California Life

Jack Wade, a claims adjuster for California Fire and Life Mutual Insurance Company, is one of the best arson investigators around. He's a man who knows fire, who can read the traces it leaves behind like a roadmap. When he's called in to examine an unusual claim, the tracks of the fire tell him...

Acclaimed author, historian, and Guggenheim Fellow Kevin Starr is a professor at the University of Southern California. His extensive knowledge shines through this concise, yet comprehensive, depiction of the most fascinating aspects in California's history. From its colonial beginnings through Governor Schwarzenegger's administration, the Golden State has become a uniquely American phenomenon that has enchanted people with the possibility of a better life.

Quando noi italiani pensiamo alla nazione che vorremmo diventare, cosa ci viene in mente? Probabilmente vorremmo avere un'economia in grande crescita e la piena occupazione: un paese in cui chiunque voglia lavorare possa farlo. Vorremmo avere le migliori università del pianeta e bellezze naturali adeguatamente valorizzate, prodotti culturali dall'influenza globale e la possibilità di definire «made in Italy» non solo un paio di scarpe ma anche un'app capace di costruire il futuro e un'idea che sappia cambiare il mondo.

Three manuscripts in one describe the history of California. Included are audiobooks on the history of California, the Gold Rush, and the deadly 1906 San Francisco Earthquake.

18 And Life on Skid Row tells the story of a boy who spent his childhood moving from Freeport, Bahamas to California and finally to Canada and who at the age of eight discovered the gift that would change his life. Throughout his career, Sebastian Bach has sold over twenty million records both...

From the award-winning, internationally acclaimed writer, a taut, elegiac novel about a man trying to uncover the truth about the father who left him behind Steven Mills has reached a crossroads. His wife and son have left, and they may not return. Which leaves him determined to find out what...

Like the small towns J. California Cooper has so deftly portrayed in her previous novels and story collections, Wideland, Oklahoma, is home to ordinary Americans struggling to raise families, eke out a living, and fulfill their dreams. In the early twentieth century, Irene and Val fall in love...

Claus Spreckels (1828-1908) emigrated from his homeland of Germany to the United States with only seventy-five cents in his pocket, built a sugar empire, and became one of the richest Americans in history. Migrating to San Francisco after the gold rush, Spreckels built the largest sugar beet factory of its kind in the United States. When Spreckels gave America its first sugar cube, he became the “Sugar King.” The indomitable Spreckels was a colorful and complicated character on both sides of the Pacific.

Hettie misses her famous friend Cally—or California, as she's now known—and attempts to reach out to her via a video contest.

Two sisters navigate the thrilling, euphoric early days of California surf culture in this dazzling saga of ambition, sacrifice, and the tangled ties between mothers and daughters from the New York Times bestselling author of The Aviator’s Wife. “A shimmering rendering . . . pairs the surf...

In this group of stories from the Notorious USA archives, we find three ladies who will do anything, just about anything, for money. This journey has no limit to the amount of twists and turns it will take, and things are not always how they appear. Miki McDermott, June Gravlee, and Olga Thomas all had selfish desires to take what did not belong to them. Enlisting friends and family in their devious plots could be a stroke of genius or just may be their undoing.

When the family patriarch, Elliot, dies, it's revealed that he had been keeping five separate families, and in the aftermath of their discovery, his widows and children must come together to keep from losing all they have. But their livelihood is threatened when Elliot's estranged son tries to blackmail them, unleashing a series of violent confrontations between different factions of the family. A sparse family drama reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy, combined with the intimate first-person narratives of Kazuo Ishiguro, Lord of California is a powerful debut novel.

Proud single parent Joanna is accustomed to school phoning to tell her that her 14-year-old son Ryan is in trouble. But when Ryan hits a girl and is excluded from school, Joanna knows she must take drastic action to help him. Ryan's dad Lex left home when Ryan was two years old. Isolated, a loner, and angry, Ryan finds solace in books and wildlife. Joanna, against all her instincts, invites Lex to return and help their son. But Lex is a drifter who runs from commitment, and both Joanna and Ryan find their mutual trust and love is put to the test when Lex returns, and vows to be part of the family again.

In this concise book, Dr. Carroll has addressed the primary challenges that athletes face—on and off the field. The tools necessary to be your best and improve your performance are here. Go ahead and dive in, practice your new skills, use the tools and be your best!

This rapidly aging bird flew the coop - via TWA! I left my tear-soaked, empty nest in the California dust, and joyously migrated to Paris, France! I took to the air with two bulging K-Mart wide-belly suitcases; one seriously emaciated bank account; an excess of self-confidence; and last, but not least, my little "hotdog" and main squeeze...Sport Dachshund!

From the editor of the award-winning Children of Manzanar, Heather C. Lindquist, and Edgar Award winner Naomi Hirahara comes a nuanced account of the “Resettlement”: the relatively unexamined period when ordinary people of Japanese ancestry, having been unjustly imprisoned during World War II, were finally released from custody. Given $25 and a one-way bus ticket to make a new life, some ventured east to Denver and Chicago to start over, while others returned to Southern California only to face discrimination and an alarming scarcity of housing and jobs.

For the last ten years, Agnes Parsons’s biggest challenge has been juggling yoga classes and lunch dates. Her Santa Monica house staff takes care of everything, leaving Agnes to focus on her trophy-wife responsibilities: look perfect, adore her older husband, and wear terribly expensive (if uncomfortable) underwear. When her husband disappears, leaving Agnes and their infant daughter with no money, no home, and no staff, she is forced to move across the country, where she lands a job teaching at an all-boys boarding school in the Bronx.

"The employee is regarded by the employer merely in the light of his value as an operative. His productive capacity alone is taken into account." (Stanford) Leland Stanford: The Life and Legacy of the Railroad Executive Who Became California’s Governor and the West’s Most Famous Robber Baron chronicles the remarkable life of Stanford.

Zoom! A California sea lion makes a deep dive. Listen to learn all about these playful mammals.

As we have seen with the recent COVID-19 pandemic, disaster preparedness is not a luxury. Everyone from Louis Pasteur to the Girl Scouts has championed the motto “Be Prepared”—but what does that mean in today’s constantly changing world? In this age of anxiety, when reports of mass...