About Book Marks
Recent Reviews
Julia Scheeres
Rave San Francisco Chronicle [An] extraordinary figure ... Though the book is a biography of Robinson, it also paints a picture of a changing California, from the Victorian era through the Spanish flu ... Deeply researched, Listen, World! includes passages from Robinson’s columns, books and letters, among other sources ... The book’s prose is clear and engaging, with vivid descriptions.
Meredith May
Positive San Francisco Chronicle Loving Edie is the story of their family’s trials and tribulations with Edie ... As I am also a pet parent of two very anxious dogs, I recognized my family’s experience in the pages of this book. And with the rise of pet adoption during the pandemic, I suspect that May’s experience may resonate with many readers ... Loving Edie does something that many of my favorite memoirs do: It explores an experience that is more common than you’d think because no one talks about it ... Loving Edie is a delightful lesson in patience, self-reflection and hope.
Johann Hari
Rave The San Francisco Chronicle Where other books about our relationship to technology tend to focus on personal responsibility, stressing the importance of self-control, Stolen Focus takes a step back and examines the ecosystem that created the problem ... Hari’s writing is incredibly readable, and the book combines moments of personal narrative with interviews of scholars and clear explanations of scientific research and experiments.
Meg Lowman
Positive The San Francisco Chronicle Though the book can be a bit dense at times with scientific facts and figures, as well as study designs and findings, Lowman’s enthusiasm and passion for her work and our planet’s trees is apparent on every page. Lowman’s voice reads like that of a beloved mentor, especially as she describes the challenges she faced as a female scientist in a male-dominated field as well as those she experienced as a single working mother ... includes photographs from Lowman’s expeditions, as well as charming illustrations of trees. But most charming of all is Lowman’s joy and wonder at the natural world ... Though we are now in a climate crisis, Lowman offers suggestions for ways we can fight deforestation and protect the trees, and by the time you reach the last page of this book, you’ll either want to climb a tree, hug a tree or both.
Carol Edgarian
Positive San Francisco Chronicle Told from Vera’s point of view later in life, we follow Vera and her sister Pie (Morie’s daughter) as they attempt to survive the aftermath of the 1906 earthquake and fires. Written with distinctive and elegant prose, Edgarian paints a beautiful portrait of devastation ... At times reminiscent of E.L. Doctorow’s Ragtime , Vera is filled with characters based on historical figures like Eugene Schmitz, Abe Ruef, Alma Spreckels and Arnold Genthe, the photographer whose pictures of the earthquake’s devastation haunt viewers to this day. After recently reviewing another novel set around the 1906 earthquake, it was a unique reading experience to witness the same event through the eyes of a very different protagonist. A character-driven novel about family, power and loyalty, Vera ultimately asks if it’s possible to belong to another person.
Jia Tolentino
Rave The Coachella Review Tolentino has revealed the trick mirror for what it is. Not only does this love story lack a happily-ever-after, but it turns out that it’s not even a love story after all ... Tolentino writes with an enviable authority, one that comes with having lived and breathed the very subjects about which she writes (she’s been an internet user for most of her life) and an authority built upon a long-held awareness of her writerly self ...\'The Story of a Generation in Seven Scams\' is the essay I would present to a family of extraterrestrials if they invaded and requested one seminal document explaining life in today’s capitalist America ... Throughout the book, the symbolic trick mirror and the theme of refraction appear beautifully and thoughtfully in Tolentino’s clear—and often skeptical—voice. She presents the traps of the world as she sees them and rarely attempts to provide solutions because there aren’t any.