{"title":"Gary Noy","description":"A Sierra Nevada native and current resident, Gary Noy has taught history at Sierra College from 1987 until the present. He founded the Sierra College Center for Sierra Nevada Studies and served as its director until 2012. His previous titles include Sierra Stories: Tales of Dreamers, Schemers, Bigots, and Rogues (Heyday, 2014), which won the Gold Medal for Best Regional Nonfiction from the Next Generation Indie Book Awards, The Illuminated Landscape: A Sierra Nevada Anthology (Heyday, 2010), which he coedited, and Distant Horizon: Documents from the 19th Century American West (University of Nebraska Press, 1999). Visit his website at garynoy.com.","products":[{"product_id":"sierra-stories-tales-of-dreamers-schemers-bigots-and-rogues-paperback","title":"Sierra Stories: Tales of Dreamers, Schemers, Bigots, and Rogues - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe Sierra Nevada, with its 14,000-foot granite mountains, crystalline lakes, conifer forests, and hidden valleys, has long been the domain of dreams, attracting the heroic and the delusional, the best of humanity and the worst. Stories abound, and characters emerge so outlandish and outrageous that they have to be real. Could the human imagination have invented someone like Eliza Gilbert? Born in Limerick, Ireland, in 1818, she transformed herself into Lola Montez, born in Seville, Spain, in 1823, and brought to the Gold Country the provocative \"Spider Dance\"--impersonating a young woman repelling a legion of angry spiders under her petticoats. Or Otto Esche, who in 1860 imported fifteen two-humped Bactrian camels from Asia to transport goods to the mines. Or the artist Albert Bierstadt, whose paintings Mark Twain characterized as having \"more the atmosphere of Kingdom-Come than of California.\" Or multimillionaire George Whittell Jr., who was frequently spotted driving around Lake Tahoe in a luxurious convertible with his pet lion in the front seat. These, and scores more, spill out of the pages of this well-illustrated and lively tribute to the Sierra by a native son.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51367533478111,"sku":"9781597142656","price":24.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/B8q_uYUIg49781597142656.webp?v=1789109765"},{"product_id":"gold-rush-stories-49-tales-of-seekers-scoundrels-loss-and-luck-paperback","title":"Gold Rush Stories: 49 Tales of Seekers, Scoundrels, Loss, and Luck - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eExploring the deeply human stories of the California Gold Rush generation, drawing out all the brutality, tragedy, humor, and prosperity as lived by those who experienced it.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn less than ten years, more than 300,000 people made the journey to California, some from as far away as Chile and China. Many of them were dreamers seeking a better life, like Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, who eventually became the first African American judge, and Eliza Farnham, an early feminist who founded California's first association to advocate for women's civil rights. Still others were eccentrics-perhaps none more so than San Francisco's self-styled king, Norton I, Emperor of the United States.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs \u003ci\u003eGold Rush Stories\u003c\/i\u003e relates the social tumult of the world rushing in, so too does it unearth the environmental consequences of the influx, including the destructive flood of yellow ooze (known as \"slickens\") produced by the widespread and relentless practice of hydraulic mining. In the hands of a native son of the Sierra, these stories and dozens more reveal the surprising and untold complexities of the Gold Rush.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51367542030559,"sku":"9781597143844","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/E6KESLG9x9781597143844.webp?v=1789109781"},{"product_id":"hellacious-california-tales-of-rascality-revelry-dissipation-and-depravity-and-the-birth-of-the-golden-state-paperback","title":"Hellacious California!: Tales of Rascality, Revelry, Dissipation, and Depravity, and the Birth of the Golden State - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eHellacious California!\u003c\/i\u003e tours the rambunctious and occasionally appalling amusements of the Golden State.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1855 an ex-miner lamented that nineteenth-century California \"can and does furnish the best bad things,\" including \"purer liquors . . . finer tobacco, truer guns and pistols, larger dirks and bowie knives, and prettier courtezans [sic]\" than anywhere else in America. Lured by boons of gold and other exploitable resources, California's settler population mushroomed under Mexican and early American control, and this period of rapid transformation gave rise to a freewheeling culture best epitomized by its entertainments: gambling, gun duels, knife fights, gracious dining and gluttony, prostitution, fandangos, cigars, con artistry, and the demon drink. Historian Gary Noy unearths myriad primary sources, many of which have never before been published, to spin his true tall tales that are by turns humorous and horrifying. Whether detailing the exploits of an inebriated stallion, gambling parlors as a reinforcement and subversion of racial norms, armed skirmishes over eggs, or the ins and outs of the \"Spirit Lover\"\"scam, Noy expertly situates these stories in the context of a live-for-the-moment society characterized by audacity, bigotry, and risk. Published in collaboration with Sierra College Press.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BooksCloud","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":51386464338143,"sku":"9781597144995","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0813\/8958\/4607\/files\/wLbI7vV48G9781597144995.webp?v=1789358459"}],"url":"https:\/\/blackandbarhe.com\/collections\/gary-noy.oembed","provider":"Black \u0026 Barhe Bookstore","version":"1.0","type":"link"}