NEWS
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.
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:
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
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