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Pamela Biery

~ communication, pr, writing

Pamela Biery

Category Archives: Book Reviews

Book Review: Every Day We Get More Illegal

08 Sunday Nov 2020

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, poetry & poets

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migrant issues

Released over the summer of 2020, Everyday We Get More Illegal highlights social issues and the growing divide between American citizens. While this book speaks specifically to the plight of immigrants, and the current US policy, it also gives a voice to anyone who feels marginalized. “Everyday” provides pivotal insights. Herrera reminds us that words are a political tool and he uses his words powerfully, hopefully, and without softening the edges of harsh realities.

Herrera’s writing pedigree includes being named California’s poet laureate in 2012, and the U.S. poet laureate in 2015. These accolades come in addition to numerous awards and previously published works. Everyday We Get More Illegal was highly anticipated and does not disappoint.

Whether painting a word-picture through dialogue with a young son separated from his deported father, or recognizing essential workers’ constant contributions through labor—Herrera’s language penetrates the reader’s psyche, not brutally, but respectfully asking for reflection, consideration and remembrance. Herrera chronicles a lesser seen America that it is time to see, feel and make tangible.

Many poems in “Everyday” contain the rhythm of a conversation. The book is organized into poems collected under the common term for migrants, fireflies. In this case, Fireflies on the Road North.

Like most exceptional poetry and prose, these works may perhaps land on the reader’s feelings, touching on direct experience and also, giving light to scenes often acted out in the darkness of forgetting.

Address for the Firefly #6 On the Road North:

here  a river — you can stop you can bathe & rest

you can meditate on water & stones & the flow

you can note

the breath sound

of all our lives

            –Juan Felipe Herrera, from Every Day We Get More Illegal

Used with permission, Copyright 2020 City Lights Books

Every Day We Get More Illegal                                                 

Juan Felipe Herrera

City Lights, $14.95 trade paper (88p)

ISBN 978-0-87286-828-1

Release date: 07/01/2020

Hear Juan Felipe Herrera read from Every Day We Get More Illegal at LitQuake 2020

Biodiversity, history, geology and a fine array of art

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Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, environment, Green, literature, sustainability, Uncategorized

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forests of california, obi kaufmann

The Forests of California, by Obi Kaufmann, released in September 2020 by Heyday Books

Obi Kaufmann, who brought us The California Field Atlas (#1 San Francisco Chronicle Best Seller) presents another major work, The Forests of California. This is the third of six books in Kaufmann’s planned series exploring the state’s diverse environment and is the first of his planned “California Lands” trilogy.

An atlas is a collection of maps, illustrations and text. A field atlas is designed to be used in the ‘field’ as an ongoing resource, and Kaufmann gives us something rich, distinctive and fascinating. Dive in wherever you like to find a page that engages and keeps you turning more pages, or if you prefer, stop to learn more about a specific forest or tree in California. This book is not just a reference tool, but could be seen as an invitation to think differently about habitat, vegitative alliances and the hope we can hold through better understanding of our relationship to place.

Read the full review on Yubanet.com

Listen to the interview on LitQuake

Note: Perhaps the most important book I’ve read this year…full of new ways to think, explore, understand, and deepen relationships with the natural world.

Hellacious California Indeed

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Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, Uncategorized

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california history, California writing, gold rush

Historian and scholar Gary Noy’s new book “Hellacious California: Tales of Rascality, Revelry, Dissipation, and Depravity, and the Birth of the Golden State” is now out and available for sale locally and online. Published by Heyday Books in collaboration with Sierra College Press, this 256-page book provides a rare collection of cultural references, customs, and the roiling times in California’s Gold Rush era.

Painstakingly researched and full of quips and tales as told in the late 1800’s, Noy provides a real taste of California life during the Gold Rush. For those enamored with history of the West, it is a must read.

Nevada City and Nevada County have many mentions, alongside many Sierra towns. So, whether you are perhaps wanting a few more tales about Lola Montez, Lotta Crabtree or snappy quotes from Mark Twain, look no further. Want to know the real story of Grizzly Adams or badger fighting? Here’s your book.

Sexual mores and charlatans as well as the protocol for duels, knife fights, and real mining claims are discussed in the terms of the day. Descriptions like “tableaux vivants” or a “piece of recklessness” hint at colorful language like hornswogglers, honey-foglers and humbugs in Noys’ well-organized, entertaining read.

The Source section of the book is a treasure trove for those inclined to dig still deeper in the mines of California’s colorful history, with many sources cited for each chapter.

Noy concludes after describing a great diamond hoax “This humbug was but one shard in the distinctive mosaic that was California in the nineteenth century. It was a heaven where fantasies could come true in an instant but also a hell where dreams could be unraveled in a long con.”

Get The Book

“Hellacious California: Tales of Rascality, Revelry, Dissipation, and Depravity, and the Birth of the Golden State” is available at The Bookseller in Grass Valley, both in the store and curbside pick-up as well as at Harmony Books in Nevada City. Watch for author readings and events at Nevada County Historical Society and The Bookseller as well as other regional readings, including Auburn Rotary, El Dorado County Library South Shore Branch, and Sacramento—COVID-19 allowing. Purchase online at heydaybooks.com.  Paperback, 5.5” x 8.5”, 256 pages, ISBN: 978-1-59714-499-5, retails for $18. Event listings at http://www.garynoy.com/events.html

About Hellacious California

“Premier historian Gary Noy has created the finest and most entertaining compilation ever of stories documenting ‘the best bad things’ of nineteenth-century California.… Never before has this been so well told and supported by such a vast array of primary sources.”―Gary Kurutz, Director Emeritus, California History Room and Special Collections, California State Library

About Gary Noy

For those not familiar with Gary Noy, his long career includes teaching history at Sierra College from 1987 until 2012. He founded the Sierra College Center for Sierra Nevada Studies and served as its director until his retirement. garynoy.com

Previous titles by Gary Noy include Sierra Stories: Tales of Dreamers, Schemers, Bigots, and Rogues (Heyday, 2014), which won the Gold Medal for Best Regional Nonfiction from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology (Heyday, 2010), which he coedited, and Distant Horizon: Documents from the 19th Century American West (University of Nebraska Press, 1999).

What the @@*! is the economy for anyway? (the 1%, perhaps?)

07 Monday Nov 2011

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, Social Change, Thought Leadership, Uncategorized, urban planning, writers and writing

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1%, Amartya Sen, american economy, Anyway?, Batker, book review, Business books, de Graaf, Federal Reserve Chai Ben Bernanke, Gifford Pinchot, Jeremy Bentham, Joseph Stiglitz, occupy, Publisher's Weekly, What's the Economy for

Authors de Graaf and Batker take an unconventional look at how we tie ourselves into knots of anxiety over concepts that add little value to our lives. Their new book What’s the Economy For, Anyway?: Why It’s Time to Stop Chasing Growth and Start Pursuing Happiness dovetails with current Occupy efforts—this is a time to question not only where we are, but how we got here and de Graaf and Batker are up to the challenge—they address themes of consumption, economics and the pursuit of happiness in an America boosting over 14 million unemployed with vast wealth being held by 1% of the population.

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Searching for Radical Pragmatism

11 Tuesday Oct 2011

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, environment, sustainability

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Bill McKibben, Greenpeace, Tzeporah Berman

Bill McKibben describes Tzeporah Berman as ‘a modern environmental hero.’ I like to think of her as a radical pragmatist. “This Crazy Time” is an autobiographical memoir of an effective eco-campaigner who has spent the past 18 years evolving from a student practicing civil disobedience to a key negotiator, leveraging vital policies and agreements with global corporations, government and environmental allies. Berman has been recognized by Utne Reader as one of 50 Visionaries Who Are Changing the World. This spring she assumed Greenpeace International’s co-head of the climate and energy campaign.

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Towards Understanding Urbanism

19 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, urban planning

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City Comforts, This Crazy Time, Tzeporah Berman, urban planning, Volunteer Park

About 5 years ago I had my first run-in with urbanism–a word I had rarely encountered and seldom really considered. A new community was being proposed, and the developer hired some leading planners to discuss the benefits of walkable communities, with moderate density and local economies. Near this time I became familiar with Chuck Durrett and Katie McCamant’s great work in planning cohousing communities. Cohousing combines private homes with common facilities. Proponents are quick to describe cohousing’s energy, efficiency and quality of life benefits.

My head was further turned as I looked at examples of auto-driven suburbs transformed into friendly neighborhoods, with small business storefronts, bicycles and mass transit.  I was delighted this spring to find David Sucher and his book, City Comforts, an everyman  guide for pedestrian-friendly urbanism.

I had long noted that once a building is up, it stays up–the energy, costs and time seem to produce a kind of intertia, making it all the more important to consider what is built. Grieving over antiquated strip malls, I had not considered the inverse of this–city parks can almost perpetually reserve green space.

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Another Set of Eyes

05 Saturday Mar 2011

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, communication, Uncategorized, writers and writing

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Seattle Art & Lectures, Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder looks like a very serious writer, but as soon as he starts speaking, it is delightfully clear he doesn’t take himself seriously.

Kidder was in Seattle for the Seattle Arts & Lectures series and held forth discussing his writing, followed by audience questions, moderated by Dr. Ed Taylor of the University of Washington’s Educational and Leadership Policy Studies.

Kidder’s talk titled Another Set of Eyes centered on his nearly 40-year relationship with editor, Richard Todd, who he met early in his career at The Atlantic Monthly. Todd is reported to have incidentally suggested the topic for Kidder’s 1981 Pulitzer Prize winning book The Soul of a New Machine. Many readers know Kidder from his remarkable books, The New York Times bestseller Strength in What Remains (2009) and Mountains Beyond Mountains (2003).

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Falling off the page

22 Sunday Aug 2010

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, poetry & poets, travel

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Bellevue, Joan Swift, Sierra Nevada, Slowcoast

Ok, ok, so most of summer is gone and I haven’t blogged in a month. Now I will make up for it and with one single post cover a book review, some new poetry and observations from the Greater Seattle, excessively PC caffeine wagon.

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A whole new world—Eaarth

22 Thursday Apr 2010

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, environment

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Bill McKibben, Eaarth, environment

Eaarth by Bill McKibben

Bill McKibben was right 20 years ago, and he is right today. Then, The End of Nature offered dire predictions about global warming. His new book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet is named for the new planet we are creating. The news is not good. In December 2009, as the United Nations climate change meetings got underway in Copenhagen, Denmark, a team of computer jockeys from institutions including MIT built a model which demonstrated that the impact of global warming had already crossed seemingly irreversible thresholds.

“But now….it’s time to think with special clarity about the future. On our new planet growth may be the one big habit we must finally break.”—Bill McKibben, Eaarth

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Falling Into Light

12 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by Pamela Biery in Book Reviews, poetry & poets

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Molly Fisk, poetry, Poetry Bootcamp

The More Difficulty Beauty

Molly Fisk’s New Book

Molly Fisk’s new book, The More Difficult Beauty was released yesterday. Somewhere in the Sierra there was a great stirring and release party, I suspect.

See my short review in Sacramento News & Review, or read the full review below.

The More Difficult Beauty

by Molly Fisk

Publication Date: March 10, 2010

Pages: 96

Trim size: 5.5″ x 8.5″, soft cover

Price: $15.00

ISBN 10: 9780917658365

ISBN 13: 978-0-917658-36-5

Hip Pocket Press, 5 Del Mar Court, Orinda, California 94563

Reading Molly Fisk’s The More Difficult Beauty gave me the odd sensation of falling down a well, but instead of into darkness, I fell into light. Fisk’s words give us darkness and shadow, but these poems twist this into a kind of release, leaving the reader with a bittersweet, sobering hope. John Updike considers Fisk’s current poetic offering a “Fearless, clear-eyed work.”

This poet braves the more difficult places and reveals the world’s simple truths. —Dorianne Laux

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