Huntington beach has changed and former residents and visitors can easly miss once popular landmarks. This book combines a pictorial history along with a collection of then and now photos. A nice book to have.

Having lived in and near Huntington Beach for the last 5 years, I found this book fascinating. Historically, you get a great perspective of what the city once was...and how it developed throughout the late 1900's. But what I found MOST interesting...was the before and after transformation. Walking the same streets the author had. Lining up the same shots at the same historical locations. Standing in the exact same spot that the pictures had been taken almost a century before. And seeing how this sleepy surfside town blossomed into the famous city we now know. I definitely recommend this book for anyone that lives in Huntington Beach. It's great reading...and great for exploring the sidewalks of HB.

Excellent pictorial history of "Surf City." We've lived here for years and never knew all that had gone on here. Incredible selection of rare historic photos, which we've always been on the lookout for. Well worth the price of admission.

This book has very nice color pictures of the animals. It is not just a reference book. It has more detail about the Invertebrates (distinctive characters, range, habitat, life history, interactions with other species, economic importance ...etc.) It really fulfills the curiosity of the person who is interested in the marine invertebrates.

This book, though having a publication year of 1980, is still absolutely the best compilation of information about invertebrate animals that are found along the California coast. Many of the animals included in the book have geographic ranges that extend well to the north and the south of California, so this book is useful to anyone who lives, visits, or works along the west coast of North America.

This is not a book of taxonomic keys, like Light's Manual. It is, rather, a book that provides a summary of the biology and ecology of invertebrates of the west coast. The authors provide lists of the best research literature for each animal (up through 1980), as well as photographs and line drawings that show what the animals look like.

This is not a field book, per se, but copies of this book are found on the shelves of most marine biological laboratories in the world, and on the shelves of most invertebrate zoologists who have visited the west coast of the USA.

A professor of mine once said, "That is a 'big boy' book." And, as books on invertebrates go, he is right.

This book is well worth the price!

Intertidal Invertebrates of California is one of the well written book on the invertebrates that live off the cost of California. The picture of the invertebrates are amazing along with the through explanation of them. If you are a person who wants to know about marine life, you will love this book.

I did not know what to expect when I was assigned this book to read. Considering myself as someone with a scientific background, I did expect the book to be dry reading because of its subject. As is it turns out, I was pleased to be wrong about that expectation. The author seems to understand the various types of readers. She is enticing enough to keep the non-scientific reader's attention as well as including enough information to satisfy the needs of scientists. What I like about this book is that since I live in an area that borders various ecological communities, I have used this book as my own private, nature guide when I am exploring the beauty that is California.

As a naturalist often bored by nature writing, I am stunned by An Island Called California. I first read it two decades ago, and I've just rediscovered it. Bakker's survey of the ecosystems of this massive and diverse state is lyrical, lively, and full of ecological anecdotes. This is the minimum reading to learn what it is we mean when we say "California". Read it. Your eyes will be opened up. Your view of the state will never be the same. Wish I had the money to send a copy to each member of the California state house and senate.

I've nearly worn out my copy of this book which is a guide to nearly every kind of major natural environment to be found in the Golden State. Bakker describes -- in readable prose -- the animals and plants which make up California wildlands. Her subjects are sometimes as broad as the chaparral-covered hills and sometimes as narrow as a single Joshua Tree. She celebrates life in all its diversity. No reader or traveler to natural California should be without this book.

This has quickly become the cookbook I turn to most often (and I have hundreds of them). Everything I've tried has been so flavorful and so easy to pull off. The roasted figs and Indian cashews are now a cocktail party staple (and I keep getting calls for the recipe). Same goes for the cheese and pecan crackers. The bourbon-marinaded steak has made me a much more frequent meat-eater. And just this past weekend I made the incredibly easy buttermilk pie, to much fanfare. Do yourself a favor and buy this book. It's OUTSTANDING.

From a small-town country store in the Northern California wine region, comes a great collection of recipes and entertaining ideas using a variety of seasonal products. Authors Carrie Brown and John Werner (with a wonderful assist from cookbook pro Michael McLaughlin) have compiled the very best of seasonal recipes and menu ideas used in the Jimtown Store and its catering business. The recipes are clear and easy to follow (though I wish that the publisher had worked harder to print the COMPLETE recipe on 1 or 2 facing pages--flipping the page in the middle of food prep is a real hassle!). Overall, though, it is a nicely written volume, which provides ideas for springtime suppers, autumn tailgate parties, Fourth of July barbecues, as well as holiday meals. There is an extensive chapter on salads of all sorts, plus another on sauces, condiments, and relishes, just to give us a few new twists on some old stand-by themes. There are some great weekend ideas in the chapter entitled Breakfast Baking. I've already made the maple-glazed meatloaf for dinner (leftovers make terrific sandwiches), and am now planning Grilled Steak with Backyard Bourbon Marinade as well as Apple-Buttermilk Slaw for some weekend lunch guests. Just in time for summer entertaining, this book is destined to become a year-round classic in my kitchen!

One of those unique cookbooks where you'll want to make every recipe, and where you'll actually be able to. Jimtown's style is unfussy, focused on flavor and experience. These recipes mix old and new, national and international cuisine with witty and informative writing. I'm busy working my way through making the recipes and haven't had a dud yet!

There are other charming books written about the jewel-by-the-sea, La Jolla, but this one adds a special touch that enhances our beautiful resort with fascinating facts from the past. Famous names such as Irving J. Gill, the architect, Ellen Browning Scripps, Charles and Anne Lindbergh, Gregory Peck, and Cliff Robertson, to name a few.
The world renowned Scripps Institute of Oceanography with its pioneers, such as Roger Revelle, is one of the many outstanding features and facts of a well written record of our paradise-on-earth village.

Though not a native of La Jolla, I have visited it since 1938. I moved my residence here in 1985.

I have sent this book to family and friends out of town who have also become intrigued with this Town with the Funny Name by Max Miller.

Indeed, anyone, anywhere, interested in history and the arts will open a book filled with them.

Signed: Leigh Sherman, member of La Jolla Branch of National League of American Pen Women since 1984.

There are other charming books written about the jewel-by-the-sea, La Jolla, but this one adds a special touch that enhances our beautiful resort with fascinating facts from the past. Famous names such as Irving J. Gill, the architect, Ellen Browning Scripps, Charles and Anne Lindbergh, Gregory Peck, and Cliff Robertson, to name a few.

The world renowned Scripps Institute of Oceanography with its pioneers, such as Roger Revelle, is one of the many outstanding features and facts of a well written record of our paradise-on-earth village.

Though not a native of La Jolla, I have visited it since 1938. I moved my residence here in 1985.

I have sent this book to family and friends out of town who have also become intrigued with this Town with the Funny Name.

Indeed, anyone, anywhere, interested in history and the arts will open a book filled with them.

My husband is very impressed with Patricia Daly-Lipe's book, so much so that I haven't had a chance to read it yet. He has read a number of books about our home town of La Jolla and found this one to be truly superior to the typical tourist offering. The overall quality of the book is demonstrated by the breadth of the topics covered coupled with the knowledgable glimpses of La Jolla offered by several resident authors.

Reading these short stories is like being a fly on a Hollywood Blvd. Coffee Shop wall, or perhaps even a lost Angel sitting on a freeway overpass. This is a compilation of short quick stories by various writers.
As a former Californian growing up just north of Hollywood, I had to read this book and so glad I did! What fun this is to get the various tidbits and glimpses into the diversity and choas that is California.
While enjoying these stories I felt like I was right there, driving along Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu and stopping along the way in Trancas to grab some breakfast and eavesdroping on the fasinating conversations swirling around the room or watching the assorted characters coming and going.
Each writer brings his or her own California experience to the page from the gang member to the foreigner or the wannabe to the eccentric, all dealing with the smog, traffic and the surrealistic reality that is California.
If you've never been to California, you will come away with an insider's look into one of the most diverse States in this Country told by some of the most gifted writers around telling it like it is.

Bravo to Steven Gilbar for collecting these varied, poignant and hilarious stories about the vast and complex City of Los Angeles. We get a taste of many cultures with protagonists spread from Van Nuys to Hollywood, from Beverly Hills to El Segundo, from Malibu to Long Beach, and on and on. There are stories here by Yxta Maya Murray, Walter Mosely, Ty Pak, Kate Braverman, Bernard Cooper, and more. For those of us who live in this great city, this collection will reaffirm the dazzling variety that makes up Los Angeles. And for those who don't know this city, this book will disabuse them of the cliches they've accumulated through the years.

I started with the last story, The Spells of Ordinary Twilight (for a class on grief I am going to teach), and was moved by content and style to read on. I became engrossed by Eternal Love, and sat happily waiting for more than an hour in my doctor's waiting room, reading this story about two retarded young people, and how this relates with the story of the girl's parents. Having had a handicapped daughter, I could only nod and feel every emotion along with the characters of the story. From there to: Stupid Girl. Here I was not being able to put the story down. Then there is Night Sky and the wonderfully observed immigrant' story: The Palace of Marriage. All of the stories have merit, the list is long. The characterization is true, the language always appropriate to the story, always real. The writers are equally talented in their use of metaphor and simili, and their observations ring true. The stories, one after the other, capture different elements of LA, from the would-be screenwriter to the Russian immigrant to the jilted woman with emotional ties to a man with Aids. They take place in LA and are typical for that city, but as they touch the human heart, they are also larger than the city in which they play, they are universal stories, everyone, anywhere should read.

This is a very handsome book - of great interest for architectural buffs or historians. It pairs two great architects - Robert Venturi and Irving Gill - in a unique, engaging, and informative way. The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (in La Jolla, California)is one of the finest small museums in the country, well worth a visit to see outstanding architecture as well as cutting-edge contemporary art.

This is an outstanding book for anyone interested in the work of two great architects - Robert Venturi and Irving Gill. The combination of their work at the museum in La Jolla is masterful, and this book gives a fascinating look into the museum's history and Venturi's thought processes as he sought to restore the historic "Scripps House" while expanding and modernizing the Museum of Contemporary Art. A great find - makes me want to visit La Jolla and see it for myself!

Buy this book even if you've never been to the La Jolla museum it describes. If you've been to the museum, it's worth buying to give you pause to reflect on what you've seen. This book offers both the history and theory behind Venturi's reshaping of a wonderful museum in an attractive location. Those of us who remember the museum in the old days have got to be impressed with what Venturi has done. Although this text is all too brief, it provides the illumination needed to appreciate more fully this California classic.

Uelmen writes as few can, a legal professor and scholar who himself was part of defense team of this trial.

He provides healthy, worthy set of lessons to be taken from this experience. This is more vital than disputing the outcome, for it must be all about a legal system with the best chance for a true and fair outcome for all parties, including society.

Agree with the author that biggest lesson is that trials as this are flashpoints for what is really on culture's mind at the time, here race, decreasing attention spans and bias without basis, spousal abuse, etc.

Further, we learned that tv and courtroom don't mix well. That massive DNA data without certifiable collection/preservation. Uelmen also contends that this trial was an aberration of the real, normal trial system.

Well done, and fascinating, insightful read.

Professor Uelmen is doubly blessed. First, he has one of the finest legal minds in the country and, second, he writes in such a clear, cogent style that one need not be a lawyer to understand him. Despite knowing the outcome from the start, this book is a real page-turner. One cannot help but think that if the prosecution had a lawyer nearly as capable as Uelmen they might have won instead of the defense. But the best part of all is the insider's view: no other book on the trial comes close to explaining how the defense won a case that seemed at the outset to be unwinnable. Whether or not you agreed with the defense, this book demonstrates their superior lawyering.

Wow! He's almost as smart as his son

A beautiful book to add to your collection. The pictures are wonderful and to read the book is a joy. A great buy to learn more about lighthouses on the coast.

This book written by Leffingwell and Welty is visually appealing and sets down historical facts in an engaging style. The beautiful photographs taken by Leffingwell are augmented by stories of the politics and history behind the lighthouses and their keepers. They include information about women lighthouse keepers, how the lighthouses were constructed, which have been de-activated, and most important - how to get to the various lighthouses for a visit in person.

The most interesting story was that of a construction crew and Coast Guard team working nearly around the clock for five days to restore the Cape Flattery lighthouse near Neah Bay in Tatoosh, Washington. Also worth noting were the descriptions of life as a lighthouse keeper, the artisanship of making the Fresnel lights, and the automation that replaced the need for human presence in these remote outposts.

As the Oregon Contributing editor at Suite101.com, I am always on the lookout for books my visitors will enjoy and will help them plan their next trip to Oregon. This one is a winner!

This pictorial coffee table guide highlights lighthouse history and lighthouses of the Pacific Coast, revealing the development of lighthouses in three states. From the technological evolution of the lighthouse to how they were maintained and are today restored and preserved, Lighthouses of the Pacific Coast provides very beautiful photos spiced with descriptions and information accessible to both destination-bound and at-home enthusiasts.

Like Family is a beautifully written story of a childhood shorn of the protections and comforts that family ought to offer. McLain's finely rendered prose captures her experience vividly and paints rather than explains the hard, fragmented life she and her sisters were forced to lead in the California foster care system after her father left them and then her mother went to the movies and never came back. It reminds us how the idiotic passions and tragic weaknesses of adults can cause a train wreck of a childhood--and how a brilliant young girl with a sense of humor and a resiliant spirit can nonetheless survive, hold onto her sisters, and write a magnificent book. I read it without stopping, gobbling it down like stolen chocolate cake, and then turned around and read the whole book again,just for the joy of the language. Even though it is a hard-edged story, and sometimes I even wept a little, McLain is really very funny, too. And the soundtrack for the movie is going to be great. This book is destined to be a classic.

Mclain grew up in Raymond Carver's America, but she writes more like Tess Gallagher. A touching, brutally honest memoir.

Paula McLain has a way with words. And a way with sentences, paragraphs, ideas and pictures. She tells the story of her and her sisters' foster childhood with fantastic descriptions, but at the same time there is a surprising matter-of-factness that parallels what, sadly enough, a child feels as she lives through these kinds of experiences. A lovely, touching book.