Pages of History -- Morrow Mayo and 'Los Angeles'

Imagine how pleased I was to discover that by complete coincidence (and I do mean complete coincidence) Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne is planning a yearlong project called Reading L.A. that will begin with the same book I have been planning to examine, Morrow Mayo’s “Los Angeles.” Hawthorne is also planning to look at Louis Adamic’s “The Truth About Los Angeles,” a rare item that I’ll have to track down because I don’t have it in the Daily Mirror HQ. I don’t plan to examine most of the books on Hawthorne’s list, but I’ll be looking forward to what he has to say about Mayo’s influential and jaunty but problematic book (recall that Mayo is one of the early sources of the myth about Gen. Harrison Gray Otis’ armored car).  ALSO Christopher Hawthorne’s reading list Another Good Story Ruined – Gen. Otis’ Armored Car Morrow Mayo on the Daily Mirror