Things you won't see anymore on the Upper Ridge include sheep, Shay logging locomotives and filthy laborers pumping slurry into the skeletal Magalia Dam. Before the boomtowns and portable lumber villages were all razed, cannibalized, burned or buried, much of this old world was captured by amateur photographers, whose work is featured in "Magalia to Stirling City" ($19.99, Arcadia Publishing), written by late Town Historian Lois McDonald and historical writer Robert Colby.

Imani Asukile did not include any pictures of "colored" water fountains in his new photographic history of Hernando County's African-Americans. There are no images of the Ku Klux Klan, which staged marches in Brooksville as recently as the early 1990s. Asukile could have documented the controversy over school desegregation or the practice that continued afterward, the playing of Dixie by Hernando High School's marching band. But he decided against it.

Just like the old days, Lake Boon is hopping once again. The white-hulled Princess glides across placid waters heading for the Twilight Club. A streetcar full of visitors chugs down the tracks from Maynard. Belly dancers gyrate on stage at Monahan's tavern late into the night.

Philip Holmes and Jill M. Singleton, local historians from Fremont's Museum of Local History, are at it again. After the success of their last historical book about Fremont, called "Niles, Fremont," Holmes and Singleton decided to approach Irvington to educate readers about the community's unique history.

The biggest thing in the history book business these days is Arcadia Publishing -- a company that thinks small. Arcadia's specialty is a line of standardized little books about city neighborhoods, small towns, fire and police departments, and obscure railroads. Arcadia is the master of the niche market, with a huge list of books (2,367 titles in its "Images of America" series alone) that are mostly pictures and pretty much all nostalgia. Just now Arcadia is mining California history, with 240 titles on the past of the Golden State.

Celebrity isn't limited to Hollywood, and Castro Valley — best known for chicken ranches, rodeos and occasional flare-ups over growth — has its own claims to fame. Jerry Unser, Castro Valley's first fire chief, was the father of race car drivers Bobby and Al Unser. Actor-producer Clint Eastwood's uncle once lived in Eden Canyon. And for years a dog breeder on Castro Valley Boulevard displayed a framed certificate from movie studio MGM stating the original "Lassie" collie — a male named "Pal," although the canine character always was female — came from his kennel. Some of these facts — and lots more — are included in "Images of America: Castro Valley," an evocative and folksy book of pictures, maps and interviews.

With more than 200 black and white photographs — beautifully reproduced — the book (as Colby puts it) "pulls together ... information on the Butte County Railroad, the Gold Rush town of Magalia (Dogtown), Diamond Match logging operations, the mill town, Stirling City, and Ridge ghost towns."

Joan Case’s family settled in the Chester area in 1798 and her latest book, “Chester Then and Now,” is a fitting tribute to her ancestors and the borough. “My family has lived in this area for a long time,” Case said in an interview on Monday. “We have been collecting photos of Chester for some time now and I wanted to share that legacy with its residents.”

POTRERO HILL, like every neighborhood that sits along the eastern side of San Francisco, is under assault: Developers with eyes only for big money are dumping high-end housing into the Showplace Square and central waterfront areas, and that will almost certainly put pressure on the light industry and middle-class housing that still exist on the hill.

With Revisiting The Long Island Rail Road: 1925-1975, David Keller and Steve Lynch have outdone their earlier efforts with this companion to their The Long Island Rail Road: 1925-1975 published in 2004. With the publication of their earlier book, Keller and Lynch were inundated with requests for a follow-on volume. This latest volume in Arcadia’s Images of Rail series comes just in time to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the electrification of the Long Island Rail Road.

Drive along River Road, the main north-south artery in Edgewater, with its strip malls and Starbucks and sleek high-rise buildings, and you'd never guess at the borough's rich history. A new book aims to change that.

This time last year, stay-at-home mother Marsha Wight Wise had never written a book. Now, she has one on the market, another in progress and a book-signing event scheduled for 2 p.m. Oct. 16, at the Catonsville library. The secret of her success? "You don't sleep much," said the 38-year-old Hunting Ridge resident whose children are 7, 5 and 2. "Mostly I worked weekends and evenings, after my husband came home."

A one-room schoolhouse with a bell tower and a coal-burning potbelly stove once stood in a grassy field near what is now Princeton Avenue and Hartwick Road in the heart of the Old Town College Park neighborhood. Today the location is a busy suburban intersection where students look for parking and neighbors walk their dogs.

By day, Vince Gargiulo sits at a desk designing books, catalogs, brochures and menus for a printing company. In his free time, Gargiulo often drifts back to his childhood days at Palisades Amusement Park, from the clanking noise of the roller coasters inching upward to the tangy scent of french fries doused with malt vinegar.

The third B&M book authored by Dr. Heald and dedicated to the Society contains some 200 photos depicting the railroad from its early days to today’s Guilford System.

To better appreciate the historical beginnings of the North Fork, a fine place to start would be the ancient burial grounds that dot the East End. A new book in Arcadia Publishing’s Images of America series, North Fork Cemeteries by Clement M. Healy, details the mortal remains of northeastern Long Island’s early history, preserved in stone.