The 14 most essential works of nonfiction include histories by Kevin Starr, Carey McWilliams, Reyner Banham and, ruling them all, Mike Davis' 'City of Quartz.'
has aged both well and badly; his sense of the liberatory aspect of the freeways, for instance, now seems both sentimental and benighted. Still, his vision is unparalleled, and he remains among the first observers of Los Angeles to take it on its own specific terms. “A city 70 miles square but rarely 70 years deep,” he writes, but this is less dismissive than a statement of its possibility. And his description of L.A.
“It’s such a quietly inventive and morally serious book. I read it before I moved here, and it completely shifted my experience about how best to live in Los Angeles — and what to think about while I’m living here.” —
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