The Los Angeles Times took a close look Monday at Berkeley Bowl, the city’s most revered and quirky grocery store, and used it as a prism to analyze the city’s residents. But the piece, which ran on the newspaper’s front page, so infuriated the owner, Glenn Yasuda, that the reporter has been banned for…

It’s two months until my book comes out, and I have been getting some good news: Redroom.com, the author and reader social networking site, has named me its “Rising Star” this week. My picture and profile are featured on the site’s home page. Please check it out and pay me a visit. Towers of Gold…

When I first started working on Towers of Gold, I spent hours in the basement of Doe Library at UC Berkeley, looking through old newspapers. At one point my brother asked me if the Los Angeles Times had been digitized and put on line, and I scoffed. Everyone knew that the only papers that were…