Böcker i California Fiction-serien

Set in the Napa Valley at the turn of the century, this novel evokes the character's love for the land. Ada Pendle is the daughter of a viticulturist who taught her well but dies, leaving her without any property. She therefore has to rely on her skills at one of the old vineyards.

The author's novel about young people in South Central Los Angeles grows out of his experience teaching in a high school there and his pain at the death of one of his favorite students.

Based on a chilling historical event, this novel is a tale of the arrogance of colonizers, rape, guilt, punishment and retribution. It is set on the Southern California coast during the early 19th century when Catholic missionaries rounded up all the local Indians.

Set in a small town near San Francisco during World War II, this novel relates the confusions, dislocations, and brutality of war as they affect the home front. We see events through the eyes of a novice teacher, an abandoned boy, two young girls and a sailor scarred by his time in the war zone.

Spanning the 100-day Persian Gulf War and a small California town's girls' basketball season, this novel is the story of Hedy Gallagher Castle, a woman who has reached a crossroads in her life. A straddler by nature, Hedy finds herself doing a balancing act between her daughter, father and husband.

A freak accident leaves Frank Eastman a paraplegic. He imagines his existence to be in Los Angeles, the scene of his accident. He settles in a run-down motel near Disneyland with eccentric neighbours and through mesmerizing conversations with them becomes changed emotionally as he is physically.

A novel about coming of age in the new America, a place in which races and cultures have not so much melded as collided and in which no identity is secure.

Mary Austin's 1917 novel illuminates a crucial issue in California history - the usurpation of water from the Owens Valley. The frenzied speculation in land and resources, labour protests, and feminist organizing of the time, are exemplified in the book by the story of one independent young woman.

Written by the author of "The Floating World", this novel explores human relationships in a Los Angeles of the future, where rich and poor are deeply polarized and where water, food, gas and education cannot be taken for granted.

Linking the recent past with an imagined future, the author aims to capture life in Los Angeles in the `70s and `80s, in a blend of feminist fiction and nuclear apocalypse fantasy.

Traces the odyssey of Billy and Saxon Roberts from the labor strife of Oakland at the turn of the century through Central and Northern California in search of land they can farm independently - a journey that echoes Jack London's own escape from urban poverty.