California Dreaming

Two new books about the rise of Los Angeles and Hollywood, plus an overlooked story of slavery in Nebraska, a Western detective novel, the real and imagined Bonanza and a Montana adventure story. I like to call Los Angeles “The West’s Most Western Town.” I was born and raised in the city, growing up in one of the great reclamation projects of the United States, the San Fernando Valley. The inland desert valley became lush with agricultural, suburban and industrial growth—including the f