MARC WEINGARTEN discusses his new book THIRSTY, with NINA REVOYR

Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water and the Real Chinatown (Rare Bird Books)

Thirsty is an exploration of Los Angeles’ storied history and its fraught relationship with water. As a city on the make since the early 20th century, Los Angeles’ resources fought hard to keep up with its unchecked growth. The city’s water chief William Mulholland built an aqueduct to grab water over two hundred miles away in Owens Valley, but it wasn’t enough. Where Marc Reiser’s seminal 1986 book Cadillac Desert started, Marc Weingarten’s Thirsty continues. Weingarten delivers a gripping tale of Los Angeles’ epic battles for water, the larger-than life characters that shaped a city’s destiny, and the man-made tragedy that killed four hundred and forever changed the way water would be harnessed and allocated.

Marc Weingarten is the author of Station to Station and The Gang that Wouldn’t Write Straight; the co-editor of the anthologies Yes is the Answer and Here She Comes Now, and producer of the films God Bless Ozzy Osbourne and The Other One. He lives in Malibu.,CA.

Nina Revoyr is the author of five novels, including The Age of Dreaming, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize;Southland, a Los Angeles Times best seller and “Best Book” of 2003; Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers’ Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “10 Titles to Pick Up Now”; and most recently, Lost Canyon. Revoyr lives and works in Los Angeles.