There is no neon to match Nevada's. The combination of Wild West mythology and the remaining untamed pitch-black nighttime landscape, replete with real cowboys and real gambling, makes the Silver State a unique and appropriate canvas for neon art. Modern Nevada began with a nonstop desire for riches. It continues for many as a state of dreams often vividly expressed through exploding neon. "Neon Nevada" brings all this alive. Cameras in hand, authors Sheila Swan and Peter Laufer embarked on their first Nevada neon trek in the 1970s. They followed this up with a second nocturnal treasure hunt in the early 1990s--and a third in 2010, in the course of which they discovered that neon is fading fast; most notably, on the Las Vegas Strip. Most of all, though, they realized that their passion for the art and craft of neon had not waned. A compelling blend of full-color photographs and absorbing prose, "Neon Nevada" takes us on a literal and figurative journey not only down the Las Vegas strip but down quiet two-lane roads punctuated occasionally with neon signs, those glittering beacons of civilization against the desert night sky. The authors talk with sign owners, with those who created and maintained the neon, and those who collect it. They hear neon lore from locals. And they take pleasure in just watching the vibrant colors in motion--the argon violets, krypton purples, helium golds, and xenon blues that glow along with the red neons. "Neon Nevada" is at once a stirring ode to a fading tradition and a celebration of a unique modern art, one whose pages will bring back memories while, perhaps, also conjuring up dreams of the future.
About the Author: Peter Laufer, winner of major awards for excellence in reporting, is an independent journalist, broadcaster and documentary filmmaker working in traditional and new media. While a globe-trotting correspondent for NBC News, he also reported, wrote, and produced several documentaries and special event broadcasts for the network that dealt in detail with crucial social issues. Laufer's books include The Question of Consent: Innocence and Complicity in the Glen Ridge Rape Case. He's written works on the fall of Communism in Europe (titled Iron Curtain Rising), a severe criticism of contemporary talk radio, Inside Talk Radio: America's Voice Or Just Hot Air, and a book version of the documentary about Americans in prisons overseas, also titled Nightmare Abroad. Another of his books, Made in Mexico, published by the National Geographic Society, deals, in a juvenile environment, with cross border issues between California and Mexico. Laufer has written Exodus to Berlin, a book version of his study of the resurgence of the Jewish population in Germany and the concurent rise of right-wing violence, and Wetback Nation: The Case for Opening the Mexican-American Border. With Markos Kounalakis he's written Hope Is a Tattered Flag, based on conversations from "Washington Monthly on the Radio", the nationally-syndicated radio show they co-anchor. Another of their Washington Monthly projects is "Calexico" both a book and a series of radio documentaries celebrating the California-Mexico Borderlands, and supported by a grant from the California Council for the Humanities. Peter Laufer was the charter anchor of the radio program "National Geographic World Talk", a nationally-syndicated show he created. He hosts "The Peter Laufer Show" Sundays on the San Francisco Clear Channel radio station Green 960.