"California Burning: The Fall Of Pacific Gas And Electric—And What It Means For America's Power Grid"

"The Camp Fire started just three days after I joined The Wall Street Journal," writes energy reporter Katherine Blunt. Her award-winning articles form the basis of a measured, and yet devastating, history of PG&E. 

"California Burning: The Fall Of Pacific Gas And Electric—And What It Means For America's Power Grid" ($29 in hardcover from Portfolio; also for Amazon Kindle) begins that fateful morning of November 8, 2018 and ends in Butte County Superior Court on June 16, 2020, with CEO Bill Johnson saying "Guilty, your honor" to each of 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter. (And, in an Epilogue, the Dixie Fire.)

In between, drawing on more than 200 interviews and thousands of pages of court and historical documents, Blunt pieces together not just the utility's origin story, but how its executives came to focus more on developing clean energy sources than on carefully inspecting and fixing gas pipelines and transmission towers deteriorating by the day.

The San Bruno pipeline explosion in 2010 revealed that PG&E had used the cheapest and least accurate safety testing of its gas lines. As Blunt notes, calling on the point made by San Bruno PD detective James Haggarty, "this was not a crime in which one person pulled the trigger. It was a crime committed slowly, over the course of decades, as corporate strategy shifted to prioritize shareholders, forcing middle-level employees to respond accordingly."

And so it was with the Caribou-Palermo transmission towers in the Feather River Canyon, constructed around 1907. In the investigation, Butte County DA Mike Ramsey and Deputy DA Marc Noel determined the hook that failed, leading to the spark that started the Camp Fire, "had been purchased for 56 cents in 1919."

The final part of the book details the maneuvering over the victims' compensation fund, and why so little has gone to those who were actually victims. In the midst of PG&E's second bankruptcy, the judged charged with approving the fund heard from victims. "They all agreed: $13.5 billion wasn't nearly enough if half of it depended on the company's share price."

A reporter tells the story of a "slow crime," dispassionately. And, somewhere, a reviewer weeps.

"Barefoot In Hells Canyon"

Bryan Gould lives with his wife in San Rafael; their vacation home in Rich Bar, in Plumas County, was destroyed in the Dixie fire. But the memoir he's published focuses on an extraordinary adventure many years earlier, in Idaho.

The subtitle of "Barefoot In Hells Canyon" ($23.95 in paperback from Backeddy Books, backeddybooks.com) says it: "Reflections from two men in a frail raft on a voyage down the Snake River in 1958." It's a gorgeously written account of true friendship and a death-defying you-are-there journey down the Snake's rapids. It's perfect summer reading.

In July 1958 two friends, Bryan Gould and Glen Burns, both 19, get their parents' reluctant permission to depart their homes in the Bay Area, hop a freight train or two and then hitchhike the rest of the way to Idaho with only about $20 to their names. (An inflatable war-surplus rubber raft is sent on ahead.) The goal is to "ride our own raft down the Snake River all the way through Southern Idaho. That accomplished, we'd finish out the summer working in a logging camp" in McCloud. 

Bryan is a copyboy for the San Francisco News (several of his columns are reprinted in the book). Many chapters begin with the two old friends, now in their late 70s, trying to remember details of their adventure sixty years ago, joshing each other. (Glen passed away in 2021.)

Undaunted by danger, into the Snake they go. At Whiskey Springs: "The rapid engulfed us, seizing us with a disconcerting violence. Despite Glen's attempt to keep our nose straight, a crosscurrent caught us and bulled us sideways, lifted us high, and for a moment we teetered on the brink, buoyed by a tremendous thrust that threatened to flip us. We stayed upright, miraculously. We glided over the top, and largely out of control, veered into a series of stone teeth that gnashed at us as we twisted from one jaw into another and still another."

Add the loss of their shoes, the kindness of strangers, unexpected cabins, sleeping in a dump, worried parents, and the fact Bryan doesn't know how to swim, it's clear that surviving Whiskey Springs isn't the only miracle.

"The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir"

"We had arrived in summer," writes Thi Bui, "so there was time to prepare for school in the fall." But as immigrants from Vietnam, her family needed time to adjust. You mean you choose classes? They don't just hand you your schedule?

Bui, a graphic artist now based in the Bay Area, as a youngster escaped with her family after the fall of South Vietnam, landing on American soil on June 28, 1978.

Later, as a graduate student, she wanted to capture her family's history. "My parents have been separated since I was nineteen," she writes, though they "remain friends." But what happened? Words were not enough, so in 2005 she learned "how to do comics." Pages of drawings accumulated.

Later, she and her husband and son moved from New York to California, where she taught at "an alternative public high school for immigrants in Oakland." Her book took shape as a graphic memoir, and in 2017 it was published as "The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir" ($19.99 in paperback from Abrams ComicArts; also for Amazon Kindle, with a helpful pronunciation guide at thebestwecoulddo.abrams.link).

It is fitting, at the start of a new school year, that Bui's own explorations of her past become part of the reader's experience as well. "The Best We Could Do" is the "Book In Common" for 2022-2023 for Butte College (butte.edu/bic) and Chico State (www.csuc.edu/bic) and other community groups.

Bui's parents and their growing family knew the ravages of war. In 1975 South Vietnam's president Duong Van Minh surrendered to the north. Bui's father, in talks with his daughter years later, wants to correct "the American version of this story … about a country not worth saving…. Communist forces entered Saigon without a fight, and no blood was shed. Perhaps Duong Van Minh's surrender saved my life."

But the Communist regime ushered in a propaganda campaign and confession sessions with neighbor spying on neighbor. "My parents," Bui writes, "began to talk of escape."

Filled with emotion, the book's images and dialog convey the complexity of the past--and the realization that one's very-flawed parents were trying to do the best they could.

"Toe The Mark"

"My competitive running," naval historian David D. Bruhn writes, "ended in late autumn 1976" when, "running on a muddy trail along the American River early one morning, I slipped and slid into the river." He had run for Butte College; later, after enlisting in the Navy, he graduated from Chico State and "earned a commission via Officers Candidate School." He met his future wife, Nancy, a Navy nurse, at a base in Colorado.

His cross-country coach, Al Baeta, emphasized the importance of holding on to energizing memories. "Running in Chico in the 1970s is one of those memories." And so, drawing on Enterprise-Record archives and interviews with runners and coaches, Bruhn tells the story of the running programs not only at Chico State, but Chico High and PV High, in the 70s. "Toe The Mark" ($29 in paperback from heritagebooks.com) features a foreword by Walt Schafer--no stranger to running himself--and 114 historical photographs.

Tracing the running programs year by year with plenty of stats, the book also weaves personal stories into the narrative, making it not only an extraordinary reference but one that captures the story of legendary track and cross-country coaches (such as Bill Gregg, Chuck Sheley, Jack Yerman, Dale Edson, Cherrie Sherrard, and more) who got the best out of their runners.

In an email, Bruhn notes that "The two individuals pictured on the front cover are Wildcat All-American and 4:01 miler Kim Ellison, and Wildcat All-American and Olympic Swim Trials participant (as a 16-year old Panther) Jill Symons. Symons is (little argument) the greatest multi-sport female endurance athlete Chico has produced to date."

In 1977 Symons, along with Girls Cross Country teammates Suzanne Richter (All-American at Cal, "still number six on the all-time 5,000 meters list"), marathoner Luanne Park, Julie Selchau, and Darcy Burleson, were known as "Charlie's Angels" (after coach Chuck and a certain TV series), arguably, Bruhn writes me, "the greatest high school prep team of any sport in the North Section."

"Toe The Mark" is the ultimate runner's high.

Bruhn is hosting a "1970s Runners Reunion Weekend," August 27-28 in Chico, with more than fifty participants; for information on signed copies of his book write commanderbruhn@gmail.com.

"Trek Tales: A Woman's Journey Of Self-Discovery Packing Llamas In The California Wilderness"

Former longtime Paradise resident Donna Dolinar now lives, with husband Bill, "in Baja, Mexico in a small fishing village," for eight months of the year, and "four months in Tahoe National Forest" in an old Forest Service cabin near the Pacific Crest Trail. How she got from here to there is quite a story, and involves llamas.

Her 1990 marriage to Bill meant becoming a stepmom and welcoming a new daughter into the world. Donna yearned to go on Bill's backpacking trips with friends but how to transport little Liz? 

Cargo-carrying llamas, of course. 

Talking with a friend put the idea in her mind, and a visit to "a small llama ranch called RMC's Stonybrook Pond" nearby began a llama love affair.

Eventually Dolinar took other women on backpacking trips; "through the years there were seven llamas involved in Paradise Llama Treks. My good friend Gibby and I ran our little business with the help of our four-legged friends Peludo, Montana, Tyrol, Kenney, Buck, Shasta, and Gabriel … on most of our trips we had four of them with us."

These three-day trips took place "every year for eighteen years. The coed llama treks were four-day backpacking trips held annually for eleven years." For Dolinar "it was a personal growth story too." That meant facing challenging times, like having to call a helicopter for Bill, dealing with stinky llama spit, or having to admit she had guided her group on the wrong path.

The stories abound in "Trek Tales: A Woman's Journey Of Self-Discovery Packing Llamas In The California Wilderness" ($17.99 in paperback from Balboa Press; also for Amazon Kindle) which includes maps and a picture section. Dolinar's welcoming and humble account of trekking wilderness areas like Caribou, Trinity Alps, and Thousand Lakes draws the reader into life on the trail.

After losing their home in the Camp Fire, there were more adventures to come. Montana and Peludo, owned by "mama llama" Dolinar, play an immense part in the awakening of something deep within the nurse from Paradise. "When I listened to my inner voice and trusted it," she writes, "I found my path."