Local History Takes Center Stage at Library Book Signing
By Terry Miller
Published: Thursday, December 17th, 2009
“Southern California Story” Comes to Life in Sierra Madre
- Photo by Terry Miller
It’s abundantly clear that Michele Zack has been a writer/journalist for 25 years – her latest offering: “Southern California Story: In Search of the Better Life in Sierra Madre” is meeting with very swift sales in the foothill community to which she has devoted so much of her recent research and writing efforts.
A week ago Zack was at the Sierra Madre Library signing copies of her new and vividly illustrated book which many local’s such as Mary Terry Mackenzie, now 84 and who grew up in Sierra Madre, find truly a gem. Confronted with images she’s not seen in over 60 years, Mackenzie exclaimed “Oh my God, That’s Charlie Nomura’s vegetable truck. My brother (Roger Armstrong) worked for his when he was a boy.” Mackenzie was referring to one of hundreds of historic images that have been painstakingly dated and captioned. According to librarians and booksellers alike, the community support for the new book has been terrific.
Zack was overheard saying she hoped people didn’t just look at the pictures but actually read the fascinating story that made the city what it is today. Zack also wrote a prize-winning book called “Altadena: Between Wilderness and City,” a social history of one California town that illuminates the history of another of Pasadena’s northern neighbors. That book was published in May of 2004.
Another of Zack’s stories called “Eaton’s Water” was made into a film by Art Center College of Design and was used by Pasadena area schools as part of their watershed education curriculum starting in October of 2005. In the 1990s she lived back and forth between Thailand and California as a correspondent for Asiaweek and a regular contributor to the Far Eastern Economic Review.
The author of a popular ethnography of a wandering hill tribe in Southeast Asia and co-author of Fielding’s Guide to Thailand, Zack has written widely about Southeast Asia, and worked as speech writer for more than one Thai Prime Minister. She is a guest lecturer at USC’s Marshall School of Business on business and culture in Southeast Asia.
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