Forget the postcard version of California. This pocket-sized guide takes the backroads instead — funky bohemian enclaves, glitzy Hollywood haunts, and the strange, in-between places most road trips skip entirely. A small army of writers, surfers, chefs and historians (Daniel Duane, Gary Kamiya, Rachel Levin, Gustavo Arellano, and more) built this one, and it shows: it reads less like a guidebook and more like notes scribbled by a very well-traveled friend. Slip it in the glovebox. Slip it in a gift bag. Either way, it's the kind of souvenir you actually read.