Fall 2019 Book Guide

Fiction

Téa Obreht’s second novel, Inland—which follows her Orange Prize–winning debut, The Tiger’s Wife—offers an epic reinterpretation of the American West and its mythic origin stories.
Téa Obreht Unravels the Myth of the West

With her second novel, Inland, Téa Obreht unravels the mythologies of the West.

Steph Cha, whose novel Your House Will Pay grows out of a familiar violence.
Steph Cha’s Two Los Angeleses

In Your House Will Pay, Steph Cha reimagines Los Angeles’s racial heritage.

The Lightest Object in the Universe

Kimi Eisele’s new novel, The Lightest Object in the Universe, finds connection amid an apocalypse. Here’s an excerpt.

Bay Area writer Carolina De Robertis, whose fourth novel, Cantoras, revolves around a group of women and the revolutionary love they share with one another in 1970s Uruguay.
Liberation in Carolina De Robertis’s Fourth Novel

In her fourth novel, Oakland writer Carolina De Robertis explores the liberation of women’s sexuality.

Clockwise from top left: Liska Jacobs, Jon Roemer, Xuan Juliana Wang, and Sergio Troncoso
Fiction Picks
Fiction fans, take note: our fall picks feature two novels—wayward aunts and a small-press editor bent on mysteries—and two collections…
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Nonfiction

Author Joan Didion has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Medal of Arts and Humanities by President Obama, and the PEN Center USA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
On the Morning After the Sixties
Terry Tempest Williams stares down both love and loss in her latest book, Erosion—a collection of essays that are as relentless as they are tender and absolutely unwilling to “look away from all that is breaking our hearts.”
The End of the World As We Know It
Born in San Francisco, poet Gary Snyder was a member of the legendary Beat school of writers.
Local Hero
In his first nonfiction book, Cruising, Southern California novelist Alex Espinoza examines a misunderstood aspect of gay male culture—through both a personal and a historical lens.
The Secret History of Cruising
Alta California author Nick Neely
In the Footsteps of Portolá
Shadowlands author Anthony McCann
Live Free or Die
Nonfiction Picks: Lovers, Dreamers, and Flea
Upton Sinclair, militant international author and Socialist, who captured the Democratic nomination for Governor of California, reads a paper at a desk in 1934.
The Jungle of Politics, Then and Now

Poetry

Talking with Matthew Zapruder

The poems in Father’s Day examine the complex ideas of parenthood, citizenship, and existence.

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Art & Photos

Art and Photo Picks

Art and activism from California’s Native Americans and a celebration of the state’s iconic redwoods.

Richie Silverman, extreme tanner, West Hollywood, California, January 1979. The photograph is from Roger Steffens’s The Family Acid: California, which looks back at the Golden State from 1968 to 2015.
Roger Steffens’s Nonstop Set of Visual Stimulations

The Family Acid: California bears witness to a long, strange trip.

A sunset “fog sandwich” engulfs the City by the Bay at dusk in this photograph from San Francisco on Instagram.
The Western Lands
Three new photo books look at the urban landscapes of the West—with mixed results.
Special K for the Hollywood Set
A $6,000 therapy for severe depression holds promise for treating the “untreatable”—and inspiring creative breakthroughs on the back lo…
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Poetry

Poetry Picks

Celebrate a poetic change of season with essential works from Jim Harrison, Kim Shuck, and Forrest Gander.