Most of the previous reviews have covered the gist of what Kevin Starr has accomplished with this entry in his litany of books about California. I was a bit disappointed that he didn't include more about Orange County since that's where I grew up and lived until 1989. But, besides that, he confirmed that my vague impressions of the places he did focus on (Pasadena, downtown LA, Santa Barbara) were accurate and he showed the reasons why. I found the focus on the literary communities very interesting as there wasn't much of that going on in OC that I was aware of. I particularly enjoyed his comments about MFK Fisher as she is one of my favorite writers. At times, though, I found his personal enjoyment of the English language to be a bit over the top, as in my favorite sentence: "Anthony Heber, meanwhile, the embattled president of CDC, fought back with the weaseline fury of inverted arrogance stung to desparate action."
I took my time reading this along with a couple of lighter books, so I could take a break whenever it got tedious. All in all I enjoyed it and learned a lot.