Halfway There

Oops, dropped another! A funny thing about being a writer: Once you've published a book, it makes it exceedingly difficult to keep w...

Escape from the valley Or perhaps I should say, “Cows in The City ,” as San Francisco is wont to style itself. In a few hours I will be ...

An example of undercutting If a large fraternal organization invites you to be the speaker at its annual fundraiser, you should definite...

★★★★★  Do me a favor? People have been asking me if there's going to be a Kindle version of my novel. The answer is a firm maybe . ...

The Infinite Tides The traumatized astronaut is not a new theme in literature. In nonfiction, we have the example of Buzz Aldrin 's...

Die Zeit ist da! As of today we are merely two weeks away from the release of my novel, Land of Milk and Money , published by Tagus Pres...

The Church is my bulwark Over the years I have been to a handful of book-launch parties. The most recent—and most impressive—was for the...

Slow Denialist and the Seven Plots Christopher Booker is the author of The Seven Basic Plots , a much-lauded book that purports to clas...

Hawking my wares I have a long list of summer events in California's Portuguese-American community. It looks like I'll be doing a ...

We uncover the cover confusion It took nearly fifty years, but at last I have the answer to a niggling question that has been stuck in the...

The writer as researcher I can't help myself. I read prefaces and acknowledgments in books. It fascinates me when the author thanks th...

On not being famous My editor-in-chief pointed out the other day that I am not a famous person. Naturally, this took me by surprise, since...

So many books, so little space Some of my friends and acquaintances keep flaunting their electronic book readers at me. They're confid...

Coming soon to a stage near you In 1999, I picked up a pair of tickets to the San Francisco Opera's production of Wagner's Der Rin...

No gurlz aloud I joined the Library of Science back in the sixties, when I was in high school. The book club seduced me by offering me a m...

Dressing on the side During a recent jaunt to San Francisco, I popped into the Books Inc. branch in Opera Plaza on Van Ness. While browsin...

Know your market My e-mail frequently contains promotional messages from Borders. As a constant book reader and book collector, I'm a ...

The quest for catchy Earlier this month I received a very welcome e-mail message from the general editor of a university press: We are ve...