Los Angeles still has bookstores. Not a lot of them, mind you, but they exist. On a recent visit home, I met a friend at The Last Bookstore in downtown L.A. (Yes, Los Angeles has a downtown, too) and spent some time browsing the shelves of new and used books about the city.

I found some treasures—John Gregory Dunne’s Monster, Carey McWilliams’s Southern California: An Island on the Land and a novel celebrating its 75th anniversary this year, one I still own from when I bought it in my 20s: John Fante’s Ask The Dust.