Scott McAuley and Paddy Calistro co-founded Angel City Press in 1992 as a publisher of high-quality nonfiction books. The first work, Hollywood du Jour, written by Los Angeles journalist Betty Goodwin, was the first illustrated book to document the recipes and histories of legendary Hollywood restaurants. An instant success, Hollywood du Jour was featured in book and gift store windows throughout the region, and soon the country.
Since then, ACP has engaged more than 100 Southern California authors and published more than 135 books.When McAuley and Calistro decided to retire and find a new home for ACP, they approached the Los Angeles Public Library, and chose to donate the press to the library’s holdings to ensure that the essential stories of Los Angeles would continue to be told. The Library accepted the gift, creating Angel City Press at Los Angeles Public Library.
ACP and LAPL have a decades-long relationship, which includes ACP publishing books that have been inspired by the library’s holdings, including its special collections of sheet music (Songs in the Key of Los Angeles), menus (To Live and Dine in L.A.) and autographs (The Autograph Book of L.A.), as well as a volume about the historic Central Library (Los Angeles Central Library: A History of Its Art and Architecture). Dozens of ACP volumes are illustrated with images drawn from the Library’s extensive collection of 3.5 million historic photographs. The Library is committed to continuing the legacy of ACP with each new book it publishes, as well as expanding the reach of all the titles locally, nationally and internationally.
In recent years, ACP has published an average of seven books each year. The diverse subjects range from Googie roadside architecture and Chinese representation in the film, to the fate of L.A.’s Chicana/Chicano murals, why Barbie loves L.A., and detailed histories of Wilshire Boulevard with remarkable photography drawn from the LAPL collection. Biographical studies have focused on author Octavia E. Butler, Nobel Laureate Thomas Mann, legendary singer/songwriter Woody Guthrie and his days spent in L.A., and nun-turned-artist Corita Kent, among many others.
