At summer’s start, unicorns arrive to Kepler's Literary Foundation! One of fantasy’s most lauded authors, Peter S. Beagle of The Last Unicorn, visits Kepler’s Books in June for a celebration of his lifetime achievements.

Beagle’s many beloved works include Tamsin, Summerlong, The Overneath, and more, alongside edited collections like The Urban Fantasy Anthology and The Secret History of Fantasy. The acclaimed author's effortless fantasy writing first entered print with the novel A Fine & Private Place, when he was just nineteen years old. In a discussion around his latest edited collection, The Unicorn Anthology, Beagle will sign books and share about his career in the five decades since The Last Unicorn was published.

This writer’s words have graced print, stage, and screen in a countless array of imagined worlds, from Middle Earth to outer space, from Hagsgate to a unicorn-laden Calabria. Endlessly imaginative, Beagle weaves unexpected magic into literary landscapes which most need hope. Beagle's latest published anthology honors a recurring figure of optimism from over half a century of his writing: unicorns at their finest.

Joining in conversation is local science fiction treasure and Kepler's favorite, Meg Elison, author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, which won the Philip K. Dick award and multiple book-of-the-year awards in 2016. Her final novel in that Road To Nowhere trilogy, The Book of Flora, published on April 23rd. Elison will stay to sign books after the discussion concludes.

Calling all magical creatures: come celebrate this once-in-a-generation talent, as Peter S. Beagle offers a lifetime's worth of unicorn expertise.

Photo of Meg Elison by Debbie Reynolds at Libre Imagery.

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." -Muriel Rukeyser

Reading starts at 7:30 pm.
Light refreshments and conversation at 7:00 pm.

Join us for our quarterly reading series, Story is the Thing, where stunning, emerging voices can be heard alongside works from contemporary local masters.

Reading starts at 7:30 pm. Light refreshments and conversation at 7:00 pm.

Kate Folk
Kate Folk's writing has appeared most recently in McSweeney's Quarterly, Zyzzyva, The New York Times Magazine, Prairie Schooner, and One Story. She's received support from the MacDowell Colony, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Headlands Center for the Arts, and was recently named a 2019-2021 Stegner Fellow in fiction. She recently completed a novel about artificial limbs and emotional unavailability.

Julie Lythcott-Haims

Julie Lythcott-Haims roots for humans. Humans need agency in order to make their way forward; Julie is deeply interested in what impedes us. She is the New York Times bestselling author of How to Raise an Adult, an anti-helicopter parenting manifesto which gave rise to one of the top TED Talks of 2016, and now has over 4 million views. Her second book is the critically-acclaimed prose poetry memoir Real American, which illustrates her experience with racism and her journey toward self-acceptance. A third book on how to be an adult, for young adults, is forthcoming. She is a former corporate lawyer and Stanford dean, and she holds a BA from Stanford, a JD from Harvard, and an MFA in Writing from California College of the Arts. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her partner of thirty years, their teenagers, and her mother.

Jaya Padmanabhan

Jaya Padmanabhan is a journalist, essayist and fiction writer. She writes an immigration column for the San Francisco Examiner and contributes frequently to India Currents, where she was previously the editor. Additionally her work can be found in The Bold Italic, The New Fillmore, and in many ethnic/community publications. Jaya has consistently won awards for her essays: SF Press Club Awards 2014 to 2108. She is the author of “Transactions of Belonging,” a collection of short stories published in 2014. She is a member of the SF Writers’ Grotto.

Ari Rosenschein
Ari Rosenschein is a Seattle-based writer whose essays and fiction appear in Entropy, Noisey, Drunk Monkeys, P.S. I Love You, Observer, The Big Takeover, The Bookends Review, and elsewhere. He holds an MFA in creative writing from Antioch Los Angeles. A lifelong musician, Ari currently records and performs with his bands The Royal Oui and STAHV. He lives with his wife and dog and enjoys the woods, the rain, and the coffee of his chosen region.

Michael Shewmaker

Michael Shewmaker is the author of Penumbra (Ohio UP, 2017), which won the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize. His poems recently appeared in Best American Poetry, Missouri Review, Oxford American, Virginia Quarterly Review, Yale Review, and elsewhere. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, he is a Jones Lecturer in poetry at Stanford University.

Sarah Stone

Sarah Stone is the author of the novels Hungry Ghost Theater and The True Sources of the Nile and coauthor, with her spouse Ron Nyren, of Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Scoundrel Time, The Millions, Ploughshares, StoryQuarterly, The Believer, and The Writer’s Chronicle, among other places. She’s written for and taught on Korean television, reported on human rights in Burundi, and looked after orphan chimpanzees at the Jane Goodall Institute. She teaches creative writing for Stanford Continuing Studies and in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College. www.sarahstoneauthor.com.

The “NRA’s Worst Nightmare” is an army of moms led by former stay-at-home mother of five Shannon Watts from Indiana, who ignited a grassroots advocacy movement against gun violence which now touches every single one of the 50 states.

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America began as Watt’s project after the tragic news of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting broke. With her youngest in elementary, Watts felt compelled to act, but quickly realized that the epidemic of gun violence which wrought tragedy on so many families was primarily being legislated by large groups of men. Looking for the voice of other women protecting their families, she found nothing—so she started something profound.

Can 80 million moms make a difference? From blocking legislative hallways with strollers and electing gun-sense candidates, to getting “open-carry” out of Starbucks and running for office themselves, the large-scale impact of Moms Demand Action suggests that they can.

In a comprehensive This is Now conversation with journalist Angie Coiro for the new book Fight Like a Mother, Watts shares exactly how to have that kind of impact for our future, even if you have no previous experience advocating for a cause. Watts’ story of taking back public policy from the gun lobby is one that began with sudden initiation and continues to yield powerful change. We are all just one good reason away from fighting for what we believe in.

Watts had five.

What are your reasons?

Elderhood, old age. Many of us can expect to live more years as “elders” than in either childhood or adulthood, a span of up to 40 years, yet that era of our lives has long been treated as more a symptom and burden—elderhood outright ignored or demonized.

In an extraordinary new title already praised by readers like Mary Pipher and Abraham Verghese, Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson offers an honest and full-hearted re-examination of the later decades, with all of their joys and frustrations. Drawn in part from her medical practice and expertise, in part from personal experience, history and popular culture, Elderhood exalts the worth of life’s third stage, inviting readers into a new relationship with the so-called “twilight” years of life. What does the future hold?

Hopefully, a ripe old age.

In discussion with Angie Coiro for This Is Now, Louise Aronson shows us the possibilities of elderhood.

Can you teach a police officer better empathy? A doctor, a politician? From a neuroscientist’s perspective, Doctor Jamil Zaki tackles the power of empathy in the mind and all around us. In conversation with award-winning journalist Angie Coiro for This Is Now, Zaki speaks out as a passionate researcher studying this neurochemical gold, kindness, just as the national supply looks scarce.

In the literal processes of the brain, we see less empathetic responses now than ever previous. However, The War For Kindness reassures us that empathy isn’t a neurologically fixed trait, but a specialized muscle that can be grown by practices like compassionate meditation. Nurses who consciously grow empathy can prevent burnout over the long-term. Former neo-Nazis can become community leaders, and kindness itself can be contagious.

Empathy may start in the mind, but the golden rule can nurture global change. Join this incredible researcher from the Stanford Social Science Laboratory for an uplifting, effective re-imagining of our social interactions— where our most effective weapon may be kindness after all.

Photo of Jamil Zaki by Sarah Deragon.

An international bestseller beloved by men and women worldwide, Graeme Simsion’s The Rosie Project will delight your soul.

Don Tillman is a quirky yet brilliant genetics professor with some social limitations. One day, Don boldly decides to seek a wife by undertaking the very scientific, structured, and goal-oriented “Wife Project.”

While seeking his perfect mate—ideally an equally structured, goal-oriented nonsmoker, who never arrives late— Don runs headfirst into the wily and unpredictable Rosie. The love story that unfolds offers so much more than your average romcom.

The Rosie trilogy, in its portrayal of a relationship between an Asperger’s-identified man and his whirlwind partner, will have you laughing, crying, and thinking. “Read-out-loud” funny by page two (Publisher’s Weekly), these books are the perfect summer indulgence. Now’s your chance to fall in love with the series all over again! Published on May 28th , the triumphant final saga in Don and Rosie’s tale will explore the parenting quandary they undergo as their son, who takes after his dad, struggles to adapt socially in school. Readable as a standalone, this new book has been reviewed as the charming and pitch-perfect conclusion to a phenomenal trilogy.

In a rare visit from Australia, author Graeme Simsion visits Kepler’s on June 3rd for the release of The Rosie Result!

Purchase tickets to reserve your copy of the new book early, hear Simsion in person, and get your Rosie series signed just in time for summer.

“For more and more of us, home has really less to do with a piece of soil, than you could say, with a piece of soul.” - Pico Iyer

As a self-described multinational soul on a multinational globe, Iyer is one of the finest travel writers of far-flung places. In his latest, Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells, he embraces the impermanence of life. Iyer uses the season of autumn to deftly illustrate “how to hold on to the things we love even though we know that we and they are dying.”

Iyer leads us through the year following his father-in-law's death, introducing us to the people who populate his days: his ailing mother-in-law, who often forgets that her husband has died; his absent brother-in-law, who severed ties with his family years ago but to whom Hiroko still writes letters; and the men and women in his ping-pong club, who, many years his senior, traverse their autumn years in different ways.

This very special evening on May 17th will move you to take nothing for granted and view death as an affirmation of life.

As a Bay Area parent, you have first-hand experience just how obsessed our society is with early achievement, whether that means getting into Ivy League colleges, creating the next big startup, or becoming millionaires by 30.

But Rich Karlgaard, publisher of Forbes magazine, celebrates the value of the late bloomer, which he himself was until later in life. And he’s found that most of us take awhile to find our way.

While we all want our children to succeed, Karlgaard has written a must-read for parents and business executives: it’s the insight that comes with age and experience that leads to genuine achievement, and in Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement we can find the roadmap to long-term accomplishment and happiness.

Karlgaard will be in conversation with Menlo Park parent Robin Hindery Enan. Hindery Enan has been a Senior Editor at Gentry Magazine since 2011, in addition to working as a freelance writer and mom-blogger. She received her master's from Columbia Journalism School and spent the early part of her career as a political reporter for The Associated Press.

Join us on May 14th for an evening on the overlooked and underestimated with a writer whose inspiring anecdotes, well-researched science, and own personal journey are lauded by Adam Grant, Daniel Pink, Roger McNamee, Dave Evans, Arianna Huffington, John Ortberg and more.

Thirty years ago, Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he’s broadening that warning: the entire human game has begun to play itself out.

Join us for an event with one of America’s most outspoken climate activists. Since authoring his landmark 1989 book on climate change, The End of Nature, McKibben’s work continues to provoke authority. In 2007, Deep Economy predicted the "shop local” movement while criticizing the too-rapid growth of multi-national corporations as they bleached away main streets across America. He founded Step It Up, 350.org, was outspoken against the building of the Keystone XL Pipeline, and offered a frequent voice of dissent in the 2016 election.

In his new book, Falter, McKibben looks beyond the threat of climate change — to artificial technology, robotics, and a rampant onslaught of new technologies, threatening the variety of human experience. At the core of McKibben’s most recent work is an essential question: What do we want our future to be?

Photo credit: Nancie Battaglia.

Lori Gottlieb is the bestselling author, therapist and speaker behind the Dear Therapist advice column at The Atlantic. In Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, Gottlieb offers a bird’s eye-view into the therapist’s office in a book that is part clinician’s journal, part memoir, part reckoning with the experience of living. Literary with a spot of self-help, Kirkus calls Gottlieb’s latest “an irresistibly addictive tour of the human condition,” while Susan Cain goes even further: “Wise, warm, smart, and funny… if you have even an ounce of interest in the conundrum of being human, you must read this book.”

With a degree from Stanford, a successful writing career, kids, and years of experience in private practice under her belt, Gottlieb most prizes her credentials as “a card-carrying member of the human race.” She advocates healing and a healthy life through the revision of our own well-worn personal stories.

Join this brilliant, down-to-earth and talented human being as she visits Kepler’s for a conversation with conversation with Victor Yalom, psychologist and founder of Psychotherapy.net. ***Note, Victor’s father Irvin Yalom was originally scheduled, but unfortunately is unable to attend. We are so pleased to have Victor in his stead!

Together, these two great minds will explore Gottlieb’s book, therapeutic practice, and what it means to grow in connection with others.

After Pulitzer Prize-winner Dave Barry turned 70, did he look to his friends for support? Did he find solace in the family around him?

Not a chance.

In his new book, Lessons from Lucy, the laugh-out-loud columnist that the New York Times once called “the funniest man in America,” looked to his dog Lucy for companionship and a model for how to grow old with grace.

From his beloved dog, Dave learns to live in the present, let go of daily grievances, and feel good in his own skin. Told with Dave’s signature humor and profound ability to find deep meaning in the everyday, Lessons from Lucy illuminates the great joys of passing 40 and still feeling great.

Share an evening with the writer who never fails to leave us looking at the world differently while making us laugh.

NOTE: This event takes place at the Aragon High School Theater in San Mateo. Doors open at 6:30pm. Additional books will be available for sale at the event.

Tickets to Kepler’s Literary Foundation events are not tax-deductible. Tax deductible donations can be made online at keplers.org/donate

Update: Joining us during the Will Call hour to share more about their rescue shelter program, Pets In Need will be on-hand in the lobby to talk about their lifesaving work with shelter animals who have additional needs before adoption. Stop by the Pets in Need to learn more, and visit them at www.PetsInNeed.org.  

SORRY - THIS EVENT IS SOLD OUT!

Much beloved, utterly genius contributors to The New Yorker for decades, the inimitable cartoonist Roz Chast and wry humorist Patricia Marx have now joined forces to gently roast our very favorite human beings: moms.

Join us as we welcome both creators for a celebration of motherhood with their new collection, Why Don’t You Write My Eulogy Now So I Can Correct It?

As a writer, Marx has always had an eye for small, domestic absurdities and almost minuscule sociological rebellions—and, for years, she has been noting her own mother’s most eccentric one-liners, with great glee. She compiles them all here! Cartoonist Roz Chast, whose own mother describes her artistic work as “a conspiracy of inanimate objects,” highlights the peculiarity of each one-liner with her own wickedly sly sense of visual humor and deep love for how unique a parent’s outlook can truly be. In-conversation to share with us the best of their work, join these two remarkable women just in time to get that book personalized for Mother’s Day. Don’t miss this chance to chance to celebrate the humor, grace, and sheer oddity of moms!

ROZ CHAST has been a contributor to The New Yorker since 1978, and is the only cartoonist we’ve heard of with multiple honorary doctorates, in addition to several books and a boatload of awards under her belt. In 2012, she was awarded the NYC Literary Honor in Humor. She has a knack for revealing the entire feeling of a situation in just one sentence, as evidenced by her critically acclaimed 2014 memoir, Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

PATRICIA MARX was the first woman humorist ever elected to The Harvard Lampoon, a writer for Saturday Night Live and Rugrats, and a contributor of creative, unusual ephemera to The New Yorker since 1989. She has authored multiple books, taught at university, given a TEDxTalk, won some awards, and only occasionally feared for her own wits. She was the recipient of the 2015 Guggenheim Fellowship.

A star at the heart of our literary constellations for decades, from the bestselling A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius to McSweeney’s, Dave Eggers returns to Kepler’s for the release of his latest fiction work, The Parade.

Eggers is a staunch supporter of independent bookstores, the founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia in San Francisco, and a writer who consistently champions humanist ideals through empathetic literature. His characters-- deeply realized, flawed, and driven by extremes-- offer readers moral complexity alongside careful critique into modernity. Distinct, meaningful, enjoyable... Eggers is, in short, the perfect read, noted for his postmodern and deeply sincere approach.

Join us on April 3rd to hear Dave Eggers speak about a powerful piece of new writing.

The Parade has already garnered positive reviews for its tight, beautiful prose: a spare portrait of two very different men attempting to lay a roadway in an unnamed country long rent by civil war, it uses specific characters in ambiguous yet familiar settings to highlight present-day concerns. For this style, Kirkus describes Eggers as “the only living American writer for whom the term Hemingway-esque meaningfully applies.”

How often do we have the opportunity to hear the living embodiment of future western canon, in person?

At least once, on April 3rd at Kepler’s Books.

UPDATE: Joining Dave Eggers in conversation will be Pushcart-Prize winning poet Sally Wen Mao.

HanaHaus Community Workspace
456 University Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94031

A comprehensive cultural portrait that Kirkus recommends for fans of John Markoff and Ari Levy, Clive Thompson offers smart, funny, necessary reporting with Coders: The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World. This tech journalist uncovers lesser-known origin stories within the field and outlines its future directions, all while casting incisive light on ethical questions of coding (what we code for, more humans do). Thompson further explores the shifting role of the profession into a blue-collar arena where labor and class distinctions impact tech-innovations and outcomes. Design-thinking, new economic engines, Kentucky coal miners being trained to code and teen feminist hacktivist sleepovers—Thompson covers it all.

Joining Thompson in conversation to explore the shifting future of coding is Wired veteran and Atlantic staff writer Alexis Madrigal.

Do you fully know the profession that fuels Silicon Valley? Maybe we know it less than we think—Thompson and Madrigal weigh whether it could be the overlooked driving force of seismic social change.

This special event will be hosted at HanaHaus, the dynamic community coworking space in downtown Palo Alto. Seating opens at 7:00 pm.

Photo credit: Tom Igoe.

We are thrilled to welcome New York Times bestselling, award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson for her new book, SHOUT, a memoir and call to action for the #MeToo era.

Laurie Halse Anderson is known for the unflinching way she writes about, and advocates for, survivors of sexual assault. In 1999, her groundbreaking, award-winning novel Speak opened the door for a national dialogue about rape culture and consent. Now, twenty years later, she reveals her personal history as a rape survivor in a searing new poetic memoir, SHOUT.

In free verse, Anderson shares reflections, rants, and calls to action woven between deeply personal stories from her life that she’s never written about before. Searing and soul-searching, devastating and triumphant, Shout is a denouncement of our society’s failures and a love letter to all the people with the courage to say #MeToo and #TimesUp, whether aloud, online, or only in their own hearts.

PLEASE NOTE: This event is for mature audiences only. Children under 13 will not be admitted.

★ “A captivating, powerful read about clawing your way out of trauma, reclaiming your body, and undoing lifetimes of lessons in order to use your voice as the weapon it is. Fervent and deafening.”—Booklist, starred review

Laurie Halse Anderson is a New York Times bestselling author whose writing spans young readers, teens, and new adults. Combined, her books have sold more than 8 million copies. She has been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award three times. Two of her books, Speak and Chains, were National Book Award finalists, and Chains was short-listed for the Carnegie Medal in the UK. Laurie was selected by the American Library Association for the 2009 Margaret A. Edwards Award and has been honored for her battles for intellectual freedom by the National Coalition Against Censorship and the National Council of Teachers of English. In addition to combating censorship, Laurie regularly speaks about the need for diversity in publishing and is a member of RAINN’s National Leadership Council.

General admission tickets include access only to the speaking portion of the event. Purchase of Shout is mandatory for entry to the signing line.

Laurie will be in conversation with Jandy Nelson, whose critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling second novel, I’ll Give You the Sun, received the prestigious Printz Award and is a Stonewall Honor Book. Both Sun and her debut novel, The Sky Is Everywhere, was on multiple Best Books of the Year lists, are YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults picks and appeared on multiple best-of-the-year lists, have earned many starred reviews, and continue to enjoy international success. 

For science-loving, world-exploring young adventurers...

National Geographic presents Explorer Academy with the help of actual National Geographic Explorer Erika Bergman — scientist, submersible pilot, and steamship engineer!

Erika will share her adventures and open up a world of wonder with this new book series that J.J. Abrams, director and screenwriter of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and Lost, calls "A fun, exciting, and action-packed ride that kids will love." and LeVar Burton, host of Reading Rainbow says "is sure to awaken readers' inner adventurer and curiosity about the world around them!

You will get the chance to meet Bergman-- a virtual reality engineer and an enthusiastic ocean explorer who received a National Geographic grant in 2013 for her "Classrooms Under the Sea" expedition to live stream video from submersibles. Erika will join author Trudi Trueit, who has written more than 100 books for young readers. Trudi has been a TV news reporter and weather forecaster, but knew her calling was in writing.

Come find out about life as an explorer and about National Geographic’s buzzworthy newest series based on the research and adventures of National Geographic’s leading scientists, photographers and journalists, focusing on geography, history, space, STEM, exploration and world cultures. Steeped in fact and real-world investigation, this series embodies National Geographic’s explorers and how they interact with the world.

Join the National Geographic adventure!

Cages, walls, asylum and shattered dignity. What is the state of human rights at our southern border, especially for young migrants? Two powerful local investigators with decades of experience bring this conversation o Kepler’s. 

Author Lauren Markham and Senior Human Rights Researcher Clara Long will discuss rights and immigration at our Southern border. In partnership with Human Rights Watch, this conversation will be moderated by KALW’s Hana Baba of CrossCurrents.

Markham’s startlingly intimate portrait of two migrant El Salvadorian brothers, who fled to Oakland by coyote to escape gang violence at home, has been broadly praised. Rebecca Solnit calls The Far Away Brothers a “movingly written” meditation on “the caprices and brutalities of immigration policy.” It is a story of young people in our own community whose only support is each other, whose lives include the quotidian concerns of young men with teenage crushes against the backdrop of antagonistic immigration law and crushing coyote debt.

"It has some of the pleasures of a novel— but all the force of bitter truth.”

Long, a graduate of both Harvard and Stanford, contextualizes Markham’s close-lens narrative portrait with her work investigating detainee deaths, mistreatment of asylum seekers, and more at our southern border.

How do we take notice, and shape this period of international change? That story begins with firsthand accounts from those who are engaged in human rights issues on the frontlines. The next chapter will be written by those who take the time to listen.

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Produced in partnership with Human Rights Watch, the Silicon Valley Committee. HRW defends the rights of people worldwide, scrupulously investigating abuses and pressuring those with power in order to secure justice. Human Rights Watch is an independent, international organization that works as part of a vibrant movement to uphold human dignity and advance the cause of human rights for all.

One of the news media's most qualified voices examines critical information battlegrounds: old media vs. new, documented veracity vs. clickbait.

Jill Abramson follows four companies— The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed, and VICE— over a decade of disruption and radical adjustment. The two venerable newspapers wrestle the challenge of an aging readership; the two upstarts confront a ballooning but fickle audience of millennials.

She profiles the defenders of the legacy presses and the larger-than-life characters behind the new speed-driven media competitors. Those players include Jeff Bezos and Marty Baron (The Washington Post), Arthur Sulzberger and Dean Baquet (The New York Times), Jonah Peretti (BuzzFeed), and Shane Smith (VICE) as well as their reporters and anxious readers.

What does all this portend for the discriminating news consumer? Join us for a This Is Now conversation featuring former Executive Editor of the New York Times and Harvard lecturer, Jill Abramson.

"The universe is made of stories, not of atoms." -Muriel Rukeyser

Reading starts at 7:30 pm.
Light refreshments and conversation at 7:00 pm.

Join us for our quarterly reading series, Story is the Thing, where stunning, emerging voices can be heard alongside works from contemporary local masters.

Reading starts at 7:30 pm. Light refreshments and conversation at 7:00 pm.

Jeanne Althouse
Flash fiction by Jeanne Althouse has appeared in numerous literary journals. Her most recent flash story collection, Boys in the Bank, published by Red Bird Chapbooks, came out in November 2018. Her story “Big Lies” was a finalist in the Glimmer Train Very Short Fiction contest and “Goran Holds his Breath” was nominated by Shenandoah for the Pushcart Prize.

Jamel Brinkley
Jamel Brinkley is the author of A Lucky Man: Stories (Graywolf Press/A Public Space Books), a finalist for the 2018 National Book Award in fiction and recipient of the 2019 Ernest J. Gaines Award for Literary Excellence. His writing has appeared, or is forthcoming, in The Best American Short Stories 2018, A Public Space, Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, The Threepenny Review, Glimmer Train, American Short Fiction, Tin House, and other places. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he's currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction at Stanford University.

Tsun Yuan Chen
Tsun Yuan Chen is a retired Head and Neck Surgeon, born in Mainland China, studied in Taiwan and Tokyo, before arriving on these shores. He now divides his time between San Francisco, Umbria and Provence with his life partner, at home everywhere and nowhere, making alienation a fine art of his life, while maintaining an esprit from the East.

Andrea Donderi
Andrea Donderi grew up in Montreal and arrived in California via Toronto, Chicago, and Bloomington, Indiana. She recently moved from a ramshackle backyard cottage on the peninsula to a house with chickens in Oakland. Andrea writes manuals for the guts of the Internet as well as essays and fiction.

David Wystan Owen
D. Wystan Owen is the author of Other People's Love Affairs: Stories (Algonquin Books), an Amazon "Best Fiction & Literature of 2018" selection. His work has appeared in A Public Space, LitHub, The Threepenny Review, The American Scholar, and elsewhere. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, he now lives in Northern California where he serves as publisher of The Bare Life Review.

Kathy Wang
Kathy Wang grew up in Northern California and is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband and two children.

It was a simple test. Yet, the course of her life changed forever.

Dani Shapiro, the award-winning author of bestselling novels like Hourglass, Devotion, and more, grappled with the self-shattering results of a simple DNA test.

On TLC and in heart-warming ads, DNA testing is nothing more than a high-tech family tree for the digital age, an over-the-counter science experiment to deepen our own personal understanding ourselves. But millions of Americans are finding a different experience.

In this intimate and heart-wrenching new memoir from one of the great writers of our time, comes the true story of how Dani Shapiro discovered that her father was not truly her biological father. Her Jewish identity, relationship to her family and to herself—they all underwent seismic change in a heartbeat. Upending a lifetime of secrets and untold stories, this innocuous decision left Shapiro grappling with results no one could have ever prepared her for. Inheritance is a tour de force of what family truly means, raw and emotionally realized.

Join us for a powerful and peerless evening, as Dani opens this profound chapter of her life in conversation with fellow writer and family historian Elizabeth Rosner of Survivor Café.

These two stunning Jewish-American authors describe a selfhood built against the backdrop of history, secrets, and the often-unknown stories of those who came before us.

The warnings are coming from inside the house.

Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, and Roger McNamee are denizens of the same enchanted world: Silicon Valley's inner circle. And they used to all be on the same page, each playing their part growing Facebook into an internet phenomenon— until it hit unprecedented reach and influence. Then they weren't on the same page any more.

McNamee was an early and enthusiastic adopter of Facebook, as both a musician and an investor. But he grew disenchanted as he watched the negatives pile up: privacy issues. Screen addiction. Disinformation and political manipulation. Even spying. Digging into the technology and psychology involved, he grew more alarmed at "business models that drive companies to maximize attention at all costs".

Now Roger McNamee has teamed with others from the tech world to challenge our new normal - to persuade us that internet titans Facebook and Google present an urgent existential threat to users and society. Does his new book Zucked make a persuasive case?

Join us for an evening of This Is Now with Angie Coiro to find out.

Future Forward and the Remarkable Life of Patrick J. McGovern 

Join us for a momentous evening of reunion and celebration at the West Coast launch of Glenn Rifkin’s book, Future Forward, an homage to the late Patrick J. McGovern (1937-2014). This special event features a biographical exploration and panel moderated by celebrated journalist John Markoff, formerly of the New York Times and a current affiliate researcher at Stanford's Center for Advanced Study in Behavioral Sciences.

Our panel takes a closer look at the impact of a visionary entrepreneur who forever changed the face of Valley, ushering in a monumental shift towards data during those early days of tech.

In 1964, in a small grey house in Massachusetts, the MIT graduate founded the International Data Group, which would spawn a revolution in understanding around information technology. The ripple effects of McGovern’s life and passions extend well past IDG—from the publications and institutions that followed (CIO, Computerworld, PCWorld, Macworld, the Dummies series), to the prodigious patronage of neuroscience research at MIT, Peking University, and others.

McGovern moved with an incredible force of presence, vibrancy, unprecedented insight, generosity and remarkable kindness. We’re excited to come together honoring his contribution in this one-of-a-kind evening.

Reserve early—seats are limited. This special Literary Foundation evening includes an in-depth conversation, signing, and post-event reception. We will hear from Patrick J. McGovern III, director of the McGovern Foundation, and Glenn Rifkin, author of the recent book Future Forward, who can speak to the private person and public figure.

Don’t miss this chance to dive into the story of that transformative era.

Leigh Bardugo is hitting the road in support of her next adventure in the Grishaverse, King of Scars, and Kepler’s Literary Foundation is lucky enough to be one of the hosts! We could not be more thrilled.

Exciting news: we’re partnering with Macmillan to host a Grishaverse fan meet-up an hour before Leigh arrives! The fan meet-up will include trivia/games, a themed King of Scars photo backdrop (so come in costume!), exclusive fan-meet-up-only moments, and more!

Once Leigh arrives, she’ll host a 30 minute Q&A followed by a book signing. Leigh will personalize copies of King of Scars purchased from Kepler’s and also sign up to two additional titles. You’ll also be able to grab a quick photo with her, so have your cameras ready to go!

Fan meet-up will start at 6.00 PM

Q&A and signing will start at 7.00 PM

Leigh Bardugo is a #1 New York Times–bestselling author of fantasy novels and the creator of the Grishaverse. With over two million copies sold, her Grishaverse spans the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, the Six of Crows Duology, The Language of Thorns, and now, King of Scars—with more to come. Her other works include Wonder Woman: Warbringer and coming later this year, Ninth House. Leigh was born in Jerusalem, grew up in Los Angeles, graduated from Yale University, and has worked in advertising, journalism, and even makeup and special effects. These days, she lives and writes in Hollywood, where she can occasionally be heard singing with her band.

We are counting down the days.

Join award winning author and teacher Yogacharya O’Brian for a 90 minute workshop exploring transformative insights into the links between ancient Vedic tradition, the philosophy of yoga, and prosperity in today’s rigorously fast-paced society.

Author of the newly released book The Jewel of Abundance: Finding Prosperity through the Ancient Wisdom of Yoga, Yogacharya O'Brian explores what the four universal aims of life drawn from the Vedas can offer us today as we seek not only a prosperous life but one that has heart and meaning. The four aims of life—to live with higher purpose, to prosper, to enjoy life, and to realize true freedom—provide a brilliant context for living with dynamic balance, prosperity, and the joy that accompanies it. Learn how to cultivate equanimity as you embrace your inherent tendency to thrive.

Yogacharya Ellen Grace O’Brian is a spiritual teacher, poet, writer, founding acharya and spiritual director of Center for Spiritual Enlightenment—a Kriya Yoga Meditation Center in San Jose, California. Her recently published works include Living for the Sake of the Soul, inspiration for spiritual practice and The Moon Reminded Me an award-winning poetry collection. Ordained to teach in 1982 by Roy Eugene Davis, a direct disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda, her message is “engaged enlightenment” – an invitation to live an awakened, creatively inspired, and fulfilled life, now. This workshop is drawn from her latest book, The Jewel Abundance: Finding Prosperity through the Ancient Wisdom of Yoga, recently published by New World Library. www.ellengraceobrian.com and www.csecenter.org

We are delighted to welcome Shannon Messenger back with Flashback, the unforgettable seventh book in the New York Times and USA Today bestselling Keeper of the Lost Cities series, in which Sophie must let the past and present blur together, because the deadliest secrets are always the ones that get erased.

Sophie Foster doesn’t know what—or whom—to believe. And in a game with this many players, the worst mistake can be focusing on the wrong threat. But when the Neverseen prove that Sophie’s far more vulnerable than she ever imagined, she realizes it’s time to change the rules. Her powerful abilities can only protect her so far. To face down ruthless enemies, she must learn to fight. Unfortunately, battle training can’t help a beloved friend who’s facing a whole different danger—where the only solution involves one of the biggest risks Sophie and her friends have ever taken. And the distraction might be exactly what the villains have been waiting for.

Shannon Messenger graduated from the USC School of Cinematic Arts and is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the award-winning middle grade series, Keeper of the Lost Cities, as well as the Sky Fall series for young adults. Her books have been featured on multiple state reading lists, published in numerous countries, and translated into many different languages. 

Shannon will be in conversation with Tamara Ireland Stone, New York Times bestselling author of Click'd, Every Last Word, Time Between Us, and Time After Time.

We could not be more excited.

Please note: You must have copy of Flashback purchased from Kepler’s to enter the signing line.

Shannon will sign and personalize all copies of Flashback purchased as part of a Premier ticket or purchased onsite the night of the event. These attendees will be allowed to bring one backlist title from home for signing.

Shannon will also sign copies of backlist titles purchased onsite from Kepler’s the night of the event, but remember you must have purchased a copy of Flashback from Kepler's to enter the signing line.

Despite its unicorns, the start-up world is earning a reputation for burning-out and burning through employees.

In his new book Lab Rats: How Silicon Valley Made Work Miserable for the Rest of Us, acclaimed journalist Dan Lyons searches for answers. Someone somewhere must be doing it right.

As he documented in his New York Times bestselling book Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble, the frontier world of tech is rife with fad-chasing venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and "wantrapreneurs," bloggers and brogrammers, social climbers and sociopaths. Every year, companies churn through a new stock of big-eyed idealists, hungry for a quick buck. As the demands on employees grow increasingly more intense, the rewards grow opaquer.

Traveling to workplaces across America, Lyons finds four key factors for how the social contract between employee and employer was broken. Ultimately, the powerhouse former Forbes editor offers a vision for what the workplace could be: “an approach to work and business that puts people first, profitably [that] serves customers, and makes the world a little bit better in the process.”

Escape the grind and discover a new vision for what work can be!

Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts
500 Castro Street, Mountain View, CA 94041

Named one of the most important writers of the 20th Century by Writers Digest, Barbara Kingsolver sits solidly in the firmament of great fiction writers working today.

She won the National Humanities Medal in 2000 (the same year as Toni Morrison) and the Orange Prize in 2010. Translators have brought her work to print in more than two dozen languages. Not to be forgotten, her iconic novel, The Poisonwood Bible, was a finalist for that year’s Pulitzer Prize. A long list of accolades, from the James Beard Award to the high honor of being an Oprah Book Club pick, follow after and support the simple fact that Kingsolver is a Titan of American fiction

She isn’t done yet. With her highly-anticipated new novel, Unsheltered, Kingsolver returns to the form she knows best, telling the story of two families caught in a quest to uphold the truth while the world around them quakes beneath the shifting forces of cultural-upheaval.

Get your seats today for an evening with a literary legend as she discusses an all-too-timely story of surviving in America and the resiliency of the human spirit.

At its core, leadership is a form of service. Employing empathy, collaboration, humility, innovation, and curiosity, great leaders don’t measure success in bottom lines. They measure it by the communities they build and the people they surround themselves with.

Dr. John Hennessy, the tenth President of Stanford University, Chair of the Board of Alphabet and Director of the Knight-Hennessy Scholars Program, reflects on the lessons learned from decades leading – and in so doing, serving -- some of world’s most influential organizations.

Join Dr. Hennessy when he sits down with Alphabet CFO, Ruth Porat – named one of the 25 most powerful women in the world by Forbes Magazine – for an in depth conversation on the power and importance of leadership.