Angel City Press, 2020

[A] book of many small revelations from a writer who is deeply concerned with finding the soul in a city often seen as only skin deep – Frances Anderton, KCRW Design and Architecture

Because Waldie’s breadth of knowledge is so vast, his opinions so sharp and his loyalty so deep, he is especially articulate about what (Angelenos) have lost. – Nathan Deuel, Los Angeles Times

Photographs by Michael Kolster

Text by D. J. Waldie

George F. Thompson Publishing, 2019

This book is a revelation. … The illuminating text makes this a beautiful and utterly essential book for anyone intrigued by Los Angeles and its fraught history. – Jenny Watts, Curator of Photography & Visual Culture, The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens

Essay by D. J. Waldie

University of California Press, 2016

Waldie, a keen observer of Los Angeles, works through the paradox of establishing a sense of place in a city often accused of engendering a sense of placelessness. He suggests that we view Ruscha’s Los Angeles work as a memoir, a perspective that gives the artist’s notoriously deadpan gaze a more personal cast. – Amanda A. Douberley, Panorama: Journal of the Association of Historians of American Art

Photographs by Randi Malkin Steinberger

Text by D. J. Waldie

Bologna: Damiani Editore, 2016

Only a writer as good as D. J. Waldie could turn houses tented for termite spraying into a poignant piece on life in Southern California. – Sara Libby, Voice of San Diego

By Diane Keaton

Text by D. J. Waldie

Rizzoli, 2012

The volume stunningly portrays rusticated homes, aging farmhouses and crumbling lofts, all with beauty hidden beneath neglect and decay. – Papercity Magazine

It's a lavish and mesmerizing photographic poem to iconic simplicity in home design, with compelling images of barn-and factory-inspired homes. The underlying theme is that simplicity isn't simple, but metaphoric and resonant. – HousePlans.com

Genoa: Il Canneto Editore, 2011

By Diane Keaton

Text by D. J. Waldie

Rizzoli, 2007 and 2019

Noted historian D. J. Waldie lucidly explicates the architecture and provides an intimate tour of a historic and distinctly Californian lifestyle. – Arcana Books

Found photographs

Text by D. J. Waldie

J. Paul Getty Museum, 2004

Angel City Press, 2004

A breathtaking progression from his much-celebrated book Holy Land …, Where We Are Now is a compilation of Waldie's most intriguing recent works and an exploration of the meaning of place in Los Angeles, long regarded as the most "placeless" of American cities. – Angel City Press

Photographs by Marissa Roth

Text by D. J. Waldie

Angel City Press, 2001

W. W. Norton, 1995 and 2005

Although it’s labeled as such, to call [Holy Land] a memoir does not quite do justice to the magic it works, invoking the numinous in the anonymous through an almost sacramental act of attention. – James Mustich, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die

Infinitely moving and powerful, just dead-on right, and absolutely original – Joan Didion

A classic of American autobiography – Patricia Hampl, novelist and memoirist

Quirky, haunting and frequently breathtaking – David Eggers, Might

Verging on the haunting – Village Voice

Unusual and compelling – Publishers Weekly

A poetic, hypnotically appealing collection – People

An almost mystical memoir – The New Yorker