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5 to 7PM Fridays, on KTDE, The Tide, 100.5FM
Friday Fun, Fun, Fun with FrogMan Joel — Trivia and Tunes from the 50’s, 60’s & 70’s
Join FrogMan Joel this Friday and every Friday at 5PM on the TIDE, 100.5 FM. Send your requests to GualalaFrog@gmail.com, or phone 707-884-3000 while the FrogMan's on the air. Let’s have some fun together.

4PM Saturday, February 27 at Four-Eyed Frog Books
Paul McHugh shares from his gripping mystery, "Deadlines"
John Lescroart says, "'Deadlines' is a superior story, not to be missed.'" Dan Rather writes, "Every reporter worth his or her notepad is a sleuth at heart. Paul McHugh brings this truth to life with crackling suspense and a true, ink-stained veteran's eye for the newsroom." Joel Crockett extolls, "I love Colm MacCay, the unlikely hard-drinking protagonist as much as I do David Skibbins' bi-polar, tarot-card reading Warren Ritter. A big plus, too, revisiting San Francisco, Half Moon Bay and points south; places I know so well. But best of all is the story itself. I was riveted!"

4PM Saturday, March 6 at Four-Eyed Frog Books
Stephen Kessler introduces his first novel, "The Mental Traveler"
Longtime (now part-time) Gualala writer Stephen Kessler, best known locally as editor of The Redwood Coast Review, will read from his new novel, The Mental Traveler, Saturday, March 6, at 4pm at Four-Eyed Frog Books, Cypress Village, Gualala. Widely and well-published as a poet, translator, journalist and essayist, Kessler has now put out his first work of long fiction, and, he says, “This book was a long time coming.” Begun in New York City in 1990 and finished in Gualala three years later, The Mental Traveler is based on an episode in the author’s personal history and chronicles the story of a young poet at the end of the 1960s who, under the combined influence of psychedelic drugs and an agitated moment in US cultural history, loses his mind and discovers his vocation as a writer. Part picaresque adventure, part exploration of acute psychosis, part madhouse nightmare, part absurdist comedy, the narrative follows its protagonist’s travels up and down California in search of his role in “the Revolution.” “I never thought of myself as a novelist,” says Kessler, “but this was a story that had to be told, and the only way to tell it truthfully was as fiction.” Repeatedly rejected by agents and New York publishers, the book was finally due to be released in 2003 by Creative Arts Book Company, the publisher of two of his books of poetry, when Creative Arts suddenly folded. Orphaned again, the manuscript went back in the drawer until last fall. “My friend Gary Young, publisher of Greenhouse Review Press in Santa Cruz, wanted to bring out The Mental Traveler on the 40th anniversary of Altamont,” the infamous rock-and-roll concert of December 1969. “So here it is,” says Kessler. Initial response from readers has been gratifying, he says, “so maybe it’s a good thing it took this long. Several people have told me it’s the most persuasive account of going crazy they’ve ever read.” Kessler will read from and take questions about the book, and be available to sign copies.

4PM Saturday, March 13 at Four-Eyed Frog Books
Liza Dalby introduces her highly acclaimed new novel, "Hidden Buddhas"
Liza Dalby's new book explores the karmic connections between Japanese fashion design, pilgrimage, dying honeybees, bad girls with cell phones, murder by blowfish, and the Buddhist apocalypse. Arthur Golden, author of "Memoirs of a Geisha," says, "'Hidden Buddhas' may well be Liza Dalby's best work yet; with its fascinating story of characters caught up in a world they themselves don't understand. While taking us on a journey through little-known corners of Japan, it offers an engaging and believable portrait of people driven to do things they may not have imagined." For more information, go to www.hiddenbuddhas.com

4PM Saturday, April 10 at Four-Eyed Frog Books
Linda Lambert introduces her brand-new novel, "Cairo Diary"
Described as a mix of Dan Brown and "The Red Tent," this promises to be a most interesting novel. Watch for more details and a review soon.

4PM Saturday, April 17 at Four-Eyed Frog Books
T.P. Jones shares from the first 2 novels in his The Loss of Certainty Series
Details to come.

4PM Saturday, April 24 at Four-Eyed Frog Books
Ida Rae Egli reads from No Rooms of Their Own: Women Writers of Early California, 1849-1869
This revealing anthology by local writer and instructor Ida Rae Egli shares the work of fifteen women. "The words of well-known writers like Ina Coolbrith and Dame Shirley mingle with less familiar voices -- women writing for themselves in the privacy of their own diaries, minority women, women with independent, free-thinking spirits who were many decades ahead of their time. Their essays, poems, and stories describe the challenges they faced in an extraordinary new world. This carefully assembled collection strips away preconceived notions about the gold rush and its aftermath, offering instead a fresh, unique perspective -- one essential to the understanding of early California and its true pioneers."

4PM Saturday, May 1 at Four-Eyed Frog Books
Mercer Larson introduces her White Oak Landing trilogy
In book one, you'll meet Fitzwilliam McCain; a brilliant and dogged man; a man in pain, wounded by profound tragedy. By the time you've finished book three you'll know him, and his family, well. This is a story about a marriage and a family. It is about redemption. It is about the soul-starved need for sanctuary and the significance of "place" in all of our lives. Readers say, "...it was fascinating to see how all the characters grew and changed. Some books you just want to step into and stay!" and "...I've come to love the people and the place. The McCains and their family will remain in my thoughts for a very long time."

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