Welcome to our one-of-a-kind list of California's latest — and soon to be published — books. You can buy books right from this page. Just click through our title links to buy at Powells.com, which stocks a vast selection of both new and used books.
2007 releases: January . February . March . April . May . June . August . October
2006 releases: January . February . March . April . May . June . July . August . September. October
Previous releases: 2005 releases . 2004 releases . 2003 releases . 2002 releases
Books are listed by month of publication. 
Indicates the latest additions to our list. Last update: 07-17-07.
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Current and upcoming releases
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories . Nonfiction . Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens
Fiction . January 2007
Essential Mary Austin: A Selection of Mary Austin's Best Writing . Edited with an introduction by Kevin Hearle. Mary Austin (1868-1934) helped shape America's understanding of California and the West. Born in Illinois, she was in San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake, observed Los Angeles during its boom, and lived in Carmel when the community became a literary hub. Heyday Books.
Self Storage. By Gayle Brandeis. Self Storage is politically resonant story of a woman whose habit of buying and reselling storage unit contents sets her on a path of self-discovery inspired by Whitman's Song of Myself. The novel is set in Riverside, much of it in Family Student Housing on the campus of UC Riverside. Ballantine.
Speak No Evil. By Allison Brennan. The author of The Kill begins a new back-to-back trilogy of romantic suspense with this tale of a female homicide detective who must solve a chain of gruesome sex crimes before a depraved killer chooses his next victim. Brennan lives in Northern California. Ballantine Books.
Poetry/Short Stories . January, 2007
Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present . What's like to get bitten by a zombie? To live through a bioweapon attack? To have every aspect of your life governed by invisible ants? In his new collection of novellas, Doctorow explore the possibilities of information technology ? and its various uses ? run amok. He lives in Southern California and is a co-founder of BoingBoing.net. Thunder's Mouth Press.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2006. er to fish in Field and Stream. Other writers include David Foster Wallace (The Atlantic Monthly), Joyce Carol Oates (The Virginia Quarterly Review), Priscilla Long (The American Scholar), and Jesse Katz (Los Angeles Magazine). Columbia University Press.
Bohemian Los Angeles. By Daniel Hurewitz. The story of a hidden corner of Los Angeles, where the personal first became the political, where the nation's first enduring gay rights movement emerged. Portraying life over a period of more than forty years in the hilly enclave of Edendale, near downtown Los Angeles, Hurewitz considers the work of painters and printmakers, looks inside the Communist Party's intimate cultural scene, and examines the social world of gay men.
Bonding While Learning: Activities to Grow Your Relationship While Preparing for Reading Success. By Gary Kosman & Grace Chiu. This book offers activities and materials to help young children learn to read and write while having fun; activities can be used at home and on the run — in the car, at the park, while out to eat, and at the doctor's office. The authors live in Los Angeles County. America Learns.
Greenopia: The Urban Dweller's Guide to Green Living.
The Gospel of Food: Everything You Think You Know About Food Is Wrong. By Barry Glassner. From the author of The Culture of Fear comes a rallying cry to abandon food fads and myths for calmer and more pleasurable eating. A professor of sociology at USC, Glassner lives in Los Angeles. Ecco Books.
Oasis of Stone: Visions of Baja California Sur.
Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties. By Robert Stone. From the New York City of Kline and De Kooning to the jazz era of New Orleans's French Quarter to Ken Kesey's psychedelic California, Prime Green explores the 1960s in all its weird, innocent, fascinating glory. An account framed by two wars, it begins with Robert Stone's last year in the Navy, when he took part in an Antarctic expedition navigating the globe, and ends in Vietnam, where he was a correspondent in the days following the invasion of Laos. Ecco Books.
Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . January, 2007
A Celebration of Clematis. By Kaye Heafey & Ron Morgan. A pictorial book detailing the story behind Chalk Hill Clematis, a business in northern California devoted entirely to growing this flowering vine. Half Full Press
Fiction . February 2007
Lost City Radio. By Daniel Alarcón. A nameless, timeless South American country slowly emerges from a war everyone would prefer to forget. For ten years, Norma has been the voice of consolation for a people broken by violence, while hiding her own personal loss: her husband disappeared at the end of the war. Norma's radio program is the most popular in the country, and every week she reads the names of those who have gone missing. Loved ones are reunited, and the lost are found. But the life she has become accustomed to is forever changed when a young boy arrives from the jungle and provides a clue to the fate of her long-missing husband. Alarcón lives in Oakland. Harper Collins.
Naked on the Page: The Misadventures of my Unmarried Midlife. By Jane Ganahl. Beginning with the launch of her San Francisco Chronicle column 'Single Minded' and ending with her 50th birthday, Ganahl follows one frenetic year in a middle-aged woman's life. It's a year of prodigious change, both social and professional, further complicated by hormonal upheaval, family issues, and the stunning realization that — after a life filled with too many men to count —she may be single for the rest of it! A novelized memoir. Viking Books.
Still Water Saints. By Alex Espinoza. A debut novel centered around Botanica Oshun, a religous supply store in the town of Agua Mansa. Weaving together an eventful year in the life of Perla Portilla, the botanicas owner, with the stories of her customersincluding a young woman determined to lose weight, a shoplifting speed addict, a streetwise Chicana muralist, a drag queen turned parent, and an immigrant boy fearful for his life the novel presents a tapestry of changing lives in Californias Inland Empire. The book was simultaneously in a Spanish edition (Los santos de Agua Mansa, California). The author graduated from the MFA program at UC-Irvine and lives in Riverside. Random House.
The Watchman: A Joe Pike Novel. By Robert Crais. Larkin Conner Barkley lives like the City of Angels is hers for the taking. Young and rich, she speeds through the city during its loneliest hours, blowing through red after red in her Aston Martin as if running for her life. Until out of nowhere a car appears, and with it the metal-on-metal explosion of a terrible accident. Dazed, Larkin attempts to help the other victims. And finds herself the sole witness in a secret federal investigation. Simon & Schuster.
Poetry/Short Stories . February, 2007
Overclocked: Stories of the Future Present . What's like to get bitten by a zombie? To live through a bioweapon attack? To have every aspect of your life governed by invisible ants? Cory Doctorow's collection of novellas offers sci-fi tales that explore the possibilities of information technology ? and its various uses ? run amok. Thunder's Mouth Press.
Criminal of Poverty: Growing up Homeless in America. By Lisa Gray-Garcia. The author tells her story, her mother's and grandmother's too. Three generations of poor women in America. "It is illegal to be homeless in America," she writes. "Poverty is a violent crime." City Lights Publishing.
Flower Confidential: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers. By Amy Stewart. The author takes us inside the flower trade ? from the hybridizers, who create new varieties in the laboratory, to the growers, who produce flowers by the millions (often in a factory-like setting), to the Dutch auctioneers, who set the bar (and the price), and ultimately to the neighborhood florists orchestrating the mind-boggling demands of Valentine's and Mother's Day. There's the breeder intent on developing the first blue rose; an eccentric horticultural legend who created the world's most popular lily; a grower of gerberas of every color imaginable; and the equivalent of a Tiffany diamond: the "Forever Young" rose. Stewart lives in Northern California. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
Gaining: The Truth About Life After Eating Disorders . By Aimee Liu. In 1979, Liu penned the memoir Solitaire, in which she described her battle with anorexia. Now, three decades later, the Southern California author shares her story and those of her peers who are still struggling to understand the role anorexia and bulimia have played in their lives. Warner Books.
Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion, and the Battle for America's Soul . By Edward Humes. What should we teach our children about where we come from? Is evolution good science? Is it a lie? Is it incompatible with faith? Did Charles Darwin really say man came from monkeys? What happens when a town school board decides to confront such questions head-on, thrusting its students, then an entire community, onto the front lines of America's culture wars? Humes goes behind the scenes of the recent war on evolution, the epic court case on teaching "intelligent design" it spawned, and the national struggle over what Americans believe about human origins. Ecco/HarperCollins.
US Guys: The True and Twisted Mind of the American Man . By Charlie LeDuff. Pulitzer Prize-winning NYT writer takes part in a Burning Man festival in Nevada, clad in a Mohawk and little else; trains with the sadhearted Russian clown of a traveling circus; leads a cavalry charge down the Little Bighorn River with war reenactors; joins a C-level professional football team; infiltrates a West Oakland bike gang that holds fight parties; travels with Appalachian snake handlers and tent revivalists; and covers a cowboy love story at a gay rodeo. Penguin Press.
The Way of the Thumb. By Oscar Villalon. The San Francisco Chronicle book editor pens a short guide to thumb wrestling. 826 Books.
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories . Nonfiction . Children's/Young Adult
The Adventures of the Pisco Kid. By Michael Standaert. Pisco, a rodent exterminator by trade, is groomed by his mother to be a messiah, a burden he wants no part of. After an unfortunate bat bite, a series of visions and mishaps lead Pisco to venture off in search of a mysterious girl who had accidentally been sending him postcards. A surreal and satirical journey through American myth. Standaert lives in Palo Alto. Arriviste Press.
Bird of Another Heaven .
A Far Country. By Daniel Mason. From the author of The Piano Tuner, a new novel about a young girl's journey through a vast, unnamed country in search of her brother. Mason lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Knopf.
Storm Runners. By T. Jefferson Parker. Deputy Sheriff Matt Stromsoe has gone through hell and back, but now he's reclaiming his life, starting over as bodyguard to a TV news reporter. Easy job, simple life. Everything above board, no secrets to keep. Yeah, right. Morrow.
Woman of Ill Fame. By Erika Mailman. A tale of murder, sex and intrigue in Gold Rush San Francisco. Looking for a better life, Nora Simms sails from the East Coast to San Francisco with a plan for success: to strike it rich by trading on her good looks. But when a string of murders claims several fellow prostitutes, Nora grows uneasy with how closely linked all of the victims are to her. Even her rise to the top of her profession and a move to the fashionable part of town dont shelter her from the danger, and she must distinguish friend from foe in a race to discover the identity of the killer. Heyday.
You Don't Love Me Yet: A Novel. By Jonathan Lethem. Novelist serves up a send-up of the alternative band scene, the city of Los Angeles, and the genre of romantic comedy. Doubleday.
Poetry/Short Stories . March 2007
The Islands Project: Poems For Sappho. By Eloise Klein Healy. And just how does one talk to Sappho and what does one say? Red Hen Press.
No Time to Nap. By Mike Madison. Illustrated by Mary Peterson. Adapted from real to-do lists of this author/farmer, No Time to Nap takes readers on a whimsical tour through one farmer's yearly routine. A Great Valley Book/Heyday Books.
Patricia Unterman's San Francisco Food Lover's Pocket Guide. Unterman has been a San Francisco food critic formore than three decades and also is the chef/owner of the Hayes Street Grill. The compact volume tucks easily into a hip pocket and includes bakeries, bars, butchers, delis, cheese shops, confectioners and wine shops, along with an index for various cravings. Ten Speed Press.
Poor People. By William T. Vollmann. "Why are you poor?" asked National Book Award winner Vollmann. Thais blamed past lives, Mexicans blamed the rich, and Yemenis wouldn't blame anyone for fear of offending Allah. Ecco Books.
'The Royal Nonesuch: Or, What Will I Do When I Grow Up? By Glasgow Phillips. Scott Timberg of the LA Times describes Phillips as "a Los Angeles writer whose new memoir gives new meaning to the term `failing upward.' " Grove Press, Black Cat.
The Water Will Hold You: A Skeptic Learns to Pray.
Children's/Young Adult . March, 2007
Angels on Sunset Boulevard . By Melissa de la Cruz. This novel is a fast-paced story of the hot boys and beautiful girls who soon discover there is a dark side to Tinseltown's bright lights (12 and up). The author lives in Los Angeles. Simon & Schuster.
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories . Nonfiction . Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens
Fiction . April 2007
The Gravedigger.
A Handbook to Luck. By Cristina Garcia. From the author of Dreaming in Cuban and Monkey Hunting, this novel takes readers into the lives of three children: Enrique (Cuban and living in Southern California with his magician father), Marta (impoverished in San Salvador) and Leila (an upper-middle class girl from Tehran. Over the course of twenty years, the lives of these characters twist and intertwine. Garcia lives in the Napa Valley. Knopf.
Teach the Free Man: Stories. By Peter Nathaniel Malae. The twelve short stories in Teach the Free Man revolve around characters both inside and outside of the California prison system. The author lives in Santa Clara. Swallow Press.
Poetry/Short Stories . April, 2007
California Transit: Stories and a Novella. By Diane Lefer. Southern California: land of dislocation and assimilation, a place Lefer knows well. In California Transit, she zeroes-in on a Mexican woman detained indefinitely by immigration officials, isolating her from her American family; a zoo employee considering what to do with a euthanized antelope's head; and, in the title novella, a lonely woman, riding buses all day, who cannot avert the violence building within her. This collection explores the difference between justice and law. Sarabande Books
The Wind Shifts: New Latino Poetry.
Chief Marin: Leader, Rebel, and Legend. By Betty Goerke. Its a little known fact that the San Francisco Bay Area's Marin County is named after a Coast Miwok chief who achieved notoriety for defying Spanish authority over his people. Anthropologist and archaeologist Goerke has pieced together a portrait of the life of this Native American leader, using mission records, ethnographies, explorers' and missionaries' diaries and correspondence, and other material. Chief Marin became a leader of Native resistance to Spanish colonization at that critical time when, as the mission system collapsed, California would once again be transformed, this time by Americans. Heyday.
I Was a Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids. From the front lines of modern motherhood comes a book that uncovers the guilty secrets of moms today . . . in their own words. The authors live in Northern California. Chronicle Books.
Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith. By Anne LaMott. A follow-up to her bestselling Plan B, Grace (Eventually) is a personal exploration of the faith and grace all around us. Riverhead Books.
Lee Miller: A Life. By Carolyn Burke. The story of Vogue model, Surrealist muse, and World War II photojournalist Lee Miller. Burke lives in Santa Cruz. University of Chicago.
The Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk: A Century by the Sea. By the Santa Cruz Seaside Company. Three million visitors a year make their way to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, which celebrates it centennial this year and still features the Giant Dipper rollercoaster (built in 1924) and Loof Carousel (built in 1911). This new book is a photo album, history book and scrapbook. Ten Speed Press.
Cookbooks/Crafts/Gardens . April, 2007
Antipasti: Fabulous Appetizers and Small Plates. By Joyce Goldstein. Photographs by Paolo Nobile. With growing numbers of restaurants specializing in "small plates," the antipasto is back in style. Goldstein delves into the history of antipasti and offers a host of recipes. She is a chef, author, teacher, and Mediterranean cooking expert who lives in San Francisco. Chronicle books.
Fiction . May 2007
Hick. By Andrea Portes. Novel tells the story of Luli McMullen?feisty, precocious, and out on her own at 13. Luli is running away from Palmyra, Nebraska to Las Vegas, where she plans to escape her disturbing present and even less hopeful future by finding herself a sugar daddy. That Luli finds trouble on the road almost immediately is no surprise. The author lives in Los Angeles. Unbridled Books
The Immaculate Complexion.
Point Surrender. By Anne Carter. This romantic mysterytakes place in fictional Northern California lighthouse, Point Surrender. The lighthouse's last keeper has been dead for more than 25 years. Will the journal he kept reveal why he died in the old lighthouse, and what happened to his missing family? Echelon Press.
The Yiddish Policemen's Union: A Novel. By Michael Chabon. The Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist imagines if Alaska, not Israel, had become the homeland for the Jews after World War II. HarperCollins.
This Time, This Place: My Life in War, the White House, and Hollywood .
Fiction . Nonfiction . Travel
Fiction . June 2006
Michael Tolliver Lives.
Peony in Love.
Fifteen Candles: 15 Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles, and other Quinceanera Stories.
The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty.
The Other Woman: Twenty-one Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love, and Betrayal.
California's Central Coast: The Ultimate Winery Guide. By Mira Advani Honeycutt. Nearly two million people visit Central Coast wineries each year, many drawn to the scenery and wines of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties and inspired by to the success of the movie "Sideways." Honeycutt lives in Los Angeles. Chronicle Books.
Fiction . July 2006
Sammy's House.
The Best of Surfer Magazine.
Blood Passion: The Ludlow Massacre and Class War in the American West. By Scott Martelle. A look at the nation's most violent labor dispute, in which more than 75 people died in southern Colorado. The author is a Los Angeles Times staff writer. Rutgers University Press.
Fiction . October 2006
Cocaine and Blue Eyes. By Fred Zackel. The tough tale of a semi-pro detective hunting high and low in San Francisco society for a missing person who maybe isn't missing, on behalf of a client who is without a doubt dead. This is a reissue of a 1978 book, which also was made into a TV movie. Point Blank.
Schulz and Peanuts: A Biography .
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
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