For the first time the true story of the early struggles to start the cemetery that became the famous Forest Lawn Memorial-Park are told by former Forest Lawn CEO John F. Llewellyn, the third and last generation to manage this uniquely Southern California institution.

SAVE ME A PLACE AT FOREST LAWN is a small but perceptive slice of the lives of two old women, Clara and Gertrude, as they lunch at a cafeteria and face the uncertain interval of life still remaining. Tired, lonely, and weary of it all, they meet daily to discuss their grandchildren, to recall their early life, and to contemplate death, which lurks outside the cafeteria. Yet theirs is a resignation touched with wisdom and humor. When one of the ladies reveals that she had an affair with the other's husband many years before, her friend concedes very casually that she had known about it all along. At the time she had concluded that no great harm would come of it and, besides, it seemed better to protect the friendship which might, in later years, relieve their final, mutual loneliness. -- Dramatists Play Service.

The Last Great Necessity is a quite wonderful, and often surprising, portrait of American popular culture in action. As David Charles Sloane traces the history of modern cemeteries he meets all the ambivalences and coping strategies Americans have used when they have been forced by nature to confront the meanings of their lives. - From Sam Bass Warner, Jr., Boston University.

10,000 Steps a Day in L.A.: 52 Walking Adventures is for urban adventurers with a passion for healthy living who are also hungry to explore L.A.’s hidden, unsung, and sometimes quirky side. This unique guidebook provides everything readers need to venture out and tackle the city’s 500 square miles. The book is based on a concept that first took hold in Japan—that if people walked 10,000 steps each day, they would burn 20 percent of their caloric intake through that activity alone. Now an ingrained part of the American lifestyle, the 10,000 steps phenomenon is taking the country by storm; it is now a recognized daily goal by a number of major insurance companies like Kaiser Permanente and health institutes such as the World Health Organization, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, the U.S. Surgeon General, and the American Heart Foundation. In this first-ever book to explore the 10,000 steps concept in the City of Angels, these walks take readers through the terrain that makes Los Angeles the envy of many a metropolis—beaches, mountains, rivers, and reservoirs, not to mention the nation’s largest urban park, Griffith Park—all while immersing them in the city’s history and lore, offbeat locales, and popular landmarks. 10,000 Steps a Day in L.A. promises three things: 10,000 steps in each walk, a blueprint for doing it each weekend of the year (52 walks equals a year’s worth of weekends), and a sense of fun and discovery about L.A. that will only make the 10,000 steps goal that much easier to attain. Readers need bring only their feet—pedometers optional.