State & Local

Written by Kimberly Cordova, a longtime resident who has fallen deeply in love with Santa Fe, this comprehensive travel guide offers an authentic and immersive experience. Blending personal anecdotes, insider tips, and a deep appreciation for the city's history and traditions, the book transports you beyond the ordinary tourist trail.

Roy Bean was an American saloon-keeper and Justice of the Peace in Texas, who called himself "The Only Law West of the Pecos". He and his three brothers set out from Kentucky in the mid 1840s, heading into the American frontier to find their fortunes. Their lifetimes of triumphs, tragedies, laurels, and scandals will play out on the battlefields of Mexico, in shady dealings in California city halls, inside eccentric saloon courtrooms of Texas, and along the blood-soaked Santa Fe Trail from Missouri to New Mexico. They will kill men, and murder will likewise stalk them.

You probably know the story of the late Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to serve as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation. You might not recognize the name of her husband, Charlie Soap, yet his role as a Native community organizer is no less significant. Last One Walking charts for the first time the life and work of this influential Cherokee.

On July 3, 1972, twenty-four hippies from Clearwater, Florida, set up tents and settled in for the night at Briar Bottom, a public US Forest Service campground in western North Carolina. The impromptu campout was a pit stop for the group on their way to a Rolling Stones concert in Charlotte. Early that evening, they drank beer, smoked marijuana, and listened to rock music as they anticipated the good times that lay ahead. Near midnight, the county sheriff showed up with six deputies, allegedly responding to a noise complaint. They were armed with pistols and five sawed-off 12-gauge shotguns.

Alabama: The History of a Deep South State, Bicentennial Edition is a comprehensive narrative account of the state from its earliest days to the present. This edition, updated to celebrate the state's bicentennial year, offers a detailed survey of the colorful, dramatic, and often controversial turns in Alabama's evolution.

The Tensaw River introduces one of the American South's richest and most fertile natural features. Author Mike Bunn is director of Historic Blakeley State Park, which is nestled in a prominent bend of the majestic Tensaw River.

The Fort Mims massacre changed the course of American history in many ways, not the least of which was the ensuing rise of one Andrew Jackson to the national stage. The unprecedented Indian victory over the encroaching Americans who were bent on taking their lands and destroying their culture horrified many and injured the young nation's pride. Tragedies such as this one have always rallied Americans to a common cause: a single-minded determination to destroy the enemy and avenge the fallen.

Explore the untold stories and pivotal moments in the history of the Philadelphia Police Department with The Unofficial History of the PPD. Authored by Gary Capuano, a lifelong South Philadelphia resident and decorated police veteran, this book offers an unparalleled glimpse into the heart of one of America's oldest and most complex law enforcement agencies.

With the same ability to make personalities and events come alive that characterizes his classic Skid Road, Murray Morgan here tells the colorful story of Tacoma, "the City of Destiny," and southern Puget Sound, where many major events of Washington's history took place. Drawing upon original journals and reports, Morgan builds Puget's Sound around individuals, interweaving portraits of well-known historical figures with a raucous parade of saloonkeepers, politicians, union organizers, schemers, and swindlers.

No Friday Night Lights is the story of a rural Nevada high school football team that never wins. Veteran reporter John M. Glionna examines the 2022 season in which the McDermitt Bulldogs practiced for weeks in the summer only to learn once again that they had come up short of the necessary players due to the dwindling population on the Fort McDermitt Indian Reservation on the Nevada-Oregon border.