Los Angeles Without a Map

Barbara, a Playboy bunny, is delectable. Richard loves her. He abandons his life in London, a steady girlfriend, and a job, and flies to Los Angeles in search of Barbara and the romanticized America he's seen only in the movies. Richard obsessively pursues Barbara through a series of misadventures that take him from photography sessions in the desert to encounters with men in gorilla suits and "surf Nazis." Eventually he succeeds in wooing her, and they marry, bathed in the neon lights of Las Vegas. But their happiness unravels, and Barbara skips out. Richard determines to win her back; then he, too, takes flight, as the happy ending he had envisioned for their lives fades to black in the film capital of the world. Brilliantly candid and comedic, Richard Rayner's ironic first book is a cult favorite—later filmed starring David Tennant, Julie Delpy and Johnny Depp—and a dazzling travelogue of love, loss, and all destinations in between.