On Kitty Felde's Talk of the City yesterday, author Douglas Flamming told some great stories about the little-known history of African Americans in early Los Angeles (including in the expedition from Mexico that first settled the pueblo.) One of the surprises was that, despite the Los Angeles Times' racist tone under longtime publishers Harrison Gray Otis and Harry Chandler, blacks thought of Otis as a friend. Flamming's book is Bound for Freedom: Black Los Angeles in Jim Crow America from University of California Press. Audio of the interview is online.

Also: The Elegant Variation reprints a review of Every Night is Ladies’ Night by Michael Jaime-Becerra, one of the few books to be set in El Monte. (The review is by Daniel Olivas, whose books include Devil Talk: Stories. And CaliforniaAuthors.com has added 19 more books to its registry of local new releases.