R3: The Rare, Random, and Remarkable

Every other month the bookshop receives ForeWord magazine. It contains "reviews of good books independently published." Independent publishers include university publishing presses (most of which produce dozens of books a year) and micro-presses (who put out one or two exquisitely designed and bound reads). For this reason, books that are independently published are quite often - but not always - rare, random, and of remarkable quality.

Bruce and Laura, the bookshop owners, are allowing me to pick out a handful of titles from each issue of ForeWord. All the bookshop's staff feel its very important to support quality, independent businesses, and bring you, our customers, titles you will be hard pressed to find at Big Box bookstores, and will not find at corporate retailers who buy books in mass quantities to sell at incredible discounts - there are simply not enough of these titles titles printed to allow for such.

Here are the six, independently published books I chose to bring into our bookshop from the March/April 2009 issue of ForeWard magazine:

The Lives Our Mothers Leave Us

by Patti Davis

Hay House / Memoir / $14.95

In this work of non-fiction, prominent women discuss the complex, humorous, and ultimately loving relationships they have with their mothers. Contributors include Patti Davis, Nancy Reagan's daughter, Whoopi Goldberg, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Anna Quindlen, Anne Rice, Marianne Williamson, Diahann Carroll, and Lorna Luft. A great gift for Mother's Day.

Magic Bus
by Rory MacLean

Ig Publishing / Travel Writing / $14.95

In the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands of young westerners in search of enlightenment blazed the "hippie trail" that ran through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. Forty years later, Rory MacLean revisits the trail, where he encounters the tie-dyed veterans who never made it home, meets locals reaping the rewards and regrets of westernization, and crashes up against Taliban fighters and Islamic extremists.

Gold Digger
by Vicki Delany
Napoleon & Company / Literature / $18.95

Its the great Klondike Gold Rush and Fiona MacGillvray has a fortune to make as the owner of a savory dance hall in the newly populated Yukon Territory. This is historical fiction, with a well-crafted mystery, at its finest.

Zen Wrapped in Karma Dipped in Chocolate

by Brad Warner

New World Library / Eastern Religion / $14.95

In writing about how he applied the Buddha's teachings to his own real-life suffering, Warner shatters expectations, revealing that Buddhism isn't some esoteric pie-in-the-sky ultimate solution but an exceptionally practical way to deal with whatever life dishes out. This is deserving of a wide audience!

Crossing the Hudson

by Peter Stephan Jungk /translated by David Dollenmayer

Handsel Books / Literature / $14.95

This author gives a profound meditation on a Jewish family and its past, especially the lasting distorting effects on a son of a famous, vital father and a clinging, overwhelming mother, and of the differences between the generation of European intellectual refugees who arrived in the United States during the Second World War and the children of that generation.

Pintxos: Small Plates in the Basque Tradition

by Gerald Hirigoyen and Lisa Weiss

Ten Speed Press / International Cooking / $24.95

Spain's African, Middle Eastern, and European heritage assure a mixing pot of culinary influences resulting in homegrown chefs conversant in the broadest palate of skills. This is the author/chef's third book, he owns and cooks for two restaurants in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has been named Best Chef of the Bay Area twice by San Francisco Magazine.

~ by Ross Wulf, Rediscovered Bookshop Bookseller