Big Dreams: Into the Heart of California

By Bill Barich

Book Overview

The land of opportunity, a golden Eden, the last frontier. What is this place that has given rise to countless metaphors but can still quicken the imagination? For Bill Barich, the question became a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679421513
• ISBN13: 9780679421511
• Release Date: May 1994
• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Length: 546 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Dead-on observations

Bill Barich travels throughout the state, meets people, and describes California's various places. As a native Californian, it was interesting to see how he described the various people at the various places that both he and I have been. In order to be pithy, he has to distill a town into a short description, which risks greatly oversimplifying matters. Barich pulls it off amazingly well, with dead-on descriptions of many places. Readers may take issue with how he depicts a favorite place, but I think he manages to capture the feel of each place he goes. Definitely worth reading if you're from California or know someone who is.

A beautiful soul-searching book .

The Kirkus review missed the point. The book was on California, technically. It tells the history of places there. But what the reviewer missed was the ride each reader gets to take with Mr. Barich as he drives from the tip of California down briefly into Mexico. On it we hear bits of Mr. Barich's past when he first moved to California, then settled down with his wife only to be upheaveled again 15 or so years later when that love ends. Those are brief mentions with the crux of the story being HIS observations on the state of things in California, meaning the state of things all over. How we haven't grown much as a culture (despite our young dreams and hopes for ourselves), how we still remain ignorant to others experiences, and how kindness is so rarely shown but desperately needed. Reading the book I didn't feel like a reader at all, but a listener along on the journey.