A bit of self-promotion

Today marks the official release date of my new book, Sacramento's Southside Park. It is part of the Arcadia Publishing "Images of America" series, like my earlier book Sacramento's Streetcars.

A link to Arcadia's page on the book

This book represents a very different approach from the streetcar book, and, in my mind, something of a different approach than most of the Images of America series done on Sacramento neighborhoods.

While I made much use of sources like SAMCC and the Sacramento Room for this book, most of the information was gathered in a series of oral history interviews with neighborhood residents. I interviewed people from many walks of life, but mainly working people: people who worked in canneries and vegetable distribution, clerks and florists, truckers and bartenders. I tried to represent as clearly as I know how the incredible ethnic diversity of Southside Park, including its Mexican, Japanese, Portuguese and Italian neighborhoods. Many of the photos came from family collections rather than archives, although there are plenty of historic archive photographs.

The interviews and personal photos helped make this book more of an exploration of the lives of people in the neighborhood, rather than simply a collection of photos of buildings and unidentified people. While writing the book, I got a great sense of the level of civic pride and community that is present in Southside, and hopefully some of that comes through in the book's text.

I will also be doing a series of signings:
Thursday, October 4, 6:30 PM at Barnes & Noble, 1725 Arden Way, Sacramento
Saturday, October 6, 1:00 PM at Barnes & Noble, 6111 Sunrise Blvd, Citrus Heights
Sunday, October 28, 1:00 PM at The Avid Reader on Broadway and 16th (old Tower Books)

Finally, I will be on the KXJZ Radio program INSIGHT next Wednesday, October 10, at 2:00 PM:

http://www.capradio.org/programs/insight/