Peninsula author captures the journey of a would-be presidential assassin from suburban mom to the fringes of ’70s counterculture

Keep up a nearly 30-year correspondence with anyone and you'll get to know a lot about them. But for investigative journalist and Palo Alto-based author Geri Spieler, who traded letters for 28 years with would-be presidential assassin Sara Jane Moore, she also discovered the ways in which Moore was unknowable, by her own design — as well as the things she couldn't hide about herself.

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How the Silicon Valley tech boom and a baseball background shaped a College of San Mateo professor’s new novel, ‘Tell Us When To Go’

Emil DeAndreis, a born-and-raised San Franciscan, isn’t a typical writer. For starters, he says he does a lot of writing during his day job as a substitute teacher in San Francisco public schools (he's also an English professor at College of San Mateo). His latest novel, “Tell Us When To Go,” follows two friends and Fresno State baseball teammates — Cole Gallegos and Isaac Moss — as they navigate San ...

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“How the Other Half Eats”: Sociologist Priya Fielding-Singh on food and inequality in America

Priya Fielding-Singh is the author of "How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America." The book is based on her research with 75 Bay Area families during her doctoral studies at Stanford University. (Photo courtesy of Vero Kherian) "How the Other Half Eats: The Untold Story of Food and Inequality in America" is one of the books I've been waiting for.  Sociologist and author Priya Fielding-Singh ...

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Say hey, kids! 24 reasons why you need the new Willie Mays memoir right now

Talking with veteran Bay Area sports writer John Shea, who co-authored a fresh take on the wisdom and life lessons of the San Francisco Giants legend. Willie Mays, pictured during the earlier part of his career, while the Giants where still located in New York.(Photo by Osvaldo Salas/Collection of Rick Swig, via St. Martin’s Press) Even if you’re not a sports fanatic, odds are that earlier this year you watched some, if not ...

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