From Booklist
Why might a reader pick up this anecdotal memoir of an unusual life? Rolfe's uncle is Yehudi Menuhin; both belong to the Schneersohn family from which leaders of the Lubavitcher movement are drawn. Rolfe has written for several dozen major publications (and been blacklisted out of several dozen more, thanks to his politics). He wrote two books on "literary L.A.," where he grew up, and has met, interviewed, and/or interacted with dozens of writers, politicians, actors, rock stars, and other notables over the past several decades. In this volume's 16 essays, he discusses Menuhin, Frank Zappa, the Communist Party, literary L.A., anti-Semitism, health care, animal welfare, the founder of the Emmy awards, the birds he and his ex-wife (a member of Zappa's entourage) have cared for as pets, Israel and Zionism, and California, "home" for much of his life. Not an essential acquisition but appropriate for California libraries and others where nonfiction on life outside the mainstream circulates. Mary Carroll
