THE LIBRARY
Part of the fun after a trip or after visiting a site is the continued discovery. Most sites have a visitor center staffed with incredibly knowledgeable Staff and Park Rangers, Docents and Volunteers. I highly recommend visiting and engaging with these resources at the time of visit to help further guide your curiosity.
The internet is a wonderful resource to help cross check and verify information. However, without context and understanding what you are looking for, what to search for, the internet could lead you down the proverbial “rabbit hole.”
Below is a list/summary of books that I picked up at those visitor centers. Enjoy the insight and perspectives provided by these authors.
CALIFORNIA
- Adobe Days: Being the Truthful Narrative of the Events in the Life of a California Girl on a Sheep Ranch and in El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles While it was Yet a Small and Humble Town by Sarah Bixby Smith
- Bandido: The Life and Times of Tiburcio Vasquez by John Boessenecker
- Beyond Chinatown: The Metropolitan Water District, Growth, and the Environment in Southern California by Steven P. Erie, Harold David Brackman
- Bob Eichbaum’s Resort and his Toll Road to Death Valley by Mary DeDecker
- California: A History by Kevin Starr
- Catalina Island by Jeannine L. Pedersen, Catalina Island Museum
- Chronicles of Old Los Angeles: Exploring the Devilish History of the City of the Angels by James Roman
- City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (New Edition) by Mike Davis
- Diary of a Sea Captain’s Wife: Tales of Santa Cruz Island by Margaret Holden Eaton, Vera E Amey
- El Molino Viejo by Robert Glass Cleland
- History of the Sierra Nevada by Francis P. Farquhar
- Ishi in Two Worlds: A Biography of the Last Wild Indian in North America by Theodora Kroeber, Karl Kroeber
- Island of the Cowboys (Santa Rosa Island) by Kerry Blankenship Allen
- L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America’s Most Seductive City by John Buntin
- Land in California: The Story of Mission Lands, Ranchos, Squatters, Mining Claims, Railroad Grants, Land Scrip, Homesteads by William Wilcox Robinson
- Lands of Promise and Despair: Chronicles of Early California, 1535–1846 by Rose Marie Beebe, Robert M Senkewicz
- Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies by Reyner Banham
- Los Angeles in Civil War Days, 1860-1865 by John W. Robinson
- Lost and Found: Historic and Natural Landmarks of the San Gabriel Valley by Elizabeth Pomeroy
- Our Hills and Valleys: A History of the Helix-Spring Valley Region by Thomas Joseph Adema
- Rancho Guajome: An Architectural Legacy Preserved by Iris H. W. Engstrand, Mary F. Ward
- Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson
- San Miguel Island: My Childhood Memoir, 1930-1942 by Betsy Lester Robert
- Rancho Los Cerritos: A Southern California Legacy Preserved by Iris H. W. Engstrand
- Southern California: An Island on the Land by Carey McWilliams
- The Story of Bodie by Ella M. Cain
- The Associates: Four Capitalists Who Created California (Enterprise) by Richard Rayner
- The History of La Canada Flintridge by Don Mazen
- Two Years Before the Mast: A Personal Narrative by Richard Henry Dana
- The Anza Trail and the Settling of California by Vladimir Guerrero
- Water to the Angels: William Mulholland, His Monumental Aqueduct, and the Rise of Los Angeles by Lee Standiford
CALIFORNIA GEOLOGY AND NATURAL HISTORY
- Assembling California by John McPhee
- Sierra East: Edge of the Great Basin by Genny Smith
- The Yosemite by John Muir
BIOGRAPHIES AND AUTO-BIOGRAPHIES
- Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow
- Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned by John A. Farrell
- Frank Lloyd Wright by Meryle Secrest
- Grant by Ron Chernow
- Juan Bautista de Anza: The King’s Governor in New Mexico by Carlos R. Herrera
- Julia Morgan, Architect, and the Creation of the Asilomar Conference Grounds: Including a Comparison with Hearst Castle by Russell L. Quacchia
- My Life East and West by William Hart
- Pio Pico: The Last Governor of Mexican California by Carlos Manuel Salomon
- Putting California on the Map, Von Schmidt’s Lines by David Carles
- The Big Bankroll: The Life and Times of Arnold Rothstein by Leo Katcher
- The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst by David Nasaw
- Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution by Frank McLynn
- Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age by W. Bernard Carlson
- The Inventions, Researches and Writings of Nikola Tesla: With Special Reference to His Work in Polyphase
- Currents and High Potential Lighting by Thomas Commerford Martin
UNITED STATES HISTORY
- Creating the National Park Service (The Missing Years)
- De León, a Tejano Family History by Ana Carolina Castillo Crimm
- Lions of the West: Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion by Robert Morgan
- Sons of the Profits by William Speidel
- Texas: A Compact History by Archie P. McDonald
- The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
- The Journals of Lewis and Clark. Edited by Bernard DeVoto. Maps by Erwin Raisz. [Abridged.] by Meriwether
- Lewis, William Clark, Bernard De Voto
- The Third Coast: When Chicago Built the American Dream by Thomas L. Dyja
- Three Roads to the Alamo: The Lives and Fortunes of David Crockett, James Bowie, and William Barret Travis by William C. Davis
- Yuma Crossing by Douglas DeVeny Martin
GENERAL HISTORY
- 1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies
- Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing
- Longitude by Dava Sobel
- The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books
HISTORY AND SOCIOLOGY
- A Route 66 Companion by David King Dunaway
- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed: Revised Edition by Jared Diamond
- Cod: A Biography Of The Fish That Changed The World by Mark Kurlansky
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
- Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky
- The Citizen’s Constitution: An Annotated Guide by Seth Lipsky
- That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back by Thomas L. Friedman, Michael Mandelbaum