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Vanessa Hua explores suburban paranoia in ‘Coyoteland’
In the midst of pandemic lockdowns, Zoom classes, wildfires and family life, Vanessa Hua went for an early morning walk in her neighborhood, where the East Bay Hills descended into leafy suburbia. The resulting scene helped trigger...
Michael Pollan explores consciousness in Berkeley conversation
The passage of time, 10 best-selling books and countless essays for The New York Times Magazine and other publications make it clear that Michael Pollan has no off button. Appearing March 10 at First Congregational Church of...
She told the truth anyway
She arrives at Kinfolx Cafe in a hot-pink, crocheted two-piece—off the shoulder, hand-knitted—and the outfit tells the crowd something. Oubria Tronshaw does not show up in borrowed clothes. She makes the thing herself and wears it loud....
New book details fight to shut youth prisons
In the 1990s, writes Albany-based author Nell Bernstein in her new book In Our Future We Are Free, a myth emerged—that of so-called “juvenile superpredators.” It was fueled by pseudoscience, notably the writings of Princeton University political...
‘Downtown Doors’ offers an entrance to compassion
The many doors in Downtown Doors, local author Natasha Tripplett’s new children’s book, are all in Oakland, although the neighborhood through which Wendall and his mother travel on this particular day is a composite.
Wendall sees and interacts...
RIP, Malcolm Margolin
Malcolm Margolin, who died Aug. 20 at age 84, loved language. Words were his passion as the founder of Heyday, the independent nonprofit press launched in 1974 that grew to include Heyday Books, the Berkeley-based powerhouse publishing...
Guide to flying artwork
What lifts the heart more than unexpectedly encountering a beautiful piece of Nature’s artwork, a.k.a. a butterfly? The Smithsonian says approximately 17,500 species have been identified globally, and no one yet knows what glories still float about...
