You might have passed through there, maybe. Out for a drive with time on your hands you might have noticed the abandoned homestead shacks crumbling along a grid of dirt tracks scraped into this corner of the Mojave Desert. Wonder Valley. It's a place peopled by a menagerie of misfits and miscreants, artists and retirees, methheads and the otherwise marginalized. They live in the derelict cabins, fixing them up, some, or just making do in others. Author William Hillyard came to Wonder Valley to investigate the death of an old woman who had succumbed, alone, to the dry desert heat. From his first encounter, however, Wonder Valley had a hold on him. He found it haunting and otherworldly, almost unbelievable in its strangeness. It was like a lost island, a desert Galapagos in a sea of sand. In its isolation a people had evolved, a breed apart from mainstream society, many of them living on this edge, the edge of an abyss, an abyss Hillyard felt he needed to peer down into. Hillyard appointed himself Wonder Valley's Darwin. He spent years in Wonder Valley immersed in and documenting the resilience and humanity of these people in the face of mental illness, alcoholism, poverty, and neglect, until the line between his reporting on and becoming one of them blurred. In the vein of Hillbilly Elegy and the work of Michael Perry and writers like William Vollman, Ted Conover, and William Finnegan, it explores a darker side of the American dream, a side so pervasive, yet so largely unacknowledged by major media. Interwoven with the memoir of Hillyard's own fall and recovery from financial and personal crises, the book looks at life in a place where the safety net barely exists and falling through the cracks is too often fatal.

NPR Best Book of 2017 Los Angeles Times Best Fiction Pick Refinery29 Best Book of the Year BOLO Books Top Read of 2017 “Destined to be a classic L.A. novel.”—Michael Connelly When a teen runs away from his father’s mysterious commune, he sets in motion a domino effect that will connect six characters desperate for hope and love, set across the sun-bleached canvas of Los Angeles. From the acclaimed author of Visitation Street, a visionary portrait of contemporary Los Angeles in all its facets, from the Mojave Desert to the Pacific, from the 110 to Skid Row. During a typically crowded morning commute, a naked runner is dodging between the stalled cars. The strange sight makes the local news and captures the imaginations of a stunning cast of misfits and lost souls. There's Ren, just out of juvie, who travels to LA in search of his mother. There's Owen and James, teenage twins who live in a desert commune, where their father, a self-proclaimed healer, holds a powerful sway over his disciples. There's Britt, who shows up at the commune harboring a dark secret. There's Tony, a bored and unhappy lawyer who is inspired by the runner. And there's Blake, a drifter hiding in the desert, doing his best to fight off his most violent instincts. Their lives will all intertwine and come crashing together in a shocking way, one that could only happen in this enchanting, dangerous city. Wonder Valley is a swirling mix of angst, violence, heartache, and yearning—a masterpiece by a writer on the rise.

THE ACCLAIMED MEMOIR FROM HANNAH NYALA -- A MOTHER, A TRACKER, AND A TRUE SURVIVOR. POINT LAST SEEN Escaping an abusive marriage, her children abducted by her violent husband, Hannah Nyala was left alone to pick up the pieces of her life, to heal physically and spiritually. She wanted her children back...but first she had to fight for her own future, by teaching herself the skills of tracking in the Mojave Desert. She became a search-and-rescue tracker, dedicated to saving the lives of the lost, and so attuned to nature's messages that she can read the history of a footprint, the clues in stones and desert sand. That's just the beginning of her incredible story. For Hannah would soon make the most chilling discovery: someone was tracking her, on a vicious quest to do her harm.

"In April 1962, Executive Order 11017 and subsequent amendments, established the Recreation Advisory Council comprised of the Secretaries of the Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Commerce, Health, Education and Welfare. the Administrator of the Housing and Home Finance Agency, and the Chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority. The council was commissioned, among other things, to provide broad policy advice on all important matters affecting outdoor recreation resources and to facilitate coordinated efforts among the various Federal agencies. In 1964, the Council issued a policy statement (Circular No. 4) recommending that a national program of scenic roads and parkways be developed. In this policy circular, the Council identified certain elements to be considered in a comprehensive study of such a program and commissioned the Department of Commerce to conduct it."--

This collection from author Mari Collier contains sixteen short tales, ranging from the ancient past to our own era and into the far future. In the past, a man learns of his twin's demise and receives a dire warning. In modern times, a widow learns her beloved daughter has rejected something they both once held dear. In another contemporary story, a young lady struggles to bake a Plain Cake that her grandmother will accept. The futuristic tales contain a short story from the planet Dunbar, now inhabited by an alien race called Thalians. In another tale, archaeologists visit a shattered Earth to discover a Woman in White, who has waited centuries for them. Not all of the stories will have a twisted ending, but you can still expect a surprise at the end.