Too L.A.

Pore over the letters of Eve Babitz—queen of the witty, gossipy, and thoroughly engrossing missive. Joan Didion, Joseph Heller, Annie Leibovitz, Paul Ruscha, Anne Rice, Steve Martin, and many others appear in this first-of-its-kind collection. Letter-writing was the kind of writing Babitz did best. Her missives—fresh and frank, dashing and droll—are irresistible, as highly spirited as they are acutely perceptive. Take, for example, this letter to a friend in 1979: “I wrote this letter to Leo Ler