Book Talk Book Talk (July 07, 2004)

ALL ABOUT CHESS . . . Chess is a game with a long history, but it was played for the first 500 years without a queen on the board. Stanford's Marilyn Yalom explains all this in the engagingly written "Birth of the Chess Queen."

BACK IN THE DAY . . . Don Strachan was part of the turbulent 1960s and 1970s in the Palo Alto area, living for a time at the Struggle Mountain Commune near the top of Page Mill Road. Now living up near Calistoga, Strachan has written "King of Diamonds," a novel about "baseball, sexual healing, frogs and biodiversity, set in a parallel universe."

GOING BACK TO SCHOOL . . . More adults are returning to school for a degree they didn't get earlier. Local writers Gen and Kelly Tanabe have written two books to help with that process: "Adult Students: An Insider's Guide to Getting into College" and "501 Ways for Adult Students to Pay for College."

AUTHOR, AUTHOR . . . Author events at Kepler's in Menlo Park this month include Palo Alto writerPeter Steinhart ("The Undressed Art," a book about drawing), at 7:30 p.m. July 14. Steinhart is also the author of "The Company of Wolves." Hilarious Miami mystery writer Carl Hiaasen ("Skinny Dip") appears at 5 p.m. July 17. Pulitzer-Prize winning horse writer Jane Smiley ("A Year at the Races") appears at 7:30 p.m. July 22. Adventure writer Roberet Kurson ("Shadow Divers") appears at 7:30 p.m. July 27. And local mystery writer Barry Eisler ("Rain Storm") appears at 7:30 p.m. July 29.

JUST FOR KIDS . . . Kepler's will present a storytime themed on Greece and the Olympics at 10:30 a.m. July 24.
Items for Book Talk may be sent to Don Kazak, Title Pages editor, P.O. Box 1610, Palo Alto CA 94302 or e-mailed to dkazak@paweekly.com by the last Wednesday of the month.

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