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Elements of Los Angeles: Earth, Water, Air, Fire
Acclaimed essayist D.J. Waldie turns his eyes to the elements of Los Angeles—earth, water, air and fire—exploring the foundations of the city with his trademark wisdom, elegance, and incisiveness.
“Reading Waldie’s essays about Los Angeles is not unlike listening to someone tell you the stories of their life.” —Los Angeles Times Image Magazine
“A love letter to Los Angeles” — Alta magazine
In Elements of Los Earth, Water, Air, Fire, acclaimed essayist D.J. Waldie continues his singular meditation on Los a place of contradictions, dreams, and disquiet. With uncommon clarity and emotional depth, Waldie considers Los Angeles as a place of both promise and disillusionment, of civic memory and strategic forgetting, of natural beauty and environmental fragility. Each of the four classical elements forms the basis for a profound and poetic reassessment of the city’s image, exploring topics as diverse and resonant as the unlikely history of the Hass avocado, the St. Francis Dam disaster, an endurance contest that saw a young woman buried alive, and the sound of Vin Scully’s voice carried across the summer air.
Grounded in the physical and emotional geography of Los Angeles—its earth, its water, its fires, its air—this collection is a portrait of a city always in flux, and of those who try to make a life within it. For anyone who has ever lived in Los Angeles, or simply wondered what lies beneath its glittering surface, Elements of Los Angeles is a guide to seeing the city anew.
“Reading Waldie’s essays about Los Angeles is not unlike listening to someone tell you the stories of their life.” —Los Angeles Times Image Magazine
“A love letter to Los Angeles” — Alta magazine
In Elements of Los Earth, Water, Air, Fire, acclaimed essayist D.J. Waldie continues his singular meditation on Los a place of contradictions, dreams, and disquiet. With uncommon clarity and emotional depth, Waldie considers Los Angeles as a place of both promise and disillusionment, of civic memory and strategic forgetting, of natural beauty and environmental fragility. Each of the four classical elements forms the basis for a profound and poetic reassessment of the city’s image, exploring topics as diverse and resonant as the unlikely history of the Hass avocado, the St. Francis Dam disaster, an endurance contest that saw a young woman buried alive, and the sound of Vin Scully’s voice carried across the summer air.
Grounded in the physical and emotional geography of Los Angeles—its earth, its water, its fires, its air—this collection is a portrait of a city always in flux, and of those who try to make a life within it. For anyone who has ever lived in Los Angeles, or simply wondered what lies beneath its glittering surface, Elements of Los Angeles is a guide to seeing the city anew.
- GenresEssays
176 pages, Hardcover
Published September 2, 2025
2 people are currently reading
95 people want to read
About the author
D.J. Waldie
16 books31 followersD. J. Waldie is a cultural historian, memoirist, and translator. In books, essays, and online commentary, he has sought to frame the suburban experience as a search for a sense of place. Often using his hometown of Lakewood as a starting point, Waldie’s work ranges widely over the history of suburbanization and its cultural effects.
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