 Angel City
Press was
established in
1992 and is dedicated to the publication of high-quality nonfiction
books. The award-winning books from Angel City Press are sold in
fine gift and book stores, and on the Web.
Drenched in
nostalgia yet
undeniably cool, each Angel City Press book is luxuriously illustrated
and showcases the modern design concepts of California's top graphic
artists. The first Angel City Press book Hollywood
du Jour: Lost Recipes
of Legendary Hollywood Haunts is in its sixth printing and
continues
to delight Hollywood fans and cookbook collectors around the world.
So it is with the
entire
treasury of Angel City Press books -- each is forever readable, forever
giftable. From
the ventriloquists of bygone Dummy Days to the fashion legends of Hollywood,
to fascinating stories and photos of L.A.'s
criminal cases
since 1850, to the courtships
and proposals
of the
world's most romantic couples, to the kitschy decadence that was Fabulous Las Vegas in
the '50s, to food for thought
about a century of American
eating, to a fond remembrance of those Volkswagen
Bugs we used to drive, to love poems
written by heroes on horseback, Angel City Press books are published
with extraordinary attention to detail, in the finest tradition of the
bound page.
It was
fifteen years ago that Angel City Press was launched. By May of 1993 we
had Hollywood du Jour
in the hands of hungry, nostalgic readers... but not for long;
they were quite busy whipping up Sticky Orange Rolls from the
Tick Tock Tea Room and swilling Moscow Mules from Cock 'n' Bull.
Sometimes it's a little lonely on this end of the book supply chain,
and we are pleased that Publishers
Weekly took
notice of our milestone.
Angel City Press is
located by
the sea in Santa Monica, California [what's up at our Pier? view PierCam
live].
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| Relive the Los Angeles of Don Benito Wilson
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| Benjamin
Davis Wilson trekked from Santa Fe into the dusty hamlet of Los Angeles
with Kit Carson's party in 1841. A decade later, he had become Don Benito Wilson,
made his fortune and was the second mayor of Los Angeles. His
landholdings become the sites of Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Culver City,
Riverside and more. As a Los Angeles County supervisor he oversaw a Los
Angeles County that included what is today Orange, San Bernardino and
Kern Counties. Historian Nat Read tells the amazing story of Don Benito Wilson, complete with vintage photos and illustrations.
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| Angel City Press goes underground
with Brown
Acres |
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In Brown Acres: An
Intimate History of the Los Angeles Sewers, Anna Sklar
captures the complex and often alarming history of the Los Angeles city
sewer system. With more than fifty photographs, diagrams and maps, Brown Acres
provides a unique look at the underground history of Los Angeles as it
traces the links between sewage, ambition and politics.
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| They came to L.A. because it was a Paradise Promoted |
| With
more than 250 photographs and rare ephemera, all collected by author
Tom Zimmerman, Paradise Promoted
is the first book to showcase the era from
1870 to 1930 when boosters developed the small town of Los Angeles into
the city that would become Americas most cutting-edge metropolis. Los
Angeles was the subject of the longest, loudest, most persistent
promotional campaign in the history of the
United States. Nothing was
too exaggerated, absurd, or flat-out bizarre to be fodder for the
relentless effort to convince Americans to slam the door forever on
their home and sally forth to what booster supreme G.W. Burton called
"The fairest daughter among the sisterhood of cities in the world." |
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| It's the
centennial year of the
Port of Los Angeles
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The Port of
Los Angeles has served its region for a century, not just by
bringing
ships and their cargo to Southern California, but by establishing Los
Angeles as a major presence on the international maritime scene.
Because of its Port, Los Angeles is the key that has opened North
America to the Pacific Rim and brought the world closer together. In
2007 the Port observed the Centennial of the formation of the Board of
Harbor Commissioners, and the official founding of the Port of Los
Angeles. To celebrate and commemorate that event, Los Angeles authors
Ernest Marquez and Veronique de Turenne collaborated to create Port of
Los Angeles: An Illustrated History from 1850 to 1945, a
book devoted
to the earliest years of this remarkable maritime center.
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| At the Los Angeles Public Library,
see Paris Beyond the
Iconic |
The Champs-Élysées. The Eiffel Tower. Notre Dame
Cathedral. Poetic
cobbled
streets, working-class cafés,
and
lovers—so many lovers. These are the classic images of Paris, the
most-photographed city in the world.
But now, based on an international exhibition curated by the authors, Beyond
the Iconic by
Guy Bennett and Béatrice Mousli presents
a revolution in imagery—139 contemporary images from 24 photographers
whose work is preserved in the permanent collection of the renowned
Carnavalet Museum in Paris. These artists reinterpret the city,
capturing the day-to-day realities of everyone's favorite capital.
Together they go deep into the true heart of Paris. Beyond the cliches.
Indeed, Beyond the Iconic.
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| cook like Mom
--or for Mom -- from Joy of Liberace... |
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Modest
cooking? Feh! Joy of
Liberace celebrates Bling Cooking in all its glory,
dripping with decadence and suffused with the Liberace spirit, rich
with recipes fit for any extravagant occasion that demands exuberant
excess.
Liberace learned to cook from his Mom -- isn't it time to repay
yours by throwing her a lavish dinner party featuring Succulent
Succotash, Decorative Crab Balls and Liberace's
Exceptional and Extraordinary Angel Bling Cake Pie? Of course, if your
mom is proprietary about who rules the kitchen in your family, you
might just drop
by the old homestead and "accidentally" leave this book in the
kitchen...
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| Santa Monica Mountains : take a peek (take a peak!) |
The Santa
Monica Mountains is the only range that transverses a major
metropolitan city in North America, slicing Los Angeles and defining
it, shaping its hills and its valleys, its canyons and its ocean front.
The Santa Monicas is undeniably a range on the edge of the world,
welcoming the Pacific into its rocky ridges, almost daring the ocean
waves to break at its foothills. And these are
mountains that have gone uncelebrated, until now in The
Santa Monica Mountains: Range on the Edge,
a compelling history and commentary by award-winning writer Matthew
Jaffe, punctuated with 140 breathtaking images captured by renowned
landscape-art photographer Tom Gamache. |
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My California continues to inspire
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| We are
very pleased that the
cities of Benecia, Santa Barbara, Sacramento
and Whittier
have joined Long Beach by
including My
California in their Community-wide Reads events. More
news is on the California
Arts Council and CaliforniaAuthors.com
Websites. All proceeds collected by Angel City Press
for sale of this book -- almost $90,000 so far -- are donated to the
California Arts Council to fund writing programs in California schools.
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Drive, he said...
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Some say that here
in Los Angeles we consider driving to be a birthright. Certainly the
automobile has had a profound impact -- as explored in the "Driving
Passions" pieces on KCET's online series CA Stories. D.J. Waldie, author of Real City
and Where We
Are Now, weighs
in with "Rush" (Flash
slideshow | text).
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... along the
Grand
Concourse of Los Angeles...
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doing swimmingly, thank you: Santa Monica Beach... |
When the land
grant Rancho Boca de
Santa Monica was awarded to Francisco Marquez and Ysidro Reyes
in 1839,
little did their families imagine that the sand separating their land
from the waters of the Pacific would become one of the most famous
beaches in the world, now visited by millions of visitors each year.
The Marquez-Reyes union helped define the history of Santa Monica
Beach. Ernest Marquez
has collected images and information that together define the
history of this magnificent beach. Now,
with dramatic images by
Carleton E. Watkins, H.F. Rile, Valentin Wolfenstein and many more,
Marquez’s Santa Monica Beach: A
Collector’s Pictorial History is destined to
become not only the definitive biography, but also the most beautiful
and authoritative record of an American treasure.
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Ernest
Marquez was
born in 1924 and grew up in
Santa Monica Canyon, swimming the Pacific
waters
at the heels of Olympian Buster Crabbe and snacking on the watercress
that grew in the canyon’s creek.
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a new home for Los Angeles
Times books...
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Los Angeles Times Books are now
distributed by Angel City Press. In
keeping with the mission of Angel City Press to offer works that
showcase Southern California, Los
Angeles Times Books are a collection
of treasured volumes that reflect the work of the world-renowned
newspaper’s staff writers, columnists, photographers and Paul Conrad,
the Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist. In addition, Los Angeles Times
Books feature titles which are significant to the Southern California
region, from history and sports to gardening and food. Click here
to explore what's available...
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| Read more / Where to buy |
 Here's our press
archive, where can see what
others say about Angel City Press.
Gotta write: Please read our submission
guidelines before you pitch us your book.
Gotta read: "I want that book NOW!" Check here to locate
places to buy Angel City Press
books. |
| "Angel City what?" |
We are not
the only "Angel City" in the City of Angels -- there are many! If you
are
not looking for our wonderful books, you may be searching for these
similarly-named neighbors:
Angel
City Chorale -- they sing much
better than we do...
Angel
Derby Girls -- they skate, we don't...
Angel
City Gym -- they are a little better-buffed than we are...
Angel
City Brewing -- whose products just might be more
refreshing than ours on a hot day.. |
Some reasons why we do this...
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| Our beloved brother Ron
Haver loved the movies more than anybody... |
Warrantless search? Surrender here...
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