Non-Fiction

The Scary Ham

Tor.com, 2014

As Toastmaster for the Nebula Awards, Klages held an audience spellbound with the delightful, terrifying story which involves two middle-aged sisters sorting through 50 years’ worth of family memorabilia, including their late father’s ham, which loomed in his basement for decades. Surely, the only reasonable approach is an improvised Viking funeral, complete with fuzzy monkeys and a hunting horn. Side-splittingly funny. (Memoir)

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The Science Explorer

(with Pat Murphy and Linda Shore).Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1996.

The Exploratorium in San Francisco is “a museum of science, art, and human perception” founded in 1969 by physicist Frank Oppenheimer. This delightful book allows you to create your own Exploratorium at home. It’s got loads of experiments that, in the best Exploratorium tradition, are fun and educational. Highly Recommended for the curious and playful of any age. (Kid’s science activities)

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The Science Explorer Out and About

(with Pat Murphy and Linda Shore).
Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1997.

Family science-experiment ideas presented by San Francisco’s Exploratorium, a museum that supports the principle of “hands-on, minds-on.” Youngsters will appreciate the “wow” value of the various activities, from taking things apart to building structures, examining shadows, or growing different kinds of crystals or molds. (Kid’s science activities)

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The Brain Explorer: Puzzles, Riddles, Illusions and Other Mental Adventures.

(with Pat Murphy, Linda Shore, and Pearl Tesler).
Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1999.

Follow the Exploratorium’s intrepid Science-at-Home team on an exciting adventure into an amazing and mysterious world– inside your own brain!

Memory experiments, brain-bending puzzles, and tips to make you a great puzzle solver, new tricks and twists for playing games you already know, and optical illusions that will fool your eyes and your brain. (Kid’s science activities)

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Harbin Hot Springs: Healing Waters, Sacred Land

Harbin Springs Publishing, Middletown, CA, 1991.

In this lucid and entertaining book, Klages tells the story of Harbin Hot Springs from its earliest days as a gathering place for Native American shamans through the many, varied phases of its history: a spa for Victorian invalids; a boxer’s training camp; a family resort;  a hippie commune; ending in the early 1990s with its most recent renaissance as a New Age community and spiritual center. (History)

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