David L. Ulin

In the California Book Club’s November selection, Tommy Orange writes about a dozen Native American characters connected by loss.

The California Book Club’s October selection is a tour de force that helped establish memoir as a literary genre.

The California Book Club’s December selection is a sprawling, panoramic social novel about Southern California.

Alta books editor David L. Ulin on how Larry McMurtry spurred his hunger to become a writer.

Five books that best capture the author’s writing.

The poet’s last works as final words.

With Gordo, Jaime Cortez turns to fiction for his narratives.

Anthony Veasna So’s Afterparties is both debut and testament.

Why You Should Read This: ‘Elsewhere, California’

William Finnegan reflects on his Pulitzer Prize–winning memoir, Barbarian Days.

Why you should read “Barbarian Days”

Rosecrans Baldwin’s Everything Now is a Los Angeles fever dream.

Alta books editor David L. Ulin proclaims this Robin Coste Lewis work the “most ambitious single poem in recent years.”

In The Quiet Boy, Ben H. Winters asks the big questions.

In Index of Women and Now We’re Getting Somewhere, Amy Gerstler and Kim Addonizio write out of the uncertainty of the times.

Transformative and resonant, Rachel Kushner’s novel is grounded in reality.

Alta’s books editor makes the case for Myriam Gurba’s groundbreaking memoir.

With Speculative Los Angeles, Denise Hamilton peels back the surface of the real.

Remembering Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919–2021).

In Love Is an Ex-Country, Randa Jarrar takes a look at America—and herself.

With Let Me Tell You What I Mean, Joan Didion ties up the loose ends of a literary life.

In Desert Oracle, Ken Layne goes all in on the Mojave’s lore—and lure.