Paperback L.A. Book 2

LA’s first stoner party Memoirs of a Merchant…...............................….Jose Arnaz.
What happens when Don Abel Stearns hosts early LA’s first invitation-only social gathering? An excerpt from “Memoirs of a Merchant” dictated by Jose Arnaz to Bancroft Library. Translated and edited by Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez.

Ghost Town #1: Terminal Island: Lost Communities of Los Angeles Harbor………………Naomi Hirahara
Highlights from the award-winning book on the fascinating mix of successive settlements on a sheltered coast, as fish-shack hermits gave way to Victorian lady shell experts who were followed by Bohemian artist squatters and then Japanese American fishing families.

Nature Notes #1 Harvesting Wild Mustard……………………H. E. Lougheed
“Until the ’eighties, Southern California was a land of wild mustard fields.” The author means the 1880s, as he describes in this 1951 account his father’s 1890 decision to get out of the wild mustard business.

A Star Feels Guilty………………………………………………………………….Diana Serra Cary
In excerpts from her illuminating 1978 book Hollywood’s Children, An Inside Account of the Child Star Era, one of the biggest child stars of all time tells a nuanced story of exploitation and need, glamor and danger. She interviews and name-checks Judy Garland, Jackie Coogan, Our Gang>/i>’s Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas and the many others. Cary starred as Baby Peggy in two-reel comedies at the age of 20 months in 1921.

The Need for Speed! LA's Auto Racing Legacy: A Timeline……………………………………………………………………Preston Lerner
A fast, furious look at more than 100 years racing milestones: From the winning 64 mph at LA’s first official race in 1909 to the amazing 171 mph on a dry lake in 1927 by a Miller 91 race car. From the 1920s birth of hot-rodding when young mechanics modified Model Ts to the 1999 birth of rat-rodding. From the 1937 demise of the Killer Track (Legion Ascot in Lincoln Heights) to the 2008 opening of the first Tesla showroom in the county. And much more.

Ghost Town #2: Central Avenue (Photo Essay)
The Shades of LA collection has an incredible number of Central Avenue photos taken from family albums. May be coupled with quotes from a book called Swingin’ on Central Avenue: African American Jazz in Los Angeles.

Homage, Memoir or Misguided?………………………………………………………………..Ray Bradbury
Widely panned when published in 1999 when Bradbury was 79, Death is a Lonely Business seems intended as a spoof of LA’s most famous literary genre, the hard-boiled mystery. But it works better in many ways as a fever-dream memoir of the author’s time when a young writer living on the cheap in early 50s Venice before he became, you know, Ray Bradbury.

Nature Note #2, Avocados…………………………………………………………………Helen Brown
An explanation from California best-regarded cookbook author of the postwar era. From West Coast Cookbook (1952)

My Father’s Malibu, My Mother’s Griffith Park……………………………………………..Colleen Dunn Bates, Eric Gutierrez
Two delightful takes on the once-removed memoir as writers describe what they have heard and know about significantly hip landmarks in a parent’s life in Los Angeles: the Malibu surf scene of the 1950s and love-ins (well, “happenings”) in 1968 Griffith Park.

Photo Essay: "La Cuidad"……………………………………Danny Martinez

Scheherazade in LA………………………………………….......Gina B. Nahai
This selection is from Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith (1999), an LA Times bestseller and a compellingly funny, frank and complex novel of the Persian Jewish diaspora. It captures the mythic energy and determination of a young immigrant’s aunt who, in her way, sets Beverly Hills afire.

One-Liners Centerfold: What Do You Have to Do to Get a Street Named for You in LA? …………………………………………………………………………..Charles P. Hobbs
From the transit historian and systems librarian at Compton College.

Summers in the Cities…………………………………………………………………………..Patricia Freeman
In the late 1980s, one of LA’s favorite magazines was LA Style, where long stories by some of the city’s poorest writers met giant pictures by some of the country’s fanciest fashion photogs. This knowing and memorable comparison of LA and New York in August is from a monthly column called NY/LA/LA/NY.

Geography Warp…………………………………………………………………………..Karen Tei
It all starts to make sense if you read it, and there’s tremendous color and interest in the telling. From Mazatlan, Mexico, events and characters are set in motion mysteriously circling LA until a traffic disaster on the Harbor Freeway becomes the heart of the hemisphere. Homeless people take up residents in abandoned vehicles while a Sansei musician named Manzanar Murakami conducts his orchestra from the overpass. From the 1997 novel Tropic of Orange.

Two Fugly Buildings…………………………………………………………………………..Wendy Gilmartin
For several years on her blog for LA Weekly, Gilmartin wrote about her pet fugly buildings with affection and awe. As she told an interviewer for LA Forum for Architecture and Urban Design, “I do love the buildings I write about. I think there is something special about each of them. Ugly buildings and fancy architecture are two very different things.” “The Bank that Looks Like Del Taco” and “The Zipper on a Pantsuit: Harmony Gold Theater & Offices” are reprinted here in their entirety.

Nature Note #3: Photo Essay Shorebirds of Malibu and La Ballona…………………………………………………………………………..Harmut Walter