The Rough Guide to Los Angeles 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) [Paperback]

Rough Guides (Author)

Book Description

Series: Rough Guide Travel Guides | Publication Date: August 25, 2003

Fully updated, this irreverent guide to the City of Angels focuses on both the major tourist destinations as well as lesser-known gems and curiosities. A colour photograph section brings the city's highlights to life, from the Hollywood Hills to Santa Monica Boulevard. Each chapter gives detailed coverage of each area's attractions, from accommodation and restaurants to galleries, shops, sports activities and child-oriented diversions. There are also feature articles on such subjects as Hollywood, LA on film, architecture and LA people.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

From glamour and glitz to the La Brea tar pits, The Rough Guide Los Angeles takes readers on an informed and well-balanced tour of L.A.'s many personalities. Maps and lists of travel basics help clarify the tangle of freeways and present the diverse cityscape, neighborhood by neighborhood, for easy exploration. Brief cultural and historical essays place contemporary sights in context, introduce famous residents, and take on L.A.'s recent past of riots, gangs, mass-transit problems, and racial tensions. Sections on the rise of Hollywood, on books and films in L.A., and glossaries prove valuable inclusions. Thorough, honest accounts coupled with critical savvy give this guide a smart, streetwise flair. --Byron Ricks --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Jeff Dickey is a film and video writer who spent five years at USC's film school in LA. He is also a contributer to Rough Guides to California and the USA.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Rough Guides; 3rd edition (August 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1843530589
• ISBN-13: 978-1843530589
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,140,908 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential., July 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Los Angeles: The Rough Guide to (Rough Guides) (Paperback)

LA can be a daunting city to visit, but this book makes travelling around so much easier. If you are not planning to hire a car when you are there, this book really is essential. It has good maps of Downtown and Hollywood, and very useful maps of the main bus routes. The commentaries are really helpful and quite entertaining, although they can sometimes sound slightly pretentious. Nonetheless, I used the book every single day and would have been lost without it. A must have.

P.S. Make sure you take in a Dodgers game when you're there - you won't be disappointed!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars This book is filled with useful info..., June 18, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Los Angeles: The Rough Guide to (Rough Guides) (Paperback)

I found this guide to be pretty good. It's a no-frills, easy-to-follow book. It summarizes the neighborhoods briefly, but I don't know how much has changed since it was published a year and half ago. For someone like me, who knew nothing about LA before reading this, this book is a good introduction to the area.

4 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very comprehensive, but somewhat left-learning, September 10, 2004

By 

Brian D. Wall - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Rough Guide to Los Angeles 3 (Rough Guide Travel Guides) (Paperback)

I picked up this book from my local library. A good overview of various places to visit in the Los Angeles area, but from almost the beggining I could tell what Mr. Dickey's political leaning is. In his media listings he lists Fox News as "providing a right-wing slant on the day's events.", but no such left-wing qualifier for CNN. Again in the Radio stations list, KFI 640 is described as "Tub-thumping talk radio, mostly with a far-right slant.", but KCRW 89.9 is described as "One of the country's better NPR affliates". Other examples are his distribes against Harrison Gray Otis "the arch-conservative publisher" who started the Los Angeles Times in 1881 (accordding to Dickey the LA Times "changed course dramatically" in 1960 when Otis Chandler took over the paper and "rejected its provincial conservatism") and of course Richard Nixon. Once you get past all of this, the info is actually quite good. I've been to many places around the US and have read many tour guides about them, but this book is at times a tour guide wrapped in DNC talking point memos. For a travel guide just give the facts about the place you're writting about, not the 'facts as you see them'.