No comments about Quick Escapes Los Angeles: 23 Weekend Getaways from the Metro Area.

No comments about Let's Go Map Guide Los Angeles (Let's Go Map Guides).

No comments about Private air travel can save time and money.(use of private aircraft for business travel is efficient)(Column): An article from: Los Angeles Business Journal.

5 comments about Loop Group.

1. I think McMurtry should stay out of Hollywood and stick with Texas! It's an interesting aspect of Hollywood life, the loop groups, and I cared enough about the characters to want to finish the book, but I would not buy another McMurty on Hollywood!



2. 'Loop Group' does not measure up to Larry McMurtry's previous works in style and contents. Its central character, Maggie Clary, is a long way from equaling the irrespressibly funny and endearing Aurora Greenway in Terms of Endearment. The setting of the story (Hollywood) is colorful, yet the road trip from California to Texas is mostly unremarkable, except perhaps for two brief encounters with nutty hichhikers.
   
   Maggie could be described as 'interesting' at best, and would have enjoyed much more fictional possibilities had she had not been undermined by an unsympathetic supporting cast of characters.
   
   Connie, like her best friend, is a 60 year-old spunky amazon who despite her loyalty to Maggie, has an quirky personality that is often bitchy, whiny, and whimsical. Maggie's three daughters, while appearing to be concerned about their mother's depressed state of mind, are in reality selfishly wrapped up in their own shallow pursuits to escape their personal insufficiencies. The members of Primary Loops, Maggie's looping* company, comprises a bunch of drug addicts and other marginal oddballs who fall short of their fictional potential.
   
   The supposedly cathartic roadtrip that Maggie undertakes with Connie across the American Southwest has nothing really engaging in it that you could expect after McMurtry's other novels. It takes place well halfway into the novel and at its culmination, we meet Aunt Cooney, Maggie's 90 year-old aunt, who seems at the outset to be eccentric and generous, but in the end shows her true side as an immensely bitter woman.
   
   The story line takes us from one unlikable character to the next, to draw an uninteresting sketch full of loose ends and irrelevant details. The dialog is awash with vulgarity and the book ends as as it began, with total lack of meaning.
   
   *looping (definition from the Movie Database): The re-recording of dialogue by actors in a sound studio during post-production, usually performed to playback of edited picture in order to match lip movements on screen. It is frequently used to replace production track of poor quality (e.g., due to high levels of background noise) or to change the delivery or inflection of a line. Looping can also be used to insert new lines of dialogue which are conceived during editing, although such lines can only be placed against picture in which the face of the actor speaking is not visible.



3. I borrow the audio book from the library I could not get pass the first chapter the voice was just terrible.



4. How could an author capable of great works put out such drivel? So many reviewers mention that they kept reading this book since it is by McMurtry. My wife and I sat through half of it for the same reason and because it was our only book on CD for our frequent 9 hour drive to Oregon. Save yourself this agony.



5. If nothing else, this book shows what a wonderful and talented writer does when the well goes dry. This was horrible. The characters are all one dimensional, there's nothing particularly interesting about the plot, and who cares what happens to Maggie! The man who wrote Movin On, Terms of Endearment, and Lonesome Dove did not write this crap. Obviously Mr. McMurtry knows that his place in American literature is secure, so now he can throw out this type of drivel. Needless to say, I will not be buying this novel to add to my McMurtry collection.

No comments about On Your Own Los Angeles Museum Map (On Your Own).

No comments about Los Angeles (World City Map).

No comments about Thomas Guide 2003 Los Angeles County Street Guide (Thomas Guide Los Angeles County Street Guide & Directory).

1 comments about Los Angeles County Street Guide & Directory 1998: The Thomas Guide.

1. We are moving to LA and received The Thomas Guide as a gift from our relocation agency to get us started. It was fantastic! Every realators car we were in had one! It allowed us to manuver the city with ease. The pages are easy to follow and have clear labels. I for one am terrible at reading maps and even I could navigate acurately from this book. We intend to buy one for both of our cars as well as have one in the house for reference and for visitors. I don't plan on going anywhere in LA without having it with me!

1 comments about Zagatsurvey 2004 Los Angeles So. California Restaurants: Leather (Zagat Survey: Los Angeles and Southern California Restaurants Leather).

1. The 2004 Los Angeles Restaurants guide is a nightmare. The restaurants have been sorted into five geographic areas, which makes it extremely difficult to find restaurants without doing research. The indexes in the back are similarly confusing and annoying, especially as a person who lives in Beverly Hills, works in Westwood, and goes out in Hollywood. I am completely put off by the thoroughly annoying set-up of this guide. If you already have a 2003 guide, you might not want to bother getting this one.

5 comments about La Hot City - Oz Reloaded.

1. As a full-fledged L.A. native, as soon as I saw this book I had to own it. It's a stunning L.A. anthology with great, GREAT, pictures and a stylized, free-flowing libretto. It's organized in a lyrical fashion- each heading is the title of a movie, and elements are grouped according to an over-arching mythology that is not purely fame or filmically oriented. What makes Los Angeles L.A. is all types of glamour, and this book sees the city clearly- dreamy, arcane, seductive. A must for native and non-native Angelenos alike.



2. Although very contemporary, with up-to-the-minute photographic references and cultural Los Angeles stuff, this book comes off as being cooly retro. I love it, and I checked out the other stuff this guy has written. This book is actually the second in a series, and I've bought that one as well. It's such a great read, and it's the type of thing you can just leave lying around.



3. Simply-put, this is the perfect coffee table book; the poetry is beautifully and thougtfully put together, and the pics are plentiful, colorful, and will inspire nostalgic daydreams. It's like a giant fairy-tale account of L.A., rife with all the things that make the city great. I found it to be very revealing in how Angelenos see the character of their city. Check this one out.



4. St. George has done something very special here. Not since 'Hollywood Babylon' have word and image collided in such a way as to bring to light the essential character of the city of L.A. Amongst the coterie of seemingly unrelated characters- Angeleyne, Robert Blake, Winona Ryder, Elizabeth Taylor, cardinals, hustlers, beach bunnies, gangsters, stars and starlets, a common center is found, from whence radiates associations, hidden meanings, and occult relationships, revelaed and brought together in the twilight language of the same feverish culture. Our icons and idols, in a very eerie effect, are found to share the same themes. A masterpiece. I was very impressed.



5. An amazing and masterfully-crafted work that, incredibly enough, captures the head, heart, and soul of Los Angeles. This is no ordinary picture-book. The bonding of eloquent but unpretentious verse with visceral photos creates an instant sensory and intellectual experience that will haunt you and bring you back for more.