NEWS
4 January 2023: Congratulations to John McCormick on the publication of his book Chinese in Napa Valley: The Forgotten Community That Built Wine Country! Many of you know John and Colleen McCormick as the owners of Lafayette's own Lamorinda Music, and in his book John explores the little known history of Chinese laborers in Northen California during the late 19th century, a significant proportion of the total population of the young state at the time and critical contributors to the development of the economy of the Napa Valley region.
Chinese in Napa Valley by John McCormick
3 January 2023: We are honored to receive a grant from Sisters in Crime, the women's crime writing association! Since we opened our store in September of 2020 we have had the pleasure of getting to know more than a few members of this prestigious organization, including Jospehine Mele, Camille Minichino, Claudia Hagadus Long, Janice Peacock and Donna Darling. You can find their books in the store, and we're looking forward to more in-store events with your local mystery writers in 2023!
Sisters in Crime mysteries
31 December 2022: Thank you, Jonathan Winchell, for joining our Local Authors with Being Different Than My Family! From the book: Families that have children(s) with Mosaic Down Syndrome Chromosome #21 have regular lives. The children maybe different but they are just more creative and are fun to be around. So if your are a Mosaic Down Syndrome parent and not sure what to do and how to handle it dont be overprotective and controlling. These children can see right through you.
30 December 2022: Welcome to our Local Authors bookcases to Joyce Martinez! The Ball That Wouldn't Bounce is a children's picture book about a lost ball that can't bounce until he is found by the boy who loves him.
14 December 2022: Wow! Thank you James Patterson and the American Booksellers Association for awarding us a James Patterson Holiday Bookstore Bonus! It is a great honor for us to receive this award in the company of all the other indie bookstores and employee recipients this year. We’re looking forward to following through with our commitment to apply this award to the cozy children’s area in our compact shop. We can’t wait to share the results!
26 November 2022: MARK YOUR CALENDARS! Our final in-store event of the year is happening on Saturday, on December 3rd, 2022 at 11:00 AM, with a Mystery Writers panel featuring the East Bay’s own Jospehine Mele, Camille Minichino and Donna Darling! This will be a reading and Q&A event, celebrating Josphine’s latest book Sicilian Sanctuary and Donna’s debut historical novel The 3 Marias.
Josephine (Jo) Mele is a world traveler, tour guide, magazine editor, and life-long mystery reader. Jo is the author of: The Odd Grandmothers, a memoir of three generations of her Italian immigrant family; and the Travel Mystery series, including Bullets in Bolivia, Homicide in Havana, Mystery in Monte Carlo, Bandits in Brussels, Death on the Danube, Corpse in the Castle, and her newly released Sicilian Sanctuary. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and California Writers Club.
Camille Minichino (also known as Ada Madison and Margaret Grace), has been a factory worker, a translator, a teacher, an experimental physicist, a nuclear safeguards engineer, a writer, a waitress, a miniaturist, a paralegal, a nun, a minister, a short order cook, a ticket taker, an editor, a crafter, and a cotton candy twirler. She has also written five mystery series. What more can we say? You can learn more on her website Minichino.com.
Donna Darling writes historical fiction, short stories, and novels for all ages. She worked in sales and marketing for over twenty years. Her Puerto Rican ancestry intrigued her, and she found many people knew little about the island that captured her heart. Her debut book, The 3 Marias, tells the story of a fictional family living through actual events that shaped the island. Her next book in the series follows the family to Hawaii. When not writing, Donna is traveling or sketching characters from her books. She is a member of the California Writers Club, and a writers group with published authors.
This is an early talk, at 11:00 AM, so come and enjoy the conversation, and perhaps look at some books and chocolates, before carrying on with your Saturday lunch and afternoon plans!
26 November 2022: GREAT NEWS! We're very excited to welcome the Hofssi Chocolates Pop-up Store in the shop for the holiday season!
Hofssi Chocolates
19 November 2022: Congratulations to Donna Darling on her debut novel The 3 Marias! This work of historical fiction is set in Puerto Rico, 1895, a period of tumultuous change for the island, and tells the story of three sisters embroiled in rebellion, betrayal and lost love.
Donna Darling
(Oh, and there is one more thing. Donna will be speaking with her fellow local authors on mystery writing in a couple of weeks. More details to come!)
15 November 2022: Mark your calendars! This Saturday, November 19, 2022 at 3:00 PM, we will be hosting a presentation and Q&A with Kelechi Ubozoh and Sharon Sobotta, Resiliency & Revisions: Navigating Our Mental Health & Meeting Ourselves Where We Are. Come and hear our guests discuss their books, their journey and mental health.
Kelechi Ubozoh is a Nigerian-American writer, mental health advocate, and facilitator with over a decade of experience working in the California mental health system in the areas of research, advocacy, community engagement, suicide prevention, and peer support. Her book with LD Green, We’ve Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health, elevates marginalized voices of lived experience who have endured psychiatric mistreatment is featured in the curriculum at Boston University and New York University. Her story of surviving a suicide attempt is featured in The S Word documentary, O, The Oprah Magazine and CBS This Morning with Gayle King. In 2021, she was named a Mental Health Champion by the Steinberg Institute. Learn more at kelechiubozoh.com.
Life can be overwhelming at times and often throws curve balls. What would happen if we set aside the expectations of others, stopped dimming our own lights and allowed ourselves to imagine or live a version of our own deferred dreams. As the daughter of a janitor dad who bounced in and out of her life as she grew up in a small Wisconsin town that was unforgiving of differences, Sharon Sobotta reveals what happened when she made good on a deferred childhood dream in her early thirties of taking Oprah's place as she discusses Confessions of a Dream Chaser. Sharon invites us to embrace our authentic selves, own our past (even the turbulent portions of it), to live our best lives in the present. You can learn more about Sharon on her St. Mary's College Spotlight page.
9 November 2022: Orinda's own Bob Albo joins our Local Authors bookcase with Her Dark Matter Necklace! This fast-paced metaphysical novel is the first book of a planned three book series.
Alice learns that as she sleeps, her consciousness actually explores the dark matter universe of Thronos, the universal spirit. And as Robert reveals the science of dark matter, the human soul, and other mysteries, he gives her a monumental task: bring beauty to your world. Alice meets Reina, an alien child, and together they learn that beauty can be many things, like a mother's love for a child, compassion for others, art. But what she doesn't know is that she is playing the key role in St. Robert's prophecy.
1 November 2022: Come visit Reasonable Books for a Meet-and-Greet with Meghan Joyce Tozer, this Saturday, November 5, 2022 starting at 3:00 PM! Meghan's debut novel, Night, Forgotten, is a psychological thriller that explores the consequences of sexual assualt for a young couple seemingly on the cusp of the life of their dreams.
“A compelling jigsaw puzzle, a domestic thriller you won’t be able to put down and when you have finished it, you’ll want to reread it to see what you missed.”
“The ending was spine-tingling and will leave you speechless.”
We're looking forward to seeing you for this event! (Of course, we're always looking forward to seeing our customers :)
29 October 2022: The latest book to join our Local Authors bookcase is an eco-thriller set in the world of scientific research into disease and climate change on the island of Galveston, a finalist for the Colorado Book Awards by Mary Rae, M.D. and Wanda Venters, M.D., Break Bone Fever:
When Dr. Gennifer Drake's body washes up on a foggy beach on Galveston Island, Texas, Dr. Louise Finnerty, an emergency medicine physician, and Dr. Marnie Liccione, a recently widowed pediatrician, are shocked by their friend's death. As they delve into the murder investigation, they discover Gen had been researching a deadly new form of dengue fever at the ultra-high security Gulf National Laboratory. Aided by climate change, this mosquito borne illness, known as Break Bone Fever, is spreading northward and threatening the United States.
24 October 2022: Join us this Friday for our crime fiction writers' panel! This Friday, October 28, 2022 at 1:30 PM, it is our great pleasure to host "From Work to Fiction", with Bay Area authors T.L. Bequette, Bruce Lewis and Deven Greene, in a panel discussion and Q&A sure to be of interest to aspiring writers as well as fans of the genre interested in a behind-the-scenes look into its craft. An attorney, a journalist, and a physician describe how their work experience informs their crime fiction writing.
T.L. Bequette’s Joe Carroll mystery series draws on his 25 years of experience as a criminal defense attorney where he has tried more than 20 murder cases. His debut novel, Good Lookin', won the Independent Press Award for Crime Fiction, a Chanticleer International Book Award, and was recently named a Finalist for an American Fiction Award. Follow him at TLBequette.com.
In his crime thriller Bloody Paws, former journalist Bruce Lewis used his newspaper experience to create a fictional crime reporter who keeps readers updated on police progress in their murder investigation. Lewis is the author of three crime thrillers with a message, including Bloody Paws (homelessness), Bloody Pages (intergenerational abuse), and Bloody Feathers (wildlife preservation). Follow him at BloodyThrillers.com.
Deven Greene uses her experience as a biochemist and pathologist in her writing of medical suspense. She recently completed the Erica Rosen MD Trilogy, comprised of Unnatural, Unwitting, and Unforeseen, involving human embryonic gene editing, autism, and the pharmaceutical industry. Follow her at DevenGreene.com.
We look forward to seeing you this Friday, and please feel free to RSVP for this event at books@reasonable.online!
19 October 2022: From Roxbury, MA to a career with IBM in New York followed by a career as restaurateur in Costa Rica, Anthony Florence's life has been about "trying to hold on", and it is a pleasure to welcome his memoir Hell's Heaven to the Local Authors bookcase!
I attended the University of Massachusetts and a computer electronics class at Benjamin Franklin Institute, where IBM hired me. After 20 years in the world of high technology, I became disillusioned with corporate life and moved with my family to Costa Rica, where I had the pleasure of meeting a man named Dr. Deepak Chopra, who contacted me and invited my wife and I to join him at his private lunch with the presidential candidate of Costa Rica during his one-day conference. How? TheAnthonyFlorence.com
Anthony Florence
13 October 2022: Mark your calendars! This Saturday, October 15, 2022, we will be visited by adoptable cats from Community Concern for Cats with a Blessing of the Animals, and Marty Nemko, author of Careers for Dummies and numerous other books about life and career choices! The cats will arrive at 11:00 AM and Marty joins us at 3:00 PM to discuss his books and answer your questions.
From Community Concern for Cats: In honor of St. Francis (whose feast day was October 4), Reasonable Books will feature animals inside and out on October 15 from 11:00 to 2:00. Inside, Community Concern for Cats will have a playpen full of adorable, adoptable kittens for you to ooh and aww over. Outside, Pastor Lauren Michelle of Lafayette United Methodist Church will perform the traditional Blessing of the Animals. Pets should be on a leash or in a secure carrier. Only bring your pet if you know they are comfortable with other animals and people. If your pet is not able to attend, Pastor Lauren Michelle will be happy to bless a picture of a pet instead!
Marty Nemko
12 October 2022: Congratulations to Isidra Mencos on the release of her memoir, Promenade of Desire! Born and raised in Barcelona during and after the Franco dictatorship, Isidra joins our Local Authors bookcase with a frank and moving story of entering adulthood during a time of immense cultural and political change.
"A brave and unblinkingly honest portrait of a young woman's sensual and sexual awakening in the face of censure and repression, and her refusal to be held back by the constraints of her family, culture, and religion... Her story is shameless, in the very best sense of the word." Joyce Maynard, New York Times best-selling author of Labor Day, To Die For, and Count The Ways
14 September 2022: UPDATE: SOLD OUT! Mark your calendars again! Our second in-store event of the season is happening the weekend after Glen Dahlgren's in-store talk about his Chronicles of Chaos series, Saturday September 24th, from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM, with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Kevin Fisher-Paulson, and Jill Hedgecock, internationally published author and most recently the author of Queen of the Rhino!
(As you know, space in the shop is limited. You can email an RSVP for any of our in-store events to books@reasonable.online to help us prepare for the use of the space and seating.)
10 September 2022: Mark your calendars! Our first in-store event of the season is happening next week, Saturday September 17th, from 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM, with fantasy fiction and Chronicles of Chaos author Glen Dahlgren. Geln will be here to speak about his writing and his latest book, The House of Prophecy.
2 September 2022: John Steinbeck is believed to have remarked, "I guess there are never enough books," and he was right! Congratulations to Jill Hedgecock for her latest novel, Queen of the Rhino!: Seventeen-year-old Claire’s role in a dramatic effort to save two rhinos while visiting South Africa caused her to become a social media sensation known as #QueenoftheRhino, but the trauma of the encounter left her with emotional scars. When Claire agrees to travel to Kenya with her father and his annoying new wife to meet a potential donor for her Rhino in the Room Foundation, she suspects she may have been brought to Africa under false pretenses. Can Claire face her demons and unravel who is behind the sinister events in time to save the endangered rhinos she cares so much for?
16 August 2022: Congratulations to Deven Greene on the publication of the third book in her Erica Rosen MD trilogy, "Unforeseen"! Pediatrician Erica Rosen is stymied when two of her patients don't respond to medicine as expected. When other patients later develop strange, unexpected illnesses, she is determined to get to the bottom of it... Erica is convinced something nefarious is underfoot, and Dr. Nilsen, rather than simply being after her job, is engaged in a dangerous scheme involving her patients. Unable to recruit the help of law enforcement in a timely manner, she realizes she must take matters into her own hands. As she proceeds with her investigation, she is unaware of the dangers she is about to encounter.
13 August 2022: In “Bloody Pages”, Bruce Lewis reprises Detective Kim Jansen in the riveting follow-up to 2021’s “Bloody Paws”: The theft of priceless books from a public library and the bloody attack on a security guard trying to protect them set Jansen on a twisting road of contradictory evidence and multiple suspects. At the center of the mystery is a 100-year-old family secret tied to photographer Edward S. Curtis' 20- volume masterpiece, The North American Indian.
10 August 2022: Our collection of books by local authors is growing! Martin Patin brings us a novel for young readers, Roebell Sandwich, a fictional story about the ups and downs in the life of one twelve-year-old boy growing up in Queens, New York, in the 1970s.
31 May 2022: Michael Barrington, East Bay resident and native of Manchester, England, joins our Local Authors bookcase with his memoir and three novels!
Set during a pivotal period in the history of the Catholic church and bloody civil war in Nigeria, The Bishop Wears No Drawers is a true-to-life "survivor" tale replete with adrenaline-pumping adventures, daunting challenges and the added dimension of one priest's profound religious struggle to find his true self.
Michael has also penned three novels, Let the Peacock Sing, Becoming Anya, and The Ethiopian Affair.
Let the Peacock Sing is a captivating and unrequited love story set against the action-packed background of the French Resistance in 1942.
In Becoming Anya, an historical novel set in World War Two and its aftermath, a nun overcomes tragedy and crisis through loving relationships to finally become the woman she was meant to be.
Michael's latest novel, The Ethiopian Affair, is an international thriller about a plot to kidnap the US ambassador to Ethiopia. Two super code-breaking agents a man from M16 and woman from the CIA, with the clock ticking, struggle with their emotions and mutual attraction while their whirlwind investigation takes them through Somalia, Kenya, El Salvador, Egypt, England and the USA, raising more questions than answers
27 May 2022: Just in time for Summer traveling, Paul Kalas joins the Local Authors bookcase! "Crete Swim" is a new adventure guide for people who love to travel and swim, with over 20 locations around the Mediterranean island of Crete, where open water swimmers can discover routes between 25 meters and 6 km that have a particular beauty, novelty, scenery, or history. You can learn more about the book here.
10 May 2022: Concord's Al Garrotto joins the Local Authors bookcase with his latest novel based on Victor Hugo's classic Les Misérables, "Inspector Javert at the Gates of Hell". This book is literally "Big in Japan"! Inspector Javert, Victor Hugo’s fictional antihero, stands on the parapet. Below him, the swirling River Seine beckons. He hesitates, then… steps forward. What happens next? Does he cease to exist. Does he find life on the other side of life as we know it here on Earth? If he does what sort of existence awaits Javert on that “other side”?
28 April 2022: The East Bay's own Josephine Mele has just published the sequel to her "Two Travel Mysteries"! In "Two Travel Mysteries: Book 2" you can enjoy June Gordon's latest adventures with "Death on the Danube" and "Corpse in the Castle". As Camille Minichino writes, "Grab your favorite regional dessert (June always does) and be ready for engaging trips throught he means, motives and opportunities of amateur sleuthing."
27 April 2022: Support local businesses and double your spending power! The Lafayette City Council has allocated American Rescue Plan Act funds to support its local businesses with the Lafayette Shop Local eCard Pilot Program. Each eCard purchase will be matched with a second eCard of equal value for use at local businesses including Reasonable Books. You can learn more here, and purchase eCards here.
23 March 2022: In anticipation of her upcoming book event in Orinda (Friday, April 29, 2022 at the Lafayette-Orinda Presbyterian Church), Francie Low's memoir "Alive and Fixable" joins the Local Authors bookcase. For fifteen months after Tony's cycling accident, Francie protected Tony on his bumpy road to recovery and he protected his family from knowing just how much he hurt. Together they learned to never give up and to accept help. Love was everywhere, inspiring Tony and Francie to stay positive and look for the community of angels floating into their lives.
18 March 2022: Andree Prendergast joins our Local Authors bookcase with three delightful books for young children! Meet Callie, a free spirited and lovable girl who has a great family and lots of friends, but who thinks she could be happier if only she were a princess. Come on the journey with Callie as she uncovers the secrets of becoming a princess, and in the process, makes some greater discoveries about herself. Every Little Girl is a Princess.
In "Toby Got Out!", Toby is a great dog – just about the best pet ever, except for one detail: Toby likes adventure!
And in "Snug Bug Makes New Friends", a lonely bug learns that friendship is about who you are, not what you look like.
29 December 2021: Season's Greetings and best wishes for the New Year to you from Reasonable Books! The impressive collection of novels from our Local Authors bookcase continues to grow with the addition of "Typhoon Coast" by Mark R. Clifford. You can learn more about Mark's wide ranging background in this recent article from the Lamorinda Weekly. Trent and Eddie follow childhood’s illusions of grandeur through San Francisco, then become men in the vast Philippine mountains. Mount Pinatubo explodes with apocalyptic fury, but does it take the Golden Lily Treasure with it? Eddie and Trent are not alone in the hunt. The trillions in treasure could afford the US government incredible power in international affairs and bankroll the nation’s black operations. It’s all fair game.
9 December 2021: Welcome to the Local Authors bookcase, Lydia Osborn! Lydia wrote Ideal, the first book of her two-novel duology, in 2018 at the age of thirteen. The world of twin sisters Mara and Kat Cyania was ideal. As magically-enhanced Witch Warriors the girls spend their days happily training and fighting in martial and magical arts, preparing to battle the soulless killers that have been plaguing their planet for centuries. All goes well until Mara discovers a deadly secret - one of their kind has betrayed them and is preparing to destroy their world.
Lydia penned her sequel Revenant just this year. All too easily, the hunters can become the hunted. That's what Mara and Kat learn as their lives are upended by the sudden appearance of their mother, bringing questions about their past and their destiny as the not-so-holy children of Angels. After spending their entire lives hunting monsters, Mara and Kat are forced to confront the possibility that they could be the biggest monsters of them all.
24 November 2021: Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, Bruce Lewis joins our Local Authors bookcase with "Bloody Paws: A Kim Jansen Detective Novel". When veterinary college sweethearts Jim Briggs and Helen Williams broke up to pursue careers in other parts of the country, they had no idea a tragedy would reunite them around a common cause six years later in Portland, Oregon where Briggs operated a mobile canine care service.
18 November 2021: As we get ready for tomorrow's author event, "Connecting Through Stories", we are happy to welcome Ben Schwartz to our Local Authors bookcase with his collection of stories, "Everything There Was To Tell". Brothers and sisters drawn by their father’s death back home to the family farm, a friend wrestling with the ghastly consequences of his own inattention, a very-ill man’s pilgrimage to the high mountains of California—these spare and deeply western stories crackle with hard-earned grief, love, and, when it matters most, humor. (Daniel Duane)
9 November 2021: It's with great pleasure that we welcome Lee Gale Gruen to our Local Authors bookcase! Lee Gale retired at age sixty from her thirty-seven-year career as a probation officer and started attending an acting class for seniors just as a pastime. A few weeks later her mother died, and she invited her grieving, eighty-five-year-old father to come to class with her. "Adventures with Dad" is the true story of their magical journey attending that class together for three years, and their bonding through that experience more than ever before.
Lee Gale has also penned "Reinventing Yourself in Your Retirement Years: Find Joy, Excitement, and Purpose After You Retire". Not a one-size-fits-all approach, this book offers an individualized guide for retirees and seniors in this new stage of their life based on their own likes and comfort level. It offers ways to identify what might interest you and suggests numerous activities and pursuits as well as how and where to find them. You can read more about Lee Gale's journeys here.
