Writing Los Angeles
A Literary Anthology
Edited by David L. Ulin
Library of America publisher
Copyright 2002
This book held my interest author after author, so editor David L Ulin made some truly wonderful and wise decisions about what authors and what works would best move the visions of Los Angeles we readers behold here through history and individual points of view. I've had the book in my possession near 5 weeks and loved that I could pick it up, read one entry, and put it back down since things have been so busy for me.
I'll be posting excerpts from this book over the next few months, pages I stuck post-it-note stickies on so I could come back to it.
Something else I did, which I haven't in years, is that I read these passages ALOUD.
Reading aloud to oneself or an audience is a different experience, isn't it? How wonderful it would be if there could be a CD of each of these authors reading their own work aloud, but it's impossible because many of them are no longer alive and didn't live in the days of recording readings. Why not try it yourself?
The book takes you through an 1884 publication to the near present (Writing Los Angeles, circa 2002, was on the NEW BOOK SHELF at my local library) and authors that you never knew or dreamed ever came through or lived in Los Angeles.
As I mentioned in my review of the book "Pasadena" a few months back, I'm one who enjoys reading that is placed in the local one knows; the topography, geology, even the old Thomas Brothers Maps. Though books often take us to foreign lands and cultures, there's a sense of more involvement when you can say to yourself, "Yes, I know that road."
Each entry in this book has a short orientation about the author and the importance of the particular piece of work which I found important to situate not only the author but the reader.
If you wish to read all my excerpts in the months ahead, try using the Google Search feature embedded in the side bar using the words Los Angeles.
