Authors Corner: Pleasanton's Anne Koch Publishes Her First Book

I can’t pinpoint when the affair began. 

Certainly it was before I could read, a detail that never kept me from carrying books from room to room like some children carry blankets or stuffed toys. Somehow I knew whatever was trapped inside was special, fun, even important. Years later, decades after countless esoteric reading lists for courses I took and some courses I taught myself, I began to wonder what happened…not to the “important” but to the “fun.”

This is the opening lines and candid confession of a profound love for books in Anne Koch’s book It’s All About the Story–Composing a Life in Books, a collection of 22 essays giving tribute to popular fiction books.

It’s All About the Story–Composing a Life in Books brings to light places and times where books, especially popular mysteries and detective fiction, make a difference in our increasingly technology-focused world.

Anne recounts in her essays both personal and historical events in which fictional books influenced those who read them.

When asked what it was that gave her the inspiration behind her essays, her answers were profound and thoughtful.

“What is it that ties all of life together?” she asked.  “Loving books is what tied mine together.”

As a young mother she valued every moment she could steal away from her domestic and professional duties to escape into the life of a good book.

“It’s All About the Story is about celebrating books in the midst of an electronic age, which threatens remembering the past and the lessons we’re to learn from it,” Anne shared.

“The essays I wrote are to help make sense of the world. Writing is a means of paying attention to the world around us.”

Anne is the mother of two grown children and four grandchildren.   She has lived in in Pleasanton with her husband for over twenty years. Her professional and personal credentials are inspiring.

A UCLA graduate, she has a lifetime credential in English and holds advanced degrees from Saint Mary’s College of California and the University of San Francisco.  She is also a licensed reading specialist and has spent more than 30 years working with students as young as preschool and up to graduate students.

Anne has received numerous awards for her contributions to education including the Saint Mary’s College Reading Leadership Award, the “LaSallian Educator of the Year” from the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the USF outstanding doctoral dissertation award for her work on improving reading comprehension.  

She has been honored by Chapman University College as its “Teacher of the Year”, and is the recipient of the “Outstanding Teacher Award” from the University of California, San Diego.

Anne is working the second of three installments of her essay collections titled Sense Making Through a Paint Box Prism.

It’s All About the Story-Composing a Life in Books can be purchased through Amazon or Barnes and Noble.