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• 1939: The Making of Six Great Films from Hollywood’s Greatest Year

  $16.95 $10.17 0 review(s)

  
  

  To commemorate the 75th anniversary of this amazing year in Hollywood history, “1939: The Greatest Year in Motion Picture History” profiles of six of the greatest films of the year: “Gone with the Wind,” “Stagecoach,” “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,” “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and “The Wizard of Oz.”
  
  Each of these films was based on a great story, and “1939” reveals in detail how those stories came into being, how long they waited to find fame in film, and how the movies inspired by them eventually made motion picture history. “1939” also describes the behind-the-scenes story of how the film was made: how the story was adapted to a film script; the writers, producers, directors, actors, and technicians who made the film; how the film was received by critics and the public; and the later careers of the people who made the film.
  
  “1939” plunges deep into the reality behind the Hollywood dream factory. Besides giving a full account of the artistic creation of each film, “1939” also describes the business deals that made each film possible and the Hays Office censorship that mandated careful handling of social and sexual themes — plus the colorful personalities in front and behind the camera and their sometimes disordered personal lives. Hollywood in the 1930s was crass, commercial, restrictive, and frequently dysfunctional — but it produced immensely enjoyable films that are still watched with pleasure today.
  
  The perfect combination of film history, artistic appreciation, historical insight, and gossip, “1939: The Greatest Year in Motion Picture History” is a book that no movie fan should miss.

• THE FRESNO FAIR: AS SEEN THROUGH THE EYES OF CLAUDE C. LAVAL

  $19.95 $11.97 0 review(s)

  
  

  The first Fresno Fair opened in 1883 with five days of horse racing, a live stock exhibit, and a few small produce stalls. Modest as it was, it was a huge success; only five years later, a grandstand was added to the fairgrounds. Agriculture, industrial, and commerce exhibit halls followed in the early 1900s. A wooden race track was built in 1920. Claude C. "Pop" Laval's camera lens missed little of the excitement of the early fairs. Many of his magnificent photographs are available in print for the first time in this book. Each is literally a snapshot in time, revealing the historical richness of our Valley's great community event. Proceeds from the sale of each book benefit the restoration project of the Claude C. "Pop" Laval Photographic Collection. Your purchase of a piece of "Pop's" treasure will help ensure that future generations can enjoy seeing the Valley as "Pop" saw it, through the "Windows on the Past."

• THE SEPOY MUTINY 1857: AN ANNOTATED CHECKLIST OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE BOOKS

  $49.95 $29.97 0 review(s)

  
  

  The largest and most comprehensive checklist on the Indian Mutiny since the publication, in 1966, of The Revolt in India by Janice Ladendorf. Includes approximately 1160 entries with author, publisher, date and place of publication, annotation, and the institution holding a copy. An extensive 24 page index is included.

• THE SAN JOAQUIN: A RIVER BETRAYED

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  The story of the San Joaquin California's heartland river its people, its places, its past. In the maiden embrace of Thousand Island Lake, Garnet Lake and Shadow Lake sparkling gems of the John Muir Trail country the collected droplets of what will become the San Joaquin River gather. At these first resting spots, the waters stand clear and cold, but this pristine distinction is not to last. Wending its way down towering mountains, through deep canyons and between undulating foothills, the river passes some of the most beautiful country in America, yet by the time it reaches the San Joaquin Delta, nearly 400 miles and 10,000 vertical feet later, it has become little more than a public sewer, a fouled, controlled drain for agricultural and municipal wastewater. While nearly all of America's major rivers have been compromised, few have been so misused as the San Joaquin. In its comparatively brief history it has been dammed, diverted and depleted beyond comprehension. Some see the San Joaquin as a river betrayed. This book is not an academic history; rather, it is the story of a real river its people, its places and its past based on the lives and letters of those who have known it firsthand. More than anything, this book seeks to identify the forces and figures who have shaped, altered and corrupted the course of a once mighty river. So come, step back in time and travel along; there's one of the old river steamers now. Hop onboard and journey up the river. You can reflect on the river's rich and colorful past and visit its backwaters and byways. You'll also have a chance to stop and examine those places where the water barons and power brokers left their mark, as well as the spots where government intervention went awry. And perhaps during the journey you'll gain a bit of insight about the hard choices to be faced if the wise use of this essential resource is to prevail.

• California Fruits, Flakes & Nuts

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  They call California the Granola State — a place where everyone is a fruit, a flake or a nut. They don’t get any fruitier, flakier or nuttier than the deviants, crackpots and losers profiled in California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts. A freewheeling catalog of misfits, eccentrics, creeps, criminals and failed dreamers, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts profiles 48 bizarre personalities who exemplify the Golden State’s well-deserved reputation for nonconformity. Unlike the sanitized heroics taught in school, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts tells history from the viewpoint of the losers: murderers, lunatics, eccentrics and disgraced, washed-up celebrities. Presenting a wealth of historical information that had long been swept away and forgotten, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts is a uniquely entertaining look at the dark and disreputable corners of California history. In these pages, Gold Rush pioneers are revealed as murderous madmen; Hollywood celebrities are shown to be drug-addled sex maniacs; early hippies are just 1950s weirdos; and even seemingly ordinary Californians have a talent for freakish, crazy and criminal behavior. California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts profiles such stellar Californians as frontier lunatic Grizzly Adams (whose head was one massive wound after multiple bear attacks); I Love Lucy star William Frawley (a racist, misogy- nist, foul-mouthed drunk); skirt-wearing, skirt-chasing legendarily awful film director Ed Wood; proto-hippie and “Nature Boy” singer eden ahbez; rocket scientist, black magician and L. Ron Hubbard mentor Marvel Par- sons; and many more nutjobs, oddballs and dangerously violent freaks. The perfect book for anyone who likes feeling superior to losers, California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts is a side-splitting, salacious and shocking salute to the people who made California the strangest place on earth.

• GREETINGS FROM FRESNO: Vintage Postcards from California's Heartland

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  More than 200 vintage color postcards bring to life Fresno County's storied past. These vibrant images date from as early as 1875, and are paired with brief passages that deftly position each card within its historical context. Famous long-vanished Fresno edifices are revived again, including the El Rancho motel, the Carnegie Library, and the Pine Lake Lodge. Beautiful, educational, and inspiring, this exceptional compilation is a treasure trove for the regional history buff.