Best Books About California
24 books on the list
Sort by
Number of Articles
Layout
Part of the Penguin Orange Collection, a limited-run series of twelve influential and beloved American classics in a bold series design offering a modern take on the iconic Penguin paperbackThe story is primarily set in the Salinas Valley, California, between the beginning of the twentieth century and the end of World War I, though some chapters ar...
Featured in 3 articles
The first nonfiction work by one of the most distinctive prose stylists of our era, Slouching Towards Bethlehem remains, forty years after its first publication, the essential portrait of America— particularly California—in the sixties. It focuses on such subjects as John Wayne and Howard Hughes, growing up a girl in California, ruminating on the n...
Featured in 3 articles
The hidden story of L.A. Mike Davis shows us where the city's money comes from and who controls it while also exposing the brutal ongoing struggle between L.A.'s haves and have-nots....
Featured in 3 articles
For fans of the I Survived series, this classic rollicking adventure about the California Gold Rush and one determined twelve-year-old has sold nearly a million copies!When Jack's aunt is forced to sell her beloved mansion but is still unable to raise enough money to pay her debts, the twelve-year-old goes to California in search of gold to help he...
Featured in 3 articles
"Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid....He is the hero; he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. This is the Code of the Private Eye as defined by Raymond Chandler in his 1944 essay 'The Simple Act of Murder.' Such a man was Philip Marlowe, pr...
Featured in 3 articles
Recommended by
Adam SesslerDuring World War II a community called Manzanar was created in the high mountain desert country of California. Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese Americans. Among them was the Wakatsuki family, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston...
Featured in 3 articles

Separate Is Never Equal
Sylvia Mendez and Her Familys Fight for Desegregation (Jane Addams Award Book (Awards))
Almost 10 years before Brown vs. Board of Education, Sylvia Méndez and her parents helped end school segregation in California. An American citizen of Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage who spoke and wrote perfect English, Méndez was denied enrollment to a “Whites only” school. Her parents took action by organizing the Hispanic community and filing ...
Featured in 2 articles
Recommended by
Simon SmithFirst published in 1979, The White Album records indelibly the upheavals and aftermaths of the 1960s. Examining key events, figures, and trends of the era—including Charles Manson, the Black Panthers, and the shopping mall—through the lens of her own spiritual confusion, Joan Didion helped to define mass culture as we now understand it. Written wit...
Featured in 2 articles
An iconic novel of the West and an American masterpiece—a deeply moving narrative of one family and the traditions of our national past. Lyman Ward is a retired professor of history, recently confined to a wheelchair by a crippling bone disease and dependent on others for his every need. Amid the chaos of 1970s counterculture he retreats to his anc...
Featured in 2 articles
Recommended by
Joanne FreemanIn 2025, with the world descending into madness and anarchy, one woman begins a fateful journey toward a better future.Lauren Olamina and her family live in one of the only safe neighborhoods remaining on the outskirts of Los Angeles. Behind the walls of their defended enclave, Lauren’s father, a preacher, and a handful of other citizens try to sal...
Featured in 2 articles
Redwoods by Jason Chin
Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin
A Scanner Darkly by Philip K. Dick
Pop's Bridge by Eve Bunting
Our California by Pam Muñoz Ryan
Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia
Ecology of Fear by Mike Davis
California by Kevin Starr
Where I Was From by Joan Didion
Blue Willow by Doris Gates
Patty Reed's Doll by Ms. Rachel K. Laurgaard
Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi