Tag archives: book

Chaucer’s Choice: ‘Poor Ghosts’
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 26, 2024

David Starkey is one of Santa Barbara’s most entrenched writers. His varied literary career spans poetry, textbooks and fiction, and a term as Santa Barbara’s 2009-2011 Poet Laureate. Starkey was Founding Director of the Creative Writing Program at SBCC, co-editor of the California Review of Books, and the publisher and co-editor of Gunpowder Press. Over […]

On Tour with Ivor
By Richard Mineards   |   March 12, 2024

How fitting that on the 60th anniversary of The Beatles “invasion” of America, an old friend, Ivor Davis – who toured with the Fab Four as an “embedded” correspondent for the London Daily Express, one of the world’s largest newspapers at the time with five million readers – should give a fascinating talk at the […]

The Universal Language
By Richard Mineards   |   February 27, 2024

It wasn’t exactly Dr. Dolittle, but Montecito oceanographer resident Dove Joans, who writes under the pseudonym Dolphingirl, claims to be able to communicate with animals, particularly whales and dolphins. In 2019, she wrote We Are the Ocean: 50 Waves to Wonder! and has just published the second edition of Dolphin Talk, which she wrote in […]

Diana Raab at Tecolote 
By Jeffrey Stewart   |   January 16, 2024

Celebrated advocate of the profound healing properties of writing, Dr. Diana Raab will be discussing and signing her book Hummingbird: Messages from My Ancestors at Tecolote Bookshop in Montecito’s Upper Village, and at Summerland’s enchanting and indescribable Sacred Space. “Hummingbird coincides with my 70th birthday, a time when many of us intuitively reflect on our […]

A-Paws for ‘Top Dogs’
By Richard Mineards   |   November 7, 2023

It was definitely paws for thought at Hudson Grace, the charming vintage design shop in the Montecito Country Mart, when British author Georgina Montagu promoted her colorful 300-page coffee table tome Top Dogs: A British Love Affair, featuring boldface named owners and their beloved canines. One of the more notable is Camilla, wife of King […]

A Bellosguardo Affair
By Richard Mineards   |   October 3, 2023

I was last at Bellosguardo, the 24-acre oceanfront estate owned by the late copper heiress Huguette Clark, who died in 2011 at the age of 104, for a megabuck fundraising gala five years ago, so it was nice to return to the magnificent aerie when the Bellosguardo Foundation, with assistance from the Santa Barbara Historical […]

Taupin’s Timely Tome ‘Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me’
By Steven Libowitz   |   September 26, 2023

Bernie Taupin, Sir Elton John’s lifelong lyrical collaborator, steps out from the 22nd row to share his account of the 55-years-and-counting creative relationship between the duo, and just about everything else in his adventurous life. Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me is much more than a companion piece to 2019’s biopic Rocketman,or John’s autobiography Me, […]

John Holman and ‘A Horse in My Suitcase’
By Jeff Wing   |   September 12, 2023

John Holman – U.K. expat, adventurer, programmer, grandson, and nephew of a storied horse-trader and Royal jockey, respectively – has written an affecting and often hilarious memoir of his youth in a tiny, post-war West Sussex village. His bittersweet memoir of village life in rural England is called A Horse in My Suitcase, and will […]

“All’s Fair” in Love and Tecolote
By Richard Mineards   |   September 12, 2023

A bevy of bibliophiles descended on Tecolote, the upper village literary gem, when retired corporate attorney David Gersh hosted a launch bash for his latest art mystery, All’s Fair, featuring Jonathan Benjamin Franklin. It is one of eight books that Montecito resident David, a Harvard Law School graduate, has written. His last tome, published in […]

This Book Speaks Volumes
By Richard Mineards   |   September 12, 2023

Oceanographer Jean-Michel Cousteau, 85, and his partner Nancy Marr met in Maui in 1985, living there for 11 years before moving to our Eden by the Beach in 1992. “I lived with my family on the island for 22 years and have many friends who have been devastated by the Lahaina Fire,” says Nan. To […]

Staying Creative and Engaged Later in Life: A Conversation With Author Karen Roberts
By Ann Brode   |   August 15, 2023

Recently, I sat with author Karen Roberts on the Bonnymede deck listening to the soft sounds of surf nearby and talking about her new book, The Blossoming of Women – A Workbook on Growing from Older to Elder. Always curious about the experience that inspires the writing, I asked Karen to share a bit about […]

‘All’s Fair’ in Art Scams
By Richard Mineards   |   July 18, 2023

Retired Montecito corporate attorney David Gersh has published his latest art mystery tome featuring Jonathan Benjamin Franklin, All’s Fair. It is the fourth in the series and one of eight books David, a Harvard Law School graduate, has written. “This is undoubtedly the best art scam work I have ever created,” he enthuses. The novel […]

Local Author Jana Zimmer Sheds Light on Her Four-Decade Journey
By Rachael Quisel   |   June 27, 2023

Jana Zimmer, an attorney and mixed media artist, has recently released Chocolates from Tangier: A Memoir of Art and Transformation by a Holocaust Replacement Child. In it, Zimmer knits together a narrative from her journals, poems, artwork, and the experiences of her parents — both Holocaust survivors. Her artwork, displayed throughout the memoir, engages in […]

Sec 106, Row C, Seat 5: Jana Brody’s Mother and the Crusade for Safer Baseball
By Jeff Wing   |   June 6, 2023

On a sultry August evening in 2018, Linda Goldbloom was struck in the head by a line drive foul ball at Dodger Stadium. She died four days later. Seated next to her husband Erwin in the loge section of the storied ball field some 200 feet behind and above home plate, she never saw it […]

Where Yellow Flowers Bloom: Kim Cantin’s Successful Search for Meaning
By Jeff Wing   |   May 2, 2023

In the wee-hours and pitch darkness of a howling January morning, a mountainside loosed itself and descended like a wave of stone on the sleeping, forested village of Montecito. Moments before, awakened by the roar of rain jackhammering the roof of the Cantin home, Kim and husband Dave had thrown back the sheets and hurriedly […]

Joe Purpura’s ‘Code Crisis’
By Richard Mineards   |   April 11, 2023

Montecito doctor Joe Purpura has published his first book Code Crisis, a fast-paced thriller about a lonely gynecologist who risks everything for love and his country. “I love the thriller genre and for years had been bouncing around the idea of writing a novel about a physician as a reluctant hero who gets dragged into […]

More to Say
By Richard Mineards   |   January 24, 2023

As if one memoir Spare isn’t enough, Riven Rock resident Prince Harry has revealed he has enough material to publish a second autobiography having cut almost half the material that had been written in a first draft. The Duke of Sussex, 38, says he chose to leave out several “bombshells” because he was concerned his […]

Film Fest Fervor Mounting
By Steven Libowitz   |   January 17, 2023

The Banshees of Inisherin stars Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson– who reteamed for Martin McDonagh’s award-season darling dark comedy after having first appeared together in the director’s brilliant 2008 film In Bruges – have been tapped to together receive SBIFF’s Cinema Vanguard Award on February 16. The announcement rounds out this year’s acting awards at […]

Surfing and Life at ‘Rincon Point,’ a New Book
By Hattie Beresford   |   December 13, 2022

It was Shuku when a band of nearly 300 Chumash lived on the point of land that today marks the boundary between Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. It became Rancheria San Mateo after the Spanish settled the area in 1782. It became El Rincon (the corner) after the Mexican governor of Alta California granted the […]

Book ‘em 
By Steven Libowitz   |   December 6, 2022

You might need your own cloning technology, or at least a fast car, to make it to the two most intriguing author events this week, as they share a Saturday afternoon time slot on December 3. Montecito artist and general contractor William “Bill” Dalziel will read from his second children’s book, Charlie’s Dream, a sequel […]