By Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. J.G. Boswell is the biggest farmer in America. Over the past fifty years he has built a secret empire in California’s Great Central Valley while thumbing his nose at nature, politicians, labor unions and anyone else who tried to lift the veil on his “factory in the fields.” Now eighty, Boswell grudgingly confides his story for the first time to journalists Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman. Read an excerpt here.

By Gordon Dillow and William Rehder. FBI agent William Rehder spent three decades chasing L.A. bank robbers of every description — takeover bandits, roof and tunnel men, inside jobbers, junkies brandishing nothing more than a finger or a note. With co-author Gordon Dillow, Rehder spins out his truly stranger-than-fiction crime fighting story.

By Cory Doctorow. First-time novelist Cory Doctorow fashions a future where death has a cure, scarcity is unknown and your karma is currency.

By Aris Janigian. Negotiating the Grapevine: Read an excerpt from Aris Janigian’s debut novel, Bloodvine, a story of brotherly love and betrayal set against the backdrop of the Armenian culture in California’s Great Central Valley.

By Mark Lee. On love, faith and revenge: In his new novel, Mark Lee offers the timely story of a veteran foreign correspondent who struggles to find meaning in his own chaotic life.

By Gary Leonard. Photographer Gary Leonard shares his history — in words and pictures — of LA’s splendid new Walt Disney Concert Hall.

By Cris Mazza. Growing up Californian: In Indigenous — her autobiographical collection of essays — Cris Mazza looks beyond the pop culture clichès to the California of her own native dreams.

By Marcos M. Villatoro. Literary 101 (and 405 and PCH, too): How many hours do we sit in traffic, working through the expanding and contracting snake of cars on the freeway? For many of us, literary radio gets us there and back. In an essay featured in The Misread City, author Marcos M. Villatoro is our tour guide and reminds us that Angelenos actually buy more books than New Yorkers do.

By T. Jefferson Parker. San Diego murder mystery: Southern California mystery writer T. Jefferson Parker shares an excerpt from his thriller, Cold Pursuit.

By Susan Snyder. Once the most powerful creature in the lush California landscape, the grizzly bear now prowls only in our imaginations. In her lively historical collection, Susan Snyder reminds us that the absence of the grizzly today evokes what else is now gone from California.

By Susan Straight. California author Susan Straight shares a tale of anxious heroism in her essay “Brave and Noble is the Preschool Dog” — one of forty-two essays and short stories in the book from the editors The Bark magazine.

By Gil Garcetti. Building respect: Gil Garcetti on photographing ironworkers building the Walt Disney Concert Hall.