A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil—the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wroughtMark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built...

The "meticulous" (The New Yorker) and "ground-breaking" (The Los Angeles Times) story of a cotton magnate whose voracious appetite for land drove him to create the first big agricultural empire of the Central Valley of California, and shaped the landscape for decades to come.J. G. Boswell was the biggest farmer in America. He built a secret empire while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions, and every journalist who ever tried to ...

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 cliché 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 Dea...

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 H...

A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil—the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wroughtMark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • ONE OF BARACK OBAMA’S FAVORITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR • TIME’S TEN BEST NONFICTION BOOKS OF THE DECADE • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES’S FIVE BEST BOOKS OF THE 21ST CENTURY • A KIRKUS REVIEWS BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE CENTURY • LOS ANGELES TIMES’S #1 NONFICTION BOOK OF THE LAST 30 YEARS • AN OPRAH DAILY BEST NONFICTION BOOK OF THE PAST TWO DECADES

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in HistoryFinalist for the National Book Award in NonfictionFinalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award“Grandin tells a gripping story of high hopes and deep failure, a saga that in some ways is a morality tale for the American century.” —The Boston GlobeFrom Pulitzer Prize-winning author Greg Grandin comes the stunning,...

From the hit podcast and radio show, a collection of soul-bearing stories from The Moth's archives.A wedding toast hone horribly awry. A rapper's obsession with a Sarah McLachlan song. A death-defying stunt in a bullring. The fight to save Mother Teresa's life. These are the spellbinding tales from The Moth's storytellers.Inspired by friends telling stories on a porch, The Moth was born in small-town Georgia, garnered a cult following in New York City, and th...

Take a seat and settle in—it's a gigantic treasury of trivia and humor for our twenty-fifth (is that porcelain?) anniversary!IBPA Benjamin Franklin Award Gold Winner in HumorForeWord Reviews Book of the Year Awards, Honorable Mention in Humor"Fully Loaded" is putting it mildly. This behemoth of a book is overflowing with incredible stories, surprising facts, weird news, little-known origins, forgotten history, fun wordplay, and ever...

"The most comprehensive and comprehendible history of the West Virginia Coal War I've ever read." —John Sayles, writer and director of MatewanOn September 1, 1912, the largest, most protracted, and deadliest working-class uprising in American history was waged in West Virginia. On one side were powerful corporations whose millions bought armed guards and political influence. On the other side were fifty thousand mine workers, the nation's largest labor uni...

This "riveting" companion to the PBS documentary "clarifies our understanding of the 'worst manmade ecological disaster in American history'" ( Booklist).In this riveting chronicle, Dayton Duncan and Ken Burns capture the profound drama of the American Dust Bowl of the 1930s. Terrifying photographs of mile-high dust storms, along with firsthand accounts by more than two dozen eyewitnesses, bring to life this heart-wrenching catastrophe, when a combination o...

The best of the weirdest news, facts, and fun from all over the world!Where else could you learn about a woman who broke her legs flying a pig, a student who got credit for dressing like a lobster, and a man who patented a method for determining the sex of a spinach plant? Uncle John rules the world of bizarre information and humor, so get ready to be thoroughly entertained. Read all about . . .·The world's longest ear hair·A girl raised by dogs