"A zany and provocative cultural history" of LA's infamous air pollution and the struggle to combat it from the 1940s to today ( Kirkus).The smog beast wafted into downtown Los Angeles on July 26, 1943. Nobody knew what it was. Secretaries rubbed their eyes. Traffic cops seemed to disappear in the mysterious haze. Were Japanese saboteurs responsible? A reckless factory? The truth was much worse—it came from within, from Southern California's burgeoning car-...

In an evocative follow-up to his Los Angeles Times bestselling Arroyo, Chip Jacobs returns with a gripping tale of brotherhood, recklessness, and footloose souls in the anything goes of late-seventies Southern California.As their elite, all-boys prep school turns coed, transforming from suburban Lord of the Flies to gender-roiled soap-opera, two unlikely friends—Luke Burnett and Denny Drummond—alternate rescuing each other from self-destruction am...

Late-seventies Los Angeles was rampant with killers and shady characters, but all the go-getters at Space Matters saw was possibility. Richard Kasparov was handsome and charismatic; his younger associate, Jerry Schneiderman, brilliant and nerdy. When the pair hired a veteran contractor to oversee construction, the space planning firm they operated out of a hip mansion in LA’s Miracle Mile district appeared poised to transform the boundless skyline into their jackpot. After the promising te...

A Los Angeles Times bestseller A CrimeReads 2019 most anticipated/best book Set against two distinct epochs in the history of Pasadena, California, Arroyo tells the parallel stories of a young inventor and his clairvoyant dog in 1913 and 1993. In both lives, they are drawn to the landmark Colorado Street Bridge, or "Suicide Bridge," as the locals call it, which suffered a lethal collapse during construction but still opened to fanfare in the early twentieth century automobile age. When the...

Investigative reporter Chip Jacobs goes deep into some of his most compelling journalism pieces of the last three decades with his signature spotlight on strange corruption, seedy individuals, megalomaniacs, bright ideas, and transgressive game-changers. Featuring in-depth and expanded stories previously published in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and others, The Vicodin Thieves is an instant classic of crime, politics, and socio-analysis. Winner, anthology/collections, Southern Ca...

"The life of Gordon Zahler was simply so miraculous that it might as well have been science fiction. Born into an entertainment family in suburban Los Angeles in the mid-1920s, Zahler was a lovable prankster and class clown, exasperating his parents with his endless teenage feats of derring-do. But Gordon Zahler's promising career as a public miscreant went pear-shaped one day in 1940 when he and his buddies where fooling around in their high school gym with a spring board. An unsteady jum...

Late-seventies Los Angeles was rampant with killers and shady characters, but all the go-getters at Space Matters saw was possibility. Richard Kasparov was handsome and charismatic; his younger associate, Jerry Schneiderman, brilliant and nerdy. When the pair hired a veteran contractor to oversee construction, the space planning firm they operated out of a hip mansion in LA's Miracle Mile district appeared poised to transform the boundless skyline into their jackpot.After the promi...

Set against two distinct epochs in the history of Pasadena, California, Arroyo tells the parallel stories of a young man and his dog in 1913 and 1993. In both lives, they are drawn to the landmark Colorado Street Bridge, or "Suicide Bridge," as the locals call it, which suffered a lethal collapse during construction but still opened to fanfare in the early twentieth century automobile age. When the refurbished structure commemorates its eightieth birthday, one of the planet's best...

The smog beast wafted into downtown Los Angeles on July 26, 1943. Nobody knew what it was. Secretaries rubbed their eyes. Traffic cops seemed to disappear in the mysterious haze. Were Japanese saboteurs responsible? A reckless factory? The truth was much worse—it came from within, from Southern California's burgeoning car-addicted, suburban lifestyle. Smogtown is the story of pollution, progress, and how an optimistic people confronted the epic struggle against airborne poisons ba...

The pieces in Pot Stories for the Soul are funny, whimsical, bizarre, poignant, informational, shocking, and, yeah, soulful. They are about love, hate, escape, reality, the paranormal, Allen Ginsberg, Ken Kesey, Michelle Phillips, Hunter Thompson, Abbie Hoffman, Wavy Gravy and peanut butter. Ultimately, these stories reveal the wide, weird, and wonderful subculture of stoners, where the reefers are mad, the joints are fat, and the buzz lasts for six-and-a-half days.Mainstr...

A REESE WITHERSPOON x HELLO SUNSHINE BOOK CLUB PICKA WASHINGTON POST TOP 10 BOOK OF THE YEAR * A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER and NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2018“A constant pleasure to read…Everybody who loves books should check out The Library Book.” —The Washington Post“CAPTIVATING…DELIGHTFUL.” —Christian Science ...

The first volume in Hunter S. Thompson’s bestselling Gonzo Papers offers brilliant commentary and outrageous humor, featuring a new introduction from award-winning author and editor John Jeremiah Sullivan.Originally published in 1979, the first volume of the bestselling “Gonzo Papers” is now back in print. The Great Shark Hunt is Dr. Hunter S. Thompson’s largest and, arguably, most important work, covering Nixon to napalm, Las Vegas to Watergate, ...