San Diego County Library Book Festival -- Encinitas Branch

After being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, twenty-eight-year-old Justin Halpern found himself living at home with his seventy-three-year-old dad. Sam Halpern, who is "like Socrates, but angrier, and with worse hair," has never minced words, and when Justin moved back home, he began to record all the ridiculous things his dad said to him: "That woman was sexy. . . . Out of your league? Son, let women figure out why they won't screw you. Don't do it for them." "Do people your age know how to comb their hair? It looks like two squirrels crawled on their heads and started fucking." "The worst thing you can be is a liar. . . . Okay, fine, yes, the worst thing you can be is a Nazi, but then number two is liar. Nazi one, liar two." More than a million people now follow Mr. Halpern's philosophical musings on Twitter, and in this book, his son weaves a brilliantly funny, touching coming-of-age memoir around the best of his quotes. An all-American story that unfolds on the Little League field, in Denny's, during excruciating family road trips, and, most frequently, in the Halperns' kitchen over bowls of Grape-Nuts, Sh*t My Dad Says is a chaotic, hilarious, true portrait of a father-son relationship from a major new comic voice.

She made knitting sexy. Now she's taking on a dilapidated winery, three sisters, and the bad boys next door. The Baci sisters are on a mission to save the winery that's been in their family for generations-by transforming it into the perfect wedding destination. If only Alessandra Baci-affectionately known as the "Nun of Napa"-didn't need the help of tempting neighbor and business rival Penn Bennett.

In 1926, when musician Tom Hickey reads in a broadside about a lynching the Los Angeles newspapers failed to report, and discovers the Negro victim was an old friend, he goes to his neighbor Leo Weiss, an LAPD detective. Leo confirms that, officially, the lynching didn’t occur. Tom has a dance orchestra to lead and a wild younger sister to raise. Yet he decides to investigate the murder. Since the lynching occurred in Echo Park, across the street from evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson’s Angelus Temple, he goes there looking for clues and is greeted and watched by an usher who follows him after the service and continues to shadow him daily. The investigation earns Tom beatings, gunfire meant to dissuade him, and warnings from Leo, a speakeasy owner, and a Klansman, that he’s made formidable enemies. Among them may be infamous Police Chief Two Gun Davis, Examiner publisher and political heavyweight William Randolph Hearst, and Harry Chandler, owner of the Times, who owns more land than any man in the world. After Sister Aimee announces that on November 2, election day, she will preach a sermon entitled “The Biggest Liar in Los Angeles,” Tom deduces that the cover up may involve local politics, perhaps a ballot referendum that will decide who the city’s future belongs to: the railroads, whose plans include subways and elevated trains; or the oil, automobile, and suburban development interests, devoted to building highways. Meanwhile, Tom also discovers that the key to the murder, as is too often the case, lies close to home.

Marshall Seaver is being haunted. In the first installment of this chillingly compelling trilogy, sixteen-year-old Marshall discovers that something beyond our world is after him. The eerie clues pile up quickly, and when people start dying, it's clear whatever this is--it's huge. Marshall has no idea what's happening to him, but he's soon convinced that it has something to do with his best friend Cooper, who's been missing for over a week. Together with Coop's sister, Marsh searches for the truth about what happened to his friend, ultimately uncovering something bigger than he could ever have imagined.