Every holiday season, TNT showcases some of the newest books that are written by local authors, or of local interest. We do our best to include as many local authors as possible. If you know an author—or are an author—who has published a new book this year, please let us know!
Authors have been hard hit by skyrocketing printing and shipping costs. Even works released by the big publishing houses face the challenges of an internet infested with AI and hostile algorithms, but there are still poets, philosophers, historians, cooks, artists, and free thinkers out there pursuing their dreams.
Supporting authors helps to ensure that real books, good books, and not just AI slop, continue to be written, and we can’t think of a better gift than a good book, especially one with a sense of place, and that is the unifying theme of all the books presented here. As always, everything on this list is rooted in the California landscape.
A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes. Laura Cunningham. Heyday Books. $55.
Author and artist Laura Cunningham’s beautiful and inspiring A State of Change: California’s Forgotten Landscapes became an instant classic when it was first published more than twenty years ago. This reissued edition is even more glorious than the original edition, with new material. The author’s meticulously crafted illustrations reveal what the California landscape once looked like, contrasting these visions of the past with contemporary landscapes. The illustrations are informative and fascinating but also beautiful. The new edition includes Cunningham’s thoughts on the return of wolves to the California landscape, the use of fire by Indigenous people, and the potential for regenerative agriculture to transform the land in new and more positive ways. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the ecology of California, but it is also beautiful and compelling.
California Amphibians and Where to Find Them. Emily Taylor. Heyday Books, $25.95.
Topanga is home to an impressive number of native amphibians—from the California newt to the Western pond turtle. This book is an ideal way to get to know these wild neighbors better. Emily Taylor is a professor of biological sciences at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo who researches reptiles and amphibians. She is also the author of California Snakes and How to Find Them and California Lizards and How to Find Them. Like her previous two guide books, this one is entertaining as well as informative. Taylor makes her subject accessible and fun for everyone—young nature enthusiasts, the newly curious, and longtime naturalists. The book is illustrated throughout with abundant, detailed photographs that help make identification much easier. www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/california-amphibians-and-how-to-find-them/
California Inside Out: Mapping the Ecology of the Mind. Obi Kaufman. Heyday Books, $20
In his newest book, naturalist, poet and artist Obi Kaufman challenges the reader to reevaluate the accepted history of California, and find beneath it the true story of Indigenous erasure, the exploitation of people and natural systems, and the increasing separation of people and place, with the hope that the future can be different. This is a passionate book filled with both sorrow and with hope. Illustrated throughout with the author’s signature watercolor illustrations, California Inside Out provides food for thought and for the soul. www.heydaybooks.com/catalog/california-inside-out/
Greetings from Malibu: A Memoir in Postcards. Kelly Tourgman. Violet Tiger LLC. $45.
Malibu resident Kelly Tourgman’s new book, Greetings from Malibu, is the perfect holiday gift for anyone who loves local history and Malibu surf culture. The book is packed with full-color postcards that date from the 1920s to the present. They form a timeline of Malibu revealing how Pacific Coast Highway, local landmarks and buildings and even beach culture have changed over the decades. Tourgman has collected, researched, and curated this fantastic collection of ephemera, adding historical notes, personal reminiscence, and even some of the messages written on the backs of the cards. There is also a smattering of her own photographs. It’s a delightful book and a lot of fun. www.greetingsfrommalibu.com
In Case You Missed It: Counterculture Photography of the 1960s and 1970s. Jerry de Wilde. Angel City Press. $60.
Travel back in time to the psychedelic 1960s and ’70s with photographer Jerry “Dok” de Wilde, for a first-person perspective on the countercultural revolution in and around Los Angeles. The photos presented here are often intimate, personal, and sometimes gritty. This is not a Topanga book, but it documents the movement that continued to define Topanga’s cultural and philosophical identity. “Jerry de Wilde’s gorgeous photography captures a deeply intimate portrait of a lost era—Los Angeles in the 1960s,” the publisher writes. It’s an apt description. acp.lapl.org/book/in-case-you-missed-it
La Copine: New California Cooking from an Oasis in the Desert. Claire Wadsworth, Nikki Hall, with Ben Mims. Harry Abrams. $45
Authors and life partners Claire Wadsworth and Nikki Hall traded their lives in the fast-paced world of Los Angeles for a restaurant of their own in the desert near Joshua Tree. This lavishly illustrated cookbook is both an adventure story about the creation of La Copine—the restaurant’s name means “girlfriend”—and a cookbook filled with recipes from the highly successful venture. The recipes range from basic to ambitious, and cover all aspects of the menu. Photographs include beautiful food and the desert landscape. It’s a delightful—and delicious—desert sojourn. https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/la-copine_9781419778223/
Just North of Malibu. Jolynn Freed Regan. Malibu North Press. $14
“My poems reflect the Malibu I know—a destination for nature lovers, surfers on the hunt, families raising children and animals running wild,” writes poet Jolynn Freed Regan, describing her book. This slender chapbook is full of vivid imagery drawn from Malibu, the Santa Monica Mountains, and Los Angeles. The poetry is evocative and conveys a powerful sense of place. http://bottlecap.press
The Road to Malibu. Suzanne Guldimann. West of the Moon Books, $45
Topanga New Times editor Suzanne Guldimann has a new book out this year—her third local history. It’s a wild ride through Malibu’s past, with a deep dive into the history of Pacific Coast Highway, chapters on cowboy and surf culture, the Malibu Movie Colony, the Rindge family, who once owned all of Malibu, and an in-depth look at the amazing tiles created by Malibu Potteries in the 1920s. The book is illustrated throughout with historic photographs—some of which have never been published before—and with postcards, matchbooks, vintage advertisements, and other ephemera. www.amazon.com/author/suzanneguldimann
The Sensual & Innocent Earth. Sarah Irani. Datura Blossom Press, $18
This collection of essays and meditations on life is heartfelt, intensely personal, and pure Topanga. The book is filled with reflections on nature, life, and the author’s connection with the earth and with Topanga’s wild plants, native and non-native, and her philosophy of life, and it is illustrated throughout with her sketches. The author describes it as “…a journey, both mystical and practical, through the magic of the plants of Topanga Canyon, California, and also a land beyond and to come, the land of ancestral memory.” www.sensualearth.net
My Gums Are Bleeding. Miles Erickson. PUG-W. $22
Cartoonist and writer Miles Erickson was raised in Topanga. His absurdist webcomic My Gums are Bleeding, is a sensation on Reddit and TikTok. The webcomic is now a book. that brings together many of Erickson’s best comic strips. His work is a satiric commentary on pop culture. It is clever, witty, geeky, and frequently dark. It’s not for everyone— Erickson takes a razor wit to contemporary internet tropes, which might leave those who are not current on pop culture trends with the feeling that some of his humor has just gone whooshing over one’s head, but the collection is thoroughly engaging. https://mygumsarebleeding.com
