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All For One by Melissa de la Cruz
Black Girl, Call Home by Jasmine Mans
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
Blastaway by Melissa Landers
Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella
Cloaked by Alex Flinn
Death by French Roast by Alex Erickson
Delicious in Dungeon, Volume 8 by Ryoko Kui
The Drastic Dragon of Draco, Texas by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough
Fatal Fried Rice by Vivien Chien
Feast by Lindsay Anderson and Dana VanVeller
Float Plan by Trish Doller
The Hedgehog of Oz by Cory Leonardo
In Your Shoes by Donna Gephart
Julieta and the Diamond Enigma by Luisana Duarte Armendáriz
The Library Book by Susan Orlean
Like Home by Louisa Onomé
Lost in the Never Woods by Aiden Thomas
Lullaby For Eggs: A Poem by Betty Bridgman and Elizabeth Orton Jones
The Magic Fish by Trung Le Nguyen
Mistletoe Murder by Leslie Meier
Moriarty the Patriot, Volume 3 by Ryōsuke Takeuchi
The Night Gardener by Jonathan Auxier
Orsinian Tales by Ursula K. Le Guin
A Pho Love Story by Loan Le
Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman by E.W. Hornung
Read or Alive by Nora Page
Rockridge by Robin Wolf and Tom Wolf
Samantha Spinner and the Super Secret Plans by Russell Ginns
Twins by Varian Johnson and Shannon Wright

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Rockridge: 04/25/21

Rockridge

Rockridge by Robin Wolf and Tom Wolf is a pictorial history of a one time city that is now a neighborhood in Oakland. The book also covers Upper Rockridge which it doesn't define as a separate neighborhood like Google Maps does.

Rockridge

Upper Rockridge

Rockridge got its first big boost in the months and years following the 1906 Earthquake. Families who couldn't afford to rebuild in San Francisco, or didn't want to, or perhaps were renting, initially set up tent cities in Rockridge. At the time area was primarily farm and grazing land.

Besides being affordable, the area had rail connections to connect both San Francisco (via a ferry) and Sacramento. The rail lines are long gone, replaced by highways 24 and 13 and BART. Looking at the stops through Oakland and points east, I'm sorry to see the rail line gone. The areas served are different than what BART serves.

The rising popularity of the automobile opened up development to Upper Rockridge. This is an area of hills. As an automobile was the bare requirement for life there, this housing development catered to the wealthy white. Later sections in the book cover the art scene, the building of the highways and BART, and finally the firestorm that swept through the Oakland hills in 1991.

Not every building or location covered in the book is extant. Many were lost in the name of progress (see BART and the highways). Others were lost to fire (not all during the firestorm). But a handful still exist and can be found on Google Maps.

Four stars

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