I had never been out of a Los Angeles suburb until my high school biology teacher took our class on a river trip running rapids down the Yampa and Green Rivers in Colorado and Utah. The trip was absolutely exhilarating and opened my eyes to the American West and to a career exploring its geology and landscapes. Fifty years and over 300 field trips later, mostly in southern California, I finally learned enough to write Roadside Geology of Southern California. That book was followed by the second editions of Geology Underfoot in Southern California, and Geology Underfoot in Death Valley and Eastern California with co-authors Allen Glazner and Robert Sharp.
If I could return to any place and time in history, it would be to the American West in the years between 1830 to 1880. It was an exciting time of exploration, territorial acquisitions, invention, and discovery of all of the major mineral deposits (Comstock Lode 1859, Butte 1864, Mother Lode 1849), construction of a transcontinental railroad (completed 1869), and establishment of the world’s first national park, Yellowstone (1872). This book opened my eyes to the American West.
Acclaimed author of biographical and historical fiction Irving Stone turns his magnificent talent to telling America's most colorful and exciting story-the opening of the Far West.
Men to Match My Mountains is a true historical masterpiece, an unforgettable pageant of giants-men like John Sutter, whose dream of paradise was shattered by the California Gold Rush; Brigham Young and the Mormons, who tamed the desert with Bible texts; and the silver kings and the miners, who developed Nevada's Comstock Lode and settled the Rockies.
America called for greatness...and got it. There is nothing in history to match the stories of these…
Stegner, one of my favorite writers, put running the rapids of the Colorado River at the top of my to-do list with his book about John Wesley Powell’s voyage of exploration down the Colorado River. It is one of the few books I have read more than once. More than a hair-raising story about exploration of one of the last unexplored tracts of the continental US, Stegner spells out Powell’s ideas about how to apportion Colorado River water among the several states it drains. Too bad his recommendations have been largely ignored.
From the “dean of Western writers” (The New York Times) and the Pulitzer Prize winning–author of Angle of Repose and Crossing to Safety, a fascinating look at the old American West and the man who prophetically warned against the dangers of settling it
In Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner recounts the sucesses and frustrations of John Wesley Powell, the distinguished ethnologist and geologist who explored the Colorado River, the Grand Canyon, and the homeland of Indian tribes of the American Southwest. A prophet without honor who had a profound understanding of the American West, Powell warned long ago of…
Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS
By
Amy Carney,
When I was writing this book, several of my friends jokingly called it the Nazi baby book, with one insisting it would make a great title. Nazi Babies – admittedly, that is a catchy title, but that’s not exactly what my book is about. SS babies would be slightly more…
When I finally got around to running the Colorado River rapids, it was in a wooden dory, with the legendary boatman Kenton Grua, “The Factor” as he was known, and the character at the center of this book. It is such an engrossing story because of knowing Grua and having been in his boat, “Emerald Mile,” that when I finished reading it, I turned immediately to page one and read the book all over again.
From one of Outside magazine’s “Literary All-Stars” comes the thrilling true tale of the fastest boat ride ever, down the entire length of the Colorado River and through the Grand Canyon, during the legendary flood of 1983.
In the spring of 1983, massive flooding along the length of the Colorado River confronted a team of engineers at the Glen Canyon Dam with an unprecedented emergency that may have resulted in the most catastrophic dam failure in history. In the midst of this crisis, the decision to launch a small wooden dory named “The Emerald Mile” at the head of the…
Reisner’s book about western water history is must reading for people living in the western US. Because of what it relates about that history, I tell people thinking about moving to California, “Bring your own water with you in a bucket.” Written in 1986, Reisner’s apocalyptic missive is beginning to play out in these days of climate change and global warming. We are being told to phase out fossil fuels and turn to electric cars and all-electric homes just when two of the west’s major sources of electric power, Diablo Canyon’s nuclear power is being phased out, and Lake Mead’s water for Hoover Dam’s hydroelectric power generators is drying up. Where do we go from here?
"The definitive work on the West's water crisis." --Newsweek
The story of the American West is the story of a relentless quest for a precious resource: water. It is a tale of rivers diverted and dammed, of political corruption and intrigue, of billion-dollar battles over water rights, of ecological and economic disaster. In his landmark book, Cadillac Desert, Marc Reisner writes of the earliest settlers, lured by the promise of paradise, and of the ruthless tactics employed by Los Angeles politicians and business interests to ensure the city's growth. He documents the bitter rivalry between two government giants, the Bureau…
Embark on a riveting journey into Washington State’s untamed Olympic Peninsula, where the threads of folklore legends and historical icons are woven into a complex ecological tapestry.
Follow the enigmatic Petr as he fearlessly employs his pirate radio transmitter to broadcast the forgotten and untamed voices that echo through the…
Imagine a solo cross-country hike in “the land of little rain” from burning desert floor at Badwater at -282 feet below sea level in Death Valley, the lowest point in the continental United States to chilly, windswept Mount Whitney, the highest point at 14,505 feet above sea level at the crest of the Sierra Nevada. I’ve seen but not hiked much of the country between the two points, and I cannot imagine trekking it all in one hike. Arnold’s book did it vicariously for me and will also for any reader looking for an out-of-the-ordinary hiking adventure.
From the depths of Death Valley, Daniel Arnold set out to reach Mount Whitney in a way no road or trail could take him. Anything manmade or designed to make travel easy was out. With a backpack full of water bottles, and the remotest corners of desert before him, he began his toughest test yet of physical and mental endurance.
Badwater Basin sits 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley, the lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere. Mount Whitney rises 14,505 feet above sea level, the highest point in the contiguous United States. Arnold spent seventeen days…
This book is written for students and laymen who are curious about the remarkable geologic landscapes of southern California’s mountains, deserts, and seascapes as they drive its highways and byways. It answers such questions as: “I wonder why that mountain is red?” “I wonder what’s being mined over there?” “When did that volcano last erupt?” “Where can I see the San Andreas fault? and “Where can I collect some interesting minerals?”
The book presents a concise geologic history of southern California with 192 color photos and 83 color diagrams and maps. It was the Geosciences information Service’s “Best Popular Geologic Guidebook of 2017” and is already in its third printing.
An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs. Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private…
When Jennifer Shea married Russel Redmond, they made a decision to spend their honeymoon at sea, sailing in Mexico. The voyage tested their new relationship, not just through rocky waters and unexpected weather, but in all the ways that living on a twenty-six-foot sailboat make one reconsider what's truly important.…
