Reading LA

Image from LA Times - from the 1997 PBS series based on "Cadillac Desert." Credit: Skeet McAuley.  All Rights Reserved.

Wow - for some reason I had missed the start of this series, but the LA Times architecture critic, Christopher Hawthorne, has a great year-long reading series called "Reading LA," that focuses on classic books about the planning, design, and urban form of Los Angeles.  Included on the list are acknowledged master studies of LA's historic growth such as "Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies" (written by the British architectural historian and critic, and LA admirer, Reyner Banham) and Mike Davis' 1990 "City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles,"  but so are niche books about noted architects, growth periods, or icons in the history of Los Angeles.  Hawthorne provides a nice introduction to each work, as well as a personal book report of the highlights and lowlights of each installment in the series.  Definitely some good reads on the list that I'll have to check out.  You can find a running log of all of the books at the series homepage, and should be able to find all of them in the LA Library system.  Here's to some good reading . . .