The Central California coast has some of the most spectacular scenery in the state. Rugged coastal terraces are backdropped by mountain ranges that run parallel to the Pacific coastline. Picturesque communities dot a landscape abundant with valleys, white sand beaches, cool forests, and natural preserves. The surf crashes onto craggy headlands and carved canyons along the Big Sur stretch of coast. Day Hikes On the California Central Coast includes 120 hikes along 400 miles of coastline between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The hikes describe how and where to access the best trails and features from Highway 1, offering many opportunities to explore the beautiful landscape. Highlights include tidepools, off-shore rock formations, huge dunes, wildlife observation sites, expansive overlooks, canyons, waterfalls, and lighthouses. The best trails in the state and county parks are featured, as well as city trails that are often overlooked. A wide range of hikes accommodates amateur to avid hikers. Companion guides include Day Hikes Around Monterey and Carmel, Day Hikes Around Big Sur, Day Hikes Around San Luis Obispo, Day Hikes Around Santa Barbara, and Day Hikes On the California Southern Coast.

Monterey County lies along an incredibly beautiful and scenic coastal stretch of the Pacific Ocean in Central California. The rugged, weathered shoreline is fronted by the Santa Lucia Mountains, separating the coast from the rich agricultural land. Carmel, Pacific Grove, Monterey, and other picturesque communities dot a landscape abundant with green valleys, woodlands, beaches, parks, natural preserves, and secluded bays along the oceanfront. This completely updated edition of Day Hikes Around Monterey and Carmel includes 128 hikes from the north end of Monterey Bay to the Big Sur coastline. Many hikes are found along the amazing coastline; other hikes explore the interior mountains and hillsides. The routes have been chosen to offer a great selection of shoreline excursions, beaches, residential paths, wilderness hikes, cool canyons, and panoramic overlooks while including a range of hiking levels. Coastal walks include blufftop terraces, tidepools, coves, massive sand dunes, whale-watching locations, tidal marshes along the Pacific Flyway, and breath-taking hillside routes along dramatic headlands carved by the pounding surf. Scenic neighborhood walks link piers, boardwalks, and natural areas. Some trails include atmospheric forests of old-growth redwoods, rare stands of Monterey cypress, or California condor nesting sites amongst craggy rock pinnacles. Other highlights include lighthouses, historic sites, long-spanning bridges, ridgetop overlooks, sweeping coastal views, and paths alongside the Monterey Bay Aquarium and marine refuge. Hikes take from one hour to all day. A range of hikes is included to accommodate every level of experience. All trails can be accessed from Highway 1, including many beach access points.Companion guides include Day Hikes Around Big Sur and Day Hikes On the California Central Coast.

In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he'll find action - and profit - by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers - and the price of survival was dangerously high.

Big Sur is an awesome stretch of spectacular coastline in Central California. The Santa Lucia Mountains quickly rise over 5,000 feet from the ocean. This magnificent landscape begins near Carmel at Point Lobos State Reserve and extends 75 miles south to Ragged Point in San Luis Obispo County, just south of the Monterey County line. The steep coastal mountain range and rugged shoreline isolate the Big Sur country, which maintains an unspoiled, rustic charm and relaxed, leisurely pace.

This completely revised and updated edition of Day Hikes Around Big Sur includes 99 great day hikes along the coast and throughout the interior mountains. Hikes, which take from one hour to all day, range from easy beach strolls to strenuous mountain climbs with panoramic coastal vistas. The diverse terrain is a hiker's paradise with a well-designed trail system of more than 300 miles. The network of trails venture into the beautiful canyons and across the slopes and peaks, offering unparalleled views of the mountains merging with the coastline. Along Highway 1 are endless views of the scalloped coastline and the deep blue Pacific. Awe-inspiring bridges span numerous creeks and deep canyons. Highlights along the miles of trails include isolated beaches, eroded coves with tide pools, rugged marine terraces, redwood and Monterey cypress groves, shady canyons, waterfalls dropping into mossy glens, lighthouses, and vertical cliffs with crested ridges.

Statistics, accurate driving and hiking directions, and numerous maps make these hiking adventures stress free. Dog admission information is included. Most trails can be accessed from Carmel Valley Road or Highway 1, including many beach access points.

Companion guides include Day Hikes Around Monterey and Carmel and Day Hikes On the California Central Coast.

Rheinhardt, a disk jockey and failed musician, rolls into New Orleans looking for work and another chance in life. What he finds is a woman physically and psychically damaged by the men in her past and a job that entangles him in a right-wing political movement. Peopled with civil rights activists, fanatical Christians, corrupt politicians, and demented Hollywood stars, A Hall of Mirrors vividly depicts the dark side of America that erupted in the sixties. To quote Wallace Stegner, Stone writes like a bird, like an angel, like a circus barker, like a con man, like someone so high on pot that he is scraping his shoes on the stars.

Winner of the Best Guidebook Award from Outdoor Writers Association of California! San Luis Obispo County is located where the white sand beaches of Central California merge with the dramatic Big Sur coastline. Ranging inland from the Pacific Ocean are oak-studded hills, verdant farmland, pristine mountain lakes, and the 5,000-foot Santa Lucia Range of the Los Padres National Forest. The unique geography and a temperate, year-round climate creates an outstanding hiking environment.
Day Hikes Around San Luis Obispo now includes over 150 day hikes throughout the coastal county. This greatly expanded third edition is easily the most comprehensive hiking guide in the area. The trails take the hiker along the scalloped Pacific coastline to secluded coves and tide pools, to rocky promontories along the chain of volcanic morros, through wetland sanctuaries, across massive sand dunes, and up cool interior canyons. Highlights include waterfalls, bluffs, long stretches of beach, lighthouses, lakes, rivers, swimming holes, extraordinary rock formations, and panoramic views that span from the inland mountains to the ocean. Many hikes are found in or near San Luis Obispo, although most hikes are located in undeveloped tracts of land and along 100 miles of coastline. A range of hikes is included, from easy coastal walks to high elevation climbs.
Statistics, accurate driving and hiking directions, and numerous maps make these hiking adventures stress free. Dog admission information is included as well as an index.
Companion guides include Day Hikes On the Central California Coast, Day Hikes Around Big Sur, and Day Hikes Around Santa Barbara.

LA Times Best Seller and four-time award winner from three Outdoor Writers Associations (including Best in Show and Best Guidebook). Now in its 6th edition, Day Hikes Around Los Angeles includes 160 hikes in and around a 50-mile radius of the city. Residents and adventuresome travelers will find the book essential to discovering an amazing number of hiking opportunities.
Despite the widespread presence of the Los Angeles metropolis, there exists thousands of acres of natural, undeveloped land and countless out-of-way hiking trails. Hikes range from boardwalk strolls along the ocean to shady canyon trails that lead to far-reaching overlooks. Highlights include year-round waterfalls, wildlife preserves, lighthouses, Griffith Park (the country's largest municipal park), the famous HOLLYWOOD sign, quiet canyon trails, panoramic vistas of the city and coastline, the rugged terrain of the San Gabriel Mountains, and hikes along the entire length of the Santa Monica Mountains. Intriguing metropolitan walks are also included. All levels of hiking are accommodated, with an emphasis on a mid-range hikes.
Companion guides include Day Hikes Around Orange County (south of LA), Day Hikes Around Ventura County (north of LA), Day Hikes On the Southern California Coast, and Day Hikes In the Santa Monica Mountains.

Bozeman, Montana is a mountain community steeped in history and surrounded by stunning landscape. The city lies between the Gallatin and Yellowstone River valleys amidst several mountain ranges. The fantastic scenery combined with national forests, wilderness areas, and an outdoor-oriented community make the hiking in this area superb.

Day Hikes Around Bozeman, Montana has won awards from both the Northwest Outdoor Writers Association and the Rocky Mountain Outdoor Writers and Photographers. Now in its fourth edition, the book includes 110 of the best day hikes in a straight-forward, hassle-free guide aimed to get you on the trails. These hikes explore the mountain ranges and valleys that converge around Bozeman, including the Bridgers, Gallatin Canyon, the Spanish Peaks, the Gallatin Range, and Paradise Valley. Many trails are located with the city itself, which boasts a thriving community trail system and an active liberal-arts college. The Gallatin National Forest, part of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem that stretches to Bozeman, spreads across 1.8-million acres and six mountain ranges around the city. Trail highlights include waterfalls, alpine lakes, sweeping overlooks, valleys surrounded by craggy peaks, petrified forests, historic sites, and the soothing sound of creeks tumbling through forested canyons.

Companion guides include Day Hikes In Yellowstone National Park and Day Hikes In the Beartooth Mountains.

By one of the most impressive novelists of his generation (The New York Review of Books), Children of Light is a searing, indelible love story of two ravaged spirits, played out under the merciless, magnifying prism of Hollywood.

Gordon Walker, screenwriter and actor, has systematically ruined his family and his health with cocaine and alcohol. Lee Verger is an actress of uncommon and unfulfilled promise, whom Gordon has known since the days when they were both young and fearless, and whose New Orleans childhood has left her with a tenuous hold on sanity. During the shooting of a film on the Pacific coast of Mexico, they resume a ritual struggle in which their desperate love for each other will either save or destroy them.

A stunning novel by a great American writer.--Washington Post

Jerusalem: home to seekers, heretics, hustlers, and madmen of many faiths. In this most fractious city, a plot unfolds to bomb the sacred Temple Mount.
Christopher Lucas, an expatriate American journalist, stumbles upon the plot while investigating religious fanatics. Entangled in the intrigue are a nightclub singer, an unstable Jewish guru, a strung-out Kabbalist seeking the messiah, and a soldier of fortune routinely found at the world's violent clashes. A confrontation in Gaza, a chase through riot-filled streets, a cat-and-mouse game in an underground maze--as Lucas races against time, he uncovers the duplicity and depravity on all sides of Jerusalem's sacred struggle.
An explosive bestseller, Damascus Gate lays bare the dangers at the fringes of faith.

A transcendent thriller.--Time

Brims over with plots, subplots, and an impressive array of incisively drawn characters . . . The range of [Stone's] knowledge is spectacular.--The New Yorker

Damascus Gate asks enormous questions about cosmic truth--and its effect on those who think they own it--with intensity, intellectual rigor and abiding morality.--San Francisco Chronicle

From the New York City of Kline and De Kooning to the jazz era of New Orleans's French Quarter, to Ken Kesey's psychedelic California, Prime Green explores the 1960s in all its weird, innocent, turbulent, and fascinating glory. Building on personal vignettes from Robert Stone's travels across America, the legendary novelist offers not only a riveting and powerful memoir but also an unforgettable inside perspective on a unique moment in American history.

In Fun with Problems, Robert Stone demonstrates once again that he is one of our greatest living writers (Los Angeles Times). The pieces in this new volume vary greatly in length--some are almost novellas, others no more than a page--but all share the signature blend of longing, violence, black humor, sex and drugs that has helped Stone illuminate the dark corners of the human soul. Entire lives are laid out with remarkable precision, in captivating prose: a screenwriter carries on a decades-long affair with a beautiful actress, whose descent into addiction he can neither turn from nor share; a bored husband picks up a mysterious woman only to find that his ego has led him woefully astray; a world-beating Silicon Valley executive receives an unwelcome guest at his mansion in the hills; a scuba dive guides uneasy newlyweds to a point of no return. Fun with Problems showcases Stone's great gift: to pinpoint and make real the impulses--by turns violently coercive and quietly seductive--that cause us to conceal, reveal, and betray our very selves.

Sonoma County is 35 miles north of San Francisco on the Pacific coast. This California county is known for its wineries and a magnificent natural landscape--a picturesque mix of rugged coastline, steep cliffs, forested hillsides, and verdant agricultural valleys. The cities, towns, and villages are as diverse as the geography. Interspersed throughout the landscape are thousands of acres of undeveloped parklands, forests, and open space.

Day Hikes Around Sonoma County is a collection of 125 of the county's best day hikes, providing access to both well-known and out-of-the-way greenspace. Hikes are found along the Pacific Ocean, across the coastal ridges, into wide valleys, and through thick forests. A third of the hikes are located along the coastline, accessed by Highway 1, which connects the coastal towns as it snakes along the oceanfront cliffs and bluffs. Many coastal access points that are not easily recognized from Highway 1 are clearly described. The remaining hikes explore the inland mountains, hillsides, and valleys through numerous state parks, regional parks, and undeveloped land. Highlights include fog-shrouded redwood forests, creekside canyons, wildlife sanctuaries, lakes, tidal bays, wave-pounded coastline, and sweeping panoramic views. A wide range of hikes accommodates amateur to avid hikers, from beachfront strolls to canyon treks. Straight-forward directions and clear maps accompany all hikes. A thorough index includes cities, trails, and points of interest.

The stories collected in Bear and His Daughter span nearly thirty years - 1969 to the present - and they explore, acutely and powerfully, the humanity that unites us. In Miserere, a widowed librarian with an unspeakable secret undertakes an unusual and grisly role in the anti-abortion crusade. Under the Pitons is the harrowing story of a reluctant participant in a drug-running scheme and the grim and unexpected consequences of his involvement. The title story is a riveting account of the tangled lines that weave together the relationship of a father and his grown daughter.

Missoula, Montana is an active university town rich in character set in the midst of stunning scenery. The city lies at the hub of five merging valleys and surrounded on all sides by mountain ranges. The Clark Fork, Rattlesnake, and Bitterroot Rivers converge near the city center, where the streets are lined with historic buildings and residences from the National Register. A short distance in any direction leads to national forests and wilderness areas. Outdoor activities abound in the area! Now in its fourth edition, Day Hikes Around Missoula, Montana includes an excellent collection of 102 day hikes within a 100-mile radius of the city. While many hikes are located within the city itself, most are found in the surrounding valleys, mountains, and national forests. Destinations include both popular and remote trails, from easy nature walks to high-elevation overlooks with expansive vistas across Missoula and its mountain ranges. Highlights include several dramatic waterfalls, stream-fed canyons, fertile valleys flanked by mountains, hot springs, suspension bridges, and historic sites from the Lewis and Clark voyage.The author has written extensively on Montana hiking trails and has personally hiked all of these trails. The author's other Rocky Mountain hiking guides include Day Hikes Around Bozeman, Day Hikes In the Beartooth Mountains, Day Hikes In Yellowstone National Park, and Day Hikes In the Grand Tetons. The majority of Stone's 24 hiking guides are in their 3rd, 4th, or 5th editions.

In this towering story about a man pitting himself against the sea, against society, and against himself, Robert Stone again demonstrates that he is one of the most impressive novelists of his generation (New York Review of Books). Inviting comparison with the great sea novels of Conrad, Melville, and Hemingway, Outerbridge Reach is also the portrait of two men and the powerful, unforgettable woman they both love - and for whom they are both ready, in their very different ways, to stake everything. As the San Francisco Chronicle said, Robert Stone asks questions of our time few writers could imagine and answers them in narratives few readers will ever quite forget.

There is an old saying, God created the Grand Canyon, but he lives in Sedona. The Sedona region is home to extraordinary red rock formations, natural arches, majestic pinnacles, cliffs, gorges, sculpted canyons, mesas with panoramic views, ancient Indian ruins, plus year-round creeks and swimming holes.

Sedona offers an abundance of outdoor activities, and hiking is one of the most popular. Day Hikes Around Sedona is a comprehensive guide to the extensive network of trails throughout this beautiful area. These one hundred hikes include trails to all the best-known rock formations, as well as secluded trails that travel down remote canyons, across vast plateaus, or lead to archeological sites. Oak Creek gently cascades through town, leaving a corridor of lush vegetation that contrasts with the eroded red rock landscape. Interconnected valleys, canyons, and mesas offer abundant opportunities for hiking and exploration.

A range of difficulty levels and scenery is included. All hikes can be completed during the day. Map sources and references are listed for extending the hikes.

Each hike includes:
>Detailed maps
>Accurate driving and hiking directions
>Distance, time, and elevation statistics
>Summaries to help hikers find a trail appropriate to their ability and desire
>Several overall maps to show the hikes in the greater area

JFK issued the historic moon landing challenge. These are the stories of the visionaries who helped America complete his vision with the first lunar landing fifty years ago.

A Companion Book to the AMERICAN EXPERIENCE(R) Film on PBS(R)

Going in depth to explore their stories beyond the PBS series, writer/producer Robert Stone--called one of our most important documentary filmmakers by Entertainment Weekly--brings these important figures to brilliant life.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy proposed the nation spend twenty billion dollars to land a man on the Moon before the end of the decade. Based on eyewitness accounts and newly discovered archival material, Chasing the Moon reveals for the first time the unknown stories of the fascinating individuals whose imaginative work across several decades culminated in America's momentous achievement. More than a story of engineers and astronauts, the moon landing--now celebrating its fiftieth anniversary--grew out of the dreams of science fiction writers, filmmakers, military geniuses, and rule-breaking scientists. They include

- Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, whose writing inspired some of the key players in the Moon race. A scientific paper he wrote in his twenties led to the U.S. beating Russia in one area of space: communications satellites.
- Wernher von Braun, the former Nazi military genius who oversaw Hitler's rocket weapons program. After working on ballistic missiles for the U.S. Army, he was recruited by NASA to manage the creation of the Saturn V moon rocket.
- Astronaut Frank Borman, commander of the first mission to circumnavigate the Moon, whose powerful testimony before Congress in 1967 decisively saved the U.S. lunar program from being cancelled.
- Poppy Northcutt, a young mathematician who was the first woman to work in Mission Control. Her media exposure as a unique presence in this all-male world allowed her the freedom to stand up for equal rights for women and minorities.
- Edward Dwight, an African American astronaut candidate, recruited at the urging of the Kennedy White House to further the administration's civil rights agenda--but not everyone welcomed his inclusion.

Setting these key players in the political, social, and cultural climate of the time, and including captivating photographs throughout, Chasing the Moon focuses on the science and the history, but most important, the extraordinary individuals behind what was undoubtedly the greatest human achievement of the twentieth century.

Lacey's is a cafe in New York where we see three different scenes at the same table, all linked by a common thread, if you can find it. In Blackbeard's Ghost Ed finds his ancestral line goes back to notorious character, with consequences reaching into the present. Rabbit & Mole: Julie lives in Queens, NY. Her past, on the streets, sleeping rough, though behind her is never very far away, as she discovers one cold Christmas. These and other short stories are the best of Robert Stone. The brevity of the format doesn't limit what can be packed into a few words. 'MOMENTS' is exactly that, a collection of moments in life, with unseen beginnings and unknown endings. Nevertheless, compelling, like overhearing a conversation of which we know nothing, and yet are intrigued.