Los Angeles: City of Dreams (Urban Tapestry Series)

Bill Boyarsky, veteran columnist for the Los Angeles Times, finds his hometown more difficult to define than other American cities, although playing "urban archaeologist" is a pursuit he believes ultimately to be "well worth the trouble." The reason? L.A. is a city of multilayered mysteries and delights. As Boyarsky writes in his introduction to Los Angeles: City of Dreams, his subject is "a collection of communities-some small, simple, and unpretentious; others exceedingly famous, wealthy, and ostentatious."

Aided by hundreds of images culled from the collections of the area's top photographers, Los Angeles: City of Dreams reveals the richness and possibility that have converged to form modern-day L.A., a place that Boyarsky feels "staggers the imagination."

From the theaters and restaurants of downtown to the sunny charms of Disneyland, from the Gordian marvels of the freeway system to the consumer mecca of Rodeo Drive, Boyarsky shows us that the Southland is more than a sprawling metropolis of many faces, many stories, and many moods. For the millions who live in the valleys and canyons and on the mountains and beaches of Los Angeles, this is home.