Hip-Hop Poetry, AIDS Education, and Alameda County Fires

Hip-Hop Poetry, AIDS Education, and Alameda County Fires

A crop of new books explores emotions, an epidemic, and courage.

 

Images of America: Alameda County Fire Department by Firefighter Heather Marques (2016, Arcadia, 127 pp., $21.99)

This paperback takes a nostalgic trip through the firefighting history of Alameda County in images that firefighter Heather Marques has pulled together to highlight the men and women who served fire departments in Eden, San Leandro, Dublin, Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Newark, Union City, and Emeryville. Some of the most striking photos are of the early bucket brigades, heavy horse-drawn equipment, “modern” horseless engines of the 1900s, a 2005 fire at the Tesla Road summit, a heroic rescue on Corral Hollow Road, and a dramatic portrait of firefighter Cynthia Weizer with a respirator.