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.’”

Countless soccer fans will stream into SoFi Stadium (temporarily renamed Los Angeles Stadium) in the coming days, or maybe catch a match at a neighborhood watch party.

But right here in Los Angeles — at LACMA’s Resnick Pavilion to be specific — are a series of miniature face-offs too, thanks to a local artist who’s captured some big moments with the tiniest of soccer players in the exhibition, Fútbol Is Life.

Artist and animator Lyndon J. Barrois  Sr. gave me a tour of his home studio in Mid-City on a recent Friday. Tools of his trade are scattered throughout, including a glue gun, paint brushes and a life-sized recreation of a human skeleton.

And inside an orange, Halloween-themed Utz pretzel barrel, thousands of pieces of a material that sets Barrois apart: chewing gum wrappers.

“I find them around the world,” Barrois said. “When we travel, I see them on the ground and I pick them up. One trip we took to New Orleans... I must have come back with maybe two dozen. I found some in Lisbon, I found some in Marrakesh, I found some in Nairobi.”

Barrois crafts these little strips of foil and paper into art: one inch-tall, lifelike sculptures of humans in kinetic poses. Oftentimes, that means capturing his favorite moments from sports games with what he calls ‘sportraits.’

Barrois handles one of his earlier miniatures

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“All my life I was just making toys,” he said. “These are all my toys. Because I would play with these things like action figures.”

The small things in life

Barrois began making his miniatures at 10 in New Orleans, starting with the tiny drivers he made for his Hot Wheels cars.

Many of those original creations he’s held onto for five decades. Now they overflow from a Hershey’s Chocolate tin.

There are hundreds and hundreds of his tiny gum wrapper figures in Barrois’ studio: soccer players and boxers and football players with helmets so small he crafts them on pin heads.

It was while he was studying graphic design at Xavier University in New Orleans that Barrois says he realized his craft could be more than just a childhood hobby. One of his professors encouraged Barrois to take his miniature for what it really was: sculpture.

Barrois went on to get his master’s degree in film and video from CalArts in 1995 and has worked in animation and visual effects ever since, with credits on films like The Matrix Reloaded, Night at the Museum and Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life.

“It’s weird what things take you where,” Barrois said. “I always loved movies and wanted to do it in some capacity. I just didn’t know how. And to say that this is what led to all that, a childhood hobby, I don’t even know how to describe the feeling. Or how humbling it is,” he said.

Ravi S. Rajan, president of CalArts, said that whether Barrois is animating a monologue by author Ta-Nehisi Coates or creating special effects for a Matrix film, he makes his subjects more human and relatable.

“And I think that’s the magic of what he does as an artist,” Rajan said.

Barrois’ mastery in making his lilliputian figures has brought him into plenty of fine art spaces. Just a couple of miles from his home, Fútbol Is Life meticulously recreates historic moments from men’s and women’s soccer in a sizable space inside the Resnick Pavilion.

One of the vignettes in Barrois' 'Fútbol Is Life' depicts a celebratory moment from Argentina 3-1 win over the in 1978.

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“You can imagine when they showed me this room, I was like: I gotta fill this room with little people!,” the artist said on a recent visit to his show.

And fill it he did. Inside clear cases there are dozens of scenes from soccer history spanning nearly a century of World Cup matches. That includes Brazilian footballer Marta Vieira da Silva celebrating a goal during a 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup match.

“One of them that really gave me the most joy is probably the game where Marta kisses her foot after she scores. Because just the flex of that whole moment. I can’t kiss my foot, man,” Barrois said with a chuckle.

But there are less celebratory moments, too, like when German players gave a pre-kickoff Nazi salute before facing off against the Swiss team, foreshadowing a world that would soon be at war.

It’s a dark moment in history captured in a playful way that makes you look twice.

“That was the German team in 1938. Pre-World War II, but it was the rise of Nazism. And so that’s how the team saluted when they came out on the field,” Barrois said. “The importance of this was to also contrast what the same German team did in 2022. They wore ‘human rights’ on their T-shirts.”

Lyndon J Barrois Sr. in his Mid-City studio.

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Already writing history

As museum visitors look in wonderment at the minuscule scale of Barrois work, they are also drawn into some of these past realities.

“It makes the subject matter easier to digest. Because there’s a lot of tough subject matter here. But still, you pay attention to it,” Barrois explained.

Artist Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr. at his LACMA exhibition 'Fútbol Is Life'

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Each vignette is a different conversation starter: from on-field protest moments, to celebrations of underdog victories to prisoners of war playing their beloved game on a dirt field.

Barrois said his exhibition is a deep dive into the history of the game. That includes “the players, the personalities, and the politics.”

“Because it’s countries. It’s bragging rights. It’s unification. It’s division. It’s all that,” he said.

And discourse arising from the current World Cup isn’t lost on Barrois. The Iran men’s team is scheduled to play two matches here in L.A., even as the U.S. war with their country looks like it will continue.

“This game is already writing history before it even begins with all this political stuff happening,” Barrois said.

“So it’s going to be interesting to see all the stories that get told out of this one.”

Maybe a job for some skilled hands... And a few humble gum wrappers.

In the first FIFA World Cup match to be held on U.S. soil in more than three decades, the U.S. men's national soccer team delivered a commanding 4-1 win in their opener against Paraguay.

Four goals — two from striker Folarin Balogun plus an own goal by Paraguayan defender Damian Bobadilla and a late strike by American Gio Reyna — electrified the packed and partisan crowd at Los Angeles Stadium. The final tally was a record for the U.S. men, who had never scored more than three goals in a single World Cup game.

A confident and unrelenting attack from the U.S. had Paraguay on its heels much of the first half. The Americans' pressure in Paraguay's zone paid off quickly, when a pass from midfielder Weston McKennie deflected off Bobadilla for an own goal in the seventh minute.

Then, the U.S. striker Balogun took over. First, in the 31st minute, a cross from forward Christian Pulisic found the foot of Balogun, then the back of the net. Then, in the stoppage time of the first half, the Monaco striker shed two defenders to find a window, then placed a perfect strike to the upper corner of the goal, where Orlando Gill, the beleaguered Paraguayan goalkeeper, had no chance to save it.

The Americans were more subdued in a quieter second half. Pulisic was pulled at halftime for midfielder Sebastian Berhalter, who became just the second son in a father-son pair to represent the U.S. in a World Cup game (his father, the former USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter, who played in the 2002 tournament).

After the match, Pulisic told reporters that his calf got a "bit of a kick in the first half." He said he's "hoping it's nothing. I'm taking a little bit of precaution today, but I'm hoping I'll be fine in the next few days." Coach Mauricio Pochettino said he believes Pulisic will be available for the next U.S. match.

Paraguay midfielder Mauricio scored his team's lone goal in the 73rd minute. Late in second-half stoppage time, midfielder Reyna (a late sub) knocked in a goal to extend the U.S. lead 4-1.

Balogun's World Cup brace is the first by a U.S. player since the inaugural tournament in 1930.

He is one of 13 players representing the U.S. at the World Cup for the first time. Born in New York City to Nigerian parents and raised in London, Balogun was eligible for all three national teams but chose to join the U.S. in 2023.

Balogun's family was watching from the stands, and he called the win a statement. "A real dream. It was a dreamy night."

Friday's game was evidence of just how far the U.S. attack has come since the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, when the U.S. managed only three goals across all four games it played in.

Next up for the U.S. is Australia on Friday, June 19 in Seattle, and then the Americans will wrap up the group stage with a June 25 game against Turkey back in Los Angeles.

The expansion of the tournament to 48 teams means it will be easier than ever to emerge from the group stage. With Friday's win, plus either a second win against Australia or Turkey or a draw against both teams, would likely be enough for the U.S. to advance to the knockout round — though the U.S. could earn a more advantageous path if it finishes the group stage in first place.

As federal officials suspend funding to L.A.’s main homelessness agency — citing mismanagement — a recent audit found the agency did not spend tens of millions of dollars allocated to it.

The audit found the L.A. Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) underspent its overall budget by $108 million in the last fiscal year ending in June 2025, mainly because of “program delays.” The year before, the underspend was nearly $150 million. Some of it was carried forward to future years, auditors wrote.

Specifically to federal dollars, the audit shows LAHSA spent at least $7 million less than it had budgeted last fiscal year. LAHSA had budgeted $61.5 million in such dollars. It spent only about $49 million to $54.4 million, per the audit.

Underspending at LAHSA was called out more than four years ago, in a January 2022 audit that found the agency left $3.5 million in federal grants on the table by not using them.

A spokesperson for LAHSA has not responded to a request for comment.

LAHSA is governed by a 10-member commission that is half appointed by L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors. Bass has served on the commission since she appointed herself to it in fall 2023.

Bass’ office said in a statement that the mayor “has grave concerns about LAHSA and zero tolerance for mismanagement and negligence.” The federal money suspension puts lives and progress on homelessness at risk, the statement added.

The mayor’s office statement says the mayor “previously directed the city to evaluate how to move away from the agency.”

When the City Council considered in March whether to withdraw the city’s funds from LAHSA and instead have the city directly oversee the dollars, Bass cautioned that the city first would need “a serious, thoughtful transition plan,” adding that “the last thing we need is a new department and more bureaucracy.”

Spokespeople for the county supervisors have not returned messages for comment on the underspending.

City of L.A. also underspends

The city of L.A. also has been underspending its homelessness budget — to the tune of $513 million in Bass’ first full fiscal year as mayor that ended June 2024, according to an analysis later that year by City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office.

Federal officials cited that in their letter Thursday as one of many reasons for their suspension of funds to LAHSA. The letter incorrectly attributed the full underspend to LAHSA. The findings were instead about the city’s overall homelessness spending, a portion of which goes to LAHSA.

Spokespeople for HUD have not responded to an emailed request about the inaccuracy.

A controller’s analysis for the following fiscal year, ending June 2025, found the city again underspent its homelessness budget, by at least $473 million.

“Breaking City Hall from its decades old dysfunctional system is how we finally brought homelessness down by 17%,” Bass said in a statement at the time. “I’m glad to support the controller’s recommendations to further reform the status quo.”

Other problems found in audit

The federally required audit, known as a single audit, must be done each year by an accounting firm hired by LAHSA.

The latest one, finalized last month and covering the fiscal year that ended last June, found failures surrounding poor bookkeeping and accounting of taxpayer money at the agency — which spent over $800 million in public funds last fiscal year.

The agency’s financial statements initially included “significant” inaccurate amounts that needed to be adjusted late in the audit process, the auditors found.

It found the inaccuracies stemmed from a "significant deficiency” in LAHSA’s “internal controls,” which are supposed to safeguard against financial inaccuracies and fraud.

Vacant tax-funded apartments

LAist reported Thursday that LAHSA has been using tax dollars to pay for more than 250 empty apartments as part of an initiative Mayor Karen Bass introduced years ago to make housing readily available to unhoused people. That’s just over a third of the units in the strategy, known as master leasing, according to an LAist review of official data.

The vacancies have been tying up tax dollars — largely overseen by the county — that could house hundreds of people in other approaches, according to official financial data.

Other funds leaving LAHSA

In response to previous audits that found major problems with LAHSA’s oversight of tax dollars, county supervisors decided last spring to withdraw all of the county’s $300 million-plus in annual funding of services through LAHSA and instead have the county directly manage it starting July 1.

Problems identified in the latest audit reiterate why the county pulled its funding, Supervisor Kathryn Barger said in a statement Monday.

The city is considering moving in a similar direction as the county. A key City Council panel — its homelessness committee — recently recommended the full council start shifting city homelessness funding out of LAHSA over the course of the next fiscal year. Bass urged caution, saying moving too quickly to shift funding could disrupt services for unhoused people.

LAHSA has long functioned as the L.A.’s homeless services department, with over $300 million in city money expected to flow through LAHSA this fiscal year.

A cookie business with well over a dozen flavors ranging from Mexican hot chocolate to mango sticky rice? How very L.A.! Lei’d Cookies started as a pandemic pop-up. Nowadays, you'll find them in the Culver City Arts District.

About the owner

Baker and owner Leilani Terris posing, holding two cookies from Lei’d Cookies.

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Co-owner Leilani Terris originally thought she'd become a physical therapist. After applying to school, she took a gap year, taught herself to bake and connected with co-owner James Lewis to start their cookie business.

Terris sat down with Austin Cross, who hosts AirTalk every Friday, to explain how their cookies take customers on a bite-sized journey to other countries.

What's the best way to experience Lei'd Cookies?

Add ice cream to a warm cookie at their Culver City shop. If you want a more communal experience, take a trip with a group of friends to Smorgasburg L.A., which takes place every Sunday in downtown L.A.

Known for international flavors

Terris wants customers to get a taste of other cultures. Lei'd Cookies has put a spin on ghriba, a type of shortbread cookie from Morocco, and spicy Mexican hot chocolate.

Bakery details

• Although Terris didn't start with professional culinary experience, her co-owner, James Lewis, worked in restaurant management for years prior to opening.
• They joined Smorgasburg L.A.'s list of vendors in 2021.
• Lei'd Cookies opened its brick-and-mortar in Culver City in 2023.

Cookies we tried

• Orange Date Blossom Cookie (Ghriba inspired and includes apricot jam and walnuts)
• Mayan (cinnamon, cayenne, and chocolate from Tabasco, Mexico)
• Mango Sticky Rice
• Guava and Goat Cheese (their best-seller)

What should we try next?