For California's Gold [Hardcover]

Jo Ann Levy (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Colorado; First Edition edition (March 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870815660
• ISBN-13: 978-0870815669
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,730,330 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A top Notch Novel!, May 2, 2000

By 

Jane A. Kirkpatrick (Moro, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For California's Gold (Hardcover)

JoAnn Levy's story is one top notch novel. Not only is it a masterpiece of overland trail literature, but the story itself is a compelling one, of love and loss and change and all it takes to make a new start. I read JoAnn's DAUGHTER OF JOY which won the Willa Award for fiction given by Women Writing the West. It was a great book. But FOR CALIFORNIA's GOLD is even better. It weaves the detail in so deftly that the reader walks away having experienced the journey, feeling the wind, watching the river rise on Front street in Sacramento City, gasping at the loss of another child. The strains of the overland journey move on to the challenge of life in the California Gold fields as it was for women -- and Levy should know. Her non-fiction book about women in the gold rush era is a masterpiece of research and narrative. But best of all, in For California's Gold, we celebrate a woman's courage. And as we do, we celebrate our own advances made in our own lives when we endure great challenges and see the hope that springs from loss. Levy's lead characer moves from a woman who saw herself as a mouse to one strong enough to begin again. Give yourself a treat and read this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For California's Gold - A Gem Of A Book!, May 9, 2000

By 

Lori Folweiler (Sutter Creek, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: For California's Gold (Hardcover)

For California's Gold is a gem of a story! JoAnn Levy's tale of Sarah's journey through life is enduring to all women. She writes with great heart, compassion and knowledge of women's hopes, fears, loves and losses that are timeless. If you read just one book this year, let it be For California's Gold.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fresh Perspective, March 24, 2001

By 

W. Taylor (Sutter Creek, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For California's Gold (Hardcover)

"For California's Gold" filled in a lot of blanks for me, and it should do the same for most readers. We all know the rush west was an extreme ordeal. We all know settling California was an ordeal of another kind. We all know tragedy dogged the steps of the men and women who took on the challenge. But therein lies the unsuspected void in our knowledge, certainly in my knowledge.

Before reading this book I gave no particular thought to the nature of my understanding of these historical events. Now I've learned a new perspective is as beneficial in literature as it is in trying to find the car keys. In one 280-page book, JoAnn Levy has given the whole thing life.

Ms. Levy is a unique writing talent - she has done what few authors have the nerve to try; she has written a historical novel in the first person, and she has done it so beautifully it seems as if the book was indeed written in 1856 by a tempered-by-tragedy woman named Sarah Daniels.

Ms. Levy is remarkably clever in her use of storytelling techniques which successfully weave multiple threads of interest from the first page to the last. The attentive reader will pick up on this finely developed skill in the second sentence of the first chapter. Ms. Levy employs similar techniques throughout, and it is a delight.

This book is such a good read that it is recommended on that basis alone. But if a fascinating and unique look at one of the watershed eras in world history also interests you, then you will be doubly rewarded.