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Join us and welcome Maura O’Connor to Armstrong Redwoods Forest Theater for her new book – Ignition: Lighting Fires in a Burning World on Sunday, December 10, 2023 starting at 10AM at the Armstrong Redwoods Forest Theater. The discussion will be followed by a Q&A. This event is free and open to the public – sponsored by Stewards of the Coast and Redwoods and Russian River Books & Letters. Coffee will be available

Journalist M.R. O’Connor’s IGNITION: Lighting Fires in a Burning World is a riveting investigation into the science and ecology of wildfires and the advent of global megafires.

Heat. Flames. Billows of smoke. Danger. Unpredictability. All of these are characteristics of an element we have been conditioned to fear: Fire. Yet, what if there was a missing piece to the story? What if much of what we have been taught to believe about fire, and our relationship to it, is wrong?

O’Connor offers compelling evidence emerging from the field of ethnoecology and dendrochronology that proves how, until very recently, humans all over the world were igniting fires—actively molding and influencing the ecosystems that exist around them by inserting themselves into the loop of a natural biological process to start “good fires.” What results is a kind of natural history of arson.

Discussion will be moderated by Ryan Klausch, California State Park Environmental Scientist for the Wildfire and Forest Resilience Program.

“Wildfires have become a symbol of climate apocalypse frequently cited as unambiguous evidence of the fossil-fuel induced ecological disaster that is destabilizing life on earth. Get close enough to a fire on the landscape—maybe even close enough to smell it burning and feel its heat—and what you may find is a far more complicated and fascinating story about evolution, biology, history, and culture. And one that is infinitely more hopeful.” —Prologue, Ignition

Please park in the front parking lot of Armstrong Redwoods and account for 15 minutes walking time from the parking lot to the theater.

Registration is required for this event.

Register

Join us for a night of music to celebrate Chanukah at Books & Letters!

Chris Eccles: Mandolin and Vocals

Laurie Lippin: Accordion 

Lois Pearlman: Vocals 

The Day Before It Rained is an eclectic collection of short stories, from quirky portraits to tales of LGBTQ+ relationships to eccentric takes on friendship, romance, and everything in between. From period pieces to modern day, from the magical to the mundane, from the heart of Kansas to the Yorkshire moors to the Tunisian desert, the stories span the years, travel the globe, and explore the spectrum of emotions as his characters discover love, loss, hope, and fear--in other words, the dubious joy of being human.

Come celebrate the Guerneville Holiday Parade of Lights and cheer on Russian River Books & Letters as we march down Main Street!

Join Russian River Books & Letters at the Guerneville Holiday Night Market for books, ornaments, and holiday cards. Shop local this holiday season!

Night Market (4-8pm) & Tree Lighting Ceremony (7pm)

Russian River Books & Letters presents an evening with Kelly Gray on Friday, December 8th at 7pm. Kelly authored The Mating Calls of a Specter and received  the Tusculum Review Chapbook Prize. Her collection is to be published this November.  The reading will be followed by a Q & A with Manjula Martin, author of The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History, (coming in January 2024 from Pantheon Books with a reading at Books & Letters!) 

Areté Singers Mistletoe Carolers will be performing at Russian River Books and Letters on Saturday, December 16th at 1pm.

Join in on the Christmas Cheer!

Get to them known at: https://www.aretesingers.com/mistletoe-carolers.html