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Books
Rick Kaffel spins a tale of Silicon Valley intrigue in new novel
IN SILICON VALLEY, it isn’t enough to just win. The competition also has to lose, which is why ruthless billionaire CEOs would realistically take such advice from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War when trying to steal someone else’s company. This is just one of three main threads embroidered in Keith Raffel’s new set-in–Silicon Valley thriller, Smasher. Protagonist Ian Michaels, CEO of Accelnet, is going through the usual rows with his board members because the seventh-richest dude in America is scheming to crush his company. More
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The beloved Santa Cruz poet passed away last week at 73.
MORTON MARCUS, whose outsize presence animated and at times dominated Santa Cruz County’s literary culture for most of the last 40 years, died peacefully at home after a long illness early in the morning of Oct. 28. He was 73, and seemed both younger and older—younger because his attitude toward everything was one of boyish enthusiasm More
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Books
A new book from Arcadia about images of Silicon Valley riles columnist Gary Singh
HAD THIS WEEK’S COLUMN occupied the inside back cover of Mad magazine, the author would have opened with “Here we go again with another ridiculous review of an Arcadia Publishing photo book.” Or something along those lines. Instead, he will state upfront that yet one more San Jose–related book from Arcadia’s Images of America series, simply titled, Silicon Valley, has been unleashed upon the public. More
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Books
Dan Vado of San Jose's Slave Labor Graphics keeps his publishing vision alive
DAN VADO, owner of Slave Labor Graphics, had just returned to his native San Jose after escaping from the million-geek march: five days at the annual San Diego Comic-Con. It is the industry’s Cannes, drawing tens of thousands of fans of everything from pastel-illustrated daydreams to IMAX-size blockbusters.
“It was like being trapped in a monkey cage wearing banana underwear,” Vado said over the phone. The monkey-cage metaphor comes to mind when I take a tour of Vado’s cluttered front office in a small former warehouse on South First Street’s art-gallery row. More
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Books
The best book in English on Jean-Luc Godard is still lacking
EVERYTHING IS CINEMA: THE WORKING LIFE OF JEAN-LUC GODARD by Richard Brody; Henry Holt; 704 pages; $20 hardback. More
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A politician tries her hand at novel writing
BLIND TRUST by Barbara Boxer; Chronicle Books; 234 pages; $24.95. Boxer appears for a booksigning event on Saturday (Aug. 15) at 1pm at Barnes & Noble, 3600 Stevens Creek Blvd., San Jose. More
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Books
Stephen Kessler recalls the life and verse of an unsung San Jose and Santa Cruz poet
WHEN SOMEONE close to you dies, it’s always strange, even if they were old and in poor health, and you knew it was coming. When the deceased is a longtime friend, an exact contemporary and a peer in your shared obscure line of work, someone you spoke with over the phone the day before and who was no drunker than usual and otherwise in good health as far as you knew—when he is suddenly found dead in his San Jose cottage, apparently of a heart attack, at 62, your grief and disbelief are of a different order of magnitude. More
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Books
Where does a writer begin a story?
My friend James D. (“Jim”) Houston, a mentor and colleague, a literary father figure and cultural signpost—for Santa Cruz and California, for the entire Pacific Rim—is no longer here to answer that question, a circumstance that at this moment remains difficult to grasp. He has seemingly always been here, steady and true, a quiet, dignified presence on the local literary landscape, and always with a helping hand for young writers, for his friends, for anyone clenched in struggle with the muse. More
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Books
Putting the fun back in literacy.
Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) comes once a year—on the first Saturday in May—when participating shops across the nation and around the world give away comic books to anyone who walks in the door. More
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Geoff Dyer's new novel is a travel writers dream—and nightmare
In his new novel, Geoff Dyer provides glimpses of two separate worlds that are, well, not entirely separate. In the first half of the book, we are introduced to protagonist Jeff Atman, a disenfranchised, self-professed hack journalist from London weaving and bobbing his way through midlife loneliness while on a freelance assignment to cover the Venice Biennale, the world’s most extravagant art party. More
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