This morning I came upon an adroit piece in the Los Angeles Times on Carey McWilliams's Southern California: An Island on the Land. The article, by Christopher Hawthorne, is part of a Reading L.A. project that began with books by Morrow Mayo and Louis Adamic. (McWilliams knew both men and was especially close to Adamic.) I left a comment on the L.A. Times' website, but I forgot to add my favorite point about this book, which is that it directly inspired Robert Townes's Oscar-winning original screenplay for Chinatown.