Alta Journal readers have additions to our list of 25 Books That Define California. Got something to say? We’d love to hear from you. Email letters@altaonline.com. Please include your name, city, state, and phone number so we can contact you. Letters may be edited for brevity and clarity.

A TEACHER’S TOME

I really enjoyed your issue with the list of books that define California. I’ve read most of them already, but a couple were new to me, so I’m looking forward to reading those.

One book that deserved notice was James D. Houston’s novel Continental Drift. Jim was my teacher in Santa Cruz, and he’s best known today for Farewell to Manzanar, which he cowrote with his wife, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston. Continental Drift is probably his best book, a family story set during the Vietnam War as a series of unexplained murders threaten the community. The family home is sited on top of the San Andreas Fault…a symbolic representation of the potential for disaster that lies beneath the fertile California landscape.

Jim was a wonderful teacher for me. He passed away some time ago, and I think his books should be in the conversation of novels that define California.

Best,

Lawrence Coates
Bowling Green, Ohio

TO THE POINT

I am enjoying your 25 Books issue. Properties of Thirst by Marianne Wiggins belongs on the list.

Cheers,

Jan Tiura
Moss Beach, California

AN INCOMPLETE LIBRARY

In my opinion, no California library is complete without a copy of California: Land of Contrast, by the late Chico State professor David W. Lantis, and a copy of An Island Called California, by Elna Bakker. Of course, as you have listed, there are many other great books that help fill in what this great southwestern edge of the United States is all about.

For all its failings, disappointments, difficulties, and illusions, it is still the best of the best.

Hell, even Mark Twain had to visit and live here for a period of time, which, I believe, jump-started his creative juices.

Thanks,

Michael Brennan
Oakdale, California

WHERE’S THE NONFICTION?

Indeed, the new issue of Alta is terrific, and I was very moved to read your Publisher’s Note about Kevin Starr and the significance of his legacy, whose measure we’ve only begun to take.

Indeed, I am fortunate and very honored to have been Kevin’s agent and friend, and to be Amy Tan’s longtime advocate, whose The Joy Luck Club we were thrilled to see you include in your brave and bold “25 Books That Define California.”

Since you ask whether your readers agree with your “list of novels,” perhaps it’s unreasonable of me to have wanted to see both Maxine Hong Kingston and Mike Davis. I hope you are planning to run a list of nonfiction books that define our state, and I’ll be watching for that!

Meanwhile, I’m sure that Kevin would have been very pleased to know Alta exists, and that your mission is akin to, even inspired by, his.

Cheering you on,

Sandra Dijkstra
Del Mar, California

ROMANCING RAMONA

As always, a terrific issue. I very much enjoyed the selection of 25 books, the artwork, all the presentations with summaries, comments, and observations. What a wonderful read. Also, thank you for the invitation to comment, so here I go:

It seems the title “25 Books That Define California” is more fitting as “25 Books That Define California from the 20th Century to the Present.” With that said—and should the Alta selected-novel list grow to 50—I dare nominate, as cringy as it was to read, the novel Ramona, written by the famous mythmaker Helen Hunt Jackson in 1884.

As damaging as the content was to the history of the California mission and rancho era, Jackson’s Ramona deeply contributed to defining California in the lens of romantics, which lasted for many decades. The novel is likely very well known to Alta readers by its reputation or the many articles that have assessed and commented on her fictional story.

Thank you for your time, and of course for yet another engaging issue of Alta.

Alexa Clausen
Escondido, California

NOTICING NORCAL

I think the list is terrific, though perhaps a bit L.A./SoCal-heavy. Here are a few others, with an emphasis on the Bay Area and the north.

1. A Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan

2. Stay True, Hua Hsu

3. Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin

4. Into the Forest, Jean Hegland

Jane Smiley is a quintessential California writer. Please add one of her books. I love Horse Heaven.

With thanks,

Kathleen Gaines
San Rafael, California

QUINTESSENTIAL JOURNEY

What was missed? Truly stunned that not included was:

Up and Down California in 1860–1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer, by William H. Brewer, a Zamorano 80 book.

There is no better book to set the foundation of what California was in the beginning.

John Roberts
Sacramento, California

Editor’s note: The titles selected for Alta’s 25 Books That Define California were all works of faction.

ORANGE OCTOPUS

Your list of California books is great, but I can suggest two that should be on it.

The Octopus, Frank Norris: This is the best study of California capitalism’s corruption, though it’s about railroads and not tech. It’s more than a century old but still extremely relevant.

Tropic of Orange, Karen Tei Yamashita: Small parts of it take place in Mexico, but its grand finale is the most spectacular California apocalypse imaginable. If Kubrick had lived to make movies about California’s people of color, he would have filmed this.

John Streamas
Pullman, Washington

What else did we miss? Let us know at letters@altaonline.com.•