Chico author on reclaiming the art of conversation

"I live with my husband and a pair of yellow labs in Northern California," writes Peggy Jennings-Severe, "and am currently a student services administrator" at Butte College. And, oh yes: "I want to meet Oprah."

While Oprah can talk to anyone about anything, it seems, striking up a conversation is for many people something of a lost art. Over the years Jennings-Severe "watched older couples at restaurants, seated across from each other, eating in silence, which felt incredibly sad and lonely to me." Going out on a dinner date with husband Rhys was awkward: "It was if I had nothing to say that didn't begin with or include our children."

Yet people yearn for meaningful contact. What if they had a fun way to start the conversation? "Although my family, friends, and colleagues chuckle, roll their eyes, and mildly moan when I tell them it's time for verbal cards or begin an activity designed to break the ice, I think they secretly look forward to it--well, maybe not all, but most."

What changed the author's family is now available in book form. "Life Talks: A Guide To Bringing Back Conversation" ($15 in paperback from CreateSpace; also in Amazon Kindle e-book format) offers key questions and activities for baby showers, reunions, long car rides, retirement, Valentine's Day, and many more (see lifetalksbook.com).

Lyon Books in downtown Chico will be hosting a book signing (and conversation!) Monday, August 26 at 7:00 p.m.

For birthday parties, the group gets in a circle and someone begins by saying "'What I appreciate about __ is...' (No sarcasm is allowed.)" Such verbal cards last far longer than Hallmark. The birthday person joins in, too: "What is the most valuable lesson you learned last year?" "What questions about your life do you want answered in the coming year?" At family gatherings, members sort cards each with a quality written on it, like "creativity," "religion" "winning." Which are the most important, or least important? Surprises abound as the conversation gets going.

Thanksgiving gatherings are a great place to start. "What five things remain on your bucket list?" "You have been given unlimited resources to create a totally new and unique theme park. What would it be?"

This book will get people talking.

"The Bard of Butte and the poet of Helltown"

Pres Longley, born in 1824, dreamed that one day his poems would be made into a book. Now, more than a century later, his dream has come true. "The Miner Poet: Poems of Pres Longley" ($19.95 in paperback from Stansbury Publishing), edited by John Rudderow and Nancy Leek, presents more than a hundred of his poems, along with a substantial dose of Longley's witty and self-deprecating prose, in a handsome volume that is simply a must read.
Lyon Books in downtown Chico will be hosting a book signing Tuesday, September 24 at 7:00 p.m.
The editors's introduction highlights the themes that captured the poet's heart, including Democratic politics, women's suffrage and the miners' plight; he "stood with them in their struggles against natural disasters, corporate greed, and ever-passing time."
He also wrote of his single status (he was almost 60 before he married) and "the effect that the gradual arrival of women had on the giant bachelor party that was gold rush California." For years he lived in a cabin "on Boneyard Flat, halfway between Centerville and Helltown, in Butte Creek Canyon. Helltown was a boom town in the 1850s, but by the time Pres settled there in 1866 most of the miners had moved on to the Comstock Lode and the Fraser River."
"I hold that true poets are prophets," he once wrote, "Whose voices are echoes sublime, / Whose songs are the anthems of nations / That float down the river of time." But he wasn't averse to writing about the small things, like bumping into a "Girl I Saw On L Street": "I've been in stormy battle's fray, / And heard the bullets whistle, / But never have been wounded with / So dear a little miss-ile."
"The rarest treasures of the tropic land," the poet observed, "On 'Rancho Chico' have been brought to stand. ..." He longed "for the good old days of yore, / When statesmanship was pure; / When men would scorn monopolies / Who tempted them with lure." He wrote for the Democratic Butte Record and skewered the Republican newspaper in "The Critic": "All must admit the man's a cheat / Who slobbers out the damndest lies, / Then hides himself behind a sheet / He calls the Chico Enterprise."
This is Pres Longley, the Bard of Butte.

A children's book about friendship and reunion

The new children's story from Marcia Sbarbaro-Pezzella and her brother, Vic Sbarbaro, is a tale of separation and reunion. Illustrated by Josh Smith, "Penelope the Lonesome Pillow" ($12.95 in paperback from North State Children's Books) begins with a little cottage in the Swiss Alps. An aging and lonely widow, Gretene Fritzl, has only two friends, "a rocking chair and matching pillow that she had stuffed and covered. She called the rocking chair Roxie and the matching pillow Penelope."

Vic Sbarbaro, a Certified Health Education Specialist who teaches at Butte College and Chico State University, edited the story from one his sister wrote. Marcia, born in Weed, worked as "a special education teacher for disabled children" and now helps with her husband's restaurant, Pezzella's.

Mrs. Fritzl loved Roxie and Penelope ("Penny") and in turn they talked with her. "Mrs. Fritzl was always afraid to tell anyone for fear that they would think her crazy. Mrs. Fritzl was a religious woman; she actually felt that God sent down special blessings to this particular rocking chair and pillow. Why they even had cloth eyes, ears, and voices to keep her company."

But together-time was not to last. Mrs. Fritzl died. "It was a rainy day in the small Swiss village. The little Fritzl cottage was dark with grief. Roxie and Penelope both shed a thread of a tear for their beloved mistress. They would never forget her or her kindliness to them. They also realized they would never speak to another human being for a long time until they proved worthy of their special gift to talk."

What follows is is a long journey as Roxie and Penelope are put in separate boxes and shipped to America. Roxie's box gets an address, but somehow Penelope slips through the cracks and her box ends up at the Lost and Found. Then she gets passed from person to person, finally ending up with the Barnes family. Billy, the teenager, uses Penny as a cushion when he changes his car's oil. But his sister, Kathy Sue, who happens to be blind, takes a special liking to Penny. And when Kathy Sue's dad builds her a playhouse and brings home an old rocking chair for her to sit in--a little magic happens.

How "Wings of Eagles" came to be

"Wings of Eagles: The Joseph Alvarez Organization for Seriously Ill Children," founded in 1993, seeks "to relieve the financial burden of families" faced with life-threatening illness. "There is an 85 percent divorce rate," writes Georgia Alvarez, "among families with seriously ill children. If we could relieve the financial burden of families, help pay the costs that insurance, that Medi-Cal don't begin to cover, maybe the family could weather the emotional storm they would be faced with."

Georgia Alvarez is intimately acquainted with that "emotional storm." Born and raised in Princeton, she lived "on a two-thousand-acre walnut ranch in which my husband, Alberto, is the shop supervisor." With housing provided (even in their moves "from Butte City, to Chico, and then to Nord") the couple and their children had few real worries--until the doctor's phone call in 1989.

Joseph, then eight, was diagnosed with "acute lymphocytic leukemia with a Philadelphia chromosome ... so rare, that only ten children are diagnosed with it a year," all males. Joseph was terminal, one of his doctors said, and "even with a bone marrow transplant, he only had less than 20 percent chance for survival."

What happened next, the family strains, the tears, Joseph's care for others in the midst of his own pain, Georgia's "spiritual dreams" and a new relationship with God, are all recounted in "The Simple Plan: A Book Of Hope/A Book Of Dreams" ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format). There's a section of family photographs, too: This happened to a real family, and it nearly tore them apart.

Despair and hope played tag. Before the bone marrow transplant (his younger sister Mary was the donor), Joseph underwent repeated full-body radiation and harsh chemotherapy. The transplant seemed to help, but then Joseph relapsed. His mother described him as wise beyond his years. At one point Joseph said to her, "I'm an angel, and God sent me down to earth to teach, but now my job is done." He died early in 1991.

Thanks to an article in this newspaper, strangers began to make donations to help the family. Two years later, Georgia, with other volunteers, established Wings of Eagles, an ongoing memorial to a little boy whose life touched so many.

Chico novelist explores the secrets of the asylum

Something happened at the Emerson Rose Asylum in the late 1970s. Everyone left, suddenly; "patients, doctors, and staff completely vanished and were never seen again." Later, as the asylum falls to the wrecking ball, someone finds a series of letters stuffed in a bed, addressed to a "Dr. Quill." The brutal and heartbreaking letters, all from patients, are fictional; but they serve to illuminate not only the abuses one might imagine go on at certain mental institutions, but also the individual lives, where getting inside their heads is hardly imaginable at all.
Though "Letters From The Looney Bin" (self-published, $2.99 in Amazon Kindle e-book format) is not about Thatcher C. Nalley's actual experience doing intake work at Butte County Behavioral Health, it's clear her time there reaffirmed a commitment to help tell stories of mental illness from the inside out. The dozen letters all speak of something brewing at the asylum--maybe a mass escape--in the wake of the terror of Dr. V., the new man in charge.
With compassionate and wise care, those in the asylum can make at least a little progress in stilling the demons. Such compassion was represented by Dr. Huxley, but now he's dead of a heart attack. For one patient, Juliette, the demons are startlingly real. "I don't talk about the demons that come to my room at night," she writes in her letter to Dr. Quill. "I've seen what this place does to others who tell about the things they see. The orderlies come and take them away in the middle of the night. I think sometimes they take their brain, because their minds are gone by morning."
The letters tell of horrendous childhood abuse and neglect, and it's clear from the stories that those in the asylum could not very well be walking the street. Sabel screams, loudly, and yearns for control. The "white coats" allow one of the doctors to alter "my throat to where I cannot make any sounds, no sounds at all." Perhaps it is no wonder that Sabel runs to the nurse's station, picks up a typewriter, and smashes the head of one of those "white coats."
One can say, with full awareness of many meanings here, that this is strong medicine.

How a Chico man helped Ronald Reagan become Governor

"We had him for three days," writes Chicoan Ken Holden of Ronald Reagan, "in a tiny beach cottage near Malibu. This was in early 1966. Just three of us in a small beach cottage. An unlikely candidate for governor of California, he'd already goofed up a few public appearances. He couldn't seem to get his footing, he looked unprepared, he mangled details." Even his friends were ready to give up. But behavioral psychologist Ken Holden, and his business associate and friend Stan Plog, saw that he just needed a little training.

Holden tells the story of what happened in "The Making of the Great Communicator: Ronald Reagan's Transformation From Actor To Governor" ($26.95 in hardcover from Lyons Press; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format).

"Only three people on earth knew the full story of what happened in Malibu over those seventy-two hours, how we helped transform a B-move actor into a political giant. ... Ronald Reagan died in 2004, and Stan Plog is just gone, in 2010, so only I'm left standing. I know the full story. I'm the only one left to bear witness."

As conservatives, Holden and Plog found liberal academia little to their liking. So they started a consulting firm and eventually found themselves connected to the Reagan for Governor campaign. Part of what makes the book a delightful read is Holden's keen observations of California politics. "By late '65," he writes, "California Republicans were waging a nasty civil war. As in all such wars, it pitted the old against the new, the moderate Establishment Republicans versus the fiery conservative Young Turks." Who would win?

Set against the backdrop of the Free Speech Movement (Reagan called it the "filthy speech movement") and the Watts riots, the story of Ronald Reagan's ascension is simply fascinating, especially the central chapters detailing how Holden and Plog helped the candidate focus on California issues and articulate clear and concise positions. For Holden, Reagan was the real deal--well read, thoughtful, charming and charismatic. But he needed honing.

Holden and Plog insisted that the campaign stop for three days, and that they and Reagan meet privately, without a word to the press. "None of this was negotiable. Take it or leave it." They took it.

Local novelist's tale of fantasy

Chico novelist Blair Palmerlee has a penchant for creating alternate worlds with subtle, and not so subtle, connections with our own. "The Universe of Malcolm" begins in Chico but opens up a sci-fi universe in a human hand. Now, with "The Plotseer" (in paperback from CreateSpace; for pricing and availability, contact the author at facebook.com/ThePlotseer or at blairpalmerlee.wix.com/index), he ably realizes an entire civilization.

Palmerlee will be signing copies of his books Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in downtown Chico.

Before publishing, the prolific twenty-something writer mounted a Kickstarter.com campaign to raise funds for editorial work. He created a video book trailer, gained 27 backers and exceeded his goal of a thousand dollars. The finished novel reads smoothly and carries the reader into a quasi-medieval fantasy world. Here the people of Cambrian are governed by a heavy-handed church speaking for the Author.

Everyone is part of the Author's story, though only the exalted Plotseer knows the Author's intentions, communicated in an ancient document. The Plotseer's companion is The Teller, "the highest and most holy voice in the Church. ... This man knew so much of the Author's will, his word was almost infallible."

Or was it? The story focuses on young Byron Tanner and the mysterious girl Lucy Prior, and when a new Plotseer is discovered, the church is threatened and Byron finds himself under suspicion, part of a story bigger than his journey from his home town of Chastegate to Redkeep's ecclesiastical headquarters. He and Lucy must contend with the vyce, "the children of evil," at least according to Doctor Ellis in Patriarchal Studies. "They attack innocent people on the open roads, burn churches, and kill our faithful protectors. ... Very commonly, they will be attracted to partners of the same sex. They know nothing of love."

Then there's the Author's Creed, "the written meaning of life," locked in Redkeep. "This single document was the cornerstone of all faith in Cambrian." But what did it actually say? And are the vyce really the enemy? The Hierarchy is intent on preserving its power and economic oppression at all costs, but as lives hang in the balance Byron discovers who the story is actually about--and the Creed's true meaning. It's worth pondering in the real world.

Ever feel that someone is watching you?

Olivia Claire High's new romantic suspense novel introduces Samantha (Sam) Farris, a young school teacher soon to be married to Dr. Ryan Wade. All is bliss for the Southern California lovers until--the visions.

"I've been having strange vibes that I'm being watched," she tells her friend Catherine, "and I get this vision inside my head of a person. I think it's a person because all I can make out is a vague form, but I'm convinced a presence of some kind is there." There is indeed a presence--an obsessed woman driven by a voice in her head she claims is Ryan's late wife.

There will be a book launch signing for the Oroville author tomorrow from 11:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. at Curves, 2190 Myers Street in Oroville.

The story of obsession leads the couple to Hawaii and the far reaches of Northern California. Lives are at stake in "A Stranger's Eyes" ($13.95 in paperback from Fireside Publications; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format), a sequel of sorts to "Dreams--Shadows of the Night" which featured Sam's friend Catherine Ashley. She was now married to Josh Dallas after his kidnaping in the Amazon. As Catherine listens to Sam, she tell her that "I've had prophetic nightmares. You believe you're being watched by unseen eyes. Both are occurrences not easily explained. They bring out intense emotions that cause feelings of helplessness and fear."

Samantha fears not only for Ryan's life, but that of his daughter, and makes the fateful decision to do as her accuser demands--leave them. She finds solace in a small California mountain town whose residents' lives become intertwined with her own. One might expect Ryan to come to the rescue, and festivities to break out, but there are surprises in store. Even as obsession is dealt with there is another sinister visitation. "An unrecognizable figure," Sam tells Ryan, "came inside my head watching like before."

There is a madman on the loose, and this time the target is Ryan himself. He finds a crushed rose under his windshield wiper, a box of broken cookies, and Sam sees the spray painted words: "You're next, Mrs. Wade." The couple must make a fateful choice and the action never slows until the end.

Anthology features Chico writer's prize-winning science fiction story

For almost thirty years L. Ron Hubbard's "Writers of the Future" contest has honored up-and-coming science-fiction, fantasy, and speculative fiction authors (and illustrators) with a black tie awards ceremony and an anthology of the best entries. Judges are sci-fi luminaries, and the judges, writers and illustrators have gone on to win some of the most prestigious awards in the science-fiction and fantasy communities (including Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards).

This year's contest honored Tina Gower of Chico and Stephen Sottong of Eureka as quarterly winners, and Gower's story, "Twelve Seconds," went on to win the international grand prize of $5000. (More information, and a video of the awards ceremony, can be found at writersofthefuture.com.) Winning stories and illustrations appear in "L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future Vol. 29" ($7.99 in paperback from Galaxy Press; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook ebook formats), edited by Coordinating Judge Dave Wolverton.

Both Gower and Sottong will be speaking and signing copies of the book tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books, 135 Main Street in downtown Chico.

Born in Kokomo, Indiana, Sottong's jobs included radio repair for the Navy and a career as an engineering librarian. His "Planetary Scouts" is a gritty tale of Aidan Pastor and his new Scout partner, Aloysius Lester. "We're supposed to make sure humanity doesn't destroy other intelligent creatures," Aidan tells him, "or pick up something nasty enough to kill us off." That's not quite how things work out. ...

Gower was born in Siskiyou County, married her high school sweetheart, and lives with her family in Chico. She became a school psychologist, trained guide dogs for the blind, and now focuses on raising her family and writing (smashedpicketfences.com). "Twelve Seconds" is the harrowing and sensitive story of Howard, an autistic man who works with Eddie to "process memory siphons. I clean and sort. Eddie approves for archival. We are cogs, endlessly pinching, prodding, and polishing homicide victims' last memories on aging holodesks in a dark room."

Howard dreams of being "Howie," the cool guy who saves the day and gets the girl. But then a strange turn of events leads Howard deep into a sinister plot. It's a brilliant and poignant voyage of self-discovery.

Chico visitor conjures a fantastical tale

Toward the end of "The Accidental Snake Thief" ($14.99 in paperback from Don't Forget The Magic Publishing; also available in Amazon Kindle ebook format), British-born author Matheu DeSilva has a character explain the "why" of things. There is a sinister 300-year-old plot afoot, guided by the strange, psychically powerful preacher named Carl Jacobi.

"Everything from medicines and foods to consumer culture and social networks had been specifically designed by Jacobi to keep the 'developed' masses numb, dumb, distracted and under strictly monitored control. ... Carl Jacobi and his friends, whoever they were, were also the real masterminds behind the terrorist attacks that prompted western governments to re-write their laws, terrifying the general public into voting away their freedoms in return for a little phony security. These new laws had been Carl Jacobi's final experiment. He wanted to see if the people were ready and willing to be fully enslaved. They were."

There is little to stand against Jacobi except a fifteen-year-old girl named Hazel and her older brother Caleb. Hazel attends a Jacobi church service and winds up freeing the magical snake Aviveri, one of the ancient Maninkari. "We Maninkari were sent here to bring forth life," he tells Hazel and Caleb telepathically. "From bacteria and plants, to the creatures of the land and water, including, eventually, mankind. All were created from us. ... We provide the building blocks but we do not know the designs. That is for the Architect alone to know."

But greedy men planted stories about evil serpents, "legends that tell people not to question or search for alternatives to the 'truths' they are fed by those in power." Now, when most Maninkari are dead, Carl Jacobi is about to take over the world.

What follows in this first book of the Maninkari Trilogy (theaccidentalsnakethief.com) is, as the Website suggests, a combination of "The Hunger Games" and "Harry Potter." Hazel and Caleb are given special powers by Aviveri, and together, with a few friends, they must search for their father in South America and fight the Snakekiller minions of Jacobi. There's sometimes gruesome action. Be warned: the novel ends with a cliffhanger.

DeSilva was a recent visitor to The Bookstore in downtown Chico, and signed copies of his book may still be available.

True tales from a retired Shasta County game warden

In 1960 young Steven Callan and his family moved to Orland; a decade later he graduated from Chico State University. He was hired by the California Department of Fish and Game, became a patrol lieutenant, and transferred to Shasta County in 1981. His career in enforcement spans thirty years; along the way he became active in a host of environmental groups and now lives with his wife in Palo Cedro. His biography establishes his bona fides as a street-smart warden with a tale to tell.

Make that twenty-three tales. "Badges, Bears, and Eagles: The True-Life Adventures of a California Fish and Game Warden" ($13.95 in paperback from Coffeetown Press, callan.coffeetownpress.com; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook ebook formats) is a thrilling ride into the heart of bad guy country. Which is pretty much anywhere in the state, any place that people can abuse wildlife and habitats for a profit.

Callan will be signing copies at the Chico Costco this Friday, June 14, from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. A recorded interview is set to air that Friday morning at 10:00 a.m. on Nancy's Bookshelf, with host Nancy Wiegman, on KCHO, 91.7 FM (Northstate Public Radio). The following month, on Thursday, July 25 at 7:00 p.m. look for a signing and presentation at Lyon Books in Chico.

The author has reconstructed his and other cases from memory, interviews and court documents. The result is a series of suspenseful, well-written procedurals in which good triumphs, but not without a lot of foot work and tense dealings with well armed scofflaws.

"The Eagle Case" opens the collection, telling the story out of the Redding regional Fish and Game office in 1985 involving threats to a warden; the killing and possession of a bald eagle, mountain lion, and ring-tailed cat--and that was for starters. The final story, "Bears and Bad Guys," is the longest and most complex, taking up the last quarter of the book. A note summarizes the tale: "In 1995, Lieutenant Steve Callan and Warden Dave Szody conducted a three-year undercover investigation into the unlawful killing of California black bears for their gallbladders, possibly the most successful wildlife related criminal investigation in California history."

It's compelling reading about true public service.

Walking Paradise Flumes

Roger Ekins, who retired from Butte College in 2009, is a longtime Paradise resident fascinated by local history. He and his wife, Helen, have hiked and biked in the area almost daily and now, in a beautifully designed guidebook, the couple share much of what they've learned.

"The Flumes And Trails Of Paradise: Hiking Through History On The Ridge" ($19.95 in paperback from Happy Trails Press) features trailhead maps, hiking tips, the history of Paradise flumes, a section on local wildflowers, and dozens of hikes with detailed commentary and color photographs. Here is a book that will help readers, walkers and mountain bikers see Paradise and surroundings with new appreciation. It's an indispensable good-humored guide, with hikes set out in minutes, and vistas for points of interest at every turn.

The authors will sign copies of the book and present a slide show on "mysteries of the flumes" at Lyon Books in Chico this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. They'll be the interview guests of Nancy Wiegman on Nancy's Bookshelf, this Friday at 10:00 a.m. on KCHO, 91.7 FM (Northstate Public Radio). For details about additional signings, and a list the places the book can be purchased locally, go to flumesandtrails.com.

Readers will be rewarded with information on old telephone poles ("the first telephone call in Butte County was made from Cherokee to Oroville in 1878"); empty houses; water pipes ("beware of any 'modern' hoses carrying water off, as these may well lead to an illicit marijuana grow. ... Just keep on hiking"); and "curious equipment."

For instance, the "Double Incline Loop" hike near Lovelock yields a view of a "huge concrete pad that at one time housed the 900 horsepower Westinghouse motor that operated a winch with some 4,400 feet of 1¾ inch cable. ... You are standing on the easternmost end of Diamond Match's amazing double incline" which "operated from 1928 as long as the trees lasted, until 1935." Flatbed cars full of logs were let down on one side of the canyon and empty cars winched up on the other.

"Regardless of how much faith you bring to your flume treks," the authors note, "you won't always find yourself walking on water" (which is sometimes diverted). Regardless, find a store and get the book. It's worth the hike.

Butte Valley novelist romances reincarnation

Aris Whittier writes about her first name on her website (awhittier.blogspot.com). "I was born in the seventies to a pair of hippies, real hippies. Having said that, I think I got off lucky with the name Aris. It could have been much worse, Fruit Stand or something like that. So, Aris it is." The Butte Valley resident is also a prolific romance writer ("Secrets," "Fatal Embrace," "Foolish Notions") as well as a chronicler of her own life ("The Truth About Being a Bass Fisherman's Wife").

With "Across Eternity" ($3.99 in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats), Whittier explores reincarnation. When handsome, self-made businessman Logan Richards, 37, sees Amber Lewis, a young waitress at his five-star restaurant in Dana Point, a deep sense of knowing washes over him. "She drew you in with so much more," he reflects. "Her vibrant blue eyes, with unusually dark rims and thick lashes, reflected kindness and deep emotion. ... Her warm, casual disposition made you feel appreciated and accepted. She was magnetic in the most earnest way. ... Merely watching her took him back to the earlier childhood times when he had initially begun to see her."

Back then, when Logan was just three, she had come to him in his sandbox, an invisible and inseparable friend, a spirit that one day had to depart. He had dreamed of her for many years, and now here she was, in the flesh, a twenty-seven-year-old raven-haired beauty. Something clicks in Amber as well when she first waits on Logan, but it is something just beyond memory.

Logan wants Amber to remember on her own, so though he is honest with her in many things, the conversations they have--on the beach, at his home, memorable places around the world as the two again become inseparable--leave something unspoken. She meets Logan's family, his mother and sister and his sister's young son, and they embrace Amber with open arms. Logan is gentle, kind, and thoughtful, and a passionate kisser. All would seem perfect. But as sexual tension increases the consummation Amber craves, the lovemaking she yearns for, eludes her. Why? What secret is Logan harboring?

The story is an engaging exploration of the boundaries of love in a world of life and death.

Displaced from Latvia: Chico writer on losing one's country

Zigrid (Zig) Vidners wrote of her childhood in an earlier book, "I Grew Up In Latvia." Now, in a poignant memoir of displacement after World War II, she continues the story of a young woman who must now make a new life in Germany and then in Britain. Latvians hardly saw the communists as liberators at the end of the war. Latvia was swallowed up and, as Vidners writes, Latvians had become "Displaced Persons." "We were people who came from nowhere, for there was no country called Latvia anymore. It had been given away as a gift to the biggest butcher in the world."

As Russian tanks invaded Latvia toward the end of the war, many Latvians fled to Germany. Latvian men had joined the Germans to fight the Russians, little aware of the Nazi atrocities. In 1944, at the age of eighteen, Vidners, along with her mother and brother, resettled in Germany. (Her father had been drafted by the Germans and was never to see his homeland again.) For awhile, the family had some sense of routine. But "even though there were dances and activities," Vidners writes, "it was more like fleeing and hiding from the bitter truth that there was no home, no country and no future. We were a branch, torn off a tree, lying there and lingering but not really living."

"A Branch Without A Tree" (paperback, self-published; for purchase information contact the author at vidners@sbcglobal.net) is a vivid memoir of Vidners' life from 1944 to 1963, when, after living in Britain for many years, she prepares for an American journey. Through it all is an underlying faith that day by day God provides the necessities of life, in the midst of much sadness but also in moments of joy.

Life in Germany offered little promise, yet it was with trepidation that Vidners accepted the opportunity to sail to England. She found a job at a hospital, and, along with others from Latvia, a new re-building began. The book details everyday life, the enjoyment of fish and chips, memorable Christmas seasons, the author's meeting with Edvins Vidners (who would soon become her husband), and the birth of Uldis ("Uli") and Maris.

It is a captivating story, well told (and edited).

The astronaut who couldn't grieve

Christian Kiefer teaches English at American River College in Sacramento and lives with his wife and five sons northeast of the city. In his acclaimed novel, "The Infinite Tides" ($17 in paperback from Bloomsbury USA; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats) he imagines a contemporary astronaut whose life becomes an emotional cul-de-sac, a dead end.

Keith Corcoran is a mathematician in his work aboard the International Space Station. For him, "all things reduced to numbers, angles, vectors, equations." But then, aboard the ISS, he gets the news. His teenage daughter, Quinn, has been killed in an automobile accident. His wife, Barb, is leaving him.

Kiefer is scheduled to sign copies of his novel at Lyon Books in Chico this Thursday, May 16, at 7:00 p.m.

With weather delays and his own intransigence, it takes Corcoran months to get back to his suburban home. He desperately wanted to dive back into the numbers but now the migraines had begun and he had been told to go home and rest, his career as an astronaut on hold. "The whole of his thoughts had come to reflect a reality he did not want to acknowledge, a reality wherein he might shatter all at once into the brittle unannealed shards of a grief he had managed so effectively to avoid."

His house, sitting empty on a cul-de-sac, is a stark image of his life. "There was no equation for any of it. Not for he universe, not for his loss, not for the decisions he had made. ..." Then he meets Peter Kovalenko, a Ukrainian immigrant who had become his neighbor. One night he helps Keith drag an old couch into the field near the cul-de-sac so the two can sit and look through Peter's telescope and drink beer and smoke pot, "stoned and drunk and laughing in that bleak darkness under a million wheeling stars."

At some point "he realized that perhaps for the first time in his life he had grown to value human companionship and that the overarching feeling that had come to dominate his endless days and nights in the cul-de-sac was loneliness." Here are the seeds of a different kind of life told in a language that captures the human equation.

Fighting cancer, drawing a line

When Jim Coons became one of the pastors at Bidwell Presbyterian Church in Chico it was the unfolding of a dream. Then came that fateful Christmas day in 2008. Not yet forty, he looked forward to a big Christmas celebration with Emily, his wife, their three kids, and a host of relatives. Suddenly Coons was faced with something that threatened to re-define his life.

"I have stage three colon cancer," he writes, "and every day as I wake up I am faced with the decision about who I will be: Jim Coons, the cancer patient, or just Jim." There are low times but "on better days I wake up with clenched teeth, a clear mind, and ready to send cancer back to hell where it came from. ... I hear the higher Voice, God's voice, reminding me that apart from cancer clinics, hospitals, blood tests, PET scans, surgeries, and chemotherapy, I am just Jim: A son, brother, husband, dad, fly-fisherman, music lover, book reader, cyclist, pastor, and child of the Living God. Cancer can't rob me of these deep truths--I won't let it. This is my line in the sand."

That's the title of his book, "A Line In the Sand" ($15 in paperback from CreateSpace), based on the entries he wrote on CarePages.com. The book chronicles the first year of his battle, and in eloquent, raw, exhausted, hopeful, tender passages Coons lays himself before the mysterious God who is with him every moment.

The author is scheduled to sign copies of his book at 7:00 p.m. this Thursday, May 9, at Lyon Books, 135 Main in downtown Chico.

"Praying the same old prayers to the same old God isn't adequate when you are told you have cancer. ... The threat of death has a way of making one's prayer life a little louder, a little more urgent, and a little more desperate. Sometimes I don't even know how to put words to my prayers because I'm so paralyzed by fear. That's when I have to remember God's words that he hears my 'groans' (Romans 8:26). ..."

Bottom line: "I am determined to keep on living even though death and sorrow knock at the door. I know they're out there. I'm just not inviting them in today."

A compendium of local UFO sightings from an area writer

Mount Shasta resident Brian Wallenstein is not neutral about weird things. He was interviewed early last year by Lee Romney of the Los Angeles Times, who wrote that in 1987 Wallenstein "saw a family of Yeti emerge from an abandoned cabin on the mountain. He says a reversal of gravity on one grade often pulls his Subaru uphill. As for spacecraft, he's 'watched UFOs … head into the mountain.'" Living near Mt. Shasta, that mystical place, it's no surprise that Wallenstein would collect accounts of strange events from residents who witnessed them.

"Mount Shasta Sightings: A Local and Regional Chronology of UFO Sightings and More" ($29.99 in paperback from Universal Template) checks in at more than 600 pages. The bulk of the book compiles hundreds of sightings, many from the Chico area (such as witness to a "dark triangle shaped UFO" over Chico on May 25, 1996).

Introductory materials offer a brief history of some of the groups, ancient and modern, that have found the mountain a place of spiritual energy. As for human origins, Wallenstein asks, "why is it incomprehensible to consider, we have been genetically accelerated, when there is possible evidence to that effect?"

Humans, he writes, "are a synthesis of several Off-World races." But "with the blanket of secrecy our own shadow government has over disclosure," it is hard to make sense of the data. UFO and even Bigfoot sightings may be the evidence that we are "being groomed by what ever it is in this universe, to be civilization builders." Frankly, "it's obvious that the presence of Off-Worlders is in our midst."

But the government, he says, is hiding information, even putting out what seem like silly stories to discredit what may have more than a hint of the truth. Wallenstein writes that he was contacted by exopolitics.com to pass along information from someone at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), to the effect that as a young boy President Obama "participated in a Space Camp in 1980, at the College of the Siskiyous preparing him for a journey he allegedly took to Mars from 'The Jump Room' located at a Hughes Aircraft facility in El Segundo...."

It is a worldview only the intrepid may wish to explore.

Visiting author on America's food crisis

Virginia-based Wenonah Hauter owns a family farm run by her husband as a "community supported agriculture program." The longtime activist is Executive Director of Food and Water Watch and recently was invited to Chico for a book signing at Lyon Books, with her appearance sponsored by the Northern California Regional Land Trust (landconservation.org) and their "Buy Fresh, Buy Local, North Valley" program.

For Hauter, the U.S. "food system is in a crisis because of the way that food is produced and the consolidation and organization of the industry itself. ... Today, twenty food corporations produce most of the food eaten by Americans, even organic brands. Four large chains, including Walmart, control more than half of all grocery store sales."

The implications are detailed in "Foodopoly: The Battle Over The Future Of Food And Farming In America" ($26.95 in hardcover from The New Press; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats). Hauter explores how political clout from the big food companies has undermined safety standards, promoted factory farming and inhumane treatment of animals, and has unleashed genetic experimentation with inadequate safeguards. "The biotechnology industry," she maintains, "has become so powerful that it can literally buy public policy."

It's impossible, she says, to counter these influences by just buying local or ending farm subsidies (as if such subsidies were propping up only the biggest farming operations). Because USDA statistics inflate the number of small farms (counting operations where most of the income is non-farm), it appears that relatively few farms benefit from subsidies. The truth, Haunter says, is that "82 percent of midsize farmers depend on some support to stay afloat." End subsidies, and full-time family farms collapse, consolidating the food system even more.

Her solution is a "new paradigm" of political activism, based on seeing "the world as a global commons with collectively shared assets, from air, water, soil, and genetics to taxpayer-funded research, libraries, roads, and all of the other resources we share." The bottom line: "Our movement must deepen and expand the strategy for moving people to political action. It must join the broader progressive movement to organize across the country. ... There are no shortcuts to building the long-term political power to reclaim our food system, our democracy, our commons."

Former Chicoan tests his mettle

For Pleasant Valley High School grad Bill Carter, living since 2000 with his wife, Leigh, in the old mining town of Bisbee, Arizona, it begins with a backyard vegetable garden. Carter feasts on salads though Leigh, pregnant with the couple's second daughter, "doesn't trust the dirt."

Bisbee "is a dormant mining town, located eight miles from the Mexican border as the crow flies. The copper mine closed down more than thirty years ago, but the effects of its existence remain. Mine shafts pockmark the hillsides and sulfuric acid runoff stains the cliffs a burnt orange." Back in the day the mining company "took more than $8 billion in copper from this place. You don't take that much from the earth without leaving a scar or two."

Carter's account is told in "Boom, Bust, Boom: A Story About Copper, The Metal That Runs The World" ($26 in hardcover from Scribner; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats).

Soon Carter is suffering stomach cramps, and worse. His wife and daughter have avoided the salads and are fine. Then he receives a letter from an environmental cleanup company, hired by the owner of the mining operations, that his backyard dirt is contaminated with arsenic.

The illness passes only to be replaced by intense curiosity. Carter details the dangers of copper mining, investigates the copper market, interviews mining CEOs and environmental protestors, charts the influence of big money on small communities, and discovers, as he says in an interview, that because of an 1872 law "the U.S. does not charge foreign companies for extracting copper on our public lands."

Carter's reportage takes him to active Arizona copper mines and to Alaska, "because there is talk of developing one of the world's biggest copper and gold mines near the watershed of Bristol Bay, which is home to the world's largest sockeye salmon run, with almost forty million fish returning every summer." It's called the Pebble mine.

Civilization runs on copper (the average house has "four hundred pounds of copper pipe and wiring") and Carter acknowledges he is caught in hypocrisy. Yet, as he says toward the end, "the battle to stop Pebble mine is really a battle to define what we believe is the sensible stewardship of our resources."

Ray Kurzweil's mind coming to Chico State University

Scientist, inventor, author, futurist, and now Director of Engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil is scheduled to appear at Chico State University's Laxson Auditorium this Friday as part of the President's Lecture Series. His multimedia presentation, followed by a book signing, begins at 7:30 p.m. on the topic "The Acceleration of Technology in the 21st Century: The Impact on Business, the Economy, and Society and How to Retain Our Humanity Through It.”

Premium tickets are $32, adult $27, Senior $25, Student/Child $18; contact the University Box Office at (530) 898-6333 or visit chicoperformances.com for more information.

Kurzweil's newest book is "How To Create A Mind: The Secret Of Human Thought Revealed" ($27.95 in hardcover from Viking; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats). A pioneering inventor of text-to-speech and speech-to-text technologies, Kurzweil argues that the brain, specifically the neocortex (which is "responsible for perception, memory, and critical thinking") functions by pattern recognition.

Not only perception but thought itself are a hierarchy of simple patterns repeated again and again, just as a simple equation can produce infinitely varying fractals. Complex patterns can be reverse-engineered and duplicated in human-made computers. You don't need to copy the interactions of billions of neurons; all you need do is "identify readily understandable (and re-creatable) patterns in those cells and connections."

At the same time, information technologies are predictably evolving exponentially, so that by 2029 machines will be developed that "appear to be conscious. ... They will exhibit the full range of subtle, familiar emotional cues; they will make us laugh and cry; and they will get mad at us if we say they we don't believe that they are conscious." What Kurzweil calls his "leap of faith" is that such machines "will indeed constitute conscious persons."

That's because "consciousness is an emergent property of the overall pattern of an entity, not the substrate it runs on." We will never able to determine scientifically whether a nonbiological being knows what it's like to experience the color red; this is a philosophical question with "profound meaning to humans," what Kurzweil calls "spiritual." Thus, technological "evolution can then be viewed as a spiritual process in that it creates spiritual beings, that is, entities that are conscious." See the pattern?

A memoir of God's care

"Today I am living on borrowed time," writes Frank Fox. "If an average person's life span is seventy years, then I have borrowed over a decade and continue to borrow. I have been given this time to contemplate the highs and lows of my life. ... Throughout my life I have been surrounded by God's bubble of protection. The Holy Spirit has always been with me ... even though I have felt unsure or depressed, He has been with me."

Fox' life is played out in a series of vignettes (many of which reflect his sense of humor as well as his Christian faith) in "My Life Inside The Bubble" ($16.99 in paperback from Xulon Press; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats). Written with the assistance of Bonnie Tyler, the book contains family photos, a sampling of the author's poetry, and a series of letters written to Fox from various family members. And there are family members aplenty: a "loving wife, four children, twenty nine grand-children, twenty-two great-grandchildren. ..."

A child of the Great Depression, Frank was born Lester Lloyd Potter in 1928. By 1932 the family was living in Oklahoma, the children malnourished. A sister dies, and then his mother. His father is unable to care for the family, and the children are placed in an orphanage. Four-year-old Frank is adopted by Clarence and Olive Fox, farmers from Beaver County, Oklahoma, who give him his new name. ("It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy being 'frank,' which has gotten me into a lot of trouble as well as all the girls thinking I'm a 'fox.'")

Much later came a stint in the Navy and then, in 1949, Frank married Juanita, whom he had met when she was a first grader and he was nine. The union has lasted. "I am proud to say we have only had one family fight. Of course it has lasted for sixty-three years." Frank and Juanita and their growing family moved to California, eventually settling in Orland where Frank went into the antiques business.

"I've had many trials and troubles," he writes. "I have tried to do thing my way many times. Each time, God gently caught me as I fell." At Easter, it's an especially fitting acknowledgment.

The Sacramento River, in all its glory

"My love of rivers is deep and enduring," writes Bob Madgic. "What inspired me to move from the San Francisco Bay Area to Shasta county after a career in public education was the Sacramento River. My wife, Diane, and I live in a home overlooking this magnificent waterway. The river's daily gifts are immeasurable. Constant yet ever-changing motion, myriad birds, stunning sunsets that tint the water red, and full moons that coat the surface silver are joined by a continual symphony of river sounds. I can walk to the water any time and possibly hook a spirited rainbow trout. We are truly blessed."

Madgic, aided by project contributor Walt Simmons, has created a printed homage to this great waterway. "The Sacramento: A Transcendent River" ($24.95 in paperback from River Bend Books, 6412 Clear View Drive, Anderson, CA 96007) is a beautifully designed book, replete with color photos, some taken by Madgic, that captures "the power and beauty of the natural Sacramento River, including the flora and fauna that co-exist with it."

Madgic will be signing copies of his book and presenting a multi-media presentation this Thursday, March 28, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the meeting of the Sacramento River Preservation Trust, 631 Flume St. in Chico. Books will be available for purchase; the signing is free and open to the public.

The story of the Sacramento River is told in eleven chapters, from the history of the native peoples to the development of Shasta Dam, the "decline of the Delta," the diminishing of the winter-run salmon, and, more recently, new hope for conservation. Ironically, the "age of abundance" created by new technologies also caused industrial pollution and "widespread destruction of natural habitat." But then came new conservation organizations, like the Sacramento River Preservation Trust. Co-founded in Chico in the 1980s by John Merz, it fought a proposal to, in Merz' words, "rip rap every bend between Red Bluff and Colusa," thus turning the Sacramento into a glorified canal.

But even more central to Madgic's story is the encounter with the river itself and how a "natural" river, to the extent that that is possible, offers abundant gifts. The river is a classroom, and the lesson is clear: that "a healthy human race calls for thriving river ecosystems."

From Chico to the Yukon--and the spirit world

The author's note for F. Jay Fuller begs to be quoted: "He’s turned ankles, pulled muscles, torn tendons, split nails, broken bones, fallen off cliffs, fallen out of trees, fallen in rivers, been lost, lost skin, lost teeth, lost his keys, had poison oak, had ticks, endured giardia, suffered frostbite, caught cold, and caught hell."

Fuller tells a compelling coming of age story of a young Chico boy, Ahto Twickanen, and his mysterious great uncle, Jaakko, in "Shadows In Winter" ($17.99 in paperback from Cool Waters Press; also available in Amazon Kindle e-book format). The journey begins with the annual Christmas trip to the Quincy area to visit Uncle Aigen. Ahto is ten, and his parents look forward to the big family gathering. Ahto looks forward to seeing Jaakko, seemingly a recluse holed up in a small cabin in the frozen Yukon, save for his sudden and strange Christmas Eve appearances.

A book signing will be held Thursday, March 21, at the new location of Lyon Books, 135 Main in downtown Chico (next to Peet's Coffee and Tea), at 7:00 p.m.

Though Lutheran, the family emigrated to America in the 19th century because they "disagreed strongly with church dogma regarding the treatment of those who clung to their native beliefs and practiced the old traditions. ... These were the Sámi, the pastoral people of the reindeer whom the outside world called 'Lapps'--one of the oldest and perhaps the least understood native people in all Europe."

Jaakko is deeply connected to the old practices and, as years pass, it become clear that Ahto (Jaakko calls him "Otso," "the name of a pet bear in the Kalevala, Finland's national epic") is also able to channel powers beyond the ordinary. When the teenage Ahto has a waking vision of Jaakko sick in his cabin, he and his father make the harrowing trip to the Yukon, to Jaakko. While his father and a guide travel back for help, Ahto stays to tend to his uncle. And Jaakko introduces him to the ways of the shaman, the noaide, which opens the door to the Land of Shadows, the spirit world.

Full of adventure and discovery, this well-written story carries on an ancient tradition--and brings it to Chico.

A dystopian novel of Northern California

By "Northern California" London-based novelist Cory Doctorow actually means "San Francisco" (with a glace toward Sacramento). I caught up with him by email during a promotional book tour in the US and asked whether he had ever been to Chico. He thought for a long time, he writes, and though he hasn't journeyed through Butte County, he likely has flown over it. What little surveillance he has given us is nothing compared to the digital dystopia he imagines in "Homeland" ($17.99 in hardcover from Tor Teen; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble e-book formats).

Doctorow (craphound.com) is a prolific science-fiction novelist, co-editor of the Boing Boing blog, and a writer and speaker on digital freedom issues. He is a foe of "digital rights management" (DRM) software that, for example, prevents lawfully obtained e-books from being given to others. (The electronic versions of "Homeland" are DRM-free at the publisher's request.)

"Homeland," which takes place in the Bay Area and at Burning Man in Nevada, presents readers with a not-so-distant future in which electronic surveillance (especially of mobile devices) has become the norm by local governments and civilian organizations with contractual ties to the government (think Blackwater, only in the novel it's called Zyz). "Homeland" begins a few years after "Little Brother" and traces the further adventures of now 19-year-old Marcus Yallow who had been brutalized by officials in San Francisco after a terrorist attack.

Now, Marcus has received 800,000 files (think "WikiLeaks") that detail technology's misuse in the name of "keeping us safe." There are the school officials who can view what goes on at home without student laptops' camera lights coming on; the Hearts and Minds "persona management" software Zyz uses that creates "astroturf" (not true grass roots) movements designed to sway public opinion with "paid operatives"; and lobbying efforts to make student loans even more difficult to pay off.

Marcus and his "hactivist" friends are targeted by Zyz as trouble. Doctorow details the geeky use of the "darknet," a place online that the files can be kept without links to who put them there, and amid police roundups, Zyz rough-ups, political run-ups, and relationship break-ups, Marcus finds a voice for a utopian vision of justice and freedom in this fast-paced and unnerving story.

Painful memories from a Chico visitor

The last conversation Kristine Godinez had with her dad was by phone in 1997. "Three days later," she writes, "he died of a massive heart attack while sitting on the toilet." Though they expressed mutual love, their relationship was "complicated." Now a therapist in Arizona, Godinez grew up in Gridley, attended a "fundamentalist" church in Richvale, and eventually came to Chico State University. She was a recent guest for a book signing at The Bookstore in downtown Chico.

Godinez' father was a local attorney, an accomplished man with a penchant for stirring the pot wherever he went. "My dad's behavior was bizarre," she remembers. "The man prided himself on being a faithful marine and a good Christian, but he would get involved in emotional affairs, left, right, and center. Not sexual affairs, emotional affairs. He would find a woman and idealize her and seek to spend as much time with her as possible."

That was not the half of it. Godinez tells her sad and challenging story in "What's Wrong With Your Dad?: Growing Up The Child Of An Addict With Borderline Personality Disorder" ($14.95 in paperback, self-published; available in Amazon Kindle e-book format). The book is the kind of journal Godinez recommends her clients keep. "Normally I would burn this, but this is to show how it is done. Writing it, I experienced every emotion, every tear, every laugh. I made it from the beginning to the other side intact and so will you."

What is Borderline Personality Disorder? Those "with BPD tend to have very low self-esteem to no self-esteem and are terrified of abandonment. They engage in reckless behavior and persist in suicidal ideation or gestures. They also express the belief that they are unique somehow in their suffering; they have an inability to accept personal responsibility for their actions. ... They are master manipulators." The book details a litany of physical, emotional and sexual abuse perpetrated by the man on his family.

There's plenty of swearing in the book, something the author says helps relieve the hurt, and "aside from the fact it makes people I don't like immensely uncomfortable, I enjoy doing it." There are touches of humor (Godinez calls her mother "Cleopatra Queen of Denial") but the wounds are still there.

A bestselling fitness book from a Butte College instructor

"I have a long and colorful diet and exercise history," Lani Muelrath writes, "30 years of constantly battling my weight, being at war with food and with my body, and not having the lasting success or real results I craved." Even workouts weren't working.

What was missing? Balance, what she calls "the three pillars of successful body transformation": exercise, diet and mind-set. In developing a balanced fitness and plant-based food program, and focusing on achievable, motivational goals, Muelrath was able to lose 50 founds (and keep it off) while at the same time eating until she was full (no caloric number crunching) and exercising in a way that didn't take over her life. Her encouraging guidance is available in "Fit Quickies: 5-Minute Targeted Body-Shaping Workouts" ($19.95 in paperback from Alpha Books/Penguin) and at lanimuelrath.com.

Muelrath will be speaking and demonstrating her "Fit Quickie" approach Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. at Lyon Books in Chico.

Her book presents fourteen "Fit Quickies" (from "7 Seconds to a Flat Belly" to "Shoulder Shapers") which can stand alone or be part of a regular gym program. Each "Quickie," including repetitions, lasts only about three to five minutes. The key is to isolate the muscles that help shape the body, challenging them so that they "sit up, take notice, and change shape."

The book also provides combinations of Fit Quickies for ten-minute workouts (one bundle focuses on "Bums and Tums"). "Fit Quickies," she writes, "are perfect for revolutionizing your workouts. These research-driven, physical therapist- and exercise physiologist-approved targeted exercises promise to change the shape of your muscles and restore your strength in a refreshing and innovative format."

Muelrath doesn't neglect diet and motivation, either. The calorie-counting "rabbit food" approach only leaves the eater hungry and prone to keep eating. Her approach: "By day's end, if I were to take all the food I ate that day and put it on a big tray, half of it would be starchy veggies and whole grains, and the other half would be high-water-content vegetables." The rule: "Eat when hungry until you're not." As for motivation, "practice for success." When a setback comes, forgive yourself. Evidence shows it's easier to get back on track.

With "Fit Quickies," readers have a wise and compassionate coach.

Upbeat poetry from a Chico writer

Looking for just the right time? Well, consider: "It's not too late / It's not too soon / To watch the stars dance toward the moon. / Paint rainbow colors across the sea / Invite the ladybugs for tea. / Ride the clouds to fairy lands / Grow cookie gardens in the sand. / To see a world where nothing's wrong / And make it so through silly song. ..."

"Just the Right Time: A Magical Mixture of Poetry and Paintings For Folks of All Ages" ($7.99 in paperback from CreateSpace, available in Chico at Lyon Books and Postal Plus) is a collection of poetry by Robyn Alana Engel. It's beautifully illustrated by Robin Mead, "a Mixed Media, Water-coloring, Acrylic using Artist" who uses digital tools for added effect.

According to an author's note, which is worth quoting in full, Engel "is a native Californian and Bay Area migrant who proudly made Chico her home two years ago. Her writing spans various genres, and Robyn is best known for her humorous dating antics. She's published in Being Single Magazine and the Journal of Jewish Communal Services. Currently, Robyn freelances for Examiner.com as a local expert on Sex and Relationships. Besides writing, she enjoys dancing and eating chocolate, though not necessarily in that order nor simultaneously. When she's not working in social services, you'll find Robyn devouring chocolate while blogging at Life by Chocolate, rawknrobyn.blogspot.com."

The poems, the author says, grew from thinking about the special people in her life. In "Kindred Spirits" the poet writes of "Fragile souls / Enduring ties. // Secrets known / Never shared. // Countless fears / Never scared. // So much achieved / Though never proud. // So much lost / Though not out loud. // My ground / My heart / My love and calm. / My kindred spirit / My soul // My mom."

So much change to face in the modern world! "Back in the Day" "... Courage and valor defined one as great - / Not being a whiney, crazed parent of eight. / Actors could act and performers could sing / Reality shows starred Carson an Bing."

Nevertheless, "No Matter What": "Whatever the season / No matter the reason / May you love beyond fears / And laugh past your tears / May you like what you see / And hear harmony."

Chicoan makes a list and checks it twice

For a long time the Carol Williamson had in mind publishing a fill-in-the-blanks reference book that would keep the information about one's life close at hand. As a publicity release puts it: "With all the special dates and events to remember, important checklists to accomplish, valuable documents to keep track of, life just seems to be one giant juggling act."

Now the Chico resident's dream has come to fruition with "Know It All: The Book About You" ($19.99 in paperback from Xlibris at cwknowitall.com; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats). About the cover, she notes that "my daughter-in-law, Kaci Koistinen ... took the picture of the Oregon Coast with my granddaughter Sarah and her dog Cooper. It signifies how big the world is and how we'll never really 'Know It All.'"

The book begins with a list of topical areas throughout the remainder of the work. Williamson begins with an opportunity to write in must-have telephone numbers (she suggests appliance dealer, baby sitters, piano tuner, plumber, and many more). Scattered throughout are already populated lists, like "Anniversary gifts by years" (for thirty years of marriage, it's still pearls), "Herbs and spices," and a checklist of "Items packed in my car."

I asked Williamson by email why she would want to produce primarily a printed book when so many "get organized" apps were available for computers and smartphones. "People like myself," she responded, "feel more secure that this book is something that whatever the reason, they could just grab it and go. Although there are various apps out there, I really think that people would be more apt to buy this book for convenience. No matter if they are knowledgeable at electronics or not."

Some of the lists are serious, such as "Important things your family should know." It suggests everything from adoption papers and auto registrations to warranties and wills and then provides space to fill in a location code (wallet? file cabinet?). Others are more whimsical, like "Memories to my grandchildren," which includes space to enter "my favorite hiding place" and "my favorite hymn,"; and "Sayings I've made up or lived by."

You could say that here is a book that fills you out without putting on weight.

A return to Avalon from novelist Darien Gee

Avalon is "a small, simple river town in northern Illinois," but the people there are not so simple. Darien Gee (whose husband, Darrin, has relatives in Chico) returns, after her last novel, "Friendship Bread," with a new Avalon story. "The Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society: A Novel" ($26 in hardcover from Ballantine; also available in Amazon Kindle and Barnes and Noble Nook e-book formats) intertwines the lives of a number of young women, each in search of love, each surprised at how it finally arrives.

This unlikely group is brought together by old Bettie Shelton ("the town fussbudget") "with her mobile scrapbooking business." She pokes her nose into everyone's business. Those she doesn't know she invites to the next meeting. Take thirty-eight-year-old Isabel Kidd. Childless, her dentist husband Bill left her for his assistant, Ava, and they had a child together. Bill died soon after in an accident and Isabel is still trying to put the pieces together. She wants to sell her house and get away.

But Bettie gets to her first. Come to the meeting! What meeting? "'Scrapbooking.' Bettie straightens up to her full height, 4'11". 'I'm president and founder of the Avalon Ladies Scrapbooking Society, in case you didn't know.'"

Scrapbooking has taken hold in Avalon. (The author provides scrapbooking tips at the end of the novel as well as a series of recipes, including Connie's Mountain Dew Apple Dumplings; there are more resources at dariengee.com). For Bettie, "scrapbooking isn't about making things pretty on the page, but about how you feel about the details in life that are special, that feel good. Invite others to take an emotional journey with you. Using textures in your layouts is one of the fastest ways to get people there."

The novel itself is a scrapbook. There's Connie, an outsider who finds belongingness working at Madeline's Tea Salon--now charged with goat-napping. And Yvonne, a plumber who looks like a model, who ends up dating her enemy. Reed and Frances, attempting to adopt a medically-challenged little girl from China. And Ava, who wants desperately to meet Isabel.

There are surprising twists, but Gee ties everything together with a rich texture of memories and the promise that when love seems all but lost--it may not be.