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Spring is here, and whether you’re looking to spend a sunny weekend on the patio or a cozy rainy day indoors with a good book, the season is blooming with new releases and author talks.
In this section, Palo Alto author Irena Smith discusses “Troika,” her Odyssey-inspired multi-generational memoir of a drive through California with her mother and daughter. Los Altos author Rie Neal shares the inspiration behind her middle-grade book “Space for Saffron” which celebrates the “STEM-forward” nature of our region and the joys and challenges of school rites of passage like science fairs.
Read on for a sampling of new works by Bay Area authors and upcoming events.
Recently published and upcoming books
Bay Area-based New York Times bestselling author Mike Chen is back with sci-fi adventure “The Photonic Effect.” After a decade trapped in space, the crew of the starship Horizon is looking for peace and quiet as they finally settle in back at the coalition of planets they call home — but they’re unlikely to get it as civil war has broken out while they’ve been gone. Desperate to protect her crew, the Horizon’s captain, Demora Kim, nevertheless finds she must lead the team into the conflict.
To be published April 21; Simon & Schuster
Chen will appear in conversation with fellow sci-fi author Annalee Newitz April 21 at Books Inc. Palo Alto
As the COVID-19 pandemic underscored, U.S. farmworkers are essential in keeping stores stocked and people fed, even as they often face dangerous conditions on the frontlines of our agricultural system. They’re the first to be exposed to the extreme weather that climate change brings and to pesticides that can harm health and the environment. With “Our Five Seasons: Farmworkers’ Warning on Climate Change,” Bay Area author Alina Zárate shares the stories of pickers, irrigators and organizers who know the land best; they describe the perils they face, their innovations for dealing with climate threats and the connection they feel to their work. The book also features illustrations by Edward Andrés Dennis.
To be published April 7; Books That Save Lives
Zárate will appear April 24 at Fireside Books
A Northern California equestrian summer camp for youth is the setting for local author Karen Nelson’s second novel, “The Last Summer at Feather River,” which fellow author Steve Almond credits with potentially creating a whole new genre: “Summer Camp Noir.” The book follows a woman who, returning to her family’s former summer camp after a decade’s absence to care for her grandfather, learns that there are secrets behind the accident that shuttered the camp 10 years ago — and that her family may know more than they’re letting on. Nelson, who grew up locally and lives in Los Altos, set her 2024 debut novel, “The Sunken Town,” partly on the Peninsula.
To be published May 19; Sibylline Press
Nelson will appear May 20 at Kepler’s Books
Bay Area journalist Jonathan Weber — who in 1990 became the Los Angeles Times’ first Silicon Valley reporter — draws on his decades of covering the region for the L.A. Times, Reuters, The Industry Standard and most recently, the San Francisco Standard, with “City on the Edge: The Fight for the Soul of San Francisco.” The book traces the growth of San Francisco into a world tech capital, and explores the highs of economic, cultural and political clout, and the seemingly insurmountable lows — tremendous income inequality, housing shortages and homelessness — that the transformation has brought to the city and how its leaders have reckoned with both.
To be published June 9; Atria Books
Weber will appear June 10 at Books Inc. Palo Alto
With powerful companies that once pledged not to “be evil” doing some real 180s over the past couple decades, tech doesn’t quite have the revered reputation it used to. It is changing lives, though probably not in the ways many hoped it would — but tech founder and author Jim Fruchterman suggests it can still go another way, with his book “Technology for Good: How Nonprofit Leaders Are Using Software and Data to Solve Our Most Pressing Social Problems.” For the book, Fruchterman draws on his experience as the founder of the two nonprofits Benetech and TechMatters, which have both offered software and data solutions for an array of humanitarian purposes. He not only argues technology needs to be a part of meaningful social change, but explores how to create organizations that use tech to do good.
Published September 2025; MIT Press
The Dust Bowl era, with its catastrophic weather events and widespread poverty and hunger, was all too real, but Bay Area author and Stanford University professor Karen Russell conjures some mystery and sense of connection from this dark time with her latest novel, “The Antidote.” Set in a fictional Nebraska town in 1935, the book follows five characters as they reckon with the aftermath of a terrible dust storm; among them a “Prairie Witch,” who cures her customers by taking away their dark memories and secrets, and a New Deal photographer, whose camera seems to be capturing the past and future as well as the present.
Published March 17; Vintage/Penguin Random House
Special events
The Palo Alto Library hosts the Rinconada Book Fair, highlighting local authors, editors, publishers and writing groups. “Small Publishing in a Big Universe” is the theme of the event, which offers insights into the writing and publishing processes with panel discussions and presentations by publishers and individual fiction and non-fiction authors.
April 4, noon-4 p.m., Palo Alto Art Center auditorium; paloalto.bibliocommons.com
Spend a day with Stanford writers at the 23rd annual A Company of Authors. The event, hosted by Stanford history professor emeritus Peter Stansky, features seven panel discussions throughout the day, with authors discussing their recently published books. Panel topics range from national and global politics to literature and the craft of writing. Guests can attend in-person or virtually.
April 21, 1-5:35 p.m. at Stanford University; continuingstudies.stanford.edu
Take a page from Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot and become a gumshoe for an evening with Night at the Library: Spirits and More Spirits. Team up with other patrons for an after-hours sleuthing adventure at the library that, in addition to giving you a mystery to solve, includes food, cocktails, puzzles and the chance to meet “literary spirits.” The event raises funds for the library.
April 25, 7 p.m., at the Redwood City Public Library;. $80 individual admission/$150 admission for two. paybee.io/in-person-event/rclf/5.
The latest in Kepler’s Books’ Story Is the Thing series showcasing works by Northern California authors will feature readings and booksignings by four Bay Area fiction writers. Ellen Barker shares “Nothing North of Delmar,” her novel about one woman’s grappling with landlord and urban politics. Meg Donohue delves into the power of memory and the healing properties of tending to nature with “The Memory Gardener.” Set in 1983 Cincinnati, Portia Elan‘s “Homebound” offers a blast from the past with a touch of time travel as a young woman tries to finish a game left by her deceased uncle, and finds it connects an unlikely group of people and others, including an automaton and a futuristic traveler. Victoria Tatum’s novel “More Than Any River,” described as “Chinatown-meets-Grapes-of-Wrath,” was inspired by a true story of Sacramento Delta family farmers fighting agribusiness to stop the construction of a massive water tunnel under the land.
May 28, 6 p.m., at Kepler’s Books; free admission; eventbrite.com/e/story-is-the-thing.
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