These new works of fiction and nonfiction vividly render the state\u2019s past and present.<\/b>
\nThe end of 2021 is approaching, and with it comes the traditional slew of year-end lists. The best poetry of the year. The most memorable red carpet moments. Our favorite plays and musicals, our favorite songs and our favorite movies. Today I\u2019m adding to the \u201cbest of\u201d barrage. Below are 10 excellent books about California that were published this year and reviewed in The New York Times. These novels, short story collections, essay books and cultural histories span California\u2019s past and present. They vividly render the Venice Beach boardwalk of the 1980s, the Cambodian diaspora that settled in Stockton, and a ramshackle and eccentric pre-tech San Francisco. Happy reading. \u201cAfterparties: Stories,\u201d by Anthony Veasna So An excerpt from our review, \u201cGlimpses of Cambodian Life in California\u201d: \u201c\u2018Afterparties\u2019 is a deeply personal, frankly funny, illuminating portrait of furtive, meddling aunties, sweaty, bored adolescents and the plaintive search for survival that connects them. Its nine stories sketch a world of hidden histories, of longings past and present, and of a culture carving its way out of historical trauma.\u201d \u201cDamnation Spring,\u201d by Ash Davidson An excerpt from our review, \u201c From Towering Redwoods to Tiny Creatures, This Novel Has It All\u201d: \u201cThe book unfolds in a tightknit community in Northern California over the course of four seasons, in the late 1970s. It\u2019s a vivid portrayal of the land and its people, a snapshot of a not-so-distant time, but it also digs into the gnarled history of the place. And it\u2019s a glorious book \u2014 an assured novel that\u2019s gorgeously told.\u201d \u201cFrankie & Bug,\u201d by Gayle Forman An excerpt from our review of this children\u2019s book, \u201c A Different Kind of California Dreaming\u201d: \u201cIn Forman\u2019s capable hands, the setting of late \u201980s Venice Beach is a living, breathing character. You can smell the coconut suntan lotion and hear Duran playing in the background.\u201d \u201cL.A. Weather,\u201d by Mar\u00eda Amparo Escand\u00f3n An excerpt from our review, \u201cMarried 39 Years, and Ready to Call It Quits Over Their Kids\u2019 Objections\u201d: \u201cEscand\u00f3n drops us into the Rancho Verde four-bedroom home of the Alvarados, a wealthy Mexican American family harboring a host of secrets and lies. It\u2019s a capacious book, chock-full of human drama set against the backdrop of a record-breaking California drought, and Escand\u00f3n writes with a great deal of energy and love for her characters.\u201d \u201cSomething New Under the Sun,\u201d by Alexandra Kleeman An excerpt from our review, \u201cA Climate Nightmare in a Burning Los Angeles\u201d: \u201cWhat constitutes an emergency? That is one of the questions posed, with chilly, stylish composure, by Alexandra Kleeman\u2019s new novel, \u2018Something New Under the Sun,\u2019 an unlikely amalgam of climate horror story, movie-industry satire and made-for-TV mystery. Its dreamy Los Angeles is a waking nightmare whose contours emerge in offhand asides.\u201d \u201cWe Run the Tides,\u201d by Vendela Vida An excerpt from our review, \u201cHer Best Friend Claims They Witnessed a Sex Crime. She Has Her Doubts\u201d: \u201cVida\u2019s San Francisco is ramshackle and eccentric, home to heiresses but also tide pools of counterculture backwash\u2026 The affectionate specificity of the portrait she offers is one of the book\u2019s real pleasures.\u201d \u201cThe Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley\u2019s Pursuit of Power,\u201d by Max Chafkin An excerpt from our review, \u201cThe Alarming Rise of Peter Thiel, Tech Mogul and Political Provocateur\u201d: \u201c\u2018The Contrarian\u2019 is chilling \u2014 literally chilling. As I read it, I grew colder and colder, until I found myself curled up under a blanket on a sunny day, icy and anxious. Scared people are scary, and Chafkin\u2019s masterly evocation of his subject\u2019s galactic fear \u2014 of liberals, of the U.S. government, of death \u2014 turns Thiel himself into a threat.\u201d \u201cEverything Now: Lessons From the City-State of Los Angeles,\u201d by Rosecrans Baldwin An excerpt from our review, \u201cHow Do You Solve a Problem Like Los Angeles?\u201d: \u201cTo write the definitive book about Los Angeles would be impossible. In \u2018Everything Now,\u2019 the novelist Rosecrans Baldwin doesn\u2019t try. And in not trying, he may have written the perfect book about Los Angeles.\u201d \u201cHollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise,\u201d by Joel Selvin An excerpt from our review, \u201c From Brian Wilson to Nancy Sinatra: The L.A. Music Scene in the \u201960s\u201d: Selvin, the former pop music critic of The San Francisco Chronicle, \u201ctells the story, set between 1957 and 1967, of a network of young Angelenos who \u2018captured a California of the mind\u2019 \u2014 one of \u2018cars, sun, sex and surf; \u201cGidget\u201d set to a rock \u2019n\u2019 roll beat.\u2019\u201d \u201cRock Me on the Water: 1974 \u2014 The Year Los Angeles Transformed Movies, Music, Television, and Politics,\u201d by Ronald Brownstein An excerpt from our review, \u201cWhy Did Los Angeles Become a Cultural Mecca in the Early 1970s?\u201d: \u201cThese are not new stories, of course \u2014 the brief window of early-1970s creative filmmaking, the Laurel Canyon music scene, the golden era of television. All have been relentlessly examined, artifacts of a once-mighty baby boomer civilization. What Brownstein has done is expertly knit the scenes together, giving the reader a plus-one invite to the heady world of Hollywood parties, jam sessions and pitch meetings, as well as a pointed demonstration of how culture can be made and unmade.\u201d For more: Starting Wednesday, California will once again require all residents to wear masks in indoor public settings. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CENTRAL CALIFORNIA NORTHERN CALIFORNIA See three $2.8 million homes in California. Crispy gnocchi with burst tomatoes. Today\u2019s travel tip comes from Mary Kay Wulf, who recommends visiting the Crestwood Hills neighborhood, which is nestled above Brentwood in Los Angeles: Tell us about your favorite places to visit in California. Email your suggestions to CAtoday@nytimes.com. We\u2019ll be sharing more in upcoming editions of the newsletter. Ten classic Christmas movies our critics didn\u2019t see coming. An annual tamales party, New Year\u2019s in Palm Springs or an order of Ikeda\u2019s pies for Christmas dinner \u2014 what are your Golden State holiday traditions? Email me at CaToday@nytimes.com. This month, the brightest comet of 2021 is showing in a sky near you. Comet Leonard, which was first discovered in January, has quite likely spent the past 35,000 years traveling toward the sun, CNN reports. And once it passes the sun on Jan.3, it will be out of our view forever. So how do we see it before it\u2019s gone? Between now and Christmastime, peer at the sky just after the sun sets and look for an object resembling a fuzzy star. You can use Venus, which is currently bright in the southwestern sky around that time, as a guiding light. \u201cI feel there is going to be something to be seen even for the casual observer,\u201d Greg Leonard, the astronomer who discovered the comet, told CNN. \u201cFind yourself a dark sky with a good view of the horizon, bring binoculars, and I think you may be rewarded.\u201d Thanks for reading. I\u2019ll be back tomorrow. \u2014 Soumya P.S. Here\u2019s today\u2019s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Store that sells chairs, beds and\u2026 meatballs? (4 letters). Mariel Wamsley contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at CAtoday@nytimes.com. Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.<\/p>\n