Pick a theme

Thank you to everyone who participated in the adult summer reading game 2009!

 

We begin the planning for next summer even as we just finish this summer’s project. Do you have a favorite book theme you would like us to use for next summer? Here are some possibilities. Please add others in the comments if you have some ideas!

 

 

• Splash — books with water or weather, fiction/nonfiction
• Off kilter — psychology, psychological, horror, ufo
• Been there done that — historical fiction, history
• Any 5 books, your choice
• Far out — science fiction, non-fiction–space
• In the Library with the candlestick — mysteries

Suggestions?

Kids’ adventures around San Francisco Bay : educational places to go, things to do & classes to take in the North Bay, Peninsula, East bay, Silicon Valley & Santa Cruz / Elina Wong

This book is a great resource for parents who are looking for educational and fun things to do with children in and around the Bay Area.  Summer is almost over, but there just might be time…..

The Bay Area is a goldmine of for computer buffs interested in corporate history and biography.

The entertaining Apple Confidential: The real story of Apple Computer by Owen Linzmayer, is only one of the corporate histories of Apple Computer available at the library. Steve Jobs’ autobiography, iWoz, offers a more recent insider’s view. Jobs also appears in Price’s fascinating account of the development (sometimes recounted too technically) of computer animation in The Pixar touch.

Intel is well-covered in Yu’s Creating the digital future, CEO Andrew Grove’s autobiography Swimming Across and Andrew Grove by Tedlow. Offering a rival interpretation in Man behind the microchip: Robert Noyce and the invention of Silicon Valley Berlin argues that Intel cofounder Robert Noyce’s should be credited with the company’s spectacular rise.

In High noon: The inside story of Scott McNealy and the rise of Sun Microsystems, author Karen Southwick delivers an in-depth portrait of the computer network company and its CEO (Bill Gates arch-rival) Scott McNealy, ironically pursuing its corporate future with Microsoft-like tactics.

A vibrant and engaging history of Silicon Valley is recounted by Bronson in Nudist on the Late Shift: And other true tales of Silicon Valley. The achievements of individuals is the focus of Kshatriy’s Silicon Valley greats: Indians who made a difference to technology and the world.

If you prefer a more iconoclastic look at the industry, try Newman’s Net Loss: Internet prophets, private profits and the costs to the community. Similarly, in his now-dated but still thought-provoking Silicon Snake Oil, Clifford Stoll underlines the high cost people pay for buying into the mythology that technology must constantly be upgraded to newer, better, faster.

Make your choice and let the chips fall where they may.

Visit art in the Bay Area

We often forget that we live in such a rich culture here in the Bay Area. Along with our wonderful public libraries we have a great selection of local artists and art museums to visit. Many of these museums offer interactive events for families or adults. Feel free2explore!

 

The Asian Art Museum in San Francisco, CA is showing “Lords of the Samurai” through September 20th. This exhibit focuses on the warrior class of feudal Japan. The Albany, Castro Valley, Dublin, Newark, and Union City libraries all have a pass that can be checked out allowing free admission for 2 adults and all kids 12 and under.  Contact your library for more information on museum passes. The museum will be showing “Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma 1775-1950″ from October 23rd- January 10th. The Alameda County Library is offering a free docent preview of the show at their libraries http://www.aclibrary.org/hottopics/pdf/artmuseumprog4web.pdf  The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday 10-5 and on Thursdays until 9. http://www.asianart.org/index.html

The Cantor Museum in Stanford, CA is currently exhibiting “From the Bronze Age of China to Japan’s Floating World” which runs until October 18th. The Cantor museum has a wonderful collection of Rodin bronzes inside and outside the gallery. The museum is free and open Wednesday-Sunday 11-5, Thursday 11-8. On August 20th, they are running their popular “MIX” program for people 21+ from 5:30-7:30. There will be Taiko drumming as well as a cash bar and music. Admission is free. http://museum.stanford.edu/index.html

The Oakland Art Murmur is a collective of downtown Oakland art museums that participate in art openings the first Friday of the month from 7-9pm. The museums are working on gaining public knowledge of the growing art community in Oakland. The museums are all walking distance between the 19th Street and MacArthur BART stations. A list of participating museums as well as a printable map is available here: http://www.oaklandartmurmur.com/pages/about.php

 The M.H. deYoung Museum in San Francisco, CA is showing “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs” through March 28th, 2010. The show brings 130 pieces from the tomb of King Tut back to San Francisco after 30 years. This time around there is more focus on the family of Tut and pieces from their burial sites. Key pieces such as the death mask have been decreed a national treasure and are no longer allowed outside of Egypt. Althoug the show is a pricey, it is a cultural experience that many people have been waiting 30 years to see again. http://www.famsf.org/deyoung/

What I am patiently waiting for is an opportunity to see works from the Musee  d’Orsay in Paris, France again. Fortunately for us, the H.M. deYoung will be showing “Birth of Impressionism: from May 22, 2010 to September 6, 2010 and “Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne and Beyond” from September 25, 2010 to January 18, 2011 during the d’Orsay rennovation. There will be over 200 pieces loaned to the deYoung. The deYoung hopes to keep the popularity of the museum going by offering these shows soon after King Tut leaves the building.

Many Bay Area museums have a free admission day. Make sure to check with the museum beforehand to see if it includes entrance to special exhibits. These are some of the participating museums:

• 1st Sunday of the Month: Asian Art Museum
• 1st Tuesday of the Month: Cartoon Art Museum, H.M.deYoung museum, Legion of Honor, San Francisco MOMA
• 1st Wednesday of the Month: Exploratorium at the Palace of Fine Arts, Bay Area Discovery Museum
• 1st Thursday of the Month: Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, Burlingame Pez Museum
• 2nd Sunday of the Month: Oakland Museum of California (closed for rennovation 8/24/09 – 05/2010)
• 3rd Wednesday of the Month: California Academy of Sciences

Listen to Book Reviews

Sometimes there’s nothing like listening to a review to pique my interest in an author or book.  One excellent source for listening to book or author reviews is National Public Radio (NPR).  Here are a few reviews from KQED’s The California Report that may convince you to read the book and enter your name in the Adult Summer Reading Game.  The links will take you directly to the site for The California Report where you can click on the audio link to listen to a brief review by a local book critic. 

Bay Area Authors

 Beth Lisick:  Helping Me Help Myself
Summary: “A lighthearted analysis of the multibillion-dollar self-help industry traces the author’s year-long experimentation with the empowerment and self-improvement philosophies of such names as John Gray, Richard Simmons, and Suze Orman.”
Book Review: “Helping Me Help Myself”: The California Report | The California Report

David Thomson:  Try to Tell the Story
Summary: “One of the most celebrated film critics and historians presents the story of his first 18 years, growing up an only child in south London in the 1940s and 1950s.”
Book Review — David Thomson: The California Report | The California Report

 
Tobias Wolff:  Our Story Begins:  New and Selected Stories
Summary:  “Combines ten original works with twenty-one classic tales that chronicle the unexpected revelations that occur in the lives of characters ranging from a teacher abducted by a student’s father to an attorney taking a difficult deposition.”
Book Review — Tobias Wolff: The California Report | The California Report

Books that take place in the Bay Area

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond
Summary: “ Photographer Abby Mason’s life is changed forever by the disappearance of the young girl with whom she had been walking on a cold and foggy beach, and her desperate search for the truth behind the child’s vanishing.”
Book Review: Michelle Richmond’s “The Year of Fog”: The California Report | The California Report

Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco by Marilyn Chase
Summary:  “Describes an epidemic of bubonic plague that erupted in turn-of-the-century San Francisco and the efforts of scientists to contain the disease, discover its source, and eradicate it from the city.”
Book Review: The Barbary Plague: The California Report | The California Report

Audiobook Options

The Adult Summer reading game is going strong with several winners to date.  Perhaps some of you are already winners and looking forward to finding new suggestions or maybe you’re ready to try your hand at winning.  The game ends August 15^th, which leaves plenty of time to start a new book or finish the one you have in your hands.  For those of you who are finding it hard to find time to read, don’t forget to give audiobooks a try.  I love listening to a good audiobook while I’m gardening or walking the dog. 

Below are a few Bay Area authors you’ll find both in book format and in audiobook format. 

I’ll start with one of my favorite Bay Area authors, Andrew Sean Greer, author of The Path of Minor Planets, The Confessions of Max Tivoli, an exquisitely sad love story and his most recent bestseller and critically acclaimed, The Story of a Marriage. 

        

 

I don’t think it’s possible talk about the talent of the Bay Area without mentioning Khaled Hosseini.  Author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini’s haunting tales take place in his native Afghanistan with all too human characters that resonate with his readers.   The fact that The Kite Runner spent more than two years on the New York Times Bestsellers list and was later made into a movie is a tribute to his talents. 

   

 

In keeping with authors whose characters and situations remain with us long after we put down the book, or our audio headphones, let me add Daniel Mason to this group.  Mason is the author of The Piano Tuner and A Far Country.  In The Piano Tuner, Mason takes us from 19^th Century London to Burma.  The New York Times wrote that Mason’s “powerful prose style and his ability to embrace history, politics, nature and medicine within a fully imagined 19th-century fictional world would be notable in any writer…”

   

These are just a few of the Bay Area authors you’ll find in audiobook format.   Not having time to sit down and read shouldn’t stop you from playing our Summer Reading Game.

Earthquake Books

 
Just before  I  moved to the bay area,  I  started  reading books that took place in  the bay area .  Inevitably, some were  earthquake  stories. Here are a few:

1989 Quake stories:

Quake   Joe  Cottonwood

Amazing  Grace  Danielle Steel
 

1906 Stories
Fire and fog  Dianne Day
1906 :  A Novel James Dalessandro

 Future Disaters
Richter 10  Arthur C. Clarke & Mike McQuay

and Here is  a list that includes some really early fiction books about earthquakes. Do you have a favorite earthquake – or other disaster book – that takes place in the bay area?

The City, not long after

About half a generation ago, a plague took most of the people of the world. San Francisco is filled with dreams, memories, and magic. When a military force want to take over the city; two teenagers, Art, Magic, and the soul of the city are the defense.

A magical book , that lures you into thinking just a little bit, while be thoroughly entertained. Reserve a copy here.

 Pat Murphy is a writer for the Exploratorium ; here is her web page.

Introducing Dianne Day

Another local mystery writer from the Bay Area, Dianne Day! In this case, historical mysteries. Fremont Jones is a young feminist from Boston. She escape the confines of Boston Society and lands in San Francisco. The four books that take place in and around the bay area occur around the time of the great earthquake. So they are historically interesting as well as intriguing mysteries.

Request books by Dianne Day here.

Introducing bay area author – Deborah Grabien

There are lots of writers  in  the bay area.  There is  no way  to know them  all, so  I  love  this  theme  for  our  Adult  summer  reading  game .  Today  I  want  to  introduce Deborah Grabien, mostly for her current mystery series , The Kincaid Chronicles. This series follows the adventures of a well established, San Francisco, rock and roll band as they age into their fifties. While the characters deal with murders, secrets revealed,and aging rock-n-roll bodies, the reader is treated to full backstage access pass. Here is the YouTube trailer for the first book, Rock and Roll Never Forgets:

Sadly, the second book, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, doesn’t come out until September. But don’t despair– there is another great series by Ms. Grabien, The Haunted Ballard Series.


In The Haunted Ballard Series we are treated to a series of ghost stories based on traditional English ballads. A real kick and some of them are scary! And even though these books take place in England, the music might be familiar to you. These ballads were song a lot during the big folk revival scene of the 1960s by band such as Fairport Convention.

Music has been part of my vision of San Francisco and the bay area for a long time. Add a good story –and you find the magic. Here are some of Ms. Grabien’s books in the Alameda County Library.