Lake Tahoe transformed America, and not just once but many times over--from the earliest Ice Age civilizations to the mysterious death of Marilyn Monroe. It even played a hidden role in the American conquest of California, the launch of the Republican Party, and the birth of John Steinbeck's first novel. Along the way, Lake Tahoe found the time to invent the ski industry, spark the sexual revolution, and win countless Academy Awards. Tahoe beneath the Surface brings this hidden history of America's largest mountain lake to life through the stories of its most celebrated residents and visitors over the last ten thousand years. It mixes local Washoe Indian legends with tales of murderous Mafia dons, and Rat Pack tunes with Steinbeck novels. It establishes Tahoe as one of America's literary hot spots by tracing the steps of more than a dozen authors including Bertrand Russell, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Michael Ondaatje. Tahoe beneath the Surface reveals how the lake transformed the lives of conservationists like John Muir, humorists like Mark Twain, and Hollywood icons like Frank Sinatra. It even touches upon some of the darker aspects of American history, including anti-Chinese racism and the Kennedy assassination. Despite the impact Lake Tahoe has had on America, environmental threats loom large, and Tahoe Blue--a term that Lankford uses to encompass the whole range of life, beauty, and meaning the lake represents--grows increasingly vulnerable. In Tahoe beneath the Surface, human history and natural history combine in a most engaging way, one that will both inform and inspire all who would keep Tahoe blue.

Lake Tahoe is one of the scenic wonders of the American West, a sapphire jewel that attracts millions of visitors each year. But the lake drew Native Americans to its summer shores for millennia, as well as more recent fortune hunters, scientists, and others. A Short History of Lake Tahoe recounts the long, fascinating history of Lake Tahoe. Author Michael J. Makley examines the geology and natural history of the lake and introduces the people who shaped its history, including the Washoe Indians and such colorful characters as Mark Twain and legendary teamster Hank Monk, and later figures like entertainer Frank Sinatra and Olympic skier Julia Mancuso. He also covers the development of the lake's surrounding valley, including the impacts of mining, logging, and tourism, and the economic, political, and social controversies regarding the use and misuse of the lake's resources. Generously illustrated with historic photographs, this book is an engaging introduction to one of the most magnificent sites in the world. It also illuminates the challenges of protecting natural beauty and a fragile environment while preserving public access and a viable economy in the surrounding communities.

The water is so clear and filled with so much color, it's like splashing liquid glass. Lake Tahoe is legendary for its crystal-clear turquoise waters. Even Mark Twain commented on its "dazzling" and "brilliant" clarity. This is the first book of underwater photography from America's most famous lake, which stretches over 191 square miles on the California-Nevada state line. The camera lens captures bizarre and fluid shapes that form faster than the eye can see or the mind can comprehend. More than 180 images show Tahoe's breathtaking submarine scenery, from its teal shallows, rounded boulders, and swirling compositions to the surreal still lifes in its clear, quiet depths. For everyone who loves Lake Tahoe, the images are a lasting reminder of its singular beauty--and a call to help preserve its health.

"If you love folklore you will find Betson's stories riveting. Author Patrick Betson is a storyteller make no mistake about it." Tahoe Daily Tribune/Tahoe World. "Legends, tall tales and true accounts blend into a delightful read in Patrick Betson's "The Ghosts of Lake Tahoe: The Stuff of Legends." The Tahoe Weekly. "It's a great read for any history buff or Lake Tahoe fan, a great vacation book." The Nevada Magazine "A colorful and rumbustious saga, Patrick's enthusiasm for Lake Tahoe is infectious" Southend Evening Echo In a timeline of 150 years, here Patrick Betson brings together twelve stories, some remembered and some long forgotten, of some of the most colorful characters whoever crossed the western mountains reflected in the history of America's most glorious lake. The bravest of all the Pony Express riders, the ex-riverboat pilot who became a reporter and a giant of American literature, a Chinese migrant who risked life and limb to build a railroad, a tale of stock manipulation and murder that stemmed from a discovery of a Tahoe whirlpool, a salty seafarer who battled the worst of Tahoe's weather and gangrene, the silent terror that caused fear to the local lumber-jacks, the incorrigible stagecoach driver that gave a nineteenth-century icon a ride he wanted to forget, a refugee from the San Francisco earthquake who became an aquatic marvel, the famous of Hollywood's Golden Age that came to play, the overly optimistic New York lawyer who had an impossible dream that came true, and the unpaid Norwegian who flew down mountains delivering the US Mail. Tahoe is a meeting place, where the mountains meet the sky, where the snow meets the clear blue waters and where Nevada meets California. This book humbly brings you the stories of the men Sam Walter Foss might have alluded to when he said, "Bring me men to match my mountains." Well here they are Sam, some of Tahoe's finest, The Ghosts of Lake Tahoe (The Stuff of Legends.) Patrick Betson

"I thought it must be the fairest picture the whole earth affords,” wrote Mark Twain of Lake Tahoe. Countless other visitors have agreed, and since the turn of the century the lake’s clear, pure waters and breathtaking natural surroundings have made it a national treasure and an international vacation destination. As one of the deepest and largest of alpine lakes in the United States and the world, Lake Tahoe is said to be one of the most photographed spots on earth. In the clarity and vivid detail of black-and-white photography, Historic Photos of Lake Tahoe showcases nearly 200 images and two centuries of the lake and its surroundings, along with the people, places, and events that have shaped its unique history. Journey with researcher and writer Ellen Drewes as she visits the remarkable past of this scintillating American hideaway.

"A good story and first-rate social science."—New York Times Book Review. A sinisterly funny modern-day Through the Looking Glass that begins with cyanide poisoning and ends in strawberry ice cream. The idea of the Native American living in perfect harmony with nature is one of the most cherished contemporary myths. But how truthful is this larger-than-life image? According to anthropologist Shepard Krech, the first humans in North America demonstrated all of the intelligence, self-interest, flexibility, and ability to make mistakes of human beings anywhere. As Nicholas Lemann put it in The New Yorker, "Krech is more than just a conventional-wisdom overturner; he has a serious larger point to make. . . . Concepts like ecology, waste, preservation, and even the natural (as distinct from human) world are entirely anachronistic when applied to Indians in the days before the European settlement of North America." "Offers a more complex portrait of Native American peoples, one that rejects mythologies, even those that both European and Native Americans might wish to embrace."—Washington Post "My story, the story of 'how I became a nun,' began very early in my life; I had just turned six. The beginning is marked by a vivid memory, which I can reconstruct down to the last detail. Before, there is nothing, and after, everything is an extension of the same vivid memory, continuous and unbroken, including the intervals of sleep, up to the point where I took the veil ." So starts Cesar Aira's astounding "autobiographical" novel. Intense and perfect, this invented narrative of childhood experience bristles with dramatic humor at each stage of growing up: a first ice cream, school, reading, games, friendship. The novel begins in Aira's hometown, Coronel Pringles. As self-awareness grows, the story rushes forward in a torrent of anecdotes which transform a world of uneventful happiness into something else: the anecdote becomes adventure, and adventure, fable, and then legend. Between memory and oblivion, reality and fiction, Cesar Aira's How I Became a Nun retains childhood's main treasures: the reality of fable and the delirium of invention. A few days after his fiftieth birthday, Aira noticed the thin rim of the moon, visible despite the rising sun. When his wife explained the phenomenon to him he was shocked that for fifty years he had known nothing about "something so obvious, so visible." This epiphany led him to write How I Became a Nun. With a subtle and melancholic sense of humor he reflects on his failures, on the meaning of life and the importance of literature.

Fairest Picture is the book Mark Twain fans and Lake Tahoe enthusiasts have longed for. For the first time, a single volume brings together Mark Twain and his favorite lake, Lake Tahoe. Inside you will find little known facts and newly discovered information about Mark Twain's experiences and adventures at Lake Tahoe that cannot be found in any other books or on the web. You will read about Mark Twain's Lake Tahoe of the early 1860s, how it is different today and still the same in many ways. We solve the riddle of where Mark Twain was camped and located his timber claim on the North Shore, exactly as he told the story in Roughing It and letters home. We describe Mark Twain's subsequent trips to Lake Tahoe as a reporter for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise and locate the hotels where he stayed and what he did while he was here as a tourist. We provide maps and directions to 12 Mark Twain places at Lake Tahoe and the surrounding area so that scholars and enthusiasts can visit these sites, see what Mark Twain saw and experience the same feelings that inspired him to write so eloquently about the lake. Inside is a complete listing of all known Mark Twain quotations about Lake Tahoe in his writings and lectures together with interpretation and context. We closely examine and debunk the many myths and tall tales about Mark Twain at Lake Tahoe and in particular, the often repeated East Shore timber claim legend. Readers will have a much deeper appreciation Mark Twain and the Lake Tahoe region, a place where he found his voice as a writer and humorist and went on to become one of America's greatest authors.