This elegant coffee-table book chronicles the efforts that went into the creation of Los Angeles' famed Art Deco masterpiece. Bullocks Wilshire offers readers a peek at the rich history of an architectural icon, from construction and golden age to renovation and its rebirth.

Originally published in hardcover in 2005.

A biography of the creator of Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles as well as a gold mine in Bishop California, a magnetic belt that supposedly cured many ailments and the largest socialist publication during the early 1900s.

Why is it that even amidst affluence and power, our culture is plagued by a variety of addiction? In this pioneering book, the author searchers for answers by giving serious attention to our genetic legacy from our hunter-gatherer ancestors as well as to the unique ways we adapt to our environment through the practice of science addiction - including drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, and gambling - suggesting that wilderness exploration, in the arts, myths, and ceremonies, can help us rediscover what it means to be human creatures. Bringing together the insights of philosophy, religion, cultural anthropology, behavioural biology, and the vast socio-medical literature on addiction. The author ingeniously explores the limits of our adaptive capacity and the costs of depleting the natural regenerative functions of the body.

What constitutes a community? Greater Los Angeles has been known for decades for its iconic freeway gridlock, two-car families and high-rise buildings atop massive parking structures. In 1990 the author, a single mother with a daughter at college on the East Coast, was boarding a transit bus at 4:35 AM in downtown L.A., five mornings a week. The joy of living had become only a distant memory in this darkest winter of her life, but she was always at the bus stop on time, determinedly headed for work in Santa Monica: Head down, always carrying a book (what, after all, could you do but read, sleep, or maybe knit for that hour on the bus?) Within a month or two - and almost against her will - she had discovered a living, breathing community of people on the No. 20 westbound. Her life was changed that season - by her fellow passengers, and by a uniquely gifted driver with an understanding of The City and its people.