Writer and educator MARY CATHERINE BATESON is best known for the proposal that lives should be looked at as compositions, each one an artistic creation expressing individual responses to the unexpected. Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery (Steerforth, $27.00) can be read as a memoir of unfolding curiosity, for it brings together essays and occasional pieces, many previously unpublished, written in the course of an unconventional career.

Willing to Learn: Passages of Personal Discovery

DR. JOHN RIFKIN
Wednesday, March 2, 7:30 p.m.

Conventional wisdom views anger as red-hot yelling and screaming, a force to be feared and repressed. But psychotherapist JOHN RIFKIN views anger in a revolutionary way—as the natural energy created to heal one's emotional injuries. In The Healing Power of Anger (Paraview, $14.95), Rifkin explains how to identify dysfunctional uses of anger. Readers will come away with new insights into their emotions and new skills for using their anger in a healthy, functional manner.

The Healing Power of Anger

IAN BAKER
Thursday, March 3, 7:30 p.m.

Ancient Tibetan prophecies declare that the greatest of all hidden lands lies at the heart of the forbidding Tsangpo Gorge, deep in the Himalayas—a blank spot on the map of world exploration until world-class climber and Buddhist scholar IAN BAKER delved into the legends. The Heart of the World (Penguin, $27.95) is the captivating story of an extraordinary journey to one of the wildest places on earth, and a pilgrimage to the heart of the Tibetan Buddhist faith.

The Heart of the World

DAVID BODANIS
Friday, March 4, 7:30 p.m.

In his bestselling E=mc², DAVID BODANIS led us, with astonishing ease, through the world’s most famous equation. Now, in Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity (Crown, $24.00), he illuminates the wondrous yet invisible force that permeates our universe—and introduces us to the virtuoso scientists who plumbed its secrets. From the frigid waters of the Atlantic to the interior of the human body, Electric Universe is a mesmerizing journey of discovery.

Electric Universe: The Shocking True Story of Electricity

E=mc^{2 ($14.00)}

BRIAN HALWEIL
Monday, March 7, 7:30 p.m.

Eating locally is good for your health—but even better for the planet. Everyone everywhere depends increasingly on long-distance food, even though it consumes staggering amounts of fuel, generating greenhouse gases and compromising food security. In Eat Here (Norton, $13.95), BRIAN HALWEIL tells the story of the local-foods movement, a revolution that can help restore rural areas, enrich poor nations, and return fresh, delicious, and wholesome food to cities.

Eat Here

JIM WALLIS
Tuesday, March 8, 7:30 p.m.

While the Right in America has hijacked the language of faith to prop up its political agenda—an agenda not all people of faith support—the Left hasn't done much better, largely ignoring faith. In God's Politics (HarperCollins, $24.95), JIM WALLIS argues that America's separation of church and state does not require banishing moral and religious values from the public square. In fact, the very survival of America's social fabric depends on such values and vision to shape our politics.

God's Politics

NICK ARVIN
Wednesday, March 9, 7:30 p.m.

Capturing the reality of war with fidelity and power, The Articles of War (Doubleday, $17.00) brings to life the terrors of a young soldier in shocking, almost hallucinatory detail. With remorseless, hypnotic clarity, NICK ARVIN draws readers into the unimaginable fear, violence, and chaos of the war zone. His portrayal of the emotional and physical terrors of war makes for one of the most disturbing and unforgettable novels about the life of a soldier ever written.

The Articles of War

KIM MASTER & DAVID JOHNSTON
Thursday, March 10, 7:30 p.m.

Millions of North Americans renovate their homes every year, spending more money annually on renovation than on new home construction. And many want to remodel in ways that are as healthy and environmentally friendly as possible. Now they need look no further than this all-new, encyclopedic how-to of all you need to make a home green. Green Remodeling (New Society, $29.95) by KIM MASTER and DAVID JOHNSTON is the resource that so many have longed for.

Green Remodeling

LYNNE COX
Monday, March 14, 7:30 p.m.

LYNNE COX started swimming almost as soon as she could walk. By age sixteen, she had broken all records for swimming the English Channel. Her daring eventually led her to the Bering Strait, where she swam five miles in thirty-eight-degree water in just a swimsuit, cap, and goggles. In Swimming to Antarctica (Harcourt, $14.00), Lynne writes the same way she swims, with indefatigable spirit and joy, and shares the beauty of her time in the water with a poet's eye for detail.

Swimming to Antarctica

BOULDER BOOK STORE READING GROUP
Tuesday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.

For the March installment of our Boulder Book Store Reading Group, "Boulder Reads Together," we'll be discussing Lily Tuck's The News from Paraguay. In 1854, Francisco Solano -- the future dictator of Paraguay—begins his courtship of the beautiful Irish courtesan Ella Lynch. Ella follows Franco to Asunción and reigns there as his mistress. Isolated and estranged, she embraces her lover's dream—one that will devastate all of Paraguay. Read the book and join us for the discussion!

The News from Paraguay

DAVID BARON
Wednesday, March 16, 7:30 p.m.

When, in the late 1980s, residents of Boulder suddenly began to see mountain lions in their yards, it became clear that the cats had repopulated the land after decades of bounty hunting had driven them far from human settlement. In The Beast in the Garden (Norton, $14.95), a riveting environmental fable that recalls Peter Benchley's thriller Jaws, journalist DAVID BARON traces the history of the mountain lion and chronicles Boulder's tragic effort to coexist with its new neighbors.

The Beast in the Garden

BARBARA BASH
Thursday, March 17, 7:30 p.m.

In True Nature (Shambhala, $24.95), writer-illustrator BARBARA BASH brings a spiritual awareness to her surroundings as she records encounters with animals and plants during solitary walks around the countryside of upstate New York. In this four-color book—designed to look like a one-of-a-kind hand-bound journal—she creates the look and feel of a spontaneously composed diary chronicling her experiences and reflections during a series of solitary retreats.

True Nature

BOULDER MEDIA WOMEN LITERARY EXCHANGE
Sunday, March 20, 4-6 p.m.

The Boulder Media Center and Boulder Media Women are proud to present the 9th Literary Exchange, a free, open, non-political opportunity for writers to read their work and share their thoughts and opinions. This time the topic will be "There Goes the Bride: Women and Divorce," with EVELYN KAYE moderating a panel of speakers which will include BARBARA WILDER, JILL BRESLAU, CAROL GREVER, KATHLEEN FRANCO, and CAROL ANN WILSON.

JOAN GOULD
Tuesday, March 22, 7:30 p.m.

"What's your favorite fairy tale?" JOAN GOULD asks in the introduction to the brilliantly original Spinning Straw into Gold (Random House, $25.95), a book about the hidden meanings in fairy tales and what these stories reveal about a woman's life. Whether your answer is "Cinderella" (most women's choice), "Hansel and Gretel," or another tale, your favorite conveys something significant, perhaps not obvious to outsiders and possibly not entirely clear to you.

Spinning Straw into Gold

RICHARD FLECK
Thursday, March 24, 7:30 p.m.

RICHARD FLECK is a lifelong mountaineer and adventurer. In Breaking Through the Clouds (Pruett, $16.95), his beautiful collection of climbing essays, we meet him as a young man, first exploring Colorado with unrivaled exuberance. From those early days as a ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park, to hiking in the La Sal Range of Utah, to a familial adventure to Mt. Fuji, Richard demonstrates on unparalleled appreciation and insight into mountaineering.

LESLIE IRVINE
Tuesday, March 29, 7:30 p.m.

Nearly everyone who cares about them believes that dogs and cats have a sense of self that renders them unique. But traditional science and philosophy declare such notions about our pets to be irrational. LESLIE IRVINE's If You Tame Me (Temple, $19.95) challenges these entrenched views, making a persuasive case for the existence of a sense of self in companion animals and calling upon us to reconsider our obligations regarding the non-human creatures in our lives.

If You Tame Me

BUZZY JACKSON
Wednesday, March 30, 7:30 p.m.

An exciting lineage of women singers—originating with Ma Rainey and her protégée Bessie Smith, followed by Billie Holiday, Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, and Janis Joplin—shaped the blues, launching it as a powerful, expressive vehicle of emotional liberation. In A Bad Woman Feeling Good (Norton, $25.95), BUZZY JACKSON combines biography, an appreciation of music, and a sweeping view of American history to illuminate the pivotal role of blues women.

A Bad Woman Feeling Good

MARC IAN BARASCH
Thursday, March 31, 7:30 p.m.

MARC IAN BARASCH, dubbed "one of today's coolest grown-ups" by Interview magazine, sets out on a journey to the heart of compassion in Field Notes on the Compassionate Life (Rodale, $24.95). Drawing from influences as disparate as Buddhist monks and skeptical neuroscientists, Barasch creates a riveting argument that a simple shift in consciousness can have a tremendous, lasting impact on our psyches, our relationships, our health—and the very fate of the Earth.

Field Notes on the Compassionate Life

Use Your Book Sense to Make Shopping Easy

How can you tell an independent bookstore from a chain? Independents have Book Sense. When you travel, you can identify locally owned stores around the country by the Book Sense: Independent Bookstores for Independent Minds logo at their entrance. Support Boulder Book Store and bookstores like us while saving time on your holiday shopping by purchasing Book Sense gift certificates as presents. You can make it easy for your sister in Boston, your son in Albuquerque, and your best friend in San Francisco to buy books at their local Book Sense store. Call us, fax us, or order Book Sense gift certificates online.