BOOK LIST:

My L.A.: Featured Titles for Adults

Updated: March 29, 2023

Book cover for 111 Places in Los Angeles That You Must Not Miss
111 Places in Los Angeles That You Must Not Miss
Moglen, Laurel
Call Number: 979.41T L881Mog 2016

Not the usual guidebook to interesting places in Los Angeles—many of them you might not know about.


Book cover for Arroyo: A Novel
Arroyo: A Novel
Jacobs, Chip

Book cover for The Barbarian Nurseries
The Barbarian Nurseries
Tobar, Hector

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.


Book cover for LA by Mouth: The Essential Guide to Eating in Los Angeles
LA by Mouth: The Essential Guide to Eating in Los Angeles
Postalakis, Mike
Call Number: 647.9509794 P857

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.


Book cover for Clark and Division
Clark and Division
Hirahara, Naomi, 1962-
Call Number: LT M

Book cover for Frantic Transmissions to and From Los Angeles: An Accidental Memoir
Frantic Transmissions to and From Los Angeles: An Accidental Memoir
Braverman, Kate
Call Number: 813 B826B

Book cover for The Grand Central Market Cookbook: Cuisine and Culture From Downtown Los Angeles
The Grand Central Market Cookbook: Cuisine and Culture From Downtown Los Angeles
Yellin, Adele
Call Number: 641.59794 Y437

History and recipes will make you want to visit this legendary food market in DTLA.  


Book cover for Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir
Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir
Waldie, D. J.
Call Number: 979.41 L1925Wa 2005

Book cover for L.A. Weather
L.A. Weather
Escandón, María Amparo

Witness a year in the tumultuous lives of the Alvarado family as they grapple with the secrets they’ve been keeping from each other.


Book cover for Made in L.A.: Chasing the Elusive Dream
Made in L.A.: Chasing the Elusive Dream
Call Number: SS

Book cover for The mirage factory : illusion, imagination, and the invention of Los Angeles
The mirage factory : illusion, imagination, and the invention of Los Angeles
Krist, Gary,
Call Number: e-Book

Book cover for Murder on Bamboo Lane
Murder on Bamboo Lane
Hirahara, Naomi
Call Number: M

Book cover for A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community
A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community
Molina, Natalia
Call Number: 647.9509794 M722

While researching 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.


Book cover for Play It as It Lays
Play It as It Lays
Didion, Joan
Call Number: Ed.b

The ravages of being an actress in Hollywood are brutally depicted in this novel that also captures a time period, the 1960s.


Book cover for Read Me, Los Angeles
Read Me, Los Angeles
Orphan, Katie
Call Number: 810.9 O74

"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."


Book cover for Río L.A. : tales from the Los Angeles River
Río L.A. : tales from the Los Angeles River
Morrison, Patt, 1957-
Call Number: 979.41 L88Mor 2022

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.


Book cover for Siren Queen
Siren Queen
Vo, Nghi

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.


Book cover for Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between
Stealing Home: Los Angeles, the Dodgers, and the Lives Caught in Between
Nusbaum, Eric
Call Number: 796.231 L8788Nu

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.


Book cover for A Student of History
A Student of History
Revoyr, Nina

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.


Book cover for That Blue Trickster Time
That Blue Trickster Time
Uyematsu, Amy
Call Number: 811 U97-3

Book cover for This is Where We Live
This is Where We Live
Brown, Janelle

A giddy satire about a young married couple, a musician and a filmmaker, who decide to celebrate the impending success of their careers by buying a Mount Washington bungalow with an adjustable mortgage rate.


Book cover for Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Zevin, Gabrielle

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.


Book cover for Wild LA: Explore the Amazing Nature in and Around Los Angeles
Wild LA: Explore the Amazing Nature in and Around Los Angeles
Higgins, Lila M.
Call Number: 570.9794 H636

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."


Book cover for Your House Will Pay
Your House Will Pay
Cha, Steph

Book cover for Zeroville
Zeroville
Erickson, Steve.

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.


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