Book Review: Franz Wright
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet channels a divine 'Silence.'
Book Review: 'Coma Therapy'
Local Campbell rock vocalist Eric Victorino of Strata tries his hand at writing in new book of stories.
Book Reviews: 04.05.06
The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences, by Louis Uchitelle; The Art of the Italian Movie Poster by Mel Bagshaw.
Book Reviews: 03.29.06
The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism, by Ross King; Little Money Street: In Search of Gypsies and Their Music in the South of France by Fernanda Eberstadt; Written Lives: Essays by Javier Marias.
Book Reviews: 03.22.06
The First Lady of Hollywood: A Biography of Samantha Barbas, by Richard Morgan; Death in the Haymarket: A Story of Chicago, the First Labor Movement and the Bombing That Divided Gilded Age America by James Green.
'Election' Author Tom Perrotta Wins Readers
Novelist comes to Montalvo literary series bearing his 'Little Children' and other bestsellers.
'A Dirty Job'
Christopher Moore returns to California with a tale of comic mayhem about a matter no less weighty than Death himself.
Music Fandom
Authors Pamela Des Barres and Karen Schoemer relate highly personal tales of obsession.
Book Box
A Godly Hero: The Life of William Jennings Bryan, by Michael Kazin; Nicholas Miraculous: The Amazing Career Of the Redoubtable Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler by Michael Rosenthal.
Book Box
La Perdida, by Jessica Abel; Curry: A Tale of Cooks & Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham.
Book Box
The Swamp: The Everglades, Florida and the Politics of Paradise, by Michael Grunwald; Return to Wild America: A Yearlong Search for the Continent's Natural Soul by Scott Weidensaul.
'In Celebration of the Muse'
Area women take to the stage in celebration of the poetry muse.
Book Box
Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights, by Kenji Yoshino; Still Standing: A Century of Urban Train Station Design by Christopher Brown; Beyond the Naked Eye: Details From the National Gallery by Jill Dunkerton and Rachel Billinge.
Book Box
The Race for Timbuktu: In Search of Africa's City of Gold, by Frank T. Kryza; Ivan's War: Life and Death in the Red Army, 1939-1945 by Catherine Merridale.
Book Box
The Best of the Spirit, by Will Eisner; Myself & the Other Fellow: A Life of Robert Louis Stevenson by Claire Harman; Lincoln's Melancholy by Joshua Wolf Shenk.
Writer's Lust
A penis is a penis in local author's erotic romances.
Book Box
The Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, by Leonard Susskind; Utterly Monkey by Nick Laird.
God Forbid
Ayelet Waldman's impossible pursuits.
The Wasteland
Heather Rogers brings us a brief history of garbage.
Book Box
Crap Jobs: 100 Tales Of Workplace Hell, edited by Dan Kieran; Come On In!: New Poems by Charles Bukowski.
Speaking Cash to Power
Author John Harrington offers tips for taking on the leviathan.
Scoping Out Mencken
From Baltimore bars to the Scopes Monkey Trial, a new biography tracks the jabs and jests of journalist H.L. Mencken.
Book Box
The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, by Robert Fisk; Desert Queen by Janet Wallach.
Book Box
The Art and Films of Lynn Hershman Leeson: Secret Agents, Private I, edited by Meredith Tromble; Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us by Allen Salkin.
Hope Dies Last
Studs Terkel keeps the faith.
Book Box
Flashman on The March, by George MacDonald Fraser; Georges Braque: A Life by Alex Danchev.
The Rangergirl Tour of Santa Cruz
Join Tim Pratt in 'The Adventures of Rangergirl' and see the supernatural side of Santa Cruz.
Iraq and a Hard Place
George Packer's brilliant new book, 'The Assassins' Gate,' dissects the illusions that got us stuck in Iraqi.
Mag Fever
'The Complete New Yorker' on eight tiny DVDs fulfills a magazine hoarder's wildest dreams.
Bombshell
Carolyn Burke's portrait of an artist as a young woman.
The Heart of Moving Parts
From limited edition books costing thousands of dollars to inexpensive chapbooks of political poetry, Felicia Rice takes publishing to beautiful extremes.
Book Box
The Wit in the Dungeon, by Anthony Holden; Taisho Chic: Japanese Modernity, Nostalgia and Deco compiled by the Honolulu Academy of Arts.
Book Box
'First and Fifteenth: Pop Art Short Stories' by Steve Powers, 'Hugs: Thoughtlead' by Mike Ogilvie and 'The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey' by Candice Millard.
Reading Festival
Lavish gifts and brilliant reads bring the world to your fingertips--with or without a computer.
Twilight of The Trick
Gabriel García Márquez skewers the follies of an aging man in 'Memories of My Melancholy Whores.'
A Better World
'The World on Sunday' showcases the graphic triumphs of Joseph Pulitzer's Sunday 'World' of the early 1900s--now all we get is 'Parade.'
Rage Slaves
What's really behind America's supposedly 'random' workplace killings and school bomb plots? Mark Ames' 'Going Postal' has an unsettling answer.
Book Box
The Oxford Guide to Library Research and The Secret Life of the Lonely Doll: The Search for Dare Wright.
Book Box
'The Life of David' and 'Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture and Conquest in the East, 1750-1850.'
From the Pit of Despair, a Voice of Hope
Author and activist Terry Tempest Williams returns from Rwanda with a vision of despair and a message of hope.
The Last Thing She Wanted
Joan Didion analyzes her own tragedy in 'The Year of Magical Thinking.'
Book Box
'The Simpsons: One Step Beyond Forever,' 'Slam Dunks and No-Brainers' and 'Cities of the World: A History in Maps.'
Grave New World
The Rolling Darkness Car Cultureue brings its ghost writers to Capitola.
Random Jive
Introducing the winners (and wonders) of our annual writing contest.
Misfit Lit
Author Sarah Vowell views the world through the prism of history instead of the romanticized musical mixtape.
The Da Vinci Cod
Chris Elliot gets a life as, of all things, a novelist.
Fall Lit Issue
Steve Hockensmith
Pirate's Prom
Local Lit
YA Lit
Book Box
'Woken Furies' by Richard Morgan; 'Cinnamon Kiss' by Walter Mosley; 'Defining the World: The Extraordinary Story of Dr. Johnson's Dictionary' by Henry Hitchings.
Flu Season
From 'Bee Season' to 'Wickett's Remedy,' Myla Goldberg turns her fascinations into ours.
Book Box
'Greetings From the Salton Sea: Folly and Intervention in the Southern California Landscape, 1905-2005' by Kim Stringfellow; 'Matisse the Master--A Life of Henri Matisse: The Conquest of Colour, 1909-1954' by Hilary Spurling.
100 Ways to Load Your Library
Jane Smiley offers more than '13 Ways of Looking at the Novel'—she offers her thoughts on 100 novels.
Book Box
'The Algebraist' by Iain M. Banks; 'The Root of Wild Madder: Chasing the History, Mystery and Lore of the Persian Carpet' by Brian Murphy.
A Fancy Prose Style
In 1955, Vladimir Nabokov shocked readers with a novel of forbidden lust; 'Lolita' still has the power to disturb.
Coach Potatoes
Frank Fitzpatrick's fascinating 'The Lion in Autumn' is one of the best books ever written on the rise and fall of a great college football coach.
Book Box
'The Trudeau Vector' by Juris Jurjevics; 'Spice: A History of a Temptation' by Jack Turner; 'Sons of the Conquerors: The Rise of the Turkic World' by Hugh Pope.
Things That Go Thud In the Night
Terry Pratchett's 'Thud!' takes aim directly at your brain.
Book Box
'Lunar Park' by Bret Easton Ellis; 'Food in Painting: From the Renaissance To the Present' by Kenneth Bendiner.
No Heaven Required
In her latest collection, poet Alicia Ostriker contemplates paradises lost and found.
Litapalooza!
Book Festival and Poetry Walk offer an embarassment of writerly riches.
Chic Lit
Novelist Jody Gehrman, the pin-up girl for smart chick-lit?
Book Box
'Mimi and Toutou's Big Adventure: The Bizarre Battle of Lake Tanganyika' by Giles Foden; 'The Tattoo Artist' by Jill Ciment; 'Robert Smithson: Spiral Jetty.'
Dear Osama
Chris Cleave's 'Incendiary' delivers a powerful vision in the voice of an ordinary woman.
Logic of the Bizarre
Aimee Bender's stories in 'Willful Creatures' take logical detours through bizarre landscapes.
Book Box
'The People's Tycoon' by Steven Watts; 'Buffalo Bill in Bologna' by Robert W. Rydell and Rob Kroes; 'Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey' by Bill Roorbach.
Logic of the Bizarre
Aimee Bender's stories in 'Willful Creatures' take logical detours through bizarre landscapes.
Brezsny Comes Home
Back in the cemetary where he met the love of his life, America's favorite Free Will Astrologer digs deep into the realm of the psyche.
The Trouble With Islam-Bashing
Poet Nimah Ismail Nawwab brought her vision of Saudi Arabian Islam to San Jose. But is she too honest to succeed in America's 'bad Muslim' pop culture?
Book Box
'The 8:55 to Baghdad' by Andres Eames; 'Railroad: Identity, Design and Culture' by Keith Lovegrove; 'Desertion' by Abdulrazak Gurnah.
My Old Wallachian Tome
Elizabeth Kostova's epistolary novel, 'The Historian,' combines nuanced chills and literary thrills.
Let's Get Lost
Rebecca Solnit strays the path in 'Field Guide.'
Bookbox
'The Grail Bird' by Tim Gallagher, 'Descent' by Brad Matsen and 'Here Is Where We Meet' by John Berger.
Bookbox
'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova and 'The Last Expedition: Stanley's Mad Journey Through the Congo' by Daniel Liebowitz and Charles Pearson.
Harry Potter and the Pot of Gold
Does the rainbow end on your bookshelves? Speculators search for the golden editions of Harry Potter.
Emotional Shorthand
Jasper Fforde's fiction gets into reading as his characters travel from 'Jane Eyre' to 'Hamlet.'
Let's Get Lost
Rebecca Solnit strays the path in 'Field Guide.'
Shades of Gray
Andrew Vachss wants you to ask the questions.
Wet & Wild
Saratoga author Beth Lisick tells all in her new book of strange-but-true tales, 'Everybody Into the Pool.'
Unlocking Fact and Fiction
Laurie R. King's 'Locked Rooms' mixes Dashiell Hammett and Sherlock Holmes.
Rapture of the Nerds
In Charles Stross' 'Accelerando,' corporations barter with post-human souls over an intergalactic Internet.
Istanbul Dreams
Orhan Pamuk's brilliant memoir, 'Istanbul,' binds the author to a city of ghosts.
Root of the Matter
'The Botanist and the Vintner' a 19th-century detective story.
Light Thoughts Meet Dark in the Dusk
What in heck is a Narraglyphic Picto Assemblage? Apparently only one of author Daniel Clowes' 'Ice Haven' characters knows.
The Mark Of Isabel
Novelist Isabel Allende cuts a new swath through the myth of Zorro.
I Can See Your House From Here
In which a local writer unconsciously stalks David Sedaris on several continents and scores an interview with him.
The Radio in Your Head
In which our reviewer admits to his fear of writing about a David Sedaris book.
The Whole Noyce
Stanford historian Leslie Berlin tracks the high-tech life of chip father Robert Noyce in a new biography.
From Self-Hate to Radical Self-Acceptance
Exploring the process of breaking the cycles of addiction.
Summer Books
Mystery, sci-fi, fantasy and horror.
Shame vs. Guilt
'Bangkok Tattoo' explores the culture of shame.
Al Young, Laureate
An intimate profile of Al Young, California's new poet laureate, from Morton Marcus' literary memoir, 'Striking Through the Masks.'
Just Who Is Al Young?
An interview with the state's new poet laureate.
Chuck Amuck
Chuck Palahniuk probes for a visceral response in his harrowing new novel, 'Haunted.'
Interviewing Anarchy
Local author, musician and DJ gets personal with some musical luminaries--and their views might surprise you.
Major Soul Truth
In Mitch Cullin's 'A Slight Trick of the Mind,' Sherlock Holmes is trapped inside an aging body.
Bitter Flower
Love, sex, abuse--growing up a 'Towelhead.'
Women's Work
Author Leonard Shlain brings science to the goddess debate.
Face Time
Author Brent Hartinger gives gay teens a model.
Books Beat
Bios you can tap your toes to.
Through The Looking Screen
John Markoff's new book examines the hippie-drugs-pixels connection behind the invention of the computer.
Spring Lit Issue
Drunk on Words
Ffunny Fforde
Death Row Discourse
Judi Bari
Poetics of Friendship
Junkie Journals
Tough the Shaman
Randy Fuller's new book proves that the mediums are the messengers.
The Mad World of Norman O. Brown
A new book sheds light on late UCSC philosophy professor.
Daughter of the Car Cultureolution
Chun Yu's 'Little Green' offers a window of innocence on a dark chapter of modern China.
Gonzo Gone
Hunter S. Thompson, R.I.P.
Stripped
Soccer sensation Brandi Chastain gets underneath the underwear episode to the heart of her feelings about sportsmanship and role models.
King of California
Half a century of Upton Sinclair's state of the state.
Hard Times
Two new erotic anthologies find edgy sex in America's bad news.
Full Circle
Jeff Chang explores hip-hop's global effect in 'Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation.'
Old-School San Jose
The city that once was still lives in a new photo book about San Jose's historic downtown.
Copy Cast
Word for Word breathe new life into lit.
Sirius Matters
In his new history of the counterculture, author Ken Goffman tracks down history's freethinkers.
Booked for the New Year
Looking back, ahead and sideways at the richness of the local literary scene.
Censorious Style
'Joneses' just says no to everything.
A Long Strange Trip
Truth is often the first casualty of war, and the much ballyhooed 'war on drugs' is no exception.
Crash Site
A new book explores the words and wisdom of J.G. Ballard.
Remembering Iris Chang
Local author Iris Chang, 1968-2004, spoke with passion and force about unspeakable incidents.
Ring Bearer
'Unforgivable Blackness' brings pioneering black boxer Jack Johnson to life in all his vulgar and splendid glory.
The Lady Is Strange
Hysterical women of historical fiction.
Briefly Noted
Our highly subjective list of the new and locally written.
Flocking Together
'The Big Year' captures the thrills, adventure and drama of birdwatching.
Visual Rhetoric
Inese Heinzel's crusade to reunite words with images.
Choose Death
A new book puts extreme metal through the grinder.
Beauty and the Beastliness
Lawrence Weschler shows how brutality has existed side by side with incredible artistry throughout history in 'Vermeer in Bosnia.'
Words, Words, Words
Sonoma County Book Fair celebrates the area's rich literary stew.
Milosz in Memory
In his memoir, 'Striking Through the Masks,' a Santa Cruz writer recalls his encounters with poet Czeslaw Milosz.
Milosz in Memory
In his memoir, 'Striking Through the Masks,' a Santa Cruz writer recalls his encounters with poet Czeslaw Milosz.
Baseball Fates
Michael Sokolove's new book charts the wildly varying fates of major leaguers from one of the most famous classes of high school players.
Reading in Transition
When even the government thinks we're not reading enough, there may be trouble.
Rise and Shine
Jonathan Ames' 'Wake Up, Sir!' is a dashing yet thoroughly wacky comedy.
'G' Is for Grafton
Mystery novelist Sue Grafton soups the alphabet.
Kick Start
A new book uses soccer to explain everything.
My Back Pages
Rock 'n' roll reading.
Bill of Particulars
Bill Clinton's 'My Life' is 957 pages long, but we know some shortcuts from Hope to Washington, D.C.
We'll Always Have Paris
Alistair Horne explains why we love the city of lights in 'The Seven Ages of Paris.'
Luck Be a Lady
Nina Marie Martínez's '¡Caramba!' spins a California novel in which saints and sinners win.
Son and Heir
Author Marc Spitz is human and needs to be loved.
Teller of Tales
Marshall Chapman's sweet, strange trip.
Soaking It Up
'Wine Country Spas' a chatty treat.
Chick Lit Crit
Oh baby, where is thy sting?
On the Bush Beat
Kevin Phillips and Arianna Huffington have their eyes on the president in two new books.
Bike to Book
Spring weather and healthy exercise are no excuse to miss this month's local lit events.
American Visions
One pundit's call for a new and improved progressive America.
Soul on Ice
Alice Walker's new novel a New Age mess.
Mightier than the Sword
Journalist Greg Palast is one of truth's last crusaders.
Not Going Softly
The Beats raged against the night.
Book Notes
New and noteworthy, local and langurous.
Falling to Pieces
James Frey's jaggedly beautiful story of putting it all back together again.
Art of Mothering
Novelist Jean Hegland balances words with work.
Immigrant Song
The story of Arab Americans in California and the North Bay.
Feel the Love
Chip Wendt's Running Wolf Press is all about the juice.
Adult Reader
Wil Wheaton steps out of Crusher's shadow.
Everybody's Fool
April Fool's Day touches off a full-scale raid of local bookstores by eclectic authors.
Green History
There's more to Ireland than St. Patrick's Day, according to Tim Pat Coogan's new history.
Canal Zone
A San Jose writer succumbs to the lure of Venice's gondoliers in a new memoir.
Complex Simon
Author and visiting SJSU teacher Simon Winchester knows a lot about just about everything.
Left vs. Right
The bipolar world of Al Franken.
Politics of Make-Believe
In 'The Price of Loyalty,' ex-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill exposes Bush's alternative universe.
Not-So-Lonely Planet
Sampler classes get writers out of their rooms.
The Monkey House
Celebrate the year of the monkey by flinging around books and checking out lit events.
Sexual Healing
Talking 'Chicken' with David Henry Sterry.
Tao-Ner
Ripping off the Buddha, one path at a time.
Hallmark Pass
Take time to crib your valentines from the best while you're hanging out in local bookstores.
If I Had a Boat
'Cork Boat' author John Pollack goes out on a river.
Yogi Bare
UCSC alum Elizabeth Kadetsky exposes the highs and lows of her intense relationship with the art of yoga.
Paging Through Oz
A few good books add depth to a shallow year.
Paging Your Future Self
If the ancient Babylonians are right, your schedule for 2004 is all booked up.
The Roaring '90s
A new anthology from 'The Baffler' magazine--'Boob Jubilee'--dissects the failed economics of the decade that sucked.
Smoke, She is A-Rising
Fire horse women and picture brides are the stuff of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's 'Legend.'
Altar Identities
Pulp superheroes exert a strange fascination in the comic-book art of Alex Ross.
Words Without End
Simon Winchester tracks the history of the OED, the bible of the English language.
Smoke, She is A-Rising
Fire horse women and picture brides are the stuff of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's 'Legend.'
Party Lines
Have your cake and read it too at Bookshop Santa Cruz and Capitola Book Cafe.
A Fair and Balanced Book Review
Al Franken knows how to get under Bill O'Reilly's skin--and that's a good thing.
Writ Large
Fall lit keeps you warm at night.
Java Jive 9
The North Bay Bohemian annual literary contest nets two winners and oodles of talent.
Sandman Grit
Neil Gaiman brings his 'Endless Nights' to SJSU.
Truth or D.A.R.E.
Meredith Maran says America is long overdue for a rethinking of how it deals with teens who use drugs.
Spooky Chats
October rituals ain't what they used to be, but this month's lit events offer some extra intrigue.
Shadowing Sherlock
Petaluma writer Michael Kurland and a guy named Holmes.
We Got the Beat
Poetry Santa Cruz drafts one of the first Beat poets into its ongoing crusade.
The Making of a Poet Laureate
The Book Fair announces Sonoma County's newest poet laureate.
'Shoe' Fits
Real life and writing craft come together in Anne Lamott's 'Blue Shoe.'
'Diary' of a Prankster
His new novel may be his most traditional yet, but Chuck Palahniuk is still keeping the book world off balance.
Knowledge Is Power
Schoolhouse Rock exposed as Gnostic conspiracy, lit events reviewed.
Rudy and the Ants
Anarchy in Silicon Valley with cult sci-fi novelist Rudy Rucker.
Santa Cruz 2053
Novelist Rudy Rucker not only invented cyberpunk, he put Santa Cruz on the science-fiction map. Now he takes on hackers and ants.
Dazed and Perused
Lots of books to read, and a dearth of author events. Like the Go-Go's said, vacation's meant to be spent alone. They were all about literacy.
A 'Hard Rain' Is Gonna Fall
Menlo Park novelist Barry Eisler tracks his spy hero through Tokyo in second John Rain thriller.
Page Slave:
2003 Summer Lit Issue.
Beached Wail
Attention, lit lovers: Pick up the book and back away from the sand castle.
'Pier' Pressure
Ann Packer's unflinching look at emotional tension and physical trauma has everyone buzzing about 'The Dive From Clausen's Pier.'
Silicon Dreamin'
Author Glenna Matthews charts history of women in high tech's ground zero.
Coming of Age
Ariel Gore of Hip Mama fame narrates her journeys from Palo Alto to the Far East and back.
Coming of Age
Ariel Gore of Hip Mama fame narrates her journeys from Palo Alto to the Far East and back.
Bugging Out
When software runs our lives, all it takes is one bug to unplug us.
The complete Ellen Ullman interview
More from the 'Close to the Machine' author.
The Debugger
An excerpt from Ellen Ullman's novel 'The Bug.'
Pre-Order of 'The Phoenix'
Santa Cruz bookstores stay open late for the newest Harry Potter onslaught; plus, June lit events around town.
Too Much Robbins
'Villa Incognito' out-Robbins Tom Robbins.
Mary Visionary
The influential art and ideas of founding UCSC faculty member and all-around Santa Cruz icon Mary Holmes are remembered in a new book.
Bat Out of Hell
From bat kitsch to manga marvel, the legend of Batman still flies.
Insane in the Brain
In May, the Reading Railroad becomes a crazy train of lit events around Santa Cruz .
Networking
Email theorist Geert Lovink explores the future of online dialogue.
Plague Journal
Marilyn Chase's 'Barbary Plague' chronicles a health scare with modern echoes.
All Booked Up in Wales
Paul Collins lingers in the stacks.
Power Trip
Mythic storyteller Jean-Vi Lenthe launches a feminized, bisexualized 'Odyssey,' and presents it in her own voice--literally.
Shooting Stars
Tommy Mierzwinski's literary magazine 'Roman Candles' is small but burns brightly.
Lit to Be Tied
A bevy of recently released books to escape into.
Operation Isengardi Freedom
Wars and other world crises got you down? Escape to Middle Earth and all points literary.
Richer Gear
Author Brad Stone chronicles the big egos and big money behind the rise of robot combat.
Rhyme and Reason
True stories of a not-so-hardened picture-book writer.
Chicago Confidential
A serial killer preys on the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Erik Larson's 'The Devil in the White City.'
What Women Write
This month in literary events: women writers would like to have a word with you
River Watchers
Sixteen Rivers Press welcomes a new tributary.
Geek Love
This month in literary haps: sex from heaven, poetry about peas and going from crappy to happy.
Hitting the Road
Author Rolf Potts travels in search of that very small moment.
Drawn to Scale
Debbie Drechsler's 'Summer of Love' charts the trials of adolescence.
East Side, West Side, All Around The Town
East meets West. The Donner Party meets Chinatown. Novelist James D. Houston examines the moment when two immigrant cultures came together on East Cliff Drive.
Book of Dreams
How photographer George Lee's new book saves a piece of Santa Cruz history.
Sward Swallower
Local poet Robert Sward finds himself tangled up in the web of mysticism and offbeat wisdom that is his father's legacy.
Escape Artist
Comic-book artist Jim Steranko helped the genre escape its bounds--and ended up in the pages of Michael Chabon's novel.
On the Write Path
Jordan Rosenfeld's LiveWire Literary Salon hits a nerve.
Big and Bad
'High and Mighty' chronicles the rise and rise of SUVs.
Breaking On Through Again
Ram Dass wraps his expanded mind around the last of the truly taboo subjects--death and dying.
Eighth Annual Java Jive
'Bohemian' writing contest displays the wonders of modern fiction.
