Reading these short stories is like being a fly on a Hollywood Blvd. Coffee Shop wall, or perhaps even a lost Angel sitting on a freeway overpass. This is a compilation of short quick stories by various writers.
As a former Californian growing up just north of Hollywood, I had to read this book and so glad I did! What fun this is to get the various tidbits and glimpses into the diversity and choas that is California.
While enjoying these stories I felt like I was right there, driving along Pacific Coast Highway to Malibu and stopping along the way in Trancas to grab some breakfast and eavesdroping on the fasinating conversations swirling around the room or watching the assorted characters coming and going.
Each writer brings his or her own California experience to the page from the gang member to the foreigner or the wannabe to the eccentric, all dealing with the smog, traffic and the surrealistic reality that is California.
If you've never been to California, you will come away with an insider's look into one of the most diverse States in this Country told by some of the most gifted writers around telling it like it is.

Bravo to Steven Gilbar for collecting these varied, poignant and hilarious stories about the vast and complex City of Los Angeles. We get a taste of many cultures with protagonists spread from Van Nuys to Hollywood, from Beverly Hills to El Segundo, from Malibu to Long Beach, and on and on. There are stories here by Yxta Maya Murray, Walter Mosely, Ty Pak, Kate Braverman, Bernard Cooper, and more. For those of us who live in this great city, this collection will reaffirm the dazzling variety that makes up Los Angeles. And for those who don't know this city, this book will disabuse them of the cliches they've accumulated through the years.

I started with the last story, The Spells of Ordinary Twilight (for a class on grief I am going to teach), and was moved by content and style to read on. I became engrossed by Eternal Love, and sat happily waiting for more than an hour in my doctor's waiting room, reading this story about two retarded young people, and how this relates with the story of the girl's parents. Having had a handicapped daughter, I could only nod and feel every emotion along with the characters of the story. From there to: Stupid Girl. Here I was not being able to put the story down. Then there is Night Sky and the wonderfully observed immigrant' story: The Palace of Marriage. All of the stories have merit, the list is long. The characterization is true, the language always appropriate to the story, always real. The writers are equally talented in their use of metaphor and simili, and their observations ring true. The stories, one after the other, capture different elements of LA, from the would-be screenwriter to the Russian immigrant to the jilted woman with emotional ties to a man with Aids. They take place in LA and are typical for that city, but as they touch the human heart, they are also larger than the city in which they play, they are universal stories, everyone, anywhere should read.

With all the controversy that swirls around "best of" lists today, it's a pleasure to encounter a "list" of great books in which the compiler doesn't claim any unique insight other than his own love for literature. Gilbar seems to be a reader who hasn't forgotten what it means to value a book for its adventurousness, its quirkiness, and its visceral appeal. He doesn't try to use academic or professional standards to judge a work -- rather, he uses his own wide-ranging and boisterous curiosity to compile a reading list which any book lover can enjoy.

Published and Perished is a gem, funny and profound, charming and beautiful. Every reader will find something to like in this fascinating anthology.

This is a lovely collection with quotes from famous writers, poets, or just people who share at least one thing: their love of books and reading. The quotes are organized under themes like Re-Reading, What to read, The Library, Bookstores, Books as Objects, etc. A musthave for booklovers!

This book is fantastic. With intimate knowledge of Santa Barbara these short stories will guide you through experiences of Chumash Indians, early inhabitants, and the current local natives. If you love Santa Barbara or want to visit it in spirit - I highly recommend this book and the first collection called Santa Barbara Stories.

Santa Barbara stories is perfect. Preserved in these pages are such remembrances as the Miramar hotel - captured by Wallace Stegner in The Women on the Wall and Find the Woman by Ross Macdonald. Stories depict heartbreak, joy, realities. Stories written by visitors, former residents and current ones..

Though NATURAL STATE is a diverse and well-written collection of essays on natural history and the general natural landscape of California, it lacks substance. By this I do not mean that the essays themselves have nothing to contribute to one's overall understanding of natural history and its appreciation. Far from it- the essays have plenty to contribute. However, the form their contribution takes irked me as I read the volume. Many of the essays are simply vapid descriptions, while others are so scholarly and technical that one wonders why they are in an anthology constructed for the supposedly "general" reader. Still, NATURAL STATE does a decent job of spanning California's many natural facets, and the diversity of subjects is broad. A better anthology (though I think it's out of print) is Hal Borland's OUR NATURAL WORLD, which is most likely available at local libraries.

This is a landscape experience in which the real, observed landscape leads to an internally experienced landscape that is far richer and more personal. The focus of this work is the heart and mind's eye and it truely is an erotic and vicarious festival for the senses.

NATURAL STATE, by Steven Gilbar and David Brower, describes the landscape of California, picturesque and natural, infinite and primal-- the most geographically diverse in the world. This is a much called for collection of popular as well as academic writing, from geologic and metaphysical creation, to realism and fantasy, and modes of destruction. The chapters by the Cahto Indians, John Steinbeck, Mary Austin, Henry Miller and Joan Didion are poetic essays; those by Barry Lopez, Ann Zwinger, Wallace Stegner, Jane Hollister Wheelwright and Gary Paul Nabhan are in the professional scholarly mode. Another 30 stories stretch between thos! e two poles.

I cannot wait to see the movie. Bravo!

With the accolades garnered by L.A. Confidential, the movie, there's been a surge of interest in the noir stories of LA. Unlike "Sins of LA", this book uses simple black and white photography to accent the words of LA Noir pros. The book is worth a look if for no other reason than the overview and snap of the chosen author quotes.

This collection of 22 essays contains works by famous authors on the subject of reading. Ordered by the essayists' date of birth, you will find the thoughts of Montaigne, Hazlitt, RW Emerson, HD Thoreau, Ruskin, Higginson, RL Stevenson, Proust, Hesse, H Miller, E Bowen, Nabokov, C Fadiman, Greene, R Davies, Calvino, J Fowles, H Brodkey, S Elkin, J Epstein, LS Schwartz and S Birkerts.

I've read a number of such anthologies and, unfortunately, thought this was one of the weaker entries. While it is inherently interesting to read the thoughts of such interesting writers, what they actually have to say is not always very enlightening or entertaining -- and it really should be one or the other, if not both. A few of the essays were wonderful. I really enjoyed those by Nabokov on good readers and writers, Calvino on reading the classics, Brodkey on the dangers of reading and Epstein on reading versus experience. I thought Schwartz and Birkerts were the best writers, and Graham Greene's "The Lost Childhood" offset with a response from Robertson Davies was quite interesting.

The book concludes with notes about the authors, a bibliography and acknowledgments. I would have appreciated more editorial comment as well as information about the original date of the material rather than the date of translation, and better proofreading. There were a distracting number of typos.

All in all, there are a number of enjoyable essays here, but the quality is uneven and a lack of editing detracted from my enjoyment of this collection. There are better books of essays about reading, though if you are especially interested in the topic, this volume would be a worthwhile addition to your collection.

Being a confirmed bibliophile and borderline biblioholic and bibliomaniac, I have to say I really relished the pieces included in this collection - it feels like a session of "The Biblioholics Anonymous"! The fly in the ointment and an irksome annoyance is the haphazard copy editing! This really detracts from an otherwise wonderful book. Was "spell check" not available to the editors, then? I found several pages where there were more than a couple of spelling errors! But a great 'pillow book' just the same!