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...

Can't Get It in France -- More Stories from the Rossmoor News is Douglas Hergert's second collection of essays, originally written for the Rossmoor retirement community of Walnut Creek, California. In these pages you'll read about people, books, food, and memories, including: a culinary experience that people come from France to enjoy; a contemporary look at Shakespeare; the American life of an African son; an appreciation of the humorist Calvin Trillin; the buzz about San Francisco neighborhoods; and two favorite holiday essays, reprinted here from an earlier volume. You'll also find...

In 1974, Douglas Hergert landed in Kabul, Afghanistan, to begin what would become a five-year, two-country tour in the Peace Corps. He lived and worked for two years in Afghanistan - when the country was still a peaceful and beautiful place to visit. Then he transferred to Senegal, in West Africa. During his Peace Corps years, Hergert had great adventures, which, now many years later, he shares with humor and warm attention to detail: Living in a mud house in rural Afghanistan Attending a village Afghan wedding Learning to barter in Pashto in the bazaars of Afghanistan Eating in a kabaab shop...

Rien a Paris un roman de Douglas Hergert"

Book reviews and interviews with Rossmoor authors.

Nothing in Paris / Rien a Paris a novel by Douglas Hergert Bilingual Edition"

Under the Redwoods is Hergert's fourth collection of essays, originally written for the Rossmoor News. It contains a selection of "Ad Lib" columns, followed by Hergert's 2014 book reviews. In these pages you'll read about: a misplaced medieval treasure, sadly languishing far from home; bakery goods developed by the Los Angeles Unified School District; a determined rediscovery of merguez sausages; a San Francisco church forever associated with Whoopi Goldberg; the best place to buy an almond torte; an extraordinary new seaside hiking trail south of San Francisco; a treasured grove of redwoods;...

The hundred essays in this book all began as newspaper articles. Here they appear in an edited and reordered form.