(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Publisher & Editor
I have always loved reading. It goes back to my newspaper training and really before that my dad, who was a voracious reader of books. Mostly, I like factual books and really enjoy ones on travel, especially first-person experiences.
So when I got a copy of It Happened Right Here, America’s Pop Culture Landmarks by Chris Epting ($25.95, soft cover, Santa Monica Press), I was intrigued. And then I started thumbing through it – well, actually scrolling, because I was sent a PDF file of it – I could not stop reading it.
I kept going from page to page, location to location. It has places of interest and cultural history in 10 chapters, among them The Wierd And The Wonderful; Crime, Murder And Assisnation; Celebrity Deaths and Infamous Celebrity Events; Let There Be Music and Play Ball!
So what exactly is in It Happened Right Here, America’s Pop Culture Landmarks that makes it so fascinating? Here’s a sampling of what it contains, all with addresses, a brief history and pictures:
• The garage where Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created Apple Computer
• Area 51 and how to get there
• The Anchor Bar in Buffalo, the place that created buffalo wings
• The lab where the first e-mail was sent
• The first pizziera in America, the restaurant that served the first hamburger, the location of the first McDonald’s and also the first Kentucky Fried Chicken
• The hotel where JFK and Jackie Kennedy spent their wedding night (that must have been some party!), the salon where Norma Jeane Baker (Marilyn Monroe) first became a blonde and the house where she died, and the birthplace of Frank Sinatra
• The birthplacd of the National Amthem, the location of Plymouth Rock (I’ve been there!), the location of the “shot heard ’round the world (Old North Bridge in Con- cord, Massachusetts), where Washington crossed the Delaware and other historical landmarks
• Information Bigfoot, DB Cooper (the still-unsolved mystery about the hijacker who parachtued out of a moving jet into the Oregon woods), the site where Bonnie and Clyde were ambushed by FBI agents and even the house of John Wayne and Lorena Bobbett
• Legendary LA celebrity bars such as Chez Jey and Ciro’s
I could go on and on and one because there is so many fascinating places, people, events and locations. The style of writing is factual with light humor so it’s a very easy read. I will warn you tho: you may pick it up only intending to thumb through it and then next thing you know one or even two hours has passed. It’s as addictive as scrolling through social media.
“I find one of the locations in this book to be arguably the most prophetic of them all: The dorm room where Facebook was created,” Epting wrote in the book’s introduction. “Because just like the first book of this sort I ever wrote, James Dean Died Here, that was 20 years ago.”
It Happened Right Here, America’s Pop Culture Landmarks is published by:
Santa Monica Press LLC
P.O. Box 850
Solana Beach, CA 92075
1-800-784-9553
Website: www.santamonicapress.com
E-mail: books@santamonicapress.com
Leave a Reply