The Mystique of the Last Cannoli: Linda and Camille discuss the book and the mystery …
Join us for a talk with author Camille Cusumano and a reading from her novel, The Mystique of the Last Cannoli, hosted by Book Passage and organized by the Left Coast Writers®.
Saturday February 14th, 2026 — 2 PM
Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera ||
When Carmela Donitella, youngest of a large Sicilian-American family, discovers someone is blackmailing her father who wants to open an orphanage, she enlists the help of her four older sisters, aka the Sister Mob.
A comedy of errors ensues as they untangle the obstacles to their father’s dream and, in doing so, reveal the mystery of the last cannoli.
Camille Cusumano is the author of the memoir, Tango, an Argentine Love Story, the novel, The Last Cannoli, and
literary anthologies on France, Italy, Mexico, and Greece. She has written for many publications, including National Geographic Traveler, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times and her short fiction has placed in the Kurt Vonnegut, Zoetrope, and Katherine Anne Porter contests.
Camille lives and writes in San Francisco and dances tango around the world.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, founder of City Lights Bookstore and Publishing and Legendary San Francisco Poet Laureate had this to say about Camille’s first novel on the topic:
“The Last Cannoli attests to the power of storytelling to hold life together through all its diasporas.” —Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The program will feature a short “in conversation” between Camille and novelist Linda Watanabe McFerrin, followed by a reading, a Q&A session, and refreshments.
Dark clothing and sunglasses optional but always recommended …
PROLES themes resonate today: 
“A disturbingly topical tale about a young spiritual drifter (Simon Bussbaum), thrown in with a group of disenfranchised males brutalized by cultural, educational, personal, and political neglect. “Proles” refers, of course, to “proletariat” and that’s not the only connection to “1984”, Orwell’s brilliant and now-we-can-say prescient masterpiece.
Joan Virginia Allen doesn’t just talk about dynamic aging—she lives it. As a retired elder law and estate planning attorney turned dynamic aging life coach, memoirist, and publisher of the online “Dynamic Aging 4 Life Magazine,” Joan is committed to changing the narrative around aging.
biomechanist Katy Bowman—a groundbreaking work that has helped people worldwide to experience greater physical mobility and vitality as they age.
Laurie McAndish King is an award-winning travel writer and photographer with an eye for the quirky. Her subjects include 20-foot-long Australian earthworms, an Ivy League astrophysicist’s explanation of how flying saucers are powered, and finding the perfect site for watching eagle sex. King’s essays and photography have appeared in Smithsonian magazine, the Washington Post, the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Travelers’ Tales’ The Best Women’s Travel Writing, Lonely Planet’s The Kindness of Strangers, and other magazines and literary anthologies. Her three books of travel essays—insightful, poignant and often quite funny—are available from Book Passage: 
Join us as we celebrate the life and work of writer, traveler and centenarian Ethel Mussen, who passed away this year, a few years ahead of her 104th birthday. Some of us had the pleasure of her friendship, of knowing and traveling the world with her. Many of us have been delighted by Ethel’s travel tales published in the Wanderland Writers anthologies and elsewhere.
We have fond memories of Ethel Mussen, the world-traveling centenarian who—when she wasn’t out and about sharing her life stories, her wisdom and her the wide-eyed enthusiasm for ideas, people, places, good works and life in general— lived high on a hill above Berkeley.
our lives. Brilliant. Highly recommended.” 
found dead under the Golden Gate Bridge, an apparent suicide, she wrestles with a storm of sadness, guilt, and confusion. Haunted by her failure to prevent this tragedy, she’s determined to understand what went wrong.
Cyn Lubow, LMFT is a psychotherapist in private practice and an award-winning poet and filmmaker. Her professional articles have been reprinted and referenced in numerous publications on the web, and her “Transforming Depression into Empowerment” chapter is published in the anthology Goddess Shift: Women Leading for a Change. Cyn’s films have been distributed worldwide. Her feature documentary is included in the catalogs of dozens of college and university libraries. This is her first novel.