“Compulsively readable,” writes Liz Smith in The Chicago Tribune
Unreal Estate leads Liz Smith‘s column today for the Chicago Tribune and wowowow. It’s “a sprawling, delicious chronicle of how L.A. evolved real estate-wise, how the land became valuable, how the great neighborhoods were designed,” Smith writes, “….compelling and overflowing with gossip. Gross doesn’t just give us sites and architecture. He tells of the innumerable […]
Comfort the Afflicted: Feed the Rich!
Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal inspired my first Crain’s New York Business column of 2012, proposing that we cut the uber-wealthy even more tax breaks. Elsewhere, today’s New York Post looks at one of my earlier column subjects, a leading anti-carriage-horse activist, revealing his use of campaign contributions to buy City Council support for his […]
Unreal Estate: A bestseller s’more
Unreal Estate is now in its seventh week on the Los Angeles Times bestseller list. I love L.A.!
Unreal Estate #2 in L.A.
In the week ending on Christmas, Unreal Estate hit #2 on the nonfiction bestseller list at Book Soup in West Hollywood. Riot on the Sunset Strip!
Coming Attractions: Unreal Estate on the Road, Winter 2012
I’ll be giving talks and signing copies of Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition and the Lust For Land in Los Angeles in Beverly Hills, West Hollywood and Palm Beach in weeks to come. On Sunday evening February 12th (from 6-8 PM), I’ll give a talk at a buffet dinner at the Beverly Hills Women’s Club. On […]
Curbed.com suggests an unreal stocking stuffer
Curbed National today takes notice of the great Times review of Unreal Estate which, it reminds, “might be best described as what would happen if Us Weekly and Architectural Digest had a love child that was much smarter than either.”
WHOSE Times? WHY silence?
Looks like I’m not the only one with a Christmas gripe against someone at The New York Times. The Newspaper Guild’s letter to Arthur Sulzberger Jr. is astonishing. But it’s vital to remember a lesson I learned while writing my penultimate book Rogues’ Gallery on The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some took that book as […]
The Los Angeles Times raves about “gilt-y pleasures” of Unreal Estate
“We’ve heard it before — Americans don’t like to read, they just want to ogle celebrities and watch shows about houses on TV. So how about a book that allows the reader to ogle celebrities and their homes to bring them back to reading?” asks Alana Semuels in The Los Angeles Times today. “That’s just […]
Absent malice
“It’s a message to the press: Don’t ask questions,” says Robin Wright early in David Fincher‘s The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, speaking of the demonization of reporter Mikael Blomqvist that drives the narrative. Thank goodness that can’t happen here.
Still a bestseller: Unreal!
Unreal Estate is now in its fifth week on the non-fiction bestseller list of the Los Angeles Times. Happy holidays and thanks to all who’ve put and kept it there!