California Biographies

Norco '80 tells the story of how five heavily armed young men - led by an apocalyptic born-again Christian - attempted a bank robbery that turned into one of the most violent criminal events in US history, forever changing the face of American law enforcement. Part action thriller and part courtroom drama, Norco '80 transports the listener back to the Southern California of the 1970s, an era of predatory evangelical gurus, doomsday predictions, megachurches, and soaring crime rates, with the threat of nuclear obliteration looming over it all.

Delve into the hidden underbelly of crime as we unveil the secrets of the Los Angeles Mafia Crime Family. From its elusive origins to its far-reaching influence, prepare to uncover the tangled web of power, intrigue, and betrayal that defined this criminal empire.

Five book collection: first five states in the United States of True Crime series. Sixty chilling true crime cases of murders, kidnappings, and serial killers from across the United States!

Judge Cordell, the first African American woman to sit on the Superior Court of Northern California, knows firsthand how prejudice has permeated our legal system. And yet, she believes in the system. From ending school segregation to legalizing same-sex marriage, its progress relies on legal professionals and jurors who strive to make the imperfect system as fair as possible. Her Honor is an entertaining and provocative look into the hearts and minds of judges.

At fifty-four, Alenka was running out of time to follow through on a dream she’d written down in her pocket-size Rumi book just after her first marriage crumbled. Years later, as she slowly rebuilt her life with her second husband, things started spiraling out of control. The only way she knew how to heal and connect all painful parts of her life was by riding her bike, and she didn’t want to have regrets. But was she brave enough to embark on an unknown path and risk losing everything . . . perhaps even her own life?

In The Lives of Michel Foucault, David Macey quotes the iconic French philosopher as speaking “nostalgically...of 'an unforgettable evening on LSD, in carefully prepared doses, in the desert night, with delicious music, [and] nice people'". This came to pass in 1975, when Foucault spent Memorial Day weekend in Southern California at the invitation of Simeon Wade - ostensibly to guest-lecture at the Claremont Graduate School where Wade was an assistant professor, but in truth to explore what he called the Valley of Death.

Deborah Larkin was only ten years old when the quiet calm of her California suburb was shattered. Thirty miles north, on a quiet November night in Santa Barbara, a pregnant nurse named Olga Duncan disappeared from her apartment. The mystery deepens when it is discovered that Olga’s mother-in-law—a deeply manipulative and deceptive woman—had been doing everything in her power to separate Olga and her son, Frank, prior to Olga’s disappearance.

In Imperfect, Jim Abbot retraces his remarkable journey. Born without a right hand, Jim Abbott as a boy dreamed of being a great athlete. Raised in Flint, Michigan, by parents who saw in his condition not a disability but an extraordinary opportunity, Jim became a two-sport standout in high school, then an ace pitcher for the University of Michigan. But his journey was only beginning. By 21, he’d won the gold medal game at the 1988 Olympics and cracked the starting rotation of the California Angels....

For nearly a decade, Palley has been on the frontline of fire. He has witnessed homeowners on the worst day of their lives. He’s seen puddles of aluminum where cars were once parked. He’s watched as 150-foot walls of flame cascaded down mountainsides and crashed into the Pacific Ocean. And he’s captured, time and again, the tireless commitment of firefighters as they work to save lives and homes, in terrain where fire always seems to have the upper hand.

Twelve-year-old Marion Parker was kidnapped from her Los Angeles school by an unknown assailant on December 15, 1927. Her body was found days later, delivered to her father by the killer, who fled with the ransom money. When William Hickman was hunted down and charged with the killing, he admitted to all of it, in terrifying detail, but that was only the start. His insanity plea was the first of its kind in the history of California, and the nature of the crime led to a media frenzy unlike any the country had seen up to that point.

J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to lift the veil on the ultimate "factory in the fields". The King of California is the previously untold account of how a Georgia slave-owning family migrated to California in the early 1920s, drained one of America 's biggest lakes in an act of incredible hubris and carved out the richest cotton empire in the world.

From surf music to hot-rod records to the sunny pop of the Beach Boys and the Mamas & the Papas, Hollywood Eden captures the fresh blossom of a young generation who came together in the epic spring of the 1960s to invent the myth of the California Paradise. Central to the story is a group of sun-kissed teens from the University High School class of 1959 - a class that included Jan & Dean, Nancy Sinatra, and future members of the Beach Boys - who came of age in Los Angeles at the dawn of a new golden era when anything seemed possible.

In the vein of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief and Deborah Feldman's Unorthodox, journalist Emily Brady journeys into a secretive subculture - one that marijuana built. Say the words "Humboldt County" to a stranger and you might receive a knowing grin. The name is infamous, and yet the place, and its inhabitants, have been nearly impenetrable. Until now. Humboldt is a narrative exploration of an insular community in Northern California, which for nearly 40 years has existed primarily on the cultivation and sale of marijuana.

When Jack and Denny Smith decided to build a vacation dream house in Baja, California, they had no idea they were entering a phase of their lives "that would capture the fancy of readers throughout the United States". Through a series of strange and whimsical adventures, they would find that building a house takes God and Mr. Gomez.

In 2006, Matthew Specktor moved into a crumbling Los Angeles apartment opposite the one in which F. Scott Fitzgerald spent the last moments of his life. Fitz had been Specktor's first literary idol, someone whose own passage through Hollywood had, allegedly, broken him. Freshly divorced, professionally flailing, and reeling from his mother's cancer diagnosis, Specktor was feeling unmoored. But rather than giving in or "cracking up", he embarked on an obsessive journey to make sense of the mythologies of "success" and "failure" that haunt the artist's life and the American imagination.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Care Court in California1st edition today.

For 46 years, author Charles Hillinger journeyed around the world writing human-interest stories for the Los Angeles Times. He also helped to create and produce special features for the popular NBC television show Real People. From these experiences comes California Characters, a collection of stories about intriguing, eccentric, or simply amazing individuals.

The narrative nonfiction, short story journalism, and photo-essays of Elihu Blotnick, between 1968 and 1980, in their full original versions, unseen or unavailable till now. Revisited by the author and newly edited, these 11 pieces tell of credit card crime, New Mexico, drug testing, the San Francisco streets, and of being walked to school by Woody Allen.

"Golden State Killers" delves deep into the haunting chronicles of seven notorious serial killers who emerged from the sun-kissed expanses of California. While the Golden State is often celebrated for its shimmering beaches and Hollywood glamour, lurking in its underbelly is a darker tale that needs telling.

In the spring of 1871, Ralph Waldo Emerson boarded a train in Concord, Massachusetts, bound for a month-and-a-half-long tour of California—an interlude that became one of the highlights of his life. Based on original research employing newly discovered documents, The California Days of Ralph Waldo Emerson maps the public story of this trip onto the private story of Emerson's final years. Engaging and compelling, this travelogue makes it clear that Emerson was still capable of wonder, surprise, and friendship, debunking the presumed darkness of his last decade.