| Sierra Stories: Tales of Dreamers, Schemers, Bigots, and Rogues Contributor(s): Noy, Gary (Author), Margolin, Malcolm (Foreword by) |
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ISBN: 1597142654 ISBN-13: 9781597142656 Publisher: Heyday Books OUR PRICE: $21.60 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: April 2014 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - West (ak, Ca, Co, Hi, Id, Mt, Nv, Ut, Wy) - History | United States - State & Local - General |
| Dewey: 979.44 |
| LCCN: 2013037067 |
| Physical Information: 0.7" H x 5.5" W x 8.4" (0.75 lbs) 256 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: The Sierra Nevada, with its 14,000-foot granite mountains, crystalline lakes, conifer forests, and hidden valleys, has long been the domain of dreams, attracting the heroic and the delusional, the best of humanity and the worst. Stories abound, and characters emerge so outlandish and outrageous that they have to be real. Could the human imagination have invented someone like Eliza Gilbert? Born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1818, she transformed herself into Lola Montez, born in Seville, Spain, in 1823, and brought to the Gold Country the provocative "Spider Dance"--impersonating a young woman repelling a legion of angry spiders under her petticoats. Or Otto Esche, who in 1860 imported fifteen two-humped Bactrian camels from Asia to transport goods to the mines. Or the artist Albert Bierstadt, whose paintings Mark Twain characterized as having "more the atmosphere of Kingdom-Come than of California." Or multimillionaire George Whittell Jr., who was frequently spotted driving around Lake Tahoe in a luxurious convertible with his pet lion in the front seat. These, and scores more, spill out of the pages of this well-illustrated and lively tribute to the Sierra by a native son. |
Contributor Bio(s): Noy, Gary: - A Sierra Nevada native and current resident, Gary Noy taught history at Sierra College from 1987 until 2012. He founded the Sierra College Center for Sierra Nevada Studies and served as its director until his retirement. His previous titles include Sierra Stories: Tales of Dreamers, Schemers, Bigots, and Rogues (Heyday, 2014), which won the Gold Medal for Best Regional Nonfiction from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology (Heyday, 2010), which he coedited, and Distant Horizon: Documents from the 19th Century American West (University of Nebraska Press, 1999). |