Reading List

Author Talk

We sat down with Berkeley’s Arlie Russell Hochschild to discuss Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, this year’s selection for One Book One Marin.

MM: How did the process of researching and writing this book change you? Did it only serve to further increase empathy, or did any of your views shift along the way?

AH: In the process of researching Strangers, I got to know people who generously opened their lives to me in the hopes that I would “get” how it is they feel, and as best I could, that’s what I tried to do. And whenever we try this, it deepens us, I think. And that’s what it did to me — I feel like I came home deeper. Before writing this book I might have described myself as somewhat opinionated and rigid. Maybe I wanted to work on that fixity, to see if I could develop a capacity to move from one perspective to another. But did it change my political commitments? No.

MM: The ideas presented in your book seem more important now than ever. What would you say to Americans who feel that the people who make up this country itself are divided?

AH: I would agree that there are very strongly held differences in viewpoint, left and right, and that the forces pushing us apart are growing and those pulling us together are as of yet weak. I wish for more people to reach across the divide — and there are a lot of pop-up groups trying to help people do that. Check out some of the 70 or 80 smaller groups housed under an umbrella group called the Bridge Alliance.

MM: What would you as a sociologist say to those who have a difficult time putting themselves in another’s shoes? How can they begin to develop empathy?

AH: I think most people are highly capable of empathy, but they just don’t apply that capacity to those they think of as “the other.” So it’s a matter of resolving to apply a highlevel capacity to an important new task: reaching across the divide. CALIN VAN PARIS

Local Page Turners

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the

American Right by Arlie Russell Hochschild (Berkeley), The New Press, $17.99. Arlie Russell Hochschild — one of the most influential soci-

ologists of her generation — spent the five years that preceded the 2016 presidential election immersed in the community of Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. A National Book Award Finalist, this work is a timely and fascinating exploration of empathy, context and, ultimately, humanity. Appearing at Dominican University in conversation with KQED’s Michael Krasny April 18, 7 p.m. This is the 2018 One Book One Marin culminating event.

Sophia of Silicon Valley by Anna Yen (San Francisco), William Morrow, $26.99. A brilliant young woman navigates the thrilling world of Silicon Valley in the boom years of the tech industry, working for some of the greatest minds of our time, in this fast-paced satirical and revealing novel. Author Anna Yen is uniquely qualified to tell this tale, having reported directly to some of Silicon Valley’s most respected leaders, including Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, David Drummond and Larry Kramer. This is an engrossing story of a professional woman storming the corridors of geek power. Appearing at Book Passage Corte Madera April 10, 7 p.m.

The Manson Women & Me by Nikki Meredith (Marin), Citadel, $26. In the summer of 1969, Leslie Van Houten and Patricia

Krenwinkel carried out horrific

acts of butchery on the orders of the charismatic cult leader

Charles Manson. At their mur-

der trial the following year, lead prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi described the two so-called Manson women as “human monsters.” Meredith visits with

Van Houten and Krenwinkel in prison to discover how they had changed during their incarceration. Appearing at Book Passage Corte Madera in conversation with KQED’s Michael Krasny April 13, 7 p.m.

Reviews by Book Passage Marketing Manager Zack Ruskin.