Page Against the Machine Book Group (January's Theme)

Check out this space for suggested titles of Page Against the Machine book group's current month's theme!

For January 2025, we're reading titles that are set in Los Angeles, or about Los Angeles

Updated December 3, 2024
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All the stars in the heavens : a novel
Trigiani, Adriana
Paper Book
New York Times Bestseller * USA Today Bestseller * Publishers Weekly Bestseller  People's Book of the Week Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards Nominee for Fiction Adriana Trigiani, the New York Times bestselling author of the blockbuster...
Bad city : peril and power in the City of Angels
Pringle, Paul
Paper Book
"Pringle's fast-paced book is a master class in investigative journalism... when institutions collude to protect one another, reporting may be our last best hope for accountability." --The New York Times For fans of Spotlight and Catch and Kill...
Be brief and tell them everything
Listi, Brad
Paper Book
A darkly funny meditation on creativity and family, Be Brief and Tell Them Everything tracks the life of a middle-aged author who is struggling to write his next novel while trying to come to grips with his son's disabilities, set against a backdrop of...
Beverly Hills spy : the double-agent war hero who helped Japan attack Pearl Harbor
Drabkin, Ronald
Paper Book
"A beguiling tale of espionage and double-dealing in the years leading up to World War II. ... Strap in for a narrative that demands a suspension of disbelief--and richly rewards it." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review); Best Books of February Selection The untold story of...
Biting the hand : growing up Asian in Black and White America
Lee, Julia
Paper Book
Julia Lee is angry. And she has questions. What does it mean to be Asian in America? What does it look like to be an ally or an accomplice? How can we shatter the structures of white supremacy that fuel racial stratification? When Julia was fifteen, her hometown...
City of flickering light
Fay, Juliette
Paper Book
Juliette Fay--"one of the best authors of women's fiction" (Library Journal)--transports us back to the Golden Age of Hollywood and the raucous Roaring Twenties, as three friends struggle to earn their places among the stars of the silent screen--perfect for fans of La La Land and...
Dear Los Angeles : the city in diaries and letters 1542 to 2018
Kipen, David
Paper Book
A rich mosaic of diary entries and letters from Marilyn Monroe, Cesar Chavez, Susan Sontag, Albert Einstein, and many more, this is the story of Los Angeles as told by locals, transplants, and some just passing through. "Los Angeles is refracted in all its irreducible,...
The garden of small beginnings
Waxman, Abbi
Paper Book
"A quirky, funny, and deeply thoughtful book"* that's "filled with characters you'll love and wish you lived next door to in real life"** from the author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill.   Lilian Girvan has been a single mother for three years--ever since her...
Goldenseal : a novel
Hummel, Maria
Paper Book
Downtown Los Angeles, 1990. Alone in her luxury hotel suite, the reclusive Lacey Crane receives a message: Edith is waiting for her in the lobby. Former best friends, Lacey and Edith haven't spoken to one another in over four decades. As young adults meeting at summer camp in Maine, and later making...
Good rich people
Brazier, Eliza Jane
Paper Book
Lyla has always believed that life is a game she is destined to win, but her husband, Graham, takes the game to dangerous levels. The wealthy couple invites self-made success stories to live in their guesthouse and then conspires to ruin their lives. After all, there is nothing worse than a...
The goodby people
Lambert, Gavin
Paper Book
First published in 1971, The Goodby People is perhaps the greatest novel ever written about post-Manson, pre-Disney Los Angeles. "His elegant, stripped-down prose caught the last gasp of Old Hollywood in a way that has yet to be rivalled." (Armistead Maupin) "The bisexual draft...
Hitler in Los Angeles : how Jews foiled Nazi plots against Hollywood and America
Ross, Steven Joseph
Paper Book
A 2018 FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE The chilling, little-known story of the rise of Nazism in Los Angeles, and the Jewish leaders and spies they recruited who stopped it. No American city was more important to the Nazis than Los Angeles, home to...
If you lived here you'd be famous by now : true stories from Calabasas
Bleidner, Via
Paper Book
Soon to be the Netflix Series "Calabasas" -- from Kim Kardashian, Marlene King, and Emma Roberts "An unfiltered, thoughtful, and witty insider's perspective on the suburb that birthed the Kardashian-Jenners and the Bling Ring." ―The Daily Beast ...
Inventing paradise:: the power brokers who created the dream of Los Angeles
Haddad, Paul
Paper Book
Inventing Paradise: The Power Brokers Who Created the Dream of Los Angeles traces the improbable rise of Los Angeles through the prism of six visionaries who had outsize influence on the city's growth: Phineas Banning, Harrison Gray Otis, Henry Huntington, Harry Chandler,...
L. A. weather
Escand
Paper Book
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * 2022 INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARD WINNER FOR FICTION FORECAST: Storm clouds are on the horizon in L.A. Weather, a fun, fast-paced novel of a Mexican American family from the author of the #1...
I love you so much it's killing us both : a novel, or an annotated mixtape
Stovall, Mariah
Paper Book
Set in the suburbs of Los Angeles and New York City, I Love You So Much It's Killing Us Both is an immersive journey into the life and mind of Khaki Oliver, who's perennially trying to disappear into something: a codependent friendship, an ill-advised boyfriend, the punk scene, or simply, the ether....
A machine to move ocean and Earth : the making of the port of Los Angeles--and America
Tejani, James
Paper Book
The Port of Los Angeles is all around us. Objects we use on a daily basis pass through it: furniture, apparel, electronics, automobiles, and much more. The busiest container port in the Western hemisphere, it claims one-sixth of all US ocean shipping. Yet despite its centrality to our world, the...
Mercury pictures presents : a novel
Marra, Anthony
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction * The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini's Italy to 1940s Los Angeles--a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the...
Miss Del Río
Mujica, Bárbara Louise
Paper Book
"Dolores del Río bursts to life in this vivid, well-researched portrayal. Her iconic feline elegance and brash spirit dominates every page, but it's her defiance to live life on her own terms that sets her apart--and what an extraordinary life she led."--C.W. Gortner, bestselling author of ...
A murder in Hollywood : the untold story of Tinseltown's most shocking crime
Sherman, Casey
Paper Book
The dark story behind the bright lights of Tinseltown From the outside, Hollywood starlet Lana Turner seemed to have it all-a thriving film career, a beautiful daughter, and the kind of fame and fortune that most people could only dream of. But when the famous femme fatale began dating...
No good very bad Asian : a novel
Cheuk, Leland
Paper Book
Fiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. Meet Sirius Lee, a fictive famous Chinese American comedian. He's a no good, very bad Asian. He's not good at math (or any other subject, really). He has no interest in finding a 'good Chinese girlfriend.' And he refuses to put any effort into becoming the...
Parable of the sower
Butler, Octavia E.
Paper Book
This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author "pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale" and includes a foreword by LeVar Burton and an afterword by N. K. Jemisin (John Green, New York Times). When...
Read me, Los Angeles : exploring L.A.'s book culture
Orphan, Katie
Paper Book
A colorful, lively, and informed celebration of all things bookish in L.A. past and present, including interviews with current L.A. writers; day trips in search of favorite fictional characters, from Marlowe to Weetzie Bat; author quotes galore; curated lists of the must-read L.A. books; a look at...
Right on cue : a novel
Ballard, Falon
Paper Book
Hollywood darling Emmy Harper is considered the queen of writing romantic comedies. That is, until tragedy struck and she swore she'd never write another happy ending again. After some time away, and lots of encouragement from family and friends, Emmy is finally ready to dive back into the genre...
Rock me on the water : 1974, the year Los Angeles transformed movies, music, television, and politics
Brownstein, Ronald
Paper Book
"An electric story filled with gripping personalities, compelling backstage histories, and a clear message for the divided America of today: the forces that fear change can win for a time, but in America the future always gets the last word. A lyrical recreation of a magical moment....
Rockhaven Sanitarium : the legacy of Agnes Richards
Jordan, Elisa
Paper Book
For decades, the mild climate of the Crescenta Valley served as a haven for those seeking mental health rest and relief from lung ailments. In 1923, registered nurse Agnes Richards decided it was the perfect place to open a sanitarium, one that would set itself apart from the rest. Rockhaven...
Set the night on fire : L.A. in the sixties
Davis, Mike
Paper Book
Los Angeles Times Bestseller This riveting tour through 1960s Los Angeles is a "history from below, in the very best sense" as it celebrates the "grassroots heroes and struggles" of the social movements of the era (Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Natural Causes).
The shards
Ellis, Bret Easton
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER * A novel of sensational literary and psychological suspense from the best-selling author of Less Than Zero and American Psycho that tracks a group of privileged high school friends in a vibrantly fictionalized 1980s Los Angeles as a...
Strip tees : a memoir of millennial Los Angeles
Flannery, Kate
Paper Book
Strip Tees is a fever dream of a memoir--Hunter S. Thompson meets Gloria Steinem--about a recent college graduate and what happens when her feminist ideals meet the real world. At the turn of the new millennium, LA is the place to be. "Hipster" is a new...
This one is mine : a novel
Semple, Maria.
Paper Book
Violet Parry is living the quintessential life of luxury in the Hollywood Hills with David, her rock-and-roll manager husband, and her darling toddler, Dot. She has the perfect life--except that she's deeply unhappy. David expects the world of Violet but gives little of himself in return. When she...
Thorn tree
Ludington, Max
Paper Book
"Terrifically vivid. . . stirring." - New York Times A beautifully wrought novel on the aftershocks of the heady but dangerous late 1960s and the relationship between trauma and the creative impulse. Now in his late-sixties, Daniel lives in quiet...

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