The Heart of California

The Heart of California PDF Author: Aaron Gilbreath
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 149622308X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
2022 Oregon Book Award Finalist A vivid journey through California's vast rural interior, The Heart of California weaves the story of historian Frank Latta's forgotten 1938 boat trip from Bakersfield to San Francisco with Aaron Gilbreath's trip retracing Latta's route by car during the 2014 drought. Latta embarked on his journey to publicize the need for dams and levees to improve flood control. Gilbreath made his own trip to profile Latta and the productive agricultural world that damming has created in the San Joaquin Valley, to describe the region's nearly lost indigenous culture and ecosystems, and to bring this complex yet largely ignored landscape to life. The Valley is home to some of California's fastest growing cities and, by some estimates, produces 25 percent of America's food. The Valley feeds too many people, and is too unique, to be ignored. To understand California, you have to understand the Valley. Mixing travel writing, historical recreations, western history, natural history, and first-person reportage, The Heart of California is a road-trip narrative about this fascinating region and its most important early documentarian.

The Heart of California

The Heart of California PDF Author: Aaron Gilbreath
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 149622308X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

Get Book Here

Book Description
2022 Oregon Book Award Finalist A vivid journey through California's vast rural interior, The Heart of California weaves the story of historian Frank Latta's forgotten 1938 boat trip from Bakersfield to San Francisco with Aaron Gilbreath's trip retracing Latta's route by car during the 2014 drought. Latta embarked on his journey to publicize the need for dams and levees to improve flood control. Gilbreath made his own trip to profile Latta and the productive agricultural world that damming has created in the San Joaquin Valley, to describe the region's nearly lost indigenous culture and ecosystems, and to bring this complex yet largely ignored landscape to life. The Valley is home to some of California's fastest growing cities and, by some estimates, produces 25 percent of America's food. The Valley feeds too many people, and is too unique, to be ignored. To understand California, you have to understand the Valley. Mixing travel writing, historical recreations, western history, natural history, and first-person reportage, The Heart of California is a road-trip narrative about this fascinating region and its most important early documentarian.

From the San Joaquin

From the San Joaquin PDF Author: Barry Kitterman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780870745690
Category : San Joaquin Valley (Calif.)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
"In this collection of linked stories, Barry Kitterman brings the dusty, fertile San Joaquin Valley vividly to life--a land of orange groves and religious revivals, where the mountains rise high on either side, marking the limits of the characters' lives. Kitterman writes with a plainspoken grace, showing men and women who face poverty, disappointment, and loneliness with a quiet daily courage and goodwill."--Heidi Jon Schmidt, author of The House on Oyster Creek "Barry Kitterman has outwritten Sherwood Anderson, leaped past Winesburg to baking, shrouded, razory Ivanhoe, in California's lower central valley. Its people--sad, sweet, grotesque, flint-eyed--yearn and misstep with desperate dignity. Kitterman's sentences are stunning as the silence that follows a scream."--Bryan Di Salvatore, author of A Clever Base-Ballist "Dust and fog, Manzanita, redwoods and rabbit farms, the snow-capped peaks of the Sierra, which are occasionally visible on those rare days when the air isn't too filthy--these are palpable presences in Kitterman's stories. The San Joaquin Valley, especially the town of Ivanhoe, is rendered with the kind of attention that only comes from love. Nobody who knows the Valley will ever question the author's sense of place. Those who don't know the Valley will feel like they do after reading this book. These are sturdy, no-nonsense, character-driven stories that make turning the pages a necessity as well as a pleasure. Kitterman's book is superb."--Steve Yarbrough, author of Safe from the Neighbors

Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes

Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes PDF Author: H. Scott Butterfield
Publisher: Island Press
ISBN: 1642831263
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
As the world population grows, so does the demand for food, putting unprecedented pressure on agricultural lands. In many desert dryland regions, however, intensive cultivation is causing their productivity to decline precipitously. "Rewilding" the least productive of these landscapes offers a sensible way to reverse the damage, recover natural diversity, and ensure long-term sustainability of remaining farms and the communities they support. This accessibly written, groundbreaking contributed volume is the first to examine in detail what it would take to retire eligible farmland and restore functioning natural ecosystems. The lessons in Rewilding Agricultural Landscapes will be useful to conservation leaders, policymakers, groundwater agencies, and water managers looking for inspiration and practical advice for solving the complicated issues of agricultural sustainability and water management.

The Elements of San Joaquin

The Elements of San Joaquin PDF Author: Gary Soto
Publisher: Chronicle Books
ISBN: 1452171955
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description
A timely new edition of a pioneering work in Latino literature, National Book Award nominee Gary Soto's first collection (originally published in 1977) draws on California's fertile San Joaquin Valley, the people, the place, and the hard agricultural work done there by immigrants. In these poems, joy and anger, violence and hope are placed in both the metaphorical and very real circumstances of the Valley. Rooted in personal experiences—of the poet as a young man, his friends, family, and neighbors—the poems are spare but expansive, with Soto's voice as important as ever. This welcome new edition has been expanded with a crucial selection of complementary poems (some previously unpublished) and a new introduction by the author.

Garden of the Sun

Garden of the Sun PDF Author: Wallace Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : California
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description


The Boys of San Joaquin

The Boys of San Joaquin PDF Author: D. James Smith
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
ISBN: 9781416916192
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Paolo calls Rufus "a Mack truck with no one driving." Rufus is the O'Neil family dog, and he shows up one morning with part of a twenty-dollar bill in his teeth. Twelve-year-old Paolo figures that there must be more where that bill came from, and since his cousin Billy needs to repair a bent wheel on his bike, there's a reason for looking. Soon Paolo, his brother Georgie, and Billy end up in the monsignor's garden behind the Cathedral of San Joaquin, but it's not exactly treasure they find, it's a hand that shoots out of the undergrowth to grab Paolo's neck. The search for the stash leads the boys -- sometimes scared spitless -- on many a byway around Orange Grove City, California, in the summer of 1951. And onto the byway of conscience.

The Festival of San Joaquin

The Festival of San Joaquin PDF Author: Zee Edgell
Publisher: Macmillian Caribbean Publishing
ISBN: 9780230029910
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
This novel, set among the mestizo Spanish communities of rural Belize, gives a sympathetic and moving portrait of peasant life.

The Naturalist's Illustrated Guide to the Sierra Foothills and Central Valley

The Naturalist's Illustrated Guide to the Sierra Foothills and Central Valley PDF Author: Derek Madden
Publisher: Heyday.ORIM
ISBN: 1597144975
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
This guide to the wildlife and vegetation of California’s Central Valley and Foothills Regions features more than seven hundred detailed line drawings. California’s San Joaquin and Sacramento Valleys and the nearby Sierra Nevada Foothills are host to abundant, varied, and often surprising plants and wildlife. This fully illustrated guide pairs over seven hundred meticulous line drawings with descriptions of the birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, invertebrates, plants, and fungi that make this diverse and beautiful region their home. Like a ranger-led nature walk, each species receives a lively overview; readers will learn about freshwater jellyfish, mushrooms that decompose railroad ties, handstanding spotted skunks, salt-shedding pickleweed—not to mention insects. Every write-up not only contains fun facts but also conveys a sense of the complex connections and interactions that sustain life in a unique place. Previously published as Magpies and Mayflies (Heyday, 2005), The Naturalist’s Illustrated Guide to the Sierra Foothills and Central Valley features updated scientific and common names, and a full redesign.

Comparing Futures for the Sacramento, San Joaquin Delta

Comparing Futures for the Sacramento, San Joaquin Delta PDF Author: Jay Lund
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520945379
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
An ecosystem in freefall, a shrinking water supply for cities and agriculture, an antiquated network of failure-prone levees—this is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the major hub of California's water system. Written by a team of independent water experts, this analysis of the latest data evaluates proposed solutions to the Delta's myriad problems. Through in-depth economic and ecological analysis, the authors find that the current policy of channeling water exports through the Delta is not sustainable for any interest. Employing a peripheral canal-conveying water around the Delta instead of through it—as part of a larger habitat and water management plan appears to be the best strategy to maintain both a high-quality water supply and at the same time improve conditions for native fish and wildlife. This important assessment includes integrated analysis of long term ecosystem and water management options and demonstrates how issues such as climate change and sustainability will shape the future. Published in cooperation with the Public Policy Institute of California

The Southern San Joaquin Valley

The Southern San Joaquin Valley PDF Author: John F. Bergman
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780615251059
Category : Railroads
Languages : en
Pages : 216

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Book Description