Beast Blog

Great East Bay Book Stores!

bookstores are wonderful places, and independent book stores are even more so! the east bay has plenty of great indie bookstores.

my four fave books stores in the East Bay are:

1. A Great Good Place For Books, 6120 La Salle Avenue, Montclair District.

when i first walked in, i was greeted by the owner. she was one of those people that was helpful without being pushy. she asked about my lit preferences, and was able to recommend some great titles that i hadn't read based on who i liked. she is also one of the people working on "West Coast Live" (a public radio program), so she gets great authors coming through the area to read there.

2. Pegasus/Pendragon Books:
(3 East Bay Locations)-
2349 Shattuck Avenue, (Berkeley, Downtown)
5560 College Avenue, (Oakland, Rockridge)
1855 Solano Avenue, (Albany, Solano Stroll)

i love this independent mini-chain for several reasons: knowledgable staff, excellent recommendations, cheap book tables (great gift store!), and their annial calendar sale. (wait til Jan 1st to get the new year's calendar & you'll save save save! it's an east bay tradition to shop for calendars on Jan 1st here!)

3.
5433 College Avenue, Oakland (Rockridge)

A Favorite Nabe: Euclid Street, North of Hearst

There are many classic neighborhood strips in the East Bay -- Telegraph near Campus, Shattuck in the Gourmet Ghetto, Piedmont Ave in Oakland, College going through Rockridge (I prefer south of BART).

But, when I get on my bike on the weekends, and want a restorative and engaging afternoon away from home, I typically head to Euclid Street, just north of Hearst.

Why Euclid? There are four reasons.

1. Brewed Awakening. A coffeehouse, though I never go for the coffee. I go for the smoothies, which are good, and cheaper than Jamba Juice. I also love the wide open interior:

And there's plenty of free wi-fi, and many outlets to plug in.

3. And then, when I want coffee, wander down the sidewalk to Caffe Nefeli, serving up the what's probably the best cappuccino in the East Bay. All I know is that when I get a double cap, I don't have to tell them to go light on the milk -- most places make what is essentially a latte. Nefeli has a few tables outside that provide a comfortable reading space for nice days.

4. Not photographed, and probably not widely appreciated, but Laval's Northside, the pizzeria, always has a pinball machine in pretty good working order. Today it took $2 from me as I tried to stave off an Attack From Mars.

Do you have a favorite neighborhood that's a bit off the path? Tell us in the comments...

word up

I’m fascinated about books about place. I even teach a class called “Creating a Sense of History and Place in Your Fiction and Nonfiction." My favorite East Bay bookstores include Diesel, Cody’s (my very fave), and Walden Pond. I like the view from the B&N at Jack London Square, too. My own book takes place in Oakland. So does Nichelle Tramble’s. Jess Mowry’s Way Past Cool is great, and takes place in the East Bay, also. But I do like to get out and about. A Collection of Beauties at the Height of Their Popularity is a collection of interwoven short stories—they all take place in 1980s San Francisco. I love Whitney Otto’s work. If you haven’t read Joan Didion on California or on Miami, you should. You have to go to Paris with Hemingway. And to Cuba with Cristina Garcia. And for the great open spaces in the middle of our country, do try Russell Rowland’s book. He’s working on another, too. If you want to come to New York, read Jon Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn. And for another, more unsung NYC borough, try Victor LaValle’s The Ecstatic. This day has been extra fun. I’m waving to Oakland from Brooklyn. Click and see an amazing photo essay of my adopted home. There’s a lot of Oakland in Brooklyn. It’s why I’ve been able to stay so long.

See you soon.

From the police blotter

Mr. Mopps is the children's toy and book store around the corner from my house. It is often crowded, and the salespeople are usually extremely rude and unhelpful. Still, it's convient, the toys aren't totally segregated by gender, and I like that it isn't a chain, so I do a fair bit of my holiday shopping there (this year I managed to take care of all the cousins in one trip!). While I understand the impulse to attack somebody while shopping there, so far I've managed to avoid doing so. I wonder what caused this woman to snap?

From today's Berkeley Daily Planet

Woman Attacks Two In Bookshop, Ends Up Bloody in the Street

A woman inexplicably attacked two shoppers with her bare hands at early Tuesday afternoon at Mr. Mopps ... Police said they arrived at the store to find the woman getting into her car parked outside the store.

Berkeley BPD spokesperson Kevin Schofield said that when police ordered her out of the car, she pulled the car out, striking one officer in the leg. Police at the scene quickly boxed in the car with three patrol cars, then approached her again and demanded she leave her vehicle, Schofield said. ...

The police spokesman said that when the woman continued to violently resist, several officers pinned her on the pavement and held her there until the could confine her in a velcro binding called The Wrap.

One of the most interesting things about the police blotter is all the things that are left out. Who did the woman attack? Why did she attack them? Did she buy anything? What on earth is The Wrap?

Cross posted at the Geodog's MT Weblog. Happy holiday shopping to you.

Ishmael Reed Speaks His Mind

Last night, Ishmael Reed read from his new book, Blues City: A Walk In Oakland at the University Press Bookstore.

It was a good time. Ishmael presentation style is basically his train of thought. At times erratic, usually entertaining. He began the reading by complaining about how initial reviews labelled his book a "rant." He insisted that it's filled with facts, that it's not at all a rant.

He then proceeded to read, and, well, actually, yes, the book is a rant. Very much a rant against Jerry Brown's attempts at gentrifying downtown and West Oakland. Not that his rant is misplaced.

He also addressed Oakland's multicultural stew -- whites, blacks, asians, latinos, even native americans, living and working side by side. Kwanzaa festivals lead by white women. Traditional native american rituals lead by african americans. Etc.

He also touches on a fair amount of Black Panther history, and positions them, to some extent, as unsung heroes.

There was a whiff of conspiratoriality in Reed's dogma, though, again, not without foundation.

The one disappointment is that Reed was terrible in the question and answer session -- I don't think I heard him actually address a single question, instead rambling into some tangential polemic.

Oh, and he lives somewhere near Market and 55th.

And look for more readings at University Press Books.

Cory Doctorow at the Other Change of Hobbit

Cory Doctorow will be at The Other Change of Hobbit on Thursday, October 9. He'll be readining signing from both his collection of short stories, A Place So Foreign and Eight More, as well as his novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Trivia: the original "A Change of Hobbit" bookstore was in Santa Monica, California, where I grew up. That store has long passed -- it's interesting to see that it's relative lives on.

Making It As A Writer - And Supporting a Good Cause!

Friend of Beast Blog Kevin Smokler wrote in:

Just wanted to let you know that I'll be speaking this Tuesday evening, 7:30 PM at a fundraiser for Boadecia's Books, a women-owned, feminist bookstore in Kensington that has fallen on hard times. My topic will be "How to make it as a professional writer without losing your soul or needing an agent." Admission is 5$, sliding scale, with all funds going to Boadecia's.

Bodecia's is located at 398 Colusa Ave on the circle in Kensington.

Kensington, that funny little burb with more police officers per capita than any other municipality in the Bay Area.