Sitton in on class

When W. Gary Sitton was asked to teach a graduate-level course at Chico State University called Technical Startups, he insisted on a class time of 6:00 a.m. and the freedom to pick his own guest presenters. “We ended up with twenty-five registered students, mostly electrical engineering, computer engineering, and computer science majors.” The class ran on coffee and Krispy Kreme, he writes, and though the focus was on high-tech entrepreneurism many of the business lessons shared that spring of 2014 would be applicable to any startup.

So a book was born, a “translation” of the course into the written word, mixing business acumen with the personal. “Fire Up Your Startup And Keep It Up: Lessons From Twelve Business And Entrepreneur Experts” ($18.95 from iUniverse, also for Amazon Kindle) begins with Sitton’s own story.

Born in Chico, he found his calling in software development and in 1981 founded Bi-Tech which, according to Bloomberg Business, “offers software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education, and the public sectors.” Still based in Chico, Bi-Tech is now “a subsidiary of SunGard Data Systems Inc.”

Though he sold the company in 1995, Sitton continues his close ties to the industry, and the invited guests (who covered marketing and sales, human resources, customer service, research and development, going global and social media) generally had connections with Bi-Tech. Each chapter includes a list of “lessons learned.” James Bennett, Vice President of Technology at Bi-Tech, discusses the clash of cultures when companies merge. Sitton’s wife, Judy, “the conscience of Bi-Tech,” writes about creating effective customer service.

Sitton himself closes the book with a list of dogmas (that shouldn’t be) and best practices. Consider “Axiom #9: Hire a few people who tease and cut up (they keep things light.)” That’s reflected in the book, with plenty of street smarts stirred in.

Sitton will be signing copies of his book at Lyon Books in Chico on Monday at 7:00 p.m. An archive of an interview with Sitton, scheduled to air on Nancy’s Bookshelf, with host Nancy Wiegman, should be available at kchofm.podbean.com.

Acclaimed novelist coming to Chico

Christian Kiefer, on the English faculty at American River College in Sacramento, writes in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada where he lives with his wife and five sons.

Kiefer’s brooding, probing style is on full display in “The Animals” ($25.95 in hardcover from W.W. Norton; also for Amazon Kindle), the story of Bill Reed, a loner who operates the North Idaho Wildlife Rescue. Among the hurt animals is Bill’s beloved grizzly, Majer, blind now but a lover of marshmallows. Bill is in love with Grace, the veterinarian, and her son Jude, both abandoned by Grace’s now ex-husband.

But Bill is a man with a past--Nat is his real name--and he is forced to confront it when his former lifelong friend Rick tracks him down after his release from prison. It is a past of booze, cocaine and gambling, abject poverty, thievery and broken friendships. There is violence here and loss upon loss and a final, deadly confrontation.

Yet something else. Nat remembers when he was thirteen going shooting with his brother and Rick. They came across a red-tailed hawk struggling on the ground and put it in a coat.

“The hawk is quiet but you can feel its life even through the jacket, a kind of fierce and fragile whirring that seems to run up through your arms and into your chest. What thoughts you have are about the impossibility of this moment, that some great and mighty creature of the air might find itself broken beside a roadway just at the moment that you and your friend and your brother happen to pass. And yet here it is between your hands, a wild thing as if from some storybook.”

That memory is part of Nat, too. “But the universe held its workings in secret,” he understood, “and a man could claim nothing from that void and instead would need to design in that obscure and private place that is his heart the laws that would govern his life.”

Kiefer will be honored with a book signing at Lyon Books in Chico, Thursday, March 26 at 7:00 p.m.

Women of mud and manure

Gail Jenner is no stranger to Chico. She graduated from Chico State University “but we are still in Etna (five generations on the ranch now).” In her latest book she’s an editor, collecting dozens of short reminiscences from ranch and farm women and contributing four essays herself.

“Ankle High And Knee Deep: Women Reflect On Western Rural Life” ($16.95 in paperback from TwoDot; also for Amazon Kindle) features contributions from both new and established writers, grouped into such categories as “horse sense” and “lessons.” Jenner notes that “this is not a faith-based book, but this collection of essays does underscore traditional values while providing an ofttimes humorous look at life spent at the wrong end of a tractor, cow, or horse.”

Among Jenner’s lessons: “Don’t hold onto trouble; you’ve got to spread the manure around to make it effective fertilizer.” Those who live on the land, and from the land, can’t help reflecting. “Maybe,” she says, “that’s why farmers eventually become philosophers.”

Chico contributor Laurel Hill-Ward remembers “Mom Was A Beekeeper.” “When Mom got a call from the school, she’d drop everything and head to the rescue of one of her seven children.” She was unmistakable in her “men’s khaki Dickies” and “men’s size ten high-top Redwing boots,” an outfit designed “to keep bees from crawling up her pant legs.”

Madeleine DeAndreis-Ayers knows “Why Liberals Shouldn’t Own Chickens.” “What the liberal eventually learns after he recycles all the self-help books he has read is that a rooster will always be a rooster.” That means “he will always sexually assault every hen within reach and in full view of everyone, including the children who are being raised without television because of the media’s gratuitous sex and violence.” In the end, the liberal will discover that the ax that chops wood “has another use.”

Funny, poignant, telling. As Jenner writes in “Doing What Comes Naturally,” “Deep character is what is cultivated when you have to rely on the seasons and weather--and hope.”

The author was interviewed by Nancy Wiegman of KCHO’s Nancy’s Bookshelf, and the archive is here: http://bit.ly/1EyyIXH.

Chico author’s compelling novel

In the acknowledgements to her just-published novel, Chicoan Emily Gallo makes special mention of Tin Roof Bakery and Cafe, “where I spent many hours writing over endless cups of Earl Grey.”

Her protagonist, Finn (Finnegan) McGee, who “arrived in New York at age eighteen after a dirt-poor, miserable childhood in Ireland and never went back,” favors whiskey rather than tea. McGee became a best-selling writer but now his best-selling days seem long past. After the death of his second wife, McGee, penniless and often drunk, heads to Los Angeles to stay with his daughter Kate, “an attractive, athletic, forty-two year old with a short pixie haircut, slightly built and spry like her father.”

Kate lives in a town where everybody walks, a place that’s a magnet to the homeless of every description. “Venice Beach” ($14.95 in paperback from CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; also for Amazon Kindle) ushers the reader into the sights and sounds of the famous boardwalk.

“There were singers and dancers doing everything from reggae to hip-hop to eye-popping break dancing. A muscular man wearing a bright royal blue speedo whizzed past on rollerblades followed by a man adorned with twigs and leaves walking on stilts. There were acrobats walking across tightropes and jumping over a line of six or seven people touching their toes. A man did a twenty-minute interactive show walking barefoot on broken glass as professional as any you’d see in Las Vegas.”

As Finn sinks further into booze and pills, he befriends some of the boardwalk oddballs, like Bella, a hoarder and Holocaust survivor, and Jed, a mysterious man with a cat named Mother whose past becomes both Finn’s liberation and maybe his demise.

The novel is compulsively readable and more is promised from Gallo’s talented pen.

The author will be reading and signing copies of her book at Lyon Books in Chico on Thursday, March 12 at 7:00 p.m. She will be the featured guest on Nancy’s Bookshelf, with Nancy Wiegman, March 13 at 10:00 a.m on Northstate Public Radio, KCHO, 91.7 FM, or streaming at mynspr.org.

The Year of the Ram

There’s a tale to be told. “The Jade Emperor, ruler of Heaven and Earth, wished to have a big birthday celebration. He invited his favorite animals from throughout the land, and organized a Great Race to see which one of them could reach the palace first.”

The winner would become the first Jade Star, but other stars would be created as each animal crossed the finish line. Just how some of them got across the river is part of the charm of “The Great Race: How The Chinese Zodiac Came To Be” ($17.95 in hardcover from Greenleaf Book Group Press, minimagellan.com; also for Amazon Kindle). Written by Charles Huang and Stacey Hirata, with illustrations by Jerome Lu, the book explains the ordering of the lunar calendar, from the rat to the pig, twelve animals in all.

Huang “co-created the Guitar Hero video game franchise” and Hirata, “a fourth-generation Japanese-American ... raised in San Francisco,” has led “creative teams for hundreds of video game creators.”

I also found out that Hirata has visited Chico several times and as a child swam in the Feather River during the hot summers. She dedicates the book “to my amazing husband Ford (Year of the Monkey) and my favorite twins Kennedy and Ryder (Year of the Ox).”

Some of the animals take advantage of others in the race. The Rat was small and asked the Ox for a ride. “The Ox, being generous and kind, agreed and began to cross the river. When the Ox reached the other side, the Rat quickly jumped off his back and ran across the finish line, earning first place in the Great Race.” The Ox came in second.

The Rooster found a raft stuck in some weeds, and enlisted “the friendly Monkey and the rugged Ram” to help. “The Jade Emperor was so impressed with their cooperation that he awarded the Ram eighth place, the Monkey ninth place, and the Rooster tenth place.”

The Chinese New Year on February 19 ushered in the Year of the Ram (or Goat or Sheep, depending on who’s telling the story). And now you know why.

A father’s tall tales

“Our first move was from Quebec to California,” writes Paradise author Johanne Cronk Carreau. “We were a French-Canadian version of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies.’ Father was the only one who knew how to drive or how to speak English.” The stories told by Gilbert Carreau “wrapped around us like strong threads in an indestructible fabric ... a bond that outlasted his life.”

Five stories are told in “My Father’s Big Toe” ($12.95 in paperback from JoJo Books; available from myfathersbigtoe.com or from Lyon Books in Chico, where Carreau was a recent guest). Steve Ferchaud provided the interior illustrations as well as the cover, which features elements of each of the stories.

The title tale introduces the fearsome Loup-Garou, “a mean and hairy beast with the body of a wolf and the face of a man.” He flies through the sky in a magic canoe. And if you saw him, a body part would catch on fire. Is that while Gilbert’s big toe lacked a toenail?

In “Alligator Dance,” Carreau’s father has to fight off a pesky alligator so he can fix a sick tree in the Florida everglades. In the 70s Gilbert worked for a while as an electrician in Zaire, and brought back the story of “Pygmy Stew.” Bottom line: “I didn’t get cooked.”

“A Ball Of String” is about a boy Gilbert grew up with who got a strange present for his ninth birthday. Gilbert’s friend was in a hurry to grow up, and pulling on the string made time go forward. Dream or no, there’s a moral in there somewhere.

In “The Magic Carpet” Carreau writes: “Father gestured a royal invitation with a sweep of his open hand. He bent forward with one arm folded at his waist and the other at his back. ‘Welcome,’ he greeted us in a magician’s tone. ‘Step right up and experience an astonishing and miraculous adventure. Take a seat, take a chance, and take a journey.’ He raised his arms and in a wave unrolled an invisible magic carpet. My sister and I sat as his feet, our shoulders bouncing with giggles.”

Gilbert is the giggle-maker.

A novel from George Keithley

“Ring Of Fire” ($19.95 in paperback from Plain View Press) begins with a bang--the eruption of Mt. St. Helens--and carries the reader into the life of a family that is set to explode as well. Chicoan George Keithley, renowned for his poetry, brings a sharp sensitivity to the human condition in the story of Dr. Robert Pell, a volcano expert.

Pell is working with Dick Darwin of the National Emergency Planning Agency, whom Darwin wants to become the voice of authority in case other volcanoes threaten to blow. Too many lives gone at Mt. St. Helens caused by haphazard responses from state and local agencies. Dick is out to change that.

Pell is headquartered near Lassen Peak and Darwin is immediately smitten with his daughter, Linda, who, like Dick, is in her twenties. Eventually they live together for a while in the Bay Area, but there’s a parting amidst confusion about the nature of love.

Dr. Pell’s wife, Annette, is addicted to cocaine and her dealer, A.J., a courteous young man, takes a liking to Linda. For reasons revealed in the novel, Dr. Pell cannot abide A.J. “But while Doctor Pell had traveled the Pacific Rim,” Dick says at one point, “lecturing on its volcanic hazards, his wife had remained at home where she understood, if anyone did, that the family too is a ring of fire.”

That includes Pell’s brother, Father Ted, a misplaced Catholic Priest taken with the writings of an old pioneer who sanctioned the killing of Ishi’s people and then spent a lifetime repenting. “The fire that burns us with our guilt is the fire of love, isn’t it?” Father Ted tells his congregation. “Only if we care for each other can we know our guilt, feel shame, and hope to be forgiven.”

The tragedies that bring the story to an end offer hope, but muted. Keithley has written a deeply insightful account of painful love that will not soon be forgotten.

Free time in Israel

Michael Leitner teaches in the Department of Recreation, Hospitality, and Parks Management at Chico State University; Sara Leitner teaches in the Department of Kinesiology. Together the couple has made extensive study of leisure--free time--with a special emphasis on Israel. And now they've produced a remarkable book exploring "Israeli Life and Leisure In The 21st Century" ($40 in paperback from Sagamore Publishing; also available in ebook format at sagamorepub.com).

The book is a collection of reports from a wide variety of scholars as well as those involved in leisure movements in Israel today. The 55 chapters focus on aspects of Israeli life outsiders may know little about, from folk dance to chess, weddings to wine tourism.

Eight chapters deal with "recreation programs for promoting peace in Israel," such as ice hockey and Friendship Games. Nine chapters present facets of leisure diversity in Israel, including "leisure culture in Arab society in Israel"; life of the Ultra-Orthodox; recreation for those with special needs; and "calculating hedonism among Israeli gay men."

The Leitners contribute several chapters, and note in the introduction that though Israel is "one of the safest places in the world to visit," "because of the unique security threats that Israel faces, military service is mandatory for Jews. Males serve for 3 years after high school and women serve for 2 years." An epilogue discusses "Israeli Leisure and Life Under Rocket Fire," and Michael Leitner writes that he and Sara were living in Tel Aviv in July 2014 when war broke out and "red alert sirens were sounding at least twice daily." Beach times by the Mediterranean Sea are interrupted by rocket alerts.

Yet the Leitners insist "the future is bright" for Israel; "its people are among the happiest in the world ... there is so much more than what is shown in the popular media." Their book is a corrective, with something surprising on every page.

Michael and Sara Leitner will be presenting their book and signing copies at Congregation Beth Israel, 1336 Hemlock Street in Chico, this afternoon from 4:00 - 5:15 p.m. Admission is free and light refreshments will be served.

It doesn’t have to be “creation vs. evolution”

Consider: “A graduate student immersed in evolutionary biology at a major university was on the verge of completing his doctoral degree when Jesus captured his heart and he turned over his life to the sovereign God of the universe.” Did becoming a Christian committed to the Bible’s authority mean the end of this student’s studies in evolutionary biology? Not at all, writes Gary Fugle, longtime biology instructor at Butte College, recently retired. In fact, says the Paradise author, and my friend, “this is my story.”

That story has led to “Laying Down Arms To Heal The Creation-Evolution Divide” ($35 in paperback from Wipf and Stock), just-published and the product of years of reflection. Fugle writes to those “who are softened to the possibility of reconciliation in which the powerful message of Christian faith and the fascinating scientific understanding of evolution are integrated,” not to young-earth creationists or to “committed atheists ... convinced that these are two mutually exclusive propositions.”

Though Fugle recognizes that some biologists are uncomfortable with a professing Christian among their ranks, he writes primarily to conservative Christians uncomfortable with an evolutionary biologist within the fold.

Identifying himself as an “evolutionary creationist” (“God utilized the modifying and molding processes of evolution over very long periods of time to create the vast diversity of life on earth”), Fugle addresses a number of issues with compassion and grace: Was there a real Adam and Eve? Was there death before the Fall? Doesn’t an evolutionary view require purely naturalistic explanations? Why would God use evolution?

The book is not defensive; rather, in clear, accessible language, it’s a celebration of science (especially the section on “the value of biological evolution”) and a paean of praise to the Creator.

The author will present a talk entitled “Should God Be Mentioned in Public Science Classrooms?” at the Science and Religion conference, February 6 (5:30 - 8:30 p.m.) and 7 (8:00 a.m. - noon) at Colusa Hall on the Chico State University campus. Suggested donation at the door is $10, $5 for students. Check “Science and Religion Conference (2015)” on Facebook for details.

God, miracles and free will

Butte College philosophy instructor Ric Machuga, my friend and colleague, has just published “Three Theological Mistakes: How To Correct Enlightenment Assumptions About God, Miracles, And Free Will” ($33 in paperback from Cascade Books).

For Machuga, the European “Enlightenment” of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with the flourishing of experimental science and consequent love of mechanistic explanations, seriously distorted the thinking about God. The consequences, he writes, have been profound, and profoundly disturbing.

Mechanism assumes that “physical causes always have predictable effects fully determined by the laws of nature.” If that’s the case, so Enlightenment thinking goes, then these laws can be fully quantified mathematically. The implication is that “if something is physically caused, then it was not caused by God” (and vice versa). And the cause has to be one or the other. If an outbreak of cholera devastates the invading Assyrians, then the Biblical tradition ascribing the cause to God (Isaiah 37:36) is rejected.

These are all bad ideas, Machuga argues, because they’re false, but also because they embroil Christians in controversies over free will vs. an all-powerful God; who or what is responsible for evil; whether God acts miraculously; how hell can exist if God is good; and whether God’s existence can be known in the first place.

By contrast, the author responds with comprehensive “correctives” drawn from the perhaps surprising agreement between St. Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Catholic philosopher, and Karl Barth, the Reformed Protestant theologian in the twentieth. The book will repay careful reading and may lead to an “enlightenment” of a far better sort.

What unfolds is an understanding of God and his creation that transcends either/or thinking, exposes Enlightenment errors, and sets the stage for the working out of a deep and winsome Christianity.

The author will be presenting a talk on “two views of God” at the Science and Religion conference, February 6 (5:30 - 8:30 p.m.) and 7 (8:00 a.m. - noon) at Colusa Hall on the Chico State University campus. Suggested donation at the door is $10, $5 for students. Check “Science and Religion Conference (2015)” on Facebook for details.

A fighter pilot remembers

Robert “Smoky” Vrilakas was born in 1918 on his parents’ farm near Red Bluff. His father was a Greek immigrant, his mother a teacher from Wisconsin, and his nickname came from his love of cigars as a high school student from Proberta.

He received his draft notice in the spring of 1941, reporting to the selective service board in Red Bluff “for induction into the army. I sold my beloved Model A Ford for $80” and he was off to basic training at Fort Ord.

It was the beginning of an extraordinary career in the military, where he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Legion of Merit, the Air Force Commendation Medal, and more. He tells his story in “Look, Mom--I Can Fly!: Memoirs Of A World War II P-38 Fighter Pilot” ($16.95 in paperback from Amethyst Moon Publishing, ampubbooks.com; also for Amazon Kindle) which includes maps and a wealth of photographs.

Eventually he had the opportunity to train as a pilot. “Flying took me into another world. ... For better or worse, I was hooked.” Then, “about midway through advanced flight training a notice appeared on the bulletin board asking for eighty volunteers to fly P-38s after graduation.” Vrilakas signed up.

He trained at Luke Air Base and graduated in 1943; two others in his class would make a name for themselves, including Chuck Yeager who would become the first human to travel faster than sound, and Dick Catledge, who later “organized and led the first Air Force ‘Thunderbird’ demonstration flight team.”

“The P-38,” Vrilakas writes, “was an awesome sight to us. It was at that time the Air Corps’ top high-performance, high-altitude fighter.” (The “prop wash” once knocked over a portable toilet. The guy inside “made a do-or-die dash for safety.”)

Assigned at first to a base in Tunisia for the 94th “Hat in the Ring” Fighter Squadron, the author flew 50 missions, and details each in the book. As part of the “greatest generation,” he survived. The real heroes, he writes, are those who “made the supreme sacrifice in the very prime of their lives.”

What I was reading when the power went out

The tragic late-December wind storm knocked out electricity for many of us in the northstate, at least for a while, and the steady reports on our cellphones of the loss of life and destruction of property created a sense of somber amazement. We yearned to “get back to normal,” but for some that will never happen.

What if that would never happen for anyone on earth? What if a deadly virus, far more potent than Ebola, enveloped us, leaving only a handful alive? Those are the questions addressed in an extraordinary book by Emily St. John Mandel called “Station Eleven” ($24.95 in hardcover from Knopf; also for Amazon Kindle). As the power flicked off, I found myself deep in the last few chapters of the book.

The story straddles before and after, weaving together the lives of those somehow connected with one Arthur Leander, who, at 51, is playing Lear at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto when he abruptly dies onstage of a heart attack, leaving behind three ex-wives and a comic book, Station Eleven, drawn by his first wife, Miranda.

She gets the message of Arthur’s demise while in Malaysia. Then come the reports of a deadly virus making its way to North America, spreading everywhere. Almost no one is immune. “This was during the final month,” St. John Mandel writes, “of the era when it was possible to press a series of buttons on a telephone and speak with someone on the far side of the earth.”

Afterward, “no more pharmaceuticals”; “no more flight”; “no more countries”; “no more Internet.”

Two decades later, “the caravans of the Traveling Symphony moved slowly under a white-hot sky” near Lake Michigan. The small group stops at mostly deserted towns to play classical music and stage Shakespeare. And a little girl once in Arthur’s Lear is now one of that company.

The comic book Arthur had given her will play a key role in a world fraught with violence--but tinged with grace. Too close to home, I’m thinking, with these musings stationed right here, coincidentally of course, on the eleventh [of January, when the review was first published].

Murder mystery from a longtime Chicoan

A friend from Eagle, Idaho writes to alert me to a book by P.N. Ofinowicz, who received a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from Chico State University and who “lived in Chico and worked for the Postal Service for twenty-five plus years. ... Most folk in town would know him as Nick.”

The book is “The Bigfoot Incident” ($9.99 in paperback from Paul N. Ofinowicz/Telemachus Press; also for Amazon Kindle) by Archer O’Brien with P.N. Ofinowicz. The book is billed as a memoir from now-retired Brenner County deputy O’Brien (with editorial work by Ofinowicz).

As O’Brien admits in the foreword, “There is no Brenner County in California, of course, but I will hint that the shape of the actual county is quite similar to that of Montana. And for those who might complain that this recollection resembles a novel rather than a police report, I can only protest that my personal life was inextricably entwined with the strands of the story. What is written here is as true as anything that has been written about Bigfoot.”

Most of the action takes place in and around Cove, “a small town in these remote Citadel Mountains of Northern California.” The “novel,” my friend writes, “recalls an event in which a honeymooning couple are killed and huge human-like footprints are discovered at the scene.”

The grisly deaths attract nosy reporters, and O’Brien also has his own issues to deal with, not least of which is an estranged girlfriend: “When I wanted to protect, it was interpreted as trying to control the people I care about. What was it Leigh said? That love meant ownership to me?”

It’s up to Deputy O’Brien to figure out just what (or who) killed the honeymooners, and to explain the series of gruesome deaths that came after. Mix in the ups and downs (mostly downs) of O’Brien’s love life with small town shenanigans from a well-drawn supporting cast, and what we have is a noir-ish soap opera murder mystery. It is a beautifully crafted and riveting read, with a dramatic moment of clarity at the end.

Quotable

Local history, memoir, poetry, children’s books, romance novels, and more filled the Biblio File in 2014. Here are a few excerpts ripped from those columns. Perhaps the reader will be intrigued enough to find out more.

What’s it like to be hit? “There was a shattering explosion just below my feet. I was afraid to look down at them. When I did, I saw the rudder pedals twisted at an odd angle. … ‘Navigator-to-pilot! Bombardier hit bad. He’s—he’s—Flak! Big hole in— … Pilot-to-crew! Abandon ship. Bail out! We are afire!” And that’s only the start of the story, which involves escape and, on January 30, 1944, rescue. (From “Escape With A Silent Roar: A Trilogy of Three World War II Pilots Including A P-38 Fighter In Combat Missions Over Europe” by B.J. Bryan.)

"Sergeant bellows, 'Fire at will!' through the noise, but all I can do is keep low. ... I don't know where any of my boys are, but I have got to do this thing. I get to my knees and then it is time it is time it is time to make my run across moldering logs and branches and dead leaves and men.” (From “I Shall Be Near To You” by Erin Lindsay McCabe.)

“There are powerful, wicked forces in there that can grab hold of you and keep you in darkness if you let them. You must strengthen your thoughts.” (From “The King’s Frog Hunter” by Ken Young.)

“If there is a river whose potential for biological richness and natural wealth can lead us to wholeness, it is the Sac. El Rio del Sacramento. River of redemption. Miraculous river.” (From “Sacrament: Homage To A River,” by Rebecca Lawton; photography by Geoff Fricker.)

Lewis experienced a lifelong sense of “poignant longing. He described it as a search for joy (which Lewis frequently capitalizes because he uses it as a technical term). The taste of joy—and the desire it evokes—began early in his life and gradually expanded, like a time-release capsule that drove him to God.” (From “C.S. Lewis And The Crisis Of A Christian,” by Greg Cootsona.)

Parkinson’s mind

Denver-based writer Kirk Hall collaborated with Paradise artist Alison Paolini to produce two children’s books to help kids understand Parkinson’s. “Carson And His Shaky Paws Grampa” and “Carina And Her Care Partner Gramma” help adults explain in a non-scary way what may be happening to loved ones.

And yet, as Hall recognizes, the progressive nature of the disease can be frightening indeed. As a “person with Parkinson’s,” he’s written a book that is part memoir and part guidance, honestly confronting his own fears and providing resources.

“Window Of Opportunity: Living With The Reality Of Parkinson’s And The Threat Of Dementia” (self-published through Smashwords; available for Amazon Kindle) wrestles with an aspect of Parkinson’s that is not often addressed. Diagnosed with the disease in 2008, Hall, a “high functioning” individual with a good but stressful job in the corporate world, had to deal not only with tremors but with “cognitive issues.” 

He recounts times when it was hard to understand what people were saying and times of memory lapses. He and his wife Linda got mixed messages from the array of doctors they consulted, and that added to Hall’s fear. Was his brain scan normal, or not? Were times of “slow thinking” just part of being in your mid-sixties, or is there a neurological disorder?

He wanted to find out as much as possible about the cognitive effects of Parkinson’s. “I remember thinking that God may have provided me a ‘window of opportunity’ and I wanted to make the most of it if that was the case.”

Chapters deal with stress, faith, cognitive impairment, deep brain stimulation, resources, and more.

A breakthrough came when he became a patient of Dr. Benzi Kluger, Associate Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry and Director of the Movement Disorders Center at the University of Colorado in Denver (who provides the book’s foreword). Dr. Kluger focused on the question of Parkinson’s-related dementia, and Hall found a measure of hope in adding Namenda to his medications, which improved his “mood and working memory” so that he was able to complete the book.

The book is an invaluable gift to those with Parkinson’s.

Book in Common: A memoir of life in the margins

“In 1980, when I was four years old” writes Reyna Grande, who grew up in poverty in Mexico, “I didn’t know yet where the United States was or why everyone in my hometown of Iguala, Guerrero, referred to it as El Otro Lado, the Other Side. What I knew back then was that El Otro Lado had already taken my father away. What I knew was that prayers didn’t work, because if they did, El Otro Lado wouldn’t be taking my mother away, too.”

Grande’s account of her formative years, and the turning point in her life that created an award-winning novelist, is told in “The Distance Between Us” ($16 in paperback from Simon and Schuster; also for Amazon Kindle).

Chosen as the 2014-2015 Book in Common by Butte College, Chico State University, and other local groups, the story is not just about geographical distance but about the emotional divide that threatens a family with disintegration. Though Reyna and her two older siblings, Carlos and Mago, find strength in each other, it is severely tested by an alcoholic and abusive Papi and a Mami who abandons her family.

Even if one manages to get to the Other Side--paying smugglers for an uncertain future--Reyna comes to realize that one must never forget one’s heritage. One day in Iguala, “Mago and I sat on the dirt floor, and she told me about the day I was born exactly the way Mami used to tell it. ... Mago pointed to a spot on the dirt floor and reminded me that my umbilical cord was buried there. That way, Mami told the midwife, no matter where life takes her, she won’t ever forget where she came from.”

The second half of the book is about life in the United States (green cards arrived in 1990 after five years in El Otro Lado), and the life-changing encounter in an English class, at Pasadena City College, which opened her to writers who understood. “How did you know? How did you know this is how I felt?” Now, Grande has become one of them.

A children’s book about gifts

“My mom,” the otter tells the skunk, “said that I have a really special gift! I am wondering if it is something that sparkles! She said if I went out and played and found something that I loved to do, I would surely find it! So I am looking for my gift … but I haven’t had any luck yet.”

That’s about to change when “Ruby The River Otter Find A Lucky Penny” ($14.95 in paperback from CreateSpace Independent Publishing) by Thersa Mallinger, illustrated by Bonnie Lemaire. The book is available in Chico at Lyon Books, Made in Chico, and Apple Blossom Baby.

An author’s note says that Mallinger “lives with her husband, three boys, and her hyper-active dog in Chico.” With her background in teaching kindergarten, middle school language arts, and her training in Montessori methods, Mallinger encourages “self-exploration and discovery through creativity.”

That’s what happens to Ruby. Her new-found skunk friend is named Penny. “‘A penny does equal one cent, and phew-eeee, you sure do have one stinky scent,’ giggled Ruby. ‘You really should work on that! Maybe try rolling in the mud or wiping fresh pine needles under your armpits!’”

Ruby’s not sure of the meaning of her own name, nor why her mom “gave me this special key” which hangs around her neck. But she knows she has a friend, and together they will search for Ruby’s gift to unlock.

Eventually they find a treasure box, and Ruby’s key opens it. It’s not quite empty. Inside is something that helps Ruby understand. “Your gift is not something that you can hold in your hand. It is something that you hold in your heart! Find the key to unlock your heart. Then, open it up. There, deep in your heart, your special gift will be sitting, just waiting to come out!”

As the friends unlock their own gifts, the message at the end resonates: “Listen to your Heart Voice and find your treasure.”

Mallinger will be a guest of honor at the author open house at Lyon Books in Chico Sunday, December 14, from 2:00 - 4:00 p.m.

Local writer embraces the wisdom of the Native Peoples

Garth Nielsen of Paradise, now in his mid-70s, writes that “I’ve always been a seeker, aware that my spirituality was at the center of my being and that the Creator was guiding me onto the less travelled spiritual paths.”

Nielsen’s journey is given voice in “The Odyssey Of A Spiritual Nomad” ($9.95 in paperback from Heather and Highlands Publishing), which includes a number of the author’s drawings.

It began in 1946 when his father showed him an “enormous cave. Part of the roof had fallen in, and a shaft of bright sunlight illumined part of this room. Kneeling in the pool of light, my father picked up fragment of finely woven basket. Then, with a stick, he stirred the surface of the talcum-fine dust. In doing so, he uncovered another object, a human tooth. Placing  both the tooth and the basket fragment into my hand, he said to me, ‘This was someone’s home a long time ago. I’ll bet little boys like you lived here once.’”

It was a never-to-be-forgotten experience. “I have become convinced that there are beneficent and benevolent spirits, sent by the Creator, to guide each of us. I believe that such a spirit became a part of me and my life in that ancient place so many years ago.”

Eventually, Nielsen writes, “I realized that Turtle Island was sacred. Through this earth, the people who live upon it communicate with the Creator in a constant, reciprocal cycle.” Indeed, he says, “I have found that traditional Native teachings enhance the words of Christ, bringing clarity to His teaching on how to walk in balance and harmony with all creation.”

Adopted in a private Iroquois ceremony, Nielsen found his life phrase in the Lakota Sun Dance. “When the prayer is completed, the one speaking ends his words with: ‘Metakuye Oyasin,’ or, ‘All My Relations.’ In this way, the prayer is never ended, but merely passed on to the next one to pray.”

A serial mystery from Dan O’Brien

Local writing entrepreneur Dan O’Brien is venturing into the world of the mystery serial with a series of six episodes to be released over the next few weeks. Copiously illustrated by Paradise artist Steve Ferchaud, the first of the six is “Mobsters, Monsters and Nazis” (in digital format from Amalgam; available for Amazon Kindle). The story is the tale of a hard-bitten detective named Derrick Diamond who receives a strange package from a courier only to have the package stolen by a human-sized lizard.

Diamond follows the thief to the Yellow Monarch nightclub. The thief proves elusive, but the Yellow Monarch draws the detective’s attention. “Patrons called it the Yellow Monarch because of the iridescent, winged, creature that seemed to rise from above the foyer. Derrick approached slowly, feeling as if he was being watched from a distance.” 

Of course he’s being watched. “Serpentine and dressed to the nines, the reptilian thugs watched through thin eye-slits as Derrick walked across the empty street and past the board announcing Ava Harpy as the crooner of the night. They slithered along the wall, bodies bending to get a better vantage point.”

Inside the club, Roaring 20s jazz. The “music filled the air and women with blood-red corsets carried trays filled with cigars and scotch.” At one table in the back is the Fat Man, whose face “seemed cluttered with a mass of tentacles that created a slimy beard beneath beady black eyes.” Derrick has to tell the Fat Man the mysterious object has been stolen.

Over there at another table, “crisply dressed Nazis who were looking in Derrick’s direction.”

This stuff is straight out of pulp comics, and it’s a hoot. There’s a strange logic at work here, and in the second installment, “Phantasmagoria,” the Object is the subject of the Nazi’s attention. It turns out to be an “antikythera mechanism” which will help them achieve some nefarious end. Derrick and Ava escape assassins in the first episode; in the second they become something of a team. Maybe Ava is more than a floozy singer.

O’Brien promises it will all make sense—in time.

Sword and sorcery from a Paradise author

Though his day job enables Ken Young of Paradise to build custom homes, in his first novel he has built an entire realm, populating it with strange creatures and a central mystery that drives the adventure forward to its satisfying conclusion.

With a background in literature, Young has written screenplays, short stories and poetry, and his talents are on full display in “The King’s Frog Hunter” ($15.95 in paperback from North Point Publishing; also for Amazon Kindle). It’s a gripping quest story suitable for early teens and adults as well.

Something is wrong with old King Ahmbin. His mind, twisted by the evil magician Metro, refuses to accept the magnificent statue of himself, carved by the sculptor Veracitas, because what is carved in stone looks too much like the King himself in his aging humanity. Ahmbin rejects the truth. Veracitas is thrown into prison but he escapes under mysterious circumstances.

His daughter, Boschina (“bah-sheen-uh”), reaches out to Thalmus, the mysterious frog hunter to the King, for help in finding her father. In the land of Ameram, frogs are the size of humans, crafty and deadly (though their legs are a delicacy), and Thalmus is legendary in his skill. But he is also the keeper of an ancient prophecy: “When the king’s only child is a woman and the daughter of the stone cutter searches the land….” Boschina had set in motion forces that would change the land forever.

Thalmus is aided by his extraordinary friends: “a great horned owl, a giant shell creature, and a paint stallion.” Hunted by the King’s troops seeking a reward, the companions encounter evil in Rainland, on Table Top—and in a dark tunnel. Thalmus’ words are frightening: “There are powerful, wicked forces in there that can grab hold of you and keep you in darkness if you let them. You must strengthen your thoughts.”

Young excels in describing the landscape (even an odd place called Jarbo Gap). The battles are thrilling, the writing superb.