 Angel City
Press was
established in
1992 and is dedicated to the publication of high-quality nonfiction
books. The award-winning books from Angel City Press are sold in
fine gift and book stores, and on the Web.
Drenched in
nostalgia yet
undeniably cool, each Angel City Press book is luxuriously illustrated
and showcases the modern design concepts of California's top graphic
artists. The first Angel City Press book Hollywood
du Jour: Lost Recipes
of Legendary Hollywood Haunts is in its sixth printing and
continues
to delight Hollywood fans and cookbook collectors around the world.
So it is with the
entire
treasury of Angel City Press books -- each is forever readable, forever
giftable. From
the ventriloquists of bygone Dummy Days to the fashion legends of Hollywood,
to fascinating stories and photos of L.A.'s
criminal cases
since 1850, to the courtships
and proposals
of the
world's most romantic couples, to the kitschy decadence that was Fabulous Las Vegas in
the '50s, to food for thought
about a century of American
eating, to a fond remembrance of those Volkswagen
Bugs we used to drive, to love poems
written by heroes on horseback, Angel City Press books are published
with extraordinary attention to detail, in the finest tradition of the
bound page.
By May of 1993 we
had Hollywood du Jour
in the hands of hungry, nostalgic readers... but not for long;
they were quite busy whipping up Sticky Orange Rolls from the
Tick Tock Tea Room and swilling Moscow Mules from Cock 'n' Bull.
Sometimes it's a little lonely on this end of the book supply chain,
and we are pleased that Publishers
Weekly took
notice of our milestone.
Angel City Press is
located by
the sea in Santa Monica, California [what's up at our Pier? view PierCam
live].
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| Who's signing where?
See the
Angel City Press Event Calendar |
| willed
into existence... -- Inventing L.A. : The
Chandlers and Their Times...
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In
1882, when General Harrison Gray Otis began working for
the paper that was to become the Los
Angeles Times,
the city of Los Angeles was still a sleepy little town with fewer than
a hundred thousand residents. However, Otis was the first of a dynasty
of men to build what would later become a world-renowned and
award-winning newspaper.
Created as the companion book to the Peter
Jones Productions documentary film
premiering on PBS October 5, 2009, this book
tells the century-long
story of the most famous family and their dominion over the Times, as they worked to create a
city of international fame. Author Bill Boyarsky follows the history of
the paper as it was passed
down from the hands of General Harrison Gray Otis, to his son-in-law,
Harry Chandler, to Norman Chandler, and finally to Otis Chandler, then
his hand-picked successor Tom Johnson... and its eventual sale and loss
of family -- and regional -- control.
Far beyond being a tale of publishers, Inventing
L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times
is the story of the Chandlers' reign over Los Angeles with the help of
their mighty scepter, the Times,
and their entwinement with politics,
family feud, and fortune. This is truly a rich history of the building
of
one of the most famous, populated, and culturally rich cities in the
world.
--
On-air:
Larry Mantle of AirTalk talks with Bill Boyarsky [listen/download]
(10/05/2009).
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| Dream
a big dream with Dreamers in Dream City... |
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From immigrants
to billionaires, unknowns to the world-famous, surfers to moviemakers,
quacks to rocket scientists—Dreamers are attracted to Harry Brant
Chandler’s Dream City.
Los Angeles and the metropolis that surrounds it is home to
photographer Chandler—a fifth-generation Angeleno—and the fifty-four
subjects he presents in compelling color portraits and biographies.
Chandler contends—and every reader will certainly agree—that being in
Dream City allowed these Dreamers to conjure bigger-than-life dreams
and turn their every dream into a fantastic reality. A member of the
famed Chandler family of Los Angeles Times fame, Chandler left the
newspaper world behind, ventured into films and electronic media, and
found a way to blend all three.
In addition to classic photojournalistic techniques, Chandler melds the
eye of a moviemaker, the captured reality of a classic artist behind a
lens, the exponential potential of digital enhancement and the passion
of a history lover to create his own take on his L.A., his Dream City.
Then he fills it with Dreamers of today and yesterday. Dreamers in Dream City.
It takes one to know one.
Talking about
Dreamers: On June 18, 2009, Harry Brant Chandler and historian
Kevin Starr explored the fascinating lives of inspirational Southern
Californians at ALOUD L.A. at the Los Angeles Public Library. Listen to
the podcast here.
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Enter the Name your Dreamer Contest at the
Autry! |
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| When
you're alone and life is making you lonely, pick up Downtown in Detail... |
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Until
the late 1970s, Downtown Los Angeles was simply a
relic to treasure, a symbol of suburban progress by its own demise. As
businesses moved out of what was once the heart of the city, many
Downtown buildings suffered the swing of the wrecking ball. But
suddenly, up stepped the conservators of history, the people who cared
that their city had a vivid past -- and magnificent buildings were
saved. Now, through the lens of master photographer/historian Tom
Zimmerman we see scores of reasons why. We see the stories the
buildings tell, up close, and, yes, very personally.
In Downtown
in Detail,
Zimmerman finds the unique vantage points from which to capture
architectural details that are the highlights of buildings, the ones
that are often undiscovered. He finds the sculptures, tiles, clock
towers, gargoyles and bas-relief panels that historic architects used
to define an era.
In the words of Linda Dishman,
executive director of the Los Angeles
Conservancy -- a woman who spends her every day saving the historic
sites of Los Angeles -- "This book is much more than a window into the
past. The vast majority of buildings pictured are still here, right
now. I hope you'll take these photos as inspiration to go Downtown and
see them firsthand . . . in Tom Zimmerman's remarkable photographs, we
see the details that are there, waiting for each of us to rediscover,
enjoy, and preserve for future generations."
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| Take a stroll on the century-old Santa Monica Pier... |
Celebrate
a century of good times on the Santa Monica Pier! Vintage images and
magnificent color photos capture this beloved international icon at its
very best. For a hundred years the Pier has represented
the link between
people and the Pacific, a connection to all that's possible, probable
and worthy of dreams. In this commemorative collection of vintage
images,
colorful artwork, fascinating history and amazing lore, author James
Harris invites anyone
who has ever enjoyed the Pier to revisit its past and contemplate its
future.
Its dramatic story of survival -- fighting Mother Nature, politics and
changing times -- makes Santa Monica Pier more than a landmark, more
than a pleasure pier or a must-see on the West Coast. There's something
for everyone on the Santa Monica Pier. Who knew that Popeye was born on
the Pier? That Joan Baez strummed a guitar in an apartment above the
Carousel? Official pier historian James Harris brings his favorite spot
in the world to life in 128 pages of pure nostalgia and fascinating
facts. If you love the Santa Monica Pier -- and who doesn't? -- you'll
treasure this trip back through time.
By the way... everybody who's anybody wil be at the Pier on
September 9, 2009 -- its hundredth birthday!
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| new edition of Deanne Stillman's
classic Twentynine
Palms |
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Twentynine Palms
is a compelling account of the devastating murder of two young girls by
a troubled Marine in the rural California desert town of Twentynine
Palms. More than just a murder-mystery, Twenty-nine Palms is a
passionate dissection of desert life itself. With the desert as a main
character, Deanne traces the family histories of the murder victims
back for generations, in one case to the Donner Party and the
other to
a shack in the Philippines, and then, the inevitable and fatal arrival
of each family in the Mojave. The Mojave becomes a character for
Stillman,
as powerful and immediate as any of the actors in this real-life drama.
The first edition of Twentynine Palms
was a Los Angeles Times
bestseller, and was named one of the best books of 2001 by the Los Angeles Times Book Review.
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| Relive the Los Angeles of Don Benito Wilson
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Benjamin
Davis Wilson trekked from Santa Fe into the dusty hamlet of Los Angeles
with Kit Carson's party in 1841. A decade later, he had become Don Benito Wilson,
made his fortune and was the second mayor of Los Angeles. His
landholdings become the sites of Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Culver City,
Riverside and more. As a Los Angeles County supervisor he oversaw a Los
Angeles County that included what is today Orange, San Bernardino and
Kern Counties. Historian Nat Read tells the amazing story of Don Benito Wilson, complete with vintage photos and illustrations.
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| Angel City Press goes underground
with Brown
Acres |
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In Brown Acres: An
Intimate History of the Los Angeles Sewers, Anna Sklar
captures the complex and often alarming history of the Los Angeles city
sewer system. With more than fifty photographs, diagrams and maps, Brown Acres
provides a unique look at the underground history of Los Angeles as it
traces the links between sewage, ambition and politics.
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| They came to L.A. because it was a Paradise Promoted |
With
more than 250 photographs and rare ephemera, all collected by author
Tom Zimmerman, Paradise Promoted
is the first book to showcase the era from
1870 to 1930 when boosters developed the small town of Los Angeles into
the city that would become Americas most cutting-edge metropolis. Los
Angeles was the subject of the longest, loudest, most persistent
promotional campaign in the history of the
United States. Nothing was
too exaggerated, absurd, or flat-out bizarre to be fodder for the
relentless effort to convince Americans to slam the door forever on
their home and sally forth to what booster supreme G.W. Burton called
"The fairest daughter among the sisterhood of cities in the world." |
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| A hundred years of the
Port of Los Angeles... |
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The Port of
Los Angeles has served its region for a century, not just by
bringing
ships and their cargo to Southern California, but by establishing Los
Angeles as a major presence on the international maritime scene.
Because of its Port, Los Angeles is the key that has opened North
America to the Pacific Rim and brought the world closer together. In
2007 the Port observed the Centennial of the formation of the Board of
Harbor Commissioners, and the official founding of the Port of Los
Angeles. To celebrate and commemorate that event, Los Angeles authors
Ernest Marquez and Veronique de Turenne collaborated to create Port of
Los Angeles: An Illustrated History from 1850 to 1945, a
book devoted
to the earliest years of this remarkable maritime center.
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| see Paris Beyond the
Iconic |
The Champs-Élysées. The Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame
Cathedral. Poetic
cobbled
streets, working-class cafés,
and
lovers—so many lovers. These are the classic images of Paris, the
most-photographed city in the world.
But now, based on an international exhibition curated by the authors, Beyond
the Iconic by
Guy Bennett and Béatrice Mousli presents
a revolution in imagery—139 contemporary images from 24 photographers
whose work is preserved in the permanent collection of the renowned
Carnavalet Museum in Paris. These artists reinterpret the city,
capturing the day-to-day realities of everyone's favorite capital.
Together they go deep into the true heart of Paris. Beyond the cliches.
Indeed, Beyond the Iconic. |
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| cook like Mom
-- or for Mom -- from Joy of Liberace... |
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Modest
cooking? Feh! Joy of
Liberace celebrates Bling Cooking in all its glory,
dripping with decadence and suffused with the Liberace spirit, rich
with recipes fit for any extravagant occasion that demands exuberant
excess.
Liberace learned to cook from his Mom -- isn't it time to repay
yours by throwing her a lavish dinner party featuring Succulent
Succotash, Decorative Crab Balls and Liberace's
Exceptional and Extraordinary Angel Bling Cake Pie? Of course, if your
mom is proprietary about who rules the kitchen in your family, you
might just drop
by the old homestead and "accidentally" leave this book in the
kitchen...
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| Santa Monica Mountains : take a peek (take a peak!) |
The Santa
Monica Mountains is the only range that transverses a major
metropolitan city in North America, slicing Los Angeles and defining
it, shaping its hills and its valleys, its canyons and its ocean front.
The Santa Monicas is undeniably a range on the edge of the world,
welcoming the Pacific into its rocky ridges, almost daring the ocean
waves to break at its foothills. And these are
mountains that have gone uncelebrated, until now in The
Santa Monica Mountains: Range on the Edge,
a compelling history and commentary by award-winning writer Matthew
Jaffe, punctuated with 140 breathtaking images captured by renowned
landscape-art photographer Tom Gamache. |
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My California continues to inspire
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| We are
very pleased that the
cities of Benecia, Santa Barbara,
Sacramento
and Whittier have joined Long Beach by
including
My California in their
Community-wide
Reads events. More news is on the California
Arts Council and CaliforniaAuthors.com
Websites. All proceeds collected by Angel City Press
for sale of this book -- almost $90,000 so far -- are donated to the
California Arts Council to fund writing programs in California schools.
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Drive, he said...
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Some say that here
in Los Angeles we consider driving to be a birthright. Certainly the
automobile has had a profound impact -- as explored in the "Driving
Passions" pieces on KCET's online series CA Stories. D.J. Waldie, author of Real City
and Where We
Are Now, weighs
in with "Rush" (Flash
slideshow | text).
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... along the
Grand
Concourse of Los Angeles...
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doing swimmingly, thank you: Santa Monica Beach... |
When the land
grant Rancho Boca de
Santa Monica was awarded to Francisco Marquez and Ysidro Reyes
in 1839,
little did their families imagine that the sand separating their land
from the waters of the Pacific would become one of the most famous
beaches in the world, now visited by millions of visitors each year.
The Marquez-Reyes union helped define the history of Santa Monica
Beach. Ernest Marquez
has collected images and information that together define the
history of this magnificent beach. Now,
with dramatic images by
Carleton E. Watkins, H.F. Rile, Valentin Wolfenstein and many more,
Marquez’s Santa Monica Beach: A
Collector’s Pictorial History is destined to
become not only the definitive biography, but also the most beautiful
and authoritative record of an American treasure.
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Ernest
Marquez was
born in 1924 and grew up in
Santa Monica Canyon, swimming the Pacific
waters
at the heels of Olympian Buster Crabbe and snacking on the watercress
that grew in the canyon’s creek.
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a new home for Los Angeles
Times books...
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Los Angeles Times
Books are now
distributed by Angel City Press. In
keeping with the mission of Angel City Press to offer works that
showcase Southern California, Los
Angeles Times Books are a collection
of treasured volumes that reflect the work of the world-renowned
newspaper’s staff writers, columnists, photographers and Paul Conrad,
the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. In addition, Los Angeles Times
Books feature titles which are significant to the Southern California
region, from history and sports to gardening and food. Click here
to explore what's available...
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| Read more / Where to buy |
 Here's our press
archive, where can see what
others say about Angel City Press.
Gotta write: Please read our submission
guidelines before you pitch us your book.
Gotta read: "I want that book NOW!" Check here to locate
places to buy Angel City Press
books. |
| "Angel City what?" |
We are not
the only "Angel City" in the City of Angels -- there are many! If you
are
not looking for our wonderful books, you may be searching for these
similarly-named neighbors:
Angel
City Chorale -- they sing much
better than we do...
Angel
City Derby Girls -- they skate, we don't...
Angel
City Gym -- they are a little better-buffed than we are...
Angel
City Brewing -- whose products just might be more
refreshing than ours on a hot day.. |
Some reasons why we do this...
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| Our beloved brother Ron
Haver loved the movies more than anybody... |
Warrantless search? Surrender here...
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