Located at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains near the southern end of the Cajon Pass, Rancho Cucamonga has served as a natural crossroads for those traveling to and from Southern California. In 1776, while freedom was being declared on the east coast of North America, Spanish explorers were meeting native Cucamonga Indians for the first time. From that point on, Spanish missionaries, pioneers, gold miners, immigrants, settlers, and businessmen traveled through Cucamonga on the Mojave Trail, the Old Spanish Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, El Camino Real, and more recently, former U.S. Route 66. While some continued on, others stayed and built farms, vineyards, and more. Italian immigrants, attracted by stories of Cucamonga's ideal soil and climate, planted vast vineyards of Italian grape stock and produced many world-famous wines. Although Cucamonga's heyday of grapes and winemaking spanned a century, little wine is produced today. Now Rancho Cucamonga attracts people as an excellent place to live. Money magazine placed it in the top 100 in its "Best Places to Live" rankings in 2006.

The Cucamonga Valley was once America's largest wine-producing region, crafting quality vintages decades before Napa and Sonoma. Secondo Guasti, an ambitious and enterprising Italian immigrant, established the region's first vineyard in 1901, and others soon followed. Wineries like the Vai Brothers, Padre, Galleano, Brookside and more made the valley the epicenter of a burgeoning industry. Not even Prohibition could halt production. While domestic breweries and distilleries shuttered, Cucamonga's brandy and sherry continued to be legally made for culinary and medicinal purposes. Yet by the late 1970s, harvests had dwindled and vineyards vanished. Urbanization, vine disease and property taxes effectively ended production. Today, local vintners and wine enthusiasts are reviving the region's proud heritage. Authors George M. Walker and John Peragine uncork a legacy too delectable to die.

Noted California historian rips the oh-so-laid-back label off the California wine trade to show the violent and obsessive world underneath

For fans of The Age of Miracles and The Dog Stars, Black Moon is a hallucinatory and stunning debut that Charles Yu calls “Gripping and expertly constructed.” Insomnia has claimed everyone Biggs knows. Even his beloved wife, Carolyn, has succumbed to the telltale red-rimmed eyes, slurred speech and cloudy mind before disappearing into the quickly collapsing world. Yet Biggs can still sleep, and dream, so he sets out to find her. He ventures out into a world ransacked by mass confusion and desperation, where he meets others struggling against the tide of sleeplessness. Chase and his buddy Jordan are devising a scheme to live off their drug-store lootings; Lila is a high school student wandering the streets in an owl mask, no longer safe with her insomniac parents; Felicia abandons the sanctuary of a sleep research center to try to protect her family and perhaps reunite with Chase, an ex-boyfriend. All around, sleep has become an infinitely precious commodity. Money can’t buy it, no drug can touch it, and there are those who would kill to have it. However, Biggs persists in his quest for Carolyn, finding a resolve and inner strength that he never knew he had. Kenneth Calhoun has written a brilliantly realized and utterly riveting depiction of a world gripped by madness, one that is vivid, strange, and profoundly moving.

The great world traveler and writer Trevor Summons has decided to settle down in Southern California and conduct all his subsequent literary expeditions here. Summons is now the region's tour guide of choice. He leads readers not only on visits to the well-known attractions, but also on journeys of discovery to hidden locations that are even more fascinating. This collection of some of his best articles must be considered the new travel bible that belongs in the car, motorcycle, backpack, suitcase and bookshelf of anyone who wishes to explore the Golden State's glittery half. John Weeks, Features Editor L.A.N.G. (Retd!) Trevors Travels (in Southern California) is the result of 15 years of a weekly column published each Sunday in the San Bernardino Sun and other newspapers in the Los Angeles Newspaper Group (L.A.N.G.) Each piece is an account of a location recommended for a day visit. S. California has a great deal to offer both resident and visitor. From museums and art galleries to the many beautiful outdoor locations, the area has it all and you dont have to worry too much about the weather! The 150 places herein range from the eerily named but interesting Museum of Death to the awe-inspiring Getty, and from the Living Desert in Palm Springs to the relaxing beach of Marina Del Rey.

To its first inhabitants, the Tongvan Kucamonga tribe, cucamonga meant "land of many waters," referring to the area's numerous streams flowing down from the southeastern end of the San Gabriel Mountains. By the 1800s, it was a Mexican land grant named Cucamonga Rancho. Murder, drought, and foreclosure led to the subdivision of the rancho's 13,000 acres. Immigrants from around the world arrived in Cucamonga's renowned "wine valley." Italian immigrant Secundo Guasti bought a huge swath of land in southern Cucamonga and planted the world's largest vineyard. Many of Guasti's workers lived north of the winery in an area they named Northtown. Still others planted farms, started businesses, and built schools and churches. The farms are gone, most of the wineries are closed, and parts of the old rancho are now known as Upland and Ontario, but the story of Cucamonga lives on through these and other photographs.