Locally & Independently Published Biography

Bookshop Santa Cruz has hundreds of locally and independently published books on our shelves. Our consignment program allows us to continue to accept all of the professionally-produced, self-published books from our local authors and to devote our resources to prominently featuring them throughout the store.

visit the main page for Locally & Independently Published Works

The following is a small selection of the locally and independently published biographical titles that we have on our shelves. Please visit our Locally & Independently Published Works section in our store to see the full extent of our selection. 

Gauchos & Gumption: My Argentine Honeymoon (Paperback)

By Lynna Banning

$7.00

ISBN-13: 9781937389840
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Turquoise Morning Press, 2/2012

New bride Marie Banning sails to Argentina in 1910 to join her husband on his cattle ranch. Far from civilization, Marie learns to make ostrich egg omelets, converse with the gauchos in Spanish, and wear “bombaches,” the baggy, calf-length pants worn by the Argentine cowhands. Then, camped a thousand miles from Buenos Aires, Marie discovers she is pregnant.

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The Battle for Snow Mountain (Paperback)

By Donald J. Young

$17.95

ISBN-13: 9781929763481
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Pocol Press, 4/2011

The Battle For Snow Mountain is a comic novel--based on Young's experience--which gives a vivid, surreal picture of The Battle of the Bulge, as viewed by two GIs, one optimistic, and one pessimistic about their experience. The novel deals with their odd love affairs at home, their days in battle, their capture, then escape from a POW camp, and return to Paris and freedom.

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Town Boy: Memoir of a Santa Cruz Street Kid (Paperback)

By David Anthony

$15.95

ISBN-13: 9781614344421
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Booklocker.com, 6/2011

David Anthony entered a hidden Santa Cruz underworld when he joined a crew of street kids from a blue-collar neighborhood. Over the next several years he participated in bloody conflicts against other neighborhood gangs and witnessed his friends go to jail, rehab, and to the graveyard. After a spiritual experience sparked a new desire to change his lifestyle, David found himself trapped by loyalty to his friends and by enemies who don't forgive or forget.

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Autumn Loneliness: The Letters of Kiyoshi & Kiyoko Tokutomi, July-December, 1967 (Paperback)

By Tei Matsushita Scott, Patricia Machmiller

$27.50

ISBN-13: 9780978997946
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Hardscratch Press, 8/2009

Autumn Loneliness: the Letters of Kiyoshi and Kiyoko Tokutomi, July-December, 1967 is a compilation of 300 letters translated from the Japanese, letters written by a married couple, deeply in love and separated by a crisis in their life in 1967. Over the five mouths of their separation they wrote to each other regularly: he, one to three times a day, she, two to three times a week. These two people were destined to become the founders of the Yuki Teikei Haiku Society in San Jose, CA, but at this time of their life, as Kiyoko says at the close of one of her letters that she finds poetry to be far, far from her reality.

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Who Says I Cant?: A Two-Time Cancer-Surviving Amputee and Entrepreneur Who Fought Back, Survived and Thrived (Paperback)

By Jothy Rosenberg

$14.95

ISBN-13: 9781935456131
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: BASCOM Hill, 2/2010

“You have zero chance of survival.” That is what my doctor told me after the cancer that took my right leg three years previously had now spread to my lung, two-fifths of which had also just been removed. That was over thirty-five years ago. I survived. And then some. Who Says I Can't is about what effect hearing those words has on someone’s personality and how one can not only survive, but also fight back, recover, and thrive.

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I Finally Fell in Love with the Right Person

$11.95

Model: JSTORY

The funny, outrageous, and inspiring memoirs of local singer-actress and Handyman Co-op owner who found lust, love, and—finally—peace with herself…in her 70’s. Jane Story delivers a candid account of her showbiz and personal lives in a brisk, witty, plainspoken style that will keep the reader turning pages to find out what happens next.

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Bone Knowing: A True Story of Coming to Life in the Face of Impending Loss (Paperback)

By Jennifer Allen

$19.95

ISBN-13: 9780578031859
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Jujupress, 7/2009

With depth, humor, and raw honesty applied to the experience of slowly losing a loved one to cancer, BONE KNOWING offers satisfaction to readers who want to laugh, cry, and re-think important issues in their own relationships.

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Teaching in the Good and Not So Good Old Days (Paperback)

By Harold A Smith

$15.00

ISBN-13: 9781450717366
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Mission Printers, 5/2010

Mr. Smith is a Santa Cruz resident. He was a California secondary teacher for 31 years, teaching in Big Bear Lake and San Jose. He is currently contemplating his navel and pondering the meaning of life on this curious planet. When he figures it out, he'll probably write a lurid expose of it.

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Champion in a Man's World: A Biography of Marion Hollins (Hardcover)

By David Outerbridge, Sleeping Bear,

$24.95

ISBN-13: 9781886947405
Availability: On Our Shelves Now
Published: Gale Cengage, 6/1998

Champion in a Man's World tells the tale of perhaps the finest sportswoman of the century. She formed the Women's National Golf and Tennis Club, the first club exclusive to women. She had a hand in creating both Cypress Point Golf Course and Club and Pasatiempo. Marion Hollins was the prototype of the great amateur athlete and was stopped by no obstacle or convention in achieving what she believed needed to be done.

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Ya Wanna Watch? I'll Let Ya! (Paperback)

By Renette Torres

$16.00

ISBN-13: 9781604585889
Availability: Special Order - Subject to Availability
Published: Renette Torres, 1/2010

Get jazzed by the energy from an 80-year-old kid who came out of retirement from a dynamic career in the watch business to write, publish and promote her own up-beat story. The title is ‘Ya Wanna Watch? I’ll Let Ya!’ it’s a quick, ‘don’t wanna put it down’ read.

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The Cosmic Lady was Right

$23.99

Model: CosmicLady

by Marshall Motz

Holden Caulfield returns as a senior citizen, telling his/our story, from loony-bin America, which really died in 1945 in Akron, Ohio, as megachurches and rock were first appearing. Re-birth comes in Santa Cruz, where liberals live again! A fun read for 2010, but an ominous warning from the Cosmic Lady.

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