Welcome to our list of 2005 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 season of publication in 2005. Last update of this page: 09-18-06.
2005 releases: Fall-Winter 2005 . Summer 2005 . Winter-Spring 2005
2007 releases . 2006 releases . 2004 releases . 2003 releases . 2002 releases
Click here for a list of our blog entries on 2008 releases.
Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories . Nonfiction . Photography/Art .Children
Fiction . September - Nov. 2005
Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. By Anne Rice. A novel about the early years of Christ, based on the Gospels and on New Testament scholarship. Rice lives in La Jolla. Knopf.
Forever Odd. By Dean Koontz. Koontz takes up the story of Odd Thomas and an eccentric little town in a tale that is equal parts suspense and terror, adventure and mystery. Bantam.
Now You See Me. By Rochelle Krich. In the fourth Molly Blume mystery, an anguished rabbi and his wife turn to Molly to find their daughter–a high school senior who has run off with a man she met in an on-line chat room. Ballantine.
Queen of Dreams. By Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Rakhi, a young painter and single mother, is struggling to come to terms with her relationship with ex-husband Sonny, a hip Bay Area DJ, and with her dream-teller mother, who has rarely spoken about her past or her native India. Rakhi has her hands full, juggling a creative dry spell, raising her daughter, and trying to save the Berkeley teahouse she and her best friend Belle own. But greater challenges are to come. Anchor Books.
S Is For Silence. By Sue Grafton. Santa Barbara author releases her nineteenth installment in the mystery series featuring private eye Kinsey Millhone. October 2005. Putnam Publishing Group
Saving Fish From Drowning. By Amy Tan. On an ill-fated art expedition into the southern Shan state of Burma, eleven Americans leave their Floating Island Resort for a Christmas-morning tour ˜ and disappear. Through twists of fate, curses, and just plain human error, they find themselves deep in the jungle, where they encounter a tribe awaiting the return of the leader and the mythical book of wisdom that will protect them from the ravages and destruction of the Myanmar military regime. Putnam.
Silent Lies. By M.L. Malcolm. The story of a Hungarian boy born into poverty, who uses his amazing ability with languages to build a brilliant new life for himself. But when Hungary collapses after its defeat in World War I, Leo loses everything. Caught up in a riptide of events beyond his control, he reinvents himself as circumstances demand, eventually fleeing to Shanghai,and taking with him a stolen diamond necklace that will prove to be his salvation — or his death warrant. (Historical fiction.) Malcolm lives in Pacific Palisades. Longstreet Press.
Solomon vs. Lord. By Paul Levine. Debut title in Levine’s new series. Victoria Lord sticks to the law. Steve Solomon invents his own. Defending a glamorous widow accused of murder, squabbling all the way, the two lawyers could end up in ruin, in jail,or in bed. Levine, a former trial and appellate attorney, lives in Los Angeles. Bantam.
Zanesville: A Novel. By Kris Saknussemm. An amnesic man, alone is Central Park, is scooped up by a group of self-described freedom fighters determined to overthrow the Vitessa Cult-poration, the largest company in the world. Villard.
Poetry/Short Stories . September - Nov. 2005
Poeta en San Francisco. By Barbara Jane Reyes. The author incorporates English, Spanish, and Tagalog in a book-length poem set in her hometown. Tinfish Press.
San Francisco Noir. Edited by Peter Maravelis. A collection of stories exploring the nether regions of “Baghdad by the Bay.” Includes new stories by Domenic Stansberry, Barry Gifford, Eddie Muller, Robert Mailer Anderson, Michelle Tea, Peter Plate, Kate Braverman, David Corbett, Alejandro Murguia, Sin Soracco, Alvin Lu, Will Christopher Baer, Jim Nisbet, Jon Longhi, and David Henry Sterry. October 2005. Akashic Books.
The Smokehouse Boys. Shaunna Oteka McCovey. A collection of poems anchored in the forests and mountains of Northern California. The author grew up on the Yurok Indian reservation, along the Klamath River. October 2005. Heyday Books.
Nonfiction . September - Oct. 2005
All the Fishes Come Home to Roost: An American Misfit in India. By Rachel Manija Brown. In 1980, when she was seven, the author’s parents, 60s-holdover hippies, leave California for an ashram in a cobra-ridden, drought stricken spot in India. The ashram is devoted to Meher Baba, best known as the guru to Pete Townsend, for having kept a lifelong vow of silence, and for having coined the slogan, “Don’t worry, be happy.” The book’s characters include a holy madman permanently doubled over from years of stooping to collect invisible objects; a senile librarian who nightly sings scales outside Rachel’s window; and a middle-aged male virgin who begs her to critique his epic spiritual poems. The author now lives in Los Angeles. Rodale.
Americana the Beautiful: Mid-Century Culture in Kodachrome.By Charles Phoenix. After chronicling Southern California with other people’s discarded photos, Phoenix goes national in his latest book. Angel City Press.
American Prophet: The Life and Work of Carey McWilliams. By Peter Richardson. This biography covers the life and work of Carey McWilliams (1905-80): author, attorney, activist, and editor of The Nation for two decades. University of Michigan Press.
The Botanical Gardens at the Huntington. Compiled by the director and curators. This volume presents an in-depth look at San Marino’s Huntington Botanical Gardens, including the popular desert and Japanese gardens. Huntington Library Press.
Buchenwald: A Survivor’s Memories. By Paul Victor. Victor was twenty years old when he refused to serve in Hitler’s army. Three years in Buchenwald was his penalty. He now lives in Pasadena. October 2005. Wheatmark.
The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles. By Donald H Wolfe. The latest expose on the unsolved case. October, 2005. ReganBooks.
By the Seat of My Pants. Edited by Don George. This collection presents 31 globe-girdling tales that run the gamut from close-encounter safaris to loss-of-face collies, hair-raising rides to culture-leaping brides, eccentric expats to mind-boggling repasts, wrong roads taken to agreements mistaken. Stories by: Wickham Boyle, Tim Cahill, Joshua Clark, Sean Condon, Christopher R. Cox, David Downie, Holly Erickson, Bill Fink, Don George, Karl Taro Greenfield, Jeff Greenwald, Pico Iyer, Amanda Jones, Kathie Kertesz, Doug Lansky, Alexander Ludwick, Linda Watanabe McFerrin, Jan Morris, Brooke Neill, Rolf Potts, Laura Resau, Michelle Richmond, Alana Semuels, Deborah Steg, Judy Tierney, Edwin Tucker, Jeff Vize, Danny Wallace, Kelly Watton, Simon Winchester, Michelle Witton. Lonely Planet.
California: A History. By Kevin Starr. From the age of exploration to the age of Arnold, Golden State’s historian distills the entire sweep of California‚s history into one volume. Random House.
California Design: The Legacy of West Coast Craft and Style. By Lo Lauria, Suzanne Baizermanand Toni Greenbaum. Introduction by Donald Albrecht. Foreword by Eurdorah M. Moore. A retrospective of the Pasadena Art Museum’s exhibitions on West Coast style˜the furniture, jewelry, recreational objects, ceramics, fabric arts, and other designs˜that emerged from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s in California. September 2005. Chronicle Books.
The Case for Hillary Clinton. By Susan Estrich. An impassioned argument for Hillary as the Dems best best in 2008. ReganBooks.
The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics. Annotated by David Dodd; foreword by Robert Hunter. Complete lyrics to original songs by the Grateful Dead, with notes on literary, biographical, and other references. Dodd lives in Petaluma and Hunter (and many band members) lives in Marin County. Free Press/Simon & Schuster.
The Cornucopia: Being a Kitchen Entertainment and Cookbook. By Judith Herman and Marguerite Shalett Herman. A collection of five centuries of American andEuropean culture. The research for this book was done at the Huntington Library in San Marino. Huntington Library Press.
The Gang That Wouldn’t Write Straight. By Marc Weingarten. LA writer on the New Journalism. Crown.
Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs Are Altering American Bodies, Minds and Lives. By Greg Critser. LA writer delves into the drug business. How, he asks, has big pharma created a nation of pharmaceutical tribes, each with its own unique beliefs, taboos, and brand loyalties? How have powerful chemical compounds for chronic diseases, once controlled by physicians, become substances we feel entitled to, whether we need them or not? How did we come to hate drug companies but love their pills? Houghton Mifflin.
Greetings from the Salton Sea: Folly and Intervention in the Southern California Landscape, 1905-2005. By Kim Stringfellow. The Salton Sea is a man-made catastrophe, redolent with the smell of algae and decomposing fish. Nevertheless, the lake’s vast, placid expanses continue to attract birdwatchers, tourists and artists. In Greetings from the Salton Sea, photographer Stringfellow explores the history of California’s largest lake from its disastrous beginningsÑthe “sea” was formed when Colorado River levees broke and spilled into a depression 280 feet below sea levelto its heyday as a desert paradise in the 1950s and its current state as an environmental battleground. Like the 400-plus species of birds that use the lake as a halfway point in their annual migration, developers flocked to the water too: they planted palm trees, built golf courses, and hired showstoppers such as the Beach Boys to perform at area resorts. These days, politicians seek to redirect the lake’s only source of replenishmentÑagricultural runoff from surrounding farmsto water golf courses and green lawns elsewhere.Center for American Places.
Haslam’s Valley. By Gerald Haslam. A collection of fiction, essays, and other writing that capture the vibrance of California in stories such as “The Great Kern County Alligator Hunt” and “The Day I Punched Ernest Hemingway.” Haslam lives in Sonoma County. October 2005. From the Great Valley Books imprint of Heyday Books.
Hattie McDaniel: Black Ambition, White Hollywood. By Jill Watts. A look at the racism in Hollywood as seen through the life and times of actress Hattie McDaniel, the first African American actress to win an Academy Award (for her role as Mammy in Gone With the Wind). October 2005. Amistad Press.
In the Heart of Another Country. By Etel Adnan. A mosaic of vignettes, at once personal and political, set against the turbulent backdrop of Arab/Western relations. Adnan writes, “Contrary to what is usually believed, it is not general ideas and grandiose unfolding of great events that impress the mind during times of heightened historic upheavals, but rather the uninterrupted flow of little experiences, observations, disturbances, small ecstasies, or barely perceptible discouragements that make up day-to-day living.” Adnan is a Lebanese American poet, painter, and essayist who lives in Paris, Beirut, and the San Franciso Bay Area. City Lights.
Hollywood Hoofbeats: Trails Blazed Across the Silver Screen . By Petrine Day Mitchum with Audrey Pavia. Behind-the-scenes portraits of famous and unknown movie horses, along with personal accounts from trainers, owners, and costars. Bowtie Press.
Jack London and the Klondike: The Genesis of an American Writer. By Franklin Walker. Walker looks at London’s stint as a gold miner in the Yukon. Huntington Library Press.
Jesus Land: A Memoir. By Julia Scheeres. The story of a 16-year-old girl and her adopted, black, 16-year-old brother in Indiana who are sent to a reform school in the Dominican Republic by their violent father and distant mother more involved with her church’s missionaries than her own children. The author lives in San Francisco. October, 2005. Counterpoint Press.
LA Noir: The City as Character. By Alain Silver and James Ursini. Film buffs explore the world of noir cinema in a Los Angeles context with this guide to noir films and their California settings. This book illustrates how these films use L.A.’s diverse cityscape and architecture to convey a unique vision of urban corruption and existential fatalism. Santa Monica Press.
Let My People Go Surfing : The Education of a Reluctant Businessman. By Yvon Chouinard. The founder of Patagonia tells his story. As a child, he moved with his father, a French Canadian blacksmith, and the rest of his family to Southern California in the 1950s with little English and less money. He escaped into mountain climbing as a teenager and by his early twenties was a top climber in the United States. When he decided he could make better climbing tools himself for less money, a way of life became a business. Four decades later, Chouinard still summits peaks around the world (though he now spends more time surfing). His resolve to minimize Patagonia’s impact on the environment has led the company to make its fleeces out of recycled soda bottles and to donate at least 1 percent of its revenue each year to environmental and other causes. Penguin Press.
Macaroni & Cheese. By Marlena Spieler. Photographs by Noel Barnhurst. More than 50 recipes, including Yankee Doodle Dandy Baked Macaroni and Cheese; quick-to-prepare specialties such as the Alpine Macaroni with Appenzeller and Crème Fraîche; and international dishes such as Giuvetchi, a Greek combination of orzo in a cinnamon tomato sauce with lamb and kasseri, myzithra, and feta cheeses. This cookbook also includes recipes for side salads and soups help round out a balanced meal. Spieler was born in Sacramento and now lives in Hampshire, England. Barnhurst is a San Franciscoˆbased photographer. October 2005. Chronicle Books.
Mythbusters : The Explosive Truth Behind the Thirty Most Perplexing Urban Legends of All Time. By Adam Savage, Jamie Hyneman, Kent Zimmerman and Keith Zimmerman. Book based on the based on the Discovery Channel show. Simon Spolight Entertainment.
My War: Killing Time in Iraq. By Colby Buzzell. A soldier from Los Angeles, Buzzell began blogging from the Iraqi front lines. Putnam Publishing Group.
Now Playing. By Jane B. Powell and Lori G. Berthelsen. This is a collection of hand-painted posters by Batiste Madalena and other artists from the Silent Era through the 1940s. The authors also tell the story behind the posters commissioned by community theater owners. Published in cooperation with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Angel City Press.
Pacific Spas: Luxury Getaways on the West Coast. By Gina Hyams. Photography by Cesar Rubio. Pacific Spas profiles 20 of the most luxurious resorts within easy reach of Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, southern California, and Baja California. October 2005. Chronicle Books.
Positive Energy: 10 Extraordinary Prescriptions for Transforming Fatigue, Stress, and Fear Into Vibrance, Strength, and Love. By Judith Orloff. The author of Guide to Intuitive Healing provides ten prescriptions for harnessing positive energy to replace fatigue with physical and emotional vigor. The book includes a guide to energy exercises. Orloff is a professor of psychiatry at UCLA. October 2005. Three Rivers Press.
Quick & Easy Vietnamese: 75 Everyday Recipes. By Nancie McDermott. Photographs by Caren Alpert. The author of Quick & Easy Thai offers a recipe collection for every level of cook. McDermott is a food writer and cooking teacher who lives in North Carolina; Alpert is a San Franciscoˆbased photographer. October 2005. Chronicle Books.
Simplify. By Tod Goldberg. Twelv stories about people caught somewhere between love and madness. Simplify mines the terrain of people on the margins of life: from the man with a photo of Elvis bleeding on his wall in “Comeback Special,” to the profoundly troubled boy genius of the title story “Simplify,” to the family that must traverse “The Distance Between Us” to finally get to the truth about their son the murderer.University of Illinois Press.
Single Woman of a Certain Age: 29 Women Writers on the Unmarried Midlife Romantic Escapades, Heavy Petting, Empty Nests, Shifting Shapes, and Serene Independence. Edited by Jane Ganahl. A columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, Ganahl compiled this collection of stories about being unmarried and in one’s prime. Contributors include April Sinclair, Cameron Tuttle, Spike Gillespie, Laura Fraser, Susan Griffin, Jane Juska, Joyce Maynard and Sunny Singh. Inner Ocean Publishing.
Skipping Towards Armageddon. By Michael Standaert. Author studies Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind series of Christian novels and the empire behind them. Soft Skull Press.
Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife. By Mary Roach. In an attempt to find out what happens when people die, the author of “Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers” seeks out scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that there is an afterlife. W. W. Norton & Company.
Surf Movie Tonite! Surf Movie Poster Art, 1957-2005. By Matt Warshaw. Surf expert Warshaw illustrates the intersection of beach and film culture in this collection of more than 140 posters. He is the former editor of Surfer magazine and lives in San Francisco. October 2005. Chronicle Books.
Surviving Justice: America’s Wrongfully Convicted and Exonerated. Edited by Dave Eggers and Lola Vollen. Introduction by Scott Turow. Collecting the voices and stories of the exonerated, this first title in the Voice of Witness Project series of oral narratives is a joint project between McSweeney’s Books and the University of California-Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
Tab Hunter Confidential: The Making of a Movie Star. By Tab Hunter and Eddie Muller. Hunter’s memoir of his double life as a gay man and highly desired matinee idol. September 2005. Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. October, 2005. Random House.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel. By Jane Smiley. Author explores the intimacy of reading, why a novel succeeds (or doesn’t), and how the novel has changed over time. Knopf.
Tropicana Nights: The Life and Times of the Legendary Cuban Nightclub. By Rosa Lowinger and Ofelia Fox. Fox, widow of Martín Fox, the club’s last owner, relives the Tropicana’s glory years. Nat "King" Cole performed there, as did Carmen Miranda, Josephine Baker, Celia Cruz, and Liberace. Dozens more stars of stage and screen attended as guests. Mafia kingpins rubbed shoulders with American suburbanites. Fox married Martin Fox in Havana in 1952; they moved to Miami in 1962; she now lives in Glendale. Co-author Lowinger was born in Havana, grew up in Miami and now lives with her family in Los Angeles. Harcourt.
The Underdog. By Joshua Davis. The story of a journalist’s exploration of mankind’s obsession with competition and the strange subcultures that encourage it. Davis lives in San Francisco. September 2005. Villard Books.
Why Do I Love These People?: Honest and Amazing Stories of Real Families. By Po Bronson. In twenty stories, Bronson explores the incredibly complicated feelings that we have for our families. The author lives in San Francisco.Random House.
Working Man Blues: Country Music in California. By Gerald Haslam, with Alexandra Haslam Russell and Richard Chon. California has been fertile ground for country music since the 1920s, nurturing a multitude of talents from Gene Autry to Glen Campbell, Rose Maddox to Barbara Mandrell, Buck Owens to Merle Haggard. In this affectionate homage to California’s place in country music’s history, Haslam surveys the Golden State’s contributions and also illuminates the lives of the working-class men and women who migrated to California from the Dust Bowl, the Hoovervilles, and all the other locales where they had been turned out, shut down, or otherwise told to move on. October 2005.Heyday Books.
The Year of Magical Thinking. By Joan Didion. A meditation on the death of her husband. Knopf.
The Tender Bar. By. J.R. Moehringer. Pulitzer Prize-winning LA Times journalist writes about his life. Hyperion Books
Wilshire Boulevard. By Kevin Roderick; research by J. Eric Lynxwiler. Wilshire Boulevard is the unofficial Main Street of dreams that flows through Los Angeles history. Roderick, a veteran Los Angeles journalist and creator of laobserved.com, details the boulevard’s role in the city’s emergence as a major metropolis and relates the story of turn-of-the-century gadfly Gaylord Wilshire. Angel City Press.
You’ll Never Nanny in This Town Again. Suzanne Hansen. Former nanny to Michael Ovitz and other Hollywood celebs tells her story. October, 2005. Crown.
Photography/Art/Comics . September - Oct. 2005
El Corazon de la Muerte: Alters and Offerings for Days of the Dead. By the Oakland Museum of California. For the past decade, the museum has hosted an exhibition and celebration of los Días de los Muertos˜the Days of the Dead˜that draws several thousand people from across the San Francisco Bay Area. Artists and community groups create colorful altars to commemorate ancestors and departed loved ones. This new book (in both English and Spanish) offers a look at the ancient traditions and new expressions, along with a collection of color photographs. Heyday Books.
Dance in Cuba. By Gil Garcetti. Former LA District Attorney chronicles the island’s dance culture. Balcony Press.
Love Me or Go to Hell: True Love Cartoons. By Donna L. Barstow. Introduction by Barbara De Angelis. Collection of more than 200 cartoons on love and relationships. Barstow is a cartoonist for the LA Times Sunday Magazine. Also includes work by Liza Donnelly, Anne Gibbons, Stephanie Piro, and Lynn Williams. Andrew McMeel Publishing.
Shag: The Art of Josh Agle. by Josh Agle, Billy Shire and Colin Berry. Gathered together here are nearly 200 colorful scenes of signature retro decadence by Los Angeles artist Shag. Wasp-waisted women in Capri pants and turtlenecked, eye-patched men of mystery host parties where deathly specters cavort with cranky wolves, regal bulls, and blasé Adams and Eves sipping martinis. Chronicle Books.
The True and the Questions Journal. By Sabrina Ward Harrison. The author invites readers to allow themselves to “spill open” and create their own illustrated journal. Art and text are interspersed with prompts to readers, encouraging them to draw, paint, collage, and journal.
Children’s . September - Oct. 2005
Baby Mix Me a Drink. By Lisa Brown. A board book in the new “Baby Be of Use” series. The author lives in San Francisco. McSweeney’s.
If You Give a Pig a Party. By Laura Numeroff. New picture book from the popular Los Angeles author. Laura Geringer Books.
Matches. By Alan Kaufman. The story of young American Jewish man who joins the Israeli Defence Force (ages 12 and up). Kaufman lives in San Francisco. Back Bay.
You Can’t Milk a Dancing Cow. By Brian T. Jones. Poor farmer Picket! Since Mrs. Picket made the cows raincoats and galoshes with her new sewing machine, they won’t come into the barn to be milked (ages 4-8).Tanglewood Press.
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Fiction . Poetry/Short Stories . Nonfiction . Photography/Art . Children
Fiction . January - May, 2005
Bloodlines: An Irene Kelly Novel. By Jan Burke. Intrepid reporter Irene Kelly covers the groundbreaking of a shopping center — and the discovery of a buried car containing human remains. Old cases are resurrected, and new dangers arise as she pursues a story that may end her career — and her life. Simon & Schuster.
Book One of Seven. By Luv Alston. In this fantasy tale, Seven reveals the conditions under which evil entered the world. Alston lives in Stockton. Inkblot Books.
The Closers. By Michael Connelly. In Los Angeles in 1988, a sixteen-year-old girl disappeared from her home and was later found dead of a gunshot wound to the chest. Despite a by-the-book investigation, no one was ever charged. Now Detective Harry Bosch is back with the LAPD with the sole mission of closing unsolved cases, and this girl’s death is the first he’s given. Little, Brown.
Dating is Murder. By Harley Jane Kozak. Topanga Canyon writer tells the story of Wollie Shelley, a greeting card artist struggling to keep afloat financially and find the love of her life. When a friend disappears, Wollie springs into action and lands in the middle of an FBI investigation into an international drug cartel. Doubleday Books.
The Daydreaming Boy. By Micheline Aharonian Marcom. The author’s debut novel, Three Apples Fell from Heaven, depicted the lives shattered by the Turkish government’s brutal campaign that resulted in the deaths of more than a million Armenians. Now Marcom’s second novel, The Daydreaming Boy, carries forward the story of the refugees from the twentieth century’s first genocide. Riverhead Books.
Die a Little. By Megan Abbott. In a story set in Hollywood in the fifties, teacher Lora King tries to save her brother, a LA police detective, from the clutches of a new wife. Simon & Schuster.
Dream of the Blue Room. By Michelle Richmond. On a warm summer night, Jenny finds herself aboard a Chinese cruise ship sitting next to a charming yet elusive stranger while her estranged husband sleeps in the cabin below. In Jenny’s lap is a tin containing the ashes of her best friend, who was mysteriously murdered fourteen years earlier.As the ship crawls up the Yangtze River, passing ancient cities and abandoned villages, Jenny journeys deeper into her own grief and desire. Richmond lives in San Francisco. MacAdam/Cage.
The Chrysanthemum Palace: A Novel. By Bruce Wagner. Novel introduces Bertie Krohn, the only child of Perry Krohn, creator of TV’s longest running space opera, Starwatch: The Navigators. Bertie recounts the story of the last months in the lives of his two companions: Thad Michelet, author, actor, and son of a literary titan; and Clea Freemantle, emotionally fragile daughter of a legendary movie star, long dead. Simon & Schuster.
Digging James Dean. By Robert Eversz. Ex-con paparazza Nina Zero tracks down a shadowy cult trading in the bones of dead celebrities. Novel is set in Hollywood. Simon & Schuster.
Everyone’s Pretty. By Lydia Millet. The story involves five desperate Los Angelenos in search of redemption, a tale inspired by the author’s two-year stint working at Larry Flynt Publications. Soft Skull Press.
Fatal Memories. By Vladimir Lange. The MEG is the culmination of Dr. Anne Powell’s brilliant career. Yet it could destroy everything she has worked for — if it doesn’t kill her first. Red Square Press.
The Forgotten Man. By Robert Crais. In his New York Times bestseller The Last Detective, Crais returned to his signature characters, private investigator Elvis Cole and partner Joe Pike. Now, after scratching the surface of Cole’s troubled past, Crais returns with a suspense novel that leads to the dark secrets of Cole’s own life.
The Great Inland Sea. By David Francis. Traveling as groom for a horse called Unusual, Day meets Callie, who wants to be the world’s first woman jockey. He is stranded by a love that takes him back to the harshness of his childhood in Australia, and to the dark secrets of his family. Francis lives in Los Angeles. MacAdam/Cage.
The Golden West: Hollywood Stories. by Daniel Fuchs; introduction by John Updike. Brooklyn born and bred, Daniel Fuchs came to Hollywood when he was twenty-six to work on a film based on one of his Collier’s short stories. He never left. “Writing for the movies was fine,” he later remembered, “the freedom and fun, the hard work,” but even finer were the pictures themselves — team-built, mass-market miracles, “brisk and full of urgent meaning.” Black Sparrow Books.
I’ll Paint a Sun. By A. J. Garrotto. Colorist Libby O’Neill discovers the healing power of love when she meets the unlikeliest of men under the most unlikey circumstances.The story takes place in San Francisco and centers around the restoration of a stately Victorian home. Genesis Press, Inc.
King of Foxes: Conclave of Shadows, Book Two. By Ray Feist. The second Tal Hawkins novel expands the saga of adventure, danger, magic, and intrigue. Eos/HarperCollins
Light Before Day. By Christopher Rice. A thriller of revenge and sexual obsession that careens from the Hollywood Hills to the drug-ravaged hamlets of the Central Valley. Rice lives in Los Angeles. Miramax Books.
A Long Stay in a Distant Land. By Chieh Chieng. First novel tracing three generations of a death-stalked Chinese-American family in Orange County, California. Chieng teaches writing at UCLA. Bloomsbury.
Love Her to Death . By Linda Palmer. Soap writer Morgan Tyler has a new title–co-executive producer–and a new responsibility: take care of everything. When an actress on the show is murdered, Morgan better find out who’s behind the bloodshed before someone else is written out of the picture. Berkley Publishing Group.
The Manhattan Beach Project: A Novel. By Peter Lefcourt. Barely four years after winning an Oscar, Charlie has sunk into the ranks of Hollywood bottom-feeders — reduced to living in his nephew’s pool house, kiting checks and taking the bus to his weekly Debtors Anonymous meeting, where he meets a mysterious ex-CIA agent who proposes to resuscitate Charlie’s foundering career — in the beyond surreal world of reality TV. Simon & Schuster.
Maranther’s Deception. By Nik C. Colyer. Lost in the desert, only their past can save them before the future runs out. Singing Reed Press.
More Than They Could Chew. By Robert Roberge. Nick Ray lives in a world where everything is for sale. University Ph.D.s, pig fetuses, bomb shelters, and vending-machine-dispensed live bait, to name just a few. But for the first time in a long time, Nick Ray finally has something to sell. Nick buys the cheapest computer he can find at a local pawn shop, only to discover that the hard drive contains the names and addresses of dozens of members of the Witness Protection Program. Partnering with a hulking Russian gangster and a disbarred lawyer who drinks rocket fuel, Nick decides to take advantage of his unique discovery.
Music of the Mill. By Luis J. Rodriguez. Traveling mostly on foot, Procopio Salcido and his future wife, Eladia, leave Mexico to escape the bleak realities of their homeland. Finally settling in Los Angeles, the young couple discovers that the hopes they have for their children must now be weighed against the backdrop of the mighty Nazareth steel mill, their engine for survival. Spanning sixty years and three generations, Music of the Mill is set in the industrial boom of postˆ World War II Southern California, where jobs seemed plentiful, communities thrived, and racial harmony prevailed. In reality there was great struggle and racial discord. Rayo.
The Night Garden. By Pamela Holm. When Dawn and her nine-year-old daughter, Jewel, leave Dawn’s longterm boyfriend, they rent a small house with an apartment downstairs. Seeking a tenant they find Harlan, and over the course of a year — drinking beer in the summer warmth and hot chocolate in the winter fog, slowly nurturing their garden into a sanctuary, and finding a way to paint bugs instead of exterminating them — Dawn finds their three lives inexplicably intertwined.The novel is set in San Francisco, where the author lives.MacAdam/Cage.
The Power of the Dog. By Don Winslow. The story of five people–a DEA agent, a drug lord, a call girl, a hit man, and a priest–caught up in the War On Drugs. As they struggle to escape the sins of their pasts and create some kind of decent future, the characters take us through the rise of the Mexican drug Federacion, the demise of a Mafia family, the CIA’s involvement in cocaine smuggling, and the vicious netherworld of the drug trade across the border between San Diego and Tijuana. On the way, the five men and women find love and lose it, find their souls and lose them, and find them again. Knopf.
A Slight Trick of the Mind. By Mitch Cullin. A look at the 93-year-old Sherlock Holmes, the author aiming to transform the iconic Holmes from a mythical figure we know to a very mortal man we long to know. Cullin lives in Los Angeles. Nan A. Talese/Doubleday.
Sight Hound. By Pam Houston. From the bestselling author of Cowboys Are My Weakness comes a love story between a woman and her dog, a wolfhound who teaches “his human” that love is stronger than fear. Houston is the director of creative writing at UC Davis. W. W. Norton & Company.
Silent Lies. By M. L. Malcolm. The story of a hungarian boy born into poverty who uses his amazing ability with languages to build a brilliant new life for himself. But when Hungary collapses after its defeat in World War I, Leo loses everything. Author lives in Pacific Palisades. Longstreet Press.
Silent Witness. By Rebecca Forster. From the bestselling author of Hostile Witness comes this second legal thriller featuring defense attorney Josie Baylor-Bates. Determined to defend her lover from the charge of murdering his own disabled stepson, Josie must prove someone is framing the man she loves. Signet.
Walking With Her Daughter. By Jessica Barksdale Inclan. Jenna Thomas survives the grief that threatens to consume her and comes to terms with her past. New American Library.
Winners. By Eric B. Martin. Shane McCarthy, chimney sweep and native San Franciscan, has his world turned upside down when his search for a missing pick-up basketball teammate collides with his wife’s immersion in the glittering new dot-com world. Like his main character, Martin lives in San Fransisco. MacAdam/Cage.
With No One As Witness. By Elizabeth George. Detective Inspector Thomas Lynley is back, along with his longtime partner, Barbara Havers, and newly promoted Detective Sergeant Winston Nkata. They are on the hunt for a sinister killer. This is George’s twelfth novel; she lives in Huntington Beach and London. Harper Collins Publishers.
Zorro: A Novel. By Isabel Allende. Born in southern California late in the 18th century, he is a child of two worlds. Diego de la Vega’s father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner; his mother, a Shoshone warrior. Diego learns from his maternal grandmother, White Owl, the ways of her tribe while receiving from his father lessons in the art of fencing and in cattle branding. It is here, during Diego’s childhood, filled with mischief and adventure, that he witnesses the brutal injustices dealt Native Americans by European settlers and first feels the inner conflict of his heritage. Harper Collins.
Poetry/Short stories . January - May, 2005
The Addison Street Anthology: Berkeley’s Poetry Walk. Edited by Robert Hass and Jessica Fisher. This anthology celebrates the rich tradition of Berkeley’s literary and artistic history. Embedded into the sidewalks of Addison Street, in Berkeley‚s Downtown Arts District, are 126 individually-crafted porcelain enamel and cast iron poetry panels celebrating an art form very much alive in the City of Berkeley. The sidewalk poems — penned by writers who have called Berkeley home — are assembled in this collection. The editors are Haas, U.S. Poet Laureaute from 1995 to 1997, and Fisher, a poet who teaches at UC Berkeley. The book is a collaboration between Heyday Books and Berkeley’s Public Art Program.
The Apple’s Bruise: Stories. By Lisa Glatt. This collection examines a universe where memory and fact collide, and the imagination fills in the gaps left behind. Simon & Schuster.
California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. Edited by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, William E. Justice and James Quay. Hear and feel California in the words of writers such as John Steinbeck, Maxine Hong Kingston and Joan Didion. This anthology of prose and a handful of poems aims to capture the multiplicity of voices that tell the Golden State’s story. The book is the centerpiece of a statewide campaign, starting in April 2005, called “California Stories Uncovered.” The other contributors are: Ruben Martinez, Yxta Maya Murray, D.J. Waldie, David Mas Masumoto, Gary Soto, Dao Strom, Greg Sarris, Robert Hass, le thi diem thuy, Paul Beatty, Brian Ascalon Roley, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Laila Halaby, Khaled Hosseini, Dana Johnson, James D. Houston, Luis J. Rodriguez, Francisco Jimenez, Richard Rodriguez and Robinson Jeffers. Co-published by Heyday Books and the California Council for the Humanities.
New California Poetry #13: Weather Eye Open. By Sarah Gridley. The windmill’s labor is contingent upon the weather, upon what air masses, at any given time, overlie its landscape. Weather Eye Open adopts the emblem of the windmill, seeking what Merleau-Ponty calls the inspiration and expiration of Being. University of California Press.
Circle. By Victoria Chang. Taking its concept of concentricity from the eponymous Ralph Waldo Emerson essay, Circle, the first collection from Chang, adopts the shape as a trope for gender, family, and history. These narrative and hybrid poems trace the spiral trajectory of womanhood and growth and plot the progression of self as it ebbs away from and returns to its roots in an Asian American family and context. Locating human desire within the helixes of politics, society, and war, Chang draws arcs between T’ang Dynasty suicides and Alfred Hitchcock leading ladies, between the Hong Kong Flower Lounge and an all-you-can-eat Sunday brunch, the Rape of Nanking and civilian casualties in Iraq. Southern Illinois University Press.
Cocaine Chronicles . Edited by Tervalon and Gary Phillips. A fiction anthology of cocaine-themed tales. Contributors include Susan Straight, Lee Child, Ken Bruen, Laura Lippman, Nina Revoyr, Jerry Stahl, Bill Moody, Emory Holmes II, James Brown, Kerry West, Donnell Alexander, Deborah Vankin, Robert Ward, Manuel Ramos, and Detrice Jones. Akashic Books. (April)
The Language of Saxophones. By Kamau Daaood. A collection from a pioneer of the spoken word movement, these poems sway with the syncopation and melodies of jazz. Portraits, chronicles, incantations and invocations, drawn from a lifetime of prolific activity. Daaood lives in Southern California. City Lights Publishers.
The Other Side of the Postcard. Edited by devorah major. Working with the San Francisco Public Library, the city’s poet laureate made a public appeal for poems that explored the realities of people’s life in a city that is as tough and tragic as it is beautiful and exhilarating. Her collection includes works by celebrated writers, children, the homeless, disadvantaged teens, working people and grannies protesting the war. City Lights Publishers.
The Temporary Life. By Eric Wasserman. A collection of short of short stories on Jewish themes. La Questa Press.
Nonfiction . January - May, 2005
AutoBioDiversity: True Stories from ZYZZYVA. Edited by Howard Junker. Founding editor Junker compiles a collection of memoirs, confessions, and personal narratives from ZYZZYVA, the literary journal of the West Coast, now celebrating its 20th anniversary. Includes contributions from Judith Barrington, Kevin Bentley, Peter Coyote, Craig L. Diaz, Phyl Diri, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Victor Davis Hanson, Larry Jordan, Carolyn Leilanilau, Philip Levine, Yvonne Martinez, Toni Mirosevich, Bill Mohr, Diana O’Hehir, Susan Parker, Eve Pell, Jon Remmerde, Russ Riviere, John Ryan, Kris Saknussemm, Kathryn Taylor, F.X. Toole, Brenda Webster, Tad Wojnicki, Peter Booth Wiley, and Peter Wright. Heyday Books.
The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. By Edward Jay Epstein. The author of Inquest investigates how Hollywood makes money today. Random House.
Blood Brother: 33 Reasons My Brother Scott Peterson is Guilty. By Anne Bird. What happens if, after being given up for adoption in childhood, you reestablish contact with your biological family — only to discover that your newfound brother is a killer? Anne Bird, the sister of Scott Peterson, knows firsthand. ReganBooks.
Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That’s Changing Your World. By Hugh Hewitt. Hewitt offers helps for positioning a business or organization online. Nelson Books.
Brad & Jen: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Golden Couple. By Mara Reinstein and Joey Bartolomeo. Insta-book on the big breakup by a pair of Us Weekly writers. Wenner Books.
Brand Name Bullies: The Quest to Own and Control Culture . By David Bollier. An impassioned look at how corporations misuse copyright law to stifle creativity and free speech. Bollier is a senior fellow at the Norman Lear Center, USC Annenberg School for Communication. John Wiley & Sons.
Breaking Into Baseball: Women and the National Pasttime. By Jean Hastings Ardell. Corona del Mar writer looks at how involved women are, and have always been, in baseball. Ardell discussed seven ways women participate in the game — from the stands as fans, on the field as professional or amateur players, behind the plate as umpires, in the front office as executives, in the press box as sportswriters, or in the shadows as Baseball Annies. Southern Illinois University Press.
Bound for Freedom Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America. By Douglas Flamming. The author looks at Los Angeles’s black community in the half century before World War II, detailing African American community life and political activism during the city’s transformation from small town to sprawling metropolis. University of California Press.
California Rising: The Life and Times of Pat Brown. Set against the historical landscape of the late fifties and sixties, California Risisng offers insights into history as well a glimpse of those who charted its course — including Ronald Reagan, John F. Kennedy, and the Brown family dynasty. Rarick mines an array of untapped sources — such as Pat Brown’s diary and love letters to his wife — to tell the unforgettable story of a true mover-and-shaker within his fascinating and turbulent political arena.
The Cattle on a Thousand Hills: Southern California, 1850-1880. By Robert Glass Cleland. Describes Southern California in its transition from a cattle frontier of Mexican rule and culture to an agricultural American community on the eve of great industrial and urban expansion.Huntington Library Press.
The Chowhound’s Guide to San Francisco & the Bay Area. By Jim Leff. Dining guide from the folks at Chowhound.com. Penguin.
The City: A Global History. By Joel Kotkin. Urbanist Kotkin, a Los Angeles-based Senior Fellow with the New America Foundation in Washington, D.C., examines the evolution of cities and urban life over thousands of years. He begins with the religious roots of urbanism in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, and China, and moves to emergence of the Classical City; Byzantium and the cities of the Middle East and China; the rise of Venice and subsequent commercial city-empires; the industrial city (from London, Chicago and Tokyo to Shanghai to Detroit); and on to the post-industrial, suburban realities of today, with an emphasis on the cities of the developing world. Modern Library.
City Walks: San Francisco 50 Adventures on Foot. By Christina Henry de Tessan. Maps by John Spelman. 50 cards, 50 color maps. Each card in this deck offers a self-guided walking tour, complete with detailed map and local secrets. Chronicle Books.
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. By Jared Diamond. UCLA professor seeks to understand the fates of past societies that collapsed for ecological reasons. Viking Books.
Cooking School Secrets for Real-World Cooks. By Linda Carucci. As a cooking instructor with more than 20 years of food industry experience, Carucci offers everyday secrets and shortcuts that professional chefs use constantly in their cooking. What is a chinois and why will this make homemade chicken stock better? Why are Turkish bay leaves preferable to the California variety? Why is a marinade essential when grilling a flank steak? Carucci is the Julia Child Curator of Food Arts for Copia: The American Center for Wine, Food & the Arts in Napa. Chronicle Books.
Crave: The Feast of the Five Senses. By Ludovic Lefebvre, with Martin Booe. Cookbook features more than 100 dishes — organized by the senses they most appeal to — from the former head chef of L’Orangerie in West Hollywood. ReganBooks.
Darknet. By J. D. Lasica. A look at the rise of the personal media revolution and how Hollywood is turning us into a nation of digital outlaws. Lasica is a Southern California journalist who often writes about the impact of emerging technologies on our culture. John Wiley & Sons.
Dear People: Remembering Jonestown. Edited by Denice Stephenson. On November 18, 1978, more than nine hundred expatriate Americans died in Jonestown, Guyana, along with a U.S. congressman and members of the press. This book chronicles how the people of Jonestown lived before the tragedy, drawing upon letters, personal histories, reports, newspaper articles, photographs, and other documents from the Peoples Temple Collection of the California Historical Society. Stephenson is a special project archivist for the society’s Peoples Temple Collection. Heyday Books.
Diabesity: The Obesity-Diabetes Epidemic That Threatens America — And What We Must Do To Stop It. By Francine Kaufman. Experts now predict that more than one-third of American children born in 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime. Written by one of the world’s leading authorities on the link between obesity and diabetes, this passionate, frightening — but ultimately hopeful — book points the way to a solution. Bantam.
Diary of a Mad Poker Player. By Richard Sparks. A professional comedy writer, and recreational poker player, sets off to win his way to the World Series of Poker via the Internet. Sparks lives in Los Angeles. Russell Enterprises.
DisneyWar. By James B. Stewart. The story of what drove America’s best-known entertainment company to civil war. Simon & Schuster.
Everybody Into the Pool: True Tales. By Beth Lisick. In her memoir, Lisick explores how a former cheerleader and homecoming princess ended up touring as the only straight woman with a band of punk rock lesbian poets — and also managing to get married, buy a house and have a baby in San Francisco. ReganBooks.
Everything Bad is Good for You: Why Today’s Pop Culture is Making Our Kids Smarter. By Steven Johnson. Popular culture on average has been steadily growing more complex and cognitively challenging over the past thirty years. Author says the dumbing-down, instant gratification society assumption has it completely wrong, that popular entertainment is making us smarter and more engaged, not catering to our base instincts. Johnson is a contributing editor for Wired and Discovery magazines. Riverhead.
Elvis Presley Passed Here… Even MORE Locations of America’s Pop. By Chris Epting. The author’s third collection of bizarre, shocking, weird, and wonderful moments that have come to define American popular culture. Includes California-based pop culture landmarks such as the birthplace of Taco Bell and where George Gershwin died. Epting lives in Huntington Beach. Santa Monica Press.
The Fabulous Sylvester: The Legend, the Music, the 70s in San Francisco . By Joshua Gamson. A journey back through the music, madness and freedom of the ’70s, as told through the life of a pied piper singing in a falsetto, wearing glittering sequins, and leading the young people of the nation to San Francisco. Henry Holt and Co.
Farmworker’s Daughter: Growing Up Mexican in America. By Rose Castillo Guilbault. When Guilbault was five, her recently divorced mother crossed the border from Mexico to Arizona and boarded a Greyhound bus to the Salinas Valley and a new life in California. She talks about growing up as a Mexican immigrant in a farming community during the turbulent 60s, her struggles to learn English and fit in with other kids, and her efforts to bridge the tensions between her home life and her new world. Heyday Books.
The Farewell Chronicles: On How We Really Respond to Death. by Anneli Rufus. Berkeley author revisits the deaths of people she has known and gives a voice to everyone who has ever lost anyone and whose reactions wouldn’t fit into the standard template of “feel sad, cry, then get over it.” Marlowe & Co.
Fat Girl. By Judith Moore. A memoir of obsession with food, and with one’s body. Moore is the books editor and senior editor for The San Diego Reader and lives in Berkeley. Hudson Street Press.
Fire, Chaparral and Survival in Southern California. by Richard W. Halsey. A guide for homeowners and land management agencies about fire, fire-fighting, and the chaparral ecosystem. Includes a 32-page field guide to common chaparral plants. Sunbelt Publications
First Sight of the Desert: Discovering the Art of Ella Peacock. By Kathryn J. Abajian. First Sight blends a biography of a desert landscape painter in love with the Utah desert with a memoir of her influence on the author. Abajian tells the story of summer trips from her Northern California home to visit Ella Peacock and learn of her art spirit. University of Utah Press.
Form Follows Libido: Architecture and Richard Neutra in a Psychoanalytic Culture. By Sylvia Lavin. UCLA Professor and Architecture Department Chair looks at how modern architecture came to embrace the urges and fears of the affective unconscious. MIT Press.
The Front Lines of Social Change: Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. By Richard Bermack. A portrait of the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of people who over the last sixty years have participated in virtually every progressive social movement in America. Though they rarely win, they are never defeated. Heyday Books.
The Geneticist who Played Hoops with My DNA. By David Ewing Duncan. Bay Area author spent three years studying science’s masterminds, such as the co-solver of the DNA structure, James Watson, and a man who is creating synthetic life, Craig Venter. William Morrow/HarperCollins.
The Girl’s Guide to Surfing. By Andrea McCloud. Illustrations by Symbolon. San Diego writer offers instruction and advice, such as how to find surf equipment specifically right for women and how to get it. Learn how to read local breaks and tides for catching the right wave at the right spot. Get the lowdown on surf etiquette to avoid getting yelled at, or worse, crashing into someone. And hear war stories from the pros about how they learned to surf, how they conquer fear, and what it’s like to pull into a fat tube. McCloud penned her book during an eight-month surf safari to Baja, mainland Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. Chronicle Books.
The High Cost of Free Parking. By Donald Shoup. The author, chair of the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA, contends that parking is sorely misunderstood and mismanaged by planners, architects, and politicians. He proposes new ways for cities to regulate parking so that Americans can stop paying for free parking’s hidden costs. American Planning Association.
Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir. By D. J. Waldie. This new edition includes an author’s inroduction and an afterword further exploring the the suburban experience. W. W. Norton
Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant ‘Roids, Smash Hits, and How Baseball Got Big. By Jose Canseco. Former Oakland A tells tales of sex, drugs, steroids and hard partying in the major leagues. ReganBooks.
Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin IV (33 1/3). By Erik Davis. Author investigates the magic˜black or otherwise˜that surrounds this album. Davis is a regular contributor to Wired, and lives in San Francisco. Continuum International Publishing Group.
Life Messages for Moms: Inspiration for a Mother’s Spirit. By Josephine Carlton. The author elicits intimate feelings and personal stories about motherhood from twenty-seven women, including author Isabel Allende, an appellate court judge, a comedienne/stay-at-home mom and a physician who worked with Mother Teresa. Carlton lives in Marin County. MJF Books.
Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads. By Greil Marcus. Berkeley musicologist and author presents a biography of what he considers the greatest pop single ever made. Recorded in Columbia’s Studio A in New York on June 16, 1965, “Like a Rolling Stone” was captured on the first take at the height of Dylan’s talent. Marcus insists the song remains as challenging, radical and brilliant now as when it was first recorded. Public Affairs.
Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer. By Scott Eyman. Biography of Louis B. Mayer, an immigrant from tsarist Russia who began in the film business as an exhibitor but soon migrated to where the action and the power were — Hollywood. Simon & Schuster.
Lonely Planets Guide To Travel Writing. By Don George with Charlotte Hindle, David Else and Janet Austin. George, former travel editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, and others offer a guide for anyone who has ever yearned to turn their travels into saleable tales. Book includes interviews with travel writers Andrew Bain, Tim Cahill, Pico Iyer, Amanda Jones, Rory MacLean, Fred Mawer, Daisann McLane, Harriet O’Brien, Margo Pfieff, Rolf Potts, Alison Rice, Anthony Sattin, Stanley Stewart, Sara Wheeler. There’s also interviews with , newspaper and magazine editors (Keith Bellows of National Geographic Traveler; Lyn Hughes of Wanderlust; Jonathan Lorie of Traveler, Tom Wallace of Condé Nast Traveller; John Flinn of the San Francisco Chronicle; and Catharine Hamm of the Los Angeles Times) and literary agents Lizzy Kremer and Amy Rennert. Lonely Planet.
Mini-Mart à la Carte: Tasty Recipes for the Convenience Store Connoisseur. By Christopher Rouser and Victoria Traig Photos by Kate Kunath. A collection of culinary treats culled from convenience stores, including recipes for Pigs in a Poncho (hot dogs wrapped in tortillas with Easy Cheese and taco sauce) and Ho Cakes (pétits fours crafted from Hostess cakes). Rouser and Traig spend their time cruising 7Elevents in Portland, while Kunath is a San Francisco photographer whose interest in mini-mart fare blossomed while photographing a report for the International Canned Foods Council. Chronicle Books.
My Life So Far. By Jane Fonda. Born into the Hollywood of her father Henry Fonda, the actress tells the story of her life–from studying acting with Lee Strasberg to the making of many movies–Barbarella, Klute, Coming Home, The China Syndrome, On Golden Pond; from marriages to French movie director Roger Vadim, activist Tom Hayden, media billionaire Ted Turner, to her independent life today; from antiwar activism to feminism and child advocacy. Random House.
Naked in the Boardroom: A CEO Bares Her Secrets So You Can Transform Your Career. By Robin Wolaner. Advice on career, business ethics, hiring, firing, and negotiating from the founder of Parenting Magazine and two dozen other female CEOs. Wolaner lives in San Francisco. Fireside/Simon & Schuster.
Nature Noir: A Park Ranger’s Patrol in the Sierra. By Jordan Fisher Smith. The author tells about his fourteen years as a park ranger on a huge tract of government land in the Sierras. As he learns on his first patrol, the wildness in this place tends toward the human kind: desperate miners who scour canyons for gold, bad guys who look like armed rock-and-roll musicians, extreme recreators who enjoy combining motorcycles, parachutes, and high bridges. Houghton Mifflin.
The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for a Livable City. By Robert Gottlieb, Mark Vallianatos, Regina M. Freer and Peter Dreier. The authors chronicle efforts of progressive social movements that worked throughout the twentieth century to create a more livable, just, and democratic Los Angeles. These movements–what the authors call Progressive L.A.–have produced a new kind of labor movement, community-oriented environmentalism, and multi-ethnic coalition politics. University of California Press.
Office Stress Emergency Kit. By Darrin Zeer. This desktop kit — adapted from the Office Yoga, Office Spa, and Everyday Calm books — includes a deck of cards with good-for-you stretches, poses, and rituals. Zeer is a writer and consultant to corporations such as Pixar, Golden Door Spa and Four Seasons Resorts. He spent seven years in Asia studying the Eastern arts of healing and divides his time between California and Hawaii. Chronicle Books.
Party Like a Rockstar: Even When You’re Poor as Dirt. By Camper English. After being laid off from his job as a computer programmer, English had to learn to make do on the salary of, well, a freelance writer. During the next two years he discovered his social life wasn’t impeded at all. The San Francisco writer shares tips for finding designer duds for under 10 bucks, getting on exclusive guest lists and generally living for next to nothing. Alyson Books.
The Passionate Olive: 101 Things to Do With Olive Oil. By Carol Firenze. Firenze always knew there was something special about the glistening liquid her Italian grandmother used for cooking and has written a book that shares her family recipes and history. She also offers dozens of practical uses for olive oil around the house, such as reducing the effects of alcohol, rejuvenating a fern, and easing the pain of arthritis. She lives in Los Gatos and is an international management consultant and board member of the California Olive Council. Ballantine.
Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feyman. By Richard P. Feyman and Michelle Feynman. Spanning more than 40 years, these collected letters offer a look at the Nobel Prize-winning Caltech physicist. Edited and with additional commentary by his daughter, Michelle. Basic Books.
Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith. By Anne LaMott. The world is a more dangerous place than it was when Lamott’s Traveling Mercies was published five years ago. Terrorism and war have become the new normal; environmental devastation looms even closer. And there are personal demands on Lamott’s faith as well: turning fifty; her mother’s Alzheimer’s; her son’s adolescence; and the passing of friends and time. Riverhead Books.
The Political Edge. By Chris Carlsson. In the wake of a mobilization on behalf of the underdog campaign to elect Green Party canidate Matt Gonzalez mayor of San Francisco,The Political Edge analyzes how politics must be understood as something more than elections and government, candidates and campaigns. Carlsson lives in San Francisco. City Lights Publishers.
Poor Workers’ Unions: Rebuilding Labor from Below. By Vanessa Tait. Domestic workers. Undocumented immigrants. Workfare laborers. Long regarded by traditional trade unions as “unorganizable,” these and millions of other poor workers are becoming the new face of labor. South End Press.
Rebels on the Backlot: Six Maverick Directors and How They Conquered the Hollywood Studio System. By Sharon Waxman. New York Times Hollywood correspondent looks at the new generation of directors who are changing the face of modern filmmaking. HarperEntertainment.
Resistance, Dignity and Pride: African American Artists in Los Angeles. By Paul Von Blum. UCLA senior lecturer introduces sixteen accomplished African American artists. Each chapter features a personal history of an artist as well as a description of the artist’s major projects. Book features such pioneering artists as Betye Saar, Samella Lewis and William Pajaud. It also showcases younger artists including Lavialle Campbell, C. Ian White and Willie Middlebrook. Bunche Center Publications, UCLA.
Robert’s Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer. By Robert Masello. In 101 brief lessons, Masello, the Santa Monica author of fifteen previous books, offers advice on the art and craft of writing. Writer’s Digest Books.
The Secret Wars of Judi Bari: A Car Bomb, the Fight for the Redwoods, and the End of Earth First. By Kate Coleman. In 1990, a car bomb in Oakland almost killed radical Earth First leader Judi Bari and injured her passenger, a co-leader and one time lover, Darryl Cherney. The FBI accused the pair of transporting the explosive device knowingly as part of a violent campaign of “ecotage.” Bari was a veteran of the Vietnam protests of the 1960s who moved to militant feminism and environmentalism after the war ended. By the mid-1980s, she was involved in the radical eco-organization Earth First and leading the fight against the timber companies on the Northern California coast. The author traces Bari’s rise from college activist to a would-be Mother Jones of the Redwoods. Encounter Books.
A Sense of Duty: My Father, My American Journey. By Quang X. Pham. Pham explores the inner conflicts of a young man caught in the often contradictory forces of loyalty to a new country, duty to family, truth, and trust, in the aftermath of America’s most divisive war. In 1964, a South Vietnamese fighter pilot is shot down by Viet Cong anti-aircraft fire while flying in support of American forces. When Saigon falls to the Communists, his son, Quang, escapes with his mother and sisters to the U.S., leaving his father for dead. Thirty years later, Quang, now a U.S. Marine pilot turned Orange County entrepreneur, retraces a uniquely spirited yet agonizing journey from the Vietnam War to peace, from blame to forgiveness. Random House.
Silent Snow: The Slow Poisoning of the Arctic. By Marla Cone. Traditionally thought of as the last great unspoiled territory on Earth, the Arctic is in reality home to some of the most contaminated people and animals on the planet, according to Los Angeles Times environmental reporter Marla Cone. She traveled across the Far North, from Greenland to the Aleutian Islands, to explore how tons of dangerous chemicals and pesticides are being carried to the Arctic by northbound winds and waves and amplified in the ocean’s food web. Grove/Atlantic.
Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir. By Karl Fleming. Fleming began his life in the poverty striken landscape of Eastern Northern California where he was raised in an orphanage. He went on to become Newsweek magazine’s chief civil rights reporter, covering the South’s hotspots during the 1960s. He writes about how his past as a bullied orphan made him an impassioned reporter and an unwilling participant in the civil rights struggle when he was beaten and left for dead during Los Angeles’ Watts Riots in 1966. Fleming lives in Los Angeles. Public Affairs.
The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic. By Chalmers Johnson. A look at militarism, American style, and its consequences abroad and at home. Johnson is president of the Japan Policy Research Institute and a professor emeritus at the UC San Diego. Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt.
Space Between the Stars: My Journey to an Open Heart. By Deborah Santana. Santana is best known for her marriage to music icon Carlos Santana. But as a girl growing up in San Francisco in the 1960s, daughter of a white mother and a black father -ˆthe blues guitarist Saunders King -ˆ her life was charged with its own drama long before she married. Santana discusses her early experiences with racial intolerance, her romantic involvement with musician Sly Stone and her adventures in the freewheeling 1960s. Her spiritual awakening that is the core of this memoir. One World/Ballantine.
Surf Diva: A Girl’s Guide to Getting Good Waves. By Isabelle “Izzy” Tihanyi, Caroline “Coco” Tihanyi. From the founders of the original surf school for women, Surf Diva is both an irreverently written lifestyle book and a how-to guide. Whether it’s finding a welcoming beach or selecting the perfect surfboard, recovering from a wipeout or simply basking in the spirituality of the ocean, this book shows and tells you how to be a surfer. Harvest Books.
Surf Like a Girl: The Surfer Girl’s Ultimate Guide to Paddling Out, Catching a Wave, and Surfing with Aloha. By Rebecca Heller. This guide covers the basics: How can you find a surf break that‚s right for you? Why wear a leash and what does it mean to be goofy footed? Can you surf without wrecking a fresh pedicure? Three Rivers Press
Survive! My Fight for Life in the High Sierras. By Peter DeLeo. With 16 broken bones, no emergency supplies, water, or food, Peter DeLeo miraculously weathered the subfreezing conditions of the Sierras on his death-defying quest to bring help to his injured friends. He tells his story in gripping detail in this astonishing tale of survival. Simon & Schuster.
Ten Minutes to the Pitch. By Chris Abbott. Veteran TV writer offers a guide to selling oneself and one’s idea — whether it be in TV, film, or even in business — to the powers that be. Tallfellow Press.
This Is Airtalk: 20 Years of Conversation on 89.3 KPCC. By Larry Mantle. Introduction by Patt Morrison. The host of KPCC’s “Air Talk” public radio show in Southern California, Mantle celebrates his twentieth anniversary on the airwaves with a memoir and anthology of interviews including conversations with President Jimmy Carter, Steve Martin, Senator John McCain, Anne Garrels, GE CEO Jack Welch, Rosa Parks, Maurice Sendak, Carl Reiner and Milton Berle. Angel City Press.
The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood. By David Thomson. Taking his title from a line in The Last Tycoon, Thomson sets out to explore the American movie business in all its complexity, all its component parts, from the invention of film until the present day. Knopf.
Will Write For Food: The Complete Guide to Writing Restaurant Reviews, Cookbooks, Recipes, Stories and More. By Diane Jacob. Oakland writer’s guide to penning food articles, restaurant reviews and cookbooks. She includes interviews with other writers such as Jeffrey Steingarten, Calvin Trillin, Molly O‚Neill, and Deborah Madison, plus book and magazine editors and literary agents. Marlowe & Company.
Witness: For the Prosecution of Scott Peterson. By Amber Frey. In November 2002, Amber Frey went on a blind date with Scott Peterson. He was charming, thoughtful, and romantic. Best of all, he was single and ready to settle down … or so he said. The former girlfriend of Laci Peterson’s husband tells her story. ReganBooks.
The Writer’s Retreat Kit. By Judy Reeves. The co-founder of The Writing Center in San Diego offers a guide for writing retreats. The kit contains a guidebook on retreat practices and offers 20 innovative retreats for creative exploration and personal expression, including writing exercises and prompts. The companion deck provides reference cards on the art and skill of retreat and interactive cards with an array of prompts for each of the themes in the book. New World Library.
Wrong Side of the Wall. By Eric Stone. The biography of Ralph “Blackie” Schwamb, a Los Angeles man who became the