The Los Angeles Review of Books has just posted a long, thoughtful and fair consideration of Unreal Estate. Even though it’s not entirely positive, it is the kind of review most writers hope to receive now and then, but do all too rarely, especially nowadays when ever-fewer media outlets do that job. The site, which is currently in preview mode, clearly deserves attention and support. And I say that not only because it says, “Gross isn’t selling us a bill of goods; he’s just asking us to enlist him as our trusted cicerone, to let him guide us through the neighborhood, even if he, admittedly, has never gained access to many of these properties. A tour most assuredly of his own design, it has plenty of melodrama and a cast of characters that, in number and complexity, is positively Dickensian…..It’s enticing to have an East Coast ‘outsider’ like Gross set his sights on Los Angeles; sometimes it takes an interloper’s objectivity to refocus our lens, much like British-born Reyner Banham did when he identified the city’s four ecologies, or Roman Polanski with the film Chinatown, or Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One…..His narrative employs each estate as a mere touchstone for spinning the yarns of its owners. He reminds me of John Cheever’s ‘The Swimmer,’ whose goal is to traverse his upscale neighborhood pool by pool.” Nice company!

After a brief absence, Unreal Estate returned to the Los Angeles Times bestseller list today, to make its run there a neat three months long.

On Monday February 13th, I spoke about Unreal Estate, the book, and the houses that inspired it, at the Aaroe Architectural Forum at the Silver Screen Theater in West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center. My comments about a Mark refer to Mark David, aka The Real Estalker, who introduced me at the event but is not included in the video. Thanks to him, Bret Parsons and John Aaroe.

I should visit L.A. more often. Unreal Estate today vaulted back to #5 on the Book Soup bestseller list.

My talk at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club on Sunday February 12th has been cancelled, but I will still speak on Monday February 13th at the Aaeroe Architectural Forum at the Pacific Design Center. See the Unreal Estate page for details on how to reserve. The event is almost at capacity, so book soon to ensure entrance!

Attention Angelenos: Click through for the details on my February 12th appearance at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club and the next day’s Aaroe Architecural Forum lecture at the Pacific Design Center’s Silver Screen Theater. (That’s Lynda and Stewart Resnick‘s Sunset House under construction, at right)

Unreal Estate is now (unreally!) in its eleventh week on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. My new Crain’s New York Business column is about the persistence of beach books. And in case it’s not obvious, Gripepad is off the beach (at right) and back in business.

David Patrick Columbia has written briefly about Unreal Estate before. Today, he offers a lengthy review, and it’s as provocative as I tried to make the book. “Houses are fascinating because houses are people,” he writes. “And when there’s the more, there’s the merrier, not to mention hucksters and hustlers, money managers and lawyers, and the misled, the misplaced, as well as the maudlin, and even murderous. It’s life on the other side of the real fence, and it’s not like yours or mine. That’s what you get in this book; the hot skinny and with caviar and creme fraiche. And Michael serves it up with an appetite for it as big as any reader’s. He does not disappoint….Michael’s style is strong and doesn’t skip a beat. If he’s going to take on a story, he’s going to get it. Dogged, that appetite for uncovering, disrobing the characters – although never unkindly, yet with a curiosity that would once have been called vulgar, but these days is right on the money….The intrepid journalist always looking for the scoop. Break the story, tell the truth, show the consequences, unmask the villains. Them, and the village idiots. There are quite a few of those garnishing the real estate fables in Unreal Estate.” There’s lots more on the book, last week’s book party, and even a certain book reviewer who doesn’t agree with David at New York Social Diary.

For the ninth week, Unreal Estate is holding the fort on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. This week, it’s at #7. Thanks again, California. I look forward to saying that again in person on February 12 at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club and the 13th at the Aaroe Architectural Forum at the Pacific Design Center in West Hollywood.

Star Corcoran broker Wendy Sarasohn hosted a book party for Unreal Estate on Wednesday night, where I spoke to a crowd of New York real estate heavyweights including Corcoran CEO Pam Liebman (at left in the photo with Wendy and me) and New York’s highest-earning realtor (and go-to guy for 740 Park apartments), John Burger of Brown Harris Stevens. The New York Observer’s Elise Knutsen was there and reports on the festivities here. And Guelda Voien of The Real Deal has a report and photos, too. (Photo above by Richard Lewin)