A collection of columns from the past that are both humorous, sometimes thought provoking and sometimes sad. The first time you read through the articles, they are fun. But later as you read through them again, many times they evoke emotions that you never expected. Or sometimes they are more timely the second time around. When I first read them, I hadn't experienced the death of a friend. The second time I had and the column brought tears to my eyes. His other book, Dancing Under the Moon, also brings emotions to the surface. Both books can make you laugh outloud at the antics of his dogs and grandkids. They also make you think about your reactions to similar situations and maybe how you could have reacted in a different manner. But no matter how they affect you, they are always entertaining.

I enjoyed reading this collection of columns very much. I am sorry it is out of print. It is worth searching for. You won't be disappointed.

As all accomplished artists know how to use colors correctly to shade for effect, Al Martinez knows how to use his rich prose to write an eyewitness description of a doomed newspaper in San Francisco during the '60s. In this novel, William Colfax, a 'Nam veteran, starts as a cub reporter, and during the telling, evolves into an experienced, cynical journalist from his observations of the campus revolution and the corruption in all strata of the city. Colfax introduces the reader to the turbulent Berkeley activists, the scandalous police, the ant-Communist, fanatic power brokers, and the hard-drinking, quirky city room's staff-his family at the San Francisco Herald. For years I've read Mr. Martinez's column in the LA Times and through those columns have learned a little about the man. He saw action in the Korean "conflict" and was a reporter on a Bay area newspaper, so he wrote a story that he knows well. I recommend this book to anyone who appreciates excellent writing while reading a sound story about newspapering and complicity.

For those whose knowledge of how newspapers work begins and ends with television series, Al Martinez sets the record straight in "The Last City Room," the story of a fictional San Francisco newspaper on its last legs. Against the growing drumbeat of campus radicals opposing the Viet Nam War, Martinez pits a fiercely independent right-wing publisher against the "trust-nobody-over-30" students of the 1960s. His dysfunctional "family" of reporters and editors create a fascinatingly true picture of the pre-corporate newspaper business, a time when editorial judgements, love lives and the failures of the world in general were dissected in gin mills across the street from the city room. I feel I knew every one of those characters, and maybe I did. If you lived through that era, you need to read Martinez' book to tweak your memories. If you're younger, it will make you wish you had been there. It will leave a tear in your eye and a smile on your face.

Gayle B. Montgomery, Retired Political Editor, Oakland (California) Tribune

For those whose knowledge of newspapers work begin and end with television series, Al Martinez sets the record straight in "The Last City Room," the story of a fictional San Francisco newspaper on its last legs. Against the growing drumbeat of campus radicals opposing the Viet Nam War, Martinez pits a fiercely independent right-wing publisher against the "trust-nobody-over-30" students of the 1960s. His dysfunctional "family" of reporters and editors create a fascinatingly true picture of the pre-corporate newspaper business, a time when editorial judgements, love lives and the failures of the world in general were dissected in gin mills across the street from the city room. I feel I knew every one of those characters, and maybe I did. If you lived through that era, you need to read Martinez' book to tweak your memories. If you're younger, it will make you wish you had been there. It will leave a tear in your eye and a smile on your face.

Gayle B. Montgomery, Retired Political Editor, Oakland (California) Tribune

....in Los Angeles one day. She was striding determinedly across an overpass that spans the Hollywood Freeway just north of downtown..."

For reporter Al Martinez, the guy who looks like a Hispanic Einstein, this woman is type and metaphor of Los Angeles herself--and so it is, and so she is, to any one of us who've lived within her flashpoint gunpowder confines.

If you want to get under the skin of L.A., start with this book. I'm giving it a 4 rather than a 5 only because I've read Al's columns and have something to compare this book to. I know of only one newsman with the heart and guts and literary power of the author, let alone the worldweary humor that never wearies, and it's not Mencken, although his work sometimes reminds me of Mencken's. It's Mark Twain, who asked: "Can we afford Civilization?"

Here are two rather serious quotations from this oft-humorous gem:

You'd think that after all that anguish [he means the riots] we'd come up with some stable course of action to make things better between the races generally and in the South-Central section particularly. But what emerged wasn't a powerful program to enfranchise the forgotten, but a call, you guessed it, to improve our image. Keep the naked fat lady who in her madness strides no-where, but tie a nice little ribbon in her hair.

We create our own Skid Rows by turning our backs on segments of the population who no longer attract our interest. Because they dwell in economic brackets that allow their homes and apartments to fall into disrepair, we either label their dwellings slums and allow them to rot, or rip them out in the name of urban renewal. What we don't see won't hurt us, though we've learned the hard way that what we don't see now we'll later see in the crimes and riots that are the handmaidens of despair.

This book was not what I expected. The subject of life in Los Angeles, CA, seemed sort of narrow but after reading the book there were many aspects I never considered. Not being involved in show business, this gave me a humorous insite into the trials and tribulations of working with show biz types. It also gave me a look at L.A. that I hadn't even begun to consider. L.A. is just a vast, busy metroplis where no one knows anyone and everyone just lives their lives in a bubble. But maybe that isn't always so. Maybe there really is the possiblity of life in L.A. I very much enjoyed reading this book and was constantly delighted at the "out of the square" look at life in L.A.