hoffman anon here (lol this is so funny to me that i am known as this) but do you have any general book recs on cali? i saw the water usage and other recs, i’m not from cali and follow the sjs bc my brain adopted them as my team
hello hoffman anon!!! i feel like i need to say that i am ALSO not natively from california and i follow the sharks out of happenstance, but i have lived here for my entire adult life (we hittin a decade in october y'all!!!) and it's my favorite place on earth ... it's very touching i'm apparently a california ambassador now 😌
Hi, more to add!
- (nonfiction) Up and Down California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer. Oh Up and Down California my beloved. Diary of Brewer, a guy who surveyed CA right at statehood. They were sponsored by Josiah Whitney, whom Mount Whitney is named after. Such a fun book for me personally, since a lot of their exploration takes place in places I’ve personally been to. They see San Jose, Grapevine area, Monterey, Lake Tahoe areas, and this guy is just writing letters back to his friends and family so it’s generally not incredibly hard to get through but the book is dense.
- (nonfiction) The Diablo Diary by Joseph Belli. Very close look at the Diablo Mountain Range from Mount Diablo (Walnut Creek/Concord/Brentwood area) all the way down to around Pasa Robles. Mostly on animals and plants, but author has lived in the area his whole life and pretty passionate about it. Diablo Mountains are the ones to the east of San Jose near Alum Rock, Foothills area.
- (fiction) Cannery Row by John Steinbeck. Most of his books are based in California. I’m not a huge Steinbeck lover myself but he hugely wrote about Monterey/Salinas area and that’s pretty close to San Jose so we hear a lot about him.
- (fiction) The Shards by Bret Easton Ellis. In the middle of this right now. It’s Ellis (American Psycho) so it’s a little fucked up but it’s very very very evocative of the time, 1981 Beverly Hills/Laurel Canyon/Studio City area. Lots of pop culture references to music at this time, lots of description of the streets he’s taking (Ventura into Sherman Oaks and then a left on Stansbury) which is fun if you want to follow along on maps. My mom grew up in this same time period in LA, so she enjoys the vibes provided. The central plot is murder and friends and senior year of high school but not in a campy way. Enjoying it thus far. Would definitely check content warnings.
- (fiction) The Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull. This is a series (I’ve only read the first one) that’s middle grade fiction but I’m fully 28 and enjoyed it a lot, and it doesn’t seem like the author is talking down to the intended audience which was really nice. It’s fantasy, cool magic, based in California (specifically near Mount Diablo <3 where the author grew up) and I didn’t realize it when I read it as a kid but as an adult re-reading it, it was a lot of fun to pick out the places where I’ve probably been in the book.
- (fiction) The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. This is postmodern fiction, I believe, and it’s very strange. Kind of looped in with Vonnegut or Heller, kind of weird, takes place in CA but not real places for the most part. Enough that you get the idea of where events are supposed to take place. This is about a secret mail service operating underground in the U.S. and finding the truth behind it?
- (fiction) The Long Take by Robin Robertson. LA and SF (and New York)’s skid rows that were created after soldiers returned from the Second World War, and someone trying to live in these places and get through life. I don’t really remember this book so much but I do remember talking to my mom about the SF skid row vs the LA skid row.
I have read the California Field Atlas by Obi Kaufmann and I know he has other books more specific to deserts of California, water of California. It’s a beautiful book, but more like one where you pick it up to a random page and enjoy more than just reading it straight through (although I did this). Kaufmann is super passionate about CA, specifically the Berkeley area (I believe that’s where he’s from) and he’s always on his IG promoting talks and things about nature and the environment.
