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West Of The West
Teddy Roosevelt once exclaimed, “When I am in California, I am not in the West. I am west of the West,” and in this book, Mark Arax spends four years travelling up and down the Golden State to explore its singular place in the world. This is California beyond the clichés. This is California as only a native son, deep in the dust, could draw it. Compelling, lyrical, and ominous, his new collection finds a different drama rising out of each confounding landscape. “The Summer of the Death of Hilario Guzman” has been praised as a “stunningly intimate” portrait of one immigrant family from Oaxaca, through harrowing border crossings and brutal raisin harvests. Down the road in the “Home Front,” right-wing Christians and Jews form a strange pact that tries to silence debate on the War on Terror, and a conflicted father loses not one but two sons in Iraq. “The Last Okie in Lamont,” the inspiration for the town in the Grapes of Wrath , has but one Okie left, who tells Arax his life story as he drives to a funeral to bury one more Dust Bowl migrant. “The Highlands of Humboldt” is a journey to marijuana growing capital of the U.S., where the old hippies are battling the new hippies over “pollution pot” and the local bank collects a mountain of cash each day, much of it redolent of cannabis. Arax pieces together the murder-suicide at the heart of a rotisserie chicken empire in “The Legend of Zankou,” a story included in the Best American Crime Reporting 2009 . And, in the end, he provides a moving epilogue to the murder of his own father, a crime in the California heartland finally solved after thirty years. In the finest tradition of Joan Didion, Arax combines journalism, essay, and memoir to capture social upheaval as well as the sense of being rooted in a community. Piece by piece, the stories become a whole, a stunning panorama of California, and America, in a new century.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
47 people are currently reading
462 people want to read
About the author
Mark Arax
12 books100 followersIn the world of journalism, Mark Arax stands out as a rarity. On one hand, he is a skilled investigative reporter who unearths secrets from the depths of shadow governments. On the other hand, he is a gifted writer whose feature stories and books are distinguished by the “poetry of his prose.”
His Los Angeles Times stories revealing state sanctioned murder and cover-up in California prisons were praised by The Nation magazine as “one of great journalistic achievements of the decade.” Fellow writers at PEN and Sigma Delta Chi have singled out the lyrical quality of his writing in award-winning stories on life and death in California’s heartland. In a review of his most recent book, “West of the West,” the Washington Post called Mark a “great reporter…. tenacious and unrelenting.”
Like the legendary Carey McWilliams, Mark digs deep in the dirt of the Golden State, finding tragedies hidden from most Californians. With equal passion, he chronicles the plight of both farm workers and farmers. His stories on the land are told from the close up of a native whose own family narrative is found in the same soil. His grandfather Aram's first job in America was picking the fruits and vegetables of the San Joaquin Valley; his father, Ara, was born on a raisin farm outside Fresno.
Mark’s first book, “In My Father’s Name,” is a stirring memoir that weaves together the history of his Armenian family and hometown of Fresno with his decades-long search to find the men who murdered his father in 1972. A full-page review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review saw Mark’s journey to wrest the truth from his haunted past as a kind of "Moby Dick" struggle.
His second book, the bestselling “The King of California,” co-authored with Rick Wartzman, tells the epic story of the Boswell farming family and the building of a secret American empire in the middle of California. Named one of the top ten books of the year by the L.A. Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, "The King of California" won a 2004 California Book Award and the 2005 William Saroyan International Writing Prize.
His third book, a 2009 collection of stories called “West of the West: Dreamers, Believers, Builders and Killers in the Golden State,” received critical acclaim in the Atlantic Monthly and Los Angeles Times and a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which compared Mark’s “sure and supple essays” to the great social portraits of Joan Didion and William Saroyan.
"It is Arax's personal connection to the land,” the review noted, “that pushes his collection past mere reportage to a high literary enterprise that beautifully integrates the private and idiosyncratic with the sweep of great historical forces."
A top graduate of Fresno State and Columbia University, Mark left the Los Angeles Times in 2007 after a public fight over censorship of his story on the Armenian Genocide. He has taught literary non fiction at Claremont McKenna College and Fresno State University and served as a senior policy director for the California Senate Majority Leader. The father of three children who lives on a suburban farm in Fresno, Mark still throws a mean batting practice to his Little League players.
His Los Angeles Times stories revealing state sanctioned murder and cover-up in California prisons were praised by The Nation magazine as “one of great journalistic achievements of the decade.” Fellow writers at PEN and Sigma Delta Chi have singled out the lyrical quality of his writing in award-winning stories on life and death in California’s heartland. In a review of his most recent book, “West of the West,” the Washington Post called Mark a “great reporter…. tenacious and unrelenting.”
Like the legendary Carey McWilliams, Mark digs deep in the dirt of the Golden State, finding tragedies hidden from most Californians. With equal passion, he chronicles the plight of both farm workers and farmers. His stories on the land are told from the close up of a native whose own family narrative is found in the same soil. His grandfather Aram's first job in America was picking the fruits and vegetables of the San Joaquin Valley; his father, Ara, was born on a raisin farm outside Fresno.
Mark’s first book, “In My Father’s Name,” is a stirring memoir that weaves together the history of his Armenian family and hometown of Fresno with his decades-long search to find the men who murdered his father in 1972. A full-page review in the New York Times Sunday Book Review saw Mark’s journey to wrest the truth from his haunted past as a kind of "Moby Dick" struggle.
His second book, the bestselling “The King of California,” co-authored with Rick Wartzman, tells the epic story of the Boswell farming family and the building of a secret American empire in the middle of California. Named one of the top ten books of the year by the L.A. Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, "The King of California" won a 2004 California Book Award and the 2005 William Saroyan International Writing Prize.
His third book, a 2009 collection of stories called “West of the West: Dreamers, Believers, Builders and Killers in the Golden State,” received critical acclaim in the Atlantic Monthly and Los Angeles Times and a starred review in Publishers Weekly, which compared Mark’s “sure and supple essays” to the great social portraits of Joan Didion and William Saroyan.
"It is Arax's personal connection to the land,” the review noted, “that pushes his collection past mere reportage to a high literary enterprise that beautifully integrates the private and idiosyncratic with the sweep of great historical forces."
A top graduate of Fresno State and Columbia University, Mark left the Los Angeles Times in 2007 after a public fight over censorship of his story on the Armenian Genocide. He has taught literary non fiction at Claremont McKenna College and Fresno State University and served as a senior policy director for the California Senate Majority Leader. The father of three children who lives on a suburban farm in Fresno, Mark still throws a mean batting practice to his Little League players.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
October 4, 2009
I loved this. I have such a love-hate relationship with my home state. There is so much beauty and such spirit and such heart...and such plasticity and ugliness and cruelty...
Some years ago, I read "In My Father's Name," in which Mark explores the murder of his father, a bar owner in that hellhole of Fresno in the early 70s. The final essay in the latest book is the epilogue to that story, and is fascinating to watch him continue the quest yet remain a reporter...and the story of the migrant family in the Valley - should be required reading for every Californian...but maybe the one that entertained me the most is the chapter on the Marijuana Culture in Humboldt/Mendocino...it totally captures the good that has come from the economic boom the north coast growers have enjoyed for a couple of decades...and made me wonder, if legalization happens as some predict it will in the next few years, what will it do to the boom? Maybe the 2 essays will come together - there will be agribusiness dope farms in the Valley, changing the lives of the farmworkers, and the culture of Southern Humboldt will change back to more what it was in the 70s when I lived there.
In any case, the title of this one comes from Teddy Roosevelt's quite "When I am in California, I am not in the West, I am west of the West."
It's really well-written, thought-provoking, and entertaining. Loved it!
Some years ago, I read "In My Father's Name," in which Mark explores the murder of his father, a bar owner in that hellhole of Fresno in the early 70s. The final essay in the latest book is the epilogue to that story, and is fascinating to watch him continue the quest yet remain a reporter...and the story of the migrant family in the Valley - should be required reading for every Californian...but maybe the one that entertained me the most is the chapter on the Marijuana Culture in Humboldt/Mendocino...it totally captures the good that has come from the economic boom the north coast growers have enjoyed for a couple of decades...and made me wonder, if legalization happens as some predict it will in the next few years, what will it do to the boom? Maybe the 2 essays will come together - there will be agribusiness dope farms in the Valley, changing the lives of the farmworkers, and the culture of Southern Humboldt will change back to more what it was in the 70s when I lived there.
In any case, the title of this one comes from Teddy Roosevelt's quite "When I am in California, I am not in the West, I am west of the West."
It's really well-written, thought-provoking, and entertaining. Loved it!
June 12, 2024
I'm a native Californian, I love California, and Mark Arax writes about the parts of California that I love most. The parts that I love most now, that is -- the parts that I couldn't stand when I was growing up, the parts that aren't San Diego and San Francisco and LA, but the parts in between. The "crappy" (naw, just crappy, it doesn't need quotes) small agricultural towns up and down the I-5/Highway 99 corridor and the other lost little towns sprinkled between the famous parts of California. I love all of them and the stories of the people who make lives there, and that was really what this book was all about. I feel like I've just taken a nice long vacation in California without ever having to leave Florida.
May 2, 2009
This is a wonderful book that is part journalism, part essay, part memoir. Arax travels to different parts and cultures of California and explores the dark side of the Golden State. While not exactly a cheerful or optimistic portrayal of California, it is a fascinating one. I especially enjoyed his portrait of a migrant farmworker family, the marijuana industry of northern California, and the emotional price he has paid for his father's long-unsolved murder.
May 18, 2020
Mark Arax has a unique skill of capturing the spirit of California in a way that stands up to the books of Joan Didion and John Steinbeck. Im actually pretty surprised his books don’t get more attention. As a native Californian, I found this book extremely compelling and descriptive enough to get me lost in the stories he told in each chapter of Californians across the state. This is the REAL California that, despite most of the worlds popular media coming from here, is rarely accurately captured. Some of the chapters stuck with me - like the stories of Mexican migrant workers - and others didn’t really do it for me and seemed to stand out for not fitting with the overall theme of the book, like the raw milk farmer story. Regardless, it’s up there as one of the better books I’ve read this year.
November 22, 2020
Growing up around several of the places Arax writes about was one of the fun aspects of the book for me. I enjoyed the stories but my favorite part was the epilogue. I just couldn’t put the book down there at the end, and I haven’t even read “In My Father’s Name!” I thought it was a great book overall, but I don’t think people from outside California (or maybe even Fresno) would enjoy it as much, especially when he starts naming streets or places in Fresno that definitely conjure specific images/feelings for Fresnans but would otherwise need more context for the uninitiated. Now I’m ready to read “A Dreamt Land.”
November 25, 2015
Great read for any native Californian; this book is really a series of stories about different aspects of California life and history. The chapter about the life of a farm worker and his family in Fresno was heartbreaking. I could have done without the epilogue about the murder of the author's father, since had already written an entire book on the subject.
March 16, 2019
I think I would have appreciated this book more had I read it when it was first published. There’s something in the tone of several essays that just hits wrong in 2019, with the benefit of 10 years of hindsight.
December 27, 2022
Despite my relatively low rating I did like this book.
The stories felt genuine and there were some that were even heartbreaking, ofc. there were some bad eggs in there but good overall. Most of them had interesting things to say, but I also can't give it a higher score as, while there is a theme going on with all the stories, they do suffer from the journalistic approach the author took and shameless politics insertion, which I couldn't stand.
I guess this book will hit harder for someone who lives in California or is familiar with the place, but it was still enjoyable even for an outsider.
The stories felt genuine and there were some that were even heartbreaking, ofc. there were some bad eggs in there but good overall. Most of them had interesting things to say, but I also can't give it a higher score as, while there is a theme going on with all the stories, they do suffer from the journalistic approach the author took and shameless politics insertion, which I couldn't stand.
I guess this book will hit harder for someone who lives in California or is familiar with the place, but it was still enjoyable even for an outsider.
November 1, 2023
A thoroughly fascinating historical look into pockets of California from an investigative journalism perspective.
As a native San Diegan, I feel I lived in a SoCal bubble, in ignorance about the rest of the state’s issues, composition, and complexities.
So delving into Humboldt County, and central valley were particularly interesting. And now, as a Central Valley, resident myself, albeit a somewhat new one, I loved learning about the history that put my new surroundings into a different context.
This is a great read for those who like California history or United States history, or non-fiction with investigative reporting.
As a native San Diegan, I feel I lived in a SoCal bubble, in ignorance about the rest of the state’s issues, composition, and complexities.
So delving into Humboldt County, and central valley were particularly interesting. And now, as a Central Valley, resident myself, albeit a somewhat new one, I loved learning about the history that put my new surroundings into a different context.
This is a great read for those who like California history or United States history, or non-fiction with investigative reporting.
January 2, 2026
Two quotes that really struck me and stayed with me:
“No other region produces more milk and more meth than our valley“
“…when it comes to the question of the illegals. We tremble at what they are costing us, but when it is time to trim the backyard tree or mend the backyard fence we go searching for the nearest Mexican. We can afford that iPod and new computer for the kids because we are paying $7 an hour to a Guatemalan nanny who knows more about their needs than we do. We are more than happy to buy a bag of plums for the same $5 we paid in the 1990s but give no thought to how that trickles down to the farmer and his field hand. And this contradiction extends to the farmer himself, who votes for the politician who wants to bar the Mexicans and then complains that his fruit is rotting on the vine because of a shortage of Mexicans.”
“No other region produces more milk and more meth than our valley“
“…when it comes to the question of the illegals. We tremble at what they are costing us, but when it is time to trim the backyard tree or mend the backyard fence we go searching for the nearest Mexican. We can afford that iPod and new computer for the kids because we are paying $7 an hour to a Guatemalan nanny who knows more about their needs than we do. We are more than happy to buy a bag of plums for the same $5 we paid in the 1990s but give no thought to how that trickles down to the farmer and his field hand. And this contradiction extends to the farmer himself, who votes for the politician who wants to bar the Mexicans and then complains that his fruit is rotting on the vine because of a shortage of Mexicans.”
October 19, 2020
Great series of essays from this Central Valley journalist — I fully appreciate the corners of California life he chooses to probe (as one with plenty of connection to the Central Valley myself). All his introductory notes that this book isn’t really essays and only intermittently features the word “I” are waaaaaaay off base; the author plays a central role throughout, and the effect is a memoir in vignettes. Fortunately, the vignettes are pretty substantively interesting!
September 6, 2021
Probably better than 3 stars. It is a collection of stories about the author and California. Told by a LA Times journalist and author who teaches writing at the college level. The book starts by looking at immigration, farm workers, and meanders through various subjects until the shooting of the authors father several decades ago. Well told. All but one segment held my interest.
June 2, 2023
(found on new arrivals shelf at Western Addition SFPL)
Partway through this, and loving it. New Yorker-style pieces about California, by a central valley journalist who writes really well. If you're a transplant to CA, give this a look. Along with Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, and Cadillac Desert, among the best books I've found about my adopted state.
Partway through this, and loving it. New Yorker-style pieces about California, by a central valley journalist who writes really well. If you're a transplant to CA, give this a look. Along with Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies, and Cadillac Desert, among the best books I've found about my adopted state.
July 27, 2019
I like some chapters more than others, but overall a great read. He writes best when he’s writing about the Central Valley, his family, and Armenian families in America. I’m excited to read his next book!
May 7, 2020
An interesting collection of stories written by talented writer
I live in the San Joaquin Valley so I find Mark's stories about California very interesting. I enjoyed reading the book and found the topics very interesting. The story about the migrant farmworkers is excellent.
I live in the San Joaquin Valley so I find Mark's stories about California very interesting. I enjoyed reading the book and found the topics very interesting. The story about the migrant farmworkers is excellent.
December 28, 2021
A wonderful deep dive into the hidden worlds of California life. Thank you for sharing your personal background/story. This tied the world of California life together nicely.
July 2, 2025
Great collection of narratives about the state of California.
February 7, 2026
I found this book a bit dated. Each chapter is a story from various corners of California. I really enjoyed Dreamt Land and would reccomend it over this book.
June 25, 2019
Great writing, interesting stories - some more so than others. A fascinating take on what makes up California.
December 2, 2020
Most of the stories very interesting. What I didn't like was his left wing bias, All Democrats are good, all Republicans are bad. The left wing bias of most newspapers is one reason people quit subscribing.
January 24, 2022
A superb collection of essays. I am thoroughly enjoying reading this book. Funny, sad, thought -provoking, more than a history book or a cultural exploration, it is sort of a non-fiction Steinbeckish reading experience. It would make a great Book in Common for California universities and casual book clubs.
December 12, 2025
No one writes about the Valley better, or at all... I love everything Marc Arax does.
June 2, 2011
There's the California of image, the California that is sold and marketed across the U.S. and internationally, and it's the same California one usually sees while on vacation: Malibu, surfers, cable cars, maybe Yosemite and Napa Valley vineyards. Then there is the California you get to know after you live in it, because it takes a few years to find it. That's the California this book is about.
I don't think it's too generous to say that Arax is a modern-day, nonfiction Steinbeck. As a California resident, I can vouch that Arax's portrait is fair and hits all the points of life one doesn't see in "vacation California:" the battles between the old hippie marijuana growers vs. the young, polluting indoor growers (who worked hard to ensure marijuana wouldn't be legalized this past election); the corrupt real estate developers and city employees who ensure the destruction of the most valuable farm land in the entire U.S.; the Mexican migrant slaves who are, for some reason I cannot understand, less sympathetic in their present than Steinbeck's Okies are in the past to too many observers, most of whom don't live here and see farm slave labor in action; and the paranoid Baby Boomers who think every neighbor is an FBI agent and believe in "chem trails" created by the government to change the atmosphere to make it more friendly to mind-control waves.
(Regarding this last group, I was astounded by just how many I encountered so soon after moving here. They're everywhere, and you can't meet so many of them and not wonder "What on earth happened to these people?!" They are people I thought only existed as characters in Pynchon novels.)
This is the book to read if you want to learn something about many of the "real Californias."
I don't think it's too generous to say that Arax is a modern-day, nonfiction Steinbeck. As a California resident, I can vouch that Arax's portrait is fair and hits all the points of life one doesn't see in "vacation California:" the battles between the old hippie marijuana growers vs. the young, polluting indoor growers (who worked hard to ensure marijuana wouldn't be legalized this past election); the corrupt real estate developers and city employees who ensure the destruction of the most valuable farm land in the entire U.S.; the Mexican migrant slaves who are, for some reason I cannot understand, less sympathetic in their present than Steinbeck's Okies are in the past to too many observers, most of whom don't live here and see farm slave labor in action; and the paranoid Baby Boomers who think every neighbor is an FBI agent and believe in "chem trails" created by the government to change the atmosphere to make it more friendly to mind-control waves.
(Regarding this last group, I was astounded by just how many I encountered so soon after moving here. They're everywhere, and you can't meet so many of them and not wonder "What on earth happened to these people?!" They are people I thought only existed as characters in Pynchon novels.)
This is the book to read if you want to learn something about many of the "real Californias."
July 12, 2011
One of the fringe benefits of having a son who is a bookseller and avid reader is that now and then he hooks me up with a gem I may not have found by myself... at least not right away. Mark Arax was a reporter for the Los Angeles Times; his Armenian family settled in the Fresno area after the first World War and he grew up in the central valley of the state. California is, to use a cliché, in his blood. His journalistic journeys have taken him all over California to observe people and events-- and the intriguing relationships among them-- with a decidedly different point of view. This book mostly consists of reworkings of essays he has had published in various venues, including a fascinating (and amusing) look at the marijuana culture of Humboldt County, the story of a tragic murder in a Glendale family who had built a small fast-food empire, a revisit to the unique activism that still fights to exist in San Francisco and Berkeley, and an overview of the real-estate-driven culture of the central Valley cities. Throughout his writings are sprinkled wry observations of the state of our society, people and institutions today, especially journalism. The writing, the insight, and the clarity-- as well as the centered humor and the refusal to fall into journalistic self-importance-- are all there. For me, reading this book was a sheer pleasure. Unfortunately Arax, and way too many other fine journalists and writers like him, are no longer associated with the Times, once a terrific newspaper and now a sad shallow shadow of itself. My city is much the poorer for this.
January 5, 2010
Really great. California is more glue, more connective tissue, than it is subject matter here, in that many of the essays concern inter/national politics and things like moonshining and the author's father's murder -- things beyond California. That said, everything is always tied in and/or brought back to the golden state, and as a collection these pieces work really well together. Even though the book is less about California than it is simply set (t)here, I did learn a lot about the state, particularly in the realm of agriculture. A good deal of the landscape is covered, mostly that between LA and SF, but Arax seems most comfortable in his home region -- the central valley -- and most of the book seemed to focus on this region. (Hence all the ag talk, and, NB, not to the book's detriment.)
What's really impressive is how Arax manages to write with as much pathos and suspense and character development as any good fiction writer would, even though the book is non-fiction. The writing is definitely very polished and informative, though we've all trudged through well-written and informative non-fiction that's bored the tears out of us. Not here. West of the West is certainly a pleasurable (if, at times, depressing) read.
What's really impressive is how Arax manages to write with as much pathos and suspense and character development as any good fiction writer would, even though the book is non-fiction. The writing is definitely very polished and informative, though we've all trudged through well-written and informative non-fiction that's bored the tears out of us. Not here. West of the West is certainly a pleasurable (if, at times, depressing) read.
November 18, 2010
Arax really feels for the Central Valley and that shines through in this book. The chapters on the Central Valley are great- really moving. They mostly focus on the change of farm land into either exploitation of migrant farm workers (though Arax never actually says this but dances around the issue) or into suburban wasteland from the traditional family farm that used to provide a decent income. I really liked his chapter on Humboldt county as well. However, I thought his chapter on the Bay Area was just filler- he could have focused on how much San Francisco and the peninsula has changed thanks to the tech boom and the money generated but he focuses on conspiracy theory obsessives instead. All in all, a great book on a diverse state like California written by a native. Slow in some parts, but still really good.
May 14, 2011
One of the best examinations of California's current state I have read - and I read copy from California newspapers as part of my job. Arax, a former L.A. Times reporter, does a great job here avoiding the cultural touchstones of the state - L.A. and the Bay Area - and spending a lot of time in what I would call Steinbeck Country, the dusty towns off the beaten path that help define the state but are generally ignored by us city dwellers. Chapters about the battles between old-school and new-school weed growers in Northern Cali and a young SoCal Vietnamese-American whom Arax befriended as a child before he grew up to a rough life, are especially well-written and memorable. Excellent book and an easy read.
June 18, 2012
I picked up this book thinking that it would be a glorification of California, something to match my enthusiasm for my adopted state (5 years and counting). Instead I found all of our sins laid out bare on the page. All the ugliness, all the disillusion, all the mean and hard and crazy. Looking now at all the quotes on the covers of the book, I have no idea where I got this notion of glorification. Probably I looked no further than that fantastic Teddy Roosevelt quote and plunked down my cash.
What I got from this book was the opposite of what I expected, and I loved every page of it. It was real, and it was riveting. Now I just have to find out who this Saroyan person is that the author keeps name-dropping.
What I got from this book was the opposite of what I expected, and I loved every page of it. It was real, and it was riveting. Now I just have to find out who this Saroyan person is that the author keeps name-dropping.
August 24, 2015
I first got exposed to Arax in an Op-Ed he did for the Sacramento Bee regarding Armenians in Fresno who are farmers.
I'm about half-way through the book and I have to admit, this book really confirms my suspicions/intuition regarding California and the almost mythical status it has.
Farming in the Central Valley and it's ugly side.
Immigration from Southeast Asia.
DEVELOPERS...yes, it's in caps.
I kind of have a love/hate relationship with the Golden State, but having been raised in Rancho Cordova (Sacramento), you see first hand politics (and it's seedy side), and development of your open fields where you used to ride your bike and play around as a child.
I'll finish the book in a couple of weeks and finish up the review, but it's excellent so far.
I'm about half-way through the book and I have to admit, this book really confirms my suspicions/intuition regarding California and the almost mythical status it has.
Farming in the Central Valley and it's ugly side.
Immigration from Southeast Asia.
DEVELOPERS...yes, it's in caps.
I kind of have a love/hate relationship with the Golden State, but having been raised in Rancho Cordova (Sacramento), you see first hand politics (and it's seedy side), and development of your open fields where you used to ride your bike and play around as a child.
I'll finish the book in a couple of weeks and finish up the review, but it's excellent so far.
October 26, 2009
Some of the chapters in this book didn't work for me - the section on radicalism in San Francisco and Berkeley seemed particularly misguided. But when it's good, it's great. Arax blew me away with some parts, especially the chapters on migrant farm workers in the San Joaquin Valley and marijuana growers in Humboldt. Of course, there are plenty of other subjects in California I would have liked to see him cover, but this book was never intended to be thorough like that. It's more emotional than factual. Highly recommended.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews