A fisherman on the Santa Monica Pier. The vineyards of Napa Valley. Surfers in Malibu. An Indian village in Yosemite and the Golden Gate Bridge at sunset. Artist Diana Gessler captures the color and character of our third largest and most populous state. In lively watercolors, sketches, and stories, Gessler shares her adventures on the road, driving from north to south--Sonoma to San Diego and beyond. She and her husband, Paul (designated driver and food lover), stop when curiosity or hunger seizes them. With pen and brush, Gessler works on the spot, bringing to life the cities, towns, and countrysides as well as the details that make them special. A great horned owl. A local farm stand. A woman making tortillas on a sidewalk cart. A bunkhouse in the redwoods. Crab traps along the bay. Her intimate journal is filled with colorful people, beaches, flowers, architecture, animals, trails, memorable meals, and movie stars (at least the gates in front of their houses). Very California is organized by region, and each chapter opens with a map and driving route of the area. Peppered throughout are amusing tidbits about all the things that make California so very California. Diana Gessler has created a memento for tourists and an enchanting book for those who appreciate the pleasures of the West Coast.

Criminal defense attorney J.R. Cuttler begins his Sunday with thoughts of flying his airplane around the East Texas area and later watching his Dallas Cowboys play the hated Washington Redskins. That thought is shattered in an instant when the local radio station reports the abduction and rapes of a twenty-nine-year-old woman and her twelve-year-old cousin from the local Walmart parking lot. The identity of the victims and the initial allegations as to their assailant would draw Cuttler into a capital murder case that would forever change his life and his practice of law. This small, deep East Texas town located on the Texas-Louisiana border still lives in times we would all like to forget...times most of us have fought to forget. Therefore, when two White women are allegedly abducted, beaten, raped and sodomized by an uppity young Black man, the county digresses into the mindset of Coloreds use back door. After his arrest in another jurisdiction, Lincoln Johnson is beaten beyond recognition by two deputies returning him to the local jail. It is this senseless barbarity that raises Cuttler's ire to the degree that he agrees to represent the accused. The development of pre-trial tactics, the trial, and hypnotic conclusion pits modern scientific methodology and old time trial theatrics.

"There is a perfect drink for every occasion and every mood. Carey and John are going to help you find it!" —J. Kenji López-Alt It's a quandary shared by adventurous and indecisive drinkers alike: What should I drink tonight? Here to answer that question is Be Your Own Bartender. Through more than a dozen flowcharts, the book poses a series of questions designed to lead readers to their ideal drink. With more than 151 original recipes, there's a cocktail for every mood, taste, and occasion. Are you after something tequila-based or gin-based? Do you like gin or really like gin? Are you ready to break out the muddler? And is your night winding down or just getting started? Whatever the answers, Be Your Own Bartender leads you to your destination—a cocktail effectively designed just for you. With some drinks that are truly adventurous and others that are friendlier to the cocktail novice, every recipe is created with the home bartender in mind. Divided into chapters by spirit—with bonus flowcharts for brunch drinks, holiday parties, and true cocktail nerds—Be Your Own Bartender is the best way to discover the perfect cocktail for you, in a journey as user-friendly as it is fun.

Burning Man is the premier countercultural event of modern times, growing over 25 years from a strange San Francisco beach party into an experimental city of 50,000 colorful souls in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, which burns brightly for a week before dissolving into dusty memories and changed lives. Longtime newspaper journalist Steven T. Jones embedded himself in this blossoming culture starting in 2004, a dispiriting year for American politics but the beginning of Burning Man’s renaissance, when it exploded outward in unexpected ways. The result is the most in-depth book ever written on this intriguing social phenomenon – The Tribes of Burning Man: How An Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture – which is being released in January, 2011 by CCC Publishing. From covering the Borg2 artists’ rebellion to learning how to make large-scale fire sculptures with the Flaming Lotus Girls, from helping Opulent Temple showcase the world’s best DJs to cleaning up after Hurricane Katrina with Burners Without Borders, from regularly interviewing event founder Larry Harvey to covering Barack Obama’s nominating convention speech, Jones gives readers an inside, meticulously reported look at a time when Burning Man hit its zenith just as the country hit its nadir. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world have made the dusty pilgrimage to Black Rock City to take part in this experiment in participatory art, commerce-free culture, and bacchanalian celebration—and many say their lives were fundamentally changed by this truly unique experience.