Book Summaries

ABOUT THIS: Death Valley, with its unique desert character consisting of a deep geological trough, high spectacular mountains, and shimmering salt flats, has been described as an apparition. In reality, however, the apparently forbidding landscape has intense beauty and unusual life forms that become readily apparent when more than casual observation is offered. Many men have made significant contributions to the penetration of this awesome desert over the years. Two of them — Walter Scott (Death Valley Scotty) and Albert Johnson — through their unique human-interest landmark in Grapevine Canyon called Scotty's Castle, perhaps did more than any-one else to bring Death Valley to the attention of the world. Their castle-in-the-desert created national controversy and mystery, which may be attributed to Albert Johnson's desire for seclusion and Walter Scott's beguiling nature. The National Park Service acquired Scotty's Castle in July, 1970, from the Gospel Foundation of Ca...

  ABOUT THIS: A History of the Russian-American Company  P. A. Tikhmenev  Translated and edited by Richard A. Pierce and Alton S. Donnelly  The Russian-American Company was chartered by the Russian government in 1799 to conduct monopoly trading in the Aleutians and Alaska and played a major role in the affairs of the North Pacific during the following half century. This new and long-awaited translation of Tikhmenev's comprehensive history of the Company, acknowledged by scholars as a fundamental source on Russian-American history, will be indispensable to further study in that field.  The original Russian text of this classic work was written, at Company behest, a few years before the sale of Alaska to the United States and the liquidation of the Company. Under-taken to "glorify" the activities of the Company, in the mistaken hope of winning a renewal of the monopoly charter, Tikhmenev's history is based on documents then in Company archives, but later destroyed...

 ABOUT THIS: Discusses California’s mountains, hills, woods, streams, birds, and animals. It also covers the state’s unparalleled climate and the reasons for it, the sea and the islands, hunting, fishing, camping, and many other subjects of interest to nature lovers. The book contains photographs, illustrations, and footnotes. 229 Pages. Buy on Ebay

  ABOUT THIS: To live with your true love on an island in the sun! Robb and Rodie White have lived out the secret dream of many young couples. Their first home was the tiny island of Marina Cay, part of the British Virgin Islands, and they bought it for a song — 60 dollars down. Their desert paradise proved a daily challenge, but together Robb and Rodie fished in the Caribbean, struggled to farm the land and built a house of concrete and local stone. A thirteen-foot sailboat was for three happy years their only link with the 'civilization' of the Depression and their eccentric neighbours. Mrs Bones, an intimate (or so she said) of the Elizabethan explorer Sir Francis Drake, invited the newly-weds to English tea ; an Arawak friend turned his hand to every mechanical contrivance — including a cistern to collect precious rain-water. In their splendid isolation Rodie nearly died of appendicitis and Robb swam a shark-infested strait to find a doctor. Later, as war clouds gathered ov...

 Oskar Schindler, a Catholic German, lies in Jerusalem as one of Israel's honored dead. On the Avenue of Righteous People, a tree bears his name. Schindler was a German industrialist who during World War II responded to the "Jewish question" by building from his own resources a concentration camp-cum factory in Cracow. Within its confines he sheltered thousands of Jews, finally transferring them to another safe haven in Czechoslovakia as a besieged Reich consigned 60,000 souls a day to the ovens of Auschwitz in a last mad attempt to effect the Final Solution. A place on "Schindler's list" meant at least the hope of a future to an impris-oned Jew. Throughout the war years Schindler ex-pended an enormous fortune on bribes to the SS and on black- market food and drugs for his prisoners. Living a life of risk, he played with astounding skill the strings that linked him to high German officials, and when bluff and bribery failed, he sometimes gambled at cards to ...

 ABOUT THIS: On December 14, 1986, Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan took off from Edwards Air Force Base, in California's Mojave Desert, on their history-making flight—the first to circle the globe non-stop without refueling. The flight required almost superhuman physical and psychological effort the two pilots spending nine days in an unpressurized cockpit, 3'/2 feet wide by 7 feet long. The plane weighed less than an automobile (2,000 pounds empty) and carried 1,200 gallons of fuel. The nine-day flight took them west over the Pacific through violent winds and turbulences, through life-threatening mechanical failures, at times over forbidden countries. Both pilots experienced high spirits and exhausting emotional let-downs... until finally, on December 23, 48 hours ahead of schedule, Jeana Yeager and Dick Rutan completed the circle with their triumphal landing. Now they tell in vivid detail what it was like to make the flight, what happened during the years of dreaming, planning, a...

  ABOUT THIS: Wild About Harry reads, at times, like fiction. It's the tale of an improbable hero, the nation's only Chinese-American Sheriff, a brash, 350-pound cowboy who sings with Willie Nelson, hunts with Steven Seagal, threw parties on the White House lawn with Bill Clinton and uses his political power to raise big money, most of which he gives to charity. Born in the back room of a Chinese laundry in New Orleans, Harry Lee followed the ritual of expectation set by his immigrant parents. One of eight children and the eldest son, Harry became a successful businessman, attorney, elected official, civic leader and philanthropist. While protecting the people of Jefferson Parish since 1979, Lee has elevated political incorrectness to high art, and yet, as an elected public official, has earned the highest populari-ty rating in the state's history. Deno Seder presents a vivid portrait of a man who embraces life with gusto — a man who has been loved, honored, vilified, satir...