My library called them Lucky Day books, but they no longer have them.
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Counter Intelligence, a collection of Jonathan Gold’s Pulitzer Prize winning L.A. Weekly restaurant reviews. Only a page or so long per restaurant, it gives a broad overview of the Los Angeles food scene 25 years ago. I’d moved out 12 years earlier, just as the wave of Asian and Latin American immigration began, bringing unknown foods like pupusas and kimchi to town. This book shows it’s striking rise, all across SoCal, at all levels of expense.
While you’re at it, watch City of Gold, the documentary about him, streamable on Kanopy.
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Oh I didn’t know there was a collection! I’ve spent hours reading his reviews online (and I’ve never even been to California).
Don’t miss the documentary!
ETA: It seems to be on YouTube, too.
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RIP Sir Tom:
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I love City of Gold. Saw it at the Santa Barbara Film Festival years ago and the director and Jonathan were at the screening. It’s such a wonderful love letter to LA in all its multicultural glory.
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This was fun. I like Swanson’s recent series and decided to check out some of his earlier books. This has one of those elevator pitches that could go in a million directions: a widowed bookseller is contacted by an FBI agent who thinks that several deaths may be connected, and that someone may be recreating the “eight perfect murders” from a list of mysteries the bookseller wrote a blog about. There are not many shocks, but you don’t spend the whole book feeling like you know everything that’s going to happen, either.
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Just started “America Fantastica” by Tim O’Brien. Road-trip crime spree, under current of misinformation. So far, so good. I’m into dark satire and comedy.
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My dad worked at a lot of the first Silicon Valley firms, including Digital and HP. The Valley has definitely changed, and not for the better. (I know….you kids get off my lawn.) The famous HP way, long gone. Also got an inside look of the first dot com boom dating someone in SV and also living in SF. To see what the tech booms did to SF and art and culture…meh. OTOH, I did get to experience the “before” and it was pretty damn good, if flawed.
I worked as an IT headhunter for 3 months around November 1978. We were told that there was one firm where it was impossible to get employees to leave for another firm.
HP
(I hated being on the phone all day, not the right job for me.)
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HP was my dad’s last stop after they acquired Digital. The benefits were very generous back then, crazy in comparison to now, and continued into retirement. They asked few questions. Oh yeah, they had real on-site childcare. That was a big deal. I don’t know the situation now but they took care of their employees back then, top to bottom. Mr H and Mr P were real mensches.
re: head hunters…that’s a weird industry. Even weirder now. You got out before they got your soul.
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It was a very slow time to work this, we were on a draw … I was the only one of 13 new people who managed to get a deal done. I don’t know how that business could make any $, maybe it was a front for something?
I always remembered this and had great respect for HP.
I feel guilty for ordering from Amazon, Bezos could well afford to reward his employees better.
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Started a “light read”. I’ve read several by this author and didn’t really like the last one.
Next up; if I can manage to gird my loins
The Warmth of Other Suns, which I read many years ago, but am thinking I might like to listen.
Or maybe The Zorg: A Tale of Greed and Murder That Inspired the Abolition of Slavery
I rarely read more than one book at a time but maybe!
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We lived in College Terrace when we moved back to Calif in 1987 and HP was just down the street. Years later our son worked at Facebook when it was located at an old HP building down the street from where he had lived as a 3 year old. I have to say that FB was really good to their employees-he ate all three meals a day there during the week and they had some of the best food on the pennisula. When they moved to their new Menlo Park offices we used to go for lunch and it was great. He moved on from FB to Uber (hated it) then Houzz and now at a big startup called human interest. They let him work remote so he doesn’t have to waste time on commuting and takes over from their childcare person at 5:15 and just has to walk from his office to their living room. He does recruiting now and it’s still a business but Ai is nipping at its heels.
Also thanks for the recommendation of Dead Money. I’m halfway through and enjoying it. Love the Bay Area local after reading a bunch of British mysteries lately.
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I mostly read memoirs; I was on a waiting list from my library for ebook of
I’m Not Trying to be Difficult
Drew Nieporent
In a few chapters, moves quickly, I’m enjoying it. How lucky he was to know from his teen years that he wanted to be in the restaurant business. He was born with a really outgoing personality, very different from his slightly older brother.
He was shy about girls but then he met “Ann” and that was it, strong love/marriage.
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Also love memoirs. This year I Enjoyed 32 Yolks by Eric Ripert, I Regret Almost Everything by Keith McNally, Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns, Pocketful of Happiness by Richard E Grant, Joyride by Susan Orleans and Laurie Woolever’s Care and Feeding.
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I’ve read and enjoyed the first two. Funny about McNally’s parents divorcing in their 70’s, mismatched from the beginning, all too common.
I’ll look into those others.
Have you read The Liar’s Club by Mary Karr?
I’m about 2/3 through this novel right now and really enjoying it. It’s dark, funny, and thoughtful.
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Yes, I read that long ago and looking back that and Educated had a similar vibe. Hard childhoods with bizarre families and overcoming the odds.
You might like the Laurie Woolever book. She was Bourdain’s assistant for years and also worked for Mario Batalli. Lots of crazy times.
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Yes, I read the Woolever book.
By the way, the Nieporent book is written with a co-author and the writing isn’t good, loaded with cliches:”watching like a hawk” etc etc.
Where were the editors? I could have done a better job and I’m not a professional, just a prior English teacher.
Anyway, I’m still enjoying reading the book for what he has to say.
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