Tidbits from the Road
Old Los Angeles
I just spent five days in
and will be home for just 24 hours before leaving for
Jersey
I flew into the
Thursday and was met by Ken Wilson, who is known in the publishing business as
a media escort. Ken’s task was to take me around to area bookstores, introduce
me to store managers, and see if they would either display Towers of Gold more
prominently or order more.
Ken clearly knows his stuff, for he was greeted warmly into
almost every bookstore we entered. I came with an armful of books to give away,
so Ken would always try to determine the name of the staff’s history buff, so I
could tell him or her about Isaias Hellman and give them a free book to read.
People in the bookstores got all excited about Hellman and
the book since he played such an integral role in the development of
gratifying to see their eyes light up and realize that Towers of Gold could be
a great holiday present, too.
One thing that struck me about
bookstores. We visited Vroman’s in
and Book Soup, but all the other stores were either Borders or Barnes and
Nobles. And they are everywhere. Clearly the bookstore business in
different than the one in the Bay Area. If I just think about my neighborhood
independent bookstores, I come up with Mrs. Dalloways,
a sci fi bookstore on
and Diesel Books. Those are all within a 5-10 minute car drive.
In the middle of the day, I stopped in at the Huntington
Library, where I was the featured speaker for a brown bag lunch put on by Bill
Deverell, who runs the Huntington – USC Institute for the Study of California
and the West. This is a great place that is trying to bring together academics,
journalists and independent historians to use primary documents to explore
Western history. (Sound familiar?)
Anyway, this luncheon was really fun. Bill Deverell asked me
a few questions and I just talked about Isaias Hellman. I really emphasized
some of the stuff in my book that I feel is original research, such as
Hellman’s influence on Henry Huntington, the man who built the Pacific Electric
red cars and other trolley lines. Few other audiences would have been so interested
in the arcane parts of the book, but this group had detailed questions.
On Friday, I taped an episode of the Connie Martinson Show.
Connie is an LA institution, having produced a television show on books for
decades. The taping was in the
Warner Cable (soon to close) and I had to drive through this moonscape-like
environment to get there. Huge rocks, much like the ones at Joshua Tree, loomed
up in patches of burned earth. It was surreal. The show will be broadcast in
December.
Friday night was the night I have been waiting for. I gave a
presentation at the Huntington Library in
came to my talk (not bad for a Friday night) and I think I entertained them
with my photos of old
of you who are curious, I wore my new Donna Karan suit.) I signed books and the
out!
That was also the case Saturday morning when I gave a talk
at Rancho Los Alamitos, once a 26,000 acre ranch owned by Hellman and the Bixby
family. More than 100 people came to hear me, and the ranch sold out of the 50
books it had ordered. The audience members were history lovers, and so I really
got to indulge in description of early LA and rancho life and the ways Hellman
contributed to the region’s growth.
Are you tired yet? I was, yet I had a lot more to do. That
evening my cousins hosted a book release party for me at their beautiful home
in
came, people who did not actually know one another well. There was also a man
whose family came from the same small town in
meet Kevin Roderick, who runs the fabulous, must-read blog LA Observed. (I must
read it two or three times a day)
After a day of rest, I drove back to
Larry Mantle. This is a very popular show on KPCC 89.3, and lots of book lovers
apparently listen in. Mantle told his listeners that Towers of Gold “was a must
read for any lover of
history.” You can listen to our interview here. With that ringing endorsement, I watched my Amazon standing go from
#22,000 in books to #2,944. Radio is powerful.
Happy, but tired, I am back home, but just briefly. Thanks
to everyone who came out to hear me and who bought books.
