-
Dear Los Angeles
- The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018
- Narrated by: Tom Picasso, Jeanine Bartel, Richard Poe, Eva Kaminsky, Korey Jackson, Lynette Freeman, Luis Moreno, David Kipen
- Length: 14 hrs and 47 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $31.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Mirage Factory
- Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 256
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 228
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 228
Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California - bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges - seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer; D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture; and Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Must read for any Los Angeleno
- By E. Olsen on 09-26-18
By: Gary Krist
-
City of Quartz
- Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
- By: Mike Davis
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together". To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it". To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting LA history
- By Becca on 11-13-18
By: Mike Davis
-
The Castle on Sunset
- Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont
- By: Shawn Levy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 368
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 320
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 322
Since 1929, Hollywood’s brightest stars have flocked to the Chateau Marmont as if it were a second home. An apartment building-turned-hotel, the Chateau has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: where director Nicholas Ray slept with his 16-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies; John Belushi suffered a fatal overdose; and Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up nearly $50,000 in charges in less than two months. Much of what has happened inside the Chateau’s walls has eluded the public eye - until now.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Was enjoying it until...
- By leigh on 04-22-20
By: Shawn Levy
-
Yours Cruelly, Elvira
- Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark
- By: Cassandra Peterson
- Narrated by: Cassandra Peterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,937
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,768
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1,756
The woman behind the icon known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, the undisputed Queen of Halloween, reveals her full story, filled with intimate bombshells - and told by the bombshell herself.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Chapter 14 cut off
- By Wildgreenthumb on 09-24-21
-
The White Album
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Susan Varon
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 807
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 695
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 699
First published in 1979, The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermaths of the 1960s. Examining key events, figures, and trends of the era - including Charles Manson, the Black Panthers, and the shopping mall - through the lens of her own spiritual confusion, Joan Didion helped to define mass culture as we now understand it. Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central example of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Time Capsule of a Bygone Age
- By Ian C Robertson on 10-21-15
By: Joan Didion
-
May You Live in Interesting Times
- A Memoir
- By: Laraine Newman
- Narrated by: Laraine Newman
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 586
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 516
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 511
From growing up in Los Angeles with movie star neighbors, bearing witness to the music scene in the 1960s and seeing the rise of comedy in the early 70s, to studying mime in Paris under the tutelage of Marcel Marceau to becoming a founding member of the seminal comedy troupe The Groundlings, it's no wonder that Lorne Michaels offered Laraine Newman a spot in the original cast of Saturday Night Live. There, Laraine was part of the show that changed TV - and comedy - forever.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
LOT'S OF WORDS
- By Inez on 04-21-21
By: Laraine Newman
-
The Mirage Factory
- Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles
- By: Gary Krist
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 256
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 228
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 228
Little more than a century ago, the southern coast of California - bone-dry, harbor-less, isolated by deserts and mountain ranges - seemed destined to remain scrappy farmland. Then, as if overnight, one of the world’s iconic cities emerged. At the heart of Los Angeles’ meteoric rise were three flawed visionaries: William Mulholland, an immigrant ditch-digger turned self-taught engineer; D.W. Griffith, who transformed the motion picture from a vaudeville-house novelty into a cornerstone of American culture; and Aimee Semple McPherson, a charismatic evangelist.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Must read for any Los Angeleno
- By E. Olsen on 09-26-18
By: Gary Krist
-
City of Quartz
- Excavating the Future in Los Angeles
- By: Mike Davis
- Narrated by: Tim Campbell
- Length: 15 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 75
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 74
No metropolis has been more loved or more hated. To its official boosters, "Los Angeles brings it all together". To detractors, LA is a sunlit mortuary where "you can rot without feeling it". To Mike Davis, the author of this fiercely elegant and wide-ranging work of social history, Los Angeles is both utopia and dystopia, a place where the last Joshua trees are being plowed under to make room for model communities in the desert, where the rich have hired their own police to fend off street gangs, as well as armed Beirut militias.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Interesting LA history
- By Becca on 11-13-18
By: Mike Davis
-
The Castle on Sunset
- Life, Death, Love, Art, and Scandal at Hollywood's Chateau Marmont
- By: Shawn Levy
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 12 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 368
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 320
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 322
Since 1929, Hollywood’s brightest stars have flocked to the Chateau Marmont as if it were a second home. An apartment building-turned-hotel, the Chateau has been the backdrop for generations of gossip and folklore: where director Nicholas Ray slept with his 16-year-old Rebel Without a Cause star Natalie Wood; Jim Morrison swung from the balconies; John Belushi suffered a fatal overdose; and Lindsay Lohan got the boot after racking up nearly $50,000 in charges in less than two months. Much of what has happened inside the Chateau’s walls has eluded the public eye - until now.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Was enjoying it until...
- By leigh on 04-22-20
By: Shawn Levy
-
Yours Cruelly, Elvira
- Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark
- By: Cassandra Peterson
- Narrated by: Cassandra Peterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 1,937
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 1,768
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 1,756
The woman behind the icon known as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, the undisputed Queen of Halloween, reveals her full story, filled with intimate bombshells - and told by the bombshell herself.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Chapter 14 cut off
- By Wildgreenthumb on 09-24-21
-
The White Album
- By: Joan Didion
- Narrated by: Susan Varon
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 807
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 695
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 699
First published in 1979, The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermaths of the 1960s. Examining key events, figures, and trends of the era - including Charles Manson, the Black Panthers, and the shopping mall - through the lens of her own spiritual confusion, Joan Didion helped to define mass culture as we now understand it. Written with a commanding sureness of tone and linguistic precision, The White Album is a central example of American reportage and a classic of American autobiography.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Time Capsule of a Bygone Age
- By Ian C Robertson on 10-21-15
By: Joan Didion
-
May You Live in Interesting Times
- A Memoir
- By: Laraine Newman
- Narrated by: Laraine Newman
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 586
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 516
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 511
From growing up in Los Angeles with movie star neighbors, bearing witness to the music scene in the 1960s and seeing the rise of comedy in the early 70s, to studying mime in Paris under the tutelage of Marcel Marceau to becoming a founding member of the seminal comedy troupe The Groundlings, it's no wonder that Lorne Michaels offered Laraine Newman a spot in the original cast of Saturday Night Live. There, Laraine was part of the show that changed TV - and comedy - forever.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
LOT'S OF WORDS
- By Inez on 04-21-21
By: Laraine Newman
-
A Russian Journal
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 7 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 171
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 157
Steinbeck and Capa's account of their journey through Cold War Russia is a classic piece of reportage and travel writing.Just after the Iron Curtain fell on Eastern Europe, Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Steinbeck and acclaimed war photographer Robert Capa ventured into the Soviet Union to report for the New York Herald Tribune.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Extremely Interesting
- By Jean on 12-04-14
By: John Steinbeck
-
The Paris Wife
- A Novel
- By: Paula McLain
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 11 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,207
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 3,336
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 3,339
Chicago, 1920: Hadley Richardson is a quiet 28eight-year-old who has all but given up on love and happiness—until she meets Ernest Hemingway and her life changes forever. Following a whirlwind courtship and wedding, the pair set sail for Paris, where they become the golden couple in a lively and volatile group—the fabled “Lost Generation”—that includes Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, and F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
Narration Issues
- By Sara on 10-06-15
By: Paula McLain
-
Mornings on Horseback
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Nelson Runger
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,334
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,148
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,144
Winner of the 1982 National Book Award for Biography, Mornings on Horseback is the brilliant biography of the young Theodore Roosevelt. Hailed as a masterpiece by Newsday, it is the story of a remarkable little boy -- seriously handicapped by recurrent and nearly fatal attacks of asthma -- and his struggle to manhood.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
Did not like this one
- By Randall on 11-05-18
By: David McCullough
-
2666
- By: Roberto Bolaño
- Narrated by: John Lee, Armando Durán, G. Valmont Thomas, and others
- Length: 39 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 995
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 748
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 754
Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of Santa Teresa - a fictional Juárez - on the U.S.-Mexico border.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Roadtrip Book!
- By Kat on 10-17-12
By: Roberto Bolaño
-
The Lacuna
- By: Barbara Kingsolver
- Narrated by: Barbara Kingsolver
- Length: 19 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,559
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 960
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 967
Born in the United States, but reared in Mexico, Harrison Shepherd finds precarious shelter but no sense of home on his thrilling odyssey. Life is whatever he learns from housekeepers and, one fateful day, by mixing plaster for famed muralist Diego Rivera. When he goes to work for Rivera, his wife, exotic artist Kahlo, and exiled leader Lev Trotsky, Shepherd inadvertently casts his lot with art and revolution.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Worth the wait for a new Kingsolver novel
- By Tim on 11-17-09
-
I Wonder as I Wander
- An Autobiographical Journey
- By: Langston Hughes, Arnold Rampersad
- Narrated by: Dominic Hoffman
- Length: 16 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 137
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 126
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 126
In I Wonder as I Wander, Langston Hughes vividly recalls the most dramatic and intimate moments of his life in the turbulent 1930s. His wanderlust leads him to Cuba, Haiti, Russia, Soviet Central Asia, Japan, Spain (during its Civil War), through dictatorships, wars, revolutions. He meets and brings to life the famous and the humble, from Arthur Koestler to Emma, the Black Mammy of Moscow.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
The Writer
- By Marva on 08-10-14
By: Langston Hughes, and others
-
Peacekeeping
- A Novel
- By: Mischa Berlinski
- Narrated by: Ben Williams
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 28
When Terry White, a former deputy sheriff and a failed politician, goes broke in the 2007-2008 financial crisis, he takes a job working for the UN, helping to train the Haitian police. He's sent to the remote town of Jérémie, where there are more coffin makers than restaurants, more donkeys than cars, and the dirt roads all slope down sooner or later to the postcard sea. Terry is swept up in the town's complex politics when he befriends an earnest, reforming, American-educated judge.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Great Haiti story
- By Daniel on 03-19-16
By: Mischa Berlinski
-
Tibetan Peach Pie
- A True Account of an Imaginative Life
- By: Tom Robbins
- Narrated by: Keith Szarabajka
- Length: 12 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 749
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 656
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 651
Internationally best-selling novelist and American icon Tom Robbins delivers the long-awaited tale of his wild life and times, both at home and around the globe. The grandchild of Baptist preachers, Robbins would become over the course of half a century a poet-interruptus, an air force weatherman, a radio DJ, an art-critic-turned-psychedelic-journeyman, a world-famous novelist, and a counter-culture hero, leading a life as unlikely, magical, and bizarre as those of his quixotic characters.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
This isn't a book, it's a complete experience
- By David Shear on 05-31-14
By: Tom Robbins
-
The Innocents Abroad
- Or, The New Pilgrim’s Progress
- By: Mark Twain
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,257
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,122
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,121
In June 1867, Mark Twain set out for Europe and the Holy Land on the paddle steamer Quaker City. His enduring, no-nonsense guide for the first-time traveler also served as an antidote to the insufferably romantic travel books of the period.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Twain's Hidden Gem
- By Cynthia Franks on 05-08-12
By: Mark Twain
-
Paris in the Present Tense
- By: Mark Helprin
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 14 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,369
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,254
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,243
In the midst of what should be an effulgent time of life, with its days bright with music, family, and rowing on the Seine, Jules is confronted headlong and all at once by a series of challenges to his principles, livelihood, and home, forcing him to grapple with his complex past and find a way forward. He risks fraud to save his terminally ill infant grandson, matches wits with a renegade insurance investigator, is drawn into an act of savage violence, and falls deeply, excitingly in love with a young cellist who is a third his age.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Greatest living "novelist". Top 10 narrator.
- By BellevueMike on 10-14-17
By: Mark Helprin
-
Essays of E. B. White
- By: E. B. White
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 148
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 132
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 130
Legendary author and essayist E. B. White writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Covering a large number of subjects, this classic collection features 31 of White's most memorable essays.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
E.B. White writes honestly, fearlessly and clearly
- By Bonny on 09-03-17
By: E. B. White
-
On the Road: The Original Scroll
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: John Ventimiglia
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 659
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 577
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 578
Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early as 1947, it was not until three weeks in April 1951, in an apartment on West 20th Street in Manhattan, that he wrote the first full draft that was satisfactory to him.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Classic Brought to Life
- By Sil A. on 11-25-16
By: Jack Kerouac
Publisher's Summary
A rich mosaic of diary entries and letters from Marilyn Monroe, Cesar Chavez, Susan Sontag, Albert Einstein, and many more, this is the story of Los Angeles as told by locals, transplants, and some just passing through.
The City of Angels has played a distinct role in the hearts, minds, and imaginations of millions of people, who see it as the ultimate symbol of the American Dream. David Kipen, a cultural historian and avid scholar of Los Angeles, has scoured libraries, archives, and private estates to assemble a kaleidoscopic view of a truly unique city.
From the Spanish missionary expeditions in the early 1500s to the Golden Age of Hollywood to the strange new world of social media, this collection is a slice of life in L.A. through the years. The pieces are arranged by date - January 1st to December 31st - featuring selections from different decades and centuries. What emerges is a vivid tapestry of insights, personal discoveries, and wry observations that together distill the essence of the city.
As sprawling and magical as the city itself, Dear Los Angeles is a fascinating, must-have collection for everyone in, from, or touched by Southern California.
With excerpts from the writing of Ray Bradbury - Edgar Rice Burroughs - Octavia E. Butler - Italo Calvino - Winston Churchill - Noel Coward - Simone De Beauvoir - James Dean - T. S. Eliot - William Faulkner - Lawrence Ferlinghetti - Richard Feynman - F. Scott Fitzgerald - Allen Ginsberg - Dashiell Hammett - Charlton Heston - Zora Neale Hurston - Christopher Isherwood - John Lennon - H. L. Mencken - Anais Nin - Sylvia Plath - Ronald Reagan - Joan Rivers - James Thurber - Dalton Trumbo - Evelyn Waugh - Tennessee Williams - P. G. Wodehouse - and many more.
Critic Reviews
"This book's a brilliant constellation, spread out over a few centuries and 5,000 square miles. Each tiny entry pins the reality of the great unreal city of Angels to a moment in human time - moments enthralled, appalled, jubilant, suffering, gossiping or bragging - and it turns out, there's no better way to paint a picture of the place." (Jonathan Lethem)
"[A] scintillating collection of letters and diary entries . . . an engrossing trove of colorful, witty insights." (Publishers Weekly)
