Tag archives: novel

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 […]

What’s New?
By Ashleigh Brilliant   |   December 28, 2021

We’ve all heard that “There’s nothing new under the sun.” But that was written (in the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes) long before cameras or computers, and any number of other modern marvels, which have already enabled man to reach the moon. Still, we hunger for novelty. Just think of all the geographical names, starting […]

Arch of a Story: From the Big Screen to the Bookshelf
By Steven Libowitz   |   May 13, 2021

It’s been more than a quarter-century since Jeff Arch’s first produced screenplay Sleepless in Seattle arrived in American multiplexes. But the Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan romantic comedy — which broke the genre’s meet-cute mold in that the leads don’t actually meet in person until the end — gave the then-struggling writer his first success, […]

The Four Winds by Kristin Hannah (St Martin’s Press)
By Leslie Zemeckis   |   March 4, 2021

“The four winds have blown us here, people from all across the country, to the very end of this great land.”  For those of us who live in Montecito we are all too familiar with the land we love. Though lush and verdant, it has on occasion betrayed us with drought, fires, and mudslides. Still, […]

Gersh Makes Good on the Laughs
By Richard Mineards   |   December 17, 2020

Retired Montecito attorney David Gersh has just completed his new novel Pot Luck, the sequel to his laugh-out-loud award-winning book Desperate Shop Girls, which is being published by Open Books in the New Year. It is the Harvard Law School graduate’s sixth tome, to be closely followed by his seventh, The Whisper of a Distant […]

Charity Begins at Home
By Steven Libowitz   |   October 13, 2020

Math-whiz turned massively successful investor Pete Muller is passionate about all of his pursuits. Besides his family, surfing, poker, and solving and creating crossword puzzles, there’s his day job as the creator and manager of one of the most sought after quant-driven hedge funds on the planet, the aptly-named Process Driven Trading, which has never […]

The Words of Kahn
By Steven Libowitz   |   March 12, 2020

Santa Barbara physician, musician, and author James Kahn will read from Matamoros, his Civil War romance that has received strong reviews, at Chaucer’s Bookstore at 7 pm on Wednesday, March 18. The book takes place in 1862, when the Union Army had blockaded all Confederate ports. Just across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, Matamoros […]

SBCC Takes on ‘Curious Incident’
By Steven Libowitz   |   February 27, 2020

Katie Laris wasn’t moved much when she took in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on Broadway back in 2014. Despite having enjoyed the original 2003 novel by Mark Haddon that is narrated in the first-person perspective by Christopher, a 15-year-old boy afflicted by unnamed Asperger syndrome, the veteran SBCC Theater professor […]

City of Love
By Richard Mineards   |   February 27, 2020

Investigative journalist Michael Bowker, 68, who writes on health, science and environmental issues, has written his first novel Gods of Our Time: A Paris Love Story and launched it with a bijou bash at Tecolote, the bustling bibliophile bastion in the upper village. It has now been optioned for a movie. Michael, who lives in […]

Montecito Library Book Club
By Kim Crail   |   February 13, 2020

Our discussion of Normal People by Sally Rooney last Saturday had no shortage of topics to unpack. Attendee Chris noted how well the book “exemplified the complexities of relationships between young adults” and Pat Musarra noted that it was a good study of “the growth of the two main characters and how they matured” over […]

Book Signing at Tecolote
By Kelly Mahan Herrick   |   November 14, 2019

Local author Elayne Klasson will be at Tecolote Book Shop this Saturday, November 16, signing her first novel, which she published at the age of 72. In her bold new fiction, Klasson dives into what it means to sacrifice everything you’ve ever known for a chance at happiness. Love is a Rebellious Bird follows Judith, […]

Brilliant New Book
By Richard Mineards   |   November 7, 2019

Journal columnist Ashleigh Brilliant has published his first book in 20 years and the tenth in his series of original illustrated epigrams, known as Brilliant Thoughts based on his popular Pot-Shots newspaper series. The $25 soft cover volume, I Need More Time – And I Probably Always Will, has 400 of his epigrams in its […]

In the Books
By Richard Mineards   |   October 4, 2018

Santa Barbara author Catharine Riggs launched her debut novel, What She Gave Away at a bijou bash at Tecolote, the bustling bibliophile bastion in the upper village. Catharine’s father, George Manset, was one of the organizers of the Knollwood Tennis Club. The book, one of psychological suspense, is set in our rarefied enclave and centers […]