Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant Insight
Review: As a reader of non-fiction and an avid reader in general, I found this book hard to put down. The writing is lyric and colorful and the content cuts to the reality of the situation brushing away the glitz and glamour for some true insight. Beverly Hills is the home of the mythic American dream. But what is the dream like when it comes to fruition and can run wild? Weddle takes the reader through a fascinating journey from the Iranian population to the fading Vaudevillians, the nerdy millionaire acting out his flesh-fantasy to the mock security mavens, from the realtors peddling the palaces to the personalities destroyed by the weight of their dreams. Every American should read this book, because in many ways it mirrors our hopes and desires and sometimes what we see in the mirror just isn't pretty...and that makes for scintillating reading.
Rating:
Summary: Be Careful What You Ask For
Review: As a twenty-year resident of Beverly Hills, I found Among the Mansions of Eden fascinating. It's the first book I've read that actually talks about what happens here. Throughout his investigation into the checkered history of Beverly Hills, Weddle's wry pen skewers a series of what seem to be over-the-top archetypes, but by the time he's finished, he's deftly revealed them as very human beings driven by understandable demons. I expect his penetrating look into the drug scene and quiet racism of this town to draw intense criticism, but his observations match my first-hand knowledge. And his observations concerning the corrosive effects of too much "success" resonated long after I put the book down.
Rating:
Summary: Be Careful What You Ask For
Review: As a twenty-year resident of Beverly Hills, I found Among the Mansions of Eden fascinating. It's the first book I've read that actually talks about what happens here. Throughout his investigation into the checkered history of Beverly Hills, Weddle's wry pen skewers a series of what seem to be over-the-top archetypes, but by the time he's finished, he's deftly revealed them as very human beings driven by understandable demons. I expect his penetrating look into the drug scene and quiet racism of this town to draw intense criticism, but his observations match my first-hand knowledge. And his observations concerning the corrosive effects of too much "success" resonated long after I put the book down.
Rating: 
Summary: A vulgarian at the gates
Review: Beverly Hills is a very wierd place. It's like Mayberry RFD in some ways- if Aunt Bee was played by Ann-Margret. Basically a small (albeit very wealthy) town plunked down in the middle of Los Angeles, it has it's own government, Police, and Fire departments and is for the most part entirely seperate from Los Angeles. It's home to the super-rich, the merely well off, and the not-at-all rich (moi). There's a lot of history to mine and a really great book in this town waiting for someone to write it. This ain't it. The problem with Weddle's book is that, time and time again, he skewers some of the admittedly rather foolish denizens of 90210 with cheap shots. The problem with that is that it makes the author look like the foolish one. If you can wade through the too-too-snide references to womens overly painted lips or mens receding gumlines, you may like this book. I couldn't, and didn't.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious and Revealing
Review: I found "Among the Mansions of Eden" to be a hilarious and riveting study of the rich who go to Beverly Hills to build their personal monuments. David Weddle lays bare the fallacy of materialism. He does this not by simply ridiculing the materialists--though god knows they ask for it--but by getting inside their heads and understanding their doomed aspirations. He sees that materialism is a romantic impulse, heartfelt and desperate. The wealthy erect their impossibly oversized palaces in the hope that they can build a perfect world and thus bring grace and contentment to their lives. By looking to the outside world and material achievement instead if within for fulfillment they of course end up failing, but do so spectacularly. This book is full of unforgettable characters: greedy real estate hustlers, aging movie stars, porno kings who aspire to emulate Hugh Hefner, Iranian refugees who arrived in Beverly Hills with millions of dollars stuffed in their pockets, high school druggies, body guards to the stars and snake oil salesmen who struck it big through infomercials. It is not just about the wealthy, but all of us who are endlessly fascinated by their outrageous exploits. It is about one version of the American Dream that Beverly Hills has come to represent--a twisted and corrosive dream but one that has a everlasting hold on the American imagination.
Rating:
Summary: Wildly entertaining and informative popular history
Review: In Among the Mansions of Eden David Weddle tells the wildly entertaining, absolutely true story of Beverly Hills from the perspective of land and real-estate development, how movie stars, moguls, and agents, captains of industry and lords of finance, bankers, oil barons, dealmakers, speculators, highrollers and lowballers, old Eastern wealth and new Western fortunes transformed some two square miles of dirt at the base of the Santa Monica mountains into a synthetic paradise of almost unimaginable wealth, building massive pleasure-palace homes of preposterous lurxury and the most lavishly borrowed grandeur that money can buy. Superbly written, first rate in every way.
Rating:
Summary: Among the Mansions of Eden
Review: Mr. Weddle is our Virgil taking us on a tour of some of the poshest circles in the world. Lifting the curtain he allows us access to a world we can only dream about, to discover a nightmare world of bloated egos as well as bankbooks, that sadly proves ephemeral. Intriguing, eye-opening and fun!
Rating:
Summary: A Great Real Estate History of Beverly Hills
Review: Originally born in California, I travel often to Los Angeles on business and pleasure and enjoy looking at Westside real estate and staying at the Peninsula Hotel. While this book limits it's history to Beverly Hills leaving out other interesting areas like Bel Air, it does a magnificent job of summarizing the history of 90210 as well as chronologically tracing the changes in the city. Some of the significant stories that I liked were the history of the original developer, the influx of what were considered lower status people, ie, actors, the history of the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Arab influence in the 1970s and the changing retail environment of the Golden Triangle. This book also has some great pictures. My personal favorite was the BH Hotel with massive empty land all around. If you've been by in the last 30 years you know how weird empty land appears. This book also devotes a chapter to a Howard Hefner wannabe who started Perfect 10 magazine. Beverly Hills definitely attracts beautiful women, many of whom are looking for a way to live in the mansions. Also, there is a great chapter on the founder of Herbalife who came from nothing to own a great old mansion while planning to build a 40,000 sq. foot mansion. One year later, he's dead. If you want a history of Beverly Hills and what it is like to live there, this is the perfect book.
Rating:
Summary: A Great Real Estate History of Beverly Hills
Review: Originally born in California, I travel often to Los Angeles on business and pleasure and enjoy looking at Westside real estate and staying at the Peninsula Hotel. While this book limits it's history to Beverly Hills leaving out other interesting areas like Bel Air, it does a magnificent job of summarizing the history of 90210 as well as chronologically tracing the changes in the city. Some of the significant stories that I liked were the history of the original developer, the influx of what were considered lower status people, ie, actors, the history of the Beverly Hills Hotel, the Arab influence in the 1970s and the changing retail environment of the Golden Triangle. This book also has some great pictures. My personal favorite was the BH Hotel with massive empty land all around. If you've been by in the last 30 years you know how weird empty land appears. This book also devotes a chapter to a Howard Hefner wannabe who started Perfect 10 magazine. Beverly Hills definitely attracts beautiful women, many of whom are looking for a way to live in the mansions. Also, there is a great chapter on the founder of Herbalife who came from nothing to own a great old mansion while planning to build a 40,000 sq. foot mansion. One year later, he's dead. If you want a history of Beverly Hills and what it is like to live there, this is the perfect book.
Rating:
Summary: Gatsby 's west coast estate
Review: This book has been crying out to be written for a long time. Most movieland books endlessly rejig and recycle the same worn material. MANSIONS OF EDEN uncovers new ground. (If anyone is interested - the other book I've been longing to read is a good juicy account of Hollywood on the Tiber - a sword and sandals extra tells all..). While Weddle has an anthropologists sharp eye for the posing and life schemes of his subjects, he takes their quest seriously - that common human aim for "the good life". And he shows the inevitable canker in the rose, how in our desires lie the seeds of our own destruction. I can see Scott Fitzgerald, the disregarded guest hovering by an empty Hockney swimming pool just as much as I can see Zsa Zsa and all her clones flitting anxiously on their self appointed merry go rounds. The human show of Vanity Fair is alive and well. And most of these tales we have not heard before. This book won't date.
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