The latest project to issue from the dungeons of maptitude, Hiking and Backpacking Santa Barbara & Ventura is 406 pages of southern Los Padres goodness. If it’s out there, it’s probably in here: routes through the southern San Rafael Wilderness, Dick Smith Wilderness, Matilija Wilderness, Sespe Wilderness, Chumash Wilderness, the Santa Ynez Recreation Area, Rose Valley, the Santa Barbara and Montecito frontcountry, the Ojai frontcountry, and the Santa Paula/Fillmore frontcountry are included in this 21st-century successor to the classic Gagnon guides.

In the summer of 1996, NYU undergrad and legendary bike messenger Andy MacCurran is writing a novel about a man on the run. Life imitates art when Andy is nearly killed for a package he agrees to deliver under the table, and his dilemma intensifies from textbook MacGuffin to a situation clearly getting out of control. Andy takes flight, relying only upon instinct and the tattered copy of his manuscript. His novel-in-progress becomes – in the most literal sense – his flight manual.

Available as a Kindle ebook from Amazon.