.Books

Mattson provides a galvanizing setup for 'Reprieve'. Each of the five cells at Quigley House is occupied by gore-covered actors, who are permitted to hit, punch and spatter muck on the visitors, who are sometimes allowed to retaliate. The first contestant to use the safe word, “reprieve,” loses the chance to take $60,000 home with them. The owners claim to have made at least one payout.

"Vadi said, 'I feel like Inter State is a series of essays that answer a lot of questions I had about myself and my family and my relationship with California. By way of answering those questions, it allowed me to investigate other questions I came up with along the way that hint at California’s future.'"

"Greene said he took the fact that one man invented the game for granted. 'As I researched it, I realized that other sports cannot be traced to a single inventor,' he said. 'We have those 13 rules that started the game. From that, we can trace the watchability, see how the rules changed in this one, rare, fishbowl. It’s almost like a science experiment," Lou Fancher reports.

Michael Berry sits down with Monica West, author of 'Revival Season', to discuss her book on a family of faith healers and how it reflects, and doesn't reflect, her childhood growing up in different churches across America.

Author and co-founder of Nerds of Color, Shawn Taylor reviews Ayize Jama-Everett's graphic novel that mines racial stereotypes for Jungian "Shadow work" on the global Black psyche.

Michael Berry reviews former East Bay Express Editor, Michael Mechanic and his unflinching portrayal of the super-rich as both parasitic and spiritually impoverished in his new book, 'Jackpot'.

When the Academy Awards are presented on April 25, Oakland writer Samuel Sattin will root for a European film with a personal connection. WolfWalkers, a production of the Kilkenney Ireland studio Cartoon Saloon, is nominated in the Best...