Craven Street Books imprint: 15 books
Highway 99
The History of California's Main Street
Language: English
Release Date: September 15, 2017
Before it was a modern freeway, California’s State Highway 99 was “the main street of California,” a simple two-lane road that passed through the downtowns of every city between the Mexican border and the Oregon state line. Highway 99: The History of California’s Main Street turns back the...
When San Francisco Burned
A Photographic Memoir of the Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1927
Language: English
Release Date: March 1, 2016
Early one spring morning, disaster struck San Francisco, and a young man grabbed his camera and started documenting the destruction and death surrounding him. Fearlessly going to the center of the devastation, the man captured scenes of fires, collapsing buildings, and people fleeing for their lives―scenes...
California Fruits, Flakes & Nuts
True Tales of California Crazies, Crackpots and Creeps
Language: English
Release Date: November 1, 2013
They call California the Granola State — a place where every inhabitant is a fruit, a flake, or a nut. They don’t get any fruitier, flakier, or nuttier than the deviants, crackpots, and losers profiled in “California Fruits, Flakes, and Nuts.” A freewheeling catalog of misfits, eccentrics, creeps,...
Crossing California
A Cultural Topography of a Land of Wonder and Weirdness
Language: English
Release Date: February 1, 2018
Sacramento Bee journalist Sam McManis spent five years on the road trying to find the real California. He discovered that there is more than one California, but every different California is equally weird and wonderful. Worlds collide and commingle: the neo-hippies with the rednecked farmers; the...
Stories of Service, Volume 2
Valley Veterans Remember World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the Cold War
Language: English
Release Date: December 1, 2011
Perfectly blending a vast historical scope with intensely individual viewpoints, this stirring collection of stories brings a man-on-the-ground perspective to a huge range of military history, with stories of a quarter-century of war from nearly every corner of the earth, including Europe; the Pacific;...
Behind San Quentin's Walls
The History of California’s Legendary Prison and Its Inmates, 1851-1900
Language: English
Release Date: March 15, 2015
San Quentin is one of the most famous prisons in American history, featured in countless movies and novels, yet few know its colorful early history. In Behind San Quentin’s Walls, noted Old West historian William B. Secrest reveals the beginning of San Quentin, from its unlikely start as a real...
Folsom's 93
The Lives and Crimes of Folsom Prison's Executed Men
Language: English
Release Date: July 1, 2013
From 1895 to 1937, 93 men were hanged at California's Folsom State Prison, and this book is the first to tell all of their stories, recounting long-forgotten tales of murder and swift justice, or sometimes, swift injustice that hanged an innocent man. Based on a treasury of historical information that...
A Cross of Thorns
The Enslavement of California’s Indians by the Spanish Missions
Language: English
Release Date: February 15, 2015
A Cross of Thorns challenges this mythologized history and presents the facts of the Spanish occupation of California, describing the dark and cruel reality of Mission life. Beginning in 1769, California Indians were enticed into the missions, where they and their descendents were imprisoned for 60...
California's Deadliest Women
Dangerous Dames and Murderous Moms
Language: English
Release Date: September 1, 2016
We like to think of women as nurturers, not murderers, but women do kill. California’s Deadliest Women is the definitive guide to the murderesses of the Golden State, a horrifying compendium of women driven to kill by jealousy, greed, desperation, or their own inner demons. From Brynn Hartman, who...
The Edge
The Pressured Past and Precarious Future of California's Coast
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2017
The Pacific coast is the most iconic region of California and one of the most fascinating and rapidly changing places in the world. Densely populated, urbanized, and industrialized -- but also home to wilderness with complex, fragile ecosystems -- the coast is the place where humanity and nature coexist in a precarious balance that is never perfectly stable.
Walking San Francisco’s 49 Mile Scenic Drive
Explore the Famous Sites, Neighborhoods, and Vistas in 17 Enchanting Walks
Language: English
Release Date: December 5, 2016
Walking San Francisco’s 49 Mile Scenic Drive shows how walking―rather than driving―San Francisco’s famous scenic route gives you an active, fun way to enjoy and fall in love with the most beautiful city in the world. Get to know the City by the Bay as you never have before with this full color...
by Janice Stevens
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2012
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2012
A unique literary and artistic guidebook to one of the world’s most amazing drives—California State Highway 1, a narrow strip of roadway etched between cliffs and the ocean that leads travelers through the state’s beautiful natural attractions. Lavishly illustrated with original watercolors...
by James R. Smith
Language: English
Release Date: July 1, 2005
Language: English
Release Date: July 1, 2005
With long-forgotten stories and evocative photographs, this collection showcases the once-familiar sites that have faded into dim memories and hazy legends. Not just a list of places, facts, and dates, this pictorial history shows why San Francisco has been a legendary travel destination and one of the world's premier places to live and work for more than 150 years.
Choose Your Weapon
The Duel in California, 1847–1861
Language: English
Release Date: October 1, 2016
In Gold Rush–era California, gunfighters weren’t outlaws or desperadoes ― they were were prominent journalists, legislators, governors, and judges. Choose Your Weapon brings to life a now-forgotten time, when California was a raw new state with politics as violent as any banana republic. This...
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