California Birds

Former child actor Fiona St. James dropped out of the spotlight after a spectacularly public crash and burn. The tabloids called her crazy and self-destructive and said she’d lost her mind. Now in her late twenties, Fiona believes her humiliating past is firmly behind her. She’s finally regained a modicum of privacy, and she won’t let anything—or anyone—mess it up.

In this moving collection of short stories and essays, Gordon Lee Johnson (Cupeño/Cahuilla) cements his voice not only as a wry commentator on American Indian reservation life but also as a master of fiction writing. In Johnson’s stories, all of which are set on the fictional San Ignacio reservation in Southern California, we meet unforgettable characters like Plato Pena, the Stanford-bound geek who reads Kahlil Gibran during intertribal softball games; hardboiled investigator Roddy Foo; and Etta, whose motto is “early to bed, early to rise, work like hell, and advertise”.

50 Things to Know About the Birds in California by author Jessica Dumas offers an elegant approach to finding the most beautiful and varied species of birds on the continent. Most books on birding tell you to travel to specific locations and hotspots for one or two prize species on your life list. Although there's nothing wrong with that, this book takes another approach. Here we present you with the regional view of the state and help you to locate the habitats and special locations near your travel destination.