Description

Products You May Like

• The Edge: The Pressured Past and Precarious Future of California's Coast

  $18.95 $11.37 0 review(s)

  
  

  Kim Steinhardt and Gary Griggs The Pacific coast is the most iconic region of California and one of the most fascinating and rapidly changing places in the world. Densely populated, urbanized, and industrialized—and also home to complex, fragile ecosystems—the coast is the place where humanity and nature coexist in a precarious balance that is never perfectly stable. The Edge is a dramatic snapshot of the California coast’s past, present, and probable future in a time of climate change and expanding human activity. Written by two marine experts who grew up on the coast, The Edge is both an appreciation of the coast’s natural and cultural uniqueness and a warning of the changes that threaten that uniqueness. As ocean levels rise, coastal communities are starting to erode, and entire neighborhoods have been lost to the sea. Coastal ecosystems and wildlife that were already stressed by human settlement now face new dangers. Fisheries, oil drilling, recreation, housing and environmental advocates compete to define the future of the region. A masterful and sweeping synthesis of environmental and social science, The Edge presents a comprehensive portrait of the history, people, communities, industries, ecology, and wildlife of the coast.

• Behind San Quentin's Walls: The History of California’s Legendary Prison and Its

  $18.95 $11.37 0 review(s)

  
  

  San Quentin is one of the most famous prisons in American history, featured in countless movies and novels, yet few know its colorful early history. In Behind San Quentin’s Walls, noted Old West historian William B. Secrest reveals the beginning of San Quentin, from its unlikely start as a real estate scheme to its essential role in taming the lawless California of the Gold Rush era. Featuring numerous citations from contemporary accounts, plus period photos, illustrations, newspaper clippings, and maps, Behind San Quentin’s Walls chronicles the political calculations that created San Quentin; the outsize egos of the men who built it; the mismanagement and frequent escapes that marred San Quentin’s early years; and the notorious ruffians and cutthroats who were housed there. Filled with exciting true stories of gunfights, brawls, prison riots, daring escapes, and intrepid manhunts, Behind San Quentin’s Walls is a rip-roaring Wild West tale of how men and women with immense talent for both good and evil tamed a new state and each other.

• DEATH IN CALIFORNIA

  $15.95 $9.57 0 review(s)

  
  

  Subtitle: "The Bizarre, Freakish, and Just Curious Ways People Die in the Golden State." This book?s aim is to encompass shocking murders and accidents that at the time shook the very soul of Californians, but eventually and gratefully faded from memory. California has always been a destination for people with dreams of fame and fortune. Anything is possible in California, and when anything is possible, death always lurks nearby. ?Death in California? is a historic manuscript detailing the more arcane ways people have died in the Golden State. The thirty-one vignettes in ?Death in California? range from a description of being one of the fourteen different tourists to be swept to their deaths over Vernal Falls in Yosemite National Park, to singer Bob ?Bear? Hite of the blues/boogie band Canned Heat overdosing on heroin in a seedy Hollywood nightclub. The book?s diverse set of deaths include a tale of torture and murder by a chicken farmer in the desert in 1926, as well as the tragedy of a 10- ton jet airplane crashing into a Bay Area apartment kitchen in 1973. The litany of freakish and bizarre deaths in California also include hangings, gun accidents, crashes and suicide. Social status is no barrier: both the famous and obscure are profiled.

• A SHEPHERD'S LIFE [LSI]

  $16.95 $10.17 0 review(s)

  
  

  This is W. H. Hudson's classic narrative of rural life in Wiltshire, England, in the late 1800s. Originally published in 1910, this remarkable book transports the reader to the vast downs of the Salisbury Plain--the domain of the shepherd, who lived a life that had changed little for centuries, yet was now confronting the inexorable approach of the modern world. This work vividly captures life at that particular time and place, and is primarily centered around telling the tale of a particular shepherd, Caleb Bawcombe, and relating his many anecdotes. Seemingly every subject related to a shepherd?s work and life, from his beloved sheep dog, to his often strained relationship to the local landowner, is discussed.

• MURDER IN THE GARDEN

  $16.95 $10.17 0 review(s)

  
  

  As countless thousands poured into the fertile San Joaquin Valley of California in the decades following the Civil War, some brought visions of man's darker side to this new Eden. Murder in the Garden is the absorbing examination of fifteen notorious crimes from the not-too-distant past of Fresno, California.

• 50 Unified Years

  $24.95 $14.97 0 review(s)

  
  

  Subtitle: "Building a Tradition of Excellence in Clovis Unified Before, During and After Unification" Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of Clovis Unified School District, 50 Unified Years is the authoritative history of the district?s growth and transformation from a group of small rural schools to one of the finest public education systems in the nation. The history of Clovis Unified School District is a dynamic story of teachers, administrators, and parents working together to fulfill a vision ? to equip every child to be the best they can be in mind, body, and spirit. 50 Unified Years includes the history of every school in the district, from the one-room schoolhouses of the 1870s whose names still live on, to the schools you attended as a child, to the state-of-the-art facilities your children attend today. 50 Unified Years is more than the story of a school district. It?s your story and it?s our story. It?s a story of unparalleled achievement. It?s a story about building a community and a way of life that is the heart of why Clovis is a great place to live.