The long-awaited book Images of America: Italian Oakland, by now-retired award-winning Oakland Tribune reporter and columnist Rick Malaspina, portrays East Bay Italians through some 200 vintage photographs, interviews and commentary. Rick emailed me that his book, with the assistance of actual family remembrances and photographs, was his parting gift to the Italian community before relocating …

At long last, ALIVE’s Senior Staff Writer Anita Venezia’s debut novel, Crosswinds at Campo Carcasso — A Journey of a Thousand Tales, is now available. The riveting novel portrays five unlikely protagonists ensnared in the web of illicit looting of golden treasures and ancient artifacts from 2000-year-old cavernous crypts in Etruscan Cities of the Dead …

With Mindy Joshua-Matthews Would it be overstating the obvious to say that Facebook is a modern day phenomenon? While most of us were doing “who- knows- what” in our college dorm rooms, Mark Zuckerberg and his buddies at Harvard developed a social networking internet sensation that would forever change the world. Facebook, simply put, is …

Whether we like it or not, everything alive is always a “work in progress.” Nothing living remains absolutely stagnant. So the truth is, we humans are continually changing on numerous levels that include…mind and body. This may sound simple and straightforward, but the tricky part is keeping up with our own transformational process. Now, if …