A science-fiction thriller from a local writer

Dan O'Brien is editor of Empirical. Distributed nationally, each issue of the Chico-based magazine delves into the world of human experience with a literary sensibility and willingness to explore new paths. But O'Brien is also a prolific novelist, honing his craft with each exploration of a new world or a human mind.

"Born in Connecticut," he writes in a published interview, "I moved with my family several times over the course of my childhood. Having lived in several states and attended many institutions, I have a unique perspective of the human condition. Each new place, every new relationship, has allowed for me to paint from a rich easel of colors. A lifelong practitioner and enthusiast of martial arts, elements of spiritualism and eastern culture have found a home in my works."

In "Cerulean Dreams" ($14.95 in paperback from CreateSpace; also in Amazon Kindle format), O'Brien imagines a future in which "the world had become an immensely safe place. There was no war. Poverty had been abolished, laws and rituals instituted that would maintain the pleasant temperament of the new-formed society." Every citizen is "implanted in their temple with a motherboard chip." They sleep by day and arise at night. Utopia.

A great many lives had been "lost in the Water Rights Wars of 2076" but, as the news reports, "it marked the inception of the Cerulean Dreams Corporation. And eventually the gathering of the citizens of Earth into the newly-manufactured Orion, the first and last safe haven for humankind."

But utopia is not what it seems in this page-turner. Alexander Marlowe refuses to upgrade his chip software and goes off the grid. He is investigating the seeming murders of young women when he encounters Dana, still alive. Haunted by "shadows," Marlowe and Dana plan to escape Orion, to get outside the city where there is nothing but lifeless desert. Or so they've been told.

The Company, and the mysterious group behind it, want Dana back no matter the cost. What follows are a series of horrific and bloody encounters with the assassin Armon, and the discovery in the desert of a village shaman who points Marlowe to the answers he seeks. Minds must be free, not controlled--but there is a gruesome cost to that freedom.

History of the "Ridge Route"

Call it an "alternative" to taking Highway 70. The "Ridge Route" begins in Oroville, moves on to the Bidwell Bar suspension bridge, Berry Creek, Bucks Lake, and on to Quincy. The roadway has had a checkered history, at one time forming a vital link to Oroville as emigrants arrived at Quincy from the eastern US, at other times lying in disrepair.

Independent researcher David M. Brown has drawn on a wealth of documentation to tell the tale of "The Oroville-Quincy Ridge Route: Development, Eclipse, and Renewal of a Transportation Artery" ($20 in paperback from the Association for Northern California Historical Research, www.csuchico.edu/anchr). It includes maps, black-and-white and color photographs, and an extensive bibliography.

Though a work of historical scholarship, the book can be enjoyed by anyone with a hankering to travel what used to be part of the old Beckwourth Trail in the mid-1800s. To that end Brown devotes a chapter to 34 "places of interest," beginning in Quincy "where Main Street, Crescent Street and Court Street come together. This intersection has been the route's beginning since the Quincy & Spanish Ranch Wagon Road was constructed" in 1855. (That part of the Ridge Route was a private toll road.)

Brown writes that "after its first few years of prominence, the Ridge Route experienced a gradual change in use and a fairly steady decline in importance for about 130 years, eclipsed first by usage of competing wagon roads and later by rail and motor vehicle roads through the canyon of the North Fork and East Branch of the Feather River. ... Road improvements beginning in the early 1980s, following an upgrade of Big Creek Road for use by trucks and recreational vehicles, re-opened the Ridge Route to the casual user and made it viable for more commercial usage."

Speaking of commerce, "Charles E. Boles, alias Black Bart, appears to have made two heists on the western side of the route." There were always challenges, especially from the weather. The winter of 1889-90 brought ten-foot snow depths in Quincy and today the road is passable only six or eight months a year. But Brown is "cautiously optimistic" about the route's continued scenic and recreational value.

The road, it turns out, is 66 miles long. We have our own "route 66."

Beer guide reflects its craft

"I think the craft beer world," writes Ken Weaver, "asks a person a very simple question: What do you really want? And I believe that's one of the more important questions we can ask ourselves--whether framed in terms of taste, or how we choose to consume things, or how we interact with the communities around us, or (in the most immediate sense) how willing we are to savor what's directly in front of us. That's what I see in my glass, and having met so many enthusiastic beer lovers of late, I think many of them see it in theirs as well."

Weaver's project, and that of his photographer wife Anneliese (Ali) Schmidt, is "The Northern California Craft Beer Guide" ($21.95 in paperback from Cameron + Company). Full color throughout, beautifully printed, the book is by turns informative, whimsical, funny--and useful. Ken Grossman, owner and founder of Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, provides the foreword.

"When I made my first commercial batch of beer in 1980," Grossman writes, "the industry had hit a low point, and only about forty breweries remained. ... I would literally go door to door to different bars and sell single bottles of Pale Ale. Back then, people thought I was nuts! It was several years and loads of good luck later that we began to see more people moving toward bolder beers."

Today, says Weaver, "Northern California is home to over 150 breweries, approaching one-tenth of the nation's total, and the number of notable beer bars, bottle shops, and other craft beer-centric venues is of similar magnitude."

The guide divides California, from the Bay Area north, into eight regions, and highlights key "beer destinations" as well as other craft beer venues. The "North I-5, Chico, and Shasta Cascade" section lists eighteen stops, including the Mt. Shasta Brewing Co. in Weed; bottlecaps say "Try Legal Weed."

Weaver has chosen the best, but he's not afraid to say when a facility doesn't quite measure up. Sidebars abound, highlighting almost twenty beer styles (such as Hefeweizen/Wheat Ale), beer communities, sustainability, beer bloggers, festivals, and beer vs. wine. "Wine can be deliciously complex," Weaver writes. "Beer can be deliciously complex." Wine's complexity varies with the harvest; beer depends on the brewer's artistry. It's a heady thought.

Celebrating the fortieth anniversary of "The Donner Party"

George Keithley's "The Donner Party" ($16.95 in paperback from George Braziller), first published in 1972, is a "lean, taut, narrative poem" (to quote the New York Times). The Chico poet produced an American masterwork, a haunting eulogy for the company, led by George Donner, bound for California in April of 1846. More than half would not survive.

Lyon Books in Chico is honoring Keithley at a book signing and reading Tuesday at 7:00 p.m.

"I am George Donner a dirt farmer," the poem begins, "who left the snowy fields / around Springfield, Illinois / in the fullness of my life // and abandoned the land / where we had been successful / and prosperous people // and brought a party of eighty men / women and children / west by wagon."

Along the route most everything except food is left behind. It's not the "established trail," and weeks are wasted hacking a path. One might wonder if the land was abandoning them.

"Jacob's oldest son / let the sweat run // from his blond beard / as he halted there / in a trance. He left // his hand on the haft / of his ax and stood / staring up the slope // where he was to cut / but his mind was gone-- / a man may see a valley // overgrown with trees / or a simple stream / struck by sunlight // and in the cave of his chest / his heart falls / because he loves // the land too much with his eyes / and he feels unneeded / he is jealous // of the generous nature / of all things, whether / they are large or small // vegetable or mineral / and the wild life / and the long lights of space // so he cannot / move on nor come / deep into the place."

Bad timing and bad directions prove their undoing. Earlier, Donner remembers, "we were still bemused / by the myths of maps. ... But that was before / we came // to feel / the slow intelligence of the snow / groping over the ground. ..." Grisly events mingle with dreams of a better land.

The immense sadness here encompasses us all.

Letters from wartime California

"For over 50 years," writes Gridley resident Joan Brock, "Rigmor, my grandmother's niece, lovingly kept Helga's notebooks safe in her home in Copenhagen." Those notebooks contained letters that Helga, then living in Palo Alto, wrote to her family in Denmark during World War II. Because of the Nazi occupation the letters could not be mailed, but Helga continued to write them anyway, filling five notebooks during wartime. "Rigmor told me she had saved these letters and wanted to give them to me, but she just could not bear to part with them." Eventually she made copies and sent them to Brock "in 2005, just prior to her death. I found the letters so compelling, I published them."

The collection, lightly annotated, is called "My Dear, Dear Rigmor: Helga's Letters Written During WWII" ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats). Nancy Wiegman interviewed Joan Brock for Nancy's Bookshelf, which airs on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM) Friday mornings at 10:00 a.m.; the archive is found at http://goo.gl/BMMB0.

Helga's letters are a profoundly human mix of family minutiae and geopolitical reflections. "Coffee goes on rationing next week--one pound per person from 15 years old and up--every 5 weeks. That's still enough" (November 25, 1942). "For the first time, millions of people in the U.S. are paying income tax" (March 12, 1944). "All the years I lived here, I can't see a good-looking head of cauliflower, that [I] don't want it, and every time I do buy it, I am disappointed. It never did taste good like they did at home" (May 14, 1945).

She grieves for her family in Denmark. Her characterizations of the Germans and Japanese (especially the Japanese) are brutal. December 7, 1941 is seared in her memory. "But that was their first mistake, that unforgettable sneak punch, because it united every man, woman, and child in the United States. And believe me, nobody in the world can fight us down. This is still the land of liberty, the land of the free, and will always be so." Her surviving son, Ralph, is fighting overseas; her thoughts are never far from him.

Helga is by turns resolute, cranky, tearful, opinionated, patriotic. In this book she still speaks.

Local essayist on roads taken and not taken

"I was a senior in high school," writes Daniel Thomas, "when Dwight Eisenhower was elected to a second term, the musical Carousel was playing at local theatres, the stock market had surpassed 500 for the first time, and Elvis Presley was singing 'Heartbreak Hotel.' It was also the year my dad asked me if I would be interested in becoming a full partner in his neighborhood grocery store, Tommy's Superette."

Taylor said no because he wanted to teach. "Looking back," he says, "I suppose that it was jut as well that I was ignorant of the struggles my parents were having, or I might never have left Willows."

"Wanderings: Book Five In A Series Of Essays" ($9.95 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing) presents brief reflections on some of things that happened next, including an Army stint in Germany. Thomas' previous books ("Essays From The Ten," "Evening Country," "100 Miles," and "Pastiche: An Essayist In Search Of A Theme") have looked outward. "Wanderings" looks back and takes stock.

It was a circuitous route to a career as a teacher and high school principal, winding through marriages and divorces, Amtrack travels ("an opiate separating me from a reality that I chose to ignore"), bouts with the bottle and ill health, and feelings of worthlessness and loneliness.

Yet resilience pervades these essays, especially in a piece called "Hey, He's Seventy!!" "As my life continues to unfold," Taylor writes, "I find myself focusing more on what is good and less and less about my setbacks. I had my first heart attack when I was forty-seven and retired from my professional life much earlier than most. I consider myself fortunate that, by moving away from what was a hectic, demanding lifestyle, I was able to 'reboot' my goals in life." Though increasingly suspicious of those who "gain immense power however and wherever fear is pedaled for their own aggrandizement," he can still pause to celebrate a rainy Valentine's Day with his wife, Marilyn, at Broadway Heights.

He ends with questions: "Who called me to be seduced by ambition?" "Who called me to discover the gift of adversity?" "Who calls me now that I, a season older, want far more than to silently expire from the starvation of an undernourished soul?"

A change-of-pace novel from Doug Keister

"Somebody's gotta pay for this." Those were the words from the Berkeley mayor as he confronted two Cal Bears quarterbacks in the coach's office. First stringer "Dapper Dan" Daniels and second stringer Percival (Percy) Peabody had cavorted with the mayor's twin daughters who said they were 18. Only they weren't quite. The twins were not quite virginal, either, but since the mayor had the concession license for the games, Daniels stayed but Peabody was shipped off to a firefighting crew in Winnemucca, Nevada. But instead of the larger-than-life shenanigans as in Doug Keister's first novel, "Desiree," something different is about to happen to Percy. Her name is Autumn.

"Autumn in Summer" ($12.99 in paperback from CreateSpace; also in e-book format for Amazon's Kindle) marks new territory for Chicoan Doug Keister as he explores the inner landscape of love, loss and identity and wraps it all in a family mystery in which a cemetery plays a prominent role. The story is well plotted.

That waitress in the Winnemucca bar. "'They call me Autumn,' she said, running her fingers through her red hair and inspecting it, showing off a bit. She cocked her head and smiled that big smile." Percy (well, here he goes by "Pete") is smitten. And then there's Autumn's strange tattoo, a code, a reminder of a puzzle left by her grandmother.

Then Pete is called away to fire duty. He returns a hero, but Autumn has vanished. The search is fruitless--perhaps Autumn doesn't want to be found--and eventually Percy returns to the Bay Area. Autumn is a dream but life moves on. Percy marries Dapper Dan's sister, Barbie.

The marriage drifts. One summer Percy is dragged by his wife to Italy for a summer course on classical sculpture and a visit to Verano Cemetery. "On a slight rise near the edge of the cemetery grounds, I stopped dead in my tracks. Tucked into a small outdoor gallery was a sensual white marble angel. It was Autumn. Autumn with wings and curls. Autumn as an angel."

Something re-ignites in Percy, and the reader follows the twists and turns of a heart wracked by guilt, determined to know: Is Autumn still out there? Has she left word? What is the price to pay for love?

Solution to our garbage problem? It's in the bag

Edward Humes is a California-based, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has turned his attention to the stuff we throw away. "Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash" ($27 in hardcover from Avery/Penguin; e-book versions for the Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook) is a fascinating and surprisingly upbeat look at how we got here, where trash goes when it's tossed, and how ordinary mortals can make a difference.

Where's "here"? Humes sums it up: "Americans make more trash than anyone else on the planet,throwing away about 7.1 pounds per person per day, 365 days a year. Across a lifetime that rate means, on average, we are each on track to generate 102 tons of trash."

What's more, "American's two highest volume exports to China were paper waste and scrap metal, a little more than $8 billion worth of bundled old newspapers, crushed cardboard, rusty steel and mashed beverage cans sold at rock-bottom prices. ... America, a country that once built things for the rest of the world, has transformed itself into China's trash compactor."

Humes is scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf this Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

Humes' research is driven by a key question: "How is it possible for people to create so much waste without intending to do so, or even realizing they are doing it?" He spends time at Southern California's Puente Hills landfill (the "largest active municipal dump in the country"), charts the history of Waste Management, Inc., and details the work of trash-trackers (who attach electronic beacons to thrown-out sneakers and plastic containers). "Managing waste" makes it seem to disappear. But it's still there, such as in the zillions of plastic nodules mixed into our beaches and populating the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch."

Humes devotes a chapter to Andy Keller, the head of ChicoBag, and Keller's legal fight with "Big Plastic." Plastic grocery bags "are mostly not recycled despite decades of efforts. ... Their environmental footprint and cost are greater than the simple expedient of a reusable bag. They are, as Andy Keller is quick to point out, a product with a useful life measured in hours and a waste life measured in centuries."

Now we know.

Chico neurosurgeon on ailing U.S. health care system

Dr. Jeffrey Lobosky, Co-Director of the Neurotrauma Intensive Care Unit at Enloe Medical Center, and Associate Clinical Professor in the Department of Neurological Surgery at UCSF, knows the U.S. health care system from the inside and it's not a pretty picture. After years of frustration, and spurred on by his wife, Diana, he's gone public with a must-read examination that leaves no one unscathed.

As he notes in the Prologue, "I will discuss the roles of the insurance industry, the pharmaceutical industry, for-profit hospitals and malpractice litigation in creating the prevailing mess. But I also hope to point out how the American business community, our current political system and their leaders, organized medicine, practicing physicians, and patients themselves hare culpability for our current state of affairs. No one group is fully to blame and no one group is fully blameless."

The details are spelled out in "It's Enough To Make You Sick: The Failure of American Health Care and a Prescription for the Cure" ($27 in hardcover from Rowman and Littlefield), a clear, sometimes wry conversation about the eroding relationship between physicians and their patients.

Dr. Lobosky will be speaking Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico. An archived interview with the author on Nancy's Bookshelf with Nancy Wiegman (aired on KCHO Northstate Public Radio 9.17 FM Fridays at 10:00 a.m.) is at kchofm.podbean.com.

He notes a disturbing trend in the last decade in the growing use of "hospitalists," doctors whose full time practice is "within the confines of a hospital, admitting and caring for patients whose own doctors no longer provide those services or who are without primary care physicians. ... Care is handed off among members of the group as their 'shift' ends."

Dr. Lobosky charges $3808 for the emergency removal of a blood clot threatening the brain. "Medicaid pays me $1180 for that service. When you calculate the overhead (cost of malpractice insurance and office expenses to see the patients), I net $755 for a three-hour, middle-of-the-night lifesaving surgery, three to six weeks of ICU care, and three months of follow-up."

His solutions spare no one. It doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out the system is broken. But a brain surgeon may help us use our noggins better.

A psycho-sexual thriller from a local novelist

Consider the town of Estella. "Known for its beautiful surroundings and pleasant people, the Northern California town of Estella is a small but growing community on the banks of a tidal river north of San Francisco Bay." But the brochure, promoting the first "Jennifer Carpenter Days," doesn't end there. The town, and the river, are named after a young women who was raped 150 years ago and who drowned herself.

"Twenty-five years ago," it continues, "another young girl met a sinister end. On the cusp of 18, beautiful and naive in equal measure, Jennifer Carpenter vanished into a moonlit night in the hills northwest of town, leaving behind nothing but the uniform worn at St. Stephanie's Boarding School for Orphaned Girls: white blouse, blue-and-white checked skirt, serviceable socks, and clogs."

The disappearance provoked a media frenzy, and now the town is capitalizing on the mystery--and filling local coffers--with a parade and other festivities. A beautiful lawyer, Lisa Conda, is chosen to play Jennifer, complete with dark wig. A one-time lover of Roy S. Moby, a soft-porn svengali new to Estella who has opened a chain of family restaurants, Conda meets a horrible end in the same woods, in the same place, as Carpenter herself.

That's when 28-year-old Rapunzel Isabel O'Hara enters the picture. A freelance writer, she and Conda had become friends of sorts, though both had sought Moby's sexual favor. Rapunzel, intelligent, intuitive, a featured nude in Moby's magazine, comes to Estella to investigate. She discovers a hornet's nest of intrigue among the townspeople and in search of Lisa's killer uncovers truths long buried.

The red-headed O'Hara herself, says Moby, is a dichotomy. "From the chin up she looks like an old maid. The first time I made her take off her clothes she turned beet red" but she was aroused. Rapunzel "can leave you slashed, raw and bleeding. She is that most dangerous of females: the erotic prude."

"Whose Woods These Are" ($23.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats) by Dave Veith weaves a complex spell. He is scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf at 10:00 a.m. this Friday, May 18 on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

A memoir in witty, poignant vignettes

Local writer Miklos (Mike) Sajben was born in Hungary in 1931. "World War II affected us much like everybody else. We experienced shortages of almost everything and had the privilege of being bombed by both Americans and Germans." Mike escaped to the US in 1956, got his Ph.D. from MIT, became a citizen, and married an American named Mary.

His observations about growing up in Hungary and living in the US are captured in more than three dozen vignettes, now published as "Floating In Air: And Other Stories" ($20.49 in paperback from lulu.com). The author is scheduled for a book signing at Lyon Books in Chico in the near future; check the website (lyonbooks.com) for the latest news.

The title piece takes the author to the Valley Forge airport near Philadelphia for a try at parachute jumping. "The chute was supposed to open almost immediately, but nothing happened for a long long time. Thoughts of a future career as a pancake flashed through my mind."

In "Cat Calamity" Sajben remembers being a kid in Hungary during wartime watching his father get the mice out of the family's corn bin. Once the corn was removed what remained were "lots and lots of mice, maybe as many as a hundred, squeaking and running around on the solid bottom of the crate, giving the impression of a grey, velvety, shimmering carpet."

So Dad brings in Uncle Laszlo's cat, Max, and tosses him into the bin. "Max was frozen rigid in the stance he landed in. His tail stood straight up like a candlestick. He looked like a porcupine, his hair sticking out in all directions as if he were the subject of a high-voltage science experiment. ... Max let out a primal scream, bounded out of the box in a single jump and flew out of the barn." He "never caught a mouse again."

There are reflections on understanding women (don't try), eating pig intestines (yum!), and more, along with some salty language here and there. Speaking of language, while Hungarian "happily hums along with a single form of past tense ... English sports six of them. ... Why, oh why can't I deal with my pasts?" But if these "pasts" are any indication, Mike Sajben has a bright future.

Will there be a mouse in the house?

At the urging of his wife Deni Jo, Cliff Vinsonhaler is writing down some of the stories he's told over the years to his kids and grandkids. One might say that the Chico real estate broker has created some unreal estate in his fanciful tales of kids and animals, and if the first book in the planned series is any indication, readers will find continuing delight.

"Rodey" ($11.99 in paperback from Vinsonhaler Publishing, myrodey.com), available at Lyon Books in Chico, comes packed with full-color illustrations from the irrepressible Steve Ferchaud of Paradise. Vinsonhaler's stories, says his website, "most of which are still in his head, have no moral or hidden meaning. What they do depict is old fashioned fun and entertainment."

Rodey is a field mouse who "wanted to live in the grand two-story house where a little boy named Benjamin lived." Wouldn't you know it, though--there was no place for a mouse to get in. (We should all be so lucky.) So Rodey hatches a plan. He spots Ben's shoes lying in the grass and figures if he hides in one of the shoes he'll be carried inside when Ben's mom comes to retrieve them ("like she had always done before").

But the best-laid plans of mice and men.... Ben himself came out and put on his shoes. "Benjamin said, 'Mom, I think I need new shoes because one of them shrunk.' Well he didn't know it, but his mother was going to buy new shoes for him that very day."

The heart of the book is the meeting with Mrs. Lace, a rather matronly woman who had just started working at the shoe store. Ben tosses his shoes on the floor, and Rodey "fell out of the shoe, conked his head and passed out right onto Mrs. Lace's foot. She looked down at the mouse and screamed, and in the excitement flung her foot so high in the air ... that Rodey flew right over and onto the top of the store manager's head, Mr. Horn. Well, guess what? No one ever knew it, but Mr. Horn wore a toupee." Can you see where this is going?

The text and pictures will have kids laughing out loud. At least this kid did.

Graceful communication from a Chico writer

When it comes time to apologize to a colleague, what are the right words? When you need to offer condolences, or break up with someone, clear up a billing error, or respond to a verbal jab, what should you say? Barbara O. Geshekter, Chico-based consultant and self-described lover-of-words, has long pondered these questions. Her answers are now available in "Words To That Effect: Well-Turned Phrases To Read, Write Or Recite" ($24.95 in hardcover from Pale Ink Press of Chico at barbarageshekter.com).

Though the book's many examples can be used in email or even spoken out loud, Geshekter writes that "even in its humblest form, paper power is inestimable. Think of the Academy Awards. All the nominees have been announced. The camera pans back to the presenters on stage. They hold a heavy, ivory colored card, secured with a glimmering, gold seal and red ribbon (at least that's what I imagine they hold). And the winner is ... anyone lucky enough to receive one of your thoughtful, handwritten communiqués." Postcards, she adds, are like Twitter in physical form.

The book opens with reflections on the importance of clear thinking. "No matter ... how vested you are in the outcome of a legitimate grievance," she says, "if you can find a way to express yourself without acrimony it's a positive and liberating experience." Her aim in the book is to provide just the right words so that the reader says, "That's it. That's exactly what I want to say."

Geshekter discusses several personality types and how to help them "hear" you. She notes that while "less is more" in communicating with men, with women, "more is more ... more words, more feelings, more often." Are you listening, guys?

Each chapter includes "talking points" (pithy observations on the topic) and "well-turned phrases" that can easily be adapted. In writing a note to someone whose life circumstances have dramatically changed, she notes that "to avoid any overtones of schadenfreude, refrain from making comparisons--good or bad--about yourself or others. Nobody will feel better to know that your Uncle Peter filed for bankruptcy four times."

The book includes lined pages for jotting down favorite phrases and important dates. It's a practical guide that's fun to read.

To the author: Thank you.

Former Chico resident on how to stay married to a cop

"My family and I moved to Chico in 1973," writes Victoria Newman. "I was enrolled in John McManus Elementary, when in 4th grade, Mrs. Carroll told my mother in a teacher's conference that I had a talent for writing." Now, after marriage to a California Highway Patrol officer and four children, Newman brings that talent to fruition with "A CHiP On My Shoulder: How To Love Your Cop With Attitude" ($13.99 in paperback from Tate Publishing; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats).

Written from the perspective of an officer's wife, the book is a comprehensive, insightful and honest how-to guide that will benefit any law enforcement spouse. Newman draws on her own marriage (the family now lives in Southern California where her husband Brent works) as well as interviews with dozens of other officers' wives. "It took me years to understand that when my husband puts on his uniform and weaponry, he has to put on his mind armor as well. What he does requires body and mind, even a little of his soul." It's not the time for idle chatter.

Newman is scheduled to speak and sign her book this Saturday, April 21, from 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. at Chico's Barnes and Noble.

"I've had a CHiP on my shoulder for over two decades now. We've had a wild and crazy adventure with twists and turns and some seasons I don't care to repeat. ... I love him more now than in those early days. But that love didn't grow without choosing my attitudes carefully. I'd say this is the key to the success of our marriage and the heart of this book."

Newman had to learn to "hold down the fort" when her husband wasn't available, but she also provides a cautionary note. "We married rescuers. Our guys want to be needed. We must keep this in mind, making sure that we don't become so independent that we cease to need them. I'm talking about balance here, and there is no formula." This wise book, and its associated website (how2loveyourcop.com), cover communication, emotions, building a support system, coping when hard times come, money and marriage, sex and marriage, and kids.

And "growing old together."

This business of death

When Shawntel Newton appeared on The Bachelor a few seasons ago she brought her date home to Chico to meet her kinfolk and to tour the family business. "I wanted to be sure," she writes, "he was comfortable enough to marry someone who's a funeral director and embalmer. I know, I know, I know, what was I thinking? Well, I was thinking that the situation we were already in was hard enough. I had been on this soul-searching journey to fall in love. I was vulnerable, tired, scared and excited all at the time time."

After seven or so weeks in production, the reality show came to an end, and so did Shawntel's hope. Though made-for-tv, such programs have real life consequences. She recounts a time of grief but also a growing sense of new opportunities arising, opportunities to share her own heart as a confident yet very human twenty-something woman, but also--and most especially--to talk about her chosen profession. She tells her story in "Final Rose" ($14.95 in paperback from Memoir Books, an imprint of Chico's Heidelberg Graphics). My thanks to Lyon Books in Chico for a review copy.

Born and raised in Chico, the oldest daughter of Ric and Colene Newton, sister to Destiny and Vanessa, Shawntel remembers taking the Myers-Briggs personality test, hitting the "results" button on the computer, and reading "funeral director" on the screen. "Is God playing a joke on me? Did my dad rig this computer? I literally walked to my dorm dumfounded."

Through a number of relationships that didn't quite work out (especially with that one "gassy" guy), Shawntel continues her studies, helping the reader better understand the "business of death" not only from the technical side (pathology, microbiology and more) but the human side as well. Babies die, and so do friends. People die in violent acts and in old age. There are poignant experiences here. "The stories I have shared are difficult and hard," she says, "but also rewarding. I am with families during one of the most crucial times during their life and guide them through not only funeral arrangements, but also the healing process."

Such healing reflects an Easter hope, that one day all things will be put right--and funeral directors won't have any work.

Tricky bird, the raven

This afternoon at 1:00 p.m. Lyon Books in Chico is hosting four poets, each a contributor to "A Bird Black As The Sun: California Poets On Crows and Ravens" ($15 in paperback from Green Poet Press). Edited by Enid Osborn and Cynthia Anderson, the book includes submissions from dozens of writers and, of course, is causing considerable flap in the world of poetry. A whole book dedicated to a bird? Oh, yes.

"One characteristic that sets corvidae apart from other birds," write the editors, "is their ability to individuate and surprise. We could say the same about the California poets who fill these pages. We hope this anthology gives you, the reader, caws to celebrate."

Each section, as the crow flies, traverses some aspect of the bird: An awakener, enigma, muse, beloved, omen, presence, likeness, messenger, night-bringer and, less we forget the first aviatricks, a joker.

One of the invited poets at today's reading hails from Gilroy. Rochelle Arellano, in "Modern," tells of one who "had stopped believing / in omens, choosing instead to be / startled, then amused, by a raven, / clumsy over its dead, that she swerved / to avoid in the middle of the road." But there is more to the story.

Lara Gularte, the assistant poetry editor for Narrative magazine, writes of "Finding the Sacred," picturing "Crows on a church roof, / a ring of ancestors chanting."

Susan Kelly-DeWitt, featured on The Writer's Almanac and author of "The Fortunate Islands," evokes "Crows At Evening": "Twilights I see them / thick as brambles / of wild grape; // a black smoke of them, a coil / of black wires; a royal black / highway paved with feathers."

Patricia Wellingham-Jones, author of the award-winning "End-Cycle: Poems About Caregiving," finds a messenger. In "A Raven Rides His Shoulder," "He pushes his tired body / behind the wheel of this '89 Chevy truck, / drives to his second full-time / job of the day. // Last week / his 83-year-old mother died. // Guilt digs in its claws / like a raven riding his shoulder. / He okays the $600 in flowers that smell / decayed before the funeral begins." Later, though, the raven brings another message, something of hope.

This is a book to feed the ravenous.

New national magazine has Chico roots

Tara Grover Smith and Olav Bryant Smith both teach at Butte College. Unbowed by the mountains of papers to grade, the couple has embarked on a new creative venture with stunning results. Together they have birthed a magazine, Empirical.

The first issue is now available at Lyon Books in Chico and soon in Barnes and Noble stores across the country, with a digital version at empiricalmag.com. Calling itself "a literary and current affairs magazine with the openness and pioneering spirit of the Pacific Northwest, Empirical aspires for truth by boldly introducing thought-provoking points of view and new paradigms."

For Olav, in introducing the magazine, the philosophers William James and Alfred North Whitehead are lodestars. Both "were committed to science and applying a sharply rational and logical intellect to the data of experience, but were both concerned that empiricism not be limited in its scope. Both sought to widen the range of investigation to include all aspects of life. James and Whitehead sought, for example, to include science and religion under the same umbrella of reasonable discourse."

And so the magazine opens its doors to the political, the spiritual, and the personal. The package is gorgeous, the writing clear, passionate, sometimes controversial, but also tinged with hope. There is hope even in Michael Coyle's featured piece on the Occupy movement. Coyle, who teaches political science at Chico State University, concludes that promises of "democracy" have instead left us "scared, scared, and weak." But perhaps change can come: "Our time is now, and it is time to take to the streets."

Or bake a cake. There is a recipe for "rich and squidgy chocolate cake"; a poem by Troy Jollimore; a hugely funny reflection on the baseball Cardinals by Randall Auxier; a moving short story by Kenneth Weene.

Local environmental ethicist Randy Larsen writes about a young John Muir dropped down a hole in a wooden bucket to help his father dig a well. Muir later looked back on his father's "vice of over-industry." For Muir, as Larsen writes in a kind of coda for the magazine, "There is an inspired life to be lived if we can brush off apathy and inertia, energize ourselves and each other, and allow Nature to remind us of callings above and beyond."

Redding's eagle pair, soaring

In 2004, with plans underway to replace the SR 44 bridge on the Sacramento River at Redding, a bald eagle pair established a nest in a nearby cottonwood tree. But "bald eagles use the same nest year after year" (the largest known nest, in Florida, may weigh three tons) and construction workers were concerned that their activity might result in abandoned eggs.

So in 2007 Fish and Game officials put a large plastic cone on top of the nest. But the eagles would not give up. "Word spread and people gathered," write sisters Terri Lhuillier and Joanne Brady. "The courage and tenacity displayed by the eagles inspired the community to protest the blocking of the nest. ... As for the eagles, instead of leaving, they began building a new nest." The remarkable tale is told in "The Unstoppable Eagles: The True Story of Patriot and Liberty" ($11.99 in paperback from Red Tail Publishing, redtail.com). The children's book is illustrated by Joanne's daughter, Sarah Brady.

Later in 2007 the cone is removed and a wildlife biologist monitors the nest. Bridge construction begins in 2008 but the eagles seem unfazed by the dust and noise. Liberty lays two eggs and that same year, an "eagle cam" is installed (at hancockwildlife.org). Three chicks come in 2009. The birds gained worldwide attention and they continue to nest in the area.

The authors are scheduled to be interviewed by Nancy Wiegman, host of Nancy's Bookshelf, this Friday, March 23 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM). An archive of local author interviews is available at kchofm.podbean.com.

Both authors are educators; they provide not only vivid descriptions of the birds but, in an appendix, a section of "Critter Chit-Chatter" about eagles, a Patriot and Liberty timeline, and a glossary especially for kids.

"In early spring," they write, "while the nest tree swayed gently in the warm breeze, the first eaglet began to hatch. The chick cracked a small opening in the solid shell using the egg tooth on top of its beak and gradually worked it way out. Three days later, a second gray, fuzzy chick emerged. Liberty kept her young tucked safely beneath her while Patriot searched the river and ponds for food."

It's a great story from a talon-ted team.

New collection of short stories from a Chico writer

Rob Davidson teaches American literature and creative writing at Chico State University. Born in Duluth, Minnesota, he studied at Beloit College and Purdue University, then traveled to the Eastern Caribbean to serve with the U.S. Peace Corps. His new collection of short stories, "The Farther Shore" ($16 in paperback from Bear Star Press in Cohasset, bearstarpress.com), takes its inspiration from the sayings of the Buddha: "Go beyond / This way or that way, / To the farther shore / Where the world dissolves / And everything becomes clear."

The nine stories in the book, beautifully designed by Bear Star's Beth Spencer, bring their central characters to a place that threatens dissolution. They are stories of men and women sometimes willfully unaware of the darker undercurrents of domestic life until a moment arrives that changes, or threatens to change, everything. An unintended pregnancy, or an intended one with complications. A kid, facing a bully who is also his best friend. A college professor fearing a tenure decision at his school and in his marriage.

Lyon Books in Chico will be hosting a book signing this Thursday, March 15, at 7:00 p.m. An interview with the author, conducted by Nancy Wiegman for Nancy's Bookshelf on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM) is available at kchofm.podbean.com.

Some of the tales are set in Chico. In "Tell Me Where You Are," Charlie Peterson has rats eating through his house even as his marriage is unraveling. "He parked in front of the Presbyterian Church on First Street. He left Rachel sleeping in the locked van and stepped into the downtown city streets, damp with a light drizzle." His daughter is safe but his where is his wife?

The stories seem to grow darker, more complicated, with deep sexual currents, as the book progresses, concluding with "Criminals," which won the 2009 Camber Press Fiction award. Gerald Prescott Carter is an American living on the island of Carriacou, drinking heavily and working on a book about seashells, collecting rainwater in cisterns and terribly annoyed when a local boy, "Soup," attempts to steal some of the water. Carter is a deliciously unreliable narrator, concerned with his own sad dignity while life and death play out before him. Clarity? Here, not so much.

Tales out of Cuba

Begin with Sara Cooper, Professor of Spanish and Multicultural and Gender Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Pathway Coordinator, at Chico State University. In her travels to Cuba over the last ten years she became convinced that women writers there ought to have a voice in the larger literary world. In May 2010 she established Cubanabooks (www.csuchico.edu/cubanabooks), a non-profit small press dedicated to translating the work of contemporary Cuban women writers.

Now, Cubanabooks is celebrating the publication of a new bilingual collection of short stories, this time by Nancy Alonso. "Disconnect/Desencuentro" ($15.95 in paperback with a Kindle edition planned) is translated by Argentina-born Anne Fountain, Professor of Spanish at San Jose State University.

A book release party will be held from 3:00 - 6:00 p.m. Thursday, March 15 at Chico State University's Cross-Cultural Leadership Center. Free and open to the public, the reception will feature a visit by the translator, perhaps a taped reading by Alonso herself, and Cuban snacks.

The twelve stories in "Disconnect," as a note about the author says, run "the whole gamut of human relations including lesbian love, unconventional mother and son ties, chance encounters, interwoven destinies and even a dreamed death. Characteristic of Alonso's fiction is her creation of everyday scenes and dialogues that are universally understood yet deeply rooted in Cuban reality."

In "Anniversary," a group of former students from Havana's College Preparatory Institute, now living in Florida, put together a twenty-fifth reunion. There are smug self congratulations all around and they decide to contact another former student living in Cuba. "Although they might be separated by the longest ninety miles geographically speaking, they were also the shortest ninety miles." But it turns out the friend had organized a parallel reunion--and held it on the grounds of the Institute itself.

The final story gives the book its title. An older male professor writes a letter to one of his students, Leonardo, admitting that "I had fallen in love with you, a student who was twenty-five years younger than me, and I was incapable of confessing it to Pablo," his partner. "In order to lie to others--and I needed to do a lot of that--no method has proved more efficient than that of deceiving ourselves." Alonso is a chronicler of self-deception.

Bidwell's road

"In 1863, John Bidwell and his partners ... put up $40,000 and applied to the California State Legislature for a franchise to construct a toll road between Chico and Honey Lake. ... In 1864, they incorporated as the Chico and Humboldt Wagon Road and completed road construction." Horse-drawn wagons looked like the future of transportation, and the gold rich states of California, Nevada and Idaho fueled the future.

The story of a humble roadway that eventually morphed into Highway 32 is told through a series of hundreds of black and white photographs in "The Humboldt Wagon Road" ($21.99 in paperback from Arcadia Publishing) by Marti Leicester and David Nopel.

According to an authors' note, Leicester, a retired National Park Service ranger, "lives on the Humboldt Wagon Road and sees remnants of it each time she drives to Chico and Butte Meadows." Nopel is "a descendant of pioneer families who settled along the road. ... Over 50 years, John Nopel, David's father and a noted Butte County historian, painstakingly collected thousands of historical photographs that inspired this book."

Lyon Books in Chico will be hosting the authors at a book signing this afternoon at 2:00 p.m. An interview with the authors, conducted by Nancy Wiegman for Nancy's Bookshelf on KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM) is available at kchofm.podbean.com.

The book, part of Arcadia's "Images of America" series, traces the development of the roadway within three centuries, and introduces native peoples and pioneer families along the way, including Lady Mary Pullisa, a Maidu who survived the forced march from Chico "to a reservation in the Coast Range Mountains" in 1863.

Stories from pioneer descendants enrich many of the detailed captions. "The Humboldt Road summit was more than 6,000 feet in elevation between Jonesville and the Summit Hotel. Drivers would attach a log behind their wagons to provide friction and slow the descent from the summit. Several people interviewed for this book reported their mothers made them walk coming up or down the steep slope for fear the stagecoach would go off the edge of the road."

Butte Meadows hid a store's slot machine in the 1940s from the prying eyes of the law. The new road was a gamble for Bidwell, too, and the coming of the railroad changed the dream forever.

Premier guide to Table Mountain

"Table Mountain," write Albin Bills and Samantha Mackey, "is one of the premier wildflower locations in all of California. ... Drifts and swaths of yellow, blue, and orange, mixed with pinks and whites swirl over the landscape, like a huge Impressionist painting come to life."

Bills, who taught biology for many years at Butte College, and Mackey, a consulting botanist with expertise on rare and endangered plants, have written an indispensable companion for those who want to explore the area. "Wildflowers of Table Mountain: A Naturalist's Guide" ($17.95 in paperback, part of the Chico State University Herbarium series, www.csuchico.edu/herbarium), is the second edition of a work first published in 2004. Retaining the original line drawings of Larry Jansen, the book now features full-color photographs throughout and, like Table Mountain itself, is a delight to the eye.

Lyon Books in Chico is hosting a book signing this Thursday, Feb. 23 at 7:00 p.m. Look for a forthcoming interview with Albin Bills on Nancy's Bookshelf from KCHO (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM). Archives can be found at kchofm.podbean.com.

The craft of designers Carole Montgomery and Elizabeth Quivey is evident throughout. The center section presents color groups of some seventy "of the most common, showy wildflower species that occur on Table Mountain during late winter through spring"; scientific names are given in the index; and a bloom-time calendar also aids in identification.

The first part of the book mixes practical advice on how best to approach Table Mountain with narratives about its formation, the wildflower patterns, waterfalls, and more. The last section, drawing on the work of Jim Jokerst, lists all known vascular plants on "North Table Mountain." There's also an illustrated guide to common animals in the area, with pride of place going to the California Newt, Bills' special interest for many years.

The wildflower catalog is more than a bare list; each plant has a story to tell. For the grass-pink (wild carnation), "a new solitary flower is produced every day, replacing the one that came before it." The California goldfields "form vast sheets and showy rings of rich yellow color that encircle many of the rock outcrops."

The Guide, novice-friendly but detailed enough for the serious explorer, is simply superb, a colorful array blooming now at your bookstore.

Poetic meditations on Ishi

"Ishi," writes Scott Ezell, "moved from hunting and gathering to a modern industrial existence when in 1911 he emerged alone, the last of his tribe, from the westward drainages of Mount Lassen. ..." Now, a century later, Ezell has gathered a series of poems inspired by Ishi as he recalls "Karl Kroeber's assertion about Ishi's ability to live without self-pity or a sense of victimhood: 'I do not see how we can speak of his life as anything but tragic, yet I have come to feel that he himself did not so regard it.'"

"Songs From A Yahi Bow: A Series Of Poems On Ishi" ($13.95 in paperback from Pleasure Boat Studio; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format) brings together the work of Ezell, whose cover painting is called "Two Worlds," Yusef Komunyakaa and Mike O'Connor. Throughout the book paintings by Seattle-based artist Jeff Hengst remind this reader of a window slowly being opened, a shadowy figure just discernible. Ezell includes a short essay on Ishi by Trappist monk Thomas Merton, reflections on genocide written during the Vietnam conflict.

In "Quatrains For Ishi," Komunyakaa writes: "When they swoop on you hobbled there / almost naked, encircled by barking dogs / at daybreak beside a slaughterhouse / in Oroville, outside Paradise, // California, draped in a canvas scrap / matted with dung & grass seed, slack-jawed men aim rifles / at your groin. Wild Man // hums through telegraph wires, / as women from miles around / try to tame your tongue / by cooking family recipes. ..."

Ezell, a California native who lives in Seattle and Hanoi, invokes Ishi's spirit amidst the harsh industrial-sexual realities of the poet's two worlds: "photographic visions / washed in a stop bath of departure, // die at home wherever you may be."

O'Connor, in "Down from the Hills," takes Ishi's voice: "Long ago I left off hiding. / Twelve of us were a nation; / five of us were a nation-- / I alone am nothing left." The poet imagines "Ishi and the Braves": "The multimillionaire slugger / pulls a high fastball screaming / toward the left-field stands / right at Ishi, / and the hunter-gatherer of Yuna Creek, / surprised, shoots up his arm / and nails it on the fly."

A Chico family lives the reality of war

When Daniel Sagastume graduated from Marine Corps boot camp, he was not yet nineteen. Then came the unthinkable. "Four days after my son's graduation," his mother writes, "when the Towers crumbled, so did my world."

"We Also Serve: A Family Goes To War" ($17.95 in paperback from iUniverse; available in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook and Google e-book formats) is Nanette Sagastume's riveting story. A retired nurse practitioner and founder of what is now called the Military Family Support Group, Sagastume lays bare the emotions she and her husband Mario experienced even as Mario, a Vietnam War veteran, is dealing with PTSD.

"Daniel began to seek ways to be reassigned to the same infantry unit his father had served with, the Second Battalion, First Marine Regiment of the First Marine Division (known familiarly as 2/1). More specifically, he wanted to get assigned to the same company, Fox Company, and eventually the same platoon."

She writes: "With one percent of Americans volunteering to serve, there is a gap in awareness--even a 'disconnect'--about the military family's experience. ... I did not enlist; my service is involuntary. That is not to say that Mario and I oppose Daniel's decision; rather, we had no choice in the matter. Our role was to accept his life choice, adapt to it, and support him. When we military families offer our love and emotional support--waiting and worrying while our loved ones fulfill their duties--we also are in service to our country."

Labor Day, 2004, in Fallujah, Iraq, a suicide attack. Normally Daniel rode in the first truck of a convoy; that day he was assigned the second. It saved his life; seven of his comrades died. The experience changed Daniel forever.

"Often overlooked," says Sagastume, a recent guest at Lyon Books in Chico, "is the effect on the family that has loved, suffered, and endured with him both during his combat tour as well as the aftermath of adjustment. Indeed, I feel that families are uniquely vulnerable--more than at any time in history. With instant communication and the availability of live satellite television transmission, families often are witnesses to some of the very same events their warrior has experienced. Families also serve in today's virtual war."

The mystery of William H. Warner

Some things are known about William H. Warner (though not whether the "H" stands for "Henry" or "Horace"). Born in New York on May 8, 1812, he graduated from West Point; became a Army topographical engineer; helped lay out the city of Sacramento in 1847; and, on September 26, 1849, was "killed at age 37 by nine arrows fired by California Indians while exploring Northeastern California mountain passes." He was looking "for a railroad route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast."

In 1987 the Association for Northern California Records and Research (ANCRR), in supporting the Special Collections department at Chico State University's Meriam Library, published "In Search of Captain Warner." Authored by Alturas-area resident Patricia Barry, the slim paperback presented what was then known about Warner. Now, a quarter century later, the renamed Association for Northern California Historical Research (ANCHR) has reissued the book "with new contributions by Philip D. Warner," William's cousin.

The book, edited by Jim Jessee and Barbara C. Mahler, is available in paperback for $20 from www.csuchico.edu/anchr. Philip Warner's additions make for lively reading. He and his wife, Liv, have crossed the country in search of Captain Warner's story. In 2006, one of the libraries connected with the University of Rochester put sections of Warner's diary on the Internet. Philip and Liv visited there. "What a surprise!" he writes. "As a rather unemotional, nerdy engineer, I was not ready for what happened when I picked up William's leather-bound diary. Holding the book in my hand (where his hand must have been many times) was like a handshake. I was overcome by emotion."

Philip's research is presented in a series of letters to his cousin. Among the observations: "I live in retirement in Polk County, Florida, near where you were stationed during the Florida Indian Wars, 1836 to 1838." Captain Warner's diary is laconic; the new book contains excerpts from the "long-lost journal" (along with helpful commentary) but questions abound. What was his relationship to younger Susan Moggoffin, who mentions him eleven times in her own diary? Perhaps his uniform impressed her.

Barry had called Warner "the formless, faceless man" (the only known photograph of him graces the book's cover). Now, with Philip Warner's help, some of the shadows have been dispersed.

Eerie novel of an alternate Alturas

Modesto writer Clive Riddle founded a health care business information company and the work he does is decidedly non-fiction. He grew up in Alturas, in northeastern California, and attended Shasta College for a time (his son went to Chico State University). What a setting to create a story weaving memories of a small-town boyhood with half-whispered legends, mixing in a murder mystery with hints of the supernatural.

"Dorris Bridge" ($19.95 in paperback from HealthQuest Publishers; also available for the Amazon Kindle and in formats compatible with Barnes and Noble Nook and most other e-readers) is the name of a small and dying town near Alturas in fictional Paiute County. The author explains on his website (www.dorrisbridge.com) that there was a real Dorris Bridge, renamed Alturas in 1876, but that the Dorris Bridge of the novel is not the real Alturas (since characters in the story often refer to Alturas as well as to Chico and Redding).

The aptly-named Riddle will sort things out when he is interviewed by Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf this Friday, January 27 at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO in Chico (Northstate Public Radio, 91.7 FM).

The moral center of the tale is Randall Burgess, Chief of Police of Dorris Bridge. One of his sons, Kyle, is about to graduate from Paiute High School. A good kid for the most part, he is not averse to drinking with his buddies (Riddle calls it the "national pastime" in Dorris Bridge) and his practical jokes are constantly landing him in trouble. It's the mid-Seventies, and the author revels in mixing in contemporary movie and music references. To capture some of the mindset of the times, there's even sheet music for an original (off-color) song.

Then there are the Lights. An aging Paiute, Toronto Highsmith (Tornado for short) is convinced that he sees strange Lights during his benders. A sober Kyle sees them, too, but mostly from a distance. And they seem to be associated with a series of hit-and-run murders that take place near the homestead of the most powerful man in the county.

Add the mysterious disappearance of a Japanese-American decades earlier, a group of fundamentalist Mormons and Basque wanderers, season with a surprise ending, and what one has is definitely not Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.

Paradise writer recalls life on a carrier

"I approached the gangway of the slumbering attack carrier, adjusted my cumbersome olive-drab sea bag, and trudged upward to salute the colors." Richard Clark, who had just turned 21, was now aboard CVA-20, the U.S.S. Bennington. It was June 17, 1953 at the New York Naval Shipyard in Brooklyn. Clark's two year stint would turn into quite a ride.

Quoting from his letters home as well as historical sources and the official Big Benn newspaper, the Jet Blast, Clark presents a series of vignettes focused on the carrier's "Mediterranean cruise" in 1953-1954. "Back to the Bennington: Tales in the Wake" ($18.95 in paperback from Merriam Press, merriam-press.com) contains dozens of black and white photographs, many from the author. There are also reminiscences from other crew members and an overview of Bennington history.

Clark will talk about his service aboard the Bennington on Tuesday, January 17 at 4:00 p.m. at the Butte County Public Library, 1820 Mitchell Avenue in Oroville. Also presenting is Ralph Clark, (no relation), the current national vice-president of the Bennington Association who also served on Big Benn (1962-1964). The public is invited.

Commissioned in 1944, the Bennington served in World War II, the Cold War and Vietnam (see www.uss-bennington.org) and only in 1994 was sold for scrap. When Richard Clark joined the crew, the carrier was on its way to the Arctic Circle to participate with NATO forces in "Operation Mariner" exercises. Then it was on to Europe for something of a goodwill tour. For the crew (Big Benn was designed for 3400) it meant only two words: "Shore leave."

Clark worked on the arresting gear crew, responsible for the cables that approaching jets had to hook onto in order to land. Sometimes pilots didn't even get a chance. "We lost a jet and a pilot yesterday," he wrote at the end of 1953. "For some reason the plane crashed while he was circling the carrier. They never did find him."

A boiler explosion took eleven lives months before Clark joined the Bennington, and soon after his tour with the carrier ended, early in 1954, a horrendous fire broke out below decks, killing 103. "It was one of the Navy's worst peacetime tragedies."

Those who gather to honor their ship will never forget.

"Book in Common": Katrina's aftermath

For novelist David Eggers, the story of Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun was compelling. New Orleans residents, they had survived Hurricane Katrina, which struck in late August of 2005, but that was almost beside the point. What happened in Katrina's wake, the indignities visited upon Kathy's husband, a successful painting contractor in the city, raised disturbing questions, about due process, about the treatment of Muslim citizens, about how people respond when things fall apart.

"Zeitoun" ($15.95 in paperback from Vintage; also in Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and Google eBook formats) is told from the couple's perspective. Eggers wisely focuses on one story--how a scrupulously honest and hard-working Syrian American could be suspected of being a thief and terrorist and made to suffer for those false beliefs.

Perhaps Zeitoun (pronounced "Zay-toon") had hoped for too much. "The country he had left thirty years ago had been a realistic place. There were political realities there, then and now, that precluded blind faith, that discouraged one from thinking that everything, always, would work out fairly and equitably. But he had come to believe such things in the United States.... But now nothing worked. Or rather, every piece of machinery--the police, the military, the prisons--that was meant to protect people like him was devouring anyone who got close."

"Zeitoun" is the Book in Common for 2011-2012, celebrated by Butte College, Chico State University, Enloe Hospital, and other organizations. Eggers is scheduled to speak at the university's Laxson Auditorium on Thursday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $20 Premium, $17 Adult, $15 Senior and $10 Student/Child; call (530) 898-6333.

Zeitoun (he is known by his last name) stayed behind as Katrina approached. Kathy and their four children moved in uneasily with relatives in Baton Rouge (and would later spend time with friends out of state). Windows started to break in Zeitoun's two-story house. "There were unknown thumps everything. The bones of the house seemed to be moaning under the strain of it all. The house was under assault."

The neighborhood was covered in nine feet of water. Zeitoun paddled his aluminum canoe from house to house giving assistance, enlisting the aid of others. But soon another assault would come, and the lives of the Zeitouns would forever change.

Finding the right man in the new year

Relationship educator Denise Culley of Paradise has been there. In her search for "Mr. Right" she filtered possible mates by outward appearance and "chemistry." The search proved futile and the pile of failed relationships grew. Over time she found a better way and now has published a workbook and coordinated website based on a key insight for the female:

"Accept your role as 'Man Whisperer.' A Man Whisperer is a woman who knows that her role is to guide a man to success as a partner, by cleverly teaching him what he needs to know. Assuming he knows how to be a great partner to you or expecting him to 'read your mind' in your relationship is living on fantasy island and will eventually blow up one day."

The "SoulMate Map: 10 Steps To Picking A Better Mate" ($19.97 in paperback and popular e-book formats, published by Relationships 123, found on SoulMate Plan's website, http://soulmateplan.com) "is for women who are either stuck, need inspiration, trying to let go, or ready to finally have great love in their life!"

The first step to success is, paradoxically, to stop dating, or at least dating seriously. During that respite Culley urges her readers to complete a series of lists contained in the workbook which are designed to focus on the attributes the reader is really looking for in a man. Culley shows how to combine the lists (which include what the reader admires in others as well as self-assessments) into a "SoulMate Map." "Sometimes," she writes, "we ourselves can't see when a man isn't good for us because we are blinded by love, or what we think is love."

The idea is to create a new lens through which to see men. Culley finally found her soulmate, but at first she thought he was kind of a "dork" and wasn't really attracted to him. They became friends and long conversations together began to reveal his deeper qualities, the very qualities she really wanted in her life.

Bottom line: "A man in love will demonstrate a powerful ambition to discover your happiness and deliver it to you. That passion for your happiness is the most reliable cue you could hope for." If you don't know what makes you happy, how can you tell him?

New Testament scholar on the meaning of Jesus

"Mary treasured all these words," Luke's Gospel says, "and pondered them in her heart." There is much to think about. For N.T. Wright, Chair of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, Jesus was born into a "perfect storm" in the Middle East.

The "gale of Rome" heralded Caesar as "Lord"; the high-pressure national hopes of Israel told of God's people triumphing over their oppressors; and the "hurricane of God" "cut clean against the national narrative": "God called Israel, so that through Israel he might redeem the world; but Israel itself needs redeeming as well."

Wright tells the story of these storm systems colliding in the life of Jesus Christ. In lucid, though-provoking chapters, he ponders the meaning of the Gospel narratives of his life, death, resurrection, and ascension. "Simply Jesus: A New Vision of Who He Was, What He Did, and Why He Matters" ($24.99 in hardcover from HarperOne; digital editions for Amazon Kindle; Barnes and Noble Nook; and from Google e-books) focuses on what Wright calls the "New Exodus."

If the Exodus story told of the liberation of the children of Israel from a tyrant and a new vocation of being a blessing to all the nations (though that didn't quite work out), the New Exodus is about Jesus himself completing God's project.

"The presence of Israel’s God would be the presence of Jesus himself, coming to Jerusalem as the embodiment of Israel’s returning God, the fulfillment of Isaiah 40 and 52. This, Jesus believed, is what it would look like when Israel’s God came back to Zion. It would not be ... the pillar of cloud and fire ... but a young man on a donkey, in tears, announcing God’s judgment on the city and Temple that stood on the cosmic fault lines, establishing his own still incomprehending followers as its surprising replacement, and then going off to take upon himself the full weight of evil, the concentrated calamity of the cosmos, so that its force would be annulled and the new world would be born" in the resurrection.

Our human vocation, says Wright, is what Luke means by "witness": “tell someone else that Jesus is the world’s true Lord.”

Go tell it on the mountain.

If cars could talk: A fictional memoir from a Chico State University grad

Michael L. Oliver lives in the Napa valley with his wife, Barbara, where he grows wine grapes in his retirement. He has deep ties to Chico State University as well as with a succession of cars which seemed to mark phases in his life. What if those vehicles could talk and give their own perspective? In Oliver's new book, seventeen of them do.

"Through the Headlights: An Auto-Biography" ($20 in paperback from Henway Publishing, www.HenwayPublishing.com) is an inventive romp through the minds of an AMC Rambler, a Porsche Carrera 2 Cabriolet, a VW Bug, and fourteen others, all owned by the central character, "Leroy." Coincidentally, Oliver's first car, and Leroy's first car, were both 1931 Model A Fords. Cars, Oliver writes in a Foreword, all have their own "personalities, quirks and needs which they make known to us." Listen to you car.

The Model A found itself in Chester in 1956, having first been purchased back in Oklahoma for $750. But after a succession of owners, the car came into the possession of young teenager named Leroy, not legally old enough to drive, but who's counting? Leroy was a delivery boy, but one frosty day the Model A took a spin right into a snowbank. No one was hurt, but, writes Model A, "One of many flaws with teenage boys is that they tend to worry about their consarned image when they ought to be worried about their mortality." Leroy will meet Model A again many years later.

Then, in 1960, came the 1955 VW sedan. In Chico, at the frat house parking lot filled with cars, the sedan writes, "I was the only German car around. A few of them made fun of my accent, and pretty much all of them thought I was odd looking. I could sense it. And when they learned that I had only 36 horsepower it caused a few headlights to rise."

Cars follow Leroy throughout his life. In an Epilogue, Leroy is lying sedated in the hospital, the victim of a heart attack. All of his cars return and there is deep conversation about life, purpose, and, mostly, death.

One can learn a lot from a car if one doesn't blow a gasket.

Local history professor delivers a compelling work of scholarship

Laird Easton, Chair of the Chico State University History Department, has completed the monumental task of editing and translating a long-lost portion of one of the greatest diaries ever written. (Samuel Pepys, step aside.) "Journey To The Abyss: The Diaries of Count Harry Kessler, 1880-1918" ($45 from Knopf; also in digital formats for Amazon Kindle, Barnes and Noble Nook, and from Google eBooks) is the compelling story, in his own words, of a cosmopolitan German free spirit who became a secret agent.

Easton will be giving a book talk on Kessler at 1078 Gallery (820 Broadway in Chico) tonight at 6:00 p.m. during a reception in his honor (5:00 - 8:00 p.m.).

Kessler's journal, which he added to over fifty-six years, opens up a "life led at the center of European art, literature, and politics during the greatest cultural and political transformations in modern history." But, as Easton notes, the section of his diary Kessler began in 1880, when he was twelve, through the First World War, was lost until 1983 when it was found in a safe on the island of Mallorca. Easton's work is the first English translation which, at 900 printed pages, is only a quarter of what Kessler produced during those years.

He was ambivalent, says Easton, about his homosexuality; even in his journal "he tiptoes around the subject of his own sexual feelings. ..." His father was a banker but Kessler was drawn to the avant-garde, influenced by Nietzsche (whose death mask he made), working with Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Sergei Diaghilev, Vaslav Nijinsky, Auguste Rodin, and lunching with George Bernard Shaw.

In San Francisco, 1892: "On the way through Golden Gate Park; wide boulevards shaded by pines, colorful flowers, tropical plants. I would have enjoyed their beauty more without the signs with endless Latin names stuck between them." Berlin, 1897: "Unfortunately I am once again drawn more and more into social life. Result, work = zero." Bern, Oct. 5, 1918: "The blackest day of the world war. ... The war is lost by our own confession."

Kessler survived (he died in 1937). Easton's work will survive, too; it is scholarly yet grandly accessible, inviting one to lose oneself in the "Belle Époque," that grand time before the abyss.

Holiday cheer - Aylworth is here!

Roger Aylworth is the contact-wearing, keen-of-hearing, direction-challenged, sentimental, long-time ER reporter married four decades to the saintly Susan. For many years his weekly humor column, filled with family foibles and gentle wit, has graced this paper, and now, for the holidays, there's a new collection of favorites.

"Senior Showers" ($16.95 in paperback from Delphi Books) gathers 99 columns, most from mid-2006 to mid-2010, arranged in broad categories like "on growing older," "computers and other mechanical carnage," "on being, or being with, Roger," and "widgets and grandwidgets." Here are true tales of the couple's seven children, their spouses, and most especially the grandkids on visits to Casa Aylworth (here's looking at you, 2-year-old Caleb!).

Aylworth will be reading from and signing copies of his new collection at Lyon Books in Chico this Thursday, December 8 at 7:00 p.m.

The book starts with the title essay, and Aylworth explains that he's not "advocating a group lathering" but rather something akin to wedding showers only on the other end of life. "I can see the invitation that would summon those who love me to my senior shower: 'Roger has registered at the "Golden Years Adult Care facility" where you can sign up to cover as many months of residency as you wish. An account has also been set up at Dr. Krutch Walker's hip replacement clinic for gifts of any size!'"

More practically, Aylworth details the effort required to put together the clan gathering called Aylapalooza III. It's expensive to find housing for nearly three dozen family members. "While as a group we might have filet mignon tastes," he notes, "we tend to have a Spam budget." Speaking of kids, Aylworth provides some helpful suggestions on creating "homegrown mythology": "My dear bride, the saintly Susan, and I told our seven widgets that the belly button was the place where the screw went in that holds on your posterior."

Here are manly-man stories (don't mess with "MAH TRUCK"!), the death of a washing machine ("It toils not," says Susan, "neither does it spin"), and sage advice: "Best way to plan for golden years: Ask kids for gold." And "Roger's words of wisdom" at the end includes an observation from son Paul: "There is always one more idiot than you planned for."