Heyday Staff Picks

Tamalpais Walking: Poetry, History, and Prints
Tom Killion and Gary Snyder

In a new collaboration by the authors of the bestselling The High Sierra of California, readers are introduced to the unique mountain overlooking San Francisco Bay. A source of story and myth since time began, Mt. Tamalpais has inspired conservationists,...

Mother Goose in California
Conceived and Illustrated by Doug Hansen

Once upon a time, before the Second World War, children's books were whimsical, colorful, and exuberant. Artists and authors such as Howard Pyle, N. C. Wyeth, Howard Garis, and Walter Brooks bestowed wide-eyed wonder on generations of children. Artist Doug...

Dream Street
Douglas McCulloh; Foreword by D. J. Waldie

"I won the right to name a street in southern California," writes author and photographer Douglas McCulloh. The chance win at a charity event launched McCulloh into an obsessive relationship with a a yet-to-be-developed subdivision in Ontario, California. Curious about...

First Light: Five Photographers Explore Yosemite's Wilderness
Charles Cramer, Karl Kroeber, Scot Miller, Mike Osborne, and Keith S. Walklet; Introduction by Bob Hansen

Ansel Adams led regular trips into the Yosemite backcountry as part of his efforts to protect this rare instance of untouched nature and, as a result, introduced thousands to its beauty. Following his example, the Yosemite Fund asked five well-known...

Norman Clyde: Legendary Mountaineer of California's Sierra Nevada
Robert C. Pavlik

This riveting account of one of the most notable personalities of the mountain climbing world reconstructs the life of legendary mountaineer Norman Clyde (1885-1972). He made his mark on history with more than one hundred and thirty first ascents throughout...

Obata's Yosemite: The Art and Letters of Chiura Obata from His Trip to the High Sierra in 1927
Woodblock prints by Chiura Obata; Essays by Janice T. Driesbach and Susan Landauer

Chiura Obata, a gifted Japanese-born artist from California, made his first trip to Yosemite in 1927. The trip left a lasting impression in a remarkable collection of sketches, postcards, and letters. This volume includes 80 full-color reproductions of Obata's pencil...

All the Saints of the City of the Angels:
Seeking the Soul of L.A. on Its Streets
J. Michael Walker

One fateful afternoon in August of 2000, J. Michael Walker began to notice how many L.A. streets began with the letter "S." Upon further inspection, he discovered that something else was repeating itself: they were all named for saints! Thus...

Nature's Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir's Botanical Legacy
Bonnie J. Gisel with images by Stephen J. Joseph; Foreword by David Rains Wallace

Stunned into awe by the orchid Calypso borealis, John Muir wrote: "I never before saw a plant so full of life, so perfectly spiritual, it seemed pure enough for the throne of its Creator." Muir was blessed throughout his life...

Jazz Idiom: Blueprints, Stills and Frames
The Jazz Photography of Charles L. Robinson; Poetic Takes and Riffs by Al Young

Jazz Idiom showcases the intimate photography of Charles L. Robinson. A friend to many of the jazz musicians photographed, he often caught them in moments of candor: Charles Mingus, goateed and pensive, hunched over a Steinway, phrases dancing in his...

Edges of Bounty: Adventures in the Edible Valley
William Emery; Photographs by Scott Squire; Foreword by National Public Radio’s “Kitchen Sisters”

Join photographer Scott Squire and writer William Emery as they meander—bewildered, impressionable, and wry—through the roads, back roads, and backwaters of America's greatest agricultural valley. Leaving behind the packaged comforts of supermarkets and restaurants, the pair roamed California's Central Valley...

Woman of Ill Fame
Erika Mailman

Looking for a better life, Nora Simms sails from the East Coast to gold rush San Francisco with a plan for success: to strike it rich by trading on her good looks. But when a string of murders claims several...

Walking Tractor And Other Country Tales
Bruce Patterson

Imagine driving a tractor at fifteen miles per hour on a highway. "Walking tractor" is just one of the odd jobs Bruce Patterson has gotten good at. Set in northern California's Anderson Valley, these personal essays tell of Patterson's love...

Under the Fifth Sun: Latino Literature from California
Edited by Rick Heide; Foreword by Juan Velasco

Under the Fifth Sun collects stories of love, family, work, exploration, politics, history, culture, and survival—fiction, poetry, memoirs, commentary, and drama—covering more than two centuries of Latino presence in California, from missionaries and soldiers to gold miners, farmworkers, and political...

Tree Barking: A Memoir
Nesta Rovina

As a home health therapist, Nesta Rovina has seen and heard it all: a stroke victim who learned to roll off her bed at night to avoid getting caught in the crossfire of rival gangs and drug dealers; a man...

Ticket to Exile
Adam David Miller

At age nineteen, A. D. Miller sat in a jail cell. His crime? He passed a white girl a note that read, "I would like to get to know you better." For this he was accused of attempted rape. Ticket...

The Smokehouse Boys
Shaunna Oteka McCovey


Love begins upriver, at Katamiin, the Karuk center of the world. Here creation was danced into existence; here "the might of a bulldozer does not equal the will of ten thousand years." Shaunna Oteka McCovey is a river guide to...

Skin Tax
Tim Z. Hernandez; Foreword by Juan Felipe Herrera

Out of California's Great Central Valley comes the bold new poetic voice of Tim Hernandez, already an established performance poet and community activist. Skin Tax is a powerful print debut of a poet with a mature and complex talent immersed...

The Raccoon Next Door: Getting Along with Urban Wildlife
Gary Bogue; Illustrations by Chuck Todd

Raccoon Next Door is a guide to help us identify and get along with the neighborhood raccoon and all our other wild neighbors. Author Gary Bogue presents stories, anecdotes, and sound advice for coexisting with the common creatures you might...

Perfume Dreams:
 Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora
Andrew Lam;
 Foreword by Richard Rodriguez

In his long-overdue first collection of essays, noted journalist and NPR commentator Andrew Lam explores his lifelong struggle for identity as a Viet Kieu, or a Vietnamese national living abroad. At age eleven, Lam, the son of a South Vietnamese...

Past Tents: The Way We Camped
Susan Snyder

From the award-winning author of Bear in Mind: The California Grizzly comes this lighter look at Americans' infatuation with the great outdoors. Mining once again the vast archives at the Bancroft Library, Susan Snyder has mapped out this cheeky yet...

The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco–Monterey Bay Area
Malcolm Margolin; Illustrations by Michael Harney

Two hundred years ago, herds of elk and antelope dotted the hills of the San Francisco-Monterey Bay area. Grizzly bears lumbered down to the creeks to fish for silver salmon and steelhead trout. From vast marshlands geese, ducks, and other...

November Grass
Judy Van der Veer; Introduction by Ursula K. Le Guin

In the light of the declining sun, amid the muffled sounds of grazing cattle, a Southern California cowgirl considers her life. The language of November Grass, concise yet evocative, transports readers to the coastal hills of San Diego County, where...

The Morning the Sun Went Down
Darryl Babe Wilson

Born into the Achumawi and Atusgewi tribes (often called the Pit River Nation) of northeastern California, Darryl Babe Wilson's early years were spent with his parents and eight brothers and sisters, in a world still rich in Indian tradition, feeling,...

The Laws Field Guide to the Sierra Nevada
Written and Illustrated by John Muir Laws

In this groundbreaking and meticulously field-tested guide, the rich variety of Sierra life—trees, wildflowers, ferns, fungi, lichens, fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, mammals, and insects—comes alive. Easy-to-use features include: • Intuitive organization, color tabs, and simple keys • Similar-looking species side...

The Journey of the Flame
Walter Nordhoff; Foreword by Rebecca Solnit

On the night of his 104th birthday, Don Juan Obrigón—tall and straight, with hair still flaming red—prepares to tell his life story to assembled relatives and guests. The story he will tell describes his travels as a boy of twelve...

Indian Summer: Traditional Life among the Choinumne Indians of California's San Joaquin Valley
Thomas Jefferson Mayfield;
 Introduction by Malcolm Margolin

With accuracy, zest, and insight, Indian Summer portrays the nearly lost and unspeakably beautiful world of the Choinumne Yokuts and the valley in which they lived....

Heirlooms: Letters from a Peach Farmer
David Mas Masumoto; 
Illustrations by Doug Hansen

As suburbs swallow more and more rich farmland and reforms change the farming industry, the voices of farmers have never been more important. In his latest collection of essays, David Mas Masumoto reminds us that food remains the cornerstone of...

The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to the Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck; Introduction by Charles Wollenberg

Gathered in this important volume are seven newspaper articles on migrant farm workers that John Steinbeck wrote for The San Francisco News in 1936, three years before The Grapes of Wrath. With the inquisitiveness of an investigative reporter and the...

Gables and Fables: A Portrait of San Francisco's Pacific Heights
Anne Bloomfield and Arthur Bloomfield; Illustrated by Kit Haskell

Charming and deeply informed, part historical detective work and part gossip column, this storied tour of 110 of Pacific Heights' grand old edifices offers an architectural and social history of one of San Francisco's most fabled neighborhoods. The neighborhood of...

Farmworker's Daughter: 
Growing Up Mexican in America
Rose Castillo Guilbault

When Rose Castillo Guilbault was five years old, she and her recently divorced mother crossed the border from Nogales, Sonora, to Nogales, Arizona, and boarded a Greyhound bus that would carry them to California's Salinas Valley and a new life....

Essential Saroyan
Edited by William E. Justice

His name was on the lips of two generations, and countries around the world clamored for his work. An Armenian who grew up in the fields of Fresno, California, he traveled the globe, living in Paris, London, New York, and...

Dream Songs and Ceremony: Reflections on Traditional California Indian Dance
Frank LaPena

This collection of paintings by acclaimed artist Frank LaPena draws upon the symbols of California Indian dances—sacred events that cannot be photographed or videotaped. Himself a Nomtipom Wintu dancer, singer, and ceremonial leader, LaPena complements his vibrant paintings with an...

Deeper Than Gold: A Guide to Indian Life in the Sierra Foothills
Brian Bibby; Photographs by Dugan Aguilar

Brian Bibby brings together the present and the past—both ancient and recent—in a fascinating compilation of anecdote, myth, recollection, and reflection. Five years in the making and the result of almost thirty years of dedicated work among California's native communities,...

Dark Metropolis: Irving Norman's Social Surrealism
Crocker Art Museum and Irving Norman Trust; Edited by Ray Day and Scott A. Shields

Unmasking the realities of human nature and the contemporary society in which we live, Irving Norman aimed only "to tell the truth of our time." Norman's massive canvases abound with teeming figures, drone-like and mechanical in their repetition, yet stubbornly...

Dark God of Eros: A William Everson Reader
Edited with an Introduction by Albert Gelpi

William Everson (1912-1994), aka Brother Antoninus, was a poet, monk, letterpress printer, and a quintessential Californian. Originally from the San Joaquin Valley, Everson was part of the Beat poet movement in San Francisco during the 1950s. Charismatic, Everson was a...

Chumash Ethnobotany: Plant Knowledge Among the Chumash People of Southern California
Jan Timbrook, with botanical watercolors by Chris Chapman

The Chumash people have lived in coastal California from San Luis Obispo to Santa Barbara for thousands of years. Their homeland is an area of uncommon biological richness and diversity, featuring over 1,500 species of plants. Their traditional foods, medicine,...

Bloodvine: A Novel
Aris Janigian

Bloodvine is the dramatic tale of a man's struggle to come to terms with the inexplicable episodes, gaps, and secrets that plague his family. Set in the 1950s against the backdrop of the three-thousand-year-old Armenian culture, Bloodvine is a gripping...

Blithe Tomato
Mike Madison; Foreword by Deborah Madison; Drawings by Patrick McFarlin

Across America, people are escaping fluorescent-lit grocery store aisles to rediscover the fresh, seasonal offerings of the farmers' market. A new and thriving culture has sprung up as thousands gather each weekend to pinch, poke, smell, and probe the produce—and...