Winds Of Santa Ana

Winds of Santa Ana is a spiritual history, environmental study, and sailing memoir of Southern California's coast, islands, and waters.

In the wake of mass blackouts and energy crises, wind power remains a largely untapped resource of renewable energy. It is a booming worldwide industry whose technology, under the collective wing of aficionados like author Paul Gipe, is coming of age. Wind Power guides us through the emergent, sometimes daunting discourse on wind technology, giving frank explanations of how to use wind technology wisely and sound advice on how to avoid common mistakes. Since the mid-1970s, Paul Gipe has played a part in nearly every aspect of wind energy’s development—from installing small turbines to promoting wind energy worldwide. As an American proponent of renewable energy, Gipe has earned the acclaim and respect of European energy specialists for years, but his arguments have often fallen on deaf ears at home. Today, the topic of wind power is cropping up everywhere from the beaches of Cape Cod to the Oregon-Washington border, and one wind turbine is capable of producing enough electricity per year to run 200 average American households. Now, Paul Gipe is back to shed light on this increasingly important energy source with a revised edition of Wind Power. Over the course of his career, Paul Gipe has been a proponent, participant, observer, and critic of the wind industry. His experience with wind has given rise to two previous books on the subject, Wind Energy Basics and Wind Power for Home and Business, which have sold over 50,000 copies. Wind Power for Home and Business has become a staple for both homeowners and professionals interested in the subject, and now, with energy prices soaring, interest in wind power is hitting an all-time high. With chapters on output and economics, Wind Power discloses how much you can expect from each method of wind technology, both in terms of energy and financial savings. The book’s updated models, graphics, and weighty appendixes make it an invaluable reference for everyone interested in the emerging trend of wind power and renewable energy. Executive Director of the American Wind Energy Association Randall Swisher has said, "In the last two decades, no one has done more that Paul Gipe to bring wind energy to the public’s attention."

A “comprehensive and fascinating study” of how wind has shaped the world as we know it, affecting all aspects of human and natural life—from geography to political history, plant life to psychology, and biology to philosophy (The Observer) Wind is everywhere and nowhere. Wind is the circulatory system of the earth, and its nervous system, too. Energy and information flow through it. It brings warmth and water, enriches and strips away the soil, aerates the globe. Wind shapes the lives of animals, humans among them. Trade follows the path of the wind, as empire also does. Wind made the difference in wars between the Greeks and Persians, the Mongols and the Japanese. Wind helped to destroy the Spanish Armada. And wind is no less determining of our inner lives: the föhn, mistral, sirocco, Santa Ana, and other “ill winds” of the world are correlated with disease, suicide, and even murder. Heaven’s Breath is an encyclopedic and enchanting book that opens dazzling new perspectives on history, nature, and humanity.

"The Bestselling Hardcover Novel of the Year."--Publishers Weekly From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the country was in crisis and at war with itself, when millions were out of work and even the land seemed to have turned against them. “My land tells its story if you listen. The story of our family.” Texas, 1921. A time of abundance. The Great War is over, the bounty of the land is plentiful, and America is on the brink of a new and optimistic era. But for Elsa Wolcott, deemed too old to marry in a time when marriage is a woman’s only option, the future seems bleak. Until the night she meets Rafe Martinelli and decides to change the direction of her life. With her reputation in ruin, there is only one respectable choice: marriage to a man she barely knows. By 1934, the world has changed; millions are out of work and drought has devastated the Great Plains. Farmers are fighting to keep their land and their livelihoods as crops fail and water dries up and the earth cracks open. Dust storms roll relentlessly across the plains. Everything on the Martinelli farm is dying, including Elsa’s tenuous marriage; each day is a desperate battle against nature and a fight to keep her children alive. In this uncertain and perilous time, Elsa—like so many of her neighbors—must make an agonizing choice: fight for the land she loves or leave it behind and go west, to California, in search of a better life for her family. The Four Winds is a rich, sweeping novel that stunningly brings to life the Great Depression and the people who lived through it—the harsh realities that divided us as a nation and the enduring battle between the haves and the have-nots. A testament to hope, resilience, and the strength of the human spirit to survive adversity, The Four Winds is an indelible portrait of America and the American dream, as seen through the eyes of one indomitable woman whose courage and sacrifice will come to define a generation.

A RICH DISPLAY OF SOME OF THE BEST PROSE WRITTEN TODAY IN THE USA.

As the lead singer of the Doors, Jim Morrison’s searing poetic vision and voracious appetite for sexual, spiritual, and psychedelic experience inflamed the spirit and psyche of a generation. Since his mysterious death in 1971, millions more fans from a new generation have embraced his legacy, as layers of myth have gathered to enshroud the life, career, and true character of the man who was James Douglas Morrison. In Jim Morrison, critically acclaimed journalist Stephen Davis, author of Hammer of the Gods, unmasks Morrison’s constructed personas of the Lizard King and Mr. Mojo Risin’ to reveal a man of fierce intelligence whose own destructive tendencies both fueled his creative ambitions and brought about his downfall. Gathered from dozens of original interviews and investigations of Morrison’s personal journals, Davis has assembled a vivid portrait of a misunderstood genius, tracing the arc of Morrison’s life from his troubled youth to his international stardom, when his drug and alcohol binges, tumultuous sexual affairs, and fractious personal relationships reached a frenzied peak. For the first time, Davis is able to reconstruct Morrison’s last days in Paris to solve one of the greatest mysteries in music history in a shocking final chapter. Compelling and harrowing, intimate and revelatory, Jim Morrison is the definitive biography of the rock idol in snakeskin and leather who defined the 1960s.