Customer Reviews

Moon Handbooks: Los Angeles (1st Ed.)

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The scene: You've finally made your way to Los Angeles, you know where you want to go, and you have bought a handy guide with the expectation that it will get you there. The mark of a good guide is to furnish you with all the information you need: where to eat, maps, parking, bathrooms, directions, etc.,etc.,etc. The mark of a phenomenal guide is one you actually ENJOY reading from cover to cover. Kim Weir is an excellent writer -- not only because she is informative but because she is interesting. Her Los Angeles Handbook makes navigating one of the most difficult, changing, energetic areas in the world an experience. Not just a check-it-off-the-list planned excursion. And unlike the majority of guides out there, this one merits a better fate than being thrown into the back of the closet after the trip is over. During those brief respites that we truly sane incorporate into our enjoyment of a place -- those moments when we sit to enjoy the surroundings and peoplewatch -- is a perfect time to pull this travel narrative out and actually read it. Like Weir's other guides, this one is as much social history, criticism, humor, and creative non-fiction, as it is that basic guide stuff. Although a more manageable read than her equally excellent Southern California Handbook and Northern California Handbook, this one is an equally well designed read and guide. The book begins with the words, "They say that San Francisco there is less than meets the eye: in Los Angeles there is far more." So too this book.

Wilfires, blah blah, floods, blah blah, riots, blah blah, (fill in the blank) suburbs in search of a city, blah blah, traffic, blah blah, smog, shallow plastic people, frenzied lifestyle, earthquakes, blah blah blah! Do all travel guide authors go to the same school, with the same teacher, or do they just keep regurgitating each others' own fallacies. They might indeed all GO to the same school since three of the major travel guide publishers are located in the bay area (Ulysses, Lonely Planet, and Moon); and reading any of them is like reading the other. It should come as no suprise to anyone that there never has been one in the bay area with anything good to say about SoCal. Something akin to the French attitude towards Americans. It's hard for an author to encourage readers to visit a place when they already have disdain for the place to begin with, and these authors are no exception. If you want a good travel guide to Los Angeles, try Fodor, that publisher at least hired a writer who enjoys the city. Los Angeles is the most dynamic city on the American scene, and one of the most in the world. Los Angeles is not just a city "not to be missed", it is THE city to see. The rest can be fit in as time allows. So by all means, come and enjoy our city, but I would recommend another guide to do it, (nice maps though).

Wilfires, blah blah, floods, blah blah, riots, blah blah, (fill in the blank) suburbs in search of a city, blah blah, traffic, blah blah, smog, shallow plastic people, frenzied lifestyle, earthquakes, blah blah blah! Do all travel guide authors go to the same school, with the same teacher, or do they just keep regurgitating each others' own fallacies. They might indeed all GO to the same school since three of the major travel guide publishers are located in the bay area (Ulysses, Lonely Planet, and Moon); and reading any of them is like reading the other. It should come as no suprise to anyone that there never has been one in the bay area with anything good to say about SoCal. Something akin to the French attitude towards Americans. It's hard for an author to encourage readers to visit a place when they already have disdain for the place to begin with, and these authors are no exception. If you want a good travel guide to Los Angeles, try Fodor, that publisher at least hired a writer who enjoys the city. Los Angeles is the most dynamic city on the American scene, and one of the most in the world. Los Angeles is not just a city "not to be missed", it is THE city to see. The rest can be fit in as time allows. So by all means, come and enjoy our city, but I would recommend another guide to do it, (nice maps though).