These are among the new titles released by Bay Area and Northern California writers, listed in alphabetical order by author names:
“Ever Widening Circles & Mystical Moments: Autobiographical, Historical, Spiritual, Psychological & Political” by Jean Shinoda Bolen
Chiron Publications, 318 pages, $59 (hardcover), $40 (paper), March 4, 2025
Dr. Jean Shinoda Bolen—a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of California San Francisco, Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and more—describes how events in her life (from her Japanese American family’s forced relocation from California during World War II to having eye surgery at a young age, to being viewed as an “exotic other”) led her on a journey to pursue analysis, medicine and activism. Currently, on Instagram, she shares, “As an elder, a crone, an octogenarian, I observe that many of my contemporaries have contracted and withdrawn from public life. However, I am still here continuing to deepen and grow. I’m not done yet. This new book spans my almost nine-decade journey of what I lived through and how I became who I am: author, activist, psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, millionth circle advocate, friend, grandmother, wife, daughter, and more.”
“Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse” by Barbara Boyle
She Writes Press, 216 pages, $17.99, Feb. 11, 2025
Barbara Boyle, a former advertising executive in San Francisco, describes her adventures building a home in an old barn in Europe, having moved from the Bay Area to Piemonte, Italy, in “Pinch Me: Waking Up in a 300-Year-Old Italian Farmhouse.” The memoir has been called an updated “twist on ‘Under the Tuscan Sun.’” Boyle calls it “a story filled with discoveries, disappointments, pleasures, frustrations and triumphs” (and with recipes!) about a journey that allowed her to see the world and herself, “through a different window.”
‘Diver” by Lewis Buzbee
Palmetto Publishing, 328 pages, $19, March 3, 2025
Lewis Buzbee, a longtime Bay Area writer (for children and adults) and bookseller, tells how a 12-year-old boy navigates his life, and memories, after his father, a Navy deep-sea diver, dies of a heart attack. Describing a California family in the 1960s, the novel “Diver” is not just about families, but also about military life during the turbulent counterculture movement, and the ways impressionistic memories can fail people, yet also support and sustain them. On Litstack.com, one reader said, “Buzbee has an uncanny knack for transporting his audience back in time until you can practically sense the familiarity of the memories as though they are your own.” Kirkus said, “It’s an admirably meditative exploration of the depths and travails of a father-son relationship” and a “thoughtful and moving, but artfully unsentimental, depiction of a son’s love.”
“The Lost and the Found: A True Story of Homelessness, Found Family and Second Chances” by Kevin Fagan
Atria/One Signal Publishers, 288 pages, $28.99, Feb. 11, 2025
The longtime San Francisco reporter, who has been homeless himself and who wrote the San Francisco Chronicle 2003 series “The Shame of the City,” for which he lived on the streets for six months, offers a detailed, character-driven work exploring entwined tragedies of homelessness and addiction with statistics, insights and human stories. Two case studies are forefront, with one taking a heartbreaking turn, but both giving homelessness a human face and containing hope and joy. “I wanted the hope to come through,” Fagan says. “Hope is always important.” Readers have said, “Fagan is deeply passionate about what he does, which makes this that much better of a read. This is a must-read to get a glimpse into what homelessness can be like in the United States.”
“The Pacific Circuit: A Globalized Account of the Battle for the Soul of an American City” by Alexis Madrigal
MCD x FSG, 384 pages, $32, March 18, 2025
Journalist Alexis Madrigal, an Oakland resident, proprietor of the Oakland Garden Club, cohost of KQED’s current affairs show “Forum” and contributing writer at The Atlantic, details how “a logistical revolution that began in Oakland transformed urban America” in “The Pacific Circuit,” a volume resulting from years of reporting on Oakland, the tech industry and the global economy. The book describes connections between city hall politics, venture capital and hedge funds, and Silicon Valley’s beginnings and growth using the Port of Oakland to illustrate economic, environmental and cultural effects caused by decades of systemic segregation and an ongoing pressure to advance technology. Kirkus calls the book “an incisive look at the invisible forces of consumption shaping not just a single city, but our world.”
“Portrait of a Feminist: A Memoir in Essays” by Marianna Marlowe
She Writes Press, 288 pages, $17.99, Feb. 25, 2025
(Marianna Marlowe website screenshot)
The Latina writer, who earned a bachelor’s degree from University of California, Berkeley and has a doctorate in Literary Studies, says she “examines the tension in embracing feminism as a life philosophy and negotiating the sociocultural roles of daughter, scholar, wife and mother. ” In “Portrait of a Feminist,” she shares details about being the child of a Catholic Peruvian mother and an atheist American father, about living in California, Peru and Ecuador and tying her experiences to sociopolitical realities. In writing “Portrait of a Feminist,” in an interview published on the website Grab the Lapels, she said, “I learned that personal experiences and small moments can be expanded to have much greater meaning than their original, individual impact.” Critics have called “Portrait of a Feminist” “honest” and “confident” and have compared it to “Crying in H Mart” and “How to Raise a Feminist Son.”
“Connecting Dots: A Blind Life” by Joshua A. Miele (with Wendell Jamieson)
Grand Central Publishing, 304 pages, $39, March 4, 2025
(Courtesy Grand Central Publishing)
Joshua A. Miele, a Berkeley resident, is a blind scientist who describes himself as an “inventor with decades of experience leading R&D teams in the creative use of mainstream technologies to yield effective accessibility solutions for education, employment, and entertainment.” In his memoir “Connecting Dots,” the MacArthur “Genius” shares how his family, friends, teachers and colleagues helped him live a dynamic life after being blinded at age 4 when a mentally ill neighbor poured acid on his head. Readers have called the book “funny, moving, and absorbing” and “several wonderful books wrapped up into one … a science book, a romance, a riveting history of the disability movement, a book about New York, an advice book. And, of course, it’s a memoir—fascinating, honest, and inspirational in a delightfully un-sappy way.”
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