Silicon Valley Girl (Paperback) by Maya Morrow Inspired by the life and works of poet Sylvia Plath, including Plath’s published journals, Maya Morrow presents her own coming-of-age journey in this collection of raw and uncensored diaries spanning a decade and a half. The story begins Christmas 1984 and ends in 1999, when the author, twenty-six, rediscovers the handwritten diaries for the first time. “These diaries are compelling enough on their own,” Morrow writes. “However, what makes this coming-of-age story different from many others is that it gives the reader a glimpse of not just an average, American middle class girl’s life – it highlights the fact that my life was that, and I’m Afro American. When The Cosby Show came on, I saw my family on television, and didn’t understand why the media said the show was an unrealistic depiction of African American life. It was realistic; it was my life!” Set against a backdrop of cultural touchstones any Gen-Xer would recognize, Silicon Valley Girl: My Adolescent Life and Times, and an Ode to Generation X offers a deeply personal look at the emotional life of a teenager of color trying to make sense of race, class, and sexuality at the dawn of Post-Cold War America. (2017, Paperback, 242 pages)

This book examines the unique form of democracy that has been taking shape in California since the historic recall of Gray Davis and the election of Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2003. The authors examine how Governor Schwarzenegger's leadership has encouraged the growth of direct democracy, in which public policy decisions are made by voters at the ballot box rather than by elected representatives in the legislature. Using the Public Policy Institute of California Statewide Surveys, which include interviews with more than 150,000 Californians, Baldassare and Katz detail the transformation in the state's political climate and the public attitudes behind this change. The authors conclude that this transformation will likely take place in other states, perhaps even nationwide, and offer recommendations for ways to improve policymaking in a hybrid democracy. Book jacket.

When Elizabeth Chambers was born in San Jose in 1900, half a century after the Gold Rush, there were fewer than one and a half million residents in California, nearly half of them in the San Francisco Bay Area. Today's California, with nearly forty million residents, is a very different place. In 1900, electricity and indoor plumbing were replacing candles, gas lamps, and outdoor privies. The Central Pacific Railroad had shaped the state's development, as towns sprang up around train routes; during her lifetime, the automobile would reshape the state's development. Omnibus is a portrait of my grandmother, descended from westward migrating pioneer Americans, who grew up in the Bay Area. This memoir was written for her three children, who knew her as a mother, to let them know about her childhood, and about the mothers and fathers from whom we are all descended. Mark Farmer Sebastopol, California

Travel with Art Rodriguez as he dreams of his past. He experiences an unpleasant childhood full of difficult obstacles that could have profoundly impaired his chance for a normal life. Life appears hopeless during those young years as he struggles to discover who he really is and at the same time contends with his dictatorial father. Travel with him as he takes you through the California Youth Authority, the prison system for young offenders. In this story, which brings laughter and tears, both young and old can find comfort in knowing that when life appears bleak and there seems to be no hope, events in life can change. In 1975 Art Rodriguez started a successful business in San Jose, the city in which he was born. Grow with him in his life and experience with him the hardships and successes of a new business.