Books and Media

The landmark City Lights Booksellers & Publishers in San Francisco is celebrating its 60th year, to be highlighted by an open house June 23.

One invention transformed the course of Southern cooking.

If you haven't been inside a library lately, here's news: Things have changed. More than ever, librarians have gone high-tech in their jobs as gatherers and distributors of information, and they're very much involved in the communities they serve.

When Nathalie Dupree needed a big favor, she turned to Facebook. And that social media link brings the "Julia Child of the South" to Sacramento next week for two special appearances, celebrating the book "Mastering the Art of Southern Cooking."

Sacramento's vivid poetry scene make it clear that people of all ages still want to connect in face-to-face settings to share a sense of community, exchange ideas and express themselves through creative use of language. Sacramento's vivid poetry scene offers that chance.

For decades, Willa Cather has been a peculiar enigma in 20th-century American literature: beloved by ordinary readers for vivid evocations of frontier life in novels like "O Pioneers!" and "My Antonia," but walled off from personal scrutiny by some of the tightest archival restrictions this side of J.D. Salinger.

Every Sacramento public library will be closed March 30 due to staff furloughs.

One of the nation's most prestigious workshops for aspiring and established writers, screenwriters and poets is the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley.

Several recent books offer a wealth of information for both beginners and more experienced food gardeners

The McClatchy Co. is buying a digital marketing firm that specializes in tracking the effectiveness of online advertising campaigns.

March is Women's History Month, when the nation pays tribute to "the generations of women whose commitments have proved invaluable to society." People like astronaut Sally Ride, artist Frida Kahlo, athlete Wilma Rudolph, novelist Virginia Woolf, aviator Amelia Earhart, and the Rosie the Riveter archetype.

Melanie Benjamin had returned to her Chicago suburbs home the day before, exhausted from another leg of a book tour that's been going nonstop since the January debut of her best-selling historical novel, "The Aviator's Wife."

Watching the 85th Academy Awards last Sunday was a reminder that countless books, novellas and short stories have found their way onto the big screen over the decades.

Channel 3 (KCRA) again topped its TV news rivals in most time slots in February, according to the latest ratings released by Nielsen Co.

THURSDAY - Historical-fiction writer Melanie Benjamin's new novel, "The Aviator's Wife," tells the story of the marriage of Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, who emerged from his shadow to become a writer and advocate for women's rights.

How about a heaping plate of green eggs and ham?

A Sacramento group that produces the nation's largest and oldest senior softball publication has purchased Reno-based Softball West magazine, which has covered softball throughout the West for almost three decades.

A library of books has been written about pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh, but few biographers have delved into the mystery of his wife, Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

When in doubt, start with chicken.

"Romance is everything," said Gertrude Stein, who must have been thinking of Valentine's Day, which comes around once again Thursday.

Robert Crais was packing for a 12-city national book tour and things were "hectic," he said by phone from his Santa Monica home. "But they should be hectic; that's a good thing," he said.

Losing weight, alleviating depression, escaping anxiety, eliminating procrastination, taking charge of your life, finding happiness, finding and keeping love, developing self-esteem, working through grief, getting past a divorce, tapping in to your potential.

Help yourself to this list of top sellers

The place was Bohemian Paris in the 1920s, the electrified home of the Lost Generation of expatriate American writers. That extraordinary window of time in the world's cultural capital was called "années folles" by the French – the crazy years. Anything seemed possible.

Kinsey and Me

One way to get your sizzle on in preparation for Valentine's Day is with Fifty Shades of Romance. The audience-friendly question-answer session and panel discussion will star a quartet of area authors whose specialty is romantic suspense – the hotter, the better.

After her speech Tuesday night as part of the Sacramento Speakers Series, education advocate Michelle Rhee sold early copies of her new autobiography, "Radical: Fighting to Put Students First."

Appropriately, the road to writer Chris Enss' home on the outskirts of Grass Valley takes a visitor along the Overland Emigrant Trail, past Ponderosa Pines Way and Lone Star Road, and on two streets named after rattlesnakes.

Bay Area native Audrey Asistio joins Sacramento Channel 13 (KOVR) as morning news anchor on Wednesday.

"Citizenville" is Gavin Newsom's proposal for how the tech-savvy private sector can help change what he views as stubbornly technophobic local, state and federal governments and "transform democracy" to make it more responsive to the citizenry.

"The One and Only Ivan," a touching story told by a silverback gorilla held captive in a shopping mall, on Monday won the John Newbery Medal, the top award in children's literature.

February is Black History Month, which has its roots in Negro History Week, founded in 1926 by Harvard-educated Carter G. Woodson. It's a time for Americans to remember the struggles, accomplishments and contributions of African Americans.

The Capitol Morning Report, a news website for people who work in and around the Capitol, claims in a lawsuit that its contents were pirated by two individuals and a Southern California water district.

Gov. Jerry Brown had hardly left the rostrum when Kevin Eckery, a Republican consultant analyzing Brown's State of the State address for KCRA, told television viewers, "I think half the Legislature is looking up the references on Google."

Whole Foods Market co-founder and co-CEO John Mackey will bring his rallying cry for "do-good capitalism" to Davis next month, part of a 21-city book tour across the country.

After 2 1/2 years in Haiti, Jonathan Katz was preparing to leave the impoverished but endlessly intriguing nation in January 2010. His next reporting assignment: Afghanistan. Then, a massive earthquake ripped apart his house, his plans and the lives of Haitians all around him.

This year, the Sacramento Public Library isn't waiting until its annual fundraising gala, Authors on the Move (March 9), to announce its choice for its annual One Book Sacramento program.

The two Sacramento-area girls who wrote a now- famous book of 158 rules to live by appeared on NBC's "Today" show Friday morning with the Walmart employee who found their lost book.

British thriller novelist Lee Child is a popular guy. More than 1,000 fans crowded into the Scottish Rite Center for the Nov. 29 Bee Book Club to hear what he had to say about his new title, "A Wanted Man" (Delacorte, $28, 416 pages).

The Sacramento Bee on Wednesday named Scott Lebar, a longtime editor at the newspaper who most recently has overseen its news investigations, as managing editor.

Lake Canyon School at 800 Lake Canyon Ave. and Valley Oaks School at 21 C St., will each host an e-waste recycling day Jan. 26 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

It started as a simple tribute to his mother, a teacher and bibliophile. Todd Bol put up a miniature version of a one-room schoolhouse on a post outside his home in this western Wisconsin city, filled it with books and invited his neighbors to borrow them.

The Onion Book of Known Knowledge

In "Family Inc.," Caitlin and Andrew Friedman, professionals who have been married for more than 10 years and are the parents of two children, argue that taking the office home with you benefits your family life.

Jan Vermeer's "Girl with a Pearl Earring" and a half-century of paintings by Sacramento's Gregory Kondos are among the highlights of art exhibitions opening in 2013.

Ireta Black is a first-time published author at 89 years old.

Bonnie, a new monthly lifestyle magazine for women, makes its debut in Sacramento on Jan. 2, publisher Shawn Crary said Wednesday.

Giving raves to family members is no longer acceptable. Neither is writers reviewing other writers. But showering five stars on a book you admittedly have not read is fine.

Now and then, a novel seemingly appears out of nowhere, and its popularity goes viral largely via word-of-mouth among readers.

'Tis the time of year for coffee-table books and, for the adventuresome, there is nothing better than "Desert Air."