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.

Food 4 the Soul and Food 4 Your Body

The theme for the Kids’ Summer Reading Game this year is Be Creative; for Adults, it is Books Around the Bay.  While reading books set in the San Francisco Bay Area, or written by a Bay Area author, we adults can be creative too.

Want to try some new recipes this summer?   Try these:

Cooking Fresh From the Bay Area: the Bay Area’s Best Receipts for Eating Local, Organic Produce At Its Seasonal Best

 

 

The San Francisco Chronicle Cookbook.  375 All New Receipts From America’s Most Innovative Food Section.

 

 

 

San Francisco Seafood Savory Receipts From Everybody’s Favorite Seafood City by Michele Anna Jordan

 

 

 

Tired of cooking?  No problem.  Try these:

Patricia Unterman’s San Francisco Food Lover’s Guide by Patricia Unterman

  

 

 

The Chowhound’s Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Area

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here are just a few books for you.  Go to your local library to find more.  And don’t forget while we are indulging in reading for our souls, we also need good food for our bodies.  Let’s read, cook, and eat, and read, cook, and eat …   Tell us what receipts you tried and how they turned out by putting your comments down on this blog; or simply come to the library to let us know what books you read and enter the Adult Summer Reading Game.  Maybe you will be the next lucky weekly winner.  Have fun!