If you’re into the latest best sellers, head on over to the New York Times book reviews. If, on the other hand, you’re willing to check out reading material that’s a little more “dated,” you’ve come to the right place.
Once again, I’ve let this blog languish the past several weeks while indulging other pursuits — namely, frequent, intensive research trips to the library for the book I’m writing.
Soooo, here’s a brainstorm: Why not kill two birds with one stone and launch a new blog feature sharing some of my more interesting book finds?
In this first installment, we take a look at Los Angeles: A Profile, by William Wilcox Robinson (1968, University of Oklahoma Press). The author should be a familiar name among Angeleno pop-culturists. A former vice president of the Title Insurance and Trust Co., Robinson (1891-1972) became a prolific Southland historian, churning out an incredible assortment of pamphlets, articles, essays, poems and books from the 1930s onward.
A Revealing Portrait…
Los Angeles: A Profile is not so much a history of the city as a series of revealing essays exploring the most salient features of the Angeleno dreamscape. Compact, breezy, and weighing in at a mere 138 pages, it can easily be tackled in a few sittings.
But don’t let the easy reading fool you. Every page is loaded with entertaining historical insight into a wide range of topics, from L.A.’s early development, to its Latin heritage, to the rise of its car and star cultures, to its flitting enthusiasm for the arts.
My favorite chapter (No. 10) scrutinizes Angeleno “myth-making,” surveying some of L.A.’s most enduring urban legends and the sense-of-place yearnings that fuel them. From the very outset, Robinson ties these yearnings to the city’s transient roots:
“The Los Angeles area, beset always by waves of newcomers, has produced its full share of myths. Its people prefer to accept and retell stories which seem good enough to be true, even if they are not.”
Uncanny… You’d almost think he was describing the modern L.A. blogosphere…
Anyway, without giving away the particulars, Robinson’s myth-busting includes popular fables surrounding the city’s founding, life during the Days of the Dons, a famous ghost tale, and the development and naming of places like San Pascual, Beverly Hills and Azusa. (Forget everything you thought you knew about this stuff…)
The Bottom Line…
Like so many of Robinson’s works, Los Angeles: A Profile exudes a playful affection for the City of Angels even while exploding cherished misconceptions. Amazingly, the author’s observations are as fresh today as they were four decades ago. All in all, visitors, transplants and natives alike will find this book a fun and essential backgrounder for “living the L.A. dream.”
Los Angeles: A Profile can be checked out from the LAPL or purchased from select Amazon.com sellers.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
First of all: wanted to let you know I really love your blog. Even though there aren’t any comments after most of your entries, please rest assured that a lot of people are definitely reading and enjoying them! The photos alone are amazing!
Second, since you seem to know a lot more about L.A. than most people, maybe you’d be kind enough to check out the entry on my website which I’ve linked to, and tell me if you think I’ve properly identified this “mysterious staircase” on Bunker Hill. I’d really appreciate your comments (if any).
Thanks – and thanks again for your great blog!