"Snow After Fire: A Memoir Of The Paradise Camp Fire And Its Aftermath"

"My heart drops when I take in the scenery," Kandi Maxwell writes, some four years after the Camp Fire. "Paradise is scarred. It will take years to heal the landscape, and much of the geography has been changed forever. It's soul crushing."

Though she and her husband Lloyd were cabin dwellers in the Sierra foothills, away from the fire, her two sons, "who lived on a small dead-end road off Pentz," had to evacuate on that fateful day. At the same time Kandi was dealing with chronic fatigue, Lloyd COPD.

The fire sets into motion a chain of family events recounted with skill and compassion in "Snow After Fire: A Memoir Of The Paradise Camp Fire And Its Aftermath" ($15.99 in paperback from Legacy Book Press LLC; also for Amazon Kindle). 

Maxwell will sign her book (which will be sold at a discount) at Chico's Barnes and Noble on Saturday, June 10 starting at noon.

Chapters range from Fall 2018 to Fall 2021 (and beyond, in the Epilogue). Maxwell closely observes the stresses brought on by family dislocation, her parents' failing health at the other end of the State, and tensions which threaten her marriage. "We needed our lives back. After almost a year of extending so much of ourselves to my family, we were drained. We didn't want to age this way. We wanted to live life on our own terms. … I missed the solitude of our off-grid cabin and longed for the seclusion of backcountry roads."

When Lloyd needs space and quiet, he brings a trailer to newly purchased land away from the cabin, and Kandi must ford snow and mud to visit. She's alone in the cabin, except for Poochie (renamed Little Bit). Eventually come reconciliation, a granddaughter's birthday celebration in Bille Park, and another move.

Maxwell realizes "writing was my way to find clarity in an often-confusing world. It provided structure to my messy emotions. It allowed me time to reflect and to discover something to be thankful for during the chaos. It was, and is, how I find hope."

Readers will sense that hope, and celebrate as well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Bardo"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Stride Out"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The Rosey View Of The World: One Woman's Journey Through The 20th Century"

Andrew Bassett (andrewscottbassett.com) "still living between Anderson and Cottonwood," realized that the eulogy he delivered at his mother's funeral several years ago evoked a life that would fill a book—and now it has. "Her life," he writes me, "was so amazing that I just had to create a novel that was part fact, part fiction." 

Bassett's mother, Rosetta, becomes "Rosey." Her youngest son, "Danny," is fighting writer's block after publishing a best-selling first novel. When Rosey dies in her eighties, Danny flies to Phoenix for the funeral even as his agent presses him for the long-promised manuscript.

"The Rosey View Of The World: One Woman's Journey Through The 20th Century" ($15.95 in paperback from Luminare Press; also for Amazon Kindle) is a captivating tale within a tale, recounting Danny's present-day woes but also his mother's life in notes she bequeathed to him (which fill most of the novel). Born in Northampton, England, Rosey, like Forrest Gump, seems to be present at history's hinge moments. 

Young Rosey survives the Battle of Britain; later, she doesn't tell her parents when, at sixteen, she and a friend frequent the club scene. She meets Max, a German prisoner of war, jovially escorted by British soldiers knowing he is no Nazi and will soon be returned to Germany. Max and Rosey spend hours together talking and dancing, little knowing that in the years to come they would meet again—and again.

Rosey marries an American soldier, lives in the segregated South, befriends a Black woman named Carol, becomes involved in the civil rights movement (attending Dr. King's "I Have a Dream" rally in Washington, DC), hangs out with Elvis and later the Beatles, and discovers a terrible secret about her soldier husband. Plain-spoken, with a deep sense of justice, Rosey breaks down sexist and racist barriers.

"When my mother faced a wall in her life," Danny tells his girlfriend, "she tore the wall down. She did everything she could to destroy the bloody thing … as she would have said." 

As the walls tumble in Danny's life perhaps a few will fall in the reader's life as well.

"The Story Of Christianity Told As Good News For All"

My friend and retired Butte College philosophy instructor Ric Machuga begins his new book with a provocative theological statement: "I believe in the God who can and will save everyone. My belief," he continues, "is grounded in a literal reading of St. Paul: 'Just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all' (Romans 5:18)."

The claim is provocative, of course, because at first glance it seems to override human free will. What about those who choose not to believe? In the book's sixteen chapters Machuga tackles the question head on, first through a philosophical lens and then through a theological lens. Even those who vehemently disagree will find I-never-thought-about-it-that-way insights in "The Story Of Christianity Told As Good News For All" ($15.99 in paperback from Quoir, quoir.com; also for Amazon Kindle).

If moderns sometimes talk about “choosing to believe,” Machuga questions the coherence of that claim. He tells his own story of how "God’s choreography" brought him to belief in universal salvation, belief that for him is as undeniable as the roses outside his office window. "Belief is voluntary," he writes, "but it is not chosen."

Central to Machuga's argument is that in Christianity, God is "non aliud," meaning "not 'another thing or person' in the universe." His key theological claim tracks with Augustine, that God created “a world with space and time, not in space and time.” God is not just another a thing in the universe competing with human free will. 

The book uses some important, and mostly jargon-free, philosophical distinctions to draw out the implications of this view, which allow for affirmation of the traditional Christian Creeds within the context of “salvation for all.” And, importantly, it places new emphasis on the doctrine of the Trinity and the revelation of this transcendent God through the God-man, Jesus of Nazareth.

Machuga’s own story of this gift of belief is woven into his account, and it’s clear his prayer is that this volume may also be part of the Holy Spirit’s choreography for the person who takes up this book, and reads.

"Missing In The Maldives"

Chico novelist Mike Paull brings readers the third in a series of international spy thrillers with "Missing In The Maldives" ($15.99 in paperback from Wings ePress, Inc., wingsepress.com; also for Amazon Kindle). 

The Republic of Maldives is a group of islands southwest of India and Sri Lanka, a touristy destination for the well-heeled and shadowy heels alike. One fine day in 2011 a body washes up on Thulusdhoo island, the victim's passport identifying him as Craig Cooper.

That's a bit of a conundrum since the real Craig Cooper ("Coop"), Deputy Director of the "Agency," is very much alive in Washington, DC. Five months earlier he and his Agency partner Zoe Fields had been shot; while Coop quickly returned to work, Zoe "remained in a deep coma for eight weeks…." 

But now she's well, and not a moment too soon. Coop convinces the Director to bring her back to the Agency (despite her disappearance for a time "with nine million dollars of Agency money," told in Book II, "She's Missing"). 

They are no strangers to dangerous international assignments (Coop is shot in the back in Book I, "Missing," as he searches for the rumored Iraqi gold hoard after the demise of Saddam Hussein). And now it seems Israel wants to find a rogue Mossad operative, Lev Cohen, who with his girlfriend Rachel Kagan murdered the Mossad director and absconded with the nine million. 

Earlier Zoe had pumped three bullets into Kagan's chest but Lev is nowhere to be found. And then word comes from the chief of the Maldives National Defense Force and Police Service, Shaquille Azeez, that the body is Craig Cooper is in the morgue.

Well, game on. When Coop is thrown into a Maldivian jail, he enlists a fellow prisoner to work on an escape plan. With Coop missing in the Maldives, Zoe sets out to find him. Along the way an intricate plot is revealed, spycraft is pushed to its limits, and, as Coop observes, "in this business, betrayal never comes from our enemies. It always comes from our friends."

Paull's crisp writing and endearing heroes make the pages fly by, but let the reader be warned: Trust no one.

"A Fickle Life"

Uncertainty reigns in the new novel by long-time Chicoan David Dirks. Now living in Brentwood with his wife, Karen, the author draws on his own life experiences to fashion a series of stories about the teenage years of one David Janzen. 

It's the 1960s. Now a sophomore at Del Rio Vista High School in a farming town in Central California, Janzen and his pal Jack Johnson are still smarting from their loss at the school's science fair a year earlier. They were convinced their rocket experiments would take top honors. 

Uh, no. 

Salley Marsh and her team win for hydroponically grown vegetables and "even Blake Sandy (my neighbor who is one year older and the older brother of Mandy Sandy) won attention with a model V-2 rocket."

For their biology class project David and Jack revisit their balloon experiments, this time monitoring the heartbeat of the rat-astronaut Gus Grissom as his capsule parachutes to the ground. Things don't go quite as anticipated—especially with teammates Molly Beth Brown and Mandy Sandy.

Readers should take each novel in order in the growing series, beginning with "The Art Of Stretching," then "A Fickle Wind," "Resurgam (Rise Again)," and, now, "A Fickle Life" ($7.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle). There's at least one more on the way since many loose ends are left hanging. And perhaps that's the point. 

The city council faces protests when it tries to ban hot-rodding; David's sister Martha is secretly seeing whiskey-drinking, Cuban-cigar-smoking Billy Martin, younger brother of Bobby, a bully who died in a car accident; and rumors abound that chemistry teacher Karl Grundig, "former lieutenant in the German Army during the war," is creating a powerful cabal, including Jack and his father, promoting Nazi beliefs.

As Janzen reflects on the story he's narrating, he realizes the good ol' days are over, when the big question was how to retaliate against dirt clods lobbed by neighbor kids. "Life was turning out to be a continuous stream of losses…. This year, it felt as if I was losing a sense of normalcy. Everything seemed out of sorts—very fickle. I wondered if life would return to normal."

Uh, no.

"Intercept: The U.S. Navy's Intelligence-Gathering Ships ('Cold War Spy Fleet') 1961-1969, 1985-1989"

In the early 1960s an "obscure entity" called the National Security Agency wanted to broaden its collection of signals intelligence (SIGINT). In addition to using land-based cryptologists, it worked with higher ups in the Navy to take some of the old World War II ships out of mothballs and convert them into "floating collection sites."

The work of the spy ships, with the first of eleven, the USS Oxford, commissioned in 1961, would end in 1969 after violent and deadly encounters (with the exception of the USS Sphinx monitoring Sandinista government communications off Nicaragua in the late 1980s). 

The ships were virtually defenseless. In 1967, during the Six-Day War, "Israeli forces surprisingly attacked the USS Liberty off the Sinai Peninsula … killing 34 Americans and wounding 171 others." In 1968, the USS Pueblo "was forcibly captured by North Korean forces … in international waters. Eighty-two officers and men were taken as prisoners. The crew was tortured and beaten … and spent eleven months in captivity until finally released on 23 December 1968."

The stories of all the spy ships are told with care and precision by Chico writer Cdr. David Bruhn, U.S. Navy (Retired), using publicly available sources. 

"Intercept: The U.S. Navy's Intelligence-Gathering Ships ('Cold War Spy Fleet') 1961-1969, 1985-1989" ($30 in paperback from Heritage Books, heritagebooks.com), with a foreword by former Acting Under Secretary of Defense Charles L. Cragin, and a cover painting by Richard DeRosset depicting the Korean attack on the Pueblo, also contains 138 historical photographs (including one of John Wayne) along with maps and diagrams.

The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty remains controversial to this day. The evidence points to deadly misidentification, misinformation and miscommunication. The Israelis apparently believed the vessel was a warship; when aircraft attacked "tragically they either shot away the American flag or the halyards burned. The flag was gone by the second and third passes…." The USS Liberty had just four .50 caliber machine guns and some small arms, no match for the air attack and subsequent torpedoes.

Bruhn celebrates the heroism of those who served aboard the spy ships, and "Intercept" is a fitting memorial.

"Breaking Night: A Memoir Of Forgiveness, Survival, And My Journey From Homeless To Harvard"

"I envision my mother," Liz Murray writes. "The symmetry of our lives has become clearer to me lately. She was homeless at sixteen too. Ma also dropped out of school. Like me, Ma made daily decisions between hallway or park, subway or rooftop. The Bronx, for Ma, also meant wandering through dangerous streets, through neighborhoods with lampposts littered with flyers of police sketches and sirens blaring at all hours of the night."

Born in 1980 to drug addicted parents, Murray found herself on the streets after her mother died of AIDS and her father, HIV positive, moved to a men's shelter. Her harrowing childhood, the subject of a Lifetime movie, is told in the chilling and challenging "Breaking Night: A Memoir Of Forgiveness, Survival, And My Journey From Homeless To Harvard" ($26 in hardcover from Hyperion; also in paperback and ebook editions).

Murray was the scheduled keynote speaker for the Jesus Center's spring luncheon at the California Park Lakeside Pavilion, on Saturday, March 25.

As a homeless teen she bounced from friend to friend. "Sometimes we would stay out until the dark sky grew light again—what we in the Bronx called 'breaking night.'" Drugs and booze were plentiful, though, she writes, "I was repulsed by drugs and alcohol and didn't go near either of them." She remembers something her mother said as she was coming down after shooting up: "Lizzy, don't ever get high, baby. It ruined by life. You'd break my heart if you ever got high."

Something inside made her imagine other possibilities; she completed alternative high school, received a New York Times scholarship, got into Harvard after being waitlisted, and graduated in 2009. 

She realized that just as her "homeless friends were once certain that there was simply 'no way out' … homeless person or business person, doctor or teacher, whatever your background may be, the same holds true for each of us: life takes on the meaning you give it … the only time to embrace life fully is now."

"The Wisdom Of Hobbits: Unearthing Our Humanity At 3 Bagshot Row"

"What is needed in life is balance," writes Chico author Matthew Distefano, "between an adventure and a home, between a quest to The Lonely Mountain or even Mordor, and a cozy hole in the ground at the end of Bagshot Row; a home where we can tend to our flower and vegetable gardens, smoke our pipe-weed, tell our tales over pints of ale, and enjoy the company of the very fine and extraordinary Hobbits, Elves, Dwarves, Men, and wizards we have in our own lives."

While Distefano doesn't supply pipe-weed or pints of ale, he does provide "The Wisdom Of Hobbits: Unearthing Our Humanity At 3 Bagshot Row" ($19.99 in paperback from Chico publisher Quoir, quoir.com; also for Amazon Kindle). It's a deep dive into J.R.R. Tolkien's legendarium with an emphasis on the halflings--who prove to be far more nuanced than portrayed in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.

The book fleshes out life in the Shire (and other Hobbit habitats) and the nurturing of Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam who find themselves unlikely heroes. (Helpful footnotes orient readers; appendices display the author's sketches of the Shire, maps, a listing of three dozen plants grown or farmed in the Shire, and historical Hobbits.) 

"Western culture," Distefano notes, "has, by and large, fallen out of love with the simple life." The foreword, from best friend and writing collaborator Michael Machuga, puts it this way: "It seems more correct to say we work in order to make our relaxation rewarding, than to say we relax to be more productive at work."

Hobbits are tillers of the soil and spinners of tales and though they are not perfect (they are wary of strangers and even of other Hobbits), they can teach Big Folk much about the value of friendship—especially when an "adventure" awaits and, with trembling resolve, they embark on the Road. Distefano opens to readers philosophical/theological questions about free will and providence, sacrifice and loss, and living in the now.

The book is a fitting homage to Tolkien, "the greatest mythologist," and, like a Hobbit, a friendly companion for the daily messiness of life. 

"Help! What Is My Purpose?: Understanding Life Purpose And How To Discover Yours"

A chance encounter with an author in Chico led a reporter to pass along news of a book about finding one's purpose. Writer Ada Anisiobi, with a pharmacology degree, found herself taking a good job that didn't match her passions. "I was a pharmacist working in the telecoms industry," well paid but bored.

Then the breakthrough. "It was only when I stood up as an instructor, training my colleagues, that I experienced some joy. I knew then, without any doubt, that I was created to impart knowledge." And that knowledge is focused on helping others find their purpose. On social media, "I heard young people crying for help, guidance and direction. One girl wrote, 'Please help me, I don't know what to do with my life.'"

"Help! What Is My Purpose?: Understanding Life Purpose And How To Discover Yours" ($13.99 in paperback from 50dot7; also for Amazon Kindle) is Anisiobi's answer. Geared for teens, the book defines life purpose and then helps readers discern their own.

For Anisiobi, "life purpose can be defined as the reason for the existence of an individual human being … the result you're expected to produce during your life." It's "pre-determined, so you don't choose it; rather, you discover what it is." Fulfilling one's purpose is "your contribution to justify the free oxygen the Earth gives you. Purpose is that chore, task, or assignment you were created to fulfill."

Work is crucial. "You ought to pursue a career that's connected to your purpose. You should select one that stirs your passion … and fills your heart with joy." Too much emphasis on prestige careers stifles one's purpose. "Within the Nigerian context," for example, "this pattern is quite common. Many parents expect their children to choose professions for financial and status reasons. They ignore their children's potential…."

Identifying one's purpose means answering a series of probing questions about what one loves or hates, one's strengths and temperament (sanguine, choleric, melancholy, phlegmatic), one's uniqueness. Education is key, and so is hard work.

In the end, she writes, "How about you discovering your purpose and letting the world pay you for it?"

"Heart-Land: Growing Up In The Middle Of Everything (Expanded Edition)"

Chico writer/photographer Doug Keister chronicled his kid years growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, "the middle kid, born in the middle of the country, in the middle of the century" (1948), in a fittingly titled book called "Heart-Land: Growing Up In The Middle Of Everything." 

That book came out in 2013 but there is more to tell, and so Keister's forty-sixth book is born with the all-new title of "Heart-Land: Growing Up In The Middle Of Everything (Expanded Edition)" ($12.99 in paperback, independently published; also for Amazon Kindle).

The new book brings in the chapters from the earlier tome, adds a few to round out the kid years, and then takes Keister into an emerging adulthood with little interest in academics but very great interest in dark rooms; well, photography darkrooms. What develops is funny, wry, poignant.

That section concludes with his "death-defying road trip" to California in 1968, but the book itself ends with ten short pieces: "addendums, anecdotes and associated aggrievements." 

That includes the incredible story of what happened when, in 1965, "I acquired close to three hundred 5"x7" glass negatives" from a friend, which turned out to have hundreds of images of Lincoln residents from the early twentieth century, mostly of the city's Black population. But who was the photographer? That took decades to determine, but in 2012, after an exhibition sponsored by Chico State, the Smithsonian's new National Museum of African American History and Culture took notice.

Keister calls himself a "word-miner," starting with teenage fascination about any "colorful word or phrase," including euphemisms, dagnabbit. Speaking of which, in the "Real Sex!!!" chapter he writes of his "first standard-issue embarrassing sex" at 21 in Berkeley. "Intoxicants were involved. In brief (and I can assure you that is precisely what it was) my experience was akin to shaking up a warm can of Coca-Cola for, let's say, about four years, and popping the top."

Now, even though he's technically a "senior citizen," "people often call me Dougie, and most days I wake up with a child-like sense of wonder…. I chalk it up to my great fortune of growing up in the middle of everything."

"Hermosa"

Yesika Salgado "is a Los Angeles based Salvadoran poet who writes about her family, her culture, her city, and her fat body. Salgado is a two-time National Poetry Slam finalist and the recipient of the 2020 International Latino Book Award in Poetry." 

In a presentation entitled "To The Bloom—An Evening of Poetry and Conversation," sponsored by the Butte College Diversity Committee, she will be reading from her work Thursday, February 23 from 7:00-9:00 pm at the Chico Women's Club. It's free and open to the public.

In "Hermosa" ($16.95 in paperback from Not a Cult; also for Amazon Kindle), Salgado completes a trilogy of transformational meditations begun in "Corazón" and "Tesoro." She uses free verse (with few capital letters) to chart the course, through many shoals, of becoming "hermosa" (gorgeous, with a kind of seductive flair).

In "The Trick" the poet confesses: "today I am not a writer. I am my halted Spanish and insecurities. I am fingers that know letters but not grammar. my only degree is my library card. I read someone else's words and shrink. turn into a speck of envy. … can't stop feeling like I am a cheap magician’s trick. if I move too quickly I’ll give myself away. you'll learn, I am only stacking these words together to pull myself out. I don't know how you got here. I wasn't trying to save you. all I have been doing is staying alive."

Staying alive is not always easy. In "The Almost Death," the poet writes: "did I tell you / about the time / I was dying? / about my uterus / that couldn't stop bleeding / the doctors blaming my fatness / and me agreeing / did I tell you / about the time / I couldn't get dressed / because I was more crime scene / than anything…."

There are childhood traumas and times when "love goes sour." Laments, yes, but also a self-discovery that is sometimes sexually explicit. 

In a word addressed to "my love" (the reader?), Salgado writes "I hope within these pages you are also able to find your own beauty, what calls you home, what sets you free. … in full bloom, Yesika."

"The Cat And The King"

Meghan Irene, co-host of the Writing On Air program on KZFR (kzfr.org) and a Camp Fire survivor living in Chico, posted on Facebook (poetmirene) about a story she wrote in 7th grade.

When the fire consumed it, she rewrote "The Cat And The King" ($22 in paperback, independently published) "with the intention of capturing the magic and meaning that I had when I was eleven years old." The story was "brought to life with original watercolor on tea-stained paper" by Steve Ferchaud, illustrator extraordinaire (who sneaked her beloved Mt. Shasta into the background).

"Long, long ago," we're told, "in the Kingdom of Starrybourne, lived a princess named Isabel Wilde. Isabel's father was the infamous King Henry Wilde III … a very greedy man. As a child, Henry longed for attention, friendship, and love. Yet, once Henry was given reign as King of Starrybourne, he cared not for empathy and goodwill."

Trees are chopped down to build castle walls, roads are cut through villages, and where "songbirds once chanted, now only the caw of a lonely raven could be heard."

Isabel, isolated in her castle, dreams of exploring "the emerald forests and cobblestone streets." Later, walking the hallways, she sees "a small cat with a tawny star on his forehead." She calls him Louie, because, why not? When Louie pounces on a strange, glowing emerald, something begins to change in her.

Louie gives her courage to venture outside the castle into the bleak countryside. "If only I could save this land," she tells Louie, "and give back to the people what my father has taken away." That's her desire, and suddenly Isabel remembers the story "about the magical wishstone of the Starrybourne forest … a mysterious gem that could make a single wish come true for whomever held the stone."

Her wish? "I wish you could be King, Louie. I know you would show me how to make this world a better place, and you would use your power to do something wonderful."

And just like that, Louie is King and the King is Louie. What happens next is the stuff of dreams, a valentine to the hope deep within each of us.

"Science And Religions In America: A New Look"

"I'm fascinated," writes Greg Cootsona, "by the way in which cultural forces we call 'scientific' and others we name 'religious' interact (in) a stunning variety." That variety is displayed in "Science And Religions In America: A New Look" ($24.95 in paperback from Routledge; also for Amazon Kindle), written for his undergraduate classes at Chico State, where he is Lecturer in Comparative Religion and Humanities, but immensely accessible to the general reader.

If the mention of "science and religion" evokes the supposed conflict between science and a more literalist Christianity, Cootsona shows things are not so simple. 

His goal, admirably achieved, is to broaden the reader's understanding of how the sciences (think Big Bang or human evolution) interact with multiple religious traditions in the United States (not just Christianity but Buddhism, nature and indigenous religions, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and those who identify as "spiritual but not religious").

Though Cootsona presents historical context, the focus is on our current "age of technology" (an ambiguous "gift" of science) which raises questions: Can genuine Hindu worship take place electronically? What is the impact of what Cootsona calls "streaming spirituality" in his research on emerging adults who no longer identify with a particular religious tradition? 

Each central chapter begins with a "lightning round" Q&A about the tradition's core commitments, followed by a thoughtful engagement on questions of science and technology with experts in the field (including Chico State colleagues Sarah Pike on nature religions, Daniel Veidlinger on Buddhism, and Kate McCarthy on religious pluralism). 

The relationship between the given tradition and science is sometimes tense, sometimes independent, sometimes collaborative. Cootsona resists efforts to reduce every tradition to an ethics of love, noting that one's religious experience is shaped by the surrounding culture and needs to be addressed on its own terms. 

The bottom line is that "religions retain their vitality as they engage contemporary culture and that science is a key cultural player."

"Shadowman"

"Welcome to Vietnam."

Drafted in 1966, nineteen-year-old Phillip I. Elkins (better known today as Señor Felipe, host of "LA Sounds with Sr. Felipe" on Chico's KZFR.org) little knew what awaited him. Years later, living in Chico, flashbacks would haunt his life and become a relationship wrecking-ball.

Elkins is writing a series of autobiographies that capture the eras (and errors) of his life. In "Shadowman" ($20 in paperback from Sr. Felipe Press, srfelipe.weebly.com; also for Amazon Kindle), Elkins tells the story of his life in Chico.

This time he writes in the third person, using his best friend's name as the central character, mixing in excerpts from earlier books, memories from childhood (where Elkins was known as "Cookie") and his year in Vietnam. 

Elkins notes that "Shadowman" was written "when I was having a pretty rough time with things. I was going through my second divorce, and I was letting go of a successful business that I had for several years, and I couldn't seem to find a suitable job."

PTSD leaves him with a "terrible short-term memory, I was explosively angry, and I was constantly exhausted. I felt confused and disorganized…." So the story of "Eddie Pacheco" and his disintegrating marriage to Peaches is dark indeed, especially after Peaches is sexually assaulted by a stranger.

Eddie's anger is palpable. But who to be angry with—an unknown assailant, some higher ups who promoted a purposeless war? After Vietnam he is physically whole but mentally wounded. In one horrific incident, "Eddie throws up again and again. He wanders off, seeing fire burning, smelling oil, gas, flesh, clothing, and bone all burning together. He retches some more. He feels dizzy and weak, and he falls to the ground and lays there, grateful that he's still alive but somehow wishing he wasn't."

Depressed in Chico, thinking of jumping off a cliff in Upper Park, he meets a woman who is about to do the same thing. The two are saved by a ranger with a surprising childhood connection to Eddie. Something begins to change in him; "the shadows are fading," he realizes. 

And there's an old childhood memory, pushing back against the void: "Lookie, lookie, lookie—Here comes Cookie!"

"Horsemanship And Life: A True Story"

For Chico State grad Michelle Scully, taking her horse Wish for an outing in 2011 would end up changing her life forever. Not sensing (or ignoring) the horse's hesitancy, Scully pushes Wish to lope. When a rabbit darts through Wish's legs the horse bolts; Scully is thrown down hard and her back broken. The story is told in "Broken: Tales Of A Titanium Cowgirl."

Eleven years later, in the midst of pandemic and the loss of many of her beloved animals, Scully takes stock in "Horsemanship And Life: A True Story" ($21.95 in paperback at barnesandnoble.com, published by Spinning Sevens Press). 

In 73 short chapters, each with a key quote and photograph, Scully has written a realistic and yet stubbornly optimistic book that will find a treasured place in a reader's heart.

She and husband Pat live on a multigenerational farm in Northern California. Scully notes that 11 is "77 in dog years … when people ask how long Pat and I've been married … it's been 196." 

"I would never have imagined the journey before me," she writes; "a journey of wreck, wonder, and recovery, filled with lessons learned from horses, dogs, birds, and even cats." In getting a second chance at life, she has "learned the beauty of brokenness; of how letting go of my expectations and in embracing vulnerability, I'd find a new way to live…."

Interspersed throughout the book is the tale of Scully's new horse, True. "His head looks like it was dipped in warm milk chocolate, and his body explodes into roan and white and blue…." But True has a mind of his own. 

"One of the most transformative horsemanship lessons I've (slowly) learned is work with the horse before you. Not the horse of your expectations, the horse of your imagination, not the horse in your story, but the actual one you're with, in real-time."

And when the world seems too overwhelming, Scully offers words that came to her while doing chores: "Fire drought politics hate/ They're beyond my purview and beyond anything I can change, but I can water this tree./ I can save crickets./ I can dust around spiders./ I can pray."