Not the usual guidebook to interesting places in Los Angeles—many of them you might not know about.
In an affluent Los Angeles community, a Mexican live-in maid, Araceli, discovers that her employers are gone, and she is left in a sprawling house with the owners' two little boys. So begins an adventure in today's Los Angeles, as Araceli takes the two children on a search for their grandfather Señor Torres.
Over 8,000 restaurants that are in the greater Los Angeles area will give you lots of choices where to eat, nibble, drink and meet. From some of the most classic vintage eateries to mom-and-pop eateries.
History and recipes will make you want to visit this legendary food market in DTLA.
Witness a year in the tumultuous lives of the Alvarado family as they grapple with the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other.
While doing research about the restaurant that her grandmother Doña Natalia opened, Natalia Molina discovered even more about the eatery, her grandmother, and the community that worked and ate there. The real-life experiences reflect a complex history of Los Angeles with more twists and turns than a suspense novel.
The ravages of being an actress in Hollywood are brutally depicted in this novel that also captures a time period, the 1960s.
"The book’s central focus is exploring the work of both contemporary and long-departed writers who made Los Angeles a central character within their stories."
Morrison has updated her 2001 history of the L.A. River to reflect recent discussions about reestablishing it as a key feature of the city.
A novel filled with dark magic, luminous stars, brutal studio heads, and a seemingly endless stream of those willing to do almost anything to be a part of making movies. Behind the walls of the Wolfe Studios are those willing to be sacrificed to keep the studio running, and be able to make another film. They will take any part offered as a chance to break through and get noticed. A harrowing, fantastical journey through an alternate pre-code Hollywood, where magic is rampant, contracts with the studios are Faustian, and movie stars literally inhabit the night sky if they are lucky enough to rise. It is also a journey of self-discovery, love found, lost, and found again. And, it is a reminder there is a bit of monster in all of us, which might make our dreams come true.
An absorbing account chronicling the dismantling of the Mexican American community of Chavez Ravine that paved the way for Dodger Stadium. Nusbaum revives the shady dealings and power players that have become part of L.A. lore, but his decision to focus on a single Chavez Ravine family instills a sense of humanity in this vivid and engrossing narrative.
Nina Revoyr admirably captures the idiosyncrasies of Los Angeles and its history through the character of Rick Nagano, a USC graduate student, whose desirable job has unforeseen drawbacks. While working for Mrs. W., matriarchal heir to an oil fortune, he has access to her personal journals and files that reveal an unknown history of the city. While assisting Fiona Morgan, a young socialite, Nagano learns more about the history of Los Angeles, which is interesting, but also proves to be more damaging to everyone.
When college friends in the 1990s start a company and make a video game, they don't realize the impact it will have on the rest of their lives.
After a review in LAPL Reads, there was and continues to be a phenomenal interest in this book. Librarian Andrea Borchert, who wrote the review, says it best, "Sometimes L.A. seems like an endless stretch of strip malls and freeways. But L.A. is more than that! L.A. is part of the California Floristic Province, a biodiversity hotspot. In its wide range of habitats, from deserts to beaches, there are many wonderful, fascinating plants, animals, and fungi figuring out how to live side by side with us."
Vikar, obsessed with movies and fleeing his strict Calvinist upbringing in Pennsylvania, arrives in Los Angeles on the day of the Tate-LaBianca murders. With a tattoo of Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun tattooed on his shaved head he wanders through Hollywood of the 1970s and eventually uncovers a dark secret of the movies. David Lynch meets Easy Riders, Raging Bulls.