Anita Felicelli

Anita Felicelli, Alta Journal’s California Book Club editor, is the author of the novel Chimerica and Love Songs for a Lost Continent, a short story collection.

Jun 21, 2022
Throat of a Country

In this week’s newsletter, we introduce our July CBC selection, Luis J. Rodriguez’s raw and candid memoir Always Running.

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Jun 17, 2022
Event Recap: Steph Cha and the ‘Inverted Crime Novel’
The June California Book Club event featured a lucid and vibrant conversation among author Steph Cha, special guest Tod Goldberg, and h…
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Jun 7, 2022
Announcing Our Summer Books
In this week’s newsletter, we announce our CBC summer selections: Luis J. Rodriguez’s Always Running, Rabih Alameddine’s The Wrong End …
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Jun 6, 2022
Life Stories

Meron Hadero’s A Down Home Meal for These Difficult Times is an astonishing debut.

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May 24, 2022
Introducing Steph Cha’s ‘Your House Will Pay’
In this newsletter, we examine the starting point of Steph Cha’s Your House Will Pay: two historical events that called attention to ra…
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May 20, 2022
Event Recap: Capacity for Tenderness in ‘The Argonauts’
Author Maggie Nelson, special guest Miranda July, and host John Freeman had an honest and deep conversation about theory, genre, time, …
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May 17, 2022
Stardust in ‘The Argonauts’
In this week’s newsletter, we introduce CBC special guest Miranda July. She will discuss Maggie Nelson’s hybrid book, our May selection…
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Apr 26, 2022
The Problem of Language
In this week’s newsletter, we introduce Maggie Nelson's genre-bending The Argonauts, our May California Book Club selection, tackles t…
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Apr 22, 2022
Event Recap: Author and Inspiration on ‘The Dark Hours’
Author Michael Connelly, Detective Mitzi Roberts, and CBC host John Freeman discussed The Dark Hours, Renée Ballard, Harry Bosch, and h…
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Apr 19, 2022
Special Guest for Michael Connelly
In this week’s newsletter, we announce that detective Mitzi Roberts is the special guest for our gathering to discuss The Dark Hours, o…
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Apr 12, 2022
‘Compared to What’
In this week’s newsletter, read about one of the songs referenced in Michael Connelly’s The Dark Hours, the California Book Club select…
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Apr 11, 2022
The History of Violence

Melissa Chadburn’s first novel, A Tiny Upward Shove, is a tour de force.

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Mar 29, 2022
A Battle Outside
In this week’s newsletter, read about Michael Connelly’s The Dark Hours, the April California Book Club selection, and how it accounts …
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Mar 22, 2022
The Hard-boiled Female Detective
In this week’s newsletter, we see that in Michael Connelly’s The Dark Hours, Renée Ballard is fierce and determined—but those traits ar…
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Mar 18, 2022
Event Recap: Voicing a Polyphonic Movement
Author Karen Tei Yamashita, special guest Diane C. Fujino, and host John Freeman spoke about both the stylistic innovations and the sto…
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Mar 15, 2022
Announcing Our Special Guest
In this week's newsletter, author Karen Tei Yamashita and host John Freeman will be joined by Asian American movement expert Diane C. F…
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Mar 8, 2022
Reality Versus Fiction in ‘I Hotel’
In this newsletter, City Lights Bookstore principal buyer Paul Yamazaki shares his experiences of real-life incidents that were fiction…
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Mar 7, 2022
Homegoing

In Seeking Fortune Elsewhere, Sindya Bhanoo takes the long journey home.

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Mar 1, 2022
Revolutionary Love in ‘I Hotel’
The fifth novella in Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel, the California Book Club selection for March, revolves around the love story of two a…
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Feb 22, 2022
Solidarity and Struggle
In this week's newsletter, we introduce Karen Tei Yamashita’s I Hotel, the California Book Club selection for March, which opens in the…
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Feb 18, 2022
Event Recap: Lexicons of the Body
Poet Natalie Diaz and CBC host John Freeman spoke about thirst, collaboration, erotic poems, and basketball in Postcolonial Love Poem, …
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Feb 15, 2022
Announcing Our Spring 2022 Books

In this newsletter, find out what the California Book Club’s next selections are.

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Feb 8, 2022
Recommendations for After You Finish ‘Postcolonial Love Poem’
In this newsletter, we consider other works by Indigenous writers, enjoy an appreciation of Natalie Diaz’s poetry from Devi S. Laskar, …
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Feb 7, 2022
Toil and Trouble

Bethany C. Morrow’s Cherish Farrah explores a complicated friendship between two teenagers.

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Feb 1, 2022
Defamiliarizing the Minotaur in ‘Postcolonial Love Poem’

In this week’s newsletter, we consider the familiar mythic figure of the Minotaur, which is made new in Natalie Diaz’s poetry.

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Jan 25, 2022
‘Postcolonial Love Poem’ Is a Lantern in the Dark
In this newsletter, we consider how Natalie Diaz’s complex poems are suffused with a desire that summons light, even when the speaker’s…
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Jan 21, 2022
Event Recap: A Tapestry of Tales in ‘Likes’
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum and California Book Club host John Freeman were joined by special guest Stuart Dybek to talk about the space Bynu…
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Jan 18, 2022
Introducing the Special Guest for a Conversation About ‘Likes’
In this week’s newsletter, read about fiction writer Stuart Dybek, who will appear as the special guest in a conversation with author S…
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Jan 11, 2022
Imagined Lives of Others in ‘Likes’
In this week's newsletter, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s stories are prisms through which experiences are filtered and contradicted and inter…
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Dec 21, 2021
Between Reality and Fantasy in ‘Likes’
In this week’s newsletter, read an introduction to Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s debut short story collection, which builds on the dreams and…
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