Sex, Death and God in L.A.

by Dave Reiding

Book Overview

A patchwork of pop culture--with eleven unusual pieces of reportage, memoir, and fantasy--attempts to capture the elusive spirit of Los Angeles, a city growing at a rate comparable to supercities of... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520086406
• ISBN13: 9780520086401
• Release Date: April 1994
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 404 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

This book is a really intresting

Sex, death, and God in L.A., is a book that makes you want to know more about Los Angeles. This book makes you think about the different points of view and makes you come to your own conclusions about social, cultural, and economical differences.

The truth behing Sex,Death and God in L.A.

Sex, death and God in LA is a book targeted to a market of people who want to know about economic, demographic, political, and other issues about Los Angeles. The book is a collection of essays written by Eve Babitz, Alexander Cockburn, Mike Davis, Lynell George, Thomas S. Hines, Jeremy Larner, Ruben Martinez, David Reid, Carolyn See, and David Thomson who truly enlighten the reader about the benefits and problems of living in Southern California. The book was published on April 20, 1992. As a consequence much of the information as well as the feelings of the authors toward society may differ from the perspective of a reader in the late nineties. The reader will notice that the authors of these essays explain in detail almost every subject that they quote. David Reid editor of the book cleverly calls California the American Alexandria implying California's likeness to the city founded in Egypt in 332 BC by Alexander the Great which was located being close to the sea and inhabited by millions of immigrants. Sex, Death and God in L.A will take the reader through a journey where the authors explain the paradox that exists between L.A as racism, polluted and multicultural state and also paradise. The authors criticize the lack of values that exist in LA. They quote the case of the Menendez brothers. They condemn racism and talk about the Rodney King case. They give their opinion on US economy and politics and forecast times of recession. Finally they talk about the demographics of Los Angeles. There is about 20 million immigrants in the US, 8% can be found in Southern California. Sex, Death and God in LA discusses the problems that have developed from the immigration of Vietnamese, Asian, Koreans, Latino, Blacks and Europeans to California. The authors discuss their impact on California's economy and how they have helped California to emerge during the past decades. In short California is seen as a place where religions, languages, customs and why not - sexuality, lifestyle, and habits - from people from all around the world meet to give place to the unique Californian Culture. I definitely recommend Sex, Death and God in L.A. However, the reader has to be a critical thinker. He or she has to be aware and informed of the issues that are quoted and explained in the book. I think people who read this book and do not know much about California may not be able to understand the book or get the wrong image about it. Finally, I would like to say that although Sex, Death and God is a good book to read it doesn't explain fully what people should know about California. The book goes in detail explaining the troubles and how the low-income minorities contribute to the American society. Nevertheless, the book doesn't talk much about the high-income minority. In other words they give the reader the idea that California is inhabited by minorities that are not successful or that are just part of the working class, while whi

Unfamiliar names, streets, and buildings.

The book Sex, Death and God in L.A. by David Reid(Editor) is a good book to read for L.A. The book has alot of great storys about Los Angeles how it came to be knowend as the melting pot of Califorina. Their are lots of variety of works in this book. The ones that I have read are great I am not just saying this because its part of the readings of our class no. The book has unfamiliar names, streets, districs, and buildings that I never new where there I went to explore to see if this names, streets, and buildings where still there and some were. I really enjoyed the book, great stuff.