Mrs. Reese said, "Do you have any new hens, Mama?"
  Mrs. Whichcoat did not answer at once. For some time now people had been closing in on her. She knew how quickly one of these casual openings could land her in a jam. Had she left the gas on again? Was this a new attack on her open range poultry policy? She considered several incriminating possibilities. "No, just the same old ones," she said.
  "It's very strange," said Mrs. Reese. "I was looking out the bathroom window while ago and I thought I saw a gray one out there with a hat on."
  "That one belongs to Norwood," said Joe William.

The Enchanted Valley and Other Sketches

(1976, Guy Chaffee Earl)
Why I picked it: Looking through the California history stacks, I found this short memoir of a childhood in the Owens River Valley, a favorite place of mine. It wasn't the cover that won me over.
What it's about: Guy Chaffee Earl — later a San Francisco lawyer and longtime University of California regent — spent part of his youth (around 1865-75) on a farm near Fort Independence. He wrote down some of his recollections, and after his death his son had them published as a book.
What I thought: It was fairly pedestrian, both in the stories recounted and in the way they were told. Young Guy is not charming, coming across as rather a barbarian in his attitudes toward non-whites, animals and scholarship. In fairness, though, it was initially published just for the family. And it was an easy read, so it was worth the effort for the little it added to my California history knowledge. I liked putting together the geographical clues to try to figure out where the Earl farm was, which I think is right about here:

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Steve Jobs (2011, Walter Isaacson)
Why I picked it: I got this one in a library giveaway a couple years ago and intended to read it eventually. Recently I saw the 2015 movie that credits this book as its source, and the screenplay was great. It made me wonder if the book was different from what I expected from an authorized biography.
What it's about: The authorized biography of the late Apple co-founder.
What I thought: The answer is, the book is more conventional than the movie. (It does not, however, hold back on portraying Jobs as a real jerk, so in that way it was different than I expected.) It's a long book, comprehensive to the point of being repetitive. Maybe three times would have been enough for Isaacson to discuss Jobs' preference for end-to-end control over open source. And some of the minutiae — a detailed breakdown of what's on Steve's iPod — seemed ridiculously minute. All in all, though, I'm not sorry I devoted the time to it. The major episodes of Jobs' life I already knew, but this book strung them together and filled in the gaps.

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City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles (1990, Mike Davis)
Why I picked it: In my California history reading, this kept coming up as an insightful recent examination of Los Angeles. It has been on my list for more than 10 years, so it's time I got to it.
What it's about: The political and social forces that have shaped Los Angeles' growth.
What I thought: I had thought this was going to focus mostly on urban planning, but it's much broader than that. It goes deep into the city's power structure: City Hall, business and industry leaders, the police, the Catholic church. It also has a pronounced point of view, of class and ethnic conflict. And it's written in a very dense academic style. A sentence chosen at random:

For if Los Angeles has become the archetypal site of massive and unprotesting subordination of industrialized intelligentsias to the programs of capital, it has also been fertile soil for some of the most acute critiques of the culture of late capitalism, and, particularly, of the tendential degeneration of its middle strata (a persistent theme from Nathanael West to Robert Towne).

Davis starts right in on the city's myth-building. I was fine with that. I could use a little balance to Bradbury and Banham; even Kevin Starr qualifies as a booster. (Davis' last chapter is titled "Junkyard of Dreams," an overt jab at Starr's California history series.) It wasn't many pages before I understood that Davis swings way to the other side, with a bleak view of a Los Angeles run by scared, rich, white people determined to keep their neighborhoods rich and white. So I did a lot of mental trail-clearing as I was reading, separating the good research and journalism from Davis' Marxist political stance, and keeping a middle-of-the-road skepticism. I learned a lot from this book, but it was a slow read and a gloomy one.

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Death Is a Lonely Business (1985, Ray Bradbury)
Why I picked it: Noir mystery set in Venice, California.
What it's about: A young writer in Venice Beach in 1949 pieces together clues about the deaths and disappearances of some friends and neighbors.
What I thought: I'm not a huge sci-fi fan, so though I appreciate Bradbury for his roles in genre fiction and in California culture, I haven't read much of his work. I am a noir fan, though, and when I read a mention of this novel I put it on my list. The mystery element really isn't that huge. It's more a collection of profiles of archetypal Southern California characters, starting with the endearing Bradbury-like narrator, tied together by a series of misfortunes that could be criminal. It's earnest and sentimental — a noir story with a distinctly soft-boiled narrator — and sometimes funny, with nice imagery.
What's next: There are two sequels. I'm slogging through some weightier stuff right now, but there will be time for fluffier reading later.

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A Doubter's Almanac (2016, Ethan Canin)
Why I picked it: I liked Canin's previous novel, "America America."
What it's about: A self-centered alcoholic math genius makes a shambles of his life but doesn't completely alienate his son, who narrates this story.
What I thought: I didn't like it as much as "America America" — a journalist recalling his personal experience in a fictional 1968 presidential campaign — but the main character is memorable, and I liked that the math wasn't glossed over as too complicated for a general audience.

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Dombey and Son (1848, Charles Dickens)
Why I picked it: This was the last on my Dickens list.
What it's about: Arrogant widower Paul Dombey so favors his young son that he is cold and neglectful toward his daughter. When he remarries, his new wife forms an alliance with the girl and stays in the loveless marriage for her sake, until her husband attempts to break up their friendship.
What I thought: I hadn't expected a whole lot from this, as it's not one of the better-known Dickenses, but I liked it. I'd definitely place it above the most recent I've read in approaching the tail end of the list (Pickwick Papers, Hard Times, Our Mutual Friend), though not in the top tier of Great Expectations and David Copperfield (which were written after it).
There was less humor than in the best Dickens, but there are good characters. I particularly appreciated that the two main female characters are not Dickens' standard gentle-and-loveable type, bordering on simpering. Well, perhaps daughter Florence tends that way, but she's not yet a woman for most of the book.
What's next: I do think I'm done for a while, but there are a few I haven't tried yet: Old Curiosity Shop, Nicholas Nickleby, Little Dorrit, Martin Chuzzlewit.

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West of Eden: An American Place (2016, Jean Stein)
Why I picked it: I saw it in the New York Times Book Review's little blurbs of other notable books (missed the big review, I think), and the blurb made me think it was a Los Angeles history told through the stories of a few particular families.
What it's about: Five stories about 20th-century Los Angeles families, told in the Turkelesque oral-history style now enjoying a revival, transcripts of quotes from knowledgeable people without any connecting narrative.
What I thought: It started out really well. The first part was about the Dohenys, of whom I knew a little, and who are definitely a family that helped shape L.A. Second one was Jack Warner. OK, I can buy that. Third was a not a family, but a mentally ill young woman named Jane Garland whose constant care provided employment for a bunch of fledgling artists and gallerists in the 1960s. That's where I realized this was not the book I had hoped. For one thing, I was pretty put off by the pathetic portrait of this woman without even the defense that she's a public figure. At this point, I also realized this book might just be five stories with Los Angeles (and the author's own life and friends) their only connection. Stein wrote an oral-history book about Edie Sedgwick, so maybe the art and craziness was the appeal of the Garland episode. And except for the Dohenys, the others have substantial connections to Stein's own family -- the last chapter, in fact, is about her father, Jules Stein. Quite a few interviewees (including Dennis Hopper, Walter Hopps, David Geffen, Betty Warner Sheinbaum) show up in multiple chapters. Sometimes I had the sense that Stein just went around to her friends and asked them to dish, a feeling bolstered by the occasionally sketchy factual underpinnings. One episode has the Byrds playing "Mr. Tambourine Man" at a 1963 party — two years before it was recorded. And I'm still wondering why Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward's children seemed to think Norton Simon and Jennifer Jones (that's the fourth chapter) were their grandparents. In the tangle of Hollywood incestuousness, I haven't found that particular strand. So I'm still looking for the book I thought this one would be, because I would really like to read that.

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Slade House (2015, David Mitchell)
Why I picked it: Another impulse pick from the new-books shelf. I liked Mitchell's "Cloud Atlas." Wasn't so fond of "Black Swan Green."
What it's about: Horror story about soul-sucking eternal beings that once every nine years lure a selected victim into their fantastic house.
What I thought: I didn't realize from the jacket blurb that this was a horror story. Despite having discovered a liking for some genre fiction — fantasy, mystery — I'm not a big horror fan.
The format is five chapters, one for each of five consecutive victims from 1979 to 2015. It seemed too repetitive, plus each chapter was longer than the previous. The dialogue between the soul-suckers was wooden, or maybe turgid is a better word. I also thought it was a little too involved in the mechanism, the rules, of the whole luring-and-sucking thing. By the end I was regretting starting this one, but I kept going to see how it ended. Which ending, by the way, did not redeem it.

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The Brothers Karamazov (1880, Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Why I picked it: While I was reading "Crime and Punishment," the rabbi at my synagogue recommended this.
What it's about: The boorish father of three (or maybe four) young men in 19th-century Russia is found murdered, and one of his sons is tried for the crime.
What I thought: I didn't regret reading it, but I didn't like it as well as C&P, which was tighter and more suspenseful. 'Karamazov' is just bigger all around -- more characters, more social commentary. It also gets extra points because it has Plotnikovs in it.
It's kind of embarrassing that my descriptions of some of these big books are so terse, when I go on at length about fluffy things. I'd like to think that's because with a book like this, if you scratch the surface you have to go pretty deep, so I keep the blurbs superficial.

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The Art of Forgery: The Minds, Motives and Methods of the Master Forgers (2015, Noah Charney)
Why I picked it: Impulse pick from the library's new-books shelf. Art forgery is a topic I'm interested in, and I've read some on it, but more fiction than non-fiction.
What it's about: Examinations of a few dozen forgers, clustered by their apparent motivations (fame, revenge, money, etc.). Mostly art forgeries, but it also addresses other types, including wine and scientific antiquities.
What I thought: Some of it wasn't new to me, but enough of it was. A few of the episodes I remembered all the hoopla about the big discovery of a new work but didn't remember they were later determined to be fakes. (Or forgeries. There is a difference, which is one thing I learned from this book.) I guess that's one reason people get away with this -- we want to believe. I think that having read this will make me a lot more skeptical of these stories. In fact, right after I finished, I found myself looking askance at the story of a newly found "non-traditional" Rembrandt being unveiled to the public, having been bought last year at a New Jersey auction with an opening price of $250.

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The Canyon (1940, Peter Viertel)
Why I picked it: Reyner Banham mentions it in his Los Angeles book, and it sounded like something I should have run across long ago: a semi-autobiographical story written at age 18 about a boyhood in Santa Monica Canyon in the 1930s.
What it's about: A teenager in Santa Monica Canyon in the 1930s.
What I thought: I really liked this one. As literature, it's nothing outstanding, but it has such a sense of place and time. He doesn't name the canyon, and because of the way it's described as a rustic outpost I figured it was one of the more remote ones near Malibu. Then I went and looked it up and was surprised to find it was Santa Monica/Rustic, which these days is an urban neighborhood, although a funky/beachy one. But the pictures I found of it in the 1930s were right in line with what he describes. (Here is a great bunch of early Santa Monica, mostly farther south but a few of the canyon area. I particularly like the Toed Inn). Viertel was the son of Salka and Berthold Viertel, a couple of German expat writers and salon leaders I'd read about in Kevin Starr's books, but he apparently shared with his 'Canyon' alter ego George a very California outlook on life. The book has in common with other coming-of-age books the sex. petty crime, deception and some pretty brutal behavior among friends, but I'd say it's particularly Angeleno in its outdoor setting and its focus on the Mexican/mestizo community. The climactic flood that precipitates George's departure from California mirrors a real event that wiped out much of Santa Monica Canyon in 1938 (and, some say, swept the Toed Inn out to sea). If anybody sees this in a used-book store for under $50, I'll pay you for it. I had to order it interlibrary from University of Santa Clara — not available in the Peninsula or San Jose library systems — and the only Amazon copy is a $300 first edition.

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Alone on the Wall (2015, Alex Honnold with David Roberts)
Why I picked it: Climbing.
What it's about: Early-career memoir of Honnold, who at 30 has become arguably the nation's most famous climber because of his free-soloing exploits.
What I thought: It turns out I actually knew a lot of the stories in this book, mostly from Reel Rock and magazine articles. Those profiles also said about all there is to say about the big questions -- why does he do it? doesn't he get scared? This book did add one piece of information: Why did Honnold start free-soloing? Because he was so awkward and introverted that he couldn't bring himself to ask strangers if he could climb with them. The book also gave a sense of the rough edges of his personality that have been burnished off in his more recent publicity. David Roberts and other people who knew him earlier recall behavior and statements that were at best tone-deaf, at worst arrogant and insulting. But, to give the guy a break, he was barely 20 when he came into the public eye, and these days he seems to be consciously maturing and becoming more self-aware.

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Let Me Be Frank With You (2014, Richard Ford)
Why I picked it: The most recent of Ford's Bascombe series, which I have been rereading/reading.
What it's about: Frank Bascombe at age 68 at the end of 2012. He has retired from real estate and moved from the beach back to Haddam, N.J., with wife Sally.
What I thought: This is actually four stories, but they flow together well. Like the three Bascombe novels, it takes place around a holiday -- this time, Christmas. Glowering over the season is the shock and destruction of Hurricane Sandy. I liked "The Lay of the Land" better, partly because I like the heft of a novel, and probably partly because I identified more with the 56-year-old Frank. I do like Frank, though, and I'll keep reading these as long as Ford keeps writing them.

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Sewer, Gas & Electric: The Public Works Trilogy (1997, Matt Ruff)
Why I picked it: I read it when it came out and really liked it. Wanted to see how it stood up.
What it's about: A cyberpunky futuristic mystery involving ecopirates, cyborgs and the resurrected personality of Ayn Rand living in a hurricane lamp.
What I thought: I might have saved myself some hit-and-miss in my reading choices if I had noted the authors of the book cover blurbs: Pynchon, Neal Stephenson, David Foster Wallace. I moved on to all of them, and enjoyed them maybe even more than I did this one. Ruff's book is like "Infinite Jest" and "Snowcrash" in its involved and multi-tangented plot, colorful cast and projection of life on earth in the early 21st century. I still liked it, and in a way it was more thought-provoking when read 15 years closer to the book's time frame, past some of the loopy milestones Ruff sets in the early 2000s. But of course it didn't have that sui-generis feeling of the first time.

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The Lay of the Land (2006, Richard Ford)
Why I picked it: I reread Ford's first two Frank Bascombe novels so I could finish out the set.
What it's about: It's fall of 2000, 12 years since last we saw him, and Bascombe is 55, remarried, still selling real estate in New Jersey, and being treated for prostate cancer. As with the other two books, this one takes place on a holiday week: Thanksgiving, when Bascombe is hosting his two grown children in the absence of his wife, who has left him in a rather open-ended way.
What I thought: This was my favorite of the Bascombe books. It's looser and more surprising and funnier. And maybe I feel familiar with Frank, like I understand him pretty well. In my Rabbit/Bascombe matrix, this one is the cognate to "Rabbit at Rest," in which the mid-50s Rabbit deals with his unlikable grown son and survives a scary incident that puts him in the hospital.
What's next: I had thought that the recent "Let Me Be Frank With You" was a novella, but it turns out it's actually linked short stories about Bascombe.

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The Riders (1994, Tim Winton)
Why I picked it: I really liked this when I read it 20 years ago, the first Winton novel I read.
What it's about: An Australian newly moved to Ireland goes to pick up his wife and daughter at the airport and finds only the little girl, and she isn't talking. He takes her on a search for his missing wife.
What I thought: Still liked it a lot. I don't know if it was because I remembered the outcome or just a different reading of it, but this time I saw less mystery concerning the wife's whereabouts and motives. Maybe for that reason I appreciated the characters more, wasn't in such a hurry for Scully to move on in his quest.

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Abandoned

The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain (2016, Bill Bryson)
Why I picked it: Bryson is an entertaining writer, and I like the idea of walking across Britain.
What it's about: The initial conceit is walking a north-south route across Wales, England and Scotland. It's not one long hike, though, but more episodic excursions.
Why I gave it up: It was more fluffy than I was in the mood for. Bryson is amusing, but, to my taste, he falls a little too easily into his Funny/Cranky Old Guy mode. Figured if I was looking for a long walk, I should finish the Patrick Leigh Fermor trilogy.

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Detroit: An American Autopsy (2014, Charlie Le Duff)
Why I picked it: After reading "Hillbilly Elegy," I was interested in a deeper study of the recent socioeconomic changes in the industrial Midwest.
What it's about / why I gave it up: I wanted some hard reporting. LeDuff — a former reporter for the Detroit News and the New York Times — says upfront that this is not going to be a deep look at economy. I gave it a few chapters, but it was pretty much just about LeDuff. As I've mentioned before, I don't have much patience for the unleashed writing of a certain type of crime reporter who is invaluable on a newspaper staff but rather tedious in monologue.

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Oxford (1965, Jan Morris)
Why I picked it: After Morris' "Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere," I put this one and "Manhattan '45" on my list.
What it's about: The city and university of Oxford.
Why I gave it up: I read quite a bit of it on our summer flying trip, but without the Google Maps and Streetview that added so much to "Trieste." When I got home, I moved on to other things. Might still go back.

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$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America (2015, Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer)
Why I picked it: The most basic of reasons: I saw a mention of it somewhere and thought it was an interesting topic.
What it's about: Academic study of the most impoverished families in America — how they got that way, and why it's hard for them to get out.
Why I gave it up: I may still go back and finish it, but it expired off my audiobook app when I was on vacation, and I moved on to other reading. I had gotten a little less than halfway through. I did learn some stuff about the history and politics of government assistance, and the stories of how people live on virtually no money are gripping, in a bleak way.
Update: A few months later, I found a paperback copy on the free table at work. I got half a chapter past where I ended, then I took it to a climbing gym, and it wandered away from a cubby. That's OK, though. I'm glad if it ended up with somebody else who's interested in it.

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Masters of Atlantis (1985, Charles Portis)
Why I picked it: Fresh off of "Norwood," I was primed for more Portis.
What it's about: The inside machinations of a secret society founded on Malta after World War I and carried to America by a true believer, a U.S. serviceman.
Why I gave it up: It had neither enough plot nor sufficiently pointed satire to keep me interested. "Norwood" didn't have much plot, either, but it was funny. I will still try "The Dog of the South," which sounds more like "Norwood" than this.

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Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink (2015, Elvis Costello)
Why I picked it: I like Costello's music, and his considerable songwriting talent made me think his memoir might be a good read.
What it's about: Autobiography of the pop musician.
Why I gave it up: I made it more than a third of the way through but finally tired of its anecdotal nature. The narrative skips around, clustering memories around loose themes — the Beatles, for instance — and never going too deep into Costello's regrets or motivations or other thoughts. He spends as much time explaining the origin of certain of his songs as he does on his own life. At the point I gave it up, he still hadn't delved into his rise to fame in the late 1970s or even addressed any of his marriages beyond a name-check.