It’s no secret that I love independent bookstores. I am down in Los Angeles and yesterday dropped into the new Diesel Bookstore in Brentwood, even though I had spent the previous two days surrounded by authors and books at the LA Times Festival of Books. Still, I wanted to see what they had and what caught my interest. I almost never pass up a chance to browse in an independent bookstore.

For years I have wanted to attend the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which is easily the largest — and best — book festival on the West Coast. Each year more than 100,000 people go to the UCLA campus to hear more than 450 authors talk about a range of topics.

It has always seemed to far to travel for a weekend. But when I published Towers of Gold, one of the goals I set for myself was to appear at the festival. Well, I am delighted that the organizers asked me, and once the invitation was extended I had no difficulty committing to the 300-mile journey south from San Francisco.

I am delighted to report that Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California, has been nominated for a Northern California Book Award. The award was established by the Northern California Book Reviewers in 1981 “to honor the work of writers and recognize exceptional service in the field of literature in northern California.”

The non-fiction nominees are:

* Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines, Richard A. Muller, W.W. Norton

* The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment, Paul R. Ehrlich and Anne H. Ehrlich, Island Press

I was pleasantly pleased to discover that Towers of Gold made the bestseller list of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association this week. Towers of Gold was the #7 bestselling book for the week of January 25.

But I was puzzled, too, since the only event I did that week was at the private Metropolitan Club in San Francisco. I sold about 25 books after my talk, but the books all came from a nearby Borders, which is a chain store. So how did I end up on a list from independent booksellers?

Did you know there was a thriving Jewish community in El Paso, Texas?
I didn’t, until this review of Towers of Gold came out in the El Paso Times. Apparently
there are three shuls and a Holocaust
Museum.

 

Daniel Olivas, a Los
Angeles lawyer, author of four books, and editor of Latinos in Lotusland: An Anthology of Contemporary Southern California
Literature writes:

 

Towers of Gold “is a biography that is startling and
engrossing, as well as indispensible to a complete understanding of California‘s development
into a financial powerhouse.”

 

 

1)      That
my cousin Warren Hellman and I will be on Michael Krasny’s Forum on KQED on
Tuesday Dec. 23 at 10 a.m. Listen in to hear an original song on Isaias Hellman performed by Warren’s band, the Wronglers. I have listened to Krasny’s show for
years and have always dreamed of being on it.

 

2)      For
all the people who came to my readings – it was great to see so many friends
and to meet so many new people.

 

3)      All
the relatives I have met through the publication of this book

I am heading back down to Los Angeles, where I will give a talk this
evening at Metropolis Books, a small independent bookstore in the heart of the
city’s downtown and banking districts.

I am really looking forward to this reading because the store sits next door to
the building Isaias Hellman constructed in 1905 for his Farmers and Merchants
Bank. It is also the site of his old homestead. He constructed a house here in
1877, one that was so far away from the center of Los Angeles that he gave an
adjacent plot of land to a friend with the caveat he build a house, too. See,
Hellman didn’t want his wife, Esther, and son, Marco, to be lonely living so
far away from everyone else.

In my book on my great-great grandfather, Isaias Hellman, I go on and on (and some say on) about his prescience in backing business partners who would go on to do great things for California. For example, Hellman formed partnerships with the founders of Lehman Brothers, with Harrison Gray Otis, who bought the LA Times, and with the men who jump-started California’s oil industry.

A number of these businesses have failed or are about to fail in the wake of our country’s economic collapse. This is causing a number of financial wizards to scour Towers of Gold to see the next business to collapse so they can do some short selling. (or so says my brother, Steven Dinkelspiel in this scathing critique)