“Out of the Ballpark: How to Think about Baseball” by David M. Henkin | Oxford University Press, 152 pages, $18.98, March 16, 2026
Cultural historian David M. Henkin, a San Francisco resident and history professor at the University of California, Berkeley, explores baseball’s appeal through its connections to urban life, imperial expansion and racial politics in “Out of the Ballpark.” Here, the author of scholarly titles including 1998’s “City Reading” and 2021’s “The Week” examines the history of baseball competition from the game of catch to other rites of modern life. Will Leitch, founder of the sports blog Deadspin, says, “Baseball has always been more than just a game, of course, but David Henkin’s ‘Out of the Ballpark’ expands the canvas to the point that I now see baseball in everything: Family bonds, geographic boundaries, international politics, even human relationships.” From 1988 to 1990, Henkin worked at Green Apple Books in San Francisco. He appears at 7 p.m. April 30 at Green Apple at 1231 Ninth Ave. with Rhae Lynn Barnes, author of “Darkology: Blackface.”
“The Mysterious World of the Bull Kelp Forest” by Josie Iselin with illustrations by Ellen Litwiller | Heyday, 136 pages, $25.99, March 17, 2026
San Francisco artist, designer and author Josie Iselin is co-director of Above/Below (a campaign bringing recognition to kelp forests of the Northeastern Pacific Ocean), whose previous titles include “An Ocean Garden: The Secret Life of Seaweed” and “The Curious World of Seaweed.” In her new book “The Mysterious World of the Bull Kelp Forest,” the conservationist provides extensive details about the underwater ecosystem where tiny saplings grow into 60-foot-tall forests that serve as home to abalone, rockfish and salmon.
There’s a focus on 13 species in eight regions from the Central California coast to Alaska, accompanied by artwork by Ellen Litwiller, a frequent collaborator with scientists. Mary Ellen Hannibal, author of “Citizen Scientist,” says, “Who knew seaweed portraiture could probe the deepest mysteries of existence?” and calls the book “an adventure through art, science, and pure pleasure.”
“Midnight, at the War: A Novel” by Devi S. Laskar | Mariner Books, 240 pages, $24, April 14, 2026
Bay Area novelist Devi S. Laskar, author of 2019’s “The Atlas of Reds and Blues” and 2022’s “Circa,” follows a foreign correspondent who leaves New York to report on the war-torn Middle East in her new book “Midnight, at the War,” which is set after 9/11.
Laskar, a former reporter, used her own experiences in 1990s and 2000s and journalists Christiane Amanpour and Sylvia Poggioli as inspiration for her protagonist Rita Das, who faces conflicts with her interpreter, editor, sources and colleagues as she chases a big story in her career. Nina Schuyler, author of “In This Ravishing World,” says, “Laskar masterfully entwines the intimate and the political, crafting a story that surges with urgency and depth.”
Laskar discusses the book at 7 p.m. April 15 at Kepler’s in Menlo Park, 6:30 p.m. April 23 at Mill Valley Public Library, and 7 p.m. April 30 at The Booksmith in San Francisco.
“Splashed Things” by Leigh Lucas | BOA Editions, 101 pages, $19, April 7, 2026
San Francisco writer Leigh Lucas’ collection “Splashed Things,” which explores the emotions of a woman following the suicide of her former boyfriend with dark humor, won the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize, a $1,000 award recognizing a poet’s first book and offering publication by BOA Editions.
Lucas, author of the 2024 chapbook “Landsickness,” earned degrees from Stanford University and Warren Wilson College. Poet Charif Shanahan, author of “Trace Evidence,” says of “Splashed Things”: “Into these deftly built and deeply moving poems, Lucas alchemizes the memory of grief and the grief of memory, with restraint, irreverence, and a devotion so total that I can only understand it as love.”
Lucas launches the book at 7 p.m. April 7 at Green Apple Books, 1231 Ninth Ave., San Francisco.
“All Things Hidden: A Witness to Paradise Lost” by Lesley Miles | Sibylline Press, 342 pages, $22, April 17, 2026
Horticulturist and Morgan Hill resident Lesley Miles recalls her 1977 trip to Guatemala at age 21 to teach biodynamic gardening at a community-building project in Ixcan, which was cut off by military buildup as multinational oil and mineral prospectors fought over an area that had become a geopolitical battleground.
Miles wrote her eco-memoir after years of thinking about the experience and rediscovering a box full of old journals, letters and photographs. Lidia Yuknavitch, author of “The Chronology of Water,” calls the book “the breathtaking and daring story of one woman’s relatively innocent entry into a benevolent Mayan community building experience in Guatemala, where she discovers a deep and dangerous complexity of American involvement in arms dealing, proxy wars, and genocide.”
Miles’ book launch on April 17 is sold out; she is working on planning another event.
“Brand New Beat: The Wild Rise of Rolling Stone Magazine” by Peter Richardson | University of California Press, 368 pages, $27.95, April 7, 2026
Sonoma author Peter Richardson, an East Bay native and former Fulbright Scholar who has authored books about Hunter S. Thompson and the Grateful Dead, lets loose on Rolling Stone’s first decade in San Francisco in “Brand New Beat.” Rolling Stone, which was established in 1967, presented rock as the sound behind a social revolution. Richardson shows how the magazine boosted the careers of Cameron Crowe, Lester Bangs, Tom Wolfe and Thompson while setting journalistic standards.
Former Rolling Stone editor Ben Fong-Torres says, “Magazines may be struggling, but histories of the most impactful of those publications — and the people who put them together — continue to fascinate appreciative readers.” He adds that Richardson “does the best of what Rolling Stone bylines offered: diligent research, deep reporting, revelatory background stories about the major players, and perceptions on what it all meant. What it all means.”
Richardson appears at 7 p.m. April 17 at Copperfield’s in Petaluma.
“The Power of Life: The Invention of Biology and the Revolutionary Science of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck” by Jessica Riskin | Riverhead Books, 496 pages, $32, March 24, 2026
Berkeley author Jessica Riskin, a history professor at Stanford University, rewrites the story of early 19th century French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, whose ideas about biology — reflecting that animals play an active role in their evolution — have been discredited.
Riskin revisits Lamarck’s life and struggles to answer the questions What is a living being? and What is science? Historian Jill Lepore, author of “These Truths” and “We the People” calls the book “a truly remarkable achievement, at once a delightfully wry and wildly entertaining biography … and a riveting intellectual history of the tumultuous emergence of biology (a word Lamarck coined).”
“What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations Into Achievements” by Tina Seelig | HarperOne, 240 pages, $19.99, April 21, 2026
Tina Seelig, a Stanford University instructor, is known for her popular TED talks in which she instructs readers on how to take advantage of luck by setting themselves up for success, including recruiting others for help. The bestselling author of “What I Wish I Knew When I Was Twenty” discusses: how to stay steady in turbulent waters, build ladders to larger wins, turn setbacks into steppingstones, and see problems as opportunities. Daniel H. Pink, author of “When” and “Drive,” calls the book a mega-classic: “Whether you’re starting your career or are in the thick of it, the bold ideas in this book will steel your spine and fire your imagination.” Seelig, who was honored in 2009 with a Gordon Prize from the National Academy of Engineering, discusses the book at 7 p.m. April 21 at Kepler’s in Menlo Park.
“Lidie: The Further Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton: A Novel” by Jane Smiley | Knopf, 336 pages, $30, April 21, 2026
Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist of “A Thousand Acres” and Bay Area favorite Jane Smiley takes readers back to Christmas 1857 in her sequel to 1998’s “The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton.”
In the new “Further Travels,” with the American Civil War on the horizon, two women need to flee. Lidie Newton, mourning her abolitionist husband, who was murdered, accompanies her niece who has been offered a chance to act in England. As her characters’ headstrong women take on the struggles of the day, Smiley addresses the nature of truth, beauty and fulfillment.
Victoria Zackheim, author of “The Curtain Falls in Paris” and “Death Times Seven,” says, “At every turn, we are reminded that Jane Smiley is more than an extraordinary writer — she’s a sculptor who carves out unforgettable characters who live and breathe her stories.”
Smiley, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and recipient of the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature, appears at 7 p.m. April 22 at Santa Cruz Bookshop and 7 p.m. April 23 at Copperfield’s in Santa Rosa.
“Troika: Three Generations, Three Days, and a Very American Road Trip” by Irena Smith | She Writes Press, 256 pages, $17.99 paperback, April 7, 2026
Palo Alto writer Irena Smith’s second memoir serves as a California travelogue, reimagining a trip she made to the Central Coast as an Odyssean voyage. Along the way, Smith, her 77-year-old mother and her 22-year-old daughter unexpectedly encounter roving, hungry ostriches and a winter storm as they deal with complex emotions connected to family history, escape from Soviet Russia and motherhood in the Silicon Valley. Sasha Vasilyuk, California Book Award winner and author of “Your Presence Is Mandatory,” says Troika “lures you in with a road trip and delivers a meditation on all the incidental, mysterious ways we become who we are.” Smith, who was born in Soviet Russia and raised in the United States, is the author of the award-winning memoir “The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays.” Smith appears at 7 p.m. April 9 at Books Inc. Palo Alto; 6:30 p.m. April 10 at Fireside Books in Redwood City and 5:30 p.m. April 15 at Book Passage in San Francisco’s Ferry Building.
“More Than Any River: A Novel” by Victoria Tatum | She Writes Press, 272 pages, $17.99, March 24, 2026
Santa Cruz novelist Victoria Tatum tells the story of the fight between family farmers and agribusiness over the fate of California’s Sacramento Delta farmland in “More Than Any River,” which is inspired by true events. As the farmers prepare to go to war against the state’s plan to build giant water tunnels through Delta land, Tatum takes on greed, betrayal and resistance.
Joseph Di Prisco, author of “My Last Resume” and “Subway to California,” says, “This book highlights the cost of caring, and for that matter not caring, about the resources, natural and otherwise, that give value to our lives.” Tatum, who has earned master’s degrees in creative writing from San Francisco State University and education from University of California, Santa Cruz, also wrote the 2006 novel “The Virgin’s Children.”
Tatum appears at 7 p.m. April 10 at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma.
“The Curse of Hester Gardens” by Tamika Thompson | Erewhon Books, 448 pages, $28, March 31, 2026
Orinda suspense writer Tamika Thompson’s twist on a haunted house tale tells the story of a woman named Nona who raised three sons in public housing in Medford, Michigan with struggles both real and imagined. When unusual occurrences start to haunt residents, and the sons begin to get into trouble, Nona wonders if someone, or something, is seeking revenge.
Vincent Tirado, author of “We Came to Welcome You,” says of “Hester Gardens”: “The storytelling, character development and masterful weaving of both dread and regret come together for what I can only say is the pinnacle of modern-day gothic.”
Thompson, whose short story collection “Unshod, Cackling, and Naked” was the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards winner for horror, celebrates new title at 2 p.m. April 11 at Orinda Books.
“A Feather and a Fork: 125 Intertribal Dishes From an Indigenous Food Warrior” by Crystal Wahpepah with Amy Paige Condon | Rodale Books, 304 pages, $35, March 17, 2026
Indigenous chef Crystal Wahpepah, proprietor of Wahpephah’s Kitchen, a notable restaurant in Oakland, is a registered member of the Kickapoo Nation of Oklahoma who has been featured on Food Network’s “Chopped” and “Beat Bobby Flay.” In her new cookbook, she shares little-known tales of Oakland’s Native American communities through healing recipes including sweet blue cornbread with huckleberry compote, veggie bowls and strawberry-sumac salad with maple-sage vinaigrette. Wahpepah suggests that readers “Eat with the seasons, cure your disconnection with the land, and cook colorful, delicious food rooted in the oldest traditions.” Bestselling author and fellow Oaklander Tommy Orange, who wrote the book’s introduction, says, “Crystal Wahpepah is bold in telling us her story, gentle and informative in the way she relays the histories behind the ingredients in these recipes, and generous in the wise way she reminds us that food is medicine, and that food can mean home.”