The Brief

You don’t need to live here long to know that Los Angeles is massive and complex. There is a lot to understand about the city and the greater county, and how it works.

To help you get a clearer picture of the place, might we suggest a book?

How to LA spoke to eight local independent booksellers to get a few recommendations of the best books to read about this place.

Here are their picks:

Tía Chucha’s Centro Cultural & Bookstore, Sylmar

Luis J. Rodriguez, co-owner of Tía Chucha’s, a bookstore and cultural space in Sylmar.

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Co-owner and author Luis J. Rodriguez (also a former poet laureate of L.A.) says L.A. often doesn’t get the credit it deserves for its literary contributions.

"I find L.A. to be a great literary town, a great poetry town, that people don't pay attention to,” Rodriguez says. “San Francisco is known for it, New York is known for it, but L.A. shouldn't be forgotten for the great amount of literature and poetry that comes out of these communities."

Rodriguez’s own books — like his 1993 memoir Always Running: La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A. — often appear on lists of best books about Los Angeles, but he offered these picks from authors who’ve inspired him:

Ask the Dust by John Fante

Rodriguez considers it “the seminal L.A. novel.”

Mercurochrome: New Poems by Wanda Coleman (who Rodriguez calls “the quintessential L.A.writer”):

“She’s from Watts and she’s very fierce, she’s very strident. But she’s also — of course like any poet— she’s got a sensitivity to things,” Rodriguez says. “When you read her poetry she pulls you into a world that I don’t think this city appreciates.”

Octavia’s Bookshelf, Pasadena

Octavia's Bookshelf in Pasadena, CA. March 7, 2023.

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Owner and founder Nikki High offered these two recommendations written by the store’s namesake, author (and Pasadenan) Octavia Butler.

While Butler is often described as a science fiction writer, High says the label doesn’t really fully encompass Butler’s work:

“I think when Octavia Butler started writing these stories they were so different than anything anyone has ever written, no one really knew what to do with her, so they just said ‘Sci-Fi.’”

High’s recommendations:

Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler

While the story is technically set in a fictional Southern California city called “Robledo,” High says there are many clues that it’s meant to be Pasadena.

Kindred by Octavia Butler

In this 1979 novel, the main character Dana lives in Altadena, right next door to Pasadena.

Vroman’s Bookstore, Pasadena

Books on L.A. and California and L.A.-themed gifts on sale at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena.

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Bookseller Grant Hoskins echoed the importance of novelist and short story writer John Fante, but wanted to also offer some more recent works.

His picks were both published in 2023:

The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow

Set in Burbank, 30 years from today, the novel is about the climate emergency and Hoskins says, “in a lot of ways it mirrors the politics of now,” but it ultimately has a hopeful outlook on the future.

“You could write a book like this to inspire doom and fear,” Hoskins says. “But Doctorow does it in a way that inspires a lot of hope.”

KAOS Theory: The Afrokosmic Ark of Ben Caldwell by Robeson Taj Frazier with Ben Caldwell

“A really incredible book” about influential arts educator and independent filmmaker Ben Caldwell that Hoskins says features a lot of great art: “It’s just a treasure.”

Reparations Club, near West Adams

Customers at Reparations Club. March 11, 2023.

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Jazzi McGilbert, the founder and creative director of Reparations Club (or “Rep Club”) also mentioned Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower,” as well as Paul Beatty’s 2021 novel "The White Boy Shuffle" and “South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s” by Kellie Jones, but she wanted to highlight a local first-time author:

There Goes the Neighborhood by Jade Adia

This young adult novel is a story about gentrification which McGilbert says is something that she herself grapples with every day at the bookstore.

It’s about a group of friends with a “half-baked” idea of starting a fake gang to scare off newcomers to the neighborhood, but McGilbert says that at its heart, the story is about “community and coming of age in Los Angeles.”

Chevalier’s Books, Larchmont Village

Bookseller Miles Parnegg's picks for books that help readers better understand Los Angeles. At Chevalier's Books in Larchmont Village.

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Around the holidays, we headed to Chevalier’s Books which has the claim to fame of being the oldest independent bookstore in Los Angeles.

Bookseller Miles Parnegg highlighted these books as ones that would help transplants understand L.A. better and also “conceive of the city as a whole”:

She by Michelle Latiolais

Written by local author Michelle Latiolais, Parnegg describes “She” as one of his favorite books ever. Classified as neither a novel nor a collection of short stories (instead it’s labeled simply as “fiction”), Parnegg says the story “shows us a way of being in this big, sprawling city in a way that is actually reinforcing care and mutual aid.”

Seventy-Two and One Half Miles Across Los Angeles by Mark Ruwedel

A book of photos that Parnegg says “celebrates the complexity and the grittiness of L.A. and also tries to make an argument for getting out of our bubbles — and an argument for walking the city.”

Koreatown Dreaming: Stories and Portraits of Korean Immigrant Life by Emanuel Hahn

"For someone who lives in Koreatown and didn’t know much about it before I moved here, this book has been a revelation,” says Parnegg.

Book Soup, West Hollywood

Book Soup in West Hollywood.

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We also got some recommendations for books that help you better understand Los Angeles from Book Soup.

Store manager Jess Amodeo, who is from L.A. and grew up in the Valley, suggested these books, which both feature some great art and photography, and also have the potential to make good gifts:

Ed Ruscha/ Now Then: A Retrospective from MoMA Press

A photo collection of influential artist Ed Ruscha’s works spanning over 65 years that Amodeo says helps you see Los Angeles through Ruscha’s eyes.

The Cobrasnake: Y2Ks Archive by Mark Hunter

Amodeo says that Hunter’s photos encapsulate an era of L.A.’s nightlife scene, before smartphones social media, “when there was this convergence of culture and fashion and all these things just starting to take off.”

Skylight Books, Los Feliz

The Los Angeles section at Skylight Books in Los Feliz.

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Skylight Books’ general manager Mary Williams suggested:

Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles by Rosecrans Baldwin

“It synthesizes so many different ideas in pursuit of his thesis that L.A. is a modern city-state,” Williams says. And it features interviews with several writers that are fixtures of L.A.’s literary community.

“For somebody who’s going for their first book about L.A., I think it’s a great pick because from there you could go down a real rabbit hole of all the different authors that he mentions and people that he interviews.”

Skylight Books also has a large L.A. regional history and culture section and a local travel guide section. From those sections, Williams highlighted:

The Library Book by Susan Orlean

Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology edited by David Ulin

Dear Los Angeles: The City in Diaries and Letters, 1542 to 2018 edited by David Kipen

The Iliad Bookshop, North Hollywood

Lisa Morton, a long-time bookseller at the used bookstore, suggested City of Quartz by Mike Davis, the non-fiction classic about L.A., but because it’s so well known, she also added some of her favorite fiction — leaning toward horror, fantasy and science fiction — about Los Angeles:

The used bookstore The Iliad in North Hollywood.

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Amnesiascope by Steve Erickson

“It actually takes place in an L.A. that is so divided that each little different district has its own different time zone.”

The Dog Park by Dennis Etchison

A horror genre author whose stories are often set in L.A., Etchison’s short story “The Dog Park” is about two people “who meet taking their dogs into a park up in one of the canyons and soon realize there’s something very wrong in that canyon.” Like with “Amnesiascope,” Morton says, “You read it and you’re like ‘Oh, this is almost too close to reality.’”

Spectators in L.A. this summer for the World Cup could pay up to $209,000 for a private suite for just one match, but union workers at SoFi Stadium are worried they'll miss out on the action.

Bartenders, cooks, dishwashers and servers represented by Unite Here Local 11 have staffed the events held at the stadium since it opened, from the 2022 Super Bowl and NFL games every fall to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé concerts. That includes positions in suites, where fans can pay top dollar for private rooms, food and drink.

But FIFA has brought in another entity entirely to run its luxury program for World Cup fans. The company, called On Location, is FIFA's official "hospitality partner," offering those that can afford it exclusive seating, special gifts and meals. Their packages can cost tens of thousands of dollars or more.

Luxury suites for fans attending the World Cup at SoFi Stadium cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

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Workers at SoFi say they're worried that FIFA's relationship with On Location means jobs that would typically go to union workers — and the wages and tips that go with them — will instead go to subcontractors without union protections. It's one reason they're threatening to strike when the World Cup comes to town.

 "We have so many wonderful workers who've been here season after season," said Kay Blake, a bartender from Inglewood who works at SoFi Stadium. "I don't see why they would partner with someone else to bring an experience that we can bring ourselves."

Workers also want to be paid a higher rate that reflects the sky-high ticket prices for the eight World Cup matches at SoFi Stadium. They're asking for double pay for major events including the tournament — an arrangement that the food service workers at Dodger Stadium have for the World Series, according to Unite Here.

"We're trying to ensure that there is no disparity between the profits of the company as opposed to our labor," Blake said. "We don't want to be exploited."

How does the World Cup affect labor negotiations?

Unite Here Local 11 represents around 2,000 workers at SoFi, and they're currently negotiating a new contract with Legends Global, the company that runs the stadium's bars and food services. Their old contract expired last year.

The union is leveraging its role in the coming World Cup to push for higher wages, especially at mega-events. Its workers also want protections from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, after the agency's head said that ICE will play a key role in security for the tournament. Unite Here filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board, saying ICE's planned presence at the World Cup threatened the union's ability to collectively bargain.

But the battle over subcontracting could also lead workers to the picket line. The union says the use of subcontractors will determine who will benefit from the riches that FIFA brings to Inglewood.

"Subcontracting is supposed to be rare," Unite Here Local 11 co-president Kurt Petersen told LAist. "So in this contract, we're saying no more. It needs to end and especially needs to end at the World Cup because we want those jobs to be good jobs."

How common is subcontracting?

Petersen said the World Cup isn't the only event where jobs have been threatened. He said that union members lost out on more than 100,000 hours of work in 2025 that was instead given to subcontracted workers.

Kay Blake, the bartender, offered LAist an example: an external company paying to operate a suite or two for an event at SoFi.

"If you bring in a subcontractor, they're going to want to bring in their people," she said. "Let's say that this subcontractor usually buys one to two suites… We have a group of people called suite attendants, and so now there's one to two suites less from their workload."

Blake said that she and her co-workers are scheduled by seniority, and fewer suites could mean people work fewer hours. She also said more short-term workers at the stadium for the World Cup could dilute tips for the workers who are at SoFi year-round.

A spokesperson for Legends Global declined to comment on ongoing negotiations with Unite Here Local 11. A representative for Hollywood Park, the site of SoFi Stadium owned by Stanley Kroenke, deferred to Legends Global. FIFA also did not respond to emails requesting comment on the ongoing negotiations.

Luxury packages are the new normal

The dispute between SoFi workers and their employer comes as high ticket prices for the World Cup and 2028 Olympic Games face scrutiny and mega-event organizers emphasize luxury experiences for the very wealthy.

On Location is also the hospitality partner for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. The company supplied the same service in Paris in 2024 — the first time the Olympics had such an official luxury service, according to the New York Times.

"The higher end can run well into the tens of thousands of euros: bespoke multiday all-inclusive packages that might include stays in five-star hotels, meals cooked by Michelin-starred chefs, seamless car service between venues and the best seats at the most in-demand events," a Times reporter described in the summer of 2024.

LAist reached out to On Location via email, requesting an interview on the services they provide and their workforce. The company didn't respond.

Isaac Martinez, a cook at SoFi Stadium who lives in Inglewood, said he's still waiting to learn what his schedule will be for the World Cup and he's worried about his hours.

Martinez told LAist that since World Cup prices are so high, he and his co-workers should get a slice of the pie.

"The people that are able to afford those tickets and those suites, they're not people like us," Martinez said through an interpreter. "They're not the people that are gonna make the food or make the experience."

The World Cup kicks off in Los Angeles on June 12 with the first U.S. men's match against Paraguay. If there's no resolution to negotiations, attendees could arrive to a picket line.

State regulators voted Thursday to stop Southern California Gas Co. from charging customers to help pay for planning miles of pipelines that would bring hydrogen gas to the L.A. Basin.

The company says the project would reduce the region’s reliance on methane gas.

Southern California Gas estimates it would cost about $266 million to study and plan the project — called Angeles Link — and asked the state Public Utilities Commission to allow it to recover those costs through customer rates. The company had proposed a monthly increase of $0.35 on the average residential customer bill over the course of three years.

The commission unanimously rejected the request, saying the company had not proved any direct benefit to customers. The decision effectively halts the project for now, and comes amid a stall in federal funding for hydrogen projects under the Trump administration.

Local environmental groups involved in the community advisory process had also grown frustrated by negotiations that they said, in a letter to state regulators, “does not prioritize genuine community engagement.”

As global pollution levels continue to climb, the commission’s decision also highlights the growing challenge of transitioning to a cleaner energy supply amid rising utility bills and open questions about the safety and true environmental cost of largely untested technology.

Why hydrogen?

Hydrogen is a colorless gas that is considered "clean" because it doesn’t involve carbon, which — when burned to create energy — becomes carbon dioxide, a major planet-heating gas.

But it takes energy to produce hydrogen, and most hydrogen these days is created by burning fossil fuels. “Green” hydrogen is created by using clean energy sources like solar and wind to split water into oxygen and hydrogen.

SoCal Gas said the Angeles Link project would prioritize green hydrogen.

Most experts see green hydrogen as an important clean-burning fuel for hard-to-electrify industries, such as long-haul trucking and gas-fired power generation. The city of Los Angeles, for example, wants to retrofit its Scattergood Power Plant near El Segundo to burn hydrogen instead of methane gas to generate electricity.

There are many open questions about how safe the highly-combustible gas is for proposed uses and how much water it will require to make. At the same time, extracting and burning fossil fuels for electricity and fuel also takes water — a growing problem as climate change drives longer and hotter droughts.

Experts say, if done right, hydrogen can reduce that water intake and not have a major impact on water supplies.

Also, burning hydrogen could actually worsen local, lung-damaging nitrogen-oxide air pollution, at least with the technology as it currently stands, according to energy researchers.

Reactions to the decision

SoCal Gas will now have to turn to shareholders or other sources of funding if the company wants to proceed. The company did not directly answer LAist’s questions about whether it would.

“We continue to believe that hydrogen—including clean renewable hydrogen—can help advance California’s energy and climate goals while supporting the long‑term affordability, security and reliability of energy service for customers,” SoCal Gas spokesperson Brian Haas wrote in an email to LAist.

Environmental groups celebrated the vote, while emphasizing they see green hydrogen playing a role in the state’s future.

“Residential customers should not subsidize speculative infrastructure for large industrial users,” said Michael Colvin, director of the California Energy Program at Environmental Defense Fund, in a statement.

“We look forward to working with regulators, utilities and large customers to build a credible, cost-effective strategy to cut climate pollution from sectors that are hardest to electrify,” the statement read.

Global events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics are sure to draw thousands of new visitors wanting to get to know Los Angeles.

L.A. has a lot to offer, including its vast and varied portfolio of public art. It’s even been referred to as the mural capital of the world. So if you want to explore some of the city’s art, here are a few murals you won’t want to miss.

Sports 

“LA Rising” at the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo celebrates the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani, depicting him in his two roles — hitter and pitcher.
- Where to find it: 328 First St., Los Angeles

“Blue Heaven on Earth” is a love letter to the Dodgers, depicting both Shohei Ohtani and the late Fernando Venezuela.
- Where to find it: 1647 Blake Ave., Los Angeles

A mural honoring Winter Olympics Gold Medalist Alysa Liu in Gardena.

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California native and Olympian Alysa Liu captured the world’s attention with her figure skating in the Winter Olympics. This mural in Gardena celebrates her win.
- Where to find it: 15532 Crenshaw Blvd., Gardena

A mural of L.A. Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter Gianna can be found outside Hardcore Fitness L.A.

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“City of Angels!” pays tribute to Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi.
- Where to find it: 400 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles

Music

Whitney Houston, Rihanna, Aaliyah, Amy Winehouse and Selena are memorialized on this Hollywood mural.
- Where to find it: 7677 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles 

“Jazz on the field” is an ode to Wrigley Field and the Dunbar Hotel in South L.A. and depicts jazz icons Louis Armstrong and Etta James, as well as Martin Luther King Jr.
- Where to find it: 43rd St. and Grand Ave., Los Angeles

When Kendrick Lamar featured Tam’s Burgers in his “Not Like Us” music video, the burger spot in Compton commissioned a mural highlighting the rapper’s unforgettable single.
- Where to find it: 1201 Rosecrans Ave, Compton

Historic to LA

A section of the Great Wall of Los Angeles mural, designed by muralist Judy Baca, that showcases pivotal moments in Los Angeles History.

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“The Great Wall of Los Angeles” is one of the largest murals in the world, and it’s supposed to get bigger. The half-mile art piece depicts California’s rich history.
- Where to find it: Along the L.A. River in the San Fernando Valley, on Coldwater Canyon Avenue between Burbank Boulevard and Oxnard Street. 

“The Blessing of the Animals” at La Placita Olvera depicts the Catholic tradition of blessing one’s animals.
- Where to find it: 115 Paseo De La Plaza, Los Angeles

“El Grito” depicts a scene that sparked Mexican independence from Spanish rule.
- Where to find it: Placita de Dolores at 831 N. Alameda St., Los Angeles

When you take a bite of the lomo saltado burrito from Merka Saltao, a fast-casual Peruvian restaurant in Culver City, one of the first things you'll notice is the sauce.

The wok-fried chunks of steak, dressed in a soy-and-oyster sauce reduction spiked with vinegar, saturate the rice inside the tortilla, highlighting the sweet heat of ají amarillo mixed with the velvety texture of pinto beans.

It's a beautiful confluence of flavors. It is also, depending on who you ask, either a creative act of evolution or a betrayal of Peruvian culinary heritage.

Standing on business

The lomo saltado burrito at Merka Saltao wasn't exactly a calculated move. Lifelong friends Alonso Franco and Ignacio Barrios — who met in high school in Lima — came to Los Angeles to bring Peruvian food to the masses, first through a ghost kitchen concept they ran from 2021 to 2023. The burrito happened almost by accident: a member of their kitchen team brought in a tortilla one day, someone suggested wrapping the lomo saltado in it, they ate it, and within three days, it was on the menu.

Merka Saltao co-founders Ignacio Barrios, left, and Alonso Franco, right, inside their Culver City restaurant. The two lifelong friends from Lima opened the fast-casual brick-and-mortar location for their Peruvian concept in August 2025.

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The data from the ghost kitchen made the case for keeping it there. Franco and Barrios had launched with around 140 dishes — lomo saltado, ceviche, chicken dishes, the works. But the numbers kept pointing to the same thing: wherever lomo saltado appeared on the menu, in whatever form, burrito, bowl, salad, it was the winner.

(Ceviche, for all its cultural cachet, is raw fish with raw onion — a harder sell for a weekday lunch. Lomo saltado, Franco noted, is steak and fries — basically a hamburger.)

The backlash

The two friends made the leap to brick-and-mortar in August 2025, opening Merka Saltao in downtown Culver City. It's one of the more competitive dining corridors in L.A., the kind of block that can support a $16 wellness bowl and a craft beer bar in the same stretch, populated by Amazon employees on lunch breaks, families on weekend outings, and food-literate regulars who will absolutely have opinions about what goes in a burrito.

Those opinions arrived faster than Franco expected. Within the first week of opening, an influencer came in and posted about the restaurant — but instead of showing the full menu, the bowls, the chicha morada, the flexibility of the concept, they showed the burrito. Just the burrito.

Franco working the wok at Merka Saltao. The high-heat wok technique at the heart of lomo saltado traces its roots to Chinese immigrants in Peru

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The comments turned quickly. "No! Peruvians don't eat burritos. ¿Qué car—o es eso?" — roughly, "what the hell is this?" — wrote one commenter. Another said "Burritos? We don't eat burritos in 🇵🇪”. Franco describes sitting at his computer reading the pile-on, feeling something between anger and devastation. "There was a moment where I probably even cried," he said, "thinking, I've made a mistake." But then he looked at the numbers. 30,000 had seen the post…. And half the comments were in his defense.

He took the conversation to Reddit, posting to r/FoodLosAngeles asking the community directly: am I wrong for this? The response was overwhelming — hundreds of comments, almost entirely in his favor, and a surge of new customers walking through the door shortly after.

Fusion by default

This is Los Angeles, where many of the dishes that define the Southern California diet were born precisely from cultures colliding. Roy Choi built an empire on Korean tacos. Al pastor traces its technique to Lebanese immigrants who brought the vertical spit. The California roll, invented by Japanese chefs in Los Angeles in the 1960s, introduced an entire country to sushi. None of these dishes destroyed the traditions they borrowed from. If anything, they expanded their audience. And the lomo saltado burrito isn't exactly a novel concept in Southern California to begin with — everyone from Pablitos Tacos in North Hollywood to Le Hut in Santa Ana, run by 2025 James Beard Award-nominated chef Daniel Castillo, has featured their own version. Even Disney's California Adventure got in on it, serving a lomo saltado burrito out of the Studio Catering Co. food truck as recently as last year.

The lomo saltado bowl and burrito at Merka Saltao in Culver City — two versions of the same dish that sparked an unlikely online debate about Peruvian culinary identity.

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Franco would also point out that lomo saltado itself — the dish the purists are so eager to protect — is a product of Chinese immigrants bringing the wok and soy sauce to Peru roughly 300 years ago. "Peruvian is by default fusion," he told me. "So we have all the right to wrap it up in a burrito." What the online critics were really doing, whether they knew it or not, was defending a dish that was itself once considered inauthentic — and doing so in the name of authenticity.

Where things stand

Since the backlash, Franco says business has been mostly steady — breaking even, which for a concept that requires high volume at a low price point, he considers a good sign. The controversy changed things in ways he didn't expect: people started coming in specifically because of the story, not just the food. He began putting himself front and center in the brand, regularly making videos on social media about what it's like to run the business, occasionally poking fun at himself and the whole debate. When we visited during the weekday lunch rush, there was a steady line of people waiting to order, many stopping to talk with Franco directly.

In a way, he's answered the authenticity question not with an argument but with a presence — showing up, telling the story, letting the food speak. "Honoring my food, if that requires pairing lomo saltado with a salad or wrapping it in a tortilla, I have no problem," he said. "I'm not being less authentic. We are evolving in Peru anytime. I have to be authentic on the individual flavor and then be flexible to reach more people to discover our flavors."

The burrito, it turns out, was never the point. It was just the door.