Port Town: How the People of Long Beach Built, Defended, and Profited from Their Harbor, tells how the Port of Long Beach rose from a marshy mud flat to become an economic powerhouse, one of the greenest and most modern ports in the world. An epic tale, Port Town is filled with the true stories of the larger-than-life soldiers of fortune, land-grabbers, lovers, dreamers and builders who were inspired and bewitched by the Port of Long Beach's mighty promise.New edition includes biog...

"My head expanded wider and wider, revolving with inconceivable rapidity, and enlarging in space with every revolution. It filled the room - the house - the city; it became a world, peopled with the shapes of men and monsters. I spun away into its great vortex, and wandered about its expanses as about a universe. I lost all perception of time and space, and knew no distinction between the realities around me, and the phantasmata which sprung in endless succession from my brain."

Intoxication has long been a questionable source of creativity for vice-loving artists, from hasheesh-smoking cave painters, mushroom-munching monks illuminating Medieval manuscripts with their hallucinatory visions, the narcotic memoirs of William S. Burroughs, the booze-fueled work of Hemingway to the anything goes spirit of post-World War II literature and beyond when it became more unusual for an artist to declare sobriety over addiction.But it wasn’t until the early 1800s that...

“Gaul is divided into three parts.”Originally composed for propaganda purposes, Julius Caesar’s war diary is one of the earliest examples of a military science manual, detailing arms technology, tactical maneuvers, battlefield politics, espionage, intelligence and even the role played by luck in ground and sea campaigns.Nine years of fighting is condensed into a tight treatise rendered in lavish, cinematic prose. Caesar’s superior forces crush one defiant Gallic, G...

Nearly every one of our homes has been walked upon by some of those pesky little lizards. Although they are basically harmless, and may actually be beneficial as they eat up pests and insects, they can also have a hysterical way of truly scaring our children. By allowing them to read a Creepy Lizards of the World Picture Book, they will be less afraid of the common lizard they may see crawling in or around their homes. They will realize that there is much of mother nature they have yet to ...

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”--- Rudyard Kipling, The Jungle BookThe Jungle BookRudyard KIPLING (1868 - 1936)This classic children's book by Rudyard Kipling tells the story of Mowgli, a young boy raised by wolves: his escapades and adventures with his dear friends Bagheera the panther and Baloo the bear, his capture by the Monkey-People, his attempt at reintegrat...

Dubliners is a collection of 15 short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century.The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging; at a crossroads of history and culture, Ireland was jolted by various converging ideas and influences. They centre on Joyce's idea of ...

“Ivan Ilych's life had been most simple and most ordinary and therefore most terrible.”--- Leo Tolstoy, The Death of Ivan IlyichThe Death of Ivan Ilyich, first published in 1886, is a novella by Leo Tolstoy, one of the masterpieces of his late fiction, written shortly after his religious conversion of the late 1870s.The novella tells the story of the death of a high-court judge in 19th-century Russia.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, the only novel by Oscar Wilde, was first published in 1890. A substantially revised and expanded edition was published in April 1891. For the new edition, Wilde revised the content of the novel's existing chapters, divided the final chapter into two chapters, and created six entirely new additional chapters. Whereas the original edition of the novel contains 13 chapters, the revised edition of the novel contains 20 chapters.The novel tel...

Charles I or Charlemagne united most of Western Europe during the Middle Ages and laid the foundations for modern France and Germany. He was the first recognized Roman emperor in the West since the collapse of the Roman Empire three centuries earlier and ruled absolutely over a vast domain for thirteen years.Einhard’s biography of the Carolingian Empire’s founder The Life of Charlemagne: Vita Karoli Magni is one of the most famous pieces of literature on the early Middle Ages. It i...

On War is the most significant attempt in Western history to understand war, both in its internal dynamics and as an instrument of policy. Since the work's first appearance in 1832, it has been read throughout the world, and has stimulated generations of soldiers, statesmen, and intellectuals. Two centuries later, On War remains both controversial and an influence on strategic thinking.

Dodo Collections brings you another classic from H. Rider Haggard, ‘A Tale of Three Lions’In this thrilling tale of danger and adventure, young Harry joins his father, the famous Alan Quatermain, on a hunt for lions deep in Africa.Sir Henry Rider Haggard was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and the creator of the Lost World literary genre. His stories, situated at the lighter end of the scale of Victorian literature, conti...