Caroline Paul Discusses Why Fly: Seeking Awe, Healing, and Our True Selves in the Sky, with Liz Weil
Schedule
Thu Feb 26 2026 at 07:00 pm to 08:00 pm
UTC-08:00Location
BookShop West Portal | San Francisco, CA
Bookshop West Portal is thrilled to welcome back Caroline Paul, New York Times bestselling author of The Gusty Girls and Tough Broad, to celebrate her new novel, Why Fly: Seeking Awe, Healing, and Our True Selves in the Sky. Caroline will be in conversation with fellow writer Liz Weil. We are so excited to support such a successful local author, and we hope you join us.
This event is FREE to attend. Seating is first come, first served. (RSVPs are optional, but encouraged for our planning purposes.)
ABOUT THE BOOK
From the New York Times bestselling author Caroline Paul, a thrilling, gravity-defying book that takes us skyward to explore the art of aeronautics-and the depths of the human heart.
Flying has long represented the beautiful, high-stakes human drive to invent, to explore, to experience. Caroline Paul has known this since becoming a pilot at twenty years old. Now she's in her fifties, and her long-term marriage is dissolving beneath her. She begins to fly a gyrocopter. Isn't it easier to learn a landing than a human heart?
As Paul examines the descent of love through the ascent of flight, she turns her eye to the history, the physics, and the deep impact of flying on others. From the brave Night Witches who flew biplanes against the Nazis, to the ultralight pilots who believe they can save endangered birds by becoming one of the flock, to the many people afraid to step onto a passenger plane, Why Fly examines the ways flight, like love, confounds and yet transforms us. Often we soar. But we also crash land. Still, we want to fly. Why?
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Caroline Paul is the author of eight books, including the New York Times bestseller The Gutsy Girl: Escapades for your Life of Epic Adventure, and Tough Broad: From Birdwatching to BASE Jumping - How Outdoor Adventure Improves our Lives as We Age, as well as the illustrated memoir Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology. She is a longtime member of the San Francisco Writers Grotto.
Where is it happening?
BookShop West Portal, 80 W Portal Ave, San Francisco, CA 94127, United StatesEvent Location & Nearby Stays:



















