, and first responders to promote healing and short-circuit traumatic memories, sometimes just by speaking a sentence or two. "Verbal First Aid is far more than a parenting guide. It is a profound prescription for nurturing our children and evolving civilization to the highest level possible!" - Bruce H. Lipton, Ph.D. $5 tickets are available at the door starting at 6:30 p.m. or in advance via www.brownpapertickets.com (1-800-838-3006). Town Hall Seattle is at 1119 Eighth Avenue (at Seneca). Preferred seating for Town Hall members. For more information on this evening, please call Elliott Bay at (206) 624-6600, Town Hall Seattle at (206) 652-4255, or see www.townhallseattle.org. The Future of Health series is sponsored by Bastyr University and PCC Natural Markets.
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