READING L.A.

Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, L.A. County supervisor:

“The Hundred Secret Senses,” by Amy Tan (Ballantine).

“It’s very different from ‘The Joy Luck Club.’ It’s more about the American Chinese experience. Amy Tan is able to capture the very subtle differences in people’s thinking, philosophies and value systems. It makes me reflect on the little things that make Americans American. That’s always interesting to me.”

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Charlie Haden, jazz bassist, composer:

“Inside Out: A Memoir of the Blacklist,” by Walter Bernstein (Knopf).

“It’s a creative, fascinating, firsthand account of the people who turned in their friends and the people who didn’t; an interesting perspective on the McCarthy hearings.”

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Alan Horn, producer, one of the founders of Castle Rock Entertainment:

“Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West,” by Stephen E. Ambrose (Simon & Schuster).

“I read mostly scripts and screenplays, but I collect western art, and this book has given me a historical perspective that is really terrific.”

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Sarah Spitz, producer, KCRW-FM (89.9):

“Reflected Glory: The Life of Pamela Churchill Harriman,” by Sally Bedell Smith (Simon & Schuster).

“I love learning history through biography; facts and public figures through the personal and world view of the individual make major events more meaningful to me.”