This Week at Bookworks Features Poetry with Mark Fleisher, Radical Awareness with Catherine Dowling and More

Below are this week's events at Bookworks. For more information, visit bkwrks.com/event.

Thursday, February 12
7pm • William Hartmann • Searching for Gold Empires
This lively book recounts the explorations of the first generations of Spanish conquistadors and their Native allies. Author William K. Hartmann brings readers along as the explorers probe from Cuba to the Aztec capital of Mexico City, and then northward through the borderlands to New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, southern California, and as far as Kansas.

Saturday, February 14
3pm • Mark Fleisher • Moments of Time
If using musical terms, Moments of Time by Mark Fleisher ranges through several octaves and timbres, and up and down the scale to define his inspirations and poetic voice.

Sunday, February 15
3pm • James Penner • Timothy Leary: The Harvard Years
On May 27, 1963, Dr. Timothy Leary and Dr. Richard Alpert were dismissed from Harvard University's Psychology Department-a watershed event marking the moment when psychedelic drugs were publicly demonized and driven underground. Today, little is known about the period in the early 1960s when LSD and psilocybin were not only legal but also actively researched at universities.

Tuesday, February 17
7pm • Catherine Dowling • Radical Awareness
Experience a profound engagement with life through the transformational power of spiritual awakenings. Presenting a simple and safe system that can be applied to daily living, Radical Awareness shows you how to achieve the mystical state of oneness.

Wednesday, February 18
7pm • Gloria Abella Ballen • The Power of the Hebrew Alphabet
Prof. Ballen has fused mysticism, art, and Jewish spiritual traditions, leading the viewer through the labyrinth of the 22 letters that changed the world.

Thursday, February 19
7pm • Philip Connors • All the Wrong Places
At the age of twenty-three, Connors was a young man on the make. He'd left behind the Minnesota pig farm on which he'd grown up and the brother with whom he'd never been especially close. Then one phone call changed everything. All the Wrong Places is a searingly honest account of the aftermath of his brother's shocking death.

Thursday & Friday, February 19 & 20
7pm • Land Water Summit at the Sheraton Airport •
Watershed Health is everyone's concern. Our watersheds are in great need of resuscitation and this year Land&Water Summit will concentrate on learning about ways to improve watershed health. Just as we have learned to recognize signs of illness in our community and provide aid when necessary, so we must learn to recognize the signs of distressed environments and how to cure those ills.

Friday & Saturday, February 20 & 21
Southwestern International Dyslexia Assoc Conference at the Sandia Resort 30 Rainbow Rd NE
Bookworks will be at this conference selling books on the subject of dyslexia and early childhood literacy, along with any books by keynote speakers and presenters.

NM Organic Farming Conference • at the Marriott Pyramid North 5151 San Francisco Rd NE
Organized annually through a collaboration between Farm to Table, the New Mexico Department of Agriculture's Organic Program, and the New Mexico State University Cooperative Extension Service, the Conference provides producers and researchers from around the Southwest an opportunity to share their experiences and expertise.

Saturday, February 21
1:30pm • Michael Shermer at the Unitarian Church 3701 Carlisle Blvd NE with the NM Coalition for Excellence in Science & Math • The Moral Arc: How Science & Reason Lead Humanity Toward Truth, Justice, & Freedom
Bestselling author Michael Shermer's exploration of science and morality that demonstrates how the scientific way of thinking has made people, and society as a whole, more moral.

3pm • Charles McLeod • Settlers of Unassigned Lands
In these seven stories spanning the Midwest to California, Charles McLeod brings us characters estranged from their homelands and locked in conflict with their past and present selves.

For Kids

Thursday, February 12
10:30am • Story Time!
We are going to read a few favorite Clifford books. The stories about the beloved big, red dog. We will also have a Valentine theme craft.

Friday, February 13
1pm • Our World Home School Book Co-op Meets
Our World School Book Club, for kids ages 6 to 8, continues for another season of books and conversation. This year we will be reading children's classics and even some comic books! Join us for reading, crafts and snacks. This month's selection is The Giving Tree. Our World School Bookclub meets every second Friday of the month at 1pm at Bookworks.

Saturday, February 14
10:30am • Stories on Saturday!
Meet local author Vicki Dean Mayhew. She will be reading from her picture book, How the Unicorn Got His Horn Back.

Wednesday, February 18
4:30pm • American Girl Book Club
We will be celebrating Chinese New Year with our featured book, Happy New Year Julie. New members welcome. We meet for about an hour.

Thursday, February 19
10:30am • Story Time!
We will be celebrating Chinese New Year with books, snacks and a craft activity.

Saturday, February 21
10:30am • Hester Bass • Seeds of Freedom
Explore a little-known story of the Civil Rights movement, in which black and white citizens in one Alabama city worked together nonviolently to end segregation.

Clubs

Monday, February 16
7pm • Reading Purls Knitting Group • A Life in Stitches: Knitting My Way Through Love, Loss, and Laughter
by Rachel Herron
Join our monthly knitting reading group, renamed Reading Purls. Free and open to all knitters. This month's selection is A Life in Stiches by Rachel Herron. In these 20 heartfelt essays, Herron celebrated romance novelist by day, 911 dispatcher by night, and founder of the hugely popular blog Yarnagogo.com shows how when life unravels there's always a way to knit it back together again, many times into something even better. Bring your knitting or crocheting project and join us for the conversation!

Looking Ahead

Sunday, March 1
7pm • Kim Gordon • Girl in a Band at UNM's Student Union Ballrooms B & C
Kim Gordon, founding member of Sonic Youth, fashion icon, and role model for a generation of women, now tells her story--a memoir of life as an artist, of music, marriage, motherhood, independence, and as one of the first women of rock and roll, written with the lyricism and haunting beauty of Patti Smith's Just Kids.
Tickets at www.bkwrks.com/kim-gordon. More »

Tuesday, March 10
7pm • Lisa See • China Dolls
It's 1938 in San Francisco: a world's fair is preparing to open on Treasure Island, a war is brewing overseas, and the city is alive with possibilities. Grace, Helen, and Ruby, three young women from very different backgrounds, meet by chance at the exclusive and glamorous Forbidden City nightclub. Grace Lee, an American-born Chinese girl, has fled the Midwest with nothing but heartache, talent, and a pair of dancing shoes.

Thursday, March 12
7pm • Hannah Nordhaus in conversation with Sharon Niederman • American Ghost
The award-winning journalist and author of The Beekeeper's Lament attempts to uncover the truth about her great-great-grandmother, Julia-whose ghost is said to haunt an elegant hotel in Santa Fe-in this spellbinding exploration of myth, family history, and the American West.

Thursday, March 26
7pm • Michael Finkelstein • Slow Medicine: Hope & Healing for Chronic Illness
Are you as healthy as you could be, as healthy as you would like to be? What would you do with your life if your health were completely restored? Slow Medicine will gently guide you off the treadmill of quick fixes and onto the path of lasting wellness.