Next the book

Times columnist Steve Lopez has sold Putnam a book to be called Imagining Beethoven, based on his personal connection to the columns he has been writing about the homeless, Juilliard-trained musician Nathaniel Anthony Ayers. The experience of meeting Ayers on the downtown streets and helping him "triggers a personal reawakening for a Los Angeles Times reporter, and changes both of their lives forever," according to the Publishers Lunch blurb picked up by CaliforniaAuthors.com. The Times website has a page up about Lopez's series of Ayers columns.

Photo: Damon Winter/LAT