If this is LA's hot new literary scene, please spare me. A third world local. Fixation on murder. Tattoos. Shabby surroundings. Junk music. Writing for your peers rather than the public. Writing programs at "increasingly prestigious" universities. Chin-pierced clerks. This is no place for a Torah Jew.

Skylight is the hub of the "underground"? To me, underground should be a bit unhinged, and to me, in Los Feliz that's Aldine's, bulging with fungal shelves of both pristine and rotting classics, and especially whole collections from the recently deceased of the Hollywood Hills. No publicity to be had there, no events, but it's still the best place to go if you suddenly need an old Granta or a copy of The Adventures of Augie March, or even a pinpoint, dimple-by-dimple discussion on the merits of any new talent at Jumbo's Clown Room.

I saw Alexander Cockburn in there once. After he left, another writer said to me, "Another one of those guys who write left and sleep right." You don't get that kind of incisive invective at Skylight, though the tailless tabby does add a dollop of character.

This quote -- "finding commonality - if not actual community - inside this culture of endless freeways, gated communities, cellphones, and liposuction" -- grates. Why is it necessary to trot out a bunch of lame LA cliches in the effort to describe some supposedly "underground" alternative scene? ... And btw if Skylight Books is the undergound, then I guess I'm a hell of a lot hipper than I thought.

For those east of the 710, LA only exists as editors imagine it to be.

I did all I could to like Aldine's, and ultimately I've found it to be terrible. The organization is wretched even by fungi-ridden used bookstore standards, the talkative proprietor is reluctant to buy books, and (most unforgivably), the prices are usually quite high (I've found exactly one useful bargain in a dozen visits). For great used books, a whip-smart proprietor & and a robust L.A./California section, I'd recommend Other Times Books on Pico.]

And Luke, I don't know exactly what makes a place "third world" in your weird head, but if it's about crime, I feel a hell of a lot safer near Skylight than around your neighborhood....

Forgive me. Angelenos discussing bookstores is like San Franciscans discussing the stars on Hollywood Boulevard. Since moving to L.A. two (!) years ago, I've actually written favorite new and used independent bookstores in San Francisco and Berkeley begging them to open a store -- ANY STORE -- down here. So far, no interest, with good reason.

I've learned to love L.A. just as it is, but give me a break.

Vroman's isn't good enough? Oxy's bookstore isn't good, either?

Rachel ~

I had hope, but Vroman's was the biggest eye-rolling, "I give up" disappointment of all. (I do like Pasadena and Alta Dena, however.)

We have two great cities in California, and one of them is the country's second largest book market. I'd be happy to recommend a weekend trip to San Francisco and Berkeley bookstores that could delight and enlighten.

In the meantime:

http://www.blackoakbooks.com
(My personal favorite on Shattuck in Berkeley.)

http://www.nciba.com/bestsell.html
(Northern California Independent Booksellers)

http://www.greenapplebooks.com

http://pegasus.booksense.com/NASApp/store/IndexJsp

http://www.bookpassage.com

http://www.citylights.com
(Need I say more? Locals really do love City Lights.)

And, of course, every book lover should go to Powell's in Portland at least once in their life.

http://www.powells.com

Anyway. I've learned to love L.A. -- very much -- just as it is.

Funny, Skylight doesn't look like the kind of place you'd find a Torah Jew. And yet I hear one is going to class up our little corner of the Third World with his presence on Sunday...

Reading between the lines of Herb Caen Jr.'s comments and judging by his eye-rolling at Vroman's I suspect what he's looking for is not so much a bookstore as a clubhouse. We don't do clubhouses. One difference between Gomorrah-by-Glendale and Baghdad-by-the-Bay is that while L.A. could be ten times the city it is, San Francisco can't; what it is (fine as that is) is all it's ever going to be. In the interest of world peace, let me just say that if through some kind of time/space alchemy we could combine the attributes of San Francisco and Los Angeles we WOULD have a city to rival New York.

Speaking of the Glendale which Gomorrah is by, BookFellows on Brand Boulevard is not to be missed.

Robert ~

I'll check out Bookfellows some time. Thank you (and thank you Rachel).

(The thing is, San Francisco and Berkeley have bookstores like L.A. has Starbucks. More, several to a block in many areas. You'd have to live and love there to grok this deep cultural difference.)

I've never been a club joiner -- just the opposite, not even close. It's new and used "stock, stock, stock" and only stock (and atmosphere and book addict employees who understand and respect the privacy of browsing while still capable of Cockburn invectives) that puts a bookstore on my map. My favorite bookstores usually have stacks and stacks of used books waiting to be shelved among the shelves and shelves of new books . . . .

The part of me that will always be a Herbette Caen sees the Herb Caen of L.A. somewhere in and around Kevin's outstanding blog. I'm finding it bittersweet that I've found here -- through reading Leaving Los Angeles -- what appear to be the last five people who care as much about L.A. as I knew I'd find myself caring. (I apparently did miss Philippe's better days. And Chinatown's. And Venice's. And . . . . ) I know that can't be true. I'm sure it isn't.

The (inner) space/time alchemy might be starting to happen. L.A. is as close to New York as I can get for now, if you know what I mean.

It is a natural fact that wherever you live in this world, there are about five and a half billion people living somewhere else. Ergo, to imagine that there is a single best place in the world to live is a little bit silly. I am sure San Francisco has excellencies that Los Angeles will never match and I wish them the joy of it. (Angelenos are like the Ba’hai: We like everybody and everybody hates us.) Nevertheless, there is and long has been a creative energy in Los Angeles that San Francisco simply cannot match, regardless of how much sidewalk culture they have. What I hate about Los Angeles, more than I hate smog or minimalls or the “improvements” Fox made in Dodger Stadium, is the endless stream of people who come here imagining they carry a penumbra of superiority from wherever it is they come from and incessantly piss and moan about how inadequate everything here is. They don’t make a better place to live, they make it worse. When you go to a well and intelligently stocked bookstore like Vroman’s and can only roll your eyes at the inadequacy of it all, I can only think you fall in this category. What I truly envy about New York is the way New Yorkers stick up for it, and rally around it when it’s in trouble. These are not the best of times for L.A., and it’s going to get worse before it gets better, and I wish all the fair weather sailors would just shove off.

Now that I think of it, though, outside of the fiction and poetry sections a bookstore can be filled with coloring books for all I know or care. I've always found L.A. bookstores more than adequate for what I'm interested in, but they could be deficient in other areas.

Last post on this thread I suppose: went to Cal and spent wads of time at Ed Hunholts (now closed), Shakespeare (now closed), Moe's, Cody's, University Press Books and the UC Bookstore. Loved 'em all. When I could, hit stores in SF too. (Didn't know about Kepler's near Stanford until a friend went there for her PhD.) In LA for work since 1985, love Brand in Glendale and Vroman's in Pasadena, Dutton's and all those. The problem with LA is spatial: you gotta drive everywhere. In SF it feels as if everything is within three blocks of each other; in Berkeley, two blocks. Advantage, Bay Area.

Once upon a time (i.e., only about five years before Mr. Beste's) there were about 30 bookstores on Hollywood Boulevard and a similar number on Westwood. Now all gone with white flight, property values, crack . . .

But I love to drive around--you always see something new! New place to eat, to shop,to hang out--and I can see weird people, too. I love it here. On my block, I can see old-money Pasadena and drive for 1/2 hour and see FOB Chinese and then another 1/2 hour and see movie stars. And eat all the way.

...And, dangit, Barnes & Noble and Borders don't help matters.

Does anybody know what the deal is with the guy who runs the Oriental Bookstore in Pasadena?

Robert ~

I am truly sorry if I offended you or anyone else in any way. It honestly was not my intention. My bad, and my too easily misunderstood sense of humor.

You're right. Whatever the rich depths of my love and affection for my chosen new home, I am not a truly informed lifelong residential Angeleno and do not belong commenting here.

Accept my apologies.