Alabama author Josephine Bolling McCall will be at the Woman's Club of Palo Alto Authors Program from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m., on Tuesday, April 9, to talk about her book, "The Penalty of Success," which recounts her father's lynching in the rural south during Jim Crow when she was just a young girl.

In her book, McCall tells the story of her father's murder and the impact it had -- and still has -- on her family. Her father, Elmore Bolling, was a successful entrepreneur who was lynched in Lowndes County, Alabama, in 1947. He is one of the thousands of African-Americans honored in the lynching memorial (the National Memorial for Peace and Justice), which opened in Montgomery in 2017.

McCall, who became the first black president of the Alabama Association of School Psychologists and the first black person to serve as Alabama's delegate to the National Association of School Psychologists, offers a revealing narrative that challenges readers to rethink the reality of life for both blacks and whites in the rural south during that era when lynching was used to destroy competition from black business owners as part of a pattern of racial violence. t

McCall's appearance is part of the Authors Program at the Woman's Club of Palo Alto. The Woman's Club of Palo Alto is located at 475 Homer Ave., Palo Alto. For more information, call 650-321-5821.

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Best-selling author Bill McKibben, a world-renowned environmentalist, activist and winner of the Right Livelihood award, will be at Kepler's Books from 4-5:30 p.m., on Sunday, April 28, to talk about his latest book, "Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out."

McKibben, who was among the earliest to sound the warning call about global warming more than 30 years ago, once again examines the impact of global warming and the prospects for human survival. The book provides an honest, rather than hopeful, look at the impacts of climate change. Kepler's Books is located at 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park. For tickets, go to keplers.org.

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