Gift Guide: These books come with the Larry Mantle stamp of approval

I’m back with another year-end list of 10 outstanding books we’ve featured on AirTalk.

Many of my favorite segments this year were conversations with authors. This list exemplifies why Southern California is such fertile ground for in-depth explorations of a wide range of topics. Though not all of the books are exclusively about our region, all strongly connect to our experiences here. Some are primarily visual, others are devoted to in-depth analysis that might not qualify as easy reading.

I hope at least one of them might be a welcome gift for someone on your holiday list, even if the recipient is you!

On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR

"On Air" by Steve Oney.

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Simon & Schuster

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Every member drive, I detail the uniqueness of public radio and reflect on how fortunate we are to have a direct relationship with our listeners and to not be beholden to advertisers.

That all starts with the creation of NPR in 1970, when its founders couldn’t have had any idea how vital a service it would become.

Journalist Steve Oney takes us back to NPR’s origins and through the network’s early years, when it introduced new ways of telling stories along with a very talented corps of journalists, editors and producers to tell them.

Oney’s book is On Air: The Triumph and Tumult of NPR.

L.A. Story: Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and a Season for the Ages

"L.A. Story," by Bill Plunkett.

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Triumph Books

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It’s hard to overstate the impact Shohei Ohtani has on Major League Baseball and the Dodgers as a franchise. Not only are his remarkable two-way talents the talk of American fans, but he also has an enormous profile in Japan.

Ohtani’s Dodgers teammates sounded stunned as they described his omnipresent image throughout Tokyo when the team opened the season there in late March.

Orange County Register Dodgers beat reporter Bill Plunkett has been covering Ohtani since his arrival here. With L.A. Story: Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and a Season for the Ages, Plunkett documents the 2024 season and how Ohtani took L.A. by storm with an incredible hitting and base-stealing performance.

This season, of course, he’s arguably surpassed that by returning to the mound and becoming a repeat World Series champion as well.

American Oasis: Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest

In the last decade, water usage and access has become one of, if not the defining issue in the American Southwest.

We’ve had many conversations on AirTalk about drought conditions and the aridification California has faced in this century.

But these are just the latest environmental issues our region is contending with — Los Angeles and many cities across the Southwest, since their inception, have defied our given biome toward something more hospitable.

The book American Oasis: Finding the Future in Cities of the Southwest by Kyle Paoletta was a terrific read because it dove into the history of this defiance, how our modern metropolises rose up out of near-inhospitable landscapes, and the trade-offs that made these cities possible.

Art Deco Los Angeles

"Art Deco Los Angeles" by Robert Landau.

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Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library

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I’ve been in love with Art Deco architecture and design from the time my grandfather took me to the old Bullock’s Wilshire department store, now the site of Southwestern Law School. He was the house physician for the elegant store and treated many of its employees during weekly onsite visits.

Later I realized Bullock’s Wilshire was just one of many Art Deco treasures here, like the Wiltern Theater, the Eastern Columbia building, and the sadly demolished headquarters of Richfield Oil.

We’re fortunate that much of L.A. was being built as the Art Deco era was taking off. Hollywood movies helped to popularize Deco as the height of elegance, flash and beauty.

In Art Deco Los Angeles, photographer Robert Landau presents gorgeous images of some of the best examples of the style.

When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World

A book about our changing climate, When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World, offers readers a sober, firsthand account of being a wildfire fighter.

A member of a “hotshot” crew, author Jordan Thomas spent a year battling fires up close. On AirTalk, we hold many conversations on fires and fire preparedness, but it’s rare to get the kinds of insights that Thomas is able to offer on what fire responses look like in real time.

Cruising J-Town: Japanese American Car Culture in Los Angeles

"Cruising J-Town" by Oliver Wang.

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Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library

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Cruising culture is a defining aspect of Californian culture. One only has to look at George Lucas’ early film American Graffiti to get a sense of the inherent grasp that cars, and the driving of them, have on us.

While that movie is set in the state’s Central Valley, cruising has its roots in almost every community, including in Southern California’s Japanese neighborhoods. Cruising J-Town: Japanese American Car Culture in Los Angeles by author Oliver Wang explored this slice of car culture in an engaging book perfect for any car lover’s coffee table.

Not to mention it has one of the coolest covers of any book released this year.

Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource

Shade: The Promise of a Forgotten Natural Resource also has a “cool” cover, in that it so clearly demonstrates the book’s thesis — shade is a resource that people can and do utilize.

Shade as a concept is very low tech and provides immediate cooling to an area, and yet as environmental journalist and author Sam Bloch notes, its deployment across our region is scattered and, as he argues, underutilized.

Bloch strongly makes the case that designing our neighborhoods around shaded spaces is one of the most cost-effective ways of coping with rising temperatures.

Elements of Los Angeles: Earth, Water, Air, Fire

"Elements of Los Angeles" by D.J. Waldie, published by Angel City Press.

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Angel City Press at the Los Angeles Public Library

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I first met and interviewed D.J. Waldie in 1996 for his book Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir. It’s a critically acclaimed look at the postwar development of Lakewood, the city in which Waldie grew up. He still lives in the home his parents purchased years ago. Lakewood is one of many local developments completely built from the ground up when our population exploded in the late 1940s.

Waldie’s new book looks at the four elements that have provided some of Los Angeles’ most defining moments and places. Our spectacular mountains, efforts to bring water to an arid city, the fight against smog, and disastrous wildfires are all part of the included essays.

The collection is perfect for dipping in and out of.

Golden State: The Making of California

California’s history is almost mythical. Spanish incursions, gold mining, the massive railroad boom. All of these events ushered in new groups of people into the state, altering the social fabric and ultimately leading to the Golden State we know today.

Michael Hiltzik, an L.A. Times institution in and of himself, penned a history of California with these catalysts in mind.

The book, Golden State: The Making of California, is worth reading even if you already have a fair bit of knowledge on the ground it covers.

Breaking Into New Hollywood: A Career Guide to a Changing Industry

"Breaking Into New Hollywood," by Ada Tseng and Jon Healey.

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Simon & Schuster

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Whether one works in the entertainment industry or not, all of us are affected by the contraction of local TV and film production.

With so many productions now being shot in other states and countries, it’s made it all the tougher to start a career in Hollywood.

Former L.A. Times editors Ada Tseng and Jon Healey wrote a series of Times stories aimed at helping industry hopefuls.

They adapted those pieces into this excellent primer, which goes far beyond the obvious.