Bay Area Literary Tidbits

This drop-dead gorgeous view of the California coast is the spectacle that greets diners from the deck of the Nepenthe Restaurant in Big Sur. Romney Steele, a Bay Area food writer and stylist whose grandparents started the eating establishment. has just sold a book about her experiences, according to Publishers Marketplace:

Romney Steele's MY NEPENTHE, part memoir-part cookbook from the legendary Big Sur cliff-side restaurant and hangout of Henry Miller, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Kim Novak, to Kirsty Melville at Andrews McMeel, for publication in Fall 2009, by Carole Bidnick at Bidnick & Company (World).

Raj Patel, the author of the bestselling Stuffed and Starved, sold another book, according to Publishers Marketplace.

Raj Patel's THE VALUE OF NOTHING, an investigation by an activist and academic of why prices are always at odds with the value of things; how they never reflect hidden social and environmental costs and what impact free goods and services (be it Internet or healthcare) have on societies, to Philip Gwyn-Jones at Portobello Books, for publication in Fall 2009, by Karolina Sutton at Curtis Brown.

I went to the San Francisco Antiquarian Book Fair last weekend and just walked around, my mouth agape, at all the first editions of Dickens, Austen, Mailer, and more. I really enjoyed the display of Hubert Howe Bancroft's collected works on California. (The Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley is named after him) They were stored in a specially-built cabinet for a mere $15,000.

Here's a close-up of the top of the cabinet: