Dear Los Angeles, David Kipen
Dear Los Angeles, David Kipen
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Dear Los Angeles
The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018

Author: David Kipen

Narrator: Richard Poe, Luis Moreno, Jeanine Bartel, Lynnette R. Freeman, Eva Kaminsky, Korey Jackson, David Kipen, Tom Picasso

Unabridged: 14 hr 47 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Recorded Books

Published: 03/29/2019


Synopsis

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 Advance praise for Dear Los Angeles "This book's a brilliant constellation, spread out over a few centuries and five thousand 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 (starred review)

Reviews

Goodreads review by Beth on November 01, 2018

I received an early version of the book via NetGalley. Kipen approached the history and development of Los Angeles in an intriguing, unique way: day by day. The book is essentially arranged like a daily devotional, with each day containing diary entries written about or in Los Angeles anywhere from 1......more

Goodreads review by Susan on February 06, 2020

I appreciated the concept of this book, and there were some nice little gems here and there. But it could have been a lot better. Only sometimes does he tell you who the letters were written TO. The very brief bios of the authors of the letters in the back do not include birth/death dates, which wa......more

Goodreads review by Karen on December 08, 2023

Catching up… I grew up in Orange County, in Southern California. Los Angeles is just a few miles away, although it takes a “lifetime” to get there with the extensive traffic and endless highways between the two counties. But… There was always something fascinating about Los Angeles that made it worth......more

Goodreads review by Beau on May 05, 2019

4.5 stars, fascinating look at our fastest changing city through the eyes of the people who lived there.......more

Goodreads review by Literary on July 03, 2019

I so wanted to love DEAR LOS ANGELES by David Kipen, L. A. native, former literature director of the National Endowment for the Arts and book editor/critic of the San Francisco Chronicle. The potential is there for a terrific read, as this fascinating collection features diary entries and letters fr......more