Romancing the Southland

Romancing the Southland
Author: Robert Badal
Publisher: Jalmar Press
Total Pages: 710
Release: 1994
Genre: California, Southern
ISBN: 9780964233201

ROMANCING THE SOUTHLAND is an exciting, attractive new book that guides the reader to the unique, unusual, & romantic, in Southern California. Unlike other history or guidebooks, it lists facts & figures that take the guesswork out of planning any weekend. It's written by Robert Badal, a bona fide authority on romantic getaways who has lectured & conducted tours throughout the Southland since 1978. He's included the best of the best in this volume. It can be read cover to cover or flipped through as you might use any guidebook. There is a categorical index that cross references entries by city &/or subject. It includes multi-cultural events such as Chinese & Persian New Years, Mexican & Indian Independence Days & Nisei Week. It also provides information on natural phenomena such as spring wildflowers & fall colors. Badal avoids the commonplace & celebrates the quirky such as "The Bridge to Nowhere." The book is arranged month by month, throughout the year, detailing concrete advice on the best time to go, where to stay, where to eat. Milestone or seasonal data is used to tell the history, natural landscape or mythology of each area. A must-have for any serious hedonist.

Southland

Southland
Author: Nina Revoyr
Publisher: Akashic Books
Total Pages: 356
Release: 2003-04-01
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1936070480

Nina Revoyr brings us a compelling story of race, love, murder, and history against the backdrop of Los Angeles. —Winner of a 2004 American Library Association Stonewall Honor Award in Literature —Winner of the 2003 Lambda Literary Award —Nominated for an Edgar Award The plot line of Southland is the stuff of a James Ellroy or a Walter Mosley novel . . . But the climax fairly glows with the good-heartedness that Revoyr displays from the very first page. —Los Angeles Times Jackie Ishida’s grandfather had a store in Watts where four boys were killed during the riots in 1965, a mystery she attempts to solve. —New York Times Book Review, included in “Where Noir Lives in the City of Angels” Nina Revoyr brings us a compelling story of race, love, murder, and history against the backdrop of Los Angeles. A young Japanese-American woman, Jackie Ishida, is in her last semester of law school when her grandfather, Frank Sakai, dies unexpectedly. While trying to fulfill a request from his will, Jackie discovers that four black teenagers were killed in the store he ran during the Watts Riots of 1965—and that the murders were never solved or reported. Along with James Lanier, a cousin of one of the victims, she tries to piece together the story of the boys’ deaths. In the process, Jackie unearths the long-held secrets of her family’s history—and her own. Moving in and out of the past, from the shipping yards and internment camps of World War II; to the barley fields of the Crenshaw District in the 1930s; to the means streets of Watts in the 1960s; to the night spots and garment factories of the 1990s, Southland weaves a tale of Los Angeles in all of its faces and forms.

Trees in Paradise: A California History

Trees in Paradise: A California History
Author: Jared Farmer
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 624
Release: 2013-10-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 0393241270

From roots to canopy, a lush, verdant history of the making of California. California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It’s the work of history. In the years after the Gold Rush, American settlers remade the California landscape, harnessing nature to their vision of the good life. Horticulturists, boosters, and civic reformers began to "improve" the bare, brown countryside, planting millions of trees to create groves, wooded suburbs, and landscaped cities. They imported the blue-green eucalypts whose tangy fragrance was thought to cure malaria. They built the lucrative "Orange Empire" on the sweet juice and thick skin of the Washington navel, an industrial fruit. They lined their streets with graceful palms to announce that they were not in the Midwest anymore. To the north the majestic coastal redwoods inspired awe and invited exploitation. A resource in the state, the durable heartwood of these timeless giants became infrastructure, transformed by the saw teeth of American enterprise. By 1900 timber firms owned the entire redwood forest; by 1950 they had clear-cut almost all of the old-growth trees. In time California’s new landscape proved to be no paradise: the eucalypts in the Berkeley hills exploded in fire; the orange groves near Riverside froze on cold nights; Los Angeles’s palms harbored rats and dropped heavy fronds on the streets below. Disease, infestation, and development all spelled decline for these nonnative evergreens. In the north, however, a new forest of second-growth redwood took root, nurtured by protective laws and sustainable harvesting. Today there are more California redwoods than there were a century ago. Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West.

More Books

More Books
Author: Boston Public Library
Publisher:
Total Pages: 902
Release: 1928
Genre: Bibliography
ISBN:

Issues consist of lists of new books added to the library ; also articles about aspects of printing and publishing history, and about exhibitions held in the library, and important acquisitions.

Adult Subject Catalog

Adult Subject Catalog
Author: Orange County Public Library (Calif.)
Publisher:
Total Pages: 914
Release: 1971
Genre: Library catalogs
ISBN:

Books and Notes

Books and Notes
Author: Los Angeles County Public Library
Publisher:
Total Pages: 1364
Release: 1926
Genre:
ISBN:

Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series

Catalog of Copyright Entries. New Series
Author: Library of Congress. Copyright Office
Publisher: Copyright Office, Library of Congress
Total Pages: 2334
Release: 1929
Genre: American literature
ISBN:

Part 1, Books, Group 1, v. 25 : Nos. 1-121 (March - December, 1928)