I own a computer game from the 1980's called Gold Rush. It was produced by the then-premiere gaming company Sierra On-Line, and is one of my childhood favorites. This was back when adventure gaming was more of a thoughtful experience, similar to reading a book as opposed to the CGI-heavy deluge we get today.

Anyway, included in the game box was this book, California Gold: Story of the Rush to Riches. First and foremost to playing the actual game it functioned as a copy protection guide. The player was asked a question from the book, and the correct answer was needed to proceed. Like an open-book test. I never actually read the book beyond whatever answers I needed to play. Fast-forward 20+ years. I find the game in an dusty cardboard box in the garage and inside, along with the original 5¼" floppy disks, is this little treasure. And for the first time in my life I read it cover to cover.

The content is exactly what the subtitle says, a mini-history. There's not really a single over-arching narrative of the 10 years of the California Gold Rush starting in 1948 so what you get instead are a collection of stories. Most of the them center around the towns that sprang up to feed the need and greed of the era, and subsequently most of them either diminished into the small towns that still exist today or withered away altogether. ( )