Alta Journal ’s Literary Rediscoveries of 2025
Bringing a fresh set of eyes to seven classic works.
Books are an essential part of the DNA of Alta Journal. Our Monday Book Reviews offer deep thinking about new works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and memoir. But we find looking back at literature just as valuable as looking ahead, as evidenced by our monthly gatherings of the California Book Club and, this year, by a handful of features that revisited beloved works with a brand-new perspective. Here are highlights from seven such stories.
WEST OF EDEN, BY JEAN STEIN, FEATURED IN AN ESSAY BY SAM WASSON
“West of Eden is the greatest book of its kind I’ve ever read, though I still don’t know what kind it is: history, memoir, anthropology of a lost or living Hollywood, or some amalgam of the above. For years, the question has veiled my vision.”
GENTLEMEN PREFER BLONDES, BY ANITA LOOS, FEATURED IN AN ESSAY BY JOY LANZENDORFER
“Loos didn’t know she was writing a book when she scribbled a scene featuring her character Lorelei Lee. When she shared it with Mencken as a joke—and to skewer the blonde he admired—he urged her to publish it. ‘Do you realize, young woman, that you’ve made fun of sex, which has never before been done?’ he said.”
THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG, BY EDWARD ABBEY, FEATURED IN AN ESSAY BY DOUG PEACOCK
“While you can still read it for the laughs, the novel has endured because of its deeper themes of resistance: the overarching notion of questioning authority and using select sabotage to defend the wilderness. The book is still considered one of the more influential in the history of the modern conservation movement.”
THE SNOW LEOPARD, BY PETER MATTHIESSEN, FEATURED IN A REVIEW OF LANCE RICHARDSON’S TRUE NATURE: THE PILGRIMAGE OF PETER MATTHIESSEN BY TERRY MCDONELL
“Lance Richardson thought he might die for his book, following Peter Matthiessen’s trek over a 17,550-foot pass to Shey Gompa, the Tibetan Buddhist monastery beneath Crystal Mountain. It was there, in 1973, that Peter tested himself in pursuit of enlightenment in The Snow Leopard, and it was where Richardson had to turn around nearly 50 years later for a rapid descent with pulmonary edema.”
PARABLE OF THE SOWER, BY OCTAVIA E. BUTLER, FEATURED IN AN ESSAY BY WILLIAM DEVERELL
“Butler’s vital novel is, at this very moment when L.A. is grappling with the devastation wrought by wildfires, speculative fiction that also reads like a CliffsNotes anticipation of an unspeakably sad present here in Southern California.”
THE DAY OF THE LOCUST, BY NATHANAEL WEST, FEATURED IN AN ESSAY BY IVY POCHOD
“And that is the modern-day tragedy of West’s novel. The ones who Hackett imagines came to Los Angeles to die were not destroyed by their violent malaise, nor did they actually wish to destroy the only city strange enough to harbor their mania and outsize passions. Instead, they—we—became victims of circumstances beyond anyone’s control.”
THE LEW ARCHER NOVELS, BY ROSS MACDONALD, FEATURED IN AN ESSAY BY TOM ZITO
“What emerges from the work is not just a detective’s case files but a poet’s or a painter’s field notes on California’s changing landscape, real and metaphorical. And as in most poems and paintings, there’s a lot going on beneath the surface.”
Anita Felicelli is Alta Journal ’s books editor and the author of How We Know Our Time Travelers, Chimerica, and Love Songs for a Lost Continent.
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