Bay City Books: New Books from Bay Area Authors – July 2024

How the Light Gets In

By Joyce Maynard (Lafayette)
William Morrow (June 25, 2024)

In a follow-up to her 2021 novel, “Count the Ways,” prolific bestselling author Joyce Maynard returns to Eleanor, a children’s book author, who has moved back to the New Hampshire farm where she and her recently deceased ex-husband Cam raised their three children. “How the Light Gets In,” follows Eleanor, her son, who has transitioned from Allison to Al, her daughter, Ursula, and Toby, brain damaged after a childhood accident, over 15 years. The novel’s backdrop is modern-day issues of climate change, the January 6th insurrection, school shootings, and the global pandemic.

In This Ravishing World

By Nina Schuyler (San Anselmo)
Regal House, July 2, 2024

Heat waves and summer floods. Fires and species destruction. The evidence of the climate crisis is all around us. In her prize-winning collection, In this Ravishing World, Nina Schuyler explores the human response to this catastrophe in nine linked stories. Eleanor has been working all her professional life to save the world but news that she had received the Goldman Environmental Prize, considered the the Green Nobel prize, makes her sink in despair. Her daughter Ava, a scientist, is studying how to make plastic decay faster while deciding whether to have a baby. Lincoln, 13, runs at night to leave his barren neighborhood for tony Pacific Heights where greenery abounds. And even Nature weighs in with her opinion.

Running On Empty: A Wine Country Cold Case

By Karin Fitz Sanford (Santa Rosa)
Level Best Books

In Book 2 of Sanford’s Cold Case series, Anne McCormack, a former FBI agent turned estate liquidator, must determine who murdered socialite Dinah Pardini 16 years earlier and dumped her body on a remote wine country road. And could that killing be connected to a current-day Ponzi scheme that has bilked many Santa Rosa residents? McCormack thinks so. Using a client’s diary, a treasure map, and reports of a suspicious white truck, McCormack sets out to solve the case but has to move fast to avoid becoming a victim herself.

We Carry the Sea In Our Hands

By Janie Kim
Alcove Press (July 9, 2024)

Kim, a PhD student at Stanford University, tells the story of Abby Rodie, who lives a solitary life still traumatized by being a “drop-box baby” (a Korean orphan whose mother left her as an infant) and spending time in the foster care system. While studying the origins of sea slugs, Abby stumbles upon a biological discovery, one that sends her into a spiral of grief. With the help of Iseul, whose parents took Abby in as a young girl,  Abby embarks on a journey to understand her origins. “We Carry the Sea In Our Hands,” is Kim’s debut novel.

Compton in My Soul: A Life in Pursuit of Racial Equality

By Albert M. Camarillo
Stanford University Press (July 2, 2024)

Al Camarillo is a prize-winning Stanford history professor who pioneered the field of Mexican American history and Chicano  Studies. In his memoir, “Compton in My Soul,” Camarillo recounts growing up in a large Mexican American family in the racially segregated Southern California city. As a star athlete, Camarillo easily crossed the color line to become friends with Whites and Blacks, but still encountered “Jamie Crow,” the West’s version of Jim Crow segregation laws. He studied at UCLA in the mid-1960s, one of only 44 Mexican Americans among thousands of students, became the first Mexican American to earn a PhD in Chicano history, and landed a professorship at one of America’s leading universities. Camarillo uses his personal history to highlight American race relations, Compton’s shift from White to Black, the rise of Mexican American scholarship, and his thoughts on racial strife and harmony.

The Untold Story of Books: A Writer’s History of Book Publishing 

By Michael Castleman (San Francisco)
Unnamed Books (July 2, 2024)

Prolific San Francisco writer Michael Castleman tells the history of publishing from Gutenberg to Amazon in “The Untold Story of Books.” He divides the book into different eras — hand presses (1450-1870), industrial printing (1870-2000), and digital publishing (2000-?) — and describes how each new technology upended its predecessor. Castleman, who has published 20 books, delves into fascinating anecdotes like why book endorsements are called blurbs and offers advice on how authors can navigate the current publishing environment.

Telltale Hearts: A Public Health Doctor, His Patients, and the Power of Story

By Dean-David Schillinger
PublicAffairs (July 16, 2024)

Dr. Dean Schillinger has worked at San Francisco’s General Hospital for much of his professional life, treating AIDs patients, drug addicts, gunshot victims, and uninsured people suffering from diabetes, cancer, and other afflictions. General is the city’s only public hospital and its waiting and emergency rooms are always crowded. As a young physician, Dr. Schillinger thought he had to be quick and efficient to keep up with his patient load. As he recounts in his memoir, “Telltale Hearts,” he eventually discovered that slowing down and talking to patients about their lives created a bond that allowed him to uncover what was causing their illnesses. He argues that uncovering patient stories is the key to better medical treatment.

Funny Stuff: How Great Cartoonists Make Great Cartoons

By Phil Witte (Piedmont) and Rex Hesner (San Francisco)
Globe Pequot (July 16, 2024)

Single-panel gag cartoons are in their own league. Think about New Yorker cartoons where the cartoonist puts stock characters (a dentist, married couple, pirate) in familiar locations (the desert island, Garden of Eden, hell) and writes a funny caption. In “Funny Stuff,” authors Hesner and Witte examine what makes a great cartoon. They reverse engineer successful panels, take apart funny captions, and interview successful cartoonists including Roz Chast and Bob Mankoff, the longtime cartoon editor at the New Yorker. (He also writes the introduction). Witte, the author of the best-selling joke book, “What You Don’t Know About Turning 50,” has published cartoons in The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Reader’s Digest, and elsewhere.