Come taste some of the world’s most rare and celebrated wines and the people who make them famous. This is a great opportunity to enjoy delicious wines and chat in an intimate, personal, yet casual atmosphere with the types of artisanal producers from around the globe that we love to feature here at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant.

Ever since Oprah Winfrey told the 2007 graduating class of Howard University, “Don’t be afraid,” Michael Arceneaux has been scared to death. You should never do the opposite of what Oprah instructs you to do, but when you don’t have her pocket change, how can you not be terrified of the consequences of pursuing your dreams?

Michael has never shied away from discussing his struggles with debt, but in I Don’t Want to Die Poor, he reveals the extent to which it has an impact on every facet of his life—how he dates; how he seeks medical care (or in some cases, is unable to); how he wrestles with the question of whether or not he should have chosen a more financially secure path; and finally, how he has dealt with his “dream” turning into an ongoing nightmare as he realizes one bad decision could unravel all that he’s earned. You know, actual “economic anxiety.”

I Don’t Want to Die Poor is an unforgettable and relatable examination about what it’s like leading a life that often feels out of your control. But in Michael’s voice that’s “as joyful as he is shrewd” (BuzzFeed), these razor-sharp essays will still manage to make you laugh and remind you that you’re not alone in this often intimidating journey.

Michael Arceneaux is the New York Times bestselling author of I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyoncé. He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, Essence, Esquire, Ebony, Elle, Rolling Stone, and many other publications on and off Al Gore’s internet. He’s ran his mouth on MSNBC, NPR, VH1, Viceland, Comedy Central, SiriusXM, and elsewhere. His second book is I Don’t Want to Die Poor. He’s working very hard to avoid such fate.

In conversation with Jason Turbow

Dodger Stadium is an American icon. But the story of how it came to be goes far beyond baseball. The hills that cradle the stadium were once home to three vibrant Mexican American communities. In the early 1950s, those communities were condemned to make way for a utopian public housing project. Then, in a remarkable turn, public housing in the city was defeated amidst a Red Scare conspiracy.

Instead of getting their homes back, the remaining residents saw the city sell their land to Walter O’Malley, the owner of the Brooklyn Dodgers. Now LA would be getting a different sort of utopian fantasy — a glittering, ultra-modern stadium.

But before Dodger Stadium could be built, the city would have to face down the neighborhood’s families, including one, the Aréchigas, who refused to yield their home. The ensuing confrontation captivated the nation—and the divisive outcome still echoes through Los Angeles today.

Eric Nusbaum is a former sports editor at VICE. In addition to VICE, his work on sports, history, and culture has appeared in ESPN the Magazine, Sports Illustrated, Outside, The Daily Beast, Deadspin, and the Best American Sports Writing anthology. Eric was born and raised in L.A. He has spent many hours both attending games at Dodger Stadium, and sitting in traffic to reach those games. He has also lived and worked in Seattle and Mexico City.

Jason Turbow is the author of the best-selling The Baseball Codes: Beanballs, Sign Stealing & Bench-Clearing Brawls: The Unwritten Rules of America’s Pastime and Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic. He has written for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and SI.com. He lives in California. His latest book is They Bled Blue: Fernandomania, Strike-Season Mayhem, and the Weirdest Championship Baseball Had Ever Seen: The 1981 Los Angeles Dodgers.

I quit. The Lit Camp Writers Conference presents a dozen (super)short readings on giving up, letting go, walking away. Complimentary wine, beer, and seltzer water will be served!

$5-$10 sliding scale admission with all proceeds going to fund scholarships to the Lit Camp writers conference.

A true doctor dog and human companion will join Maria to demonstrate their skills. 

In this groundbreaking book, Maria Goodavage brings us behind the scenes of cutting-edge science at top research centers, and into the lives of people whose well-being depends on their devoted, highly skilled personal MDs (medical dogs). With her signature wit and passion, Goodavage explores how doctor dogs are becoming our happy allies in the fight against dozens of physical and mental conditions.

We meet dogs who detect cancer and Parkinson’s disease, and dogs who alert people to seizures and diabetic lows or highs and other life-threatening physical ailments. Goodavage reveals the revolutionary ways dogs are helping those with autism, anxiety, depression, schizophrenia, and post-traumatic stress disorder. And she introduces us to intrepid canines who are protecting us from antibiotic-resistant bugs, and to dogs who may one day help keep us safe from epidemic catastrophe. Their paycheck for their lifesaving work? Heartfelt praise and a tasty treat or favorite toy.

The emotional element in Doctor Dogs delivers as powerfully as the science. You don’t have to be a dog lover to care deeply about what these dogs are doing and what we are learning from them—although if you’re not a dog lover, you probably will be by the end of the book.

Maria Goodavage, veteran journalist and New York Times bestselling author of Soldier Dogs, Top Dog, and Secret Service Dogs, lives in San Francisco with, among other people, her yellow Labrador retriever, Gus.

Tickets: $32 (includes signed copy of The Case for Keto)

Based on twenty years of investigative reporting and interviews with 100 practicing physicians who embrace the keto lifetstyle as the best prescription for their patients’ health, The Case for Keto puts the ketogenic diet movement in the necessary historical and scientific perspective. It makes clear the vital misconceptions in how we’ve come to think about obesity and diet (no, people do not become fat simply because they eat too much; hormones play the critical role) and uses the collected clinical experience of the medical community to provide essential practical advice. This book sets out to revolutionize how we think about eating healthy, and what foods we can and can’t eat to prevent and reverse both obesity and diabetes.

For years, health organizations have preached the same rules for losing weight: restrict your calories, eat less, exercise more. So why doesn’t it work for everyone? Gary Taubes, whose seminal book Good Calories, Bad Calories and cover stories for The New York Times Magazine changed the way we look at nutrition and health, sets the record straight, clarifying a century of misunderstanding about the differences between diet, weight control, and health. The Case for Keto gives us a revolutionary manifesto for the twenty-first-century fight against obesity and diabetes.

Gary Taubes, an award-winning science and health journalist, is cofounder and director of the Nutrition Science Initiative (NuSI). He is the author of The Case Against Sugar, Why We Get Fat, and Good Calories, Bad Calories, and is a former staff writer for Discover and correspondent for Science. He has written three cover articles on nutrition and health for The New York Times Magazine, and his writing has also appeared in The Atlantic, Esquire, and numerous “best of” anthologies, including The Best of the Best American Science Writing (2010). He has received three Science in Society Journalism Awards from the National Association of Science Writers, and is also the recipient of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Investigator Award in Health Policy Research. He lives in Oakland, California.

Tickets available via Ferry Building’s website.

Come taste some of the world’s most rare and celebrated wines and the people who make them famous. This is a great opportunity to enjoy delicious wines and chat in an intimate, personal, yet casual atmosphere with the types of artisanal producers from around the globe that we love to feature here at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant.