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Chronicles the Dust Bowl migration of the 1930s and tells the story of one Oklahoma farm family, the Joads, driven from their homestead and forced to travel west to the promised land of California. Out of their trials and their repeated collisions against the hard realities of an America divided into haves and have nots evolves a drama that is intensely human yet majestic in its scale and moral vision, elemental yet plainspoken, tragic but ultimately...
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On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, patrons and staff outside of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, "Once that first stack got going, it was 'Goodbye, Charlie.'" The fire was disastrous, reaching 2000 degrees and burning for more than seven hours. It consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more....
4) Cannery row
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"Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack and his boys, and the other characters in this world, where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and most poignant works."
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Two rising 70s rock-and-roll artists are catapulted into stardom when a producer puts them together, a decision that is complicated by a pregnancy and the seductions of fame.
L.A. in the late sixties. Sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, the sex and drugs are thrilling, but it's the rock and roll Daisy loves most. By the time she's twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things....
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"Parable of the Sower is the Butlerian odyssey of one woman who is twice as feeling in a world that has become doubly dehumanized. The time is 2025. The place is California, where small walled communities must protect themselves from hordes of desperate scavengers and roaming bands of people addicted to a drug that activates an orgasmic desire to burn, rape, and murder. When one small community is overrun, Lauren Olamina, an 18 year old black woman...
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"It is the last season of high school life for Nadia Turner, a rebellious, grief-stricken, seventeen-year-old beauty. Mourning her own mother's recent suicide, she takes up with the local pastor's son. Luke Sheppard is twenty-one, a former football star whose injury has reduced him to waiting tables at a diner. They are young; it's not serious. But the pregnancy that results from this teen romance--and the subsequent cover-up--will have an impact...
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In this "raucous, moving, and necessary" story by a Pulitzer Prize finalist (San Francisco Chronicle), the De La Cruzes, a family on the Mexican-American border, celebrate two of their most beloved relatives during a joyous and bittersweet weekend.
"All we do, mija, is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death."
In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La...
"All we do, mija, is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death."
In his final days, beloved and ailing patriarch Miguel Angel de La...
10) Private
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Former CIA agent Jack Morgan inherits his father's elite Los Angeles detective agency and along with it such cases as an NFL gambling scandal, eighteen unsolved schoolgirl slayings, and the murder of his best friend's wife.
11) "P" is for peril
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Kinsey Millhone ventures into the darker side of the human soul in this gripping novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Sue Grafton.
Kinsey Millhone never sees it coming. She is mired in the case of a doctor who disappeared, his angry ex-wife, and beautiful current one—a case that is full of unfinished business, unfinished homes, and people drifting in and out of their own lives. Then Kinsey gets a shock. A man she...
Kinsey Millhone never sees it coming. She is mired in the case of a doctor who disappeared, his angry ex-wife, and beautiful current one—a case that is full of unfinished business, unfinished homes, and people drifting in and out of their own lives. Then Kinsey gets a shock. A man she...
12) Saint Odd
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"Two years after the cataclysmic events that sent him journeying into mystery, Odd Thomas, the intrepid fry cook who sees the dead and tries to help them, has traveled full circle, back to his beloved home town of Pico Mundo and the people he loves. He has come to save them--and perhaps humanity--from the full flowering of evil it is his destiny to confront, as he draws ever closer to the truth of the world and his place in it. Stronger, wiser than...
Author
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In one of his first books, "The Mountains of California", John Muir, famed naturalist, environmentalist, and author, recounts his travels through the Sierra Nevada Mountains and Yosemite Valley. First published in 1894, "The Mountains of California" is a captivating and vivid portrait of the raw beauty of this spectacular place. He takes the readers on a tour of the wonders that abound, writing "Go where you may within the bounds of California, mountains...
15) White horses
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A story about the fairy-tale fantasies of girlhood and the realities of growing up by “one of our quirkiest and most interesting novelists” (Jane Smiley, USA Today).
When Teresa sleeps—sometimes for days at a time, the scent of roses surrounding her—she dreams of the Arias, outlaw riders on white steeds, who roam the desert at night. She was told about the dark-eyed horsemen by her mother, Dina, who left...
When Teresa sleeps—sometimes for days at a time, the scent of roses surrounding her—she dreams of the Arias, outlaw riders on white steeds, who roam the desert at night. She was told about the dark-eyed horsemen by her mother, Dina, who left...
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Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of the summer, Evie Boyd sees a group of girls in the park and is immediately struck by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is their charismatic leader. The group's sprawling ranch is eerie and run-down, but to...
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Harry Bosch is back as a volunteer working cold cases for the San Fernando police and is called out to a local drug store where a young pharmacist has been murdered. Bosch and the town's three-person detective squad sift through the clues, which lead into the dangerous big-business world of prescription drug abuse. Meanwhile, an old case from Bosch's LAPD days comes back to haunt him when a long-imprisoned killer claims Harry framed him and seems...
18) Hostage: a novel
Author
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The bestselling author of Demolition Angel and L.A. Requiem returns with his most intense and intricate thriller yet.
As the Los Angeles Times said, Robert Crais is “a crime writer operating at the top of his game.” His complex heroes and heroines, his mastery of noir atmosphere, and his brilliant, taut plots have catapulted him into the front rank of a new breed of thriller writers. Hostage...
As the Los Angeles Times said, Robert Crais is “a crime writer operating at the top of his game.” His complex heroes and heroines, his mastery of noir atmosphere, and his brilliant, taut plots have catapulted him into the front rank of a new breed of thriller writers. Hostage...
19) Angle of repose
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Confined to a wheelchair, retired historian Lyman Ward sets out to write his grandparents' remarkable story, chronicling their days spent carving civilization into the surface of America's western frontier. But his research reveals even more about his own life than he's willing to admit. What emerges is an enthralling portrait of 4 generations in the life of an American family. [From publisher's description]
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Being Madame Ariadne, Psychic Dream Consultant, wasn't Prudence Ryland's ideal gig, but it paid well which was reason enough to do the work--until she realizes that her latest client intends to kill her. But Prudence, a master at reinvention, finds a new job and home as far away as possible and is finally able to relax--which turns out to be a big mistake. Letting her guard down means being kidnapped and drugged and waking up in a bloodstained wedding...
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