Students of California history and agricultural development will find Cultivating California an intriguing story of growers, specialty crops, and labor developments in the state from 1875-1920, revealing how politicians, growers, and organizations interacted in the process of cultivating California's crops. Labor relations and agricultural development planning are all accessibly revealed in the course of this involving account.

"This is an important book because it dares to take on -- with considerable success -- a paradigm that has prevailed since the publication of Carey McWilliams's Factories in the Field in 1939. Cultivating California is a crisply written, fast-paced narrative based upon extraordinary research. It is also a courageous effort to clarify the history of agriculture in California by making room for the high ideals of the turn-of-the-century horticultural generation." -- Kevin Starr, Business History Review

"This detailed history of four central and northern California agricultural communities is developed around pivotal issues of race, gender, market forces, and entrepreneurial vision. It is local history at its best." -- Harry C. McDean, Western Historical Quarterly

"Cultivating California is expertly researched and gracefully written... [It] is an extremely important book that will be read by scholars in agricultural, labor, and California history." -- David Igler, Agricultural History

"Vaught... is a good writer, but an even more valuable trait... is his dedication to research. This book tells an intriguing story, and it should thus rank very high on the reading list of any historian interested in the history of agriculture and labor in the American West." -- Carlos A. Schwantes, Journal of American History

"A must for scholars interested in the Golden State's controversial history." -- Paul Rhode, Agricultural History Review

The plot was fascinating, kind of like the picture brides of the past. Fierce women are shipped to a town, believing it's a large city, only to find it be be out in the middle of nowhere. Females will love these romances, adults may also. Very graphic at times, but nothing raunchy.

Ivy was more entertaining, but this book was pretty good anyways.

Shelby Bruneau's father forced her to marry a Southern planter she didn't love. Desperate to escape, Shelby changes her name to Savannah Brown, and travels to California. Savannah doesn't plan on falling in love, though.

Review in the Maine Antique Digest, January, 2000:

"...an interesting and in depth look at Dassonville's life and work in a well-researched essay."

"...beautifully produced book...." 48 color duotone plates printed at 200 line screen on coated paper.

Review in the newsletter of The Friends of Photography:

"This important new monograph reveals the life and work of 20th century pictorialist William Dassonville. The artist's exquisite style is only now beginning to be understood and appreciated, nearly fifty years after his death."

This book was a little bit more exciting than the first, My Father's World. The detail in this book is not overlooked by the authors. The characters show strong Christian values and at the same time show weaknesses, as we all have. It makes the characters seem very real and almost concrete. I recommend this book highly! The authors keep the book going, drawing you into it more and more. It was hard to put down! Enjoy!

Michael Phillips and Judith Pella have worked together well to tell the believable story of a girl and her spiritual growth. This book, which immediately follows MY FATHER'S WORLD is one of a series chronicling the life of Corrie Belle Hollister. The inner thoughts and feelings of this young woman are sensitively expressed. One can easily become absorbed in the adventurous tales involving Corrie and her siblings. I would highly recommend this book as a realistic representation of how, with careful guidance and love, a young person can be lead to a close and mature relationship with God. It truly touched and inspired me.

I read this book in its entirety the day I received it in the mail. It is an incredible story, one that is told in a riveting narrative. I absolutely could not believe the lengths to which this oil company went to deny, delay, and stonewall the efforts of so many different people and organizations to hold them responsible for an underground oil spill they had undeniably caused. This book was an eye-opener. If you care about the environment, about energy, or about the law, read this book. I hope someone makes a movie out of this thing; it is such a great story.

Having had the privilege of proof-reading this book I came away
awestruck on how one man with a principle and fearless resolve
took on a task so humongous it staggers the imagination. The
shear complexity of tiptoeing through the morass of political
organizations and getting them to agree on one subject at the
same time without any ruffled ego's is amazing. Money, power, and
revenge all figure prominently in this titanic epic on how one
man started a snowball that took down a huge oil companie's oil
polution stance from "crumbs" to "total capitulation". Following
this scenario step by step through the court rulings and the
political shenanigans is quite a task for the reader and the
included diagrams help keep everything straight.
Just authoring this book had to be a nightmare of data collection and review.
My work invloved repair of electronic communications terminals
with hundreds of thousands of wires and potential problems and
the complexity of which is on par with what transpired in this
book. I was very impressed on how the story was assembled and
presented and I do not think there are many authors around who
could handle the complexities and present them as well as they were.

Dawn can't wait for this trip to California. Besides all the sun andfun, it's Dawn's first visit since jeff, moved back to live with their dad.California is better then dawn can remeber it.The beaches are beatiful, Disneyland is a blast, Californians eat heathy food! Plus Dawn's best friend, sunny, has even started up her own baby-sitters club. After one wonderful week, Dawn begins yo think she might want to....stay in California like Jeff. Dawn's a California girl at heart-but could she really leave Stoneybrook for good?

this book is all about dawn's decision on whether to live in stonybrook or california. Dawn is usually in anaheim california, where I live, and visits the Anaheim Stadium (now Edison Stadium) Disneyland. . . and more. Most of the setails are right, but it is kind of outdated. still a very good book. i recommend reading the first book first, though.

This book has sparked some incredible hiking for the dog and I. The descriptions of each hike are excellent. One awseome spot the book guided me to was Santa Paula Creek Canyon which has a beautiful stream and deep pools for swimming. Pointers are provided for finding trail heads. If you are going to venture out into the Sespe/Los Padres Wilderness, however, I reccomend buying a good topographic trail map. This is primarily an "idea" book.

An easy to use hiking book, small enough to fit into one's daypack. Coverage of the county is excellent, directions to trailheads are clear. It's the only book available that covers most of Ventura County.

"Day hiking Kings Canyon" may well be the best book on day hikes(1 to 10 miles one way) in Kings Canyon national park and in the wilderness areas surrounding the park. It covers 50 trails in 5 areas: cedar grove, monarch wilderness, grant grove, redwood mountain, and jennie lakes wilderness. Each of the five sections starts with a brief (2-3 pages) introduction about the history, climate, and specific features of the area. The description of the hikes are concise (1-3 pages each), and yet very detailed. There is an individual topographic map for each trail, half-a-page to a whole page in size, which is located either at the beginning or at the end of description of each trail. Besides the total length of the trail, estimated hiking distance, elevation gain, and relative difficulty, the author provides detailed description of what to expect on each mile of the trail, suggests on which parts of the trail it may get hot in summer, where one can expect mosquitos, where the vews are beautiful, and even where one can find swimming holes on the river. Frequently, alternative return routes are suggested to make hikes more interesting. Finally, parts of the trail where the hikers should exercise caution due to slippery rocks or other hazards are indicated.

I studied this book side by side with two others, Frommer's "Yosemite and Sequoia/Kings Canyon National Parks", by Don and Barbara Laine, and "50 best short hikes in Sequoia/Kings Canyon" by John Krist. The first one is a pocket guide, contains much fewer hikes, and the descriptions are about a paragraph each. It is a very decent guide for the visitors arriving for a day by car, but does not help much on the trail. The second one is similar to "Day hiking Kings Canyon" in the way how the hikes are described, but the descriptions are shorter, maps are less acurate, and they are located at the very end of the book, so you have to flip pages from the middle to the end of the book to follow the guidelines. I found it very inconvenient. Hence, of these three books, my book of choice is definitely "Day hiking Kings Canyon". The only two drawbacks are that it does not have ratings of the trails in terms of their scenery, so it takes some reading to decide what to choose, and that it has very few photographs. It also could be squeezed in a smaller format (by using smaller fonts) to make it lighter and easier to carry in a backpack. Other than that, this book is an excellent source of information for any hiker.

our family has been going to KingsCanyon and Sequoia for over a hundred years now, and I wish I had found this book sooner. I have been on a lot of the trails and learned a few. Very easy to understand, an easy read and informative in area history. I am going to give a copy to all my family for Xmas.I'm at the mirror. * randella*

The author tells a great story - more than just his struggles with chronic fatigue sydrome. His 'Kerouacesque', rythmic-tempo writing style mirrors the cyclic ups and downs of his journey towards discovery and self actualization. A story all adults reflecting on their college/post-college years will be able to identify with.

What most impressed me about this book were the incredible insights author, Mark Hall, revealed into his experience of growing up in today's increasingly toxic age, the language he uses to carry the reader through some deeply intimate settings, and the hurdles he overcomes in his miraculous recovery from a very mysterious illness.

His story was so fascinating, I read the book in less than a week. I recommend it to anyone!

Iam in love with Charlie Plato.This is the stuff that movies are made of.Iam already on a waiting list for her new book.She comes alive before your eyes,and makes you wish her bar was in your neighborhood

Estrella Stockton, a patron of country-western bar, CHAPS, is killed and the prime suspect is her husband Thane.

Desperate, Thane hires Charlie Plato, co-owner of CHAPS, to investigate who murdered his abusive wife. Zach Hunter, a former TV star, returns from Hollywood after a four month absence. He joins Charlie on her inquiries.

The amateur sleuths soon learn that Estrella, a Filipino, had been seen in town with her former boyfriend, but no one can identify him, except that he wears dark baggy pants and aviator glasses, has dark hair, and is called the "Empty Man". Charlie continues to investigate the case even after her client is murdered. She is unaware that as she gets closer to identifying the Empty Man, she places her own life in danger from a murderer who plans to remain hidden.

DEAD BEAT AND DEADLY, the latest installment in the highly popular Plato series by popular romance writer Margaret Chittendon is all any connoseur of fine work can ask for. An ingenuous and crypytic mystery, witty dialog and the explosive potential for a romance between the two leading protagonists explains why this is one of the most sensual and exciting mystery series on the market today. The hero is reminiscent of Pierce Bronson when he played Remington Steele and Charlie is his conscience and though he doesn't know it yet, his heart. DEAD BEAT AND DEADLY has cross genre appeal fans of both the mystery and romance genres. This is another winner by one of the genre's most talentedwriters.

Harriet Klausner