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.

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.

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!

Join the Summer game @ the library

It is a celebration of Bay Area authors , experiences, and life .These works make Bay Area a unique place where authors with the power of pen bring beauty, joy, and liberation. The choices are infinite…

“I Loved You So Much

I loved you

So much

That when

You left

It took

A lot

To keep me

Alive.”

ABSOLUTE TRUST in the GOODNESS of the EARTH     

The new poems by ALICE WALKER

From Alice Walker’s poetry to memoir of Frances Mayes are all works: that are considered as literally works around the Bay.

In UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN, France Mayes in a poetic language describes her decision leaving San Francisco and finding a different world in Tuscan, Italy. “I’ve learned here that simplicity is liberating. Simca’s philosophy applies totally to this kitchen, where we no longer measure, but just cook. As all cooks know, ingredients of the moment are the best guides. Much of what we do is too simple to be called a recipe-it’s just the way to do it.”

Books around the Bay seems to be a simple theme for the summer reading game at the library .The theme is wide open to all different titles that were created here or the writers lived here part or all of her career , or the story starts ,ends, or take place in San Francisco. Two above titles are sample of the list. Both are non fiction …however if you like to read fiction, just search the catalog for San Francisco (calif.) fiction! Or stop by the information desk so we can share the other Bay Area authors that wrote fiction about other places in the world. The example for that would Isabel Allende, and Khaled Hosseini. Just join the game!

 

Coming (very) Soon–Books Around the Bay!

Summer is upon us and (hopefully!) we will soon have plenty of  sunshine nudging us to slow down some of our crazy, hectic habits and bask in a little warm weather, blue skies, blossoming vegetable gardens and maybe even take time to pick up a good book.  From Oprah to NPR the question is, what will you be reading this summer?

 For years, the Library has offered a summer reading game for children as a central part of fostering a passion and love for reading beyond the classroom, while keeping those reading skills polished.  But why can’t adults “play” too?  Indeed the concept of “adult” and “play” seem almost like an oxymoron when stacked up against an 80 hour work week and a family to tend.  There’s always plenty of work to do, it seems, but not plenty of “play” to do. 

 And summer is the quintessential play time….time for vacations and beach reads, after all.  And though reading is rather solitary by nature the sharing of it is not.  So the Library, for the past 3 years, has offered a summer reading program for adults. The adult reading game invites readers to connect with each other by offering a theme, and makes it fun, by offering prizes. 

 This year’s theme is Books Around the Bay.  Simply read anything that has to do with the Bay Area, fill out an entry form and drop it in the entry box at your local branch library.  Each week, one entry will be randomly selected for a prize. Read ANYTHING as long as it either takes place in the Bay Area or is by a Bay Area author.  We’re talking mystery, fiction, nonfiction, memoir, poetry, cooking, travel and anything else you can come up with. The reading game committee has created a few booklists to help get you started; take a look at  them posted here or you can pick one up at your local branch library. We invite you to share your favorites as well as view what other readers have to say. And every branch will have a display with that entry box prominently available.  We also have a few links to author websites and literary news of the Bay Area; again, feel free to post your own suggestions.

 Prizes have been locally purchased with funds from the various Friends of the Library organizations with assistance from the Alameda County Library Foundation.  Most libraries opt for gift cards for the weekly drawing and a grand prize at the end of the program.

Books Around the Bay starts June 15 and continues until August 15.  Happy reading!