"Newport Beach", from Arcadia Publishing's Postcard History Series, is a compilation of over 200 rare postcards chronicling the city's past.  These superb images depict early harbors and watercraft, the bathing attire of bygone eras, and Hollywood's use of the picturesque community as a backdrop for movies and television shows.  

Here's a description from the book's back cover:

Of all the West Coast communities lapped by the Pacific Ocean, Newport Beach has stood for generations as the epitome of seaside affluence. Its beaches, harbor, yacht clubs, surfing spots, restaurants, and other playground attributes give it the outward appearance of a carefree vacationer’s paradise. That truth coexists with another, that Newport Beach has also been a workaday town with traditional businesses. The more than 200 images compiled for this handsome representation of Newport Beach illustrate both the resort aspects that have made the city a worldwide favorite and the building-block businesses that have kept it a viable family community.

 That’s why many corporate and Hollywood giants, such as John Wayne, have called Newport Beach home.

"Newport Beach's Balboa & Balboa Island" collects over 220 vintage photographs of the villages of Balboa & its neighboring island. 

Here's a description from the book's back cover:

The village of Balboa lies on the eastern half of a 4-mile-long peninsula, a natural barrier that protects the neighboring Balboa Island from Pacific storms. Both the village and the island have constituted a sun-soaked paradise for residents and vacationers from all over the world for more than a century. Famous for luxury homes, miles of beautiful, sandy beaches, and one of the largest pleasure harbors on the West Coast, Balboa has enjoyed a colorful history filled with backroom gambling, midnight deliveries during Prohibition, and frequent visits from Hollywood's biggest stars. Such legends as John Wayne, James Cagney, Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart, and Lauren Bacall spent many a day sailing Balboa's harbor and many nights enjoying its justifiably famous nightlife of dance halls, restaurants, and clubs. Balboa and Balboa Island represent all of the extremes, perhaps best exemplified in the quaintness of today's city of Newport Beach, an Orange County enclave where great wealth commingles with the carefree charm of a barefoot community.

"Newport Beach: Then & Now" places 96 historical images side by side with contemporary photographs.

Here's a description from the book's back cover:

Newport Beach, with its picturesque harbor and 10 miles of sandy beaches, has seen great change since its beginnings in the post-Civil War era. Originally a shipping port, it evolved into a haven for movie stars, rumrunners, and gamblers and finally transformed into today's exclusive beach community and popular vacation destination.

Comparing our present to our past is how we understand our history.  Arcadia's Then & Now series makes such local comparisons available.  Books in this series offer a special view of American life.

Author Bio: In his third book on Newport Beach, author and longtime resident Jeff Delaney opens a door between Newport's past and what remains.