Nancy's Bookshelf

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

Two members of the California Writers Club will be signing books at the Thursday farmers market in Chico on Tuesday, September 15. Douglas Keister writes about growing up as a middle child in the middle of the country, in the middle of the century. The title of his 41st book is Heart-Land: Growing Up in the Middle of Everything . Emily Gallo has written a sequel to her previous novel, The Columbarium . Her new novel, Kate & Ruby , continues the story of two characters introduced in The

Today's guests focus on mid 20th-century events that changed the world. September 2, 2016 marks the end of World War II 71 years ago. Local author Neal Snidow's mother became a young war widow during that war. He tells her story and that of other family members in his memoir, Vista Del Mar . Former clinical psychologist Harry Keshet is a peer leader with Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, whose classes start Tuesday, September 6. He has taught classes on the influence of Mahatma Gandhi.

This week Nancy talks with a couple mystery writers. First up is Ken McGorry with his haunted tale in Ghost Hampton. Then, Redding author Robert Seago tells us about his combat-hardened private detective and German Shepherd partner Joker in Tears of the Innocent. And we end with a change of pace from North State author and entertainer, Shane Weissmann.