cover image L.A. Days, L.A. Nights: A Journey Through America's City of Dreams

L.A. Days, L.A. Nights: A Journey Through America's City of Dreams

Stephen Brook. St. Martin's Press, $21.95 (372pp) ISBN 978-0-312-09321-1

Not the one-dimensional Tinseltown but a great city of uncosseted variety and beauty--as well as grunge and sleaze--emerges from this ebullient look at Los Angeles. Brook ( New York Days, New York Nights ) examines familiar landmarks and myths with respect, thoughtfulness and high humor. Little of L.A.'s vast geographic area and its manifold concerns escapes his energetic inspection and comment: he surveys old and emerging neighborhoods, housing, architecture and ``trashitecture,'' theater, the police, cars, food, movie-making, religions. His informative comments accompany a multitude of lively interviews; meals with friends, relatives and acquaintances in dives, cafes, ethnic and high-life restaurants; visits to churches, temples, schools, Hollywood parties and movie sets; museums from Pasadena to Malibu (whose great new art collections he compares favorably with many of New York City's); and, of course, the beaches and the freeways. A cultivated European hotelier, now an ardent Angeleno, tells him that L.A. has become the real capital of the U.S. and Brook more or less agrees, concluding that it is at least ``the most fluid and open of the great cities.'' (July)