A novella steeped in nostalgia for the heyday of Berkeley cinema, a novel written during a BART commute, a report on the young men killed by football and a garden poem anthology are among the recent books with Berkeley ties.
Joanne Furio
Joanne Furio is a longtime journalist and writer of creative nonfiction. Originally from New York, she has been a staff writer, an editor and a freelance magazine writer. More recently, she was a contributing writer at San Francisco magazine for a decade, covering design, culture and style. Over the years, her work has appeared frequently in The New York Times, New York Newsday, The Village Voice, Ms., Dwell and Landscape Architecture.
Posted inCommunity
Nation’s oldest live steam train club is hiding right behind the big Tilden railroad
Members of the Golden Gate Live Steamers — located just downhill from the Redwood Valley Railway — make and repair their own engines and give free rides to the public.
Posted inBusiness
Shop Talk: Big new car wash opens on San Pablo; florist retires after 37 years
Solar Express Car Wash is partially powered by a 67-kilowatt solar array and uses its plentiful greywater to irrigate the property. Catch up on this and other Berkeley retail and small business news.
Posted inBusiness
Sweet Dreams owner dies shortly after closing 50-year-old Elmwood toy store
Gary Gendel built a toy store evoking the ornate style and whimsy of a 19th-century childhood. His wife, Lucia, plans to keep running the candy shop he also opened in the neighborhood in the 1970s.
Posted inArts
Sautéed roadkill dinner parties are just the start of Berkeley author’s adventures in ‘rewilding’
Jessica Carew Kraft’s new book chronicles her paleolithic Berkeley lifestyle of tracking coyote scat near Grizzly Peak, foraging for loquats and redwood sorrel and feeding her daughters raccoon meat.
Posted inBusiness
Jacuzzi brothers’ whirlpool invention bubbled up from their Berkeley machine shop in early 1900s
The bath that started the hot tub craze was created in a shop opened on San Pablo Avenue in 1915 by a family of Italian immigrants.
Posted inBusiness
Shop Talk: Buggy Bank, Berkeley used car dealer, backs out of lot on Shattuck; Walsh Brothers auto repair shop gets a reprieve
Longtime manager Jerry Griggs says the Buggy Bank auto-selling business will continue as a concierge service. Catch up on this and other Berkeley retail and small business news.
Posted inBusiness
Shop Talk: Boutique designer sells clothes from her Berkeley Hills garage; New coupon site launches in Berkeley
Xiaoyan Lin, a designer who emigrated from China, opens up her garage for one of her seasonal sales. Catch up on this and other Berkeley retail and small business news.
Posted inBusiness
Walgreens on Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley will close next week
The Aug. 23 closure of the Walgreens at Shattuck and Allston Way means Berkeley will be down to just three stores.
Posted inArts
Berkeley author dug into her childhood in Seoul to write new novel about the aftermath of a skyscraper collapse
Hannah Michell shared what went into writing her second novel, ‘Excavations,’ at a recent Berkeley library talk.
Posted inBusiness
Shop Talk: Walsh Brothers needs a new home now, teak furniture and ADUs and a new kind of vet care
Louise O’Connor’s house burned down. Three weeks later she lost the lease to her longtime auto repair shop. Catch up on this and other Berkeley retail and small business news.
Posted inBusiness
Berkeley’s Annapurna is closing after a half-century as a counterculture institution
The head shop’s closing symbolizes another piece of Berkeley’s progressive cultural past disappearing on Telegraph Avenue.
