Welcome to our list of 2006 books by California authors. You can buy books right from this page. Just click through our title links to buy at Powells.com.
Books are listed by month of publication. Last update: 07-17-07.
2006 releases: January . February . March . April . May . June . July . August . September. October
2007 releases . 2005 releases . 2004 releases . 2003 releases . 2002 releases
Click here for a list of our blog entries on 2008 releases.
Fiction . Nonfiction . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . January 2006
Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. By Ayelet Waldman. For Emilia Greenleaf, life is by turns a comedy of errors and an emotional minefield. Yes, she’s a Harvard Law grad who married her soul mate. Yes, they live in elegant comfort on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. But with her one-and-only, Jack, came a stepson — a know-it-all preschooler named William. Doubleday.
Marathon. By W. William Winokur. Based on the true life story of Horace Mann School Professor Ion Theodore’s journey through the most catastrophic and triumphant events of the 20th century. The author lives in Malibu. Kissena Park Press.
The Bill From My Father: A Memoir. by Bernard Cooper. As book begins, Cooper and his father find themselves the last remaining members of the family that once included his mother and three older brothers. Now retired and living in a run-down trailer, Edward Cooper had once made a name for himself as a divorce attorney. The elder Cooper is slowly succumbing to dementia. As the author attempts, with his father’s help, to forge a coherent picture of the Cooper family history, he discovers some peculiar documents involving lawsuits against other family members, and recalls a bill his father once sent him for the total cost of his upbringing, an itemized invoice adding up to 2 million dollars. Simon & Schuster.
Desperate Networks. By Bill Carter. NYT TV writer takes readers inside the industry as the four major networks struggle for the attention of American viewers increasingly distracted by cable, video games, and the Internet. Doubleday.
Frantic Transmissions to and From Los Angeles: An Accidental Memoir . by Kate Braverman. Fleeing Los Angeles. Graywolf Press.
On Michael Jackson . By Margo Jefferson. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer looks at Jacksonâs rise and fall. Pantheon.
Children’s/Young Adult . January, 2006
Accidental Love. By Gary Soto. The author of “Baseball in April and Other Stories” captures the angst, expectation, and humor that comes with first love. (12 years and up) Soto lives in Berkeley. Harcourt Trade.
Fiction . Nonfiction . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . February 2006
Across the High Lonesome. By James Mcnay Brumfield. A modern western odyssey that invites the reader to hitch a ride through the glacial carved vales and over the high lonesome passes of California’s Range of Light. Tres Picos Press.
The Closers. By Michael Connelly. Connelly may live in Tampa now, but Harry Bosch is back on the force at LAPD. Warner Books.
The Instant When Everything is Perfect. By Jessica Barksdale Inclan. Robert, a doctor, and Mia, a writer, realize that leaving one life is hard. But not leaving it is harder still. Born and raised in California, the author currently resides in Lafayette, CA. New American Library.
Rose Of No Man’s Land. By Michelle Tea. A whirlwind exploration of poverty and dropouts, Tea’s novel is the world according to 14-year-old Trisha, a furious love story between two girls. MacAdam/Cage Publishing.
The Ruins of California. By Martha Sherrill. As Inez Ruin progresses through high school, readers are witness to the preoccupations of Californians of the 1970s: drugs, sex, art, surfing, love beads, Nixon, motorcycles, and the goal of not making a big deal out of anything. Penguin Press.
The Secret Memoirs of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. By Ruth Francisco. LA writer pens the fictional memoirs of Jackie Kennedy. St. Martin’s Press.
Sex and the Single Zillionaire. by Tom Perkins. Venture capitalist pens a tale of love set among the fabulously rich and the young women who aspire to marry them. ReganBooks.
The Two Minute Rule. By Robert Crais.The story begins as bank robber Max Holman is leaving prison, having served his sentence. The only thing on his mind is reconciliation with his estranged son, who is, ironically, a cop. Then the devastating news: his son was gunned down in the LA warehouse district the night before Holman’s release. He decides there is only one thing to do: avenge his son’s death. Simon & Schuster.
Blogosphere: Best of Blogs. By Peter Kuhns and Adrienne Crew. A collection of the blogs you«ve heard about and the ones still waiting to be discovered. Kuhns is a computer book author, photo-blogger and publishing consultant. Crew is an LA blogger and co-editor of Laist.com. Que Publishing.
The Covenant with Black America. By Tavis Smiley. A collection of essays that plot a course for African Americans, explaining how individuals and households can make changes that can improve their circumstances in areas ranging from health and education to crime reduction and financial well-being. Third World Press.
The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History . By David Kipen. In his wide-ranging manifesto, the former San Francisco Chronicle critic takes aim at the auteur theory. Melville House.
Children’s/Young Adult . February, 2006
Desert Blood 10pm/9c. By Ronald Cree. After a life spent in foster care, 14-year-old Gus Gonzalez’s life changes when he is adopted by Nicholas Hernandez, the wildly popular young star of the hit TV crime drama, Desert Blood. The story is set in the Mojave Desert region around the Antelope Valley. A young adult book.Simon & Schuster.
Fiction . Nonfiction . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . March 2006
The Fallen. By T. Jefferson Parker. In Parker’s 13th novel, San Diego homicide detective Robbie Brownlaw suffers a head trauma that causes his senses to get mixed up. The sounds of conversations, for example, are accompanied by colored shapes that reflect the speakers’ emotions. But the confusion turns into an asset, as it helps Brownlaw recognize when suspects and witnesses are lying to him — and he encounters lots of falsehoods when he begins investigating the case of Garrett Asplundh, shot dead while waiting for a meeting with his estranged wife. William Morrow & Company.
If the Creek Don’t Rise: My Life Out West with the Last Black Widow of the Civil War. By Rita Williams. When Williams was four, her mother died in a Denver boarding house. This death delivered Rita into the care of her aunt Daisy, the last surviving African American widow of a Union soldier and a maverick who had spirited her sharecropping family out of the lynching South and reinvented them as ranch hands and hunting guides out West. But one by one they slipped away, leaving Rita as Daisy’s last hope to right the racial wrongs of the past and to make good on a lifetime of thwarted ambition. Williams now lives in LA. Harcourt.
A Million Nightingales. By Susan Straight. The tale of a slave girl’s journey — emotional and physical — from captivity to freedom; Straight’s latest novel is set in early-nineteenth-century Louisiana. Pantheon Books.
Rhapsody in Blood: A Benjamin Justice Novel . By John Morgan Wilson. Three mysterious deaths, spanning fifty years, occur in the same hotel room on the same date in a remote high desert town in California. When a movie based on the first death begins filming in the same hotel in 2006, a flood of clues and dark secrets is unleashed. St. Martin’s Minotaur.
Two Women of Galilee. By Mary Rourke. A courtier’s wife encounters the mother of God in this debut novel–the imagined story of Joanna, mentioned in the Bible as “the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza,” who accompanied Jesus and the disciples. Rourke is a writer at the LA Times. Mira Books.
Zero to the Bone: A Nina Zero Novel . by Robert Eversz. Ex-con paparazza tracks a past-life regression therapist to the Hollywood elite. Simon & Schuster.
A G-Man’s Life: The FBI, ‘Deep Throat’ and the Struggle for Honor in Washington. By Mark Felt and John O’Connor. Felt, the FBI’s deputy director, details his career and provides his personal recollections of the Watergate scandal, which he wrote in 1982 and kept secret. He explains how he came to feel that the FBI needed a “Lone Ranger” to protection it from White House corruption. Felt lives in San Diego; San Francisco lawyer O’Connor wrote the book. Public Affairs Press.
The May Queen. Edited by Andrea N. Richesin. A collection of essays from writers, including Meghan Daum, Veronica Chambers, and Michelle Richmond, on being a woman in your thirties. Tarcher/Putnam.
OOPS: 20 Life Lessons From the Fiascoes That Shaped America. By Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger. An American cultural history rife with flaming elephants, government-funded psychics, and a cinematic technology known as Smell-O-Vision. Harper Collins.
Tales from the Expat Harem: Foreign Women in Modern Turkey. Edited by Anastasia M. Ashman and Jennifer Eaton Gokmen. Anthology chronicles the experiences of thirty-two expatriate women who have lived all over Turkey in the past forty years. Seal Press, an imprint of Avalon Publishing Group.
Your Boss Is Not Your Mother: Eight Steps to Eliminating Office Drama and Creating Positive Relationships at Work. By Debra Mandel. Clinical psychologist offers a self-help guide to improving workplace relationships by learning how to heal old bruises from childhood. Agate.
Children’s/Young Adult . March, 2006
Dinosaur Pizza. By Lee Wardlaw. In this easy reader, Jill is left all alone when her best friend moves away. Then Bobbi Jo asks her to join the Lunch Bunch, a wacky group of kids who eat strange foods - - even Dinosaur Pizza! Lee Wardlaw lives in Santa Barbara. Scholastic/Carousel.
Dream Town. By Michelle Markel. Illustrated by Rick Reese. A picture book about Los Angeles’ fantastic buildings, from a child’s perspective. Markel grew up in Los Angeles and offers an introduction to the city’s architectural history. Heyday Books.
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories . Nonfiction .Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens.Photography/Art . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . April 2006
As If Love Were Enough: A Novel. By Anne Taylor Fleming. When Clare Layton´s actress mother leaves her husband and two small daughters to go off with her lover, their picture-perfect Hollywood family is shattered. Hyperion.
Becoming Abigail: A Novel. By Chris Albani. Fourteen-year-old Abigail is brought to London from Nigeria by relatives who attempt to force her into prostitution. She flees, struggling to find herself in the shadow of a strong but dead mother. Akashic Books.
The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo: A Novel. By Peter Orner. Set in Namibia just after independence in the early 1990s, Orner’s first novel is a chronicle of the long days, short loves, and cold nights at Goas, an all-boys Catholic primary school so deep in the veld that “even the baboons feel sorry for us.” The author teaches writing at San Francisco State University. Little Brown and Company.
Poetry/Short Stories . April, 2006
Stop That Girl. By Elizabeth McKenzie. From Long Beach to Santa Barbara, the San Fernando Valley to UC Santa Cruz, the Golden State is as much a character in this collection of short stories as Ann Ransom, her reclusive mother, eccentric doctor grandmother, and likeable step-father. The author lives in Santa Cruz. Random House Trade.
Ava Gardner: Love Is Nothing. by Lee Server. The story of life of Gardner’s rise from North Carolina tobacco country to Hollywood superstardom. St. Martin’s Press.
Blithe Tomato. By Mike Madison. Foreward by Deborah Madison. The author and his family operate a small truck farm in the Sacramento Family. His new book looks at the burgeoning Farmer’s Market culture, as thousands gather each weekend to pinch, poke, smell and probe the produce — and sometimes each other. Heyday Books.
California: America’s High-Stakes Experiment. By Peter Schrag. The author takes on the big issues–immigration, globalization, and the impact of California’s politics on its quality of life–in this account of the Golden State’s struggle to recapture the American dream. In the past half-century, California has been both model and anti-model for the nation and often the world, first in its high level of government and public services–schools, universities, highways–more lately for its dysfunctional government, deteriorating services, and sometimes regressive public policies. University of California Press
Charles Champlin, A Life in Writing: The Story of an American Journalist. by Charles Champlin. Champlin is best known as a columnist and film critic for the Los Angeles Times. He also was a writer for Life and later a London-based correspondent for Time magazine. Syracuse University Press.
Doing it for Money: The Agony and Ecstasy of Writing and Surviving in Hollywood. By Daryl G. Nickens. A collection of essays from film and television writers offers insights into the process and the techniques of writing for a living. Contributors include Stephen Gaghan (Syriana, Traffic, NYPD Blue), Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean, Shrek), Leslie Dixon (The Thomas Crown Affair, Mrs. Doubtfire), and John Sacret Young (The West Wing, China Beach). Tallfellow Press.
Four Books, 300 Dollars and a Dream: An Illustrated History of the First 150 Years of the Mechanics’ Institute of San Francisco. By Richard Reinhardt. Introduction by Kevin Starr. Commemorative book recounts the history and highlights of the Mechanics’ Institute over the past 150 years. Mechanics Institute.
Grammar Snobs are Great Big Meanies: A Guide to Language for Fun and Spite. By June Casagrande. A collection of anecdotes and essays that offers a humorous spin on grammar and punctuation. Casagrande, who had four years of improvisational comedy training, writes the “A Word, Please” grammar column for four Los Angeles Times community newspapers. Penguin Books.
Haunted Hikes: Spine-Tingling Tales and Trails from North America’s National Parks. By Andrea Lankford. Combining the popularity of ghost stories with the traditional aspects of a park trail guide, these creepy hikes lead climbers and armchair adventurers through some of the scariest, most mysterious places in North America. The author lives in Southern California. Santa Monica Press
My Life in France. By Julia Child and Alex Prud’homme. From the moment the ship docked in Le Havre in the fall of 1948 and Julia Child watched the stevedores unloading the cargo to the first perfectly soigne meal that she and her husband, Paul, savored in Rouen en route to Paris, where he was to work for the USIS, Julia had an awakening that changed her life. Soon this tall, outspoken woman from Pasadena, California, who didn’t speak a word of French and knew nothing about the country, was steeped in the language, chatting with purveyors in the local markets, and enrolled in the Cordon Bleu. A memoir. written before Child died in Santa Barbara at age 91. Knopf.
Native Treasures: Gardening With the Plants of California . By Nevin Smith. This book is a compilation–20 years in the making–of reflections and advice on growing California native plants, by one of the state’s most respected horticulturists. University of California Press.
Queen of the Oddballs: And Other True Stories from a Life Unaccording to Plan. By Hillary Carlip. A memoir about growing up in Los Angeles. HarperCollins.
Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . April, 2006
Celebrating the Seasons at Westerbeke Ranch. By John Littlewood. The executive chef at the Westerbeke Ranch Retreat Center in Sonoma creates a cookbook for occasions ranging from an Earth Day buffet, Cinco de Mayo fiesta, and Bastille Day celebration to a New Year’s hors d’oeuvre buffet, Chinese New Year party, and Valentine’s Day dinner. Holiday menus blend California’s wine country cuisine with Asian, French, Hispanic, and Mediterranean influences. Happy Palate Press.
Eat, Drink, and Weigh Less. by Mollie Katzen and Walter Willett. California cookbook author teams up with a Harvard doctor to offer a program for making changes in what people throughout the day. Hyperion Books.
A Passion for Ice Cream: 95 Recipes for Fabulous Desserts. By Emily Luchetti; photographs by Sheri Giblin. Bay Area pastry chef Luchetti’s shares her recipes for making your own ice cream — from chocolate to butter pecan to orange-cardamom to root beer granita to pomegranate sorbet. There’s also popsicles, floats, and parfaits. And then there’s Coffee Meringues with coconut Ice cream; blackberry sorbet- filled peaches; and chocolate crepes with peppermint Ice Cream…. plus shortcake and rum raisin ice cream sandwiches; and chocolate cupcakes stuffed with pistachio Ice cream. Chronicle Books.
Native Treasures: Gardening with the Plants of California. By M. Nevin Smith. Horticulturalist explains how California’s diverse terrain, climate, and geology support a wealth of plant species — more than 6000 — and offers suggestions for designing with most of the major natives in cultivation, as well as with some more obscure groups. University of California Press.
Captured!: Inside the World of Celebrity Trials. By Mona Shafer Edwards. A collection of courtroom illustrations from high-profile trials of the last 25 years, along with the author’s observations and case summaries. Santa Monica Press.
Children’s/Young Adult . April, 2006
Bowery Girl . By Kim Taylor. Set in New York’s Bowery in 1883, this Young Adult novel offers a portrait of two young women–the pickpocket Mollie Flynn and the prostitute Annabelle Lee, who depend on each other for their very survival. Taylor lives in Salinas. Viking Books.
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories .Nonfiction . Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . Photography/Art . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . May 2006
Adverbs. By Daniel Handler. The author of the Lemony Snicket series writes a love story for adults. Handler explains, “The miracle is the adverbs, the way things are done. This novel is about people trying to find love in the ways it is done before the volcano erupts and the miracle ends. Yes, there’s a volcano in the novel. In my opinion a volcano automatically makes a story more interesting.” Ecco.
Bad Twin. by Gary Troup (a pseudonym for Laurence Shames). A tie-in book from the TV show “Lost.” Here’s the jumpng off point: The book is the highly-anticipated new novel by acclaimed mystery writer Troup, who delivered his manuscript just days before boarding Oceanic Flight 815. Yes, that Flight 815, famously lost in flight from Sydney, Australia, to Los Angeles in September 2004. He remains missing and is presumed dead. (Yeah, right. Wanna bet he turns up on that creepy island?) Hyperion.
Blue Nude. By Elizabeth Rosner. The story of a postwar German painter and an Israeli artist’s model who meet in a life drawing class in Northern California. The encounter forces both to confront their histories so that they can create something new together. The author lives in Berkeley. Ballantine Books.
A Field of Darkness. By Cornelia Read. Closet debutante and fledgling journalist Madeline Dare would be the first to tell you her money’s so old there’s none left. The summer of 1988 finds her in brokedown upstate New York. When a set of dog tags turns up at the scene of a decades-unsolved double murder, she may have found that longed-for ticket out of town. The authors lives in Berkeley. Mysterious Press.
Literacy and Longing in L.A.. by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack. Some women shop. Some eat. Dora cures the blues by bingeing on books — reading one after another, from Flaubert to bodice rippers, for hours and days on end. Dora, named after Eudora Welty, is an indiscriminate book junkie whose life has fallen apart — her career, her marriage, and finally her self-esteem. All she has left is her love of literature, and the book benders she relied on as a child. Delacorte Press.
There Will Never Be Another You. By Carolyn See. Set in Los Angeles of the immediate future and infused with the anxieties of the present, See’s novel articulates the instinctive, human impulse toward connection in the face of mortality. The story centers on the UCLA medical center, where cosmopolitan, twice-widowed Edith volunteers, and where her bewildered dermatologist son, Phil, has his practice. Phil is unhappily married and clueless about how to help their troubled prepubescent son or relate to their imperious teenage daughter. Edith tries repeatedly to begin her life again, but despairs of new relationships with “death all around.” Random House.
Poetry/Short Stories . May, 2006
Rare Surf, Vol. 2 : New & Used Poems. By Kevin Opstedal. Selected poems 1999-2006. Poems with a heavy California coastal aura. Opstedal lives in Santa Cruz. Smog Eyes Books.
Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better: A Girl’s Guide to Guy Stuff. By Jennifer Axen and Leigh Phillips; Illustrations by Roxanna Baer-Block. The authors of The Stripper’s Guide to Looking Great Naked offer a how-to manual on the manliest of manly arts, from the highbrow (know the difference between single malt and blended whiskey), to the lowbrow (learn to spit farther than a trucker). Chronicle Books.
Early Santa Ana. By Marge Bitetti & Guy Ball. This book celebrates the history of Santa Ana, California from 1860s until the end of World War II. Contains more than 200 historic photos supplied by the Santa Ana Historical Preservation Society. Arcadia Publishing.
If These Halls Could Talk: A Historical Tour Through San Francisco Recording Studios. By Heather Johnson. San Francisco writer explores the Bay Area’s most well-known recording facilities and the music made there since the mid ’60s. Thomson.
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It. By Al Gore. The truth about the climate crisis is an inconvenient one that means we are going to have to change the way we live our lives. Rodale Books.
Laurel Canyon: The Inside Story of Rock-and-Roll’s Legendary Neighborhood. By Michael Walker. The story of the Los Angeles canyon where the Baby Boom’s leading lights — from Joni Mitchell to the Mamas and the Papas — gathered to create some of the 20th century’s most enduring music and culture. Farrar Straus and Giroux/Faber & Faber.
Mexican Days: Journeys Into the Heart of Mexico. By Tony Cohan. The author of On Mexican Time returns with a new book that celebrates the joys and revelations south of the border and delves into the Mexican landscape and the grip it has on the North American imagination. Broadway Books.
Straight with the Medicine: Narratives of Washoe Followers of the Tipi Way. By Warren L. d’Azevedo. Twenty years after its initial publication, Heyday rereleases Straight with the Medicine with eleven new chapters. The narratives here were collected in the 1950s from seven members of the Washoe Tribe living on the eastern slopes of the Sierra in California and Nevada. They were followers of the Native American Church, whose sacrament was the peyote cactus and whose members referred to their religion as the Tipi Way. The author synthesizes oral accounts into a first-person narrative. Heyday Books.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. By Michael Pollan. The author of The Botany of Desire explores our national eating disorder. The cornucopia of the modern American supermarket and fast-food outlet has thrown us back on a bewildering landscape where we once again have to worry about which of those tasty-looking morsels might kill us. At the same time we’re realizing that our food choices also have profound implications for the health of our environment. Pollan teaches at UC Berkeley. Penguin Press.
Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . May, 2006
The San Francisco Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market Cookbook. By Christopher Hirsheimer and Peggy Knickerbocker. Foreword by Alice Waters. A guide and a history of this popular market, plus 130 recipes organized by season. Chronicle Books.
Shag: The Art of Josh Agle Postcard Book. By Josh Agle. Whether tiki bars or ski lodges, martini shakers or batwing glasses, Los Angeles artist Shag conjures distinctive retro-cool images. Chronicle Books.
Children’s/Young Adult . May, 2006
Discovering Nature’s Alphabet. By Krystina Castella and Brian Boyl. A collection of photographs that capture the alphabet in nature, from tree roots at the Angeles National Forest, to tide pools in Laguna Beach, to fallen bamboo leaves in San Marina, to lichen on a tree in Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park. Castella and Boyl are professors at Art Center College of Design and UCLA. Heyday Books.
Pucker. By Melanie Gideon. With his face scarred by a childhood fire, 17-year-old Thomas Quicksilver has been nicknamed “Pucker” by his classmates. But Tom knows that his scars are not the only things that make him an outsider. He and his mother are actually exiles from another world, Gideon lives in the Bay Area. (Grades 8-11) Razorbill.
Tell Me A Story, the CD. By Amy Friedman; music by Laura Hall; illustrated by Jillian Gilliland. Syndicated columnist shares a compilation of eight folktales. CD features readings by stage and screen performers. Friedman lives in Los Angeles. D & F Productions.
Fiction . Nonfiction . Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . Photography/Art. Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . June 2006
Coming Out. By Danielle Steel. Olympia Crawford Rubinstein has a busy legal career, a solid marriage, and a way of managing her thriving family with grace, humor, and boundless energy. With twin daughters finishing high school, a son at Dartmouth, and a kindergartner from her second marriage, there seems to be no challenge to which Olympia cannot rise. Until one sunny day in May, when she opens an invitation for her daughters to attend the most exclusive coming-out ball in New York-and chaos erupts all around her. Delacorte Press.
Donovan’s Paradigm. By Lynn Price. Surgeon Kim Donovan’s controversial new program on the surgical floor at St. Vincent’s Medical Center changes the lives of everyone she touches. Including her own. The author lives in Orange County. Behler Publications.
The End of California. By Steve Yarbrough. After twenty-five years Pete Barrington, having escaped to California on a football scholarship and then established himself as a doctor, only to be brought low by scandal has come home to the Mississippi Delta. Here he finds solace with his closest old friend, opens a new practice, and daily runs into memories he’d rather forget, even as his aggravated wife and unsettled daughter contend with this wholly alien society. Yarborough lives in Fresno. Knopf.
Poetry/Short Stories . June, 2006
The Art of Robert Reynolds: Quiet Journey. By Robert Reynolds and James Hayes. Reynold shares a collection of 178 works — watercolor and acrylic paintings, with occasional renderings in charcoal and graphite, that capture the Central Coast’s dynamic seascapes and gently rolling terrain, and the majestic, rugged High Sierra. His paintings are paired with observations by writer (and longtime LA Times writing coach) Jim Hayes. Reynold and Hayes are faculty Emeritus of Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo. Proceeds from book sales benefit the Cal Poly Alumni Association.
Thriller: Stories to Keep You Up All Night. Edited by James Patterson. A collection of thriller stories by thirty-two authors, including David Morrell , John Lescroart, Denise Hamilton, Christopher Rice, and Heather Graham. Mira Books.
The Anza Trail and the Settling of California. By Vladimir Guerrero. The epic true story of the journey to colonize San Francisco In 1774, as the American colonies were preparing to break away from the British crown, Spain was trying to strengthen its hold on Alta California. The Spanish viceroy of Mexico sent Juan Bautista de Anza, captain of the Presidio at Tubac (in what is now Arizona), to lead two expeditions: the first to find a safe overland route to Monterey, and the second to return Anza to California with 240 men, women, and children to establish a settlement in San Francisco. But whereas the Mayflower had carried only Anglo passengers, the Anza expeditions brought together a diverse group, including Spaniards, criollos (American-born Spaniards), mestizos (mixed-race “citizens”), and Native Americans. Heyday Books.
Boffo!: How I Learned to Love the Blockbuster and Fear the Bomb. By Peter Bart. Variety’s Editor-in-chief looks at the hits that sizzle and the flops that fizzle. Miramax Books.
The Great Black Way: L.A. in the 1940s and the Lost African American Renaissance. By R.J. Smith. In the 1940s, when FDR opened up the defense industry to black workers, it inspired a massive wave of black migration to a small area of Los Angeles along Central Avenue — and cultural ferment in the arts, culture, and politics. Smith is a senior editor at Los Angeles Magazine. Public Affairs.
L.A. Lofts. By Barbara Thornburg. The author showcases 20 original and enigmatic interiors housed in both converted warehouse spaces and newly constructed sites in upscale neighborhoods. Chronicle Books.
Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes, and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up. By Christopher Noxon. Once upon a time, boys and girls grew up and set aside childish things. Nowadays, moms and dads skateboard alongside their kids and download the latest pop-song ringtones. Captains of industry pose for the cover of BusinessWeek holding Super Soakers. The average age of video game players is twenty-nine and rising. Disney World is the world’s top adult vacation destination (that’s adults without kids). And young people delay marriage and childbirth longer than ever in part to keep family obligations from interfering with their fun fun fun. LA author Noxon has coined a word for this new breed of grown-up: rejuveniles. Crown.
A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History’s Greatest Traveler. By Jason Roberts. The life of James Holman, a virtually unknown nineteenth century explorer who was renowned for his solo circumnavigation of the world. HarperCollins.
So I’ve Heard: Notes of a Migratory Music Critic. By Alan Rich. LA Weekly critic offers a collection of music criticism gleaned from four decades of concert-going, opera-going, and record-listening on both coasts. Classical Music Today.
The Thinking Fan’s Guide to the World Cup. Edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey. Thirty-two writers and journalists explore the thirty-two nations that have qualified for the world’s greatest sporting event in this anthology. Harper Perennial.
Timothy Leary: A Biography. By Robert Greenfield. To a generation in full revolt against any form of authority, “Tune in, turn on, drop out” became a mantra, and its popularizer, Timothy Leary, a guru. A UC Berkeley-trained psychologist, Leary became first intrigued and then obsessed by the effects of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s while teaching at Harvard, where he not only encouraged but instituted their experimental use among students and faculty. Harcourt
Treasures of the Conservatory of Flowers. By Nina Sazevich. Photography by Kevin J. Frest. The author captures the richness of the Conservatory of Flowers in San Francisco. Housed in the oldest surviving municipal wood and glass greenhouse in the United States, the tropical plants of the Conservatory have attracted a steady stream of visitors since the building opened its doors in 1879. Sazevich tells of the historic building and its leafy inhabitants, sharing old stories and anecdotes—like the death of the Conservatory—s resident parrot in the 1883 fire that also took the Conservatory—s original dome—as well as modern developments—like the recently implemented Integrated Pest Management system, which employs natural predators in place of pesticides. Heyday Books.
The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape. By Erik Davis. Photographs by Michael Rauner. From Yosemite to Esalen, from televangelism to Neopaganism, from Mormon pioneers to contemporary Kali worshippers, culture critic Davis weaves together the threads of Californias religious history. Chronicle Books.
Whose Freedom? The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea. By George Lakoff. The author contends that the right has effected a devastatingly coherent and ideological redefinition of freedom. Lakoff is a professor of cognitive science and linguistics at the UC Berkeley. Farrar Straus Giroux.
The Yellow-Lighted Bookstore. By Lewis Buzbee. A former bookseller and sales representative celebrates the unique experience of the bookstorethe smell and touch of books, the joy of getting lost in the deep canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers. He shares his passion for books, which began with ordering through the Weekly Reader in grade school. Woven throughout is a historical account of the bookseller tradefrom the Alexandria library with an estimated one million papyrus scrolls to Sylvia Beach’s famous Paris bookstore, Shakespeare & Co., that led to the extraordinary effort to publish and sell James Joyce’s Ulysses. Buzbee lives in San Francisco. Graywold Press.
Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . June, 2006
The Working Cook: Fast and Fresh Meals for Busy People. By Tara Duggan. A regular columnist for the Food section in The San Francisco Chronicle, Duggan creates a practical cookbook with more than 100 recipes that take just 20-40 minutes to prepare. San Francisco Chronicle Press.
Desert to Dream: A Decade of Burning Man Photography. Barbara Traub. Attended by 20 people on a San Francisco beach in 1986, the Burning Man festival has mushroomed into a desert pilgrimage for 40,000 people annually. For one week, Burning Man qualifies as Nevada’s fifth-largest city, and climaxes on Labor Day weekend with the burning of four-story tall wooden man. Traub compiles a photographic record of an evolving decade of Burning Man. Immedium.
Children’s/Young Adult . June, 2006
Baby Fix My Car. By Lisa Brown. A board book in the new “Baby Be of Use” series. The author lives in San Francisco. McSweeney’s.
Hot Dog and Bob and the Seriously Scary Attack of the Evil Alien Pizza Person. By L. Bob Rovetch. Bob is just an ordinary boy with ordinary friends who goes to an ordinary school each day. But this is no ordinary day. When Bob opens his lunchbox, he finds Hot Dog — a real, live, talking hotdog! Hot Dog says he’s from another planet. He’s here to save Earth. And he needs Bob’s help! (ages 4-8). Chronicle Books.
Snapshots: The Wonders of Monterey Bay. By Celeste Davi Mannis.Spare verse and full-color photographs introduce young readers to the marine animals that inhabit Monterey Bay. Viking Books.
Tour America: A Journey Through Poems and Art. By Diane Siebert. Illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson. From New Hampshire’s formidable Mount Washington to San Francisco’s spectacular Golden Gate Bridge, the authors capture the scenic treasures of the United States (ages 8 and up). Chronicle Books.
Fiction . Nonfiction . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . July 2006
The Banquet Bug. By Geling Yan. Bay Area author’s new novel offers a pointed critique of capitalism’s rise in her native China. Hyperion Books.
Little Beauties. By Kim Addonizio. The lives of three characters — an obsessive-compulsive, a pregnant teenager, and the teen’s unborn child — come together in Addonizio’s debut novel. Simon & Schuster.
Ruby. By Francesca Lia Block. A modern-day fairy tale of a willful and intuitive heroine and a world of shocking realism and transcendent magic. HarperCollins.
Talk Talk. by T. Coraghessan Boyle. The author recasts the battle of good and evil as an identity theft suspense story in his 11th novel Viking.
Tomorrow They Will Kiss. By Eduardo Santiago. Set in Jersey in the early 1960’s, the novel follows three Cuban women working in a doll factory. Back Bay Books.
Samba Dreamers. by Kathleen De Azevedo. When José Francisco Verguerio Silva arrives at LAX, fleeing the brutal dictatorship in his native Brazil, he is determined to become Americanized at all costs. He lands a job driving a Hollywood tour bus and posing as Ricky Ricardo. He marries a blonde waitress and becomes the father of twins. Yet happiness remains elusive for Joe as he is haunted by flashbacks of prison torture. University of Arizona Press.
The Long Tail: Why the Future Is Selling Less of More. By Chris Anderson. The editor of Wired looks at what happens when the bottlenecks that stand between supply and demand in our culture go away and everything becomes available to everyone. Hyperion Books.
Children’s/Young Adult . July, 2006
Laguna Cove. By Alyson Noel. Moving to Laguna Beach feels like punishment to 17-year-old Anne. The school is so different from her East Coast prep school, and the scene is all about the hanging at the beach and surfing. And then there’s Ellie, the competitive Queen Bee who instantly hates her. (Teen fiction) St. Martin’s Press.
Snapshots: The Wonders of Monterey Bay. By Celeste Davi Mannis.Spare verse and full-color photographs introduce young readers to the marine animals that inhabit Monterey Bay. Viking Books.
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories .Nonfiction . Photography/Art
Fiction . August 2006
The Dissident. By Nell Freudenberger. Yuan Zhao, a celebrated Chinese performance artist and political dissident, has accepted a one year’s artist’s residency in Los Angeles. He is to be a Visiting Scholar at the St. Anselm’s School for Girls, teaching advanced art, and hosted by one of the school’s most devoted families: the wealthy if dysfunctional Traverses. But when their guest arrives, the Traverses are preoccupied with their own problems. A novel about secrets, love, and the shining chaos of everyday American life. Ecco Books.
Grace Period. By Gerald W. Haslam. Sixtyish cancer survivors enjoy a grace period when they fall in love and marry. The book is set in Sacramento and Merced. The author is a native of Oildale. University of Nevada Press.
Heat Signature. By Lisa Teasley. Part noir, part odyssey, Heat Signature mines the psychological and emotional landscape of loss as a son tries to cope with the death of his mother. He journeys up the California coast to Oregon, meeting several women, who in their varied, unusual ways, help him to find what he is looking for. Teasley lives in Los Angeles. Bloomsbury.
Kill All the Lawyers. By Paul Levine. They’re the legal world’s oddest couple — a shorts-and-sandals beach bum and a Coral Gables blue blood. Maybe the only thing keeping them from killing each other is that they’re on the same side. The second book in the Solomon vs. Lord series. Random House.
Spying In High Heels. By Gemma Halliday. L.A. shoe designer, Maddie Springer, has her life turned upside down when she stumbles up a dead body, $20 million in embezzled funds and a mysterious disappearance. Mystery/Romance. Dorchester.
Walking in Circles Before Lying Down. By Merrill Markoe. Dawn Tarnauer’s life isn’t exactly a success story. Already twice divorced, the young Californian is too busy job-hopping to start a career, her current boyfriend insists on living "off the grid," her Life Coach sister perpetually interferes with incomprehensible affirmations, her eccentric mother is busy promoting the culmination of her life’s work: The Every Holiday Tree, and her father is ending his brief third marriage while scheduling two dates for the same night. Dawn’s only source of security and comfort, it seems, is Chuck, a pit-bull mix from the pound. Markoe lives in LA. Villard Books.
Poetry/Short Stories . August, 2006
Of One and Many Worlds. By Rayn Roberts. This collection covers a wide expanse of topics from metaphysical issues about the nature of existence, to suffering, right action, aesthetic experience and how we live our everyday lives. Poetic Matrix Press.
I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger. By Amy Wilentz. An irreverent portrait of California and its unlikely governor. Wilentz noodles here, pokes there, and comes up with a new cultural topography for the state. The book begins before the 2003 gubernatorial recall election and goes beyond the special election of June, 2005. Simon and Schuster.
Inside: Life Behind Bars in America. By Michael Santos. The author is an inmate at the federal penitentiary at Lompoc, CA. He has been imprisoned for nearly two decades. His book is a slice of prison life — tales of gang wars, drug trafficking, sexual predators and the frustration of inmates denied medical attention and educational opportunities. St. Martin’s Press.
Mommies Who Drink: Sex, Drugs, and Other Distant Memories of an Ordinary Mom. By Brett Paesel. Six Feet Under actress shares her experiences with motherhood in this collection of true stories. Says Publisher’s Weekly, “This is Seinfeld but raunchy and L.A. with a full cast of potty-mouthed moms.” Warner Books.
No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog. By Margaret Mason. San Francisco writer offers tips for online journalers, including writing a serial novel, conducting unnecessary experiments, creating your autobiography and public eavesdropping. Peachpit Press.
Photography/Art . August, 2006
Every Day Is Saturday. By Peter Ellenby. Photographer captures images from the indie rock scene and features many Bay Area venues, including the Bottom of the Hill, Bimbos, Great American Music Hall, Fillmore, and Slim’s. Chronicle Books.
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories . Nonfiction . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . September 2006
Doggy Tales. By Snoop Dogg and David E. Talbert. The saga of an aspiring young rapper who finds himself at several crossroads at once, where everything is about to suddenly change. The year is 1989, Long Beach, California. When Ulysses Jeffries’s mother decides to move her family from the drug-infested East Side to what she believes is safer North Long Beach, Ulysses and his little brother Bing are hurled into a world like none they’ve experienced before. Atria Books.
Fear of the Dark: A Novel. By Walter Mosley. Fearless Jones and Paris Minton return in an LA thriller about family, betrayal, and revenge. Little Brown and Company.
The House Beautiful: A Novel of High Ideals, Low Morals, and Lower Rent. By Allison Burnett. B.K. Troop — a middle-aged, witty, bipolar, alcoholic homosexual — lives alone in a cramped New York apartment. His life is turned upside down when his best friend dies and leaves him her Manhattan brownstone. To afford the property tax, B.K. turns his new home into a colony for young, struggling artists, to whom he can serve as mentor, if not muse. Burnett lives in Los Angeles. Carroll & Graf.
Mary: A Novel. By Janis Cooke Newman. A novel about Mary Todd Lincoln, from her tempestuous childhood in a slaveholding Southern family through the opium-clouded years after her husband’s death. This first lady held spiritualist séances in the White House, ran her family into debt with compulsive shopping, negotiated with conniving politicians, and raised her young sons in the nation’s capital during the bloodiest war this country has ever known. Newman lives in Northern California and teaches writing classes. MacAdam Cage.
Paint It Black. By Janet Fitch. From the bestselling author of White Oleander, a story of passion, first love, and a young woman’s search for a true world in the aftermath of loss. Fitch teaches fiction writing at USC. Little, Brown.
Swimming Upstream, Slowly. By Melissa Clark. 27-year old Sasha Salter is pregnant - even though she hasn’t had sex in two years. The doctor’s diagnosis, ‘lazy sperm’, forces Sasha to trace her love life to figure out who the father is. Clark lives in Los Angeles. Broadway Books.
Poetry/Short Stories . September, 2006
Breaking the Fever. By Mary Mackey. A collection of lyric poems. One section of this collection is entitled “The Californian.” Mackey lives in Sacramento and Berkeley. Marsh Hawk Press.
Landmarked for Murder. Edited by Harley Jane Kozak, Michael Mallory, and Nathan Walpow. A collection of ten suspenseful stories by members of the Los Angeles Chapter of Sisters in Crime, all set against the backdrop of Southern California landmarks. Top Publications.
Children’s/Young Adult . September, 2006
The Beatrice Letters. By Lemony Snicket. A companion book to the popular Series of Unfortunate Events. The book includes letters between Snicket and Beatrice, the mysterious woman to whom Snicket dedicates all of his books. HarperCollins.
Is There Really A Human Race? By Jamie Lee Curtis; illustrated by Laura Cornell. The seventh collaboration between Curtis and Cornell is a dialogue between a child and a parent about being human, being the best one can be, and understanding that it’s the journey and not the destination that counts. Joanna Cotler Books.
Fiction . Nonfiction . Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . Photography/Art . Children’s/Young Adult
Fiction . October 2006
Farewell Summer. By Ray Bradbury. The author returns to the territory of his classic Dandelion Wine — a sequel 50 years in the making. William Morrow.
Hollywood Station: A novel. by Joseph Wambaugh. For the first time in 20 years, Wambaugh revisits life in the LAPD. Little Brown and Company.
The Invented Life of Kitty Duncan. By Kat Meads. A comic novel with bite, The Invented Life is good-girl Mo’s envious take on the life and times of a gal who plays by no one’s rules except her own. Chiasmus Press.
MoonPies and Movie Stars. Amy Wallen. Ruby Kincaid, the owner of six-lane bowling alley in Devine, Texas, spots her runaway daughter on a ButterMaid commercial and sets off for Hollywood with her game show addicted friends to find the daughter and make her own up to her responsibilities. The author lives in San Diego; the book takes place in Hollywood circa 1976.Viking/Penguin
My Girlfriend Comes To The City And Beats Me Up. By Stephen Elliott. A collection of stories. My Girlfriend Comes to the City and Beats Me Up follows the narrator on a dizzying ride through past and present, from a group home for troubled adolescents in Chicago where he loses his virginity to shooting galleries and homeless encampments in San Francisco where he searches for deeper and darker thrills. In “Other Desires,” a flood of unsettling memories backgrounds the narrator’s involvement with a loose-knit family of lost souls. “Tears” explores the complexities of an S/M Internet hook-up. Cleis Press.
Next. By Michael Crichton. Is a loved one missing some body parts? Are blondes becoming extinct? Is everyone at your dinner table of the same species? Humans and chimpanzees differ in only 400 genes; is that why a chimp fetus resembles a human being? And should that worry us? There’s a new genetic cure for drug addiction … is it worse than the disease? Next blends fact and fiction into a tale of a new world where nothing is what it seems and a set of new possibilities can open at every turn. HarperCollins.
Testimonios: Early California through the Eyes of Women. By Rose Marie Beebe and Robert M. Senkewicz. From the editors of Lands of Promise and Despair, here are thirteen womens firsthand accounts from the time California was part of Spain and Mexico. Heyday Books.
What is the What. By Dave Eggers. The author illuminates the history of the civil war in Sudan through the eyes of a young boy, Valentino Achak Deng. McSweeney’s.
Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West. By Hampton Sides. With Christopher ‘Kit’ Carson and Santa Fe at the heart of the story, Sides exploresthe United States conquest of the Southwest, from St. Louis to Mexico City to California. Doubleday
Brother Odd. By Dean Koontz. Southern California novelist’s third book featuring Odd Thomas. Bantam.
Decca: The Letters of Jessica Mitford. Edited by Peter Y. Sussman. Mitford lived a larger-than-life life: born into the British aristocracy—one of the famous (and sometimes infamous) Mitford sisters—she ran away to Spain during the Spanish Civil War with her cousin Esmond Romilly, Winston Churchill’s nephew, then came to America, became a tireless political activist and a member of the Communist Party, and embarked on a career as memoirist and muckraking journalist. She lived in Oakland until her death in 1996. Knopf.
Inlandia: A Literary Journey Through California’s Inland Empire. Edited by Gayle Wattawa. This collection showcases poetry, nonfiction, and fiction from “the area east of Los Angeles,” sprawling Riverside and San Bernardino counties. More than eighty writers are represented here, from Indian stories and early explorers’ narratives to pieces written by contemportary writers. Writers include Mary Austin, Joan Baez, Gayle Brandeis, Raymond Chandler, Mike Davis, Joan Didion, Percival Everett, M.F.K Fisher, Erle Stanley Gardner, Helen Hunt Jackson, Michael Jaime Becerra, Norman Mailer, Eric Schlosser, John Steinbeck, Susan Straight, Calvin Trillin and Sholeh Wolpe. Heyday Books.
Justice for All: Earl Warren and the Nation He Made. By Jim Newton. A look at Earl Warren, who rose through California politics, becoming the first and only person ever to win the governorship three times, before reshaping America’s values and institutions as Chief Justice of the United States from 1953 to 1969. Newton builds this biography around previously unavailable documents as well as new interviews. A native of Palo Alto, Newton is the Los Angeles City-County Bureau Chief of the Los Angeles Times. Riverhead Books (Penguin USA)
The Kill Bill Diary: The Making of a Tarantino Classic as Seen Through the Eyes of a Screen Legend . by David Carradine. The backstory of Quentin Tarantino’s epic film. HarperCollins.
Kill the Messenger. By Nick Schou. The story of the tragic death of Gary Webb, the controversial newspaper reporter who committed suicide in December 2004. Webb is the former San Jose Mercury News reporter whose 1996 “Dark Alliance” series on the so-called CIA-crack cocaine connection created a firestorm of controversy and led to his resignation from the paper amid escalating attacks on his work by the mainstream media. Nation Books.
Operation Bullpen: The Inside Story of the Biggest Forgery Scam in American History. By Kevin Nelson. The author delves into the three-year undercover FBI investigation that busted a gang of southern California forgers and distributors who defrauded American consumers by selling forged autographed memorabilia. Southampton Books.
The Oracles: My Filipino Grandparents in America. By Pati Navalta Poblete. As a young girl growing up in California, the author is dismayed to find her American way of life interrupted when her four grandparents arrive from the Philippines. Turning her adolescence upside down, they inspire her to name them —the Oracles— for the unfamiliar—and often unsolicited—wisdom they bring. A former columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Poblete is now the editorial page editor of the Honolulu Advertiser. Heyday Books.
Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Tranformed the American Dream. By Edward Humes. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer spins a social history about the postwar G.I. Bill — the greatness it enabled, the evils it allowed to persist, the potential yet to be realized — told through the stories of veterans who survived the war to come home to something new. The effects were immediate and enduring — the suburbs, the middle class, America’s ever-increasing number of college graduates, the lunar landing — all are tied to the G.I. Bill. The Greatest Generation would not exist without it: Norman Mailer, Bob Dole, John F. Kennedy, Paul Newman, Jimmy Carter, Clint Eastwood, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and many others benefited from its provisions. Harcourt.
Past Tents: The Way We Camped. By Susan Snyder. From the author of Bear in Mind: The California Grizzly comes this lighter look at Americans’ infatuation with the great outdoors. Mining once again the archives at the Bancroft Library, Snyder has mapped out a history of camping in the West. Hyeday Books.
Point to Point Navigation: A Memoir. By Gore Vidal. In the sequel to his bestselling memoir, Palimpsest, the novelist, essayist, and critic ranges freely over his life. The title refers to a form of navigation he resorted to as a first mate in the Navy during World War II. As he says, “As I was writing this account of my life and times since Palimpsest, I felt as if I were again dealing with those capes and rocks in the Bering Sea that we had to navigate so often with a compass made inoperable by weather.” Vidal lives in Los Angeles. Doubleday.
Provocaciones: Letters from the Prettiest Girl in Arvin. By Rafaela Castro. Essays about the author’s Mexican Catholic upbringing in San Joaquin Valley & San Francisco Bay area and coming-of-age issues when she joined the Peace Corps. Chusma House Publications, San Jose.
Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and for Those Who Want to Write Them. By Francine Prose. Long before there were creative-writing workshops and degrees, how did aspiring writers learn to write? By reading the work of their predecessors and contemporaries. Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and the tricks of the masters. She reads Dostoyevsky, Flaubert, Kafka, Austen, Dickens, Woolf, Chekhov and discovers why their work has endured. HarperCollins.
She’s Such a Geek! Women Write About Science, Technology & Other Nerdy Stuff. Ellen Spertus, Roopa Ramamoorthi, and Corie Ralston, work in traditionally male-dominated professions. Cyberlaw professor Wendy Seltzer describes how her involvement with law and politics started with a love for building computers. Devin Grayson writes comic books, while other contributors read science fiction and play in professional videogame competitions. Seal Press.
Tough Choices: A Memoir. By Carly Fiorina. The former CEO of Hewlett-Packard into tells her story and offers her perspective on leadership, technology, globalization, and sexism. Portfolio.
Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination. by Neal Gabler. The author, a senior fellow at USC’s Norman Lear Center for the Study of Entertainment and Society, spent seven years writing this Disney biography. Knopf.
What I Know for Sure: My Journey Growing Up in America. By Tavis Smiley with David Ritz. LA talk show host’s memoir of poverty, ambition, pain, and atonement. Doubleday.
Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . October, 2006
The Art of Decanting: Bringing Wine to Life. By Sandra Jordan and Lindsey Lee Johnson. The authors trace the evolution of wine presentation and its rich lore. Jordan is Creative Director of Jordan Vineyards & Winery in Healdsburg. Johnson is a Los Angeles writer. Chronicle Books.
Photography/Art . October, 2006
The Art of Robert Reynolds: Quiet Journey. By Robert Reynolds and James Hayes. This collection showcases 178 paintings of the Central Coast and the California Sierras, alongside written musings by both Reynolds and Hayes. Sales benefit the Cal Poly Alumni Association.
First Exposures. Edited by Erik Auerbach; foreword by Dave Eggers. This collection celebrates 10 years of San Francisco’s Camerawork mentoring program, in which photographers work with young people, ages 11-18. Rock Out Books.
Children’s/Young Adult . October, 2006
Clever Ali. By Nancy Farmer. Ali is finally old enough to join his father in tending pigeons for the evil Sultan of Cairo. The boy is given a pet pigeon, but warned NEVER to feed it too much, lest it become spoiled and lazy. But Ali feels sorry for his hungry pet and disobeys. When the overfed bird becomes greedy and ruins a plate of the Sultan’s cherries, Ali is in big trouble! Now he has only three days to replace the Sultan’s 600 cherries from the snowy mountains of Syria. Only then can he save his father from the dreaded Oubliette: a deep pit where a giant demon is waiting. Orchard Books.
Gwango’s Lonesome Trail. By Justin Parpan. A lonely dinosaur wanders the barren desert of the Southwest,looking for a companion.He winds up in an unlikely place,makes an unlikely friend, and finally feels that his life has a senseof purpose. Parpan lives in Temecula. Red Cygnet Press, San Diego.
Julia Morgan Built A Castle. By Celeste Davidson Mannis. Biography of Julia Morgan, the first licensed woman architect in California, who built William Randolph Hearst’s palatial estate, San Simeon. Viking Childrens Books.
Series of Unfortunate Events #13: The End. By Lemony Snicket. The final installment in The Series of Unfortunate Events. Harper Collins.
Meet the authors of the California Authors Directory. Visit the directory to discover writers like Christina Meldrum, a Bay Area attorney whose book Madapple was just released this month. “In debut novelist Christina Meldrum's mesmerizing literary mystery, 