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• 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.

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

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  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.

• 101 ROAD PATROL TALES [LSI]

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  Subtitle: "Memoirs of a Chippie of the California Highway Patrol". Bringing to light an entertaining array of anecdotes, this collection of police stories recalls some of the strangest, funniest, and most poignant accounts from the freeways, highways, and country roads throughout California. From the family who pulled over for a picnic on the median strip of a busy freeway to the angelic-looking 5-year-old girl who defused a tense traffic stop by sweetly confessing, ?my daddy has a beer under the seat,? this is an uncompromising view of the everyday pursuits, enforcement stops, arrests, accidents, and weird encounters that patrolmen must endure. Also featured is a panoply of unlikely drunk-driving suspects, including Santa Claus, a Boy Scout troop leader, a newlywed couple, and an airline pilot on his way to fly a plane; the traffic stop of an elderly driver whose license had expired 35 years earlier?and who explained he was on his way to the DMV; and many more hilarious, odd, and tragic stories of life and death on the open road. Encouraging a renewed respect for the men and women in uniform who risk their lives to protect the public, this compilation also contains advice on highway safety and how to behave when pulled over by a patrol officer.

• SAN JUAN BAUTISTA: THE TOWN, THE MISSION & THE PARK

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  Step into the vibrant past of San Juan Bautista and encounter gentle Mustune Indians, hardworking Franciscan Monks, fierce outlaws and a host of other fascinating characters.

• GOLD RUSH IN THE KLONDIKE: A Woman’s Journey in 1898–1899

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  When Josephine Knowles left for the Klondike gold fields with her husband in 1898, she didn’t know she would be facing a constant battle with cold, disease, malnutrition and the ever-present possibility of death. Gold Rush in the Klondike is Knowles’s true story of her year in the Yukon territory, a revealing, never-before-published personal memoir of day-to-day life at the height of the Klondike Gold Rush. Written in a clear, forthright, nineteenth-century style, Gold Rush in the Klondike presents terrifying struggles against a hostile environment, picturesque descriptions of an untouched Arctic wilderness and Knowles’s keen observations of men and women on the frontier. A Victorian gentlewoman of refinement, Knowles found herself among swearing, whoring, sometimes violent miners, whom she won over with her grit and compassion. Deciding to never moralize or condemn, Knowles writes frankly of the intense hardships that drove miners into lives of drink and dissipation and the frontier women who were forced to make stark choices between prostitution and starvation. Knowles’s adventures include encounters with author Jack London (Knowles firmly disapproved of London’s cruel mistreatment of his sled dogs), nursing miners during a typhoid outbreak until she fell ill herself, witnessing savage fights among the miners, dangerous travel through the mountain passes and river rapids of the Yukon, and a daring surreptitious visit to a gambling saloon. Amid all hardships, Knowles formed warm relationships with the mining community, for, as she put it, “All the diseases and other troubles had knitted us into one large family.” Illustrated with period photographs, Gold Rush in the Klondike is an invaluable historical document of a lost time and place and an admirable portrait of one woman’s determination in the face of danger.

• CALIFORNIA FEUDS

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