James Rumford, himself a world traveler, has retold Ibn Battuta's story in words and pictures, adding the element of ancient Arab maps--maps as colorful and evocative as a Persian miniature, as intricate and mysterious as a tiled Moroccan wall. Into this arabesque of pictures and maps is woven the story not just of a traveler in a world long gone but of a man on his journey through life.

Longtime San Francisco novelist Laurence Roy has arrived at the end of his writing career. During a period of thirty-five years, he's published dozens of novels - well received, highly regarded, warmly reviewed - though they have not led to great fame or fortune. He is a disciplined professional, devoted to his authorial routine. Writer's block is not part of his vocabulary. But at age sixty, he has abruptly realized that he's had enough of writing. All the same, he has one last novel left, and he has decided - with a sense of uncertainty, ambivalence, puzzlement - to spend six months writing...

For two years Douglas Hergert has been writing a thousand-word anecdotal human-interest column for the Rossmoor News. Rossmoor, an adult community located about 30 minutes east by car from San Francisco, has a population of perhaps 10,000 residents. The community is economically and generationally diverse, but urbane, intelligent, and active, with a high percentage of retired professionals and artists. The Rossmoor setting is a park-like campus complete with redwood groves, lush landscaping, and abundant wildlife, including geese, wild turkeys, and many other resident species. Life at...

When news reaches a Hawaiian grandmother that Hawai'i has been annexed by the United States in July 1898, she sets to work on a quilt to show her family that, in a time of change, there is one thing that must never be forgotten. In English and Hawaiian, The Flag Quilt is a revised edition of When Silver Needles Swam, which appeared in 1998 to great acclaim, receiving along with other Hawaiian language books from Manoa Press the award Na Manu a Ka'ae from 'Ahahui 'Olelo Hawai'i for helping to preserve the Hawaiian language. James Rumford, an award-winning and internationally recognized author...