We had this book at school. The teacher used it for our history class and it was really good. He said it was good history guide, but it also had interesting facts. I really loved the photographs. My Grandpa lived in Los Angeles then. My Dad bought him this book and he said it was the best book he'd seen on Los Angeles history.

I was given this book by a friend when we were in a Hollywood book store because he thought this was a book all about Hollywood. He then went back and bought me Rosemary Lords "Hollywood Then and Now". The error because the cover of the Los Angeles book has a photo of the Chinese theater in Hollywood on the cover. This book, side by side with the Hollywood book is not very different in content. In fact, it contains some of the same locations as the Hollywood book.

I was raised in Hollywood and Los Angeles and love the history of the area. The archival photographs are quite nicely reproduced, however, the current-day photographs are very poor. I enjoy digital photography and was in Hollywood a few weeks ago and visiteds some of the same historic scenes from this book. I quite easily found the angle of the original shots found in this book.. why this book showed those same shots but taken from different angles than the original photos is beyond me. The modern photos in this book are also very unflattering, out of focus and even amateur in appearance... not much more than snapshots.

The worst thing about this book are the many obvious mistakes in locations and historic details just as the Hollywood contains. Very disappointed!

Of the 69 Then and Now photos, 30 were basically the same because
the view had not changed over the years. I lived in LA for over 30 years and there are so many areas that have changed completely it's a shame that they weren't used.

This is a wonderful book. It's absolutely captivating. Once you start looking at the pictures, you can't put it down. I love the photographs as well as the historical narrative. I'd recommend this book to anyone. I only wish it were longer.

I am a Los Angeles history buff (specialty, the early 1900s), so I bought this book for my library, but I was really disappointed in it.

For one thing, it is very badly edited; grammatical errors (mostly misplaced or dangling modifiers) abound. I mean, for such a handsome book, it really deserved a go-through by a professional editor.

Secondly, who really needs a photo of the present-day Roma restaurant at the corner of Hollywood and Wilcox (complete with a guy in a cowboy hat hurrying to beat a flashing "Don't Walk" light and a lineup of late-model cars waiting to cross)?

Or who needs a shot of the Virgin megastore where the historic Schwab's restaurant used to be? And on and on . . . Some of the "before" shots are worthwhile, but most of the "after" shots are really pedestrian -- including that hustling cowpoke.

The best pic is on the cover -- the opening of the movie "Hell's Angels" at Grauman's Chinese. There are some other good older pix inside, too.

As has been mentioned, this book is way too heavy on Hollywood, and the depth of the research by the author can be measured by the number of times she mentions the names of Hollywood movies. I am suspicious of some of the facts in the book, too, although I can't quite pin down the reason right now. Maybe it was all those grammatical errors.

Finally, this book was printed in China, and I have nothing against the Chinese or their desire to earn big bucks from the rest of the world, but couldn't the author have found a printer right here in the U.S. to do this book? "Produced by PRC Publishing Co." PRC, get it -- "People's Republic of China"?

So, don't make this your coffee table gift. If you want a so-so addition to your library of L.A. books, buy it second hand somewhere or pick it up off the remainder table. It has a very nice cover, but you know what they say about books and their covers . . .