A collection of essays in which a dozen historians and novelists present their impressions and concerns about "end of the century Nevada." Human expectations and illusions are seen as a backdrop for today's Nevada as a new human frontier. As an overview of Nevada society, this study deals with culture as well as economics, with tradition as well as rapid population growth. The essayists inquire whether the friction between acquisition and preservation, quick wealth and refined sensitivity, will build a more humane and enlightened society.

Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, and space aliens like the Transformers share a surprising connection along with James Bond, Indiana Jones, and Rocky Balboa. These beloved icons played active roles in movie and television projects set in the state of Nevada. Long time state film commissioner and movie reviewer Holabird explores the blending of icons and Nevada, along with her personal experiences of watching movies, talking with famous people, and showing off a diverse range of stunning and iconic locations like Las Vegas, Reno, Lake Tahoe, and Area 51.

Holabird shows how Nevada’s flash, flair, and fostering of the forbidden provided magic for singers, sexpots, and strange creatures from other worlds. She also gives readers an insider’s look into moviemaking in Nevada by drawing on her extensive experience as a film commissioner. This is a unique take on film history and culture, and Holabird explores eighteen film genres populated by one-of-a-kind characters with ties to Nevada. Along with being a film history of the state of Nevada written by a consummate insider, the book is a fun mixture of research, personal experiences, and analysis about how Nevada became the location of choice for a broad spectrum of well-known films and characters.

The senior years can be daunting, for spouses, children, other caregivers, and seniors themselves. Too often a sudden crisis leaves a family unprepared and feeling helpless. Chronic illnesses and limited funds can present difficult and emotional choices regarding care or housing. Rules and resources vary from state to state. Everyone can use help from experienced professionals in understanding them.

Boyer and Shapiro provide Nevada-specific information\--medical, legal, and financial\--on the wide range of problems that arise during the elder years. Case studies show how a typical family copes with troubles such as failing health or financial cares and what options they have. This guide will help any Nevada resident plan for their own senior years and take care of aging parents, spouses, and other loved ones.

Every year, more than thirty-five million people from all over the world visit Las Vegas; only two million call the city home. Everyday Las Vegas takes a close look at the lives of those who live in a place the rest of the world considers exotic, even decadent. Using broad research, including interviews with more than one hundred Las Vegans, Rex Rowley--who grew up in Las Vegas--examines everyday life in a place that markets itself as an escape from mundane reality.

Rowley considers such topics as why people move to Las Vegas, the nature of their work and personal lives, the impact of growth and rapid change, and interaction with the overwhelmingly touristic side of the city. He also considers the benefits and perils of living in a nonstop twenty-four-hour city rich in entertainment options and easy access to gambling, drugs, and other addictions. His examination includes the previously unstudied role of neighborhood casinos patronized by locals rather than tourists and the impact that a very mobile population has on schools, churches, and community life.

Rowley considers the very different ways people perceive a place as insiders or outsiders, a dichotomy that arises when tourism is a mainstay of the local economy. His work offers insights into what Las Vegas can teach us about other cities and American culture in general. It also contributes to our understanding of how people relate to places and how the personality of a place influences the lives of people who live there.  

In a rundown neighborhood in the heart of Las Vegas, the Alicia hotel awakens and beckons to the most vulnerable—those with something to hide.

After his parents are killed in a horrific roadside execution, Alvaro flees his home in Colombia and finds work as a line cook at the seedy hotel. Together with his sister, Carmen, he begins to make a new life in the desert, earning a promotion to management along with an irresistible offer to stay at the hotel rent-free. But as beloved photographs go missing, cockroaches seep from the walls, and grotesque strangers wander the corridors, the promise of the Alicia decays into nightmare. Alvaro discovers that the hotel is a small appendage of an enormous creature that feeds on guests and their secrets, one that will eventually bring him face-to-face with the memories he most wants to outrun. Alvaro, Carmen, and their friends decide to cooperate with the creature rather than fight it. But in their efforts to appease it, do they sacrifice too much of themselves?

Haunting and visceral, Extended Stay uses the language of body horror and the gothic to comment on the complicated relationship between the Latinx undocumented experience and capitalism, the erasure of those living and working on the margins, the heavy toll exacted by memory, and the queasy permeability of boundaries that separate the waking world from the world of dreams.