Malibu Diary: Notes From An Urban Refugee (Environmental Arts and Humanities Series)
In the mid-1980s, journalist O'Malley (along with plenty of other Los Angelinos) got tired of the big city and struck out for someplace a little less cluttered. She settled in Malibu, 40 minutes away from L.A., and, to put it bluntly, it was a big disappointment. Oh, it looked like it might be heaven: a mere 10,000 residents strung out along 27 miles of coastline, with mountains on one side and the Pacific on the other. The problem, however, is that Malibu lies directly between the approaching sprawl of Los Angeles and the undeveloped wildlands of California. It's a town pulled from two sides, in two entirely different social, political, and philosophical directions. To protect themselves from the encroaching big city, the residents of Malibu sacrificed the very thing they professed to love--nature. Living closer to nature, the author soon discovered, meant destroying it in the name of self-preservation. The book is a chronicle of environmental travesties, political machinations, and, on the part of the author, self-discovery. Not an especially happy book, but certainly an eye-opener.David PittCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved