“Woman On The Verge Of Paradise”

For Paradise blogger Robyn Alana Engel, it’s “Life By Chocolate” (rawknrobyn.blogspot.com), “finding sweetness in the light and dark” even in “the challenges of dating (and) my related rationale for celibacy.”

There’s history behind all this, and it’s on display in what Engel calls her “memoir-ish novel”: “It’s 100% true and 100% creative. We’ll call it creative non-fiction.” And readers are duly warned: “I do not recommend this book for: 1) Children 2) The Narrow-minded or 3) Martha Stewart.”

In “Woman On The Verge Of Paradise” ($12.99 in paperback from CreateSpace; also for Amazon Kindle), a narrator named Robyn Engel charts the course of a life beset by naiveté, emotional turmoil, a series of failed men-counters, all haunted by the number thirteen. Her list at the end of “alternative book titles” gives a hint of what lies within: “Fifty Shades Of Erectile Dysfunction”; “Robyn Engel: A West Coast Carrie Bradshaw Minus The Sex, Glam, Glitz, and 5,000 Square Foot Closet.”

                    

Loved by her mother, emotionally ignored by her father, Robyn is in search of acceptance. She attends UCLA, becomes a social worker, is quoted in the 25^th anniversary issue of Penthouse Magazine in 1994, and is constantly on the prowl for romance (i.e., sex).

“I hated being unmarried, without kids, and a thirty-something year old virgin. I felt like there was something horribly, embarrassingly wrong with me.” Finding the “right guy” was a challenge. Even Simon doesn’t work out; he “was blind date number 12,462.”

“So,” she laments, “like hundreds of thousands of single marriage-minded Jews worldwide, I registered with Jdate dot com. This highly popular Jewish dating site assures ‘no more blind date blahs.’” They lied.

Eventually Justin enters her life, thirteen (!) years older than Robyn, who is nearing 40. They marry, but Justin’s explosive anger fractures the relationship. Divorcing, Robyn moves from the Bay Area to Paradise, tries the Chico dating scene, and starts a blog, striving for “sass and inspiration.”

There is no fairytale ending. Yet there is hope: “I’m on the verge … of believing to the depth of my being that I’m worthy … my life adds importance to this world. It’s significant, because I am.” 

“The Flumes And Trails Of Paradise: Hiking Through History On The Ridge (Revised And Expanded Edition)”

Longtime Paradise residents Roger and Helen Ekins have refreshed and expanded their locally best-selling guide, “The Flumes And Trails Of Paradise: Hiking Through History On The Ridge” ($24.95 in paperback from Happy Trails Press; available at flumesandtrails.com which also lists a host of local outlets).

According to an email from Roger, “Flumes” is “40% larger than the previous printings, with twice the wildflowers, 15 completely new trails, and significant new information/expansions of 15 or more of the existing trails.”

For readers new to the guide, the authors provide detailed hiking tips, a history of Paradise’s flume system (complete with historical photographs), and a list of “special interest hikes” (including for families and those with disabilities, and trails with swimming holes and waterfalls). In the revised edition there are twenty-one flume hikes and thirty-seven trails.

Each entry provides the length and difficulty, GPS coordinates to the parking area or trailhead, special features, and a rich narrative from seasoned and good-humored guides who give minute-by-minute timings and explanations for some of the things one might see along the way, including the Helltown monument (“erected in 1989 by the ‘Clampers’”). There’s also the best path to Hidden Fall near Coutelenc Park.

A favorite summer hike is Lower Trail in Paradise Pines: “For the most part the trail is always shady. … Moreover, much of the trail runs alongside Middle Butte Creek, so you get not only the shade, but the benefit of the cooler air always found near water.” Along the way you may even “see the grave of Dusty, the Christian Dog.”

There are views of Lake Oroville along the Lime Saddle trail in Paradise which is a “good choice for mountain or hybrid bikes.” But “cyclists take heed: not only is there considerable star thistle along the lower trail (a mortal enemy of inner-tubes!), but you’ll likely encounter loose gravel, especially on the curves. (The scar on Roger’s left knee attests to the wisdom of this second note of caution.)”

A guide who takes the fall so you don’t have to? Thistle be just another reason to get this indispensable new edition.

“The Final Safari: A Photographic Essay”

Orland resident Martin Burrows, armed with press credentials and a commission to report for the Sacramento Valley Mirror, landed in Nairobi, Kenya in the summer of 2014. His stories for the paper, along with dozens of full-c0lor images, have been collected in a new book, “The Final Safari: A Photographic Essay” ($14.99 in paperback from CreateSpace, available at Amazon.com).

Burrows is no stranger to Africa. “I arranged in the 1970s,” he writes, “to go to the American University of Cairo in Egypt as an exchange student from California State University at Chico. After graduating, I got a job representing a high-profile Saudi company.” He tried to use his position for financial enrichment, meeting in Mogadishu in 1977 for the purpose of selling arms to Somalis. “The enterprise fell apart in a catastrophic fashion, and I seriously contemplated suicide. Instead, I converted to Catholicism.” It was amazing grace.

Now, Burrows was returning to Africa, to Kenya and Uganda, for cultural enrichment. With the Ebola outbreak, tourism dropped dramatically, “thus enabling me to have access to any hotel and safari vehicle I wanted.” So it was off to Nakuru Lake Park in Kenya in search of lions.

“I hired a private vehicle rather than go with a group so I could stop and get out to get good photos. As this was against park regulations, I asked my driver why this was so. He said, ‘because the lions will eat you.’ I told him, nonsense, I would give him seven dollars if he would let me out. He said, okay. I now knew what my life was worth.”

When no lions turn up on his various safaris, he begins to realize his guides were promising more than they could deliver. Burrows is determined to find the beasts despite all the “lion.” It was a matter of pride.

Uganda is friendly, but there were long bus rides. “If we are young with a cast iron behind, go for it, but at sixty seven and flabby I probably should have known better.”

From pick pockets to charging elephants, Burrows’ straight-talking account and accompanying pictures make for an armchair safari of a love affair with Africa.

“Hinrich: Annals Of An Immigrant Family 1866-1913”

Chicoan Dave Schlichting has published a documentary account of his ancestry that is a model of historical preservation. Aided by family members who provided photographs and documents, and by his own research, Schlichting has crafted the detailed story of the family patriarch in “Hinrich: Annals Of An Immigrant Family 1866-1913” ($18.95 in paperback from Memoir Books).

Hinrich “was raised on a farm near the small village of Neuland in northern Germany,” beginning “his military service with the Royal Hanoverian Guards Regiment in 1858.” He served seven years. (There’s a copy of his discharge papers and a helpful translation from the German; other documents are also translated.)

Work was not plentiful in civilian life, and Hinrich resolved to emigrate to the United States. Schlichting sifts census records and the passenger list for the steamship “America” and concludes that likely Hinrich arrived in New York City in 1866. Though post-Civil War America was still reeling from the bloodshed, what attracted many Germans--the “pulling force”--was “the availability of land. The conceptual rationalization that made land available was known as Manifest Destiny.”

The author situates his forbears’ experience within a larger historical framework. “Like other immigrants, they moved in a pattern that offered both opportunity and comfort. They lived in communities populated by German-speaking immigrants as they followed the development of the American frontier from east to west.”

There is much about land ownership in these pages, and Schlichting has provided scholarly endnotes including GPS locations so readers can enter coordinates into Google Maps.

“Hinrich,” he writes, “was the family leader who achieved a financial base first in Cincinnati and then in the farming frontier of Wabasha County, Minnesota. By June of 1870, he was a landowner in America. … His marriage to Caroline Truebenbach was the beginning of a diverse first American-born generation with dispersed families in the West and the Midwest. The American generation included my grandparents, Henry and Emma Schlichting.” (A tidbit: Henry’s two brothers also married women named Emma.)

Hinrich died in 1904. He “left almost no written documents from his life, but his accomplishments speak for him. … The soul of his character was a quiet self-confidence.”