CONTACT
Christine Donovan
928 A Avenue
Coronado, CA 92118
619.435.0779
[email protected]
CORONADO BOOK CELEBRATES THE CHARMS OF A ONE-OF-A-KIND COMMUNITY
CORONADO, CALIFORNIA:
Hometown * Homeport * Home Away From Home
A new book, Coronado, California: Hometown, Homeport, Home Away From Home, pays tribute to the island’s unique assets from its historic neighborhoods to its Navy heritage and world-class vacation amenities. The 105-page volume is filled with more than 200 photographs, and its eleven chapters explore the “home” theme of Coronado, including the city’s neighborhoods (“Hometown”), the Coronado Bridge (“Home Stretch”), the community’s gardens (“Home Grown”), the United States Navy (“Homeport”) and even Coronado’s off-leash dog beach (“Home Free”).
According to author, Christine Donovan, a 35-year resident of the peninsula and a local historian, Coronado packs a lot of variety into its small island area. “Coronado is inherently interesting, both by nature and by design.” Donovan points to the community’s varied coastline as part of its natural endowment, with more than 8 miles of Pacific beachfront, along with bay views that include everything from the expansive San Diego skyline to the intimacy of Glorietta Bay.
When it comes to the community’s manmade charms, Donovan credits the Hotel del Coronado founders, Elisha Babcock and Hampton Story, who not only built the famed 1888 resort, but designed the town itself, ensuring an unspoiled, spectacular beachfront, along with wide, tree-lined residential streets and a central boulevard, Orange Avenue, that evokes the essence of Main Street America. Beyond that, thanks to visionary habitat preservation begun decades ago, much of Coronado’s Silver Strand which includes some of California’s last remaining coastal sage scrub environment is home to a variety of wildlife.
Adds Anna Woerman, the Coronado photographer who took most of the photographs (Donovan contributed a few), “We wanted to capture the everyday pleasures of Coronado from sidewalk scenes to surfers while paying tribute to its remarkable natural assets incredible beaches and breathtaking vistas.”
The theme of Coronado, California: Hometown, Homeport, Home Away From Home extols the city’s welcoming diversity, which, says Donovan, starts in Coronado’s varied neighborhoods and extends to such diverse populations as the United States Navy, vacationers from around the world, and even the California least tern, a diminutive bird that arrives every spring to nest and breed along Coronado’s hospitable shores.
Well-chosen quotations give the book universal appeal for instance, when a photograph of a well-kept Cape Cod house is combined with this thought by Winston Churchill: “We shape our dwellings, and afterward, our dwellings shape us.” Or, when Lao-tzu’s sentiment, “A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving,” accompanies a photograph of the San Diego ferry docking in Coronado at dusk.
Coronado, California: Hometown, Homeport, Home Away From Home is available for $29.95 in Coronado at Bay Books, Coronado Historical Association, Cotier Casual Coastal Living, the Hotel Del gift shops or via www.islandboundpress.com. Or check out CORONADO CALIFORNIA BOOK on facebook.
Title: Coronado, California: Hometown, Homeport, Home Away From Home
Author: Christine Donovan
Price: $29.95 US
ISBN: 978-0-9828438-0-2
LCCN: 2010914493
Publishing date: January 2011
Length: 105 pages
Number of photographs: 216
Trim size: 8″ x 10″
Binding: Soft cover
Publisher: Island Bound Press/islandboundpress.com
# # #
