This book is a must have for anyone interested in native plants, California or simply beautiful things. The book divides the state up into geographic regions which consist of examinations of special areas within the region (i.e. the Tahoe Basin is explored in the Sierra Nevada section). It also includes an introduction to basic classification of plant communities, geology, and ecology. If you want to get one user-friendly resource on California plants that features breathtaking photos and informative text, then add this book to your library.

At $42.00 this book should at least be hardcover! The overloaded student who has to pay for this tome should be sympathised with. A surefire cure for the insomniac, political science curriculum overviewers should find a different book with the same info. The book costs more than the course I'm taking and judging from the disbeleif on my fellow colleagues faces at the college bookstore, I'm not the only one with this complaint. All this aside, my teachers copy was very informative!!! PS can anyone lend me this book for nine weeks?

That is how California's emergence is described by the exemplary Carey McWilliams, journalist, social critic, and keen observer of all things Californian.

The book is dated: it was written in '49 and lightly updated in '74 and centers primarily on San Francisco and Los Angeles. It is a measure of McWilliams' penetrating and witty grasp of the state and its foibles, follies, and fandangos that most of what he wrote is still so relevant and even indispensable.

McWilliams' central premise is that the discovery of gold catapulted California through what took other regions of the planet centuries to go through--hence our individualism, do-it-yourself lifestyles, and general motion and mayhem. We've been doing reenactments of the Gold Rush ever since. As he puts it: "Essentially California developed 'outside' the framework, the continuum, of the American frontier. The difference is that between a child raised in the home of his parents, with relatives and familiar surroundings, and the child taken from his home at an early age and brought up in a remote and different environment." Quite so. In a nation of wandering pioneers we are largely, even now, somehow a state of orphans.

California as "the great exception," then, not in terms of snobbery or entitlement, but of being the place where so many Americans--and men from other countries--rushed in to pan for gold, and stayed, and established a tradition of messy but vital cultural infusions. Tip the continent sideways, someone once said, and what falls down lands in California, land of wonder and many griffins.

You might also want to check out McWilliams' SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: AN ISLAND ON THE LAND.

This is a great textbook, if you are teaching a whole cooure in California politics, or if you give at least two weeks in your American Politics class to California politics. There is a lot of content here, and some good photographs, too. The book contains more information than Gerston's and Christensen's "California Politics: A Practical Approach" (see one of my previous review to learn more about this book), but Gerston and Christensen make a better use of empirical data than Lawrence.

If you feel like going for a lot of information on California politics, then pick up this book. Also, be aware that in addition to facts, this book does theorize from beginning to end, which is something not found in Gerston and Christensen. The book is an easy reas and it puts histroical and political information into a cogent theoretical framework. I certainly recommend it to people wishing to learn more about the politics of the Golden State.

What Cooper's book is not: ponderous or trite, heavy-handed or unthinking. On the contrary, Cooper does a wonderful job of blending keen observations with a terrific simplicity. It didn't tell me what to think or see, but it did a wonderful job of showing me what the state was about--warts and all. Rarely have I felt that a place was so well captured. And it took all that Cooper did, the pictures and the text, to pull it off. Without either, it wouldn't have worked, falling into simplicity or pedantry. But it does work. Imagine Bruce Chatwin with a sketchbook. It was a real joy to read.

California Cities, Towns & Counties 2000 provides basic data profiles for all municipalities and counties in California, from general information to school system and housing statistics. Included are the names and addresses of major local reference points from public libraries to sources of general information, making for an excellent guide, highly recommended and certain to gain much use.

This is the story of a wagon train on their way to California who first suffer their way through the desert and then get stuck in the winter in the mountains without food. You feel as if you are suffering with them. It can be gruesome but always a page turner. I have read it twice and am buying it. It is the first in a three part series and I recommend them all.

The Irish have always contributed to the places to which they have either sought refuge or gone in the search of a better livelihood. When California was picked as the best hope-it was the hand of God on the shoulder of Man, only that could explain it None of the first explorers are able to relate the great promise the state clearly showed forth-but the Irish who arrived quickly took to the land as if they were just recent fry from the great trout stream up yonder. The world's largest waterworks, the world's largest public works, the biggest mass transportation schemes & systems in the world. As far as the eye can see; all the agricultural and food market suppliers, coupled with the avionics and high technology routing sends not just produce but jobs and ultimately the computer products themselves also arrive, clear around the world at all hours of the day and night. This unbelievable situation was created as with Hollywood & L.A.; a veritable creation of the enthusiasm that the children of the Emerald Isle had for this one spot on the Earth, which though it may have been their last destination, was still their Garden of Eden!

Revised and edited by Peter Browning for modern times, The Call Of Gold: True Tales On The Gold Road To Yosemite provides a selection of true tales in a chronicle of events affecting California's Mother Lode country during and after the Gold Rush. Newspapers of the time and interviews with early pioneers and their children provides many intimate, 'you are there' portraits which mixes interviews and pioneers voices with history. A lively read, Call of Gold will prove of interest to leisure readers as well as readers of California history and culture.

This bilingual picture book tells the story of poet Juan Felipe Herrera's early years with his parents who were migrant farmworkers in California. Herrera's love for his poor hardworking parents is evident. The vibrant, vivid pictures by Elly Simmons combine with Herrera's Spanish/English text to make a delightful children's book that readers of all ages will enjoy!