Anthologies

From Washington Irving to Zora Neale Hurston, Edgar Allan Poe to Allen Ginsberg, more than one hundred writers of the twentieth century pay testament to the unique charms and foibles of Manhattan, in an annotated hundredth-anniversary anthology.

For writers Los Angeles has always been a place of paradisal promise and apocalyptic undercurrents. Simone de Beauvoir saw a kaleidoscopic “hall of mirrors,” Aldous Huxley a “city of dreadful joy.” Where Jack Kerouac found a “huge desert encampment,” David Thompson imagined “Marilyn Monroe, fifty miles long, lying on her side, half-buried on a ridge of crumbling rock.” In Writing Los Angeles , The Library of America presents a glittering panorama of the city, encompassing fiction, poetry, essays, journalism, and diaries by over seventy writers. This revelatory anthology brings to life the entrancing surfaces and unsettling contradictions of the City of Angels, from Raymond Chandler’s evocation of the murderous moods fed by the Santa Ana winds to John Gregory Dunne’s affectionate tribute to “the deceptive perspectives of the pale subtropical light.” Here are fascinating strata of Los Angeles’s cultural and social history, from the oil boom of the 1920s to the graffiti artists of the 1980s, from flamboyant evangelist Aimee Semple MacPherson to surf music genius Brian Wilson, from the German émigré intellectuals chronicled by Salka Viertel to the hard-bitten homicide cops tracked by James Ellroy. Here are its fragile ecosystems, its architectural splendors, and its social chasms, in the words of writers as various as M.F.K. Fisher, William Faulkner, Bertolt Brecht, Evelyn Waugh, Octavio Paz, Joan Didion, Walter Mosley, and Mona Simpson. Art Pepper discovers Central Avenue in the heyday of the 1940s jazz scene; Charles Mingus describes an early encounter with the builder of the Watts Towers; screenwriter Robert Towne reflects on the origins of Chinatown; John McPhee powerfully conveys the devastation of Los Angeles mudslides; David Hockney teaches himself how to drive in record time; and Pico Iyer finds at Los Angeles International Airport “as clear an image as exists today of the world we are about to enter.” Writing Los Angeles is an incomparable literary tour guide to a city of shifting identities and endless surprises.

Full of observations natives will appreciate, but also the ideal souvenir for tourists, this book is designed with vintage art and packed with literary excerpts, poems, facts, songs, quotes, legends, and recipes celebrating the Golden State. Literary Excerpts for authors such as Joan Didion, Jack London, John Steinbeck, and Amy Tan. Poems by the likes of Robert Hass, John Muir, and Walt Whitman. Fact Spreads including Famous Californians, Moments in History, Earthquakes, and Surf's Up. Song Lyrics including " I Left My Heart in San Francisco, "California Girls," and "San Andreas Fault." Legends and Lore of everything you ever wanted to know about California, including the building of San Francisco's bridges, the Gold Rush, the Water Wars, and Hollywood. Recipes for California nouveau classics like BBQ Chicken Pizza, California Rolls, and Chinese Chicken Salad join more traditional fare such as Crab Louis and Fish Tacos. Vintage Americana postcard and paper ephemera that illustrates eras of time gone by.

The commencement speech is the most popular public address of our time, shared every spring and remembered for years. Here, in an anthology of some of the finest of the genre, brilliant creative minds in every sector offer their wisdom: David Foster Wallace on living a compassionate life, Debbie Millman on the importance of taking risks, Michael Lewis on the responsibility that good fortune merits—and so many other greats. Some of this advice is grand (believe in the impossible), and some of it is granular enough to check off a life list (donate five percent of your money or your time). All of it is universally uplifting. Handsomely packaged with a silkscreened cloth spine and energetic typography throughout, this book is a smart, special gift for graduates and anyone embarking on a new adventure. Includes speeches from : Dick Costolo, Nora Ephron, Ira Glass, Khaled Hosseini, Barbara Kingsolver, Madeleine L’Engle, Michael Lewis, Debbie Millman, Eileen Myles, Jonathan Safran Foer, Michael Uslan, David Foster Wallace, Bradley Whitford, and Tom Wolfe.