Los Angeles - from the 1920s oil boom to 1980s graffiti art, from surf music genius Brian Wilson, to German emigré intellectuals, to hard-bitten homicide cops - has always been the foundation for great fictions. This week, on Invisible Cities, Umapagan Ampikaipakan takes a look at that nightmare city, at that dream dump, at that city of make believe upon which many a writer would project his own fantasy. 

This is the first episode in an all new series that seeks to take you on a journey to a different place, to a different time, to a different world, to one of those invisible cities that only exist within the pages of a good book.

Show Notes:

i) The first excerpt that you hear is from Charles Bukowski's Post Office and takes place on 900 N. Alameda St. It tells the autobiographical story of working for the US Postal Service in Los Angeles, first as a mailman, then as a sorter. Supposedly written in three weeks, it is a short, blunt novel, covering a period of 17 years in less than 200 pages. Simple, hilarious, often filthy, Post Office was revolutionary in its style and subject matter, and fans of Irvine Welsh and David Peace may see much of their no-nonsense approach in Bukowski’s debut novel. (Read the novel here.)

ii) Richard Bradbury reads a paragraph from Red Wind by Raymond Chandler. Philip Marlow is off in search of a lost set of pearls. Stickups, guns, double-dealing, wise-cracks, and rye whiskey stoked by those red Santa Anas make for some pitch perfect hard boiled crime fiction. (Read the story here.)

iii) You can listen to the full episode of Alistair Cooke "Loving Los Angeles" on BBC's Radio 4 here.

iv) For more great Los Angeles reads check out Library of America's Writing Los Angeles: A Literary Anthology which attempts to showcase as many facets of L.A. as possible, warts, beauty marks, and all. In nearly 900 pages, we get excerpts from novels and short stories, poems, diary entries, and newspaper and magazine articles.

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Tags:  Bookmark,  los angeles,  invisible cities,  raymond chandler,  books,  reading,  alistair cooke