Earthquakes are one of the great unsolved geological mysteries. Attempts to predict them have ranged from studies of California’s fault lines by USGS geologists to the work of an odd assortment of psychics and apocalyptics who base their sometimes startlingly accurate forecasts on everything from changes in the earth’s magnetic fields to the behavior of whales. The Myth of Solid Ground is a journey, both personal and cultural, through the world of earthquakes and earthquake prediction, one that seeks a middle ground between science and superstition, while also looking for a larger context in which seismicity might make sense. An excellent primer on the science of seismology, The Myth of Solid Ground looks at earthquakes as the ultimate metaphor for living with impending disaster.

The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith

History

Ulin, David L.

Americas

Penguin Publishing Group

In Sidewalking, David L. Ulin offers a compelling inquiry into the evolving landscape of Los Angeles. Part personal narrative, part investigation of the city as both idea and environment, Sidewalking is many things: a discussion of Los Angeles as urban space, a history of the city’s built environment, a meditation on the author’s relationship to the city, and a rumination on the art of urban walking. Exploring Los Angeles through the soles of his feet, Ulin gets at the experience of its street life, drawing from urban theory, pop culture, and literature. For readers interested in the culture of Los Angeles, this book offers a pointed look beneath the surface in order to see, and engage with, the city on its own terms.

Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles

University of California Press

Explores how an unlikely collection of scientists, psychics, and doomsday prophets have made accurate earthquake predictions based on a wide range of empirical and otherworldly signs, observing how the practice of earthquake prediction reflects a human need for control. 20,000 first printing.

Viking Adult

Reading is a revolutionary act, an act of engagement in a culture that wants us to disengage. In The Lost Art of Reading, David L. Ulin asks a number of timely questions - why is literature important? What does it offer, especially now? Blending commentary with memoir, Ulin addresses the importance of the simple act of reading in an increasingly digital culture. Reading a book, flipping through hard pages, or shuffling them on screen - it doesn't matter. The key is the act of reading, and it's seriousness and depth. Ulin emphasizes the importance of reflection and pause allowed by stopping to read a book, and the accompanying focus required to let the mind run free in a world that is not one's own. Are we willing to risk our collective interest in contemplation, nuanced thinking, and empathy? Far from preaching to the choir, The Lost Art of Reading is a call to arms, or rather, to pages.

The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time

Literature & Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Sasquatch Books

The new introduction and afterword bring fresh relevance to this insightful rumination on the act of reading--as a path to critical thinking, individual and political identity, civic engagement, and resistance. The former LA Times book critic expands his short book, rich in ideas, on the consequence of reading to include the considerations of fake news, siloed information, and the connections between critical thinking as the key component of engaged citizenship and resistance. Here is the case for reading as a political act in both public and private gestures, and for the ways it enlarges the world and our frames of reference, all the while keeping us engaged.

The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time

A middle-aged man, now living in Los Angeles, returns on a business trip to San Francisco, where he lived when he was much younger and less conventionality attached. In the course of three days in the city, he confronts the echoes of his history, both in the patterns of the streets he obsessively wanders and in a strange interaction with a couple of old friends, who bring him face-to-face with this own unfinished past.Seeking solace, he ends up at Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill, where he walks the labyrinth. This leads him to reflect on who he is and who he used to be, on the relationship between distance and belonging, and between memory and identity.

Labyrinth (Open Door)

Gemma Open Door

Seismologist Charlie Richter, grandson of the inventor of the Richter scale, knows earthquakes, and has a method for predicting them. Arriving in Los Angeles to begin work at the Center for Earthquake Studies, a mysterious agency that seems more Hollywood than science, Charlie settles into his new life. His only distraction from work is Grace, an assistant to a powerful producer, and her deadbeat scriptwriter boyfriend Ian. It's only a matter of time before Charlie sees the "Big One" looming on the horizon. When Charlie alerts his boss at the Center, he is the one that's in for a shock: this is exactly what the Center was hoping for. With the news leaked, everyone's suddenly looking to produce the next disaster blockbuster. One of the few scripts Ian actually wrote, Ear to the Ground, happens to be about an earthquake disaster, and soon it's plucked from obscurity and given the fast track. But with a little bit of luck, Charlie may just foil everybody's plans. He just needs explosives, a helicopter, a little more time. By award-winning writer and Los Angeles Times book critic David Ulin, Ear to the Ground is a rollicking visit back to the 1990s.

Ear to the Ground: A Novel

Kolsby, Paul

Humor & Satire

The Unnamed Press

In Thirteen Question Method, a man hides out in a Hollywood apartment from a past he doesn't want to remember and a present he is desperate to avoid. The summer sky is thick with ash, and across the courtyard, his neighbor won't stop screaming. When she asks for help in an inheritance dispute with her estranged stepmother, he is drawn into a web of fear and manipulation, until he begins to lose sight of what is real. Echoing the work of Dorothy B. Hughes and James M. Cain, David Goodis and Albert Camus, Thirteen Question Method is a churning psychological thriller, set against the backdrop of contemporary Los Angeles. In a novel inspired by classic noir, David L. Ulin excavates the depths of a disintegrating soul.

Thirteen Question Method

Literary

Outpost 19

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ulin, David L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Ulin, David L.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Ulin, David L.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith

Sidewalking: Coming to Terms with Los Angeles

The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith

The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time

The Lost Art of Reading: Books and Resistance in a Troubled Time

Labyrinth (Open Door)

Ear to the Ground: A Novel

Thirteen Question Method