• Desert America, Ruben Martinez


• The Sea & Civilization: A Maritime History of the World, Lincoln Paine


• Hotel Florida: Truth, Love, and Death in the Spanish Civil War, Amanda Vaill


• Trees in Paradise: A California History, Jared Farmer

Desert America: Boom and Bust in the New Old West Emmy-winning journalist and poet, Rubén Martínez evokes a new world of extremes: outrageous wealth and devastating poverty, sublime beauty and ecological ruin. Martínez re-creates an enthralling panorama of characters, settings and stories in a deeply personal tour of drug addition, race wars, and front lines of illegal immigration in the West. 

"A compelling and daring book, one filled with equal parts confessions, history, and politics... Desert America will challenge every idea you may have formed about life and death in our Western deserts." - Los Angeles Review of Books

The Sea & Civilization:  A Maritime History of the World A monumental retelling of world history through the lens of maritime enterprise, revealing in breathtaking depth how people first came into contact with one another by ocean and river, lake and stream, and how good, languages, religions, and entire cultures spread across and along the world's waterways, bringing together civilizations and defining what makes us most human... An accomplishment of both great sweep and illuminating detail, The Sea and Civilization is a stunning work of history.

"Readers expecting a naval history will receive much more: a thorough history of the people, the ports, and the cultural activity taking place on the water. Paine has compiled an invaluable resource for salty dogs and land-lubbers alike." - Publishers Weekly

Hotel Florida: Truth, Love and Death in the Spanish Civil War  The gifted writer Amanda Vaill tells a story of the Spanish Civil War through the personal dramas of six people—Ernest Hemingway, Martha Gellhorn, Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, Arturo Barea, and Ilsa Kulcsar—whose lives all crossed paths at Madrid’s Hotel Florida as they bore witness to the war. Vaill weaves an arresting and poignant group biography about truth-telling, and reinvention during war, and an incisive account of an often misunderstood chapter in twentieth-century history.

"Whether or not you're a history buff, you'll be fully immersed in Vaill's chronicle of the band of journalists - including Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn - who covered the upheaval of the Spanish Civil War." - Entertainment Weekly 

Trees in Paradise: A California History California now has more trees than at any time since the late Pleistocene. This green landscape, however, is not the work of nature. It's the work of history... Rich in character and story, Trees in Paradise is a dazzling narrative that offers an insightful, new perspective on the history of the Golden State and the American West. 

"The wealth of research makes this an important addition to the California bookshelf. Farmer shows us how devoted, destructive, foolhardy, ambitious, greedy, enriched and showy Californians can be - not just in relation to our trees but also in general." - Los Angeles Times

All summaries are excerpts from Amazon.com