Alison Gaylin

Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

California

In Hollywood, a trashing in the tabloids can make or break you, and dirty little secrets are the lifeblood of the media machine. Working for an infamous scandal sheet, Simone Glass is learning what they didn't teach her at journalism school: Always wear gloves when digging through the trash, never give your real name...and above all, trust no one.

When a soap opera star commits suicide, and her emotionally unstable assistant insists someone killed her, Simone sets out to uncover the real untold story. But before she can put the pieces together, will she become the latest casualty of Hollywood's brutal deceptions?

Trashed

af156068-9d5c-495c-900e-f7aff4380a22-1

#hardcover #protectivecover #formerlibrarybook #lawyer #losangeles #twists

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

In the third installment of Marcia Clark's bestselling series, attorney Samantha Brinkman's investigation into a family's deadly secrets is compromised by a threat from her past.

When the daughter of prominent civil litigator Graham Hutchins is found with her throat slashed, the woman's spurned ex-boyfriend seems the likely suspect. But only days later, the young man dies in what appears to be a suicide. Or was it? Now authorities are faced with a possible new crime. And their person of interest is Hutchins. After all, avenging the death of his daughter is the perfect reason to kill. If he's as innocent as he claims, only one lawyer has what it takes to prove it: his friend and colleague Samantha Brinkman.

It's Sam's obligation to trust her new client. Yet the deeper she digs on his behalf, the more entangled she becomes in a thicket of family secrets, past betrayals, and multiple motives for murder. To win her case, she's prepared to bend any law and cross any boundary that stands in her way. Sam has always played by her own rules, and it's always worked...so far. But this case cuts so deep and so personal that one false move could cost her everything.

Snap Judgment

4adf4279-3658-41ed-a375-9188afa4e971-1

Walter Mosley

First edition hardcover copy of this Easy Rawlins detective novel. 

Massachusetts

"Easy Rawlins returns to solve a mystery set amid the flames of the hottest summer L.A. has ever seen." "Just after devastating riots tear through Los Angeles in 1965 - when anger is high and fear still smolders everywhere - the police turn up at Easy Rawlins's doorstep. He expects the worst, as usual. But they've come to ask for his help." "A man was wrenched from his car by a mob at the riots' peak and escaped into a nearby apartment building. Soon afterward, a redheaded woman known as Little Scarlet was found dead in that building - and the fleeing man is the obvious suspect. But the man has vanished." "The police fear that their presence in certain neighborhoods could spark a new inferno, so they ask Easy Rawlins to see what he can discover. The vanished man is the key, but he is only the beginning. Easy enlists the help of his longtime friend Mouse to break through the shroud. And what Easy finds is a killer whose rage, like that which burned in the city for weeks, is intrinsically woven around deep-set passions - feelings echoed within Easy himself." "Rawlins's hunt for the killer reveals a new city emerging from the ashes, with the promise of a new life for Easy, Mouse, and his old friends Jackson Blue and Jewelle."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Little Scarlet

b1fcd8a3-f367-4329-a715-465b4ed2843d-1

hardcover with DJ, good condition. Clean and crisp pages. Tight binding. DJ shows minimal wear. Ex-Library with noted markings.  #hardcover #evebunting #lariots #losangeles #history #childrens #kids #fiction 

When the Los Angeles riots break out in the streets of their neighborhood, a young boy and his mother learn the values of getting along with others no matter what their background or nationality.

Smoky Night

71ce196b-a5fe-45f8-b006-2be4d778f3c4-1

Joe Ide

From the excellent IQ series. First edition. 

Isaiah Quintabe--an unlicensed detective for all seasons--and his best friend and masterful sidekick, Juanell Dodson, are at a crossroads in this latest installment of the "aggressively entertaining" IQ series (New York Times). This time, their lives may never be the same.



Isaiah Quintabe is no longer IQ, the genius of East Long Beach; instead, he's a man on the road and on the run, hiding in a small Northern California town when his room is broken into by a desperate young man on the trail of the state's most prolific serial killer.

 

His old partner, Juanell Dodson, must go straight or lose his wife and child. His devil's bargain? An internship at an LA advertising agency, where it turns out the rules of the street have simply been dressed in business casual, but where the aging company's fortunes may well rest on their ability to attract a younger demographic. Dodson--"the hustler's hustler"--just may be the right man for the job.

 

Ide is the crime writer's crime writer, and he's filled his best novel yet with desperate souls, courageous outcasts, an ex-stripper who'll do anything to protect her son, and wild half-brothers who may be the very incarnation of evil.

 

With deft plotting, lacerating humor, and a keen eye for the ways in which characters rise or fall based on their ties to one another, Smoke is Joe Ide's crowning achievement.

 

Smoke

b1d41b1b-5aa0-4168-b613-6cc3a810c3c9-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #dodgers #baseball #losangeles #mlb

Florida

"The inside-the-clubhouse story of two tumultuous years when the Los Angeles Dodgers were re-made from top to bottom, from the ownership of the team to management to the players on the field, becoming the most talked-about and most colorful team in baseball"--

The Best Team Money Can Buy

06827d1b-ed37-440f-8f5e-783710cd2c24-1

Got a remainder mark otherwise it’s a newbie. 

In this outrageous novel from Joe Ide, "the best thing to happen to mystery writing in a very long time" (New York Times), the case of a young artist's missing mother sets IQ on a collision course with his own Moriarty.

Isaiah Quintabe -- IQ for short -- has never been more successful, or felt more alone. A series of high-profile wins in his hometown of East Long Beach have made him so notorious that he can hardly go to the corner store without being recognized. Dodson, once his sidekick, is now his full-fledged partner, hell-bent on giving IQ's PI business some real legitimacy: a Facebook page, and IQ's promise to stop accepting Christmas sweaters and carpet cleanings in exchange for PI services.

So when a young painter approaches IQ for help tracking down her missing mother, it's not just the case Isaiah's looking for, but the human connection. And when his new confidant turns out to be connected to a dangerous paramilitary operation, IQ falls victim to a threat even a genius can't see coming.

Waiting for Isaiah around every corner is Seb, the Oxford-educated African gangster who was responsible for the death of his brother, Marcus. Only, this time, Isaiah's not alone. Joined by a new love interest and his familiar band of accomplices, IQ is back -- and the adventures are better than ever.

Wrecked IQ Book 3

d90b4a3d-238c-4a1d-baba-1f094f3e52a2-1

James Frey

New York

One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers his first novel—a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original. Dozens of characters pass across the reader's sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home. Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.

Bright Shiny Morning

f625a065-0b88-4291-8f25-68f48aff524c-1

Denise Hamilton

Kentucky

A Novel of Suspense Introducing Eve Diamond

A former Los Angeles Times reporter brings to life the city's vast Asian community in a hard-edged thriller teeming with murderous intentions, emotional dislocation and sexual exploitation.

The Jasmine Trade

be985192-4c0e-4461-af9e-445e9ae99345-1

Chiara Barzini

Washington

A Novel

Welcome to LA? Nineties' Hollywood gets an Italian makeover in this poignant and ruefully funny coming-of-age novel featuring a teenage girl who's on shaky ground--in more ways than one. Mere weeks after the 1992 riots that laid waste to Los Angeles' Eugenia, a typical Italian teenager, is rudely yanked from her privileged Roman milieu by her hippie-ish filmmaker parents and transplanted to the strange suburban world of the San Fernando Valley. With only the Virgin Mary to call on for guidance as her parents struggle to make it big, Hollywood fashion, she must navigate her huge new public high school, complete with Crips and Bloods and Persian gang members, and a car-based environment of 99-cent stores and obscure fast-food franchises and all-night raves. She forges friendships with Henry, who runs his mother's movie memorabilia store, and the bewitching Deva, who introduces her to the alternate cultural universe that is Topanga Canyon. And then the 1994 earthquake rocks the foundations not only of Eugenia's home but of the future she'd been imagining for herself.

Things That Happened Before the Earthquake

d94a46cd-ed3c-4151-bc12-27ca14200a7e-1

#hardcover #nonfiction #garykrist #history #losangeles 

Illusion, Imagination, and the Invention of Los Angeles

The Mirage Factory

825f5f42-b069-42c7-8eb3-c84699920762-1

Paperback book in like new condition with the exception of residual price stickers on the back cover￼

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

Maryland

Kill the Messenger

#70s #Losangeles #70sLA #friendship #paperback 

A tale of teenage friendships set in 1970's suburban Los Angeles

In the haze of a hot San Fernando Valley summer in 1970's Los Angeles, Douglas and his friends--Hank, Weddy, and Ronnie--struggle with their awkward teenage years during a confusing and highly permissive era. Weed and alcohol are regularly available, and most of the boys freely partake as they each navigate their own family dramas at home. Meanwhile, Douglas must also sort through the ups-and-downs of his relationship with his not-quite-girlfriend, Natalia.

When not in the swimming pool trying to beat the intense Valley heat, Douglas and his friends spend their summer vacation taking the RTD into Westwood to see Jaws, watching the Fourth of July fireworks at Balboa Park, seeking thrills at Magic Mountain, checking out the head shop and the turquoise jewelry at The Sixth Chakra, eating hot dogs and facing Koufax in the batting cage at Flooky's, and playing plenty of basketball.

Ventura and Zelzah is a funny, poignant, and nostalgic coming-of-age tale of teenage friendships in a blissfully unhurried, pre-digital era.

Ventura and Zelzah

WK2IByip5c8MJuzuF9nw

Gregg Hurwitz

Awakening in a hospital with a scar on his head and no memory of being found holding a knife over his ex-fiancée's murdered body, crime novelist Drew Danner struggles to reconstruct clues to determine his own guilt or innocence. By the author of The Tower.

The Crime Writer

5cf1b1ca-ae64-4e6f-9f2c-3c5d5ddc44c6-1

Ronald Brownstein

Looks like a good read for the pop culture folks. 

1974-The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics





New York Times Bestseller

Editors' Choice --New York Times Book Review



In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein--"one of America's best political journalists" (The Economist)--tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles' creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. 



Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. At a time when Richard Nixon won two presidential elections with a message of backlash against the social changes unleashed by the sixties, popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture.

Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year. Ronald Brownstein reveals how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo. Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Brownstein shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future.

Rock Me on the Water

8b7c946c-0b2a-4219-8ee7-54edaa70deee-1

Steve Lopez

Excellent condition
No rips or tears
No writing or highlighting
Missing no pages
When Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayres playing his heart out on a two string violin in Los Angeles skid row, he invasions this “violin man” as the topic of his next column for the Los Angeles, times- only to unearth an even more extraordinary story about the mysterious street musician .


A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music

A portrait of gifted violinist Nathaniel Ayers traces his education at Juilliard, his struggles with schizophrenia, the factors that led to his homelessness in Los Angeles, his friendship with the author, and the author's efforts to improve the musician's life.

The Soloist

0acb029f-3d71-4838-8d29-805e9d40913e-1

Oklahoma

Paul Pringle

Nevada

Peril and Power in the City of Angels

For fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill comes a nonfiction thriller about corruption and betrayal radiating across Los Angeles from one of the region's most powerful institutions, a riveting tale from a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who investigated the shocking events and helped bring justice in the face of formidable odds.

On a cool, overcast afternoon in April 2016, a salacious tip arrived at the L.A. Times that reporter Paul Pringle thought should have taken, at most, a few weeks to check out: a drug overdose at a fancy hotel involving one of the University of Southern California's shiniest stars--Dr. Carmen Puliafito, the head of the prestigious medical school. Pringle, who'd long done battle with USC and its almost impenetrable culture of silence, knew reporting the story wouldn't be a walk in the park. USC is one of the biggest employers in L.A., and it casts a long shadow.

But what he couldn't have foreseen was that this tip would lead to the unveiling of not one major scandal at USC but two, wrapped in a web of crimes and cover-ups. The rot rooted out by Pringle and his colleagues at The Times would creep closer to home than they could have imagined--spilling into their own newsroom.

Packed with details never before disclosed, Pringle goes behind the scenes to reveal how he and his fellow reporters triumphed over the city's debased institutions, in a narrative that reads like L.A. noir. This is L.A. at its darkest and investigative journalism at its brightest.

Bad City

b5479d5e-c064-4cbc-8fd8-9a1d7d9e5330-1

Three Latin-American women in their late twenties, including an actress, a suburban mother, and a music manager, take Los Angeles by storm in their shared quest to find healthy relationships and success in a cutthroat city. By the author of The Dirty Girls Social Club. Reader's Guide included. Reprint.

Playing with Boys

31f1c7a1-bab2-4d64-9260-c9e86a842924-1

Pennsylvania

Judy Kerr

Paperback (1 to 2 lbs)

Oregon

An Actor's Guidebook for a Successful Career in Los Angeles

The ultimate guide for planning, promoting and expanding your acting career. Where to go, who to call, what to spend, what not to do. Includes acting techniques, getting an agent, commercials, pictures and resumes, scares, child actors, getting around L.A., as well as acting careers outside of L.A. Information, ideas, facts and special secrets for developing the actor inside you and establishing your career. Kerr gives actors the resources they need to make it. From headshots to fake cigarettes, from changing one's name to that great plastic surgeon, it's all in this book. Filled with invaluable lessons, this book is like eavesdropping at all the right Hollywood parties. The author's hands-on experience as an acting coach, actress, dialogue coach and producer comes to life on the pages of this essential book.

Acting Is Everything

f6eff2bc-9ee0-45ef-83c6-b7fd54f3afd7-1

Francesca Lia Block

Another beautifully magical coming of age tale from the master of the genre Francesca Lia Block. Walks the delicate balance beam between magic and modernism as always with perfection. 
Excellent condition, read once, typical shelf wear. 

Jealous of her perfect mother and ignored by her artist father, Echo seeks attention and healing from a variety of people living in beautiful Los Angeles. Reprint.

Echo

60408b24-aa6d-4c4d-b741-b0a79e0f29f4-1

Phil Jackson

One of the most successful coaches in the history of professional basketball offers his own take on his turbulent 2003-2004 season with the Los Angeles Lakers, chronicling the difficulties faced by the team--difficult relationships, public feuds, the Kobe Bryant rape trial, contract disputes, and injuries--and their successful journey to the NBA finals.

Texas

A Team in Search of Its Soul

One of the most successful coaches in the history of professional basketball offers his own take on his turbulent 2003-2004 season with the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Last Season

e9d561d3-6ff6-4652-beba-ed554931bf21-1

David Samuel Levinson

When a flood of Israeli refugees into a near-future America triggers anti-Semitic hostilities throughout the country, a Passover celebration for the Jacobson family is disrupted by years of resentment and claims of abuse from a hateful father.

Browse by categories

Save this search

Alison Gaylin

Trashed

Marcia Clark

Snap Judgment

Walter Mosley

Little Scarlet

Eve Bunting; David Diaz (Illustrator)

Smoky Night

Joe Ide

Smoke

Molly Knight

The Best Team Money Can Buy

Joe Ide

Wrecked IQ Book 3

James Frey

Bright Shiny Morning

Denise Hamilton

The Jasmine Trade

Chiara Barzini

Things That Happened Before the Earthquake

Gary Krist

The Mirage Factory

Tami Hoag

Kill the Messenger

J. G. Bryan

Ventura and Zelzah

Gregg Hurwitz

The Crime Writer

Ronald Brownstein

Rock Me on the Water

Steve Lopez

The Soloist

Ronald Brownstein

Rock Me on the Water

Paul Pringle

Bad City

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Playing with Boys

Steve Lopez

The Soloist

Judy Kerr

Acting Is Everything

Francesca Lia Block

Echo

Phil Jackson

The Last Season

David Samuel Levinson

Tell Me How This Ends Well