Obi Kaufmann discusses his new book published by Heyday, The State of Fire: Why California Burns, with Heyday publisher Steve Wasserman at San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch.

In-person event. Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, CA.

Obi Kaufmann is the author of The California Field Atlas (2017, #1 San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller), The State of Water (2019), The Forests of California (2020), The Coasts of California (2022) and The Deserts of California (2023), all published by Heyday. When he is not backpacking, you can find the painter-poet at home in the East Bay.

Steve Wasserman, raised in Berkeley and a Cal graduate, is the publisher of Heyday. He has held prominent roles, including editor-at-large for Yale University Press and editorial director at Times Books/Random House. Wasserman has worked with many authors, publishing works such as Greil Marcus’s The History of Rock ‘n’ Roll in Ten Songs and Martha Hodes’s Mourning Lincoln. He was the editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review (1996–2005) and a key figure in founding the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Wasserman also co-founded the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities and has written for numerous publications, including The Nation, The New Republic and The Times Literary Supplement.