Don Rauf – författare

For many children of the sixties, the gift of a Schwinn was a ticket to freedom, a chance to feel the wind on their face and the steady rotation of rubber at their feet. The Schwinn took many through their childhood adventures, with memories filled of after school, free-range bike rides around the neighborhood with friends, the late afternoon sun shining off of the gleaming painted frame and stainless steel fenders.The 1960s and 70s saw a boom of Schwinn Sting-Rays, which appealed to young riders who had to have the hottest “muscle” bike in town, and sold like hotcakes to parents everywhere scrambling to get the best Christmas present ever for their kids.From its early years dominating the youth market with Sting-Rays to the teen-friendly Varsity and Continental models to its most recent parent-friendly iterations of the Easy-Steer and Roadster Trikes, the Schwinn weaves itself through 120 years of American history. For many, the Schwinn will be forever tied to the memories of their childhood, to a simpler time of freedom, laughter, and endless wonder.

Schwinn: The Best Present Ever is a visual celebration of this American icon, with a complementary narrative throughout that tells the Schwinn story.

Breaking History books offer a front row seat to history as it broke (like “breaking news”) and give the blow-by-blow of historical discovery—what we learned, when we learned it, who made the discovery, and how. Lost America is an illustrated look at fascinating places in the United States that have existed only in myth and have never been found, those that were abandoned and why, and those that were lost to social upheaval or natural disaster. The book reviews the history behind these places—how they began, how long they endured, why they were lost, and how many have been rediscovered. Included are accounts of the mysterious disappearance of the Anasazi from the Southwest, the abandonment of the Roanoke Colony in 1590, the environmental disaster that caused the population of Centralia, Pennsylvania to evacuate the town in the 1980s, and the nearly-intact ghost town of Bodie, California. The book also includes places that were thought to exist, but did not--or not yet, anyway: legendary Norse settlements, lost cities of gold, and The Fountain of Youth.