The first settlers to arrive here in 1869 purchased 160 acres for two dollars and change. La Jolla attracted artists, architects, writers and scientists over the years, contributing to today's prized reputation as a valuable world-class destination. Their stories shaped the fascinating history of this seaside village. Pirates and smugglers hid out in Sunny Jim's Cave. Ellen Browning Scripps, the Godmother of La Jolla, founded institutions and recreation areas for not only La Jollans but also the rest of the world, including the famous Children's Pool and Scripps Institute of Oceanography. Theodor Geisel derived inspiration for his art from La Jolla's landscapes and people. Native La Jollan Patricia Daly-Lipe recalls the stories of these and many other people and places that have molded the village of La Jolla into a natural and cultural wonder.

"La Jolla: Jewel by the Sea presents the seaside community of La Jolla that residents and visitors love. Ann Collins--photographer, author, and native La Jollan--depicts the beauty and essence of her hometown. Her photos are accompanied by captions that include fascinating snippets of historic details. Also featured are a variety of notable La Jollans, historic and contemporary, who have made a lasting impact on the La Jolla that exists today."--Provided by publisher.

This is a book of ghost stories, and for the most part, ghosts are jealous monsters, intent upon our destruction. They never appear overtly here, yet we gradually become aware of their presence the way spirits in haunted houses trod over creaky floors, slam doors, and issue sudden gusts of wind. The poems are Koan-like—the fewer the words, the more charged they are. The engine driving this sense of haunting and loss is money, which Davis describes as “federal bone” boiling around us. Bison in Nebraska are reduced to bones, “seven/standing men/tall” fodder for the fertilizer used by farmers in the 1800s. Though they often specify dates, there’s an equality to the hauntings—every instance has its moment, and persists, despite being in the past, present, or future. If there really was a 1980 or 1848 or 1499, Davis implies it is somewhere. Index of Haunted Houses is spooky and sad—a stunning debut, one that will surprise, convince, and most of all, delight.

Phoenix's Ahwatukee Foothills grew from open desert to a community of nearly ninety thousand in just a few decades. From the first homesteaders and farmers to the modern visionaries and trailblazers who established homes and businesses, it is a very compelling story. Discover the mystery of the Lost Ranch, the reason for Elliot Road's misspelling, the battle over annexation and the origins of the Easter Parade. Local historian Marty Gibson recounts the challenges, struggles and successes in this collection of tales from the other side of the hill.

Southern California is not all sun, sand, and surf in this gripping collection of noir tales from T. Jefferson Parker, Don Winslow, Maria Lima, and others. San Diego is home to miles of beaches, Balboa Park, a world-famous zoo, and some of the country’s most expensive home and resort real estate. Yet the city also houses a few items that aren’t actively promoted by the visitor’s bureau: a number of the country’s most corrupt politicians, border-related crimes, terrorists, and the occasional earthquakes. A noir feast! In the fifty-plus years since Raymond Chandler set Playback in Esmeralda, his name for La Jolla, the population has grown by more than a million, and crime has proliferated as well. San Diego of the past and the present offers the book’s contributors a rich selection of settings, from the cross on Mount Soledad to the piers of Ocean Beach, and perpetrators and victims from the residents of its wealthiest enclaves to the inhabitants of its segregated barrios. San Diego Noir includes stories by T. Jefferson Parker, Jeffrey J. Mariotte, Martha C. Lawrence, Diane Clark & Astrid Bear, Debra Ginsberg, Morgan Hunt, Ken Kuhlken, Taffy Cannon, Don Winslow, Cameron Pierce Hughes, Lisa Brackmann, Gabriel R. Barillas, Gar Anthony Haywood, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Maria Lima. “When it’s done right, noir is a darkly delicious thrill: smart, sharp-tongued, surprising. The knife goes in at the end with a twist. San Diego Noir, a new 15-story collection by some of the region’s best writers, has all that going for it, and the steady supply of hometown references makes it even more fun.” —The San Diego Union-Tribune

The author of Baja Fever shares his extensive knowledge of the peninsula, its colorful past and booming present, in this fascinating reference book. History, lore, and amazing stories make it a "must-have" for Bajaphiles as well as armchair travelers.

Fairy Gold: A Book of Old English Fairy Tales was compiled by Ernest Rhys (1859 – 1946) and illustrated by Herbert Cole (1867 – 1930). Rhys was a famed writer and editor – best known for his role as founder of the ‘Everyman’s Library’, a series of affordable classics. Rhys was passionate about English folkloric tradition, and making such wonderful works of literature accessible to the common people. The book starts with a quotation from Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale, informing the reader that: ‘This is fairy Gold boy; and t’will prove so...’ From here on in, it is a text to amuse, delight, scare and inform – all in equal measures – for young and old alike. Fairy Gold contains a set of wonderful black and white illustrations by Herbert Cole, as well as such well-known tales as ‘The Three Bears’, ‘Tom Thumb’, ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and ‘The Mermaid’ as well as other, near-forgotten English stories such as ‘The Fairy Fair’, ‘Mr and Mrs Vinegar’, ‘The King and the Vipers’ and ‘Queen Mab’s Good Grace.’ The text appears in its original translation, ensuring that none of the work’s initial brilliance is lost. Pook Press celebrates the great ‘Golden Age of Illustration‘ in children’s literature – a period of unparalleled excellence in book illustration from the 1880s to the 1930s. Our collection showcases classic fairy tales, children’s stories, and the work of some of the most celebrated artists, illustrators and authors.

West of Eden is the definitive story of Hollywood, told, in their own words, by the people on the inside: Lauren Bacall, Arthur Miller, Dennis Hopper, Frank Gehry, Ring Lardner, Joan Didion, Stephen Sondheim – all interviewed by Jean Stein, who grew up in the Forties in a fairytale mansion in the Hollywood Hills. The book takes us from the discovery of oil in the Twenties with the story of the tycoon Edward Doheny (There Will Be Blood) and traces the growth of corruption through the syndicates, the mob, and the movie studios – from the beginnings of the film industry to the end, with News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch (who bought the Stein mansion in 1985). West of Eden is about money, power, fame and terrible secrets: the doomed Hollywood of the late Fifties, early Sixties – ‘the rotten heart of paradise’. Like her last book, the best-selling Edie, this is an oral history told through brilliantly edited interviews. As this is Hollywood, it’s a book full of sex, drugs and celebrity glamour; but because it’s built from the firsthand accounts of people who were actually there, many of them writers, actors and artists, it’s also strangely claustrophobic, seductive, and completely compelling.

San Francisco surged from hamlet to boomtown overnight--the most meteoric "instant city" in history. From the Gold Rush to the Tech Rush, it's been the site of daring innovations, counterculture upheavals and social rebellions that shaped generations. Over the decades, residents have offered unique perspectives through journals, letters and newspapers, their words bringing another time to life. Discover San Francisco through the eyes of miners and "ladies of the night." Relive the experiences of robber barons and beatniks who flourished in a tiny corner of the world with fewer than one million souls. With commentary, background and extraordinary images, historians Terry Hamburg and Richard Hansen guide you through these colorful quotes, showing the city as it once was and what it aspired to be.

An anti-tourist guide that debunks San Diego's sunshine myth for locals and visitors alike. For fourteen million tourists each year, San Diego is the fun place in the sun that never breaks your heart. But America's eighth-largest city has a dark side. Behind Sea World, the zoo, the Gaslamp District, and the beaches of La Jolla hides a militarized metropolis, boasting the West Coast's most stratified economy and a tumultuous history of municipal corruption, virulent antiunionism, political repression, and racial injustice. Though its boosters tirelessly propagate an image of a carefree beach town, the real San Diego shares dreams and nightmares with its violent twin, Tijuana. This alternative civic history deconstructs the mythology of "America's finest city." Acclaimed urban theorist Mike Davis documents the secret history of the domineering elites who have turned a weak city government into a powerful machine for private wealth. Jim Miller tells the story from the other side: chronicling the history of protest in San Diego from the Wobblies to today's "globalphobics." Kelly Mayhew, meanwhile, presents the voice of paradise's forgotten working people and new immigrants. The texts are vividly enhanced by Fred Lonidier's photographs.