Today you get a book and a bookstore recommendation!  I am currently reading Dear Los Angeles, edited by David Kipan.  I started this book in 2022, and I am about halfway through, hoping to finish soon.  This book is a compilation of letters that reference Los Angeles, and they range from 1542 to 2018.  The letters are arranged in chronological order by day of the year rather than by year.  The first entry is a series of letters dated January 1, with the letters being from different years oldest to most recent, and the second entry is a series of letters from January 2, and so on. 

First and foremost, I am neither a native nor resident of LA, and I am also not a Hollywood or California history buff.  That does not make the book less interesting to me, but it does make it a little more work.  I have had to Google a lot of the writers of the letters, which has been fun.  Some of them are historical figures and others are part of the film industry, including writers and actors, past and present.  Being from the east, I feel like I actually know very little about California history, so the historical references have been fun, and the insight into ‘old Hollywood’ has been enlightening.  Over the last 4 years I have had the opportunity to travel and work in southern California, so I see the modern LA often.  And I have stayed in hotels that link back to classic Hollywood with pictures of famous landmarks like the Brown Derby, so when someone like Tennessee Williams references going there, I can picture what that might have looked like.  Therefore, having very little base knowledge makes the reading go slowly but does not diminish the pleasure of it.  I read for pleasure an to learn.

Because I was always working in LA, the work and the traffic meant that I did not get to do much touristy stuff – it was more like I lived there, just in a Hampton Inn instead of a house.  One day last summer a client cancelled on me and I had a free afternoon.  One of the destinations at the top of my to-do tourism list was The Last Bookstore.  I always try to visit as many bookstores as I can when traveling, but this one had eluded me.  This free afternoon I jumped in my rental and battled traffic to this downtown location, and I was not disappointed.  It was worth the wait. 

On the first floor, I picked out Dear Los Angeles, as well as Read Me, Los Angeles Exploring LA’s Book Culture by Katie Orphan (still haven’t read this one), and then I perused the rest of the store.  Perhaps best known among book lovers for its book tunnel, this quirky bookstore is in an old bank.  There are books in the former bank vaults (one with horror and one with rare books, if memory serves), and the upstairs houses an art cooperative, as well as many more books.  There are impressive amounts of categories, including bargain books and books arranged by color, in case you are doing some redecorating.  There are also unique sculptures around the store that incorporate books into the works of art.  I am always going to be a fan of books and art together in any configuration.  In this case I could buy and admire both.  Traffic was bad, parking was expensive, and I would not go to that part of town alone at night, but it was an afternoon well-spent.  I got to bring home some reading local to the area, visit a new bookstore, and had an afternoon free of work, so it was a successful trip to LA in my book.