Tag archives: books
As a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, author Vanessa Lillie’s compelling Blood Sisters is based on a real crime involving multiple missing indigenous girls and women. Syd, an archeologist for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, finds herself back in her small-town home in Oklahoma to solve the mystery of a recently discovered skull. […]
Medora Steedman Bass is the daughter of Carrie and George Steedman, owners of Casa del Herrero. Earlier this year, various papers and journals of hers were discovered at the house, which document her love of books and reading, and spawned the creation of a book club in her honor called The Medora Book Club. Medora […]
The veteran experience is also a jumping off point for The Hardest Year: A Love Story in Letters During the Vietnam War, a just-published memoir by author-poet Carole Wagener and her husband, William Wagener, that has been called a personal snapshot of the turbulent ‘60s as framed through the hearts of two souls divided by […]
Palliative care physician Michael Kearney, who is also a student of Native American traditions and Mahayana Buddhism, wove together his professions in three nonfiction books that merge mythology, psychology, spirituality, and poetry. The Santa Barbara resident’s just-published book, Becoming Forest – A Story of Deep Belonging, isa fable of a young Irish woman who finds […]
“Those Who Do Not Learn History Are Doomed to Repeat It.” This quaint bromide is periodically hauled out to remonstrate against ideas that seem determined to repeat some wanton mistake from the past. Book banning fits that description like a glove. There is in this country a newish state law on the books – HB […]
The Leftover Woman by Jean Kwok is the story of Jasmine, a Chinese girl who has fled her small village to escape an abusive husband and to find her daughter that was taken from her and sent to America. With no legal credentials, Jasmine must work in a sleezy bar, turning herself into an object […]
If your relationship to books runs more to reading than writing or discussing, it’s time to rejoice as Planned Parenthood’s massive annual book sale gets underway as this issue hits newsstands. Paying no attention to Kindle and its kind, the book sale forges on for a 49th year, once again at the spacious Exhibit Hall […]
Amy Chua’s The Golden Gate is a thriller packed with historical tidbits, exploring race and class in San Francisco in the 1940s. When a presidential candidate is found murdered in a lux hotel, Detective Sullivan is called in to cull between the many suspects. Is it possible one or all three beautiful heiresses are involved, […]
Recently, I sat with author Karen Roberts on the Bonnymede deck listening to the soft sounds of surf nearby and talking about her new book, The Blossoming of Women – A Workbook on Growing from Older to Elder. Always curious about the experience that inspires the writing, I asked Karen to share a bit about […]
It is time for the annual Memorial Day party in an elite cul-de-sac in Jamie Day’s The Block Party. The group of close friends and neighbors gather as they always do, only this year’s party will end with gunfire and someone dead. Revenge is the name of the game, a game seemingly played by all […]
Chaucer’s has booked a whopping four in-store signings at its Loreto Plaza location this week, starting with No. 1 New York Times bestselling Young Adult author P. C. Cast on Sunday afternoon, June 4. Cast, whose novels count more than 20 million copies in print in over 40 countries, had the last installment of herTales […]
Ivy Pochoda returns to the dark side of life in Sing Her Down with some very violent women. Two women are released early from prison. One returns to California and her mother’s home, pursued by the other woman. Florida and Dios circle each other like wary gunslingers in this cowboyesque drama. Dios wants to force […]
Each month, Montecito Library holds our regular programs in the Community Hall, which end up creating some of the most enjoyable and deep connections between patrons. Here’s a quick update on what we are doing and we welcome you to join the fun! Stay & Play Tuesday Mornings Starting in March of 2022, we launched […]
Where Yellow Flowers Bloom: A True Story of Hope through Unimaginable Loss by Kim Cantin is honest, heartbreaking, and inspiring. Cantin and her daughter survived Montecito’s 2018 debris flow, but her son and husband did not. In vivid detail she recalls that night, and the subsequent months as she recovered and desperately sought the remains […]
Santa Barbara-born author Caroline DeLoreto, a Functional Diagnostic nutrition-practitioner, LMFT (Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist) counselor, energy healer, and educator who worked as a health teacher at Santa Barbara Middle School for 15 years, has scheduled two local events to launch her new book. From Lyme to Light: A Spiritual Journey and Guide to Healing […]
Strangers in the Night by Heather Webb chronicles the heart-pounding love affair between Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner. Told from both Frank and Ava’s points of view, the book spans the whole arc of their tempestuous romance, from the slow burn, through the sizzle and the fireworks that ultimately blew the couple apart. This is […]
Cancer physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee, who has been praised for making scientific discoveries read like riveting mysteries, is coming to town to talk about his new book, The Song of the Cell, an exploration of medicine and our radical new ability to manipulate cells. The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Emperor of All Maladies […]
The midtown bookstore goes local for author events on three successive days to mark the end of the month, beginning Sunday, Feb. 26, with Shaunna and John Stith’s Black Beach: A Community, an Oil Spill, and the Origin of Earth Day. With Earth Day 2023 barely a month away, the Stiths’ first children’s picture book […]
Fans of Bret Easton Ellis will be thrilled with The Shards, his first book in 13 years. Bret (fictional Bret) is 17 years old, attending a preppy academy, taking massive quantities of drugs, and obsessing over Robert, the new kid in school – handsome and a threat – and a serial killer roaming around Los […]
Children between the ages of three and five (and their grownups) are invited to the Montecito Library for a weekly Preschool Storytime starting in February. We will be meeting every Thursday from 10-10:30 am. Come by to meet new friends, read stories, sing songs, and make crafts. This is a great opportunity to introduce little […]
