A review by mrbusse
Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles by Rosecrans Baldwin
4.0
This was really thoroughly researched, wide-ranging, and easy to read. The structure of the book was inventive, and I love how the author seamlessly incorporated a lot of relevant quotes from other literary works in a way that was reminiscent of a cento. I learned a lot, despite having lived in LA for a decade.
Although I was hooked on the stories -- particularly the bits about the cults and the natural disasters -- the author's central binding idea (that of a City-State) is really underconceptualized. He struggles to make a compelling argument that LA is fundamentally different than other major cities in the US or around the world, aside from quoting a bunch of people simply saying that it is.
Although I was hooked on the stories -- particularly the bits about the cults and the natural disasters -- the author's central binding idea (that of a City-State) is really underconceptualized. He struggles to make a compelling argument that LA is fundamentally different than other major cities in the US or around the world, aside from quoting a bunch of people simply saying that it is.