Discover the Rich Cultural Heritage of Southern California through These Exceptional Books
Amid the fusillade of terrible headlines this year, one pierced my nerdy heart. “Enjoying this headline? You’re a rarity: Reading for pleasure is declining…” was the topper to a story by my colleague Hailey Branson-Potts in August. Pleasure reading among American adults fell more than 40% in two decades — a continuation of a trend going back to the 1940s. As Tyrion Lannister, the wily hero of George R.R. Martin’s “A Game of Thrones” series, said, “A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
So for my annual holiday column recommending great books about Southern California, I’m sticking to formats that lend themselves to easier reading — bite-size jewels of intellect, if you will. Through essays, short stories, poems, and pictures, each of my suggestions will bring solace through the beauty of where we live and offer inspiration about how to double down on resisting the bad guys.
“California Southern: Writing From the Road, 1992-2025” by LAist reporter Adolfo Guzman-Lopez is a must-read. Guzman-Lopez’s warm voice has informed Angelenos about arts, politics, and education for 25 years on what was long called KPCC and now goes by LAist 89.3. What most listeners might not know is that the Mexico City native first earned acclaim as a founder of Taco Shop Poets, an influential San Diego collective that highlighted Chicano writers in a city that didn’t seem to care for them.
A Collection of Powerful Stories and Essays
Guzman-Lopez lets others delve into that history in the intro and foreword to “California Southern: Writings from the Road, 1992-2025.” Reading the short anthology, it quickly becomes clear why his audio dispatches have always had a prose-like quality often lacking among public radio reporters, whose delivery tends to be as dry as Death Valley. In mostly English but sometimes Spanish and Spanglish, Guzman-Lopez takes readers from the U.S.-Mexico border to L.A., employing the type of lyrical bank shots only a poet can get away with.
Another notable author is Lisa Alvarez, who published her first book, “Some Final Beauty and Other Stories,” after decades of teaching English at Irvine Valley College. Alvarez’s debut is a loosely tied collection centered on progressive activists in Southern California, spanning a seismic sendoff for someone who fought during the Spanish Civil War and a resident of O.C.’s canyon country tipping off the FBI about her neighbor’s participation in the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol riot.
