Been into the wild lately?
Two new nonfiction releases by Bay Area authors — Jason Mark’s treks into remote places and Tom Turner’s biography of environmental activist David Brower — will take you there. Also new in bookstores this month: Winston Churchill’s journalistic endeavors, arson in the California Wine Country, a study of female friendships and the latest installment of the always entertaining “Best American Nonrequired Reading.”
“Satellites in the High Country: Searching for the Wild in the Age of Man” by Jason Mark (Island Press, $28, 256 pages) Are there still untamed places in our overdeveloped, densely populated world? In his new book, Bay Area-based environmental writer Jason Mark, the longtime editor of Earth Island Journal, takes readers out of the city and into some amazingly wild environs. Starting at Point Reyes National Seashore — “one of my favorite places in the whole world,” he writes — Mark travels to far-flung spots throughout the United States, encountering Mexican gray wolves in the Gila National Forest, red fox and caribou in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and more. This is true adventure; Mark writes eloquently about our need for nature and our responsibility to preserve it.
“David Brower: The Making of the Environmental Movement” by Tom Turner (University of California Press, $29.95, 289 pages) One of the most significant figures in the environmental movement throughout the 20th century, David Brower was the first executive director of the Sierra Club and the founder of Friends of the Earth. Berkeley-based author Tom Turner knew and worked with Brower, and he draws on private writings, published works and more than 50 interviews in this new biography.
“Winston Churchill Reporting: Adventures of a Young War Correspondent” by Simon Read (Da Capo Press, $26.99, 320 pages) Winston Churchill’s indelible legacy derives from his years as Britain’s wartime leader, but in this new biography, author Simon Read illuminates Churchill’s early years as a journalist and war correspondent. Drawing on letters, dispatches and other writings, the book covers the years between 1895 and 1900, when Churchill reported from the front lines of the British Empire’s battles in Cuba, India, Sudan and South Africa. Churchill was ambitious and well-connected (his mother was his champion, publicist and press agent). By 1900, he had achieved considerable renown and made an easy leap into Parliament.
“Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California” by Frances Dinkelspiel (St. Martin’s Press, $26.99, 304 pages) Ten years ago this month, an arson fire broke out in an old Navy bunker in Vallejo. More than four million bottles of wine — some of Napa Valley’s oldest vintages among them — went up in flames. When Mark Anderson was convicted of the crime, insiders were shocked; a wine connoisseur with deep ties to the wine industry, he had been hired to look after the bunker. Instead, he’d repeatedly stolen from it and burned it down to cover his tracks. Berkeley journalist Frances Dinkelspiel — who traces her own roots in the Wine Country back to her great-great grandfather — sets Anderson’s story in the context of the industry’s dark past. It’s an engaging read and a far cry from the bucolic image of the Napa Valley most of us hold dear.
“The Social Sex: A History of Female Friendship” by Marilyn Yalom with Theresa Donovan Brown (Harper Perennial, $15.99, 400 pages) Do women make the best friends? Co-authors Marilyn Yalom and Theresa Donovan Brown think the answer is yes. In this survey of history, literature, religion, philosophy and pop culture, they trace the origins of deep female bonds. The Greeks and Romans, they note, thought women were “weaker,” less able to sustain friendships, than men. But there are plenty of examples here — from 16th-century nuns to 21st-century feminists — to suggest otherwise.
“The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015” edited and introduced by Adam Johnson (Mariner/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $14.95, 432 pages) Each year, I look forward to spending some time with the newest edition of “The Best American Nonrequired Reading,” a project of the writing and tutoring network 826 National. This year’s edition is edited by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Adam Johnson (“The Orphan Master’s Son”), who worked with a group of high school students from 826 Valencia to cull writings from literary magazines, chapbooks, graphic novels, transcripts and blogs. Included in the wide-ranging collection are works by Bay Area novelists Daniel Alarcón, Katie Coyle and Ammi Keller and journalists Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd.
Contact Georgia Rowe at growe@pacbell.net.
