On the Shelf

On the Shelf – 2/12

A look at newly donated nonfiction titles now available at the Downieville Library.

Paul Guffin

February 11, 2026

Some New Stuff on the Shelves of the Downieville Library

Recently, the library has been blessed with several donations of books, both print and audio. To get us started, here are the non-fiction print books that have been added. (Note: “SBS” indicates that the book is in the Special Books Section, meaning the book can be perused at the library, but may not be checked out.)

The Pioneer Steamer California, 1848-1849, by Victor M. Berthold (SBS)

Dreams of El Dorado: A History of the American West, by H.W. Brands

Nevada Ghost Town Trails, by Mickey Browman (SBS)

Four Months Among the Gold-Finders in Alta California, by J. Tyrwhitt Brooks (SBS)

Story of the Wild West and Camp-fire Chats, by Buffalo Bill (SBS)

Women’s Voices from the Mother Lode, Susan G. Butrulle (SBS)

The Diary of a Forty-Niner, by Chauncey Canfield (SBS)

He Opened the West: Jedediah Strong Smith, by Don M. Chase (SBS)

Lost Mines of the Old West, by Howard D. Clark (SBS)

Love and Nuggets, by Roland D. Crandall (SBS)

West Like Lightning: The Brief, Legendary Ride of the Pony Express, by Jim DeFelice (SBS)

On the Trail to the California Gold Rush, by Alonzo Delano (SBS)

Humbugs and Heroes: A Gallery of California Pioneers, by Richard Dillon (SBS)

Overland to California with the Pioneer Line, by Mary McDougall Gordon (SBS)

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity, by David Graeber & David Wengrow

Norman Rockwell, Illustrator, by Arthur L. Guptill

San Francisco Water & Power: A History of the Municipal Water Department and Hetch Hetchy System, by Warren D. Hanson (SBS)

Down the Wild Rivers: A Guide to the Steams of California, by Thomas Harris

Gold and Silver Colossus: William Morris Stewart and his Southern Bride, by Ruth Hermann (SBS)

Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World, by Rachel Ignotofsy (juvenile)

Twenty Years on the Pacific Slope, by W. Turrentine Jackson (SBS)

Gold Diggers Atlas, by Robert Neil Johnson (SBS)

Sing Like Fish: How Sound Rules Life Under Water, by Amorina Kingdon

A Pennsylvania Mennonite and the California Gold Rush, by Lawrence Knorr (SBS)

Industrial Minerals and Rocks (Nonmetallics other than Fuels), by Stanley J. Lefond (SBS)

Mountains and Molehills, by Frank Marryat (SBS)

Climate: A Very Short Introduction, by Mark Maslin

Gold, Guns & Gallantry, by Norman McLeod (SBS)

Overland in 1846: Diaries and Letters of the California-Oregon Trail, by Dale Morgan (SBS)

California Times and Trails, by Joan & Gene Olson (SBS)

The California and Oregon Trail, by Francis Parkman, Jr. (SBS)

Sagebrush Rebel, by William Perry Pendley

San Francisco in the Seventies: the City as Viewed by a Mexican Political Exile, by Guillermo Prieto (SBS)

Little Known Tales in California History, by Alton Pryor (SBS)

The California Gold Rush and the Coming of the Civil War, by Leonard L. Richards

Health and Longevity, by Joseph G. Richardson

The California Star, 1847-1848: San Francisco’s First Newspaper, by Norma Baldwin Ricketts (SBS)

Vanishing Treasures: A Bestiary of Extraordinary Endangered Creatures, by Katherine Rundell

Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West, by Anne Seagraves

Women of the Sierra, by Anne Seagraves

1897 Sears Roebuck & Co. Catalogue, by Sears Roebuck & Co. (SBS)

Custodians of Wonder: Ancient Customs, Profound Traditions, and the Last People Keeping Them Alive, by Eliot Stein

Berkeley One and Only, by Jon Sullivan

Rosa May: The Search for a Mining Camp Legend, by George Williams, III (SBS)

Fugitive Slave in the Gold Rush, by James Williams (SBS)

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