"Gerti's War: A Journal Of Life Inside The Wehrmacht"

"What did you do in the war?" That was the question Chicoan Lois Buchter put to cousin Gertrude Leicht during Buchter's visit with her extended family in Germany. The answer astonished her. Drawing on Gertrude's journal as well as family stories, Buchter created what she calls a "non-fiction novel," a first-person account of life in Hitler's Germany and into the post-war world.

"Gerti's War: A Journal Of Life Inside The Wehrmacht" ($16.99 in paperback from Evershine Press; also for Amazon Kindle) is a memorial to the courage of a young woman, who at age 14 in 1938, adoring her Papa, Mutti, and older brother Rolf, finds Hitler's propaganda creeping into every area of her life. "We have a new teacher who makes us stand and say 'Heil Hitler' every time she enters or leaves the room," Gerti tells her mother; "I don't like her." 

The Nazi Party is reshaping German life, in big and small ways. "Red swastika flags stand outside our school and in front of the city offices. Political posters decorate the train station depicting Hitler as a lover of children." She and best friend Marta are hauled into the principal's office "where we were threatened with expulsion from school for pacifist troublemaking." 

Such "troublemaking" puts Gerti's whole family at risk; as the war effort expands the reader senses her growing awareness of the dangers of dissent. Rolf dies of pneumonia at 17 after saving a boy about to drown in frigid waters, yet Rolf's hope for a better future than offered by Hitler Youth spurs Gerti to start a journal. 

For Gerti, Memorial Day is a sad affair, especially after overhearing her Papa being pressured to join the Party or else, and seeing Storm Troopers standing outside a Jewish-owned business telling people not to shop there.

The story takes Gerti through 1948 and then brings readers up to date as of 1993. Gerti had fallen in love with Sigmund (Sigi) and yet they were parted, seemingly forever, and she marries Hugo Zimmermann. But after Hugo dies, there is an almost miraculous reunion with Sigi—and the rest, of course, is for the reader to savor.

"The Kingdom Of Dadria: The Blood Of Wolves And War"

Chico writer N.J. Hanson's sword-and-sorcery saga begins with "The Kingdom of Dadria: A Lamb Amongst Wolves" wherein red-headed Princess Endelynn of Dadria is set to wed Prince Sedrick of Kahren and thus unite the two great houses. 

It all goes awry as plots within plots center on Sedrick's brother, Kendrick, who aims not only to take over Dadria but to fulfill his genocidal ambitions to raze the Forest of Wayward Souls and destroy all the indigenous peoples within.

Those peoples are the "skinwalkers," humans from the Wolf, Bear, Panther, and Hawk clans able to transform into those very animals. Endelynn finds herself captive of the Wolf Clan after a fake kidnaping engineered to show Sedrick's bravery; he has gone missing in the Forest and Endelynn's life hangs in the balance. 

One must not forget the ancient prophecy of a young wolf warrior returning from the dead "as a wolf with fur red as flame, born to a woman called the Aleutsi, the Great Mother," the only hope against the pale invaders from the Walled Cities.

The plots thicken in the second in the series, "The Kingdom Of Dadria: The Blood Of Wolves And War" ($15.99 in paperback from Ink Drop Press; also for Amazon Kindle). When Endelynn is surreptitiously freed, she is befriended by the warrior Shunka, himself a Wolf Clan exile, who uses his powers to confront the monster in the forest. (This is the Wendigo, the eater-of-humans, portrayed on the cover by artist Steve Ferchaud.)

It's a neat trick: "Shunka had crouched on all fours. He'd felt the wolf spirit swell within him, his body changing to match. His face lengthened into a muzzle, hands and feet became paws, and fingers and toes turned to claws. A tail sprouted from the base of his spine. Thick, black fur rippled across his body. The man was gone, the wolf had emerged."

Months pass in the forest. Endelynn is taught hunting and fighting, and Shunka grows fond of the pale princess. It's mutual, yet as fondness morphs into love, a great betrayal looms, and readers of this captivating and violent epic will yearn for the next installment.

"Following Breadcrumbs: Tales Of A Rock And Roll Girl Child"

Her parents wedded in 1952; there they are, surrounded by friends, including Gabby Hayes, Mel Tormé and Milton Berle. Jamie Johnston's father, actor Johnny Johnston, "had the starring role in one of the first quintessential rock and roll movies, Rock Around The Clock" (though "he hated rock and roll"). Her mother Shirley was a "socialite real estate agent" in Beverly Hills. When Jamie Johnston comes into the world about a year later, her privileged possibilities seem endless.

Captured by the emerging music culture ("music is my frame of reference for everything") that made one want to twist and shout, Jamie plunges head on into a multitude of relationships, having a beer with Paul McCartney, arguing with Bob Dylan, falling hopelessly, as a "liberated ex-lesbian," for two very different men, Phil (P.F.) Sloan and the love of her life, Gene Clark ("one of The Byrds…. I couldn't even think straight").

The stories are told in "Following Breadcrumbs: Tales Of A Rock And Roll Girl Child" ($13.99 in paperback from iUniverse; also for Amazon Kindle), a life of encounters more than coincidental. 

"One day," she writes, thinking of her parents, "I would discover I inherited the propensity toward self-sabotage in my own career. Not only that, I would attract and be attracted to other people that did the exact same thing." She is a fixer, wanting to save others from themselves. What could go wrong?

Johnston's prose draws the reader into an emotional world of fractured relationships, drugs and booze, bands and gigs and songwriting and learning to surf, pregnancies lost, hidden illnesses and deaths, and living arrangements around the state, each chapter named by a lyric. 

The final chapter, "Two Tickets to Paradise," brings Johnston to, well, Paradise--and the Camp Fire; she writes me that "I lost so many precious books (and music in every format) in the fire" but now she's "back up in Paradise, a new house on the old land."

"I must follow the breadcrumbs back, back to the beginning," she writes, "to see where I've been, and to see where I might be going." 

It's a wild, unforgettable and heartbreaking journey of self-discovery.

"Bardo"

In a series of novels, starting with "Venice Beach" in 2015, Chico writer Emily Gallo (emilygallo.com) has charted the lives of a group of unlikely friends. In her latest, "Bardo" ($12.95 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle), the focus is on Luther Banks, a forty-something Black man living in Garberville on guitarist Dutch Bogart's pot farm. 

Others are there, too: "Two of the men, one Black and one White, were quite old, maybe in their late eighties. … The three women all looked like they were in their twenties or thirties." 

Luther falls under suspicion when a body is found nearby. He had spent twenty years in San Quentin on a murder charge; though he had been exonerated through the work of the Innocence Project, the prison sentence was still in the records.

Rather than remain on the farm and face harassment as a Black ex-con, Luther heads for the Bay Area, meeting with his friend Jed Gibbons, "a tall, sinewy African-American" and a survivor of the Jonestown massacre in Guyana, who is now the caretaker of the famous San Francisco Columbarium (where Luther's mother has a niche). 

Jed connects Luther with former best-selling writer Finn McGee (Gallo's protagonist in "Venice Beach") in New York. McGee is old, curmudgeonly and sarcastic, the perfect guide for Luther, naïve in the ways of modern life (including the stiff drinks favored by McGee). 

Luther doesn't know what to do with his life and Finn introduces him to the idea of "bardo," "a Buddhist term," Finn says, "for those times like what you're dealing with, when the normal sense of the continuity of your life is interrupted." (Or, as Dutch would put it later, "The state of existence intermediate between two lives on earth. … they'd take away my hippie credentials if I forgot!")

What better way to navigate Luther's "in between time" than a road trip? With the help of a newly-purchased '83 Chrysler LeBaron Town and Country convertible, and the companionship of a stray cat they name Bardo, Luther and Finn head back to California. 

A growing sense of calling, and a welcome surprise at the end, bring Luther great joy, and the reader as well.

"Stride Out"

When it comes to the hallowed halls of sports fame, Chico has much to be proud of. For Cdr. David D. Bruhn, USN (Retired), that includes track and cross country, and though the Chico author has specialized in writing Naval history, he turns his attention to running in two recent books.

The earlier title, "Toe The Mark," details the "distance running dynasty developed at Chico High School … in the 1970s." Now, "Stride Out" ($29 in paperback from Heritage Books, heritagebooks.com) seeks to honor the development of both the men's and women's track and field and cross country programs at Chico State from 1969-1979.

The book sports more than 100 historic photographs. It's a comprehensive, year-by-year account of coaches and teammates, including setbacks (budget cuts eliminated Chico State cross country in 1975) and triumphs (it returned the next year, and a women's program was added).

Detailed accounts of meets and practices abound; ah, memories! 

In 1977, the Lady 'Cats' cross country rigorous workout regime, under coach Cherrie Sherrard, included Thursday's hour of "Fartlek," Swedish for "speed play," "a combination of different distances at different speeds to stress continuous movement, plus weight training." 

In 1979, Wildcat Cross Country team member Jill Symons (shown on the cover) was All-American.

Chico State's Duwayne Ray is also on the cover; he won the mile at the 1969 NCAA College Division Track and Field Championships in Ashland, Ohio and that year was All-American and National Champion in the mile.

Miler Kim Ellison clocked in at 4:01.4 in 1972 on the College Field dirt track, in bitter cold, a school record that stood for 37 years until Scotty Bauhs' 3:59.81 performance in 2008.

Speaking of 1972, runner Laura de Ghetaldi remembers team members taking to the track one afternoon and being serenaded by the lead singer-songwriter Tom Johnston and the Doobie Brothers who were practicing nearby for that night's Pioneer Week concert. "Listen to the Music" provided "the best 'Fartlek' training I ever had in all my years on our track." Some 39 years later de Ghetaldi had a chance encounter in a Del Mar parking lot with—Tom Johnston. 

Run and get the book for the rest of the stories.