Gonna Wear Red
by Wendy Woo

One of these days Wendy Woo's career is going to move up to the next level and she'll finally get the national acclaim she deserves. Give her a listen.

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Hey Nostradamus!
by Douglas Coupland

This novel by Vancouver-based author Douglas Coupland ("Microserfs") begins with a Columbine-like attack at a public high school. The opening chapter is narrated by one of the students who was murdered (a la "The Lovely Bones"). The rest of the book follows the lives of several people who were affected by the tragedy. Over a period of 15 years, we watch as they try to move past the events of that day. Some authors run out of steam after a few books. So far, Coupland is still going strong.

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Blackbird House
by Alice Hoffman

A beautifully written collection of related stories about the families who live in a Cape Cod house during a 200 year period. If you haven't read Alice Hoffman before, you are in for a treat. If you have, you won't be disappointed.

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A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That: A Novel

by Lisa Glatt

First novel from talented Long Beach (CA) poet Lisa Glatt. Her writing blew me away in the mid-80's (when we both attended CSULB as creative writing majors). Since then, she has only gotten better. I can't recommend "Comma" (and her poetry collections) highly enough.

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Hostage

by Robert Crais

From the author of the Elvis Cole detective series (also highly recommended). A cop moves out to the 'burbs to forget about a hostage situation that ended badly but bad luck follows him to his new assignment. Bruce Willis stars as the tormented cop in the recently-released film version. You won't want to put this one down.

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To test the enhanced WordPress blog-by-email plug-in which allows one to post messages with inline graphics (written by John Blade) I selected this shot of Donnelly Jacobson (son of Ken and Nicole Jacobson) getting his first haircut at the Yellow Balloon on Ventura Blvd. If a picture appears below, it worked!

(You can download the plug-in here .)

(in reverse chronological order)