The Reading List: April ’13

The Baker Street Translation: A Mystery
(Minotaur Books, hardcover, $25)      
By Michael Robertson
Robertson feeds the Sherlock Holmes craze with a tale of two lawyer brothers who lease an office at 221B Baker Street in London, answer mail addressed to Holmes and find themselves in a Doyle-esque mystery.             
Out: Apr.2

The Flamethrowers: A Novel
(Scribner, hardcover, $27)       
By Rachel Kushner           
Float in underground art circles in 1970s Soho and travel to Rome with an heir to an Italian tire and motorcycle empire alongside protagonist Reno, a woman living on the cusp of several movements–both in art and in the world.
Out: Apr.2

Web of the City
(Hard Case Crime, paperback, $10)   
By Harlan Ellison 
First published more than 50 years ago, Ellison’s debut novel was inspired by his time working undercover in a street gang. It’s now available with additional short stories that illustrate the bygone era.
Out: Apr.2

American Dream Machine
(Tin House Books, hardcover, $26)     
By Matthew Specktor
Specktor charts the highs and lows of a set of Hollywood talent agents and their sons as they try to make their ways in the midst of the fickle world of film.
Out: Apr.9

Motherland
(Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $25) 
By William Nicholson
The screenwriter for Gladiator has penned a sweeping story of a WWII love triangle that takes readers around the ever-changing world of the time.
Out: Apr.9

Manzanar to Mount Whitney: The Life and Times of a Lost Hiker
(Heyday, paperback, $17)        
By Hank Umemoto
From his window at the Manzanar Internment Camp, Umemoto gazed out at Mount Whitney and promised himself one day he would climb it –and he did at age 71. Check out our review in the April issue of Los Angeles magazine.
Out: Apr.1

If It’s Not One Thing, It’s Your Mother
(Simon & Schuster, hardcover, $26) 
By Julia Sweeney 
Sweeney, a former cast member of Saturday Night Live, brings not only humor but wisdom to her essays about adopting, parenting, and living life on her own terms.
Out: Apr.2

Who Was Dracula?: Bram Stoker’s Trail of Blood
(Putnam, hardcover, $27)        
By Jim Steinmeyer
L.A.-based historian Steinmeyer traces Bram Stoker’s inspirations for Dracula to some unlikely and varied sources, from the works of Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman to Teddy Roosevelt’s uncle, Robert Roosevelt.
Out: Apr.4

Ed Ruschaand Some Los Angeles Apartments
(J. Paul Getty Museum, paperback, $25)     
By Virginia Heckert        
Few artists are more synonymous with L.A. than Ruscha. His deadpan view of the architecture and residents of the city is told through his photographs, collected here by associate curator Heckert in conjunction with an exhibition at the Getty.
Out: Apr.25

A New Sculpturalism: Contemporary Architecture from Los Angeles
(Skira Rizzoli, hardcover, $65)
Edited by Christopher Mount with a foreword by Jeffrey Deitch           
Mount and Deitch present the first analytical look into the history of the “L.A. School” of the 1990s, which took an increasingly sculptural and urban approach to architecture.
Out: Apr.30