Rodriguez tells us that edge cities are no longer the center of the urban debate, but rather, as suburbs become more urban, the urban core is becoming more suburban. The paradox is that out of this rearticulation of the city an entirely new form of urbanism is emerging that is on the one hand highly homogeneous, but on the other hand is shaped by local history and the ethnic configuration of cities.

This book turns the study of suburbanization and "new urbanism" on its head. It is a totally new way of thinking about cities and urban change. It redefines the study of cities. It is groundbreaking and paradigm shifting.

When I landed in LA, it took me a good 3 months to find a series of haunts, owing simply to the sheer size of the place. This book breaks it down by neighborhood, "scene," and type of venue, so that the only other guide you need is a Thomas guide (the ubiquitous, highly detailed road map that occupies the back seat of every car in Southern California). Great insider info, seedy backstories, and a dead-on dissection of the various scenes make this a great introduction to America's most puzzling megalopolis. Fodors would be hard pressed to top this.

Great book, especially for the young and young at heart. Unlike most other city guides I see this one really appears to be written by insiders who genuinely seem to know what they're talking about. Useful for both visitors to the city as well as people who are already in LA. The book is well structured with separate sections on eating out, nightlife, shopping, culture & arts, lodgings and many more. If you want to know where the current "in" places are and the real inside information on LA then this is the guide for you.

Reviewer Everitt's remarks capture the book's essential value. Several points however merit emphasis. First, Horne's book brings out the symbiotic relation between the studios' desire for non-independent company unions, on one hand, and organized crime's desire for corrupt unions, on the other. By taking in one another's washing during the tumultuous events of '45 - '47, these two representatives of private capital maintained an alliance that defeated efforts by the Conference of Studio Unions to emerge as an independent union of movie-making employees. Horne the historian is detailed about this sinister and under-reported alliance. Second, by using abundant primary sources, the author debunks the nurtured image of CSU as a communist-led movement, a scare tactic still in its infancy following the anti-fascist WWII and, as the book shows, a tactic used to increasing effect by the corporate-owned press of the day. Belated communist support for CSU strikers was willfully twisted by these flacks into communist domination. Third, the inability of the CSU to cross racial and gender lines of the day is emphasized. This had the unfortunate effect of reducing potential for attracting outside allies, especially among aggrieved African-Americans and women's groups, though it's hardly surprising that prejudices within the union would reflect those of the larger society from which it sprang. It's fascinating to follow this dark underside of the Hollywood dream factory, though I did find time shifts in the narrative confusing at times. Nonetheless, Horne has focused his word-camera on a worthy and neglected real life drama.

Amazingly, this is the first comprehensive work written on a key event in American labor history -- an event that was headline news in the mid 1940's, and that among many other things set the stage for the passage of Taft-Hartley and propelled Ronald Reagan into politics. While countless historians have left no stone unturned in examining the Hollywood Blacklist, the story of the Hollywood studio strikes has long been relegated to footnotes and chapters in more general works. With this work Gerald Horne has shined a relentless light of painstaking scholarship on what may well be the most neglected event in American labor history. The footnotes alone are worth the price of the book and will no doubt entice many readers to follow these myriad paths deeper into the hidden corners of Hollywood history.

This book belongs on the shelf of anyone interested in Hollywood history, labor history, the Hollywood Blacklist, American radical history, and the history of organized crime in America. It should especially be read by anyone who earns their living as a worker in the film and television industry or is a member of IATSE and wishes to know the true story of their union's dark history.

The title says it, "best climbing guide I know." I'm not being paid to say this; don't know David Rubine. Why is it the best climbing guide I know? BECAUSE IT HAS ROUTE DESCRIPTIONS! The topos are accurate, and often backed up with excellent annotated black&white photos.

I'm basically a novice lead climber. I want 5.4's. Most guidebooks, should they lower themselves to include these "wimpy" routes, give little to no written or pictorial guidance. Rubine devotes equal energy to easy and hard climbs. As the previous reviewer notes, he even covers class 3/4 scrambles to interesting summits.

Dave Rubine's collection of recorded rock climbs for Pinnacles National Monument is comprehensive and fun to read for avid rock climbers. Whether you are looking for sport climbs or more traditional climbing, nothing is omitted. Even 3rd and 4th Class climbs are listed. With ratings on all climbs and written descriptions on most, staying on the correct climb is not hard. But beware the musical chairs handholds at Pinnacles. With descriptions like the "Know what you are getting into category" you can stay out of trouble. The construction of the spine is sturdy. Most of all, for you number tickers, there is a checklist of climbs by rating and two full indexes for cross referencing first ascentionists with page numbers and climbs alphabetically.

This book is a necessity for any one interested in the history of the Coachella Valley; there is simply no other place to find out about the lower (southern) half of the Valley. The history of the upper part of the Valley has been recorded recently in a book by Frank Bogart, covering the Palm Springs area. Pat' book covers the lower, less glamourous, part of the Valley and how the early settlers lived and succeeded.

Anyone who has spent time in Sourthern California's Coachella Valley will find this book fascinating. Although it has interesting photographs on nearly every page, this is no mere "coffee table book". In addition to being visually engaging, the text brings to life the events of that past (geological, historical, anthropological, and social) that have shaped the development of the Valley. I would heartily recommend this book to anyone who lives in or visits the Coachella Valley, or to anyone who would simply like to learn about a very unique area of the United States.

As an avid diver in the Puget Sound, I have found this book to be very useful. It features great photos to help me identify the fishes that I encounter while underwater. The format is easy to use because it is geared toward the underwater naturalist. I recommend it to all my diver friends.

As a freediver along the coast north and south from San Francisco, I frequently refer to this book for reference of the fish I find in the kelp beds. I am able to find every fish I saw in the water in this book. The color photos are great for that purpose. Other books in my collection are sometime visually vague due to the lack of photographic images (paintings and/or black & white sketches). In ths book the text along with the pictures are also informational: distinctive features, description, abundance & distribution, habitat & behavior, reaction to divers.

This book is the definitive work on Metlox Pottery. It's a "must have" for the collector and enjoyable reading for the person wishing to learn more about California pottery. Full of hundreds of pictures and values, this book is an invaluable guide and resource.

I purchased this book to clear up my conception of some of the Metlox patterns but it opened my eyes to some very collectible pieces that I had been over looking. Nice pictures with several styles in each catagory that eliminates the guess work. As a beginner collector of Metlox I am truly please with this book.

Gerald Haslam demonstrates his power of reporting and his gift for the language in this slender volume which contains such large truths.

He writes of California's awesome San Joaquin Valley (called the Central Valley by some) and his youth in Bakersfield and Oildale. He went to a proud private Catholic high school, Garces and he so captures this area you can feel the heat of a Baker'spatch summer, feel the grit of its famous dust storms in your teeth and the sweat on the back of your neck.

How easy it is to remember what it is like to be sixteen and hear all the gossip about what the kids at "the high school across town" are like.

How all of us remember what it is like to go out to "work in the sheds" for a little extra money in the summer, only to find out we barely have the strength to work 'til noon in the physically demanding jobs offered in agriculture and in the oil patch.

How many of us went home after such a learning experience with teeth clenched and a furious resolve to go to college and learn a white-collar job - one which could be performed under air conditioning with clean fingernails.

He tells of the local tough young guys of a largely blue collar town and exposes the tender vulnerabilities of these same youth in the next paragraph. He describes the harrowing adventures of hanging out with some 1955-era "crazy guys" and the humor he found in some of these escapades.

If you grew up "in these parts" every word will ring true.

What puts this book at the top of my list is his ability to sketch a family which, while not perfect, functions as that rarest of the rare, a truly loving and functional family. You understand how this enormously gifted writer attained his talent when you see how carefully he was reared and taught life's lessons by parents who quietly loved each other and generously loved their son.

In time he had to return their gentle lessons in family cohesiveness when age and illness rendered them dependent on their son and his wife. Suddenly you remember ... oh yes, some people are decent and honorable. Some families work to the benefit of its members ... even in the most trying of conditions.

I fell in love with the picture of my hometown which he painted truthfully and without pretense. He not only wrote of his classmates (and spelled their names right), he captured the essence of them.

After reading this I have thought of Haslam as not only my favorite California writer, but my friend. I've purchased this book many times to give as a gift to my favorite local people. I can only thank him for giving me a glimpse of a good family, and a wonderful Bakersfield success story.

My lifetime Bakersfield best friend told me she cried for three days after reading it. "It was a happy, healing, cleansing cry," she later reported.

After this, I can't miss a Haslam book! Read them all!

Captures an important time in anyones life. Great period piece on Central California 50 years ago.

I hardly know what to say about the book because I can't stop reading it--every time I finish I just right over again.

The individual's voice rises to the surface of Kim's ocean of language, then sinks back into the musical rapture. The other reviewer likened this to a painting--it is like a painting of sound to me, a symphony of voice, and music, the background drones of culture, nation, and war, but always the individual spirit sounds out of it in musical intensity.

What a brilliant, amazing book--not really a book, really an EXPERIENCE. Not just "phenomenal" but actually a "phenomenon."

This book is one of greatest books of poetry I've ever read. It's as much a painting of words as it is a written work. Kim uses negative space with such skill even silence screams.

This lean volume is everything you'd want in a companion: Lively, intoxicating, and beautiful in appearance; her lean, supple prose swells provocatively beneath the sheer, black jacket that clings suggestively to this tight, curvaceaous body of work. But she is more than a sensual treat! Her wit, though not of the highest order, gives some delight as well and one would be proud to appear with this companion under one's arm even at a Mensa gathering.

....

I am the librarian at the Sonoma County Wine Library, and I have known Charles Sullivan for some years. His newest work will probably be THE one volume reference on California wine from now on. In concise and informative entries, Sullivan encompasses the whole of California's rich wine heritage. He covers all the varietals and most of the wineries A to Z. His writing is insightful, dispassionate and fluid, and his research is superb.