LOS ANGELES - I love this city. I fell in love with a place where I could walk into the Comedy Store and see Sarah Silverman working out material; when I could meet a friend at a bookstore and end the night watching improv at the UCB theater; when I could finish reporting a story and meet friends at a Korean BBQ with pictures of Stephen Seagal on the wall. Name a millennial left coast cliche and I’ve been into it.
The love is deep enough to keep me committed to my vacation plan of the last few months — come out to Southern California for a while, mostly go outdoors, but luxuriate in just being here. I brought a pile of books, with the intent of giving most away when I’m done, and the weight of that plan discouraging me from wasting too much time online.
The list and some errata:
James Gavin, “Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker”
JG Ballard, “Crash”
James Blish, “Cities in Flight”
Raymond Carver, Collected Stories
Barry Miles, “Zappa”
William S. Burroughs, “The Wild Boys”
Anthology: The Farthest Horizon
David Mitchell, “The Bone Clocks”
Kevin Starr, “Golden Dreams”
Michel Faber, “The Book of Strange New Things”
All men, I realize! Not intentional, but probably telling about what grabbed me as I shoved things in the bag.
I have always brought too many books on trips, for the same reason I have too many books at home to be pleasantly arranged on shelves — each book is a promise that you won’t be “done” until you’ve read it. For three years, I’d join a group of friends who assembled their collections in one giant Google Doc, with notations, so we knew who had what at our beach vacation. We knew we had a week, but set the challenge of finishing every Ex Machina collection or every Hornblower book and you feel like you have even more time. A deeply stupid notion I’ve chosen to embrace.