Ornithologist Roger Lederer has just published his eighth book, Beaks, Bones, and Bird Songs: How the Struggle for Survival Has Shaped Birds and Their Behavior . He writes that birds have to find food, migrate, withstand the weather, and avoid predators. Today, birds are challenged by a new set of obstacles brought about by humans.

When Jonna Doolittle Hoppes was researching a biography she wrote about her famous grandfather, World War II hero General Jimmy Doolittle, she encountered many stories of ordinary "heroes" who said they were Just Doing My Job . Willows author Dan Roach was a platoon leader during the Vietnam war and wrote about his experiences in Gifts of War: Once Upon a Rice Paddy . Dan continues to be touched by that war. For example, receiving a call from the widow of a soldier killed in his platoon who

Chico author Judi Loren Grace got pregnant as a teenager and was sent away to a home for unwed mothers. She recounts her experiences in a memoir, The Third Floor. Judi's fourth book is a novel, Meadowlark . The main character lives in Dunsmuir where she raises a child of abusive parents. Plus a reading by humorist and author David Sedaris.

Baseball fans are watching the World Series this week, and probably think they know the rules. In his book, Baseball Rules in Black and White , Willows author and baseball umpire James Bettencourt explains rules that even baseball players and coaches sometimes misunderstand. For fans of classic movies, Redding native Kendra Bean has written a biography of actress Vivien Leigh and her husband Lawrence Olivier. The title of her book is Vivien Leigh: An Intimate Portrait .

Shasta College Spanish instructor Ann Sittig gathered oral histories of Mayan women living in Nebraska and working in meatpacking plants. She published these stories in a book, The Mayans Among Us: Migrant Women and Meatpacking on the Great Plains . In her book, The Distance Between Us , author Reyna Grande describes the effect on her as a child left behind in Mexico when her parents migrated to The United States. Chico author Nick Hanson tells a scary Halloween story in his novel, An Empty

Redding author Ann L. Sittig and her co-author Martha Florinda Gonzalez focus on the experiences of Central American indigenous immigrants who work in Nebraska in their book, The Mayans Among Us: Migrant Women and Meatpacking on the Great Plains . Award-winning author Karen Halvorsen Schreck set her novel Broken Ground in the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Her main character Ruth sees the forced mass deportation of people of Mexican heritage, including US citizens, during the repatriation campaign

In her book, The Goddess Pose , New York Times best-selling author Michelle Goldberg tells the globetrotting story of the audacious life of Indra Devi, the woman who helped bring yoga to the west. Devi was born Eugenia Peterson in Russia in 1899, was an early feminist who traveled from the cabarets of Berlin, to the Mysore palace in India, to China and Hollywood, and lived to be almost 103 years old.

Retired English instructor Cathy Chase spent her career teaching troubled adults as a way to give voice to their sense of powerlessness. Her novel Jump is aimed at the middle school reader. Photographer Douglas Keister recounts how 60 photographs of people and places in his hometown of Lincoln, Nebraska were accepted in the newly opened Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. These photographs were published in Lincoln in black-and-white 1910–1925.

In Book Two: The Tribe and Book Three: Journeys of her trilogy, A Nation of Mystics , author Pamela Johnson resumes her exploration of the late 1960s and the counterculture as seen through the eyes of a communal family living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

On this reading-themed episode of Nancy's Bookshelf, Reading Pals' Community Outreach Coordinator Michelle Curran invites volunteers to help elementary school students improve their reading skills. Then, local writers read from their books: Emily Gallo reads from her newest novel, Ruby & Kate . And author of the children's book Tina the Ballerina , Carol Gray, describes the bedtime story she created for her daughters when they were young. Her now grown daughters, Gail and Carol Stone, read