Can you pick one book that defines California? Probably not. But can you pick 25? That’s the challenge Alta Journal took on when putting together our Issue 31 cover story, “The 25 Books that Define California.” Join Alta Live and a panel of literary experts, including John Szabo, city librarian of Los Angeles Public Library, Book Passage’s Elaine Petrocelli, and author Susan Straight as we debate the magazine’s picks. What titles should have made the list? What books were included and didn’t deserve to be? Did we miss a definitive Californian author or genre? We’ll let you—and three of the best-read West Coast literati—tackle the issue in this exciting roundtable discussion for the most passionate literature nerd.

Here are the books recommended by our incredible guests.

Books our list missed:

Books we got right:

Books from the list that they see a high demand for:

Books missing from our list set in locations that were underrepresented:

Nonfiction books that represent California:

Check out these links to some of the topics brought up this week.

About the guests:

John F. Szabo is the city librarian of the Los Angeles Public Library, which serves more than four million people—the largest population of any public library in the United States. He oversees the Central Library and 72 branches. Under his leadership, the library’s major initiatives include immigrant integration and citizenship, civic engagement, digital equity, sustainability, and lifelong learning. He has expanded the library’s reach into the city’s diverse communities through partnerships with community-based organizations. Recognizing his “genuine love of community” and how he has aligned library services with the city’s priorities, including homelessness, Szabo was named Library Journal’s 2025 Librarian of the Year. Szabo has spent more than 30 years leading public libraries. He serves as chair of the OCLC Board of Trustees and is currently a member of the Board of Visitors at the University of Alabama College of Communication and Information Sciences. He also served on the executive boards of the Urban Libraries Council and California Humanities and as president of the Florida Library Association.

When she started in the book business in 1976, Book Passage founder and president Elaine Petrocelli had the goal of creating the best possible bookstore for the people of Marin County.

She and her husband/partner, Bill Petrocelli, had the vision of a unique book business—one that would bring the world to Marin County as well as bring Marin County to the world. The ongoing support of the people of Marin and the Bay Area, as well as the wonderful efforts of the booksellers at Book Passage, has allowed them to achieve much of what they set out to do.

Book Passage has been an innovator in bringing the world’s finest authors to the Bay Area. Presidents and prelates, network anchors and front-line journalists, Nobel Prize-winners and first time novelists—all have been part of the thousands of authors who have spoken at Book Passage. The store currently averages more than 700 author events per year, and the authors who speak at both the Marin County and San Francisco stores cover every conceivable subject, with events for people of all ages and interests. Many of these events are held as benefits for local charitable organizations. In the past few years Book Passage author events and other programs have helped raise money for Hospice by the Bay, Marin Community Clinics, Buckelew Programs, Canal Community Alliance, Marin Abused Women Services, Marin Aids Projects, Breast Cancer Action, Performing Stars, Marin Literacy Project, and many other programs.

Book Passage has also created a unique program of in-store classes designed for people who want to learn more about writing and the book business. These programs draw teachers and students from all over the nation, and many of the students have gone on to become published authors. Both Book Passage owners have been highly active in the bookselling business nationally. Elaine Petrocelli was named “1997 Bookseller of the Year” by Publishers Weekly magazine, while Bill Petrocelli has served two terms on the board of directors of the American Booksellers Association.

Susan Straight’s most recent novel Mecca, was published March 2022 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, and released in paperback March 2023. Mecca was a national bestseller, a finalist for The Kirkus Prize, and named a best novel of the year by the Washington Post and NPR, as well as a Top Ten California Book by the New York Times, and winner of the Southwest Book of the Year for Fiction.

Her memoir In the Country of Women: A Memoir (Catapult Books, paperback edition September 2020), was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence, as well as a Finalist for the Clara Johnson Prize for Women’s Literature, named a best book of 2019 by NPR, Code Switch, Real Simple, and others. It was a Barnes & Noble September National Choice for Memoir. The book has gone into four printings.

She has published eight previous novels: Aquaboogie (Milkweed Editions, 1990, 2006, fourth printing; Open Road Media, 2013; Counterpoint Books, 2020); I Been In Sorrow’s Kitchen and Licked Out All The Pots (Hyperion, 1992; Anchor, 1993; Open Road Media, 2013; Counterpoint Books, 2020), named one of the best novels of 1992 by both USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly, as well as named a Notable Book by the New York Times, is in its 14th printing; Blacker Than a Thousand Midnights (Hyperion, 1994, Anchor paperback 1995; Open Road Media, 2013; Counterpoint Books, 2020); The Gettin Place (Hyperion 1996, Anchor paperback 1997; Counterpoint Books, 2020); Highwire Moon (Houghton Mifflin, 2001; Anchor, 2002; Open Road Media, 2013, Counterpoint Books, 2019), which was a finalist for the National Book Award and won the Commonwealth of California Gold Medal for Fiction. Highwire Moon was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller and Los Angeles Times bestseller, and was named one of the year’s best novels by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post. It is taught in college and high school classrooms around the nation. A Million Nightingales (Pantheon Books, 2006, two printings; Anchor Books, 2007) was a San Francisco Chronicle bestseller. It was a Finalist for the 2006 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and published in a new Spanish translation in 2014. Take One Candle Light a Room (Pantheon, 2010; Anchor, 2011) was named a best novel of 2010 by the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Kirkus. Her novel Between Heaven and Here (McSweeney’s, 2012) was featured on NPR’s All Things Considered, and named a Best Book of 2012 by the Los Angeles Times and the Daily Beast.

Her middle grade reader, The Friskative Dog, was published by Knopf in21 2007. Her picture book Bear E. Bear was published in 1995 by Hyperion Books.

In 2021, she was named Woman of the Year for the 61 st Assembly District, by Assemblyman Jose Medina, for her thirty years of writing stories of African- American, Mexican-American, Asian-American, and immigrant life in southern California, bringing little-known histories, especially of women, into American books, museums, magazines and libraries.

In 2014, Straight received the Kirsch Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. In 2011, she received the Gina Berriault Award for Fiction from San Francisco State University. In 2007, Straight received The Lannan Prize for Fiction, for her body of work. In 1998, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Fiction.

She has published hundreds of essays and articles in numerous magazines and journals, including the New Yorker, the New York Times, O Magazine, Salon, Harpers, Reader’s Digest, Believer, Orion, and the Sun.

Her fiction has appeared in Granta, Alta Journal, Ploughshares, Zoetrope All-Story, McSweeney’s, Black Clock, TriQuarterly, and the Ontario Review, among other magazines. Her short story “The Golden Gopher,” published in Los Angeles Noir, won the 2008 Edgar Award. Her short story “El Ojo De Agua” won a 2007 O Henry Prize, and was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2007.

Her novels and stories have been translated into French, Italian, German, Polish, Arabic, Russian, Turkish, Japanese, and Spanish.

She was born in Riverside, California in 1960, and still lives there with her family. She is Distinguished Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside, where she has taught since 1988.•