This Week In Book-Related Events

This Week In Book-Related EventsPhoto: Camden Avery/Hoodline
Amy Stephenson
Published on April 28, 2014
There's a bunch of book-related action in the neighborhood this week. Here's what to look out for. 

Former Mad Dog in the Fog owner Stephen Sparks and Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman will be at Second Act in the events space on Sunday, May 4th at 6pm to talk about gun violence in the U.S.

Sparks and Allman co-authored a book called Out There in the Woods, which chronicles the 36-day manhunt in Fort Bragg, California for Aaron Brassler, an allegedly "mentally disturbed" resident who shot two people to death. 

From Second Act's website

In the late summer of 2011, 35-year old Aaron Bassler, an allegedly mentally disturbed resident of Mendocino County, California, shot and killed two innocent victims – a well-liked conservationist and a much-admired city councilman and former mayor. These events sparked an unprecedented search in the vast forested area east of the coastal town of Fort Bragg. The case involved local, state and federal officers from over a dozen law enforcement agencies, including various SWAT teams and the U.S. Marshals Service, an agency very experienced in searching for fugitives. However, the searchers were under the constant threat of being the next victims, and had never experienced a landscape like this. Meanwhile, Bassler had virtually grown up in this environment and knew that time and terrain were on his side. As Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman recalls, “We had little to go on other than we knew we were searching for an armed and very dangerous Aaron Bassler, and that he was out there in the woods…”

According to their bios, Tom Allman has been working with the Mendecino Police Department since 1985, and in the meantime has worked in Internal Affairs, as a peacekeeper in Kosovo, and in post-Katrina New Orleans hospitals.  He's been the Mendocino County Sheriff since 2006. 

Stephen Sparks is originally from the U.K., and he moved to the Lower Haight in 1987. In 1989, he and his wife opened Mad Dog in the Fog at Haight & Fillmore. They moved to Mendocino in 2002, where they still reside. 

Other literary events this week include Shipwreck at Booksmith on Thursday, May 1st. This time around, six writers will write literary erotic fanfiction based on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with the crowd voting for a favorite. 7pm, $10, open bar. 

And finally, this Saturday, May 3rd marks the first-ever California Bookstore Day. It's like Record Store Day, but for bookstores. Booksmith will be selling limited edition items, including prints and totes. Purchase of the CBD items gets you admission to Sparrow Bar's back deck next door, where they'll have Lisa Brown and other illustrators making custom doodles for people. Also, wine. 

See you around town, readers!

Note: Amy Stephenson currently works at Booksmith.