Bøker av Charles Fleming

Secret Walks: A Walking Guide to the Hidden Trails of Los Angeles is a sequel to the popular Secret Stairs: A Walking Guide to the Historic Staircases of Los Angeles, and features another collection of exciting urban walks through parks, canyons, and neighborhoods unknown and unseen by most Angelinos. Each walk is rated for duration, distance, and difficulty, and is accompanied by a map.The walks, like those in Secret Stairs, are filled with fascinating factoids about historical landmarksthe original Bat Cave from Batman, the lake where Opie learned to fish on The Andy Griffith Show, or the storage barn for one of L.A.s oldest wineries. The book also highlights the people who made the landmarks famous: the infamous water engineer William Mulholland; the convicted murderer and philanthropist Colonel Griffith J. Griffith; Charles Lummis, who walked from Cincinnati to Los Angeles to take a job on the L.A. Times; and tobacco millionaire Abbot Kinney, who dug canals to drain the marshes south of Santa Monica and create his American Venice.Written in the entertainingly informed style that has made Secret Stairs a Los Angeles Times best-seller, Secret Walks is the perfect book for the walker eager to explore but tired of the crowds at Runyon Canyon or Temescal Park.

Containing walks and detailed maps from throughout the city, Secret Stairs highlights the charms and quirks of a unique feature of the Los Angeles landscape, and chronicles the geographical, architectural, and historical aspects of the citys staircases, as well as of the neighborhoods in which the steps are located.From strolling through the classic La Loma neighborhood in Pasadena to walking the Sunset Junction Loop in Silver Lake, to taking the Beachwood Canyon hike through Hollywoodland to enjoying the magnificent ocean views from the Castellammare district in Pacific Palisades, Secret Stairs takes you on a tour of the staircases all across the City of Angels.The circular walks, rated for duration and difficulty, deliver tales of historic homes and their fascinating inhabitants, bits of unusual local trivia, and stories of the neighborhoods surrounding the stairs. Thats where William Faulkner was living when he wrote the screenplay for To Have and Have Not; that house was designed by Neutra; over there is a Schindler; thats where Woody Guthrie lived, where Anais Nin died, and where Thelma Todd was murdered . . .Despite the fact that one of these staircases starred in an Oscar-winning short filmLaurel and Hardys The Music Box, from 1932these civic treasures have been virtually unknown to most of the citys residents and visitors. Now, Secret Stairs puts these hidden stairways back on the map, while introducing urban hikers to exciting new trails all around the city of Los Angeles.

It is 1955 in Las Vegas, and the Chicago mob man Mo Weiner is bankrolling ex-boxer Worthless Worthington Lee and the city's first all-black hotel-casino. The Ivory Coast is rising up from the dust, on the wrong side of town. And out of the shadows steps Deacon, a white horn player with a dark past and a genius for jazz. Mo mistakes him for a hitman. Worthless takes him for a friend. Anita, the mixed-race beauty he falls for, wants him for herself. And Haney, the corrupt and racist cop who runs this hot desert oasis of sin and sand, wants him rubbed out.

Using the life and career of Don Simpson as a point of departure, this work takes readers on a journey inside the Hollywood of the 1980s and 90s. This is a tale of the rise of the key players and how the Don Simpson way became the Hollywood way.

Howard Dully was 12 years old when he was given a lobotomy. Expelled from the mainstream medical community, his once-popular procedure now a grisly medical relic, Dr Walter Freeman was eager to turn this temperamental 12-year-old into a submissive boy - especially after hearing the terrible lies his stepmother told about him.