Don Shirley: Pianists make history
Iris Schneider on Annie Leibovitz
A shooting on camera. A local news paywall. Media notes, media people, selected tweets and more.
Archive: Books
A shooting on camera. A local news paywall. Media notes, media people, selected tweets and more.
A few quick photos from behind the scenes at the Huntington Library in San Marino.
That leaves one chain bookstore west of the Grove, unless you count the new Amazon store in Century City.
NPR staffers won't face a strike. Obits for Martin Landau, George Romero, Bill Smith and Tenny Tenusian. Selected tweets.
Sen. Franken was on KPCC Friday and is talking about his new book in Beverly Hills (twice) and in Glendale.
I will be moderating a journalism panel on Monday night and then, on Saturday, signing and schmoozing at the Times book festival.
The Los Angeles entertainment journalist and author of "Sunset Boulevard: Cruising The Heart of Los Angeles” has died of cancer.
"A giant of American film criticism," Kenneth Turan says of Schickel, the longtime Time critic, author and documentary maker.
The top contender for the title of preeminent observer of our state "chronicled the history of California as no one else," Gov. Jerry Brown said.
The Rams' return to LA has been a disaster, but a new book by Jim Hock remembers when the NFL team's relationship with the city was something special.
Queuing to vote across LA, Trump's last stand, and why the sports department hates election night.
This year's local genius grant winners have ties to USC, Caltech and CalArts.
See was "the defining voice for a certain kind of California experience in the mid-’70s and 1980s."
Coming, goings, awards and Donald Trump. Plus that LAT photographer pleads no contest and gets community service.
Big sale starts today then the Brand Boulevard shop will move online.
Forty years before "Spotlight" reminded movie-goers what reporters actually do, ATPM was the film making college students want to study journalism.
He wins in the nonfiction category for book about the heroin epidemic in middle-class America.
Click on the photo to enlarge. LA Observed photo from Sunday. Hennessey + Ingalls, the arts and architecture bookstore that shocked its fans by announcing last fall it was moving...
The former LA Times food editor donated upwards of 500 cookbooks to the Long Beach Public Library. But it wasn't easy.
The former LA Times book editor takes over for the retired Malcolm Margolin.
The Belmont Shore booksellers have been in business together for 23 years in different locations.
The proprietors of Traveler's Bookcase on West 3rd Street announced to customers via email that they are in the process of shutting down. The closing clearance sale begins today and...
She has been the section's writer and, for now, is the only staffer remaining. "Her job will go beyond the printed word to explore ideas, film, art and society," the memo says.
Michael Hamilburg was the book agent for Jim Morrison, Jackie Robinson, Vincent Bugliosi and many other writers — as well as a number of Los Angeles journalists through the years....
The Chronicle of Higher Education piles on the praise, saying there's now "an LARB style" of reviewing.
Author Ed Humes returns to his Register roots to collaborate on a long tale of how Orange County authorities messed up the prosecution of the confessed Seal Beach salon murderer.
Book critic David Ulin announced on Facebook that he is taking the buyout offer from the Los Angeles Times. Effective Tuesday.
Twenty years later, Amazon has decided what it really needs is a physical, brick and mortar retail store to sell books.
"For the right candidate, this presents an amazing opportunity to lead a nonprofit book publishing company in a period of growth."
The 52-year-old bookstore is leaving Santa Monica for a new 5,000-foot bookstore space at One Santa Fe.
Al Jazeera America goes for an Eastside tour with Sesshu Foster, "the poet laureate of a vanishing neighborhood."
In Topanga Canyon in 1963, even the doctors got stoned and took acid. Plus: Sacks in the most colorful green room in town.
Sacks announced in a February Op-ed piece that he had spreading cancer and was detaching from big world concerns like the Middle East and global warming. "My generation is on the way out…"
Lauren Lipton's reply to a request for free help was beyond frosty. The phrase "the rapacious Ms. Huffington" was written.
Google Doodle honors 125th birthday of the Olympic champion swimmer and father of surfing — the subject of an upcoming biography by David Davis.
City Hall politics, media items, books news and place notes, including Maria Sharapova at Gjusta.
In his new memoir about surfing, the New Yorker staff writer remembers the hot and dry, white, inland place that spawned him. We help him a little with the origin story of Tarzana.
Cheuse was injured in a crash near Santa Cruz two weeks ago.
The business columnist provides a new biography of Ernest Lawrence, the Berkeley physicist who played a big role in the envelopment of atomic weapons.
An Underwood used by the late actress joins those of Ray Bradbury, Truman Capote and other famous typists in the Soboroff collection.
"To Live and Dine in L.A.," "Life #6" and Brian Grazer's "A Curious Mind" are among the nominees.
Her book does not include Jackie Fuchs' details of being raped by Kim Fowley, the band's creepy creator. Here's why.
The journalist and author tried to make it work after being laid off by the LA Times. But it's more complicated than that.
Jim Newton will write the next book on Jerry Brown "and the creation of modern California." Plus Diana Wagman, Holly Madison, William Mulholland, Josh Kun and more.
In a piece for the Cal State LA campus magazine, Connelly goes to the lab that provides many scenes for his books and Amazon original series, "Bosch."
Wrigley Field has a new goat or hero, depending on your view. Plus two new books on the Dodgers.
Ring was the assistant who hid F. Scott Fitzgerald's drinking by dumping his empty gin bottles in Sepulveda Canyon in the months before he died.
Janis Heaphy Durham, a former VP of advertising at the LA Times, may have a bestseller with her book about paranormal events after the death of her husband.
I'll be around schmoozing and signing on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Hope to meet some more of you. Plus Bill Boyarsky, Jon Christensen, Cari Beauchamp and more.
The video is not only safe for work, it's safe for children. "Can I get a little censorship outrage here?" the publisher of Pasadena's Prospect Park Books asks.
Martin J. Smith writes about a book tour through the West in twin mini-vans. Plus David Ulin on The Offing, a new literary magazine in Los Angeles.
"The Swap: A Mystery," the first novel by our friend Nancy Boyarsky, has been voted as the top London mystery by the readers at Goodreads.
This week's "SoCal Connected" on KCET features the author and founder of Tia Chucha's Centro Cultural & Bookstore.
The block in Pacific Palisades is being torn down for Rick Caruso's newest shopping area. But Bob Vickrey remembers.
The depth of reporting by LAT reporter makes 'Serial' resemble a book of poetry, says the reviewer.
A memorial for Al Martinez will be held Feb. 8 at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica.
Books by the two former LA Times journalists are finalists for the prestigious American literary awards for 2014.
The house is mostly gone already. Architect Thom Mayne may be the owner.
Laid-off LA Times writer Scott Timberg's new book about the pressures on journalism and the creative class is out, reviewed by the Columbia Journalism Review.
Serros is the author of "Chicana Falsa," "How to be a Chicana Role Model" and "Honey Blonde Chica," among other works.
Photo: The staffers at Skylight Books in Los Feliz leave no doubt how they feel about Bill Cosby and the allegations of sexual drugging and rape piling up against the performer.
Tyler Green, the arts critic and reporter who writes Modern Art Notes, has signed a deal to write a biography about Watkins for UC Press.
The man who drove Tribune into bankruptcy plans a "personal and professional memoir [with] compelling stories about his biggest deals and share tips for entrepreneurs who want to follow in his footsteps.” Snicker.
If your Christmas shopping list includes books, here is some guidance on what others are reading. As always, the differences between SoCal and national bestseller lists are curious.
Co-owner and general manager Kerry Slattery told the staff last night she is retiring and turning over management of the store to Mary Williams, the events manager at Skylight.
Book selling giant Amazon and publisher Hachette announced this morning that they have signed a new multiyear contract, ending their bitter public dispute over book pricing.
Nice Lisa Napoli interview on KCRW with Harvey Kubernik, the author of "Turn Up the Radio: Rock, Pop, and Roll in Los Angeles 1956-1972."
I haven't yet read former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan's autobiography, but Jim Rainey of the LA Times has. Rainey covered City Hall when Riordan was mayor.
Hilburn profiled Simon for the LA Times during a 1987 stop in Zimbabwe on Simon's tour for "Graceland." Simon & Schuster acquired the book at auction.
Siegel was the co-creator and writer of the original Superman comic books. He purchased his Royal portable in 1938.
Moore, the author of two books set in surfing culture, was taken captive while working on a book about Somali pirates. He had moved to Berlin from the South Bay before going to Africa.
Tobar, a former foreign correspondent, has most recently been a staff writer in books. His book on the buried Chilean miners comes out next month.
To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Heyday just published a collection of oral histories: "The Heyday of Malcolm Margolin: The Damn Good Times of a Fiercely Independent Publisher."
The emeritus professor at Annenberg was a prolific author and had been a correspondent for the New York Times and Look, and a writer for the late Valley Times newspaper.
There used to be a car club in Los Angeles -- maybe still is -- devoted to 1957 Chevys. The hold of that model and year is now the subject of a book on the backstory of a single car.
Our weekly novelist was interviewed by Los Angeles magazine. Meanwhile, columnists Jon Christensen and Mark Gold were both on KPCC today talking about issues around the water main break that deluged part of UCLA.
Capote purchased the Smith-Corona electric here in 1970 and kept it in his writing room at the Bel Air home of close friend Joanne Carson. It was used for Capote's last three books.
David Allen, the columnist for the Inland Valley Bulletin, is a fan of the Brand Bookshop in Glendale and isn't happy at all to hear that it's closing soon.
An excerpt from Steve Oney's upcoming book about the history and future of NPR.
Owner John Evans says the store will likely be gone by Sept. 21, months before the lease ends. Not enough business to justify the rent.
A noted local runner as a teenager, Zamperini competed in the Berlin Olympics in 1936 and during World War II survived 47 days adrift on a raft in the Pacific and years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. He was working on a new book with David Rensin when he died and a film of "Unbroken" is due out in December.
The Cheviot Drive home where Ray Bradbury lived and wrote for 50 years has been listed for sale at $1.495 million. It's open on Sunday.
Francine Prose's new novel is "Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932." Tickets are from Live Talks LA for Thursday night in Santa Monica.
Red and yellow books arranged on shelves. The Last Bookstore, Downtown Los Angeles.
Editor Tom Lutz notes the milestones after three years since the first review was published on a temporary Tumblr site, and points out the review is now entirely on its...
Come by and chat at the Angel City Press booth between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Plus: Tonight's winners of the LA Times Book Prizes.
Channel 4's investigation of tour bus accidents and Lawrence Wright's "Going Clear" are cited by the judges, as well as an investigation into LA-area rehab scams. Details inside.
"Rewire: Digital Cosmopolitans in the Age of Connection" is in the view of the judges 2013’s most illuminating and compelling nonfiction book about community and human connectedness.
The mystery bookstore at 1118 Mission Street will close at the end of April after 24 years. Owners Mary Riley and Barry Martin are retiring.
On a nice day, in a small town, the customers never stopped coming in. Bart's provides everything that the failed book chains never figured out. Including sunshine.
The American Ballet Theater soloist we wrote about here the other day will speak Thursday night at Bergamot Station.
This farewell note went out to the Los Angeles Times newsroom today from former staff writer Sam Quinones. He's off to freelance and write books, most immediately about America's new upper middle class heroin epidemic.
The Live Talks LA event is Wednesday night in Santa Monica. Claim tickets at the link inside.
Luis J. Rodríguez, the author and recently announced candidate for governor of California, writes in a new collection about an exchange with lowrider aficionados in Japan.
I should have posted this sooner, and now the event is tonight at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. But here you go. It's with Live Talks LA.
This is pretty awesome. Ernie Marquez, a member of the land-grant family that owned Santa Monica Canyon, grew up in the canyon himself and later in life became an LA historian and collector of historical photographs.
Encephalitis was the reason that Healy resigned last year after just nine months as LA's first official poet laureate. She is recovering.
After 28 years in business, Mrs. Nelson's Toy and Book Shop will close in January, the store announced in a note that cites the inability to compete with online sales and big box stores.
Putting stars on bikes: good idea. I had never heard of Susan Peters and her story until the 2012 book, "Hollywood Rides a Bike: Cycling With the Stars," by Philadelphia film critic Steven Rea and my friends at Angel City Press.
B&N has developed this distasteful practice of shuttering bookstores at the close of business on New Year's Eve. That's when the Old Pasadena store turns out the lights for good.
The shuttering of bookstores has been a perpetual story for the past decade in Los Angeles. These are the booksellers that have shuttered since LA Observed began posting.
Russo's is "the only independent general bookstore between Santa Clarita and Sacramento." The Bakersfield store expects to close January 31.
The staff of the Los Angeles Public Library has once again offered its recommendations for the best books of 2013. Here are the lists.
Nine years after first opening in Malibu (at another location), the owners of Diesel, A Bookstore say they need to get out and focus on their other stores. “We’re just...
The Los Angeles poet "was a key figure in the literary life of Los Angeles....[and] helped transform the city's literature." Update: An appreciation by David Ulin.
When we last heard about journalist Michael Krikorian, he had written a colorful and revealing op-ed piece about the night he shot some guy in a brawl near Compton. His first crime novel features an LA Times crime reporter who is shot after leaving a bar two blocks from City Hall.
Early in the morning of February 25, 2008, I posted an item that I hoped not to ever post. "It is with profound regret and sorrow that Dutton's Brentwood Books must announce that it will be closing...."
I will be leading the conversation with NPR's media reporter for Zócalo Public Square on Monday night in Culver City. Come to the event or shoot me an email.
Part 2 of an excerpt adapted from "San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb" for the 100th anniversary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct.
If you were a fan of Scott Turow's early blockerbuster legal thrillers, you will possibly remember that in the film version of "Presumed Innocent," Brian Dennehy played prosecuting attorney Raymond Horgan.
A couple of the chapters in my book on the San Fernando Valley deal with the Los Angeles Aqueduct and how abundant water changed the city and the valley. It holds up, I'm pleased to say. For this week's anniversary, here's an adapted version.
Erica Jong is out marking the 40th anniversary of "Fear of Flying." The tickets are for Wednesday evening.
David Allen, the columnist for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, recently went on vacation in Northern California. For him, nine days on the road means stops at record stores and bookstores.
Nahai alleges that USC and the head of the Master of Professional Writing program have “derailed [her] career, livelihood, and spirit” and that she has been “systematically discriminated against because she is an Iranian Jew.” USC says the case is "wholly without merit."
I haven't been to enough Writers Bloc events to know if a standing ovation is usual when the author simply comes on stage, but that's what happened tonight in Santa Monica.
It feels like the Pasadena bookseller Cliff's Books has been in liquidation mode all year. But Steve Barkan noticed a new level of signage today.
Plesko, the Budapest-born author "known for Beat Generation-inspired novels," died on Monday morning after jumping from the roof of the building where he lived in Venice, the authorities said.
Marty McMorrow is an independent author who took a different tack to market his memoir of life in the 1960s and beyond. He bought space on a billboard along Interstate 10 outside Blythe.
In "Remembering Malibu," Heaney wrote lovingly of the Pacific shore after lunch with novelist Brian Moore on the bluffs. Heaney died in Dublin after a short illness.
We have unpublished a post about the late author Amy Wallace that was misconstrued as an obituary and offended some of her friends with its tone. "I share my condolences with Amy Wallace's family and friends," the post's author, Adrienne Crew, writes.
The latest fan of books to write glowingly about the 5th Street store is from The Paris Review.
The New York Times says new books could start to appear in 2015. Watch the trailer inside for the upcoming film, to screen in limited release starting Sept. 6.
PEN Center USA will have old friend Harrison Ford present its lifetime achievement award to Joan Didion at the group's October dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Ed Leibowitz of Los Angeles Magazine wins the journalism award.
The master of the crime novel and the writer of many screenplays and books that were turned into movies died at home in Michigan after suffering a stroke. "A modern master of American genre writing," says the New York Times.
The LA Times did run an obituary right away on the passing of Jean Renoir in 1979. Then a couple of appreciations. Then Welles weighed in, says a copy editor who checked.
Steve Wasserman, the former Los Angeles Times books editor, has some fun remembering his friend Orson Welles in a piece for the LA Review of Books. He tells how the Times in 1979 was about to drop the ball on the death in Beverly Hills of director Jean Renoir when Wasserman, then a deputy editor of the LAT's Sunday Opinion section, decided to somehow get in touch with Welles.
From Marc Ambinder, the Los Angeles-based contributing editor at GQ and The Atlantic.
The campaign expired yesterday with just $1,268 pledged, far short of the $23,000 sought.
Archbishop Jose Gomez steps into the national debate on immigration reform in his new book. He reminds people that this land was Catholic and Spanish-speaking before it was American, but Daily News columnist Tim Rutten calls the work strange and confounding.
Williams Book Store in San Pedro opened in 1909 but in recent years has been operating on fumes. The store was all set to close, the Daily Breeze reports, when a flurry of sales last week and a meeting with the landlord bought the store another month or so, until at least San Pedro's 125th birthday celebration on Aug. 6.
Richard Matheson wrote "I Am Legend," which was turned into films three times, and also wrote 16 episodes of the original "Twilight Zone" television series for Rod Serling. He was the screenwriter as well for "Duel," Steven Spielberg's 1971 TV movie debut.
Tom Lutz, the founding editor and publisher of the LA Review of Books, and Kurt Olerud of KO Pictures are co-producers on a feature documentary about the literary culture and history of Los Angeles. Or they hope to be anyway. They are looking to raise $23,000 in a month. Video inside.
In an era before CGI, Harryhausen used clay monsters and mythical creatures to bring life to live-action adventure films like 'Clash of the Titans,' 'Valley of the Gwangi' and 'Jason and the Argonauts. He was one of the sci-fi club members who patronized Clifton's with Ray Bradbury in the 1930s.
If you have been following the ruckus over Wikipedia editors deleting women from the list of American novelists, and moving them to a separate list of female novelists, it keeps getting worse. Note also just how retrograde the trolls are who seek revenge via "edits" on Wikipedia.
I will be signing "Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles" and "The San Fernando Valley: America's Suburb" at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. Look for me at the Angel City Press booth and around the grounds.
The Los Angeles Times announced this year's book prize winners last night at USC's Bovard Auditorium, on the eve of the Festival of Books held this weekend on campus at USC. Kevin Starr, the California historian and former state librarian, received the Robert Kirsch Award. He had won the LAT prize in history in 2009. List of winners inside.
Barely a year after founder Otis Y. Chandler hailed Goodreads' "independence" from Amazon's technology by saying "we will celebrate January 30th for years to come!," Chandler has announced that his startup is "joining the Amazon family." Goodreads will continue but there will be more integration with the Kindle. Reaction around the book blogosphere is initially skeptical.
This year's winner of the third annual book prize (and $5,000) from the folks at Zócalo Public Square is social psychologist Jonathan Haidt for "The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion."
The LA civic leader who really likes old typewriters has picked up the 21st machine for his collection.
Domenic Priore, the author of "Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood,” wants the city of West Hollywood to designate the former Tower Records store on Sunset Boulevard (across from Book Soup) as a Strip-themed cultural resource center.
Been a while since I posted an early look at the bestselling books in Southern California's independent bookstores. Here are the top books through sales of Sunday.
When the writer Nora Ephron died last June of acute myeloid leukemia, a disease she had been fighting for years, many in the media and literary worlds were surprised. She had not made her illness a big part of her public life.
Author and New Yorker writer Susan Orlean has a deal with Simon & Schuster to write a nonfiction book about urban libraries, based around the Los Angeles Public Library downtown. Apparently her starting point is the 1986 fire.
KCRW joined with Writers Bloc tonight to pack a couple of hundred people in the new Moss Theater on the Westside. The draw was New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright talking with Kim Masters, host of "The Business" on KCRW, about "Going Clear," his new book that authoritatively gives further exposure to the unusualness of the Church of Scientology.
Grantland runs an exclusive first look at the cover of Phil Jackson's new book, coming in May.
Barry will discuss his new book, "Insane City," with Matt Groening at Live Talks LA on Thursday. For us he talks about Neil Diamond, Justin Bieber and the difference between Miami and LA, and he has some advice for the Lakers. Check it out inside.
Acclaimed author Barry Lopez lives now in Oregon, but he grew up in the San Fernando Valley in the 1940s and 50s. He writes in this month's Harper's about being sexually abused for four years by a North Hollywood sanitarium doctor who pretended to court his divorced mother.
Tony Peyser saw our item this week on the potential closing of Cliff's Books in Pasadena and remembered a poem he wrote after visiting the store a few years ago.
What is it about non-Angelenos becoming so obsessed with old filming locations that they spend years tracking down obscure shots and facts — then write books about their discoveries that become chronicles of LA history? When you grow up in Los Angeles, you get used to seeing familiar sights in the background of movies and TV shows. You just stop thinking about it.
For 25 years, Cliff's Books has survived just a half-block from Vroman's on Colorado Boulevard. Now everything in Cliff's large inventory is on sale for 50% off and they are hoping for a buyer to show up — and soon.
The shutdown of the Barnes & Noble store in the Westfield Promenade shopping center leaves just two of the book chain outlets in the Valley, none of them within the city of Los Angeles portion (population about 1.5 million people.) The company had no comment.
Healy is the author of seven books and emeritus professor of creative writing at LA's Antioch University.
The staff of the Los Angeles Public Library has some thoughts on which books of 2012 are most worth reading: fiction, nonfiction, teen and children's.
In a piece at the Los Angeles Review of Books getting some nice social media buzz, Laurie Winer considers Wallace and the reality, and literature, of depression and suicide. Plus: a pitch to donate.
Los Angeles journalist John Johnson and his co-author, Joel Selvin, have finished "Peppermint Tiwst," their book on the nightclubs where the mob discovered through "The Twist" that there was money in rock and roll music. "The Sopranos meets American Bandstand," Ronnie Spector blurbs. With some fun video.
The unused drawers in Doheny Library now have locks on them and can be used by university donors to leave gifts for their families — just the right shape for wine bottles, apparently.
Reagh took 40,000 photographs of Los Angeles and Southern California from the 1930s until 1991, chronicling a time of huge change in the cityscape and the people of LA. A major new book that showcases a selection of Reagh's work promises to be a must-have for the Angeleno buff you know — even at $225 per copy. Here is a gallery of Reagh's photos through the decades.
Photos from upstairs at The Last Bookstore, on 5th Street in Downtown.
For his new book documenting the rock and roll billboards of the Sunset Strip, Robert Landau wondered what happened to Paul's head from Abbey Road. Now we know, 43 years later. Pics and video inside.
Catherine Davis, the Los Feliz woman bludgeoned to death last week by an emotionally disturbed actor, was the mother of the Los Angeles author-journalist Margaret Leslie Davis, and had a large family of friends in Hollywood who had stayed at her "writers villa" through the years.
Prospect Park publisher Colleen Dunn Bates created the site in 2006 as a companion to the book "Hometown Pasadena."
Live Talks Los Angeles is back for a new season of what sound like they will be provocative, entertaining or enlightening discussions mavened by Ted Habte-Gabr. Up this Thursday is author T.C. Boyle, talking about his new novel, "San Miguel."
The job opening was posted without explanation of what the vacancy may say about the incumbent deputy. The Times book department is down to three full-timers who all contribute reviews, features and blog posts, including this week's "Is creativity better in the nude?"
Pam van Hylckama reported Thursday on Twitter (she blogs as Bookalicious) that a man tried to carjack her, but he was bitten by her dog and fled the scene. She reported it to police, who checked her email for any particularly virulent sounding threats. Apparently they saw one from a rejected author that seemed suspicious, went to the man's home and found bite marks on his arm.
This labyrinth of 250,000 remaindered, new and used books is installed at The Clore Ballroom in the Royal Festival Hall in London. Check out the Bookshelf Porn page.
Scott Timberg's recent series of pieces for Salon on the struggles of architects, journalists, video store clerks and others in the "creative class" has got him a book deal with Yale University Press. The book, tentatively titled "Creative Destruction," is supposed to "detail the evisceration of an entire class of cultural workers under the onslaught of warp-speed technological change, economic slump, and both longstanding and shifting attitudes regarding the values of art and the creative life."
Gary Platt, 86 years old and retired, has put up a community book exchange and lending library on the curb in front of his house in Woodland Hills. Lily's Library is named for his granddaughter.
Seth Rosenfeld's book "Subversives: The F.B.I.’s War on Student Radicals, and Reagan’s Rise to Power” looks at how Ronald Reagan, both as a liberal turned anti-Communist crusader in Hollywood then as candidate and governor, helped the FBI and made use of his relationship with FBI director J. Edgar Hoover to get information not available to others. Some of that assistance involved his children, daughter Maureen and son Michael.
Author Michael Connelly is known for his LA mystery novels, but he lives in Florida these days and sat down in Tampa with Warren Olney on KCRW to talk about the sides of town the Republicans may not be seeing.
The trompe l'oeil bookshelves were commissioned by Lee Dembart, a former Los Angeles Times editor and writer, and painted in 2005 by artist Don Gray. Author Robert Crais posted about the garage door recently on Facebook.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has announced creation of an official city of Los Angeles’ poet laureate program, to "serve as the official ambassador of Los Angeles’ vibrant poetry and literary culture." It will pay $10,000 a year. Let the machinations, hushed lunches and jealousies begin.
Julie Cline, the Senior Nonfiction Editor at the Los Angeles Review of Books, writes at the review today about her father's LA life and travels on the edges of the Hollywood movie machine. Her father lives on a boat in San Pedro, "a retired builder, general contractor, and salesman of everything from used cars to room additions." He's not really an actor, but he showed up in a film shot last year.
Author Robert Crais posts on Facebook: "Another reason I love LA is because people like this live here. They painted their garage door to look like book shelves."
The appeal of diving into a character has always been the back story: everything that my character has been through up to the point when the audience first encounters her, says the actress-novelist.
Edgar Rice Burroughs' home in Tarzana is gone, but the offices where his family business — and everything Tarzan — is administered remains behind a low wall on Ventura...
They designated pet names for each other derived from "The Wind in the Willows:" Isherwood was Mole, slowly working underground; Vidal was Rat, working productively above ground, engaged with the world.
Says the editor at Red Hen Press: "Before we moved to Pasadena from the Valley in 2009, there was a lot of discussion about where we should go. We really wanted to move to a place that celebrates arts and culture."
Michael Dawson, the collector and proprietor of the late Dawson's Books on Larchmont, announces the first book of photographs by William Reagh. "William Reagh: A Long Walk Downtown. Photographs of Los Angeles & Southern California, 1936-1991," shows his perspective on urban renewal and change in Los Angeles, with images of Angels Flight, Bunker Hill, Pershing Square, Broadway, Grand Avenue, Hill Street, Wrigley Field and Chavez Ravine.
Karl Fleming covered the civil rights movement in the South and Los Angeles for Newsweek, started a local magazine and was the editor of Chanel 2 news. His memoir was "Son of the Rough South: An Uncivil Memoir."
Martínez, the writing professor at Loyola Marymount University, lived for a time beside the Rio Grande in northern New Mexico, searching for truth and meaning and the guidance to break his drug habit. A review of his new book, plus an excerpt of a new mystery by Miles Corwin.
The pop culture and deputy television editor of the LA Times' calendar section gets the newly created job of Books and Culture Editor. Press was a book critic for VLS as well as culture editor at the both the Village Voice and Salon.
"Gore was glorious before live audiences...I concluded by noting that he had pretty much done it all—novels, essays, plays—and won every award; I asked, 'What keeps you going? What gets you up in the morning?' He had a one word answer: 'rage.'"
Vidal died this evening at his home in the Hollywood Hills. Complications of pneumonia, his nephew Burr Steers has been telling the media.
Jim Murray, writes reviewer John Schulian, "made the sports page seem as if it should have a $10 cover and a two-drink minimum...Even when he railed against the carnage at the Indianapolis 500, there was a laugh, however dark, in his outrage: 'Gentlemen, start your coffins.'...By the time he died, in 1998, he was one of those rare ink-stained wretches who fly with the eagles."
The Beverly Hills Police Department has opened its photo and case files to the authors of the newest book from Angel City Press — "Beverly Hills Confidential: A Century of Stars, Scandals and Murders." It's what it sounds like, only authorized.
The last event of the season for LA Talks Live is a conversation between Kurt Andersen, the host of "Studio 360" and former editor of Spy whose new novel is "True Believers," and writer and TV host Lawrence O'Donnell.
LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman's latest book is a page turner. Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History takes off from the 2003 killing of Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy Stephen Sorensen, by a hermit named Donald Kueck, to peel back some of the mystery and secrets about life in the Mojave Desert north of us. She reads this afternoon at Skylight Books.
On a blog at The New Yorker, novelist and Pulitzer judge Michael Cunningham further explains what he's learned about why the Pulitzer board declined to give a prize to any of the three books that the jury recommended.
Philip L. Fradkin, a native New Yorker who I believe became the first environment reporter at the Los Angeles Times, died Saturday of cancer at his home in Point Reyes Station. After the Times he went on to write numerous books about California and the West, focusing on earthquakes, water, history and the natural environment.
Short notice on this one. You can receive two tickets to see Marcus Samuelsson, the much-honored New York chef whose new book is "Yes, Chef," Tuesday night at Begamot Station in Santa Monica. He will be interviewed by David Burtka, the actor who joined E! News as a correspondent in January.
Michael Cunningham, the novelist who was one of three jurors for this year's Pulitzer Prize in fiction, posts at The New Yorker that he and his fellow jurors were completely taken aback by the Pulitzer board's refusal back in April to award a best book this year. The jurors read more than 300 novels and short stories and submitted three finalists that they really liked, then waited expectantly to find out which would win.
Eric Estrin, the emeritus contributor at LA Observed who is editor of Movie Smackdown, sends word from Ventura County that Mysteries to Die For in Thousand Oaks will be closing later this month.
Reto Caduff is a Swiss-born photographer who lives part-time in Los Angeles and who, apparently, really likes beautiful women with facial freckles. His new book of images, called just Freckles, is a limited edition of 500 numbered copies which features "portraits of young women with various amounts of freckles – from a slight cluster on the cheek to faces covered with the beauty marks." His book is out Monday.
Hector Tobar loves this LA summer so far, and I agree. The news is that this is Tobar's last A2 column in the Times. He's going to the books desk to write about literary LA.
Last night's meeting dragged on into this morning, but the Pomona City Council found a way to keep the city's lone public library open for another year.
Eli Broad talked at length about his new book, The Art of Being Unreasonable, with Warren Olney on tonight's "Which Way, LA?" on KCRW. Broad said he's not unreasonable so much as impatient with too much discussion or pondering on major decisions. At some point, he says, you have to just do it. Listen to the interview.
The City Council of Pomona tabled for a week its consideration of a budget plan that would close the city's only public library. The delay gave David Allen, the columnist for the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the opening he needed to apply for a library card.
Irving will talk about "In One Person" and Turow will discuss the book publishing industry. He's also here for Friday night's final public performance of the Rock Bottom Remainders, the band that features authors such as Stephen King, Dave Barry, Amy Tan and Turow. Read about all three events.
Frank Deford, the senior contributing writer at Sports Illustrated and weekly commentator for NPR’s “Morning Edition” — he recently read commentary number 1500 — will be in town this week to talk about his new memoir, "Over Time: My Life as a Sportswriter."
Life Books has released a new book with photographs from the magazine's archives and other sources: "The Rolling Stones: 50 Years of Rock ’n’ Roll." Were you at Anaheim Stadium in '78? Altamont Speedway?
History has tried to forget that Merry Lepper was the first woman to run a marathon in the United States, 21 years before Joan Benoit won Olympic gold. Women could legally vote for president long before they could officially enter a marathon. David Davis met up with her in Tucson and sets the record straight.
The announcement on Wednesday morning of Ray Bradbury's death has been a big story in Los Angeles and beyond. (My updated original post, and Denise Hamilton's personal piece for Native Intelligence from 2006.) Here's a smattering of some of the reflections and tributes since, with more certainly to come.
Ray Bradbury died last night, his daughter has confirmed. For his 90th birthday, Bradbury talked about remembering his birth and the womb. "I have total recall of all of my life." Updated stories, links and video
Burbank native Tommy Gelinas reckons he's spent $300,000 acquiring his personal collection of San Fernando Valley memorabilia and ephemera. He's got a website, blog and busy Facebook page devoted to Valley stuff. Plus: TV writer and ex-Dodgers broadcaster Ken Levine has a Kindle book on growing up in the '60s Valley.
The Chronicle of Higher Education's Pageview blog asked Tom Lutz how his daily reading has changed since he began editing and publishing the Los Angeles Review of Books. There are some things he no longer has time for, his morning ritual now includes Google Analytics, and he includes LA Observed prominently in his blog reading. More
Last month the editor of OC Weekly, Gustavo Arellano, began readings around the country and got an interview in the New York Times for his new book, "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America." Now comes Jeffrey M. Pilcher, a professor of history at the University of Minnesota who for 20 years "has investigated the history, politics and evolution of Mexican food, including how Mexican silver miners likely invented the taco, how Mexican Americans in the Southwest reinvented it, and how businessman Glen Bell mass-marketed it to Anglo palates via the crunchy Taco Bell shell." Read up
Journalist Chip Jacobs' newest book, "The Ascension Of Jerry: Murder, Hitmen and the Making of L.A. Muckraker Jerry Schneiderman," spins out the tale of a truly interesting Los Angeles figure and a bunch of intriguing episodes. It's a murder mystery and more, but nonfiction (despite the interviewer calling it a novel.)
The novelist, called in the New York Times obituary "Mexico’s elegant public intellectual and grand man of letters," died today in Mexico City. Fuentes was "one of the most admired writers in the Spanish-speaking world, a catalyst, along with Gabriel García Márquez, Mario Vargas Llosa and Julio Cortazar, of the explosion of Latin American literature in the 1960s and ’70s known as 'El Boom.'"
Pasadena is throwing its first community-wide book festival all day today at Central Park, just down the street (south) from Old Town Pasadena. I'll be meeting readers and signing some books at the Angel City Press booth from noon to 2 p.m. Stop by and have a chat. LitFest Pasadena, which is free, goes from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Steve Wasserman, the former longtime books editor at the Los Angeles Times (back in the years when the paper had a Sunday book review section), is giving up the agenting game to become a full-time editor at large for Yale University Press. His first acquisition for Yale is "an intimate history of rock ‘n’ roll" by Greil Marcus.
Robert Caro's latest biographical installment on the late president Lyndon Baines Johnson shot to the top of this week's hardcover nonfiction list of the best sellers in Southern California independent bookstores. "Deadlocked" by Charlaine Harris tops the hardcover fiction list, while "Fifty Shades of Grey" by E.L. James continues to hold the top of the trade paperback list. (And others in the series the next two spots.) Books and authors page
The Los Angeles Times is taking its newly vacant position of books editor in a somewhat new direction — emphasizing knowledge of pop culture and adding a focus on "California and the West" to the editor's job. The title is even being redefined to as "Books and Culture Editor."
The creator of "Where the Wild Things Are" and other dark children's fantasy books died Tuesday at a hospital in Danbury, Conn. "Where the Wild Things Are," published in 1963, became one of the bestselling children's books of all time. Here he is with Stephen Colbert.
Jon Thurber, the Los Angeles Times book editor since 2010, is leaving the paper at the end of the summer. He's one of the few remaining 40-year employees. The note from editor Davan Maharaj is silent on what Thurber may be going off to do, or on the future of the books staff. Read the memo inside.
Eli Broad speculates in ""The Art of Being Unreasonable: Lessons in Unconventional Thinking" — with a foreword by Michael Bloomberg — that the LA Times will be for sale once the Tribune's bankruptcy closes and says he's interested again. Broad is also now on Twitter and Facebook and has started to blog.
The dateline is San Bernardino, where followers of Arellano's taco chronicles know is the home of Mitla Cafe, the Route 66 roadhouse where Taco Bell reportedly got its original taco recipe.
"The Limpopo Academy of Private Detection," "Wild," "Fifty Shades of Grey" and a certain bossypants comedian lead the lists. Turns out SoCal women like their spanking stories too.
April 29, 1986 — the day the Central Library was torched by an arsonist. The building didn't reopen for good until 1993. Some 200,000 books were destroyed, plus irreplaceable periodicals, drawings from patents, historic maps, fine art prints, photography negatives and newspaper archives.
During both days of the book festival at USC this weekend, trains were running on the Expo Line just south of the campus. No riders, though. These were test runs. Would it have killed Metro to accelerate the opening one week with thousands of potential Expo Line users already going to USC?
The store inside Aroma Cafe in Studio City closes May 17. "In the words of Orson Welles, 'If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.' This is our happy ending," a note says.
Unlike the Pulitzer Prizes, the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes had no reluctance about giving awards to fiction books on Friday night.
As usual, writers from LA Observed will be all over the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books this weekend at USC. I'll be there both days signing books and schmoozing with anyone who drops by.
Nicely done. They wanted to be able to show off the mass of great content already on the site, plus new features, and that they have. The relaunch comes with a call for voluntary memberships to help pay for the online review.
Flavorwire has posted another of its 25 most beautiful lists — and they do aggregate some gorgeous photos and noteworthy locations. This time it's the 25 most beautiful public libraries in the world.
I love stories about infrastructure: sewers, pipelines, trash and the like. The subject of SoCal investigative author Edward Humes' new book warms my wonkish heart — "Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash" — and has some good LA angles.
The Pulitzer Prizes board could not agree on a single "distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life." "Wow, Pulitzer committee. That's cold," writes Stephen Lee at Entertainment Weekly. Laura Miller at Salon argues that it was "an exceptional year for fiction, American and otherwise."
Journalist Steve Saldivar has posted a nice video story on David Kipen and his Boyle Heights lending library and pay-what-you-can used bookshop, newly relocated in a storefront at Mariachi Plaza on 1st Street.
Its earliest-known mention in American letters came in an 1899 Los Angeles Times story about life in Mexico City, says Gustavo Arellano. His new book is "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America."
Google has decided to stop letting bookstores profit by selling the search company's e-books through store websites.
To welcome the new Dodgers season, here's a gem of an audio clip of Vin Scully from early in the 1981 season — the year of Fernandomania.
Wet: The Magazine of Gourmet Bathing was published in Venice between 1976 and 1981. Now there's a book.
Taco Bell gets 50th anniversary love from an unlikely source: OC Weekly editor and Mexican food expert Gustavo Arellano.
Last week's number one fiction work in the Pacific Northwest is our top book this week.
James O'Shea, whose short span as editor of the Los Angeles Times bridged the eras of Dean Baquet and Russ Stanton, writes in a piece for Nieman Reports that if he had it to do over, he would totally reorganize the paper's news-gathering.
Tom Lutz, the founder and editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, is a new contributor during "All Things Considered" at KCRW.
Los Angeles journalist RJ Smith's biography, "The One: The Life and Music of James Brown," is getting some rave response. Enjoy some video of the Godfather of Soul.
Pasadena's first community-wide book festival was to have been Saturday in the city's Central Park.
"Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation" has won the second annual Zócalo Public Square Book Prize.
We're not that different — or are we?
The money will be used to help launch a new website and to pay contributing editors, columnists and writers.
It's a milestone of the culture, as the editors explain. Meanwhile, the online Britannica is free for a week starting today.
The winner (of $5,000 and more) will be announced on Thursday. Here are the three finalists.
Francesca Lia Block, the author of more than 30 books and creator of the popular LA character Weetzie Bat, writes on Facebook today that even though her mortgage is current, she is in a refi run-around with Bank of America and may lose her Culver City home.
Here's what the Southern California Independent Booksellers are reporting as the top books for the past week.
Carol Kaye played bass guitar on many hit songs of the 1960s and 70s. She came out of Long Beach, played in LA jazz clubs and broke into session work in Hollywood with an invitation to play on a Sam Cooke recording.
I'm in the midst of a fun project extracting photographs from the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of 3,000 pictures from the morgues of the old Valley Times and Hollywood Citizen-News newspapers.
This time, let's compare Southern California's book-buying to the Pacific Northwest. First thing we notice: no Steve Jobs.
When the Las Virgenes bookmobile shuts down Friday, there will be just four left in the county library system.
In a change, the winners of this year's Los Angeles Times Book Prizes will be announced at a public ceremony in USC's Bovard Auditorium on April 20.
Zaslow, a longtime Wall Street Journal writer and the author of books on Gabby Gifford, Chesley Sullenberger and last lecture professor Randy Pausch, died Friday of injuries suffered in a car crash.
Martin Gomez, the head librarian for Los Angeles since 2009, will become vice dean in the USC Libraries on April 2.
Former L.A. Times reporter Anne-Marie O'Connor's book on the Adele Bloch-Bauer painting lands, Louise Roug returns from Denmark, paidContent sells, Sam Rubin reups plus a name for Aaron Sorkin's HBO newsroom and more.
The Last Bookstore on Spring Street in Downtown is big and if it lasts it may actually become the last bookstore standing in Los Angeles.
B&N is fighting back against the Amazon.com juggernaut by refusing to let its stores sell books published by the online retail giant.
The former Lakers coach is writing "Eleven Rings" with Hugh Delehanty, the co-author of Jackson's previous bestseller, "Sacred Hoops." Penguin has agreed to publish.
"Goodreads celebrates it's Independence today", founder Otis Y. Chandler tweets.
At the request of friends and the advice of government officials, we will report limited information, including the author's name, until more is known.
OC Weekly editor Gustavo Arellano's new book, "Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America," was just praised by Publishers Weekly as one of the top cookbooks of the spring crop. That would be nicer for the author if it were a cookbook.
Former Orange County Register reporter Thanhha Lai "spent 15 years grinding away at a sprawling novel she could never quite get right. So, five years ago, she turned her creative energies to a verse novel about a single year in her childhood as a Vietnamese émigré."
Visiting blogger Barbara Kraft, a Los Angeles writer and former Time magazine reporter, knew both Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller. She met the famous former couple independently while they were living here.
His new book is "Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine." He'll be in conversation with Lisa Napoli.
It's in hardcover nonfiction where some change is occurring.
The event was held in the Compstat room at the new Police Administration Building, was hosted by Chief Charlie Beck, and included red and white wine for an audience of Civic Center types, reporters and cops.
A new history book, UCLA: The First Century, has hundreds of photographs of the campus through the years, but this might be my favorite.
Kurt Kamm's "Red Flag Warning" is about an arsonist setting fires around Los Angeles.
"We are hopeful for a reincarnation of a physical store in a few months at a new location," co-founders Stan Madson and Phil Thompson say.
As they did last week, authors P.D. James and Walter Isaacson top the last pre-Christmas bestseller lists at Southern California indie bookstores.
Critic David Kipen's list of his favorite California-published books of the year includes "Los Angeles Stories" by Ry Cooder, "Tomorrow is Another Song" by the late Scott Wannberg, "Car-Free Los...
The adult choices range from David Foster Wallace's "Pale King" to the new reissue of "Our Bodies, Ourselves" to baseball numbers guru Bill James opining on true crime cases.
A roundup for a holiday week.
Adding David Fincher to "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" story "has proved counterproductive," says the L.A. Times reviewer. A.O. Scott is more enthusiastic in the NYT.
P.D. James claims the top fiction spot with "Death Comes to Pemberley."
This amazing photograph of the old Plaza downtown, and showing La Placita and Fort Moore Hill in the background, is one of the 19th century treasures by photographer Carleton Watkins.
It didn't take long for Michael Connelly's newest Harry Bosch mystery to take over the top spot in Southern California independent bookstores.
On her blog, the novelist uses verse to mark the century-old eucalyptus' passage into firewood and sawdust.
Coming in time for next April's 20th anniversary of the so-called Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, King has signed with HarperOne to deliver his memoir: "The Riot Within."
As the year winds down, says Zócalo Public Square, "we want to give a shout-out to the books that incited our passions, changed our minds, or made proselytizers out of...
This isn't a total dose of bad bookstore news, just a demi-dose for people in Valleywood.
With some of his “Rings” earnings, he founded Perceval Press, a small L.A.-based publishing house specializing in art books and poetry.
Steve Soboroff shared a photo after last week's news about the e-book of "Fahrenheit 451." Plus: a typewriter documentary?
Confirming what we reported in October, Barnes & Noble stores CEO Mitchell Klipper says the only reason the store is leaving Westside Pavilion is the mall's rent hike when the...
Sue Grafton, Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography and "The Tiger's Wife" by Téa Obreht lead their respective bestseller lists in Southern California again, but there's a new leader in trade...
Yes, Ray Bradbury used to say that he would never embrace e-books or the Internet. But, well, you know.
LA Observed readers have known since October about the Westside Pavilion store shutting down.
Sue Grafton, Steve Jobs, Stephen King, Joan Didion and more.
Harry Belafonte will engage in conversation about his life as an entertainer and his new memoir, "My Song," with Tim Robbins on Monday night at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica.
Dick Adler, who used to write the cheeky Page Two feature at the old Herald Examiner, and more recently a book reviewer and blogger, died on Nov. 11.
The author spoke with David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times before a full house at St. Vibiana's on Wednesday night. Here's the full conversation.
Coming up on Nov. 17 from Live Talks Los Angeles: Darrell Hammond talks about his upcoming memoir, "God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F*cked: Tales of Stand-Up, Saturday Night...
Ex-LAT staffer Laurie Winer reviews Jim O'Shea's book and recounts the Sam Zell years in a piece titled "Zell to L.A. Times: Drop Dead." Subtitle: On the Dismantling of a Once Great Newspaper.
The subject of "The Maid's Daughter" is interviewed by Hector Tobar.
This week's bestseller lists at Southern California independent bookstores have some new arrivals.
New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik talks about his new book, "The Table Comes First: Family, France and the Meaning of Food," with producer-director Ed Zwick on Thursday night.
The Los Angeles novelist and sister of Steve Jobs breaks her media silence on his death.
First the American actress who is portraying Swedish book and film heroine Lisbeth Salander graces the cover of this month's American Vogue. Now H&M unveils a line of clothing based...
Hushed talk has been around for a few weeks, but now the red clearance signs have gone up — 30 percent off on a lot of books — and store clerks acknowledged the news today.
Schickel has a revealing excerpt of her forthcoming memoir online at Sensitive Skin magazine.
Live Talks Los Angeles is offering LA Observed readers tickets to see NBA legend Jerry West talking about his life (and new autobiography) with producer and author Peter Guber.
Margaret Tante Burk, a publicist and businesswoman here, co-founded Round Table West with Marylin Hudson at the Ambassador Hotel in 1977. The forum for authors grew into one of the...
KCRW taped another installment of its online-only web cultural series, UpClose, on Sunday in the top-floor screening room at Soho House in West Hollywood.
In Sunday's New York Times, it was hard to miss the bylines that were once among the top-billed names at the Los Angeles Times — plus an ad for Jim Newton's book on Eisenhower.
Live Talks Los Angeles has Tuesday night tickets for LA Observed readers.
James Rainey visits the less appealing side of Steve Jobs, plus biographer Walter Isaacson on the late Apple co-founder.
Leymah Gbowee, one of the three African women to win the Nobel Peace Prize today, co-authored her memoir last month with L.A. writer Carol Mithers.
Here are the new top sellers for the week at Southern California independent bookstores.
The former Lakers star and general manager admits in a profile at Grantland that he's still uncomfortable with his fame. Maybe more now, at age 73 and apparently taking stock of his life.
Before there was Google Maps — and still today, if an Angeleno really wants to know where something is located — there was the Thomas Bros. street atlas, aka the Thomas Guide.
The new library at San Vicente and Melrose was dedicated with a big celebration on Saturday, leading into Sunday's West Hollywood Book Fair. The WeHo city council will meet from...
LA Observed readers can take their pick of events next week through Live Talks Los Angeles.
Your loved ones will immediately read from your dull eyes that you don’t love them, never will again.
Empire magazine puts Rooney Mara below Daniel Craig on the cover.
The former Los Angeles Times op-ed columnist talks about the post-civil rights generation of African Americans in Los Angeles and her new book, "Black Talk, Blue Thoughts, and Walking the Color Line: Dispatches from a Black Journalista."
The boxed set to be released here will add two hours of additional footage not seen in the Swedish theatrical films made from the late Steig Larsson's best-selling novels.
Marcos Villatoro, the author and former KPFK host who lives in the Valley, made a short video for PBS on the sorry state of the American garage sale.
The top sellers at Southern California independent bookstores through Sunday.
Live Talks LA has made tickets available for a few LA Observed readers and their guests to see Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson on Thursday at Track 16, in Santa...
I'm taking part in a panel discussion Tuesday at the Cal State Northridge library.
Author and humorist Ashley Ream blogs about stopping in to say goodbye to the Downtown bookstore.
The East Los Angeles building that used to house The Tamale is a beauty salon these days.
Live Talks Los Angeles is offering LA Observed readers tickets to see actor Hal Holbrook discuss his memoir, "Harold: The Boy Who Became Mark Twain," with Robert Patrick.
As part of David Kipen's Libros Schmibros pop-up bookstore at the Hammer Museum in Westwood, artist and author J. Michael Walker created a map that spans 23 feet by 5 feet that depicts L.A. literary figures.
Eve Diamond, reporter, gives way to Maggie Weinstock Silver, an Adderall-addicted crisis PR consultant who formerly worked at Sitrick and lives in Cypress Park.
Quick look at the titles book readers are buying in Southern California.
It's not just the Russian baths and Beverly Hot Springs any more.
What Southern California is reading this week, plus the new season of Live Talks Los Angeles and a book sale.
A documentary will chronicle the store's final month.
Anyone who lived on the Westside of LA in the 80’s and 90’s and who read books knew Scott Wannberg, says Richard Rushfield.
Emily Green reported and wrote (and apparently went through editing hell to finally publish) a long seres in the Las Vegas Sun on a big Nevada water grab. And she's miffed to find a lot of parallels between her reporting and a chapter on Nevada in "The Ripple Effect" by Alex Prud’homme.
Scott Wannberg, a member of the traveling poet troupe known as the “Carma Bums” and a 23-year employee of the late Dutton's Brentwood Books, died Friday of an apparent heart attack in his recent hometown of Florence, Oregon.
New York Times art critic Holland Cotter reviews "Rebels in Paradise: The Los Angeles Art Scene and the 1960s" by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp.
From Al Martinez in his Daily News column.
These are the top-selling books at independent bookstores in Southern California, through sales of Sunday.
The web-based tools and service for authors wishing to promote their own books will close down Sept. 1
Mitnick is, I think, the most famous or notorious computer cracker (and hacker) to come out of the L.A. area.
Mysterious Galaxy in San Diego is opening an L.A. area store this summer on Artesia Boulevard in Redondo Beach.
Susan Salter Reynolds and Richard Rayner will continue the book columns that the Los Angeles Times recently dropped in its cost-cutting of freelancers.
The cover story of the ABA Journal for August has some good news for three Los Angeles authors who are also journalists.
East of West L.A., Linda Ronstadt signs to write her memoirs, and finalists for the Southern California Book Awards.
All book-related pieces will now be done in-house, part of another cost-cutting move at the paper. Among those out of a gig: Susan Salter Reynolds, a former staffer who had...
Professor and author Leo Braudy will be the special guest, and I'll be the not-so-special interviewer and moderator, this Thursday at 7 p.m. at the Central Library in Downtown. It's for the ALOUD series.
Future installments will look at the former LA Times owner's "interlude as 'emperor of the Pribilofs,' his military atrocities in the Philippines, his bitter legal battles with the Theosophists, the Otis-Chandler empire in the Mexicali Valley, the Times bombing in 1910, the notorious discovery of fellatio in Long Beach, and Otis’s quixotic plan for world government."
Patrick Range McDonald, a staff writer at the Weekly, has been tapped to co-write the memoir of former Los Angeles mayor Richard Riordan.
The author and granddaughter of one of Los Angeles' most discussed historical figures, the water legend William Mulholland, died today of natural causes at her home in Camarillo.
Author and long-ago L.A. Times enviro reporter Philip L. Fradkin and his photographer son, Alex L. Fradkin, walked the eleven-hundred miles of California coast and have married their words and images in “The Left Coast."
Here's what leads the lists at Southern California independent bookstores through last weekend's sales. All but the last category are different in New England indie bookstores, by the way.
Abby Sunderland, now 17, is taking flying lessons and talking about going around the world.
Mark Willes, the CEO who lost Times Mirror (and the Los Angeles Times) to Tribune, says NBC's "The Playboy Club" won't air on his LDS television channel.
Live Talks Los Angeles is presenting a conversation between authors Ann Patchett (her new novel is "State of Wonder") and Maile Meloy with tickets set aside for LA Observed readers.
Willman, a Pulitzer winner for the paper in 2001, is the author of the recent "The Mirage Man," about the suspected perpetrator of anthrax attacks that killed five. Read the memo.
In tonight's column I visit Pacific Palisades, one of the city's richest corners, and hang around the bookstore the community could not keep open.
Following on the news about Village Books and Latitude 33 closing, Metropolis Books on Main Street near 4th Street was put up for sale recently.
The independent bookstore on Ocean Avenue, open since 1996, will close by the end of summer.
Katie O'Laughlin announced today "with great regret and sadness" that she will close Village Books on June 30, after fourteen years in Pacific Palisades.
Harvey Araton's February column in the New York Times about the spring training friendship between Yogi Berra and former Yankees pitcher Ron Guidry is heading to bookshelves.
In his quest to read 25 books about Los Angeles this year, LAT architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne is up to David Brodsly's slim 1981 work "L.A. Freeway: An Appreciative Essay."
Marketing slogan: "The Feel Bad Movie of Christmas." Tag line: "She's coming." Watch the video.
Gil Scott-Heron, Jeff Conaway, Margo Dydek, Irene Gilbert, Don Kubly, Dana Brand, Tom West.
Ronald Macaulay, an emeritus professor of linguistics at Pitzer College, is the author of last year's "Seven Ways of Looking at Language." When he heard that the Claremont Colleges Library...
The Robert Redford myth that refuses to die, this time in the Los Angeles Times.
A little follow to Saturday's post about the Channel 2 alumni who are burning up Facebook.
Lisbeth Salander is all over the agenda for a two-day symposium in Royce Hall on the late Larsson's works and the larger genre.
A Saturday panel at the LA Times book festival billed as "History, Identity & Purpose: California Chicanos & Beyond" turned into a forum for Sal Castro, an organizer of the East L.A. student walkouts of the 1960s.
A biography of Harvey and a Visiting Blogger excerpt about the woman who designed the floor of the cafe at Union Station.
In their forthcoming book "Chasing Aphrodite: The Hunt for Looted Antiquities at the World’s Richest Museum," reporters Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino detail Getty scams through the years.
The first day of the L.A. Times Festival of Books at USC on Saturday had nice weather, brisk book sales as far as I could tell, and a decent sized and mellow crowd.
I guess the lede from Friday night's Los Angeles Times Book Prize ceremony is that Jennifer Egan and "A Visit From the Goon Squad" won in fiction over Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom."
I'll be signing books and having great conversations at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books from noon to 2 p.m. on both Saturday and Sunday. Look for me at the Angel City Press booth.
LéaLA, or more properly Feria del Libro en Español de Los Angeles, is the first major Spanish-language book fair to be held here.
The first stages of a "narrative experience" about a fictional flood hitting Los Angeles will be unveiled at this weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC.
Climate change and water, the state of Black Los Angeles, a parking tickets audit and a new role for book agent Steve Wasserman — plus more.
There were something like 5,000 people at the Nokia on Tuesday night to watch Tina Fey and Steve Martin mix and match wits.
Sheriff Baca urges support for Trutanich as DA, Vincent Bugliosi writes about God, the Los Angeles Review of Books debuts a website, and it's Pulitzer day for the newspaper types. Plus more.
Asked which one book she would recommend to President Obama, actress Wendie Malick offered one we like here at LA Observed too.
The son of Grouch Marx, he's known mostly for two books on his dad, sitcom work and the unauthorized and unflattering biography of Bob Hope.
Michael Connelly's newest, "The Fifth Witness," arrives at number one on the fiction hardcover list for Southern California independent bookstores. Tina Fey tops nonfiction books with "Bossypants."
Paramount said today it has optioned the movie rights to Ray Bradbury's classic 1950 short story collection.
L.A. Day/L.A. Night features 30 aerial images of the city by photographer and pilot Michael Light. The book's introduction by Los Angeles Times critic David L. Ulin observes that "daylight...
In this week's New Yorker, author Jonathan Franzen writes about his personal retreat to the South Pacific island that likely provided the setting for "Robinson Crusoe."
Daily News columnist Dennis McCarthy writes "when I arrived at the Daily News 30 years ago this month, I had dark hair, a flat stomach, and the stamina to chase stories all day and night. Five thousand plus columns later, what's left of the hair is white, I've got a pot belly, and need a nap after lunch."
L.A. sits out trend on nonwhite children, more Grim Sleeper victims, Abby Sunderland's book, LACMA partners with New York Times, Nikki Finke plans her return and more.
Nancy Rommelmann in town to read and sign her novel, plus Gary Leonard and Deanne Stillman.
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is at USC this year, pushed back a week to April 30 and May 1.
Tom Schabarum, a Seattle novelist, says his father the conservative county supervisor was never homophobic despite notable clashes with the gay community.
Here is a first look at the bestseller lists at independent bookstores around Southern California through Sunday.
Look for a warmer day, Brown on YouTube again, Rosendahl gets a Lopez column, Anaheim votes to go after the Sacramento Kings and Amy Tan sells a new book.
Good news for LA Observed contributor Deanne Stillman, whose book, "Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West," will be the basis for a Hallmark Channel movie on mustang activist Velma Johnston.
Smithsonian withdraws bid for historic murals, LAUSD's Deasy won't take $55,000 raise, a City Hall exit, art and books notes and a local media obituary.
Author Simon Winchester has written some nice books, including about earthquakes and other geological phenomena, but quake scientists say he's a little shaky in his latest stab at seismology. After...
Images from a new book, "The Ruins of Detroit,“ by French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre.
My favorite new Los Angeles book — the one I took driving with me on Saturday — is a guidebook from the distant past. "Los Angeles in the 1930s: The WPA Guide to the City of Angels" has been reissued after years out of print.
Dayna Baer, one of the co-authors of "The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story," joined the CIA while a grad student at UCLA.
"Unbroken" beats out Keith Richards' "Life" for the top spot in hardcover nonfiction.
Los Angeles author Steve Oney's next book will be on the history, travails and tribulations of National Public Radio.
Los Angeles author James Ellroy on Sunday received France's Order of the Arts from Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand. Note photo caption.
Author Ellen Collett knows a well-written LAPD incident report when she sees one.
As part of the publicity onslaught for "The Lincoln Lawyer," the new movie from Michael Connelly's mystery of the same name, the author and lead actor Matthew McConaughey chat for a Times reporter while parked in an SUV on Connelly's old street above Laurel Canyon.
Tsunami coverage, Mel Gibson, Arianna Huffington, book notes and more.
The first Zócalo Public Square Book Prize goes to "In the Neighborhood" by Peter Lovenheim.
Brando Skyhorse and his novel about growing up in Echo Park have won the $8,000 Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award.
The LA Observed contributor's book, The Bad Mother, is set among street kids in Hollywood.
A new book on the importance of world-class airports suggests that Los Angeles is being passed over in global commerce due to LAX.
They're at Live Talks Los Angeles in April. Plus: Michael Connelly and James Gleick.
Rodney King day, more community college waste, DA Cooley promotes a key aide, rave review for "The Hollywood Sign" and more.
"When the Killing's Done" by T.C. Boyle is the top-selling hardcover fiction in Southern California this week, at least at independent bookstores. Not so in Northern California.
From thousands of published candidates and eighty contenders, the judges have selected three finalists.
Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic, blogs at the magazine's site that a quote used by LAT columnist Tim Rutten has an unusual origin.
In this week's column, on the air at 6:44 p.m., I discuss the pros and cons of Measure L on the March 8 ballot and come down on the side of the libraries.
Archbishop Jose Gomez takes the crooked staff, Times urges defeat of three city councilmen, print pieces on Charlie Sheen, more politics and media notes and a book on the Hollywood sign.
Author T.C. Boyle will talk about his new novel, "When the Killing’s Done" — the one set in the Channel Islands off the coast of Santa Barbara — on Thursday, March 3 at 8 p.m. at Track 16 Gallery in Bergamot Station.
Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown will sign copies of his memoir, "Against All Odds: My Life of Hardship, Fast Breaks and Second Chances" at noon Friday at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena.
State Department warns journos in Libya, Alarcon cleared of one accusation, Abby Sunderland memoir sells and more books notes.
Christopher Hitchens, Patti Smith, Jonathan Franzen, Laura Hillenbrand and Michael Lewis (plus others) are on the list of finalists for the 2010 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.
The longtime public radio journalist's weekly potluck dinners were featured in the Los Angeles Times.
Unlike in New York, the LACMA audience apparently was quite satisfied to hear Martin talk about art.
T.C. Boyle lives up near Santa Barbara and his upcoming novel is set out on the Channel Islands, which sometimes seem to loom so close to the shore from up there.
The movie version of Michael Connelly's 20xx bestseller stars Matthew McConaughey as Mickey Haller, an L.A. defense attorney who eschews an office and operates out of the back of his Lincoln Continental.
The German book publisher who lives in (and below) the Chemosphere house in the Studio City hills is profiled today by the Wall Street Journal. Just like the scavengers in...
Little, Brown and Company has bought world rights to "In Search of Johnny Cash," an exploration of the singer's life by former L.A. Times music critic Robert Hilburn that is promised to go beyond previous works.
Ernest Marquez, who's a fellow author at Angel City Press, has been working to hold on to access to the cemetery, which through the years has been surrounded by homes and yards.
Writers Bloc is making five pairs of tickets available to LA Observed readers who would like attend a conversatiion between Hollywood veteran Peter Guber and David Ulin, the Los Angeles Times book critic.
The L.A. Times architecture critic announced today that he will read and post brief blog essays over the next year on "25 of the most significant books on Southern California...
Kay Mills, the former Los Angeles Times editorial writer who authored five books, died Thursday at age 69.
Robert Masello's novel "Bestiary" came closer to the truth than he could have imagined.
Los Angeles writer Heather Havrilesky, staff critic on film and TV at Rupert Murtdoch's forthcoming iPad news site, has a new memoir out, "Disaster Preparedness."
Ack. Another independent bookstore in Los Angeles is closing.
I was tied up most of the day, but these were highlights from other contributors to the site. Think books and politics, with a little fashion.
In tonight's column I observe that when Jerry Brown was sworn in as governor the first time, Borders and Barnes & Noble had not yet arrived in Los Angeles. And now the national giants that helped kill off so many local stores here are closing too.
The bookstore and its adjoining Starbucks have been pretty popular hangout spots at Ventura and Hayvenhurst in Encino.
City Councilman Greig Smith has compiled his favorite City Hall stories into a self-published book from Xlibris.
Mark at LA Biz Observed has been watching the slow demise of the Borders chain, and in particular the Westwood Boulevard store near his home. Now Gendy Alimurung of the...
I thought my daughter's snowed-in-at-Heathrow story was bad enough: eight days late coming home and missing Christmas. But the experience of UC Irvine professor Ngugi wa Thiong’o was even...
Live Talks Los Angeles is offering tickets to a select number of LA Observed readers wishing to see author Anne Rice in conversation with her son, the author Christoper Rice,...
Denis Dutton in 1998 created the well-read Arts & Letters Daily, which the New Yorker's Blake Eskin today calls "the first and foremost aggregator of well-written and well-argued book reviews, essays, and other articles in the realm of ideas. Denis was the intellectual’s Matt Drudge."
In my column airing tonight on KCRW, I make some suggestions of Los Angeles-centric books for the Angeleno on your last-week shopping list.
Jim Newton, soon to debut as an op-ed columnist for the L.A. Times, writes in this week's New Yorker about the discovery of some long-lost papers that change what is known about President Dwight Eisenhower's 1961 speech warning of the rise of an American "military-industrial complex."
Sounds like some fun stories were swapped about L.A. in the 40s, 50s and 60s, and especially of the gay and artistic underworld of the time, tonight at the Hammer.
Figment.com, launched today, is "an experiment in online literature, a free platform for young people to read and write fiction, both on their computers and on their cellphones."
The teenage girl who sailed from Marina del Rey to the Indian Ocean is co-writing her story with Lynn Vincent, who also ghosted Sarah Palin's memoir.
In "The Reversal," Michael Connelly's offering for this Christmas season, his longtime characters Harry Bosch and Mickey Haller work together on a case arising from a kidnapping and murder in Hancock Park.
The LAT's Michael Hiltzik explains his conversion
Writers Bloc is offering five pairs of tickets to LA Observed readers for the Dec. 7 conversation between Cavett and Brooks.
Christie, the senior features editor, was (I believe) the last of the pre-New Times mainstay editors still with the LA Weekly.
Members and fans of PEN Center USA gathered tonight at the Beverly Hills Hotel to give out the organization's 2010 Literary Awards. The journalism winner is Mary Melton, the editor...
"James Ellroy's LA: City of Demons" debuts Jan. 19 on the Investigation Discovery channel.
Next week, J. Michael Walker will make a return visit to la Feria Internacional del Libro, representing the L.A. contingent to reflect on the year since the festival celebrated Los Angeles.
There are still some tickets available for the Live Talks Los Angeles event with author Simon Winchester ("Atlantic: The Biography of an Ocean") in conversation with Patt Morrison on Thursday at Track 16 Gallery at Bergamot Station.
The Wall Street Journal gives over almost its entire Friday Journal section front today to Laura Hillenbrand's upcoming biography of Louis Zamerpini, the 93-year-old war hero and star Olympic athlete of the 1930s who grew up in the South Bay and lives in the Hollywood Hills.
We have a limited number of tickets available for upcoming author events around Los Angeles.
Elizabeth Martinez, the former Los Angeles city librarian, has written a piece about coming to identify herself as a Chicano around the time of the Chicano Moratorium in East Los Angeles in 1970.
"The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest," the third and ostensibly final film with Noomi Rapace playing the part of Swedish hacker-punk-heroine Lisbeth Salander, opens Friday to the approval of Roger Ebert.
Father Gregory Boyle won the nonfiction category of the Southern California Book Awards for "Tattoos on the Heart."
The city of Glendale's choice for this year's One City/One Book reading selection is Los Angeles Noir, the collection edited by LA Observed author Denise Hamilton. She will be the...
LA Observed helps to sponsor the Live Talks Los Angeles series of conversations around town, and producer Ted Habte-Gabr is offering tickets to LAO readers who want to take in Thursday night's session between actor Michael Caine and Sharon Waxman of The Wrap.
Barbara Demick and Megan Stack, who are both staff correspondents in the Los Angeles Times Beijing bureau, have each picked up nominations in the non-fiction category of the National Book Awards
James Franco apparently read D.J. Waldie's memoir about growing up in the Lakewood suburbs while the actor was at UCLA. Now Franco has optioned "Holy Land" for a possible movie.
Actually, the folks at Live Talks L.A. are making ten pairs of tickets available to LA Observed readers to catch P.J. O'Rourke in conversation with Judy Muller.
I haven't seen this book yet, but I'd still bet it will be one of my favorite books of the year. Glen Creason, the ace map librarian in the history...
Cannell wrote best-selling novels and for TV shows like "Adam-12" and "Mission Impossible," then went on to produce series such as ""The Rockford Files," "The A-Team" and "21 Jump Street." He died Thursday at home in Pasadena from complications associated with melanoma.
Ruth Reichl, the longtime California-based food writer and editor before moving to the New York Times and Gourmet, has been named an editor-at-large of Random House.
NPR host and reporter Michele Norris' new book is called "The Grace of Silence: A Memoir."
Patty Fox, a longtime media commentator on fashion and the former fashion director of Divine Design, died Sunday of ovarian canc
L.A. Times publisher Eddy Hartenstein and USC just jointly announced that next year's Festival of Books will be moving from UCLA, where it started and was held for 15 years.
Bill's hard at work on a future book and needs to pull in from his writing on politics for awhile.
Simon and Schuster is all over the case of pitching Nicole Richie as a well-rounded author-whatever.
There's been a lot of talk about Franzen and his novel "Freedom," and close to 600 people came out to hear him last night at the Aratani Japan-America Theater in Downtown.
Author and thoughtful Los Angeles observer D.J. Waldie is leaving his longtime day job with the city of Lakewood, his home town, at the end of the month.
Current TV producer Euna Lee's book on her and Laura Ling's captivity in North Korea is coming this month from Broadway Books. Here's a snippet from the excerpt online of...
reakout Swedish actress Noomi Rapace sat down in Venice with Anne Thompson to talk about her new movie projects, her recent introductory trip to Hollywood and leaving behind the role of Lisbeth Salander.
In Part 6 of The Lisker Chronicles at LA Observed, Bruce Lisker is hit with the state's move to send him back to prison, just as he celebrates his one-year anniversary of freedom.
Today's KCRW show will unveil new theme music after 21 years of the old song.
At the mailbox today was the newest by James Ellroy. "The Hilliker Curse: My Pursuit of Women" came billed as a "raw, brutally candid memoir" that draws on the infamous...
Amid all the talk about the American actress who will replace her as Lisbeth Salander in the remake of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," the real thing is in town this week launching a Hollywood career.
Ray Bradbury tells fans about his upcoming 90th birthday in a series of exclusive videos shot in his home for UCLA, where he wrote "Fahrenheit 451."
Those of us who didn't take part in the celebration of Los Angeles literary goodness at last year's Guadalajara book fair have a new reason to be envious. A new book, edited by Veronique de Turenne and J. Michael Walker, celebrates the scene all over again.
I was wrong: there's still life in the Lisbeth Salander topic. American actress Rooney Mara has been tapped to play the heroine of Stieg Larsson's Millenium trilogy in the English-language version of "The Girl with the DragonTattoo."
Chase, the author of several books on urbanism and Los Angeles, died Friday of an apparent heart attack. He was the godfather to the daughter of Frances Anderton, host of...
City Council President Eric Garcetti posted this childhood photo to his Facebook wall: "Nice mustache, Dad!"
Before we leave the subject of Lisbeth Salander, this video from ABC's Nightline: author Stieg Larsson's girlfriend talks about how the character came to be introduced in "Girl With the Dragon Tattoo."
Noomi Rapace is so perfect as sulky, brilliant hacker-heroine Lisbeth Salander that it seems like a waste to spend any time trying to cast the part for the English-language version of "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo."
An important figure in the Los Angeles book world has died. Marylin Hudson co-founded
the legendary and long-running Round Table West book and author program.
LA Observed columnist Bill Boyarsky's latest book, "Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times," has been nominated for this year's Southern California Independent Booksellers Association awards.
enice photographer E. F. Kitchen has a new book out, Suburban Knights: A Return to the Middle Ages, exploring the activities of the Society for Creative Anachronism, whose members recreate the arts and battles of the Middle Ages.
Dawson's Books, which began Downtown and is the oldest bookstore in Los Angeles, is giving up the Larchmont Boulevard location of many decades that its fans love so much.
Ray Bradury says Mel Gibson is too busy with "that Russian girl" right now to move ahead with a film remake of his classic book.
Jon Thurber had been one of the Los Angeles Times managing editors, but only for the past year or so. On the books desk he replaces David Ulin, who recently...
Christopher Hitchens has announced that doctors have advised him to undergo chemotherapy for cancer in his esophagus. "This advice seems persuasive to me," the 61-year-old author says
While the politicians and unions haggle over whether the next round of city worker layoffs will actually happen, at the Los Angeles Public Library they already are happening.
Book editor David Ulin moves to book critic. No successor immediately named.
The book-touring chef and TV host praised L.A. food culture (and endorsed the Lakers over the Celtics) and revealed where he ate before taking the stage at Royce Hall.
Slake, the quarterly literary journal being launched by former LA Weekly editors Laurie Ochoa and Joe Donnelly, is scheduled to arrive in bookstores by the first week in July.
Richard Stayton, now the editor-in-chief of Written By, was working at the Los Angeles Herald Examiner in 1985 when he met and first wrote about Dennis Hopper.
Former Current TV reporter Laura Ling's book with her sister Lisa Ling, "Somewhere Inside: One Sister's Captivity in North Korea and the Other's Fight to Bring Her Home," is due out today from Harper-Collins.
Tod Goldberg blogs a transcript of his telephone conversation with Bank of America Home Loans, with which he's been having a horror story of screw-ups. When a call starts out this way, you know what's coming is a tale of frustration.
Bel-Air author Justine Musk is blogging about the financial details of her divorce from Elon Musk, the Paypal co-founder who is behind the Tesla electric car company and Space X. It sounds contentious.
Filmmakers Lyn Goldfarb and Alison Sotomayor are taking a new tack in their push to make a feature documentary on the life of the late mayor Tom Bradley. They have sent out a pitch for funds saying, "If the Hollywood Sign said Tom Bradley, would we allow his story to be forgotten?"
Marcia Clark, the lead Los Angeles County prosecutor in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995, has sold her debut crime thriller "Guilt By Association" to Little, Brown for publication in spring 2011.
Hugh Hefner helped put up the last chunk of money in the Trust for Public Land's campaign to buy and preserve acreage west of the Hollywood sign. Councilman Tom LaBonge will talk up the effort this evening on "Which Way, L.A.?" on KCRW.
At Friday night's Los Angeles Times Book Prize ceremony, Dave Eggers won the current interest award for "Zeitoun" and was given the event's first Innovators Award.
Candidate Steve Poizner's book about teaching at Mt. Pleasant High School in San Jose makes act one of this week's "This American Life" on NPR.
I'll be signing "Wilshire Boulevard" and "San Fernando Valley" on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Angel City Press booth. LA Observed authors will be all over the place, including on a bunch of panels.
Journalist/author Charles Bowden will discuss his new book, "Murder City: Ciudad Juarez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields," tonight at Aloud at the Central Library. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez will...
My take on the Kings' exciting playoff win last night was really just a sequence of quick observations. Brian Kennedy, my seatmate in the press box who covered the game...
Rain on the way, less-dire budget news all around, the morning news battleground, a new book show and more.
The Lakers began their playoff run with an 87-79 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder at Staples Center. Kobe led the way with 21 points, Pau Gasol 19.
Starting next year, Zócalo Public Square will award an annual $5,000 book prize to "the U.S.-published book that most enhances our understanding of community the forces that strengthen or undermine human connectedness and social cohesion be it locally, regionally, nationally or globally."
Starting tomorrow, all Los Angeles city libraries are closed on Sundays. The Central Library in Downtown is open 10 to 6 other days, and stays opens until 8 p.m. only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
This year's Peabody Awards, which the broadcasters really value, include KCET's "SoCal Connected" for its story Up in Smoke.
Over the new few months, the architectural discussion website mammoth will be hosting an online discussion of a forthcoming book, "The Infrastructural City: Networked Ecologies in Los Angeles," as an "experiment in the cooperative reading and discussion of a text."
Journalist Adolfo Guzman-Lopez went down to the Central Library for a panel discussion of this year's Big Read selection for Los Angeles, "Sun, Stone, and Shadows," a new collection of short stories by Mexican writers. Attendance was sparse and he left discouraged that "independent cultural events and arts spaces...are now on the endangered species list."
OC Weekly staff writer Nick Schou's new book is "Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love and Its Quest to Spread Peace, Love, and Acid to the World."
Prize-winning author John McPhee is Michael Silverblatt's guest today at 2:30 p.m. on KCRW's Bookworm. McPhee's most recent book is "Silk Parachute." Tonight at 8 p.m. on KCET's SoCal Connected,...
Double praise in the L.A. Times today from friends of Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries for his new memoir, "Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion."
I've been receiving some nice comments all day for posting yesterday's item about the Millard Sheets painting called Angel's Flight. Here's a cover from the literary journal Black Clock that shares the noir vibe and Bunker Hill setting.
LA Observed contributor Adrienne Crew is an entertainment attorney by day. At night she goes to interesting places, and wants you to know where you can go too. Her Angeleno...
Jonathan Kirsch broadens his review of John McPhee's latest collection into a paean to fact-checking and, in particular, to former New Yorker editor Sara Lippincott, who lives here in L.A. Plus some book notes.
The L.A. Times announced the finalists for its 30th annual book prizes and added a new category for graphic novels
With no changes this week at the top of the local bestseller lists, I decided to see if there is any difference in book buying between Southern California and Northern California.
Looking for some smart things to do around town over the next week? LA Observed contributor Adrienne Crew, the creator of L.A. Brain Terrain, offers her suggestions.
Time again for the newest Southern California bestseller lists, fresh through Sunday's sales at local independent bookstores.
Writers and photographer Nick Ut on the calendar.
Model Home," the first novel by Eric Puchner, is set during the Reagan presidency and tells the story of a family — Camille, Warren and their three kids — who move from Wisconsin to Southern California so Warren can get into the real estate game. Bad move.
Sunday at midnight is the final closing for Equator Books on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. The owners sent a note to customers and friends saying, "We ask that you come by...
John Edwards is certainly doing his part to sell books. His dying reputation propels two onto this week's Southern California bestseller lists.
Salinger died Wednesday at the home in Cornish, N.H., where he had lived in seclusion for more than 50 years. From the New York Times: Mr. Salinger’s literary reputation rests...
The new bestseller lists are posted, covering sales in local independent bookstores through last Sunday — and you just can't get any fresher than that. The politics talker that everyone...
Zinn died today of a heart attack while traveling in Santa Monica.
The LA Observed contributor gives an advance preview of his new novel at an SPJ event this evening Downtown.
This past season wasn't so great at the independent bookstore in Pacific Palisades, so they're asking customers to come in for a 25 percent off sale this weekend.
Former Times reporter, editor and writing coach (and occasional LA Observed contributor) Bob Baker has updated his book, "Newsthinking: The Secret of Making Your Facts Fall Into Place."
Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan has a new book out co-authored by New York theater impresario Jospeh Papp — who died in 1991 and who killed the book a few years before that.
Los Angeles writer Michelle Huneven and William T. Vollman are among the finalists for National Book Critics Circle awards announced Saturday night.
Michael Brand's resignation as director of the Getty Museum was requested by Getty Trust president James Wood, according to L.A. Times reporter Jason Felch, citing unnamed sources.
L.A. journalist Alex Ben Block was the lead editor on the the new book, "George Lucas's Blockbusting: A Decade-By-Decade Survey of Timeless Movies." Block, now at the Hollywood Reporter, will...
Publisher Kate Gale blogs that the idea of a book on the living history of California was inspired by book agent and Truthdig book editor Steve Wasserman. Doesn’t have an...
There are fresh number ones at the top of the bestseller lists from Southern California independent bookstores, counting sales through this past Sunday.
Forty years after it was opened by two reformed aerospace engineers, the Bodhi Tree on Melrose Avenue is likely to close. "Perhaps a wealthy philosopher entrepreneur will come in to buy the store and keep it going," co-owner Phil Thompson says.
Former KNBC anchor Tritia Toyota, an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology and Asian American studies at UCLA< has a new book on Chinese American political power in the San Gabriel Valley.
Los Angeles journalist Steve Oney was consumed for nearly half his life by bringing "And the Dead Shall Rise:The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank" into print.
My weekly Friday afternoon segment on KCRW tied together the Chicago flutist's farewell finger at the L.A. Phil, Michael Brand's departure from the Getty and the end of the Aerospace...
After Greg Mortenson's "Three Cups of Tea," the next four best-selling nonfiction trade paperbacks in Southern California this week are all about food.
It's nice to see the blogger-photographer getting some mainstream media acclaim for his new collection of L.A. images,
Inside on the new LA Observed books page, the featured book of the week is "Los Angeles Lakers: 50 Amazing Years in the City of Angels," the first issue from...
He drew more than 3,800 caricatures and other pieces for the New York Review of Books.
The L.A.. Times ran another investigative collaboration with ProPublica on lax enforcement that lets problem nurses keep working. There's a pretty good summation of how 92 digital billboard came...
Emmet Rensin, a sophomore at the University of Chicago when he's not in Tarzana, will guest on KPCC's "Patt Morrison" at 1:30 p.m. to talk about "Twitterature: The World's Greatest...
The public forum's website culls favorites from among the books reviewed during the year, including UCLA prof Kal Raustiala's "Does the Constitution Follow the Flag?" Also, after doing 124 interviews...
Today is departure day for some of the Los Angeles Times staffers who were laid off this week or who retired and/or took buyouts. Arts reporter Suzanne Muchnic sent a...
The books-and-social-networking site Goodreads announced last week it has picked up $2 million in venture capital funding — its second round. Founder Otis Chandler, grandson of the former L.A. Times...
When our LA Sketchbook cartoonist Steve Greenberg had a drawing in Sunday's Daily News, it was something of a time warp. He was the paper's first staff cartoonist back in...
TJ Sullivan has a nice piece at Native Intelligence on the essential role that the venerable Editor & Publisher played in his early years as an itinerant journalist in Ketchum,...
The poet, New Yorker staff writer and USC teacher blogs at The Millions about what she read this year. Excerpt: This was the year in which I read Twilight, in...
This week's New Yorker publishes All That, new fiction by the late David Foster Wallace, who killed himself last year. In March, the magazine published an excerpt from his last...
Time Capsule Press was started last year by Narda Zacchino, a former top editor at the Los Angeles Times and San Francisco Chronicle, and Dickson Louie, an ex-LAT and Times...
Veronique de Turenne shared a cab in Guadalajara with Jonathan Gold and his wife, Laurie Ochoa, then joined them for an adventurous lunch — fried grasshoppers included. Veronique's photos will...
Steve Wasserman, the former Los Angeles Times book editor who is now an agent and book editor at Truthdig, gave a keynote address in Guadalajara in which he said predicting...
PEN Center USA's annual awards dinner and LitFest is tomorrow night at the Beverly Hills Hotel. It's always chock full of local authors, journalists and interesting people. (Tickets are still...
In her new book "Going Rogue," best-selling author Sarah Palin claims to wrap herself in the flag of UCLA legend John Wooden. But, um, the quote she attributes to Coach...
Or maybe it's the willingness of the city's Department of Cultural Affairs to get involved as a sponsor. While a hundred or so Los Angeles writers, artists and speakers —...
LA Observed contributors Veronique de Turenne, Jenny Price and Denise Hamilton will be heading to Guadalajara in coming days (or are already there) for the big book fair, which has...
Zócalo Public Square is decamping in early December to the Guadalajara International Book Fair, with some assistance from the National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Los Angeles...
Readers of LA Observed have seen Kevin McCollister's photographs of Los Angeles, first on his blog Jimson Weed Gazette, and more recently on its successor, East of West LA. His...
Local advice columnist Amy Alkon's new book "I See Rude People: One woman's battle to beat some manners into impolite society” comes out this month and she showed up in...
Euna Lee and Laura Ling continue to go their separate ways. Today in New York, Broadway Books confirmed it has a deal for Lee's account of the Los Angeles journalists'...
In the December issue of The Atlantic, author Sandra Tsing Loh discusses two books about the concept of bad mothers and expands a little on her current situation. Remember, in...
Don Shirley, a theater critic in Los Angeles for many years, including many at the L.A. Times, is now writing for L.A. Stage. He wasn't real thrilled on Sunday to...
Former tennis great Andre Agassi took his woe-is-he book tour tonight to NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. Nice shout-out at the top of the segment for Los Angeles magazine...
The 76-year-old New York photographer is "among the leaders of a loose-knit new wave of photographers — including Lee Friedlander, Danny Lyon, Garry Winogrand and Diane Arbus — who emerged...
Now this is a book review. D.J. Waldie considers the latest book by another Los Angeles author, Jesse Katz, and says "The Opposite Field" is "a sweet baseball memoir with...
In his latest book "Nine Dragons," author Michael Connelly sends his signature character Harry Bosch to Hong Kong to hunt for his own missing daughter. Now, in a piece posted...
John Meroney spent a couple of days with Gore Vidal at his Hollywood home and files his dispatch for The Atlantic. Vidal says, among other things, that concerns about Barack...
Last night's winds knocked out the power at Book Soup for the first half hour or so of Jesse Katz's launch party for The Opposite Field, his new memoir about...
The pilot everybody has now heard of, Chesley Sullenberger, was on KPCC's Airtalk with Larry Mantle in the 10:30 segment. He's fairly alarmist about the declining experience level of airline...
New author Robert Hilburn got a pretty nice shout-out for "Corn Flakes with John Lennon And Other Tales from a Rock 'n' Roll Life" at last night's U2 show at...
Former CityBeat editor Rebecca Schoenkopf has a piece she wrote for the late weekly included in "Best Music Writing 2009," the annual edited by Greil Marcus. Schoenkopf also gets a...
Miriam Pawel was the editor in charge of local coverage at the Los Angeles Times during the first couple of years that John Carroll was the paper's editor. Her reign...
Author James Ellroy sat for a Zócalo Public Square interview with LA Observed contributor Erika Schickel at the Hammer Museum, "discussing Ellroy’s reputation as a genre writer, as the Demon...
L.A. media types who also skate — Alex Cohen of KPCC and Jennifer Barbee of Blood & Thunder magazine — have written "Down and Derby: the Insiders Guide to Roller...
An LAO reader forwarded this errant headline spotted this morning atop the L.A. Times books blog. The hed has now been fixed to Teen Read Week....
Brendan Mullen, author and the founder in 1977 of local punk rock club the Masque, died today after suffering a stroke while celebrating his birthday on the road with his...
The LAT's Carolyn Kellogg has the story: Pasadena's Vroman's is buying Book Soup on the Sunset Strip. She calls it somewhat of an odd pairing. The 115-year-old Vroman's is the...
I've noticed the window display at Alpha Man in West Hollywood; so have plenty of others. And apparently the estate of photographer Helmut Newton doesn't care for the store's homage...
The Huffington Post — which, incidentally, has been interviewing potential staffers for its upcoming Los Angeles news site — today announced a book section. From Arianna's post: Since I was...
There are two new blogs by L.A. journalists that I've started following. L.A. Explored is by journalist and fellow Angel City Press author Amy Dawes, who posts, "I live in...
Los Angeles Magazine kicks off a new Hollywood sociology column, Cut!, in the October issue. New contributing writer Gina Piccalo writes the first one, talking to spouses and partners about...
In case you missed them: Bill Boyarsky spent a delightful evening with Norman Corwin, the 99-year-old "Los Angeles literary treasure," at the Barnes & Noble in Westside Pavilion. Visiting blogger...
Historian Kevin Starr's latest thick work on California, "Golden Dreams: California in an Age of Abundance, 1950-1963," devotes much attention to the San Fernando Valley, which swelled during the time...
John Klima, the writer behind the website Baseball Beginnings, has written "Willie's Boys: The 1948 Birmingham Black Barons, The Last Negro League World Series, and the Making of a Baseball...
Make that apples in this case, as the offspring of two local writers make publishing deals. First, 19-year-old Emmett Rensin, son of LAO's own David Rensin, has made profitable use...
Brace yourselves for a shock -- D.J. Waldie, whose lyrical writings about his hometown have earned him awards, honors and the title 'the bard of Lakewood', is stepping down from...
OK I'm biased, but I thought we had a fun 30 minutes with authors Richard Rayner and John Buntin talking about Los Angeles' dark and storied past. Here's the audio...
I thoroughly enjoyed reading two recent books on the colorful history of Los Angeles politics, mobsters and City Hall corruption. This afternoon I get to host a discussion on KCRW's...
The new episode of Vista LA that airs Sunday at 11:30 a.m. on Channel 7 focuses on recent improvements to MacArthur Park — led by the Levitt Pavilion — and...
Ted Kennedy's letter about Sirhan — plus more politics, fires and books — in the news and notes hidden below the jump. Also see Mark Lacter's morning headlines at LA...
That is the question explored by journalist John Buntin in a new piece for Governing magazine. Buntin comes at the subject with extensive background: he's the author of a new...
Bill Boyarsky has been absent from LA Observed since February writing a book and taking some vacation. The book hits stores in September — and looks truly gorgeous. "Inventing L.A.:...
Rep. Henry Waxman talks to guest host Marc Cooper on KCRW's Politics of Culture at 2:30 p.m. today. The main topic is the congressman's new book, "The Waxman Report: How...
Finalists are out for the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association awards for 2009. Nominees include "Losing My Religion" by ex-L.A. Times reporter William Lobdell, "The Wonder Years" by Rick Rickman...
Hugh Garvey, features editor at Bon Appetit magazine here and a food blogger, has a new cookbook out called "Gastrokid Cookbook: Feeding a Foodie Family in a Fast-Food World." Self-explanatory...
The president of Phoenix Books in Beverly Hills was 65. He died of cancer over the weekend. Viner has published or tried to publish several controversial books, including in 2003...
The L.A. Times' emeritus pop music editor has a memoir of his decades covering the business — "Corn Flakes with John Lennon And Other Tales from a Rock 'n' Roll...
Wired magazine's Mark Horowitz has created a Zee Maps-assisted guide to the Los Angeles locations in Thomas Pynchon's novels and real life, based on the presumption that "Pynchon, the paranoid...
Isabel Kaplan is 19, got her book deal when she was a high school junior, and now is enjoying "Hancock Park" hold a spot on the L.A. Times bestseller list...
The best-selling writer of gay black fiction fell ill yesterday at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills. He lived in Atlanta. LAT...
Charles Bukowski narrates a tour of the Hollywood and Western area, highlighting his favorite bars, hangouts, hookers and dope-dealers. From "The Charles Bukowski Tapes" (1985), by Barbet Schroeder, via...
Frances Dinkelspiel, the author who talks tonight at ALOUD about "Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California," is also president of the board at the...
Mark Lacter has ten tickets for Thursday morning's appearance by Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson to talk about his book, "Free: The Future of a Radical Price," at the ALOUD Business...
Los Angeles and New York both make great settings for police dramas on TV. But why, over the last decade or more, are most of the better ones located in...
Jonathan Kirsch reviews "A Windfall of Musicians: Hitler's Émigrés and Exiles in Southern California," Dorothy Lamb Crawford's study of the 1930s emigres to Los Angeles such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold...
In the same issue of The Atlantic where Sandra Tsing Loh finishes off her marriage, the editor's choice book is Kevin Starr's eighth in his series on Golden State history:...
I skipped right past this Steve Coll piece in last week's New Yorker skimming revelations from a forthcoming book by Osama’s first wife, Najwa Bin Laden, and his son. Coll...
For some reason Sony agreed to make a movie out of the Michael Lewis baseball bestseller "Moneyball." Brad Pitt got on board, crews were hired, shooting was to begin today...
A nice local book deal: Penguin picked up "Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books, Now Presented in Twenty Tweets or Less," called a humorous retelling of works of great literature in...
Studio City author Francesca Lia Block has hit a small PR jackpot. Some overheated Christians in West Bend, Wisconsin want to publicly burn her novel "Baby Be-Bop." They also want...
I'm moderating Tuesday night's Aloud LA lecture series panel at the Central Library pegged to the book "Smogtown: The Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles," by Chip Jacobs and...
Schwarzenegger's plea, the Lu Parker/Villaraigosa talk continues, those Chinese are still at LAX, books by Barbara Streisand and Choire Sicha, a journalist gets a job and more. Mark Lacter's LA...
Well, maybe Vin Scully will end up being glad Curt Smith went ahead with an unauthorized biography. But Scully has said often that he didn't want a book done on...
I've now read and thoroughly enjoyed Michael Connelly's latest book. In today's Times review, Tim Rutten calls "The Scarecrow" Connelly's best since "The Poet," and also the first novel to...
I just started reading Michael Connelly's latest Los Angeles mystery "The Scarecrow," and it feels hot off the presses. He's got the Rocky Mountain News shut down in Denver, newspapers...
When Elmore Leonard was researching his new novel "Road Dogs," Venice Paper publisher Tibby Rothman showed him around Venice for a few hours. Now she's in some of the book's...
Haven't seen the book yet, but I like the title. "Beverly Hills Adjacent" is a debut novel with strong local flavor and media bloodlines: it's by Jennifer Steinhauer, the New...
Author Frances Dinkelspiel has noticed that ever since the San Francisco Chronicle laid off dozens of reporters, the number of author and artist features in the paper has gone up....
NBC picked up four dramas and two comedies for its fall lineup but "left several questions unanswered until later this month." Variety, The Wrap, Finke Rep. Jane Harman went...
I'm pleased to say that Steve Greenberg will be contributing original editorial cartoons to LA Observed; this is his first. Steve is an editorial cartoonist, illustrator and graphic artist...
An amalgam of observations and reports from the L.A. Times Festival of Books, held Saturday and Sunday at UCLA: There were really long lines to have books signed by children's...
How times change. Steve Wasserman, the former books editor at the Los Angeles Times, presided for years over the LAT Book Prizes soiree at UCLA's Royce Hall. He didn't even...
A nice group of LA Observed contributors will be taking part in this weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at UCLA. I'll be signing copies of Wilshire Boulevard and...
The annual awarding of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes has been moved from UCLA's Royce Hall, scene of a fairly copious free dinner and open bar for authors, invited...
Judy Pasternak will get $30,000 from the Lukas Prize Project Awards for Exceptional Works of Nonfiction to help finish her book, "Yellow Dirt: The Betrayal of the Navajos." The book...
Steven Bach was the executive at United Artists who took the fall for "Heaven’s Gate" and went on to write "Final Cut," which William Grimes in the New York Times...
Another good bookstore is folding up its tent — and the news drew multiple, audible protests here in the house when I read it out loud. "After 20 years selling...
Author John Shannon says he smelled something burning while driving home today. Under the hood of his car he found this bird's nest smoldering atop the engine. His ride had...
Mark Arax, the former Los Angeles Times reporter based in Fresno, is joining the staff of the state's Senate Select Committee on Air Quality, a new committee headed by Sen....
Rick Wartzman, the former editor of the LAT's own West magazine, is a finalist for a Los Angeles Times Book prize in the history category for "Obscene in the Extreme:...
The New Yorker that hits the streets today has an excerpt from "The Pale King," the unfinished novel that David Foster Wallace was working on when he hanged himself at...
The gay-oriented West Hollywood store announced this week that it's closing soon after nearly thirty years, citing in part the loss of foot traffic from all the construction work to...
John Updike released more than 50 books in a career that started in the 1950s. He won two Pulitzer Prizes, for ''Rabbit Is Rich'' and ''Rabbit at Rest,'' two National...
Former Los Angeles Times editor Jim O'Shea, who lost the top job after clashing with then-publisher David Hiller, will study conflicts between newspaper editors and owners as a spring fellow...
Ayres, the Los Angeles correspondent for The Times of London, previously wrote "War Reporting for Cowards." From the flap for "Death by Leisure: A Cautionary Tale," his newest: All Chris...
Author D.J. Waldie ruminates on the Spanish Colonial Revival style, inspired by dinner at the Santa Monica home of Angel City Press publishers Paddy Calistro and Scott McAuley. From his...
Jennifer Baszile, a professor of history at Yale, has written a memoir called "The Black Girl Next Door" that doesn't reflect kindly on her upbringing as an African American girl...
Echo Park author Charlie Huston, who blogs at Pulpnoir.com, gets a helpful Janet Maslin review in today's New York Times for his latest book, "The Mystic Arts of Erasing All...
Goldman died today of pancreatic cancer, a disease that was just recently diagnosed. He leaves two teenage sons. As I posted earlier today, Goldman and staffers at the Sunset Strip...
Staffers and friends of Sunset Strip fixture Book Soup are contacting potential buyers due to a serious illness afflicting founder Glenn Goldman. Judging by emails circulating in L.A. book circles,...
Forrest J Ackerman, archivist Tina Allen, artist Arthur C. Clarke, author Philip Conisbee, curator Michael Crichton, author Bo Diddley, rocker Elaine Dundy, author Patricia Faure, art dealer Robert Graham,...
Los Angeles author Howard Rosenberg (the former LAT critic) and his co-author Charles Feldman were booked on KRON TV in San Francisco on Jan. 3 to talk about their new...
I observed more WTF? head scratching over the L.A. Times' layoff of Calendar writer Scott Timberg this fall than over just about anybody. So no surprise he shows up today...
Village Books struggles to get by in the little shopping district of Pacific Palisades, but things seem especially grim on that street this year. The bookstore has loyal fans, though,...
Here's how AP announces the news: Forrest J Ackerman, the sometime actor, literary agent, magazine editor and full-time bon vivant who discovered author Ray Bradbury and was widely credited with...
Ken Gonzales-Day, a photographer and Scripps College professor, wrote the book "Lynching in the West: 1850-1935." He has traveled California trying to locate the actual trees used by lynch mobs....
Last night at the Beverly Hills Hotel, PEN Center USA gave a lifetime achievement award to multi-faceted writer Larry Gelbart and its First Amendment Award to the Writers Guild. Jesse...
David Willman, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2000 investigation into the FDA's approval of some deadly drugs, is one of the solid reporters to recently leave the former...
Photographer Patrick Ecclesine's new book from Santa Monica Press, "Faces of Sunset Boulevard: a Portrait of Los Angeles," travels the length of the boulevard through portraits of people who live,...
Maps or guides to mentioned locales seem to be a more popular marketing wrinkle for books set in Los Angeles. At least those from Hachette: remember the dining guide to...
From around the local media: Sam Rubin talked to SAG president Alan Rosenberg on the KTLA Morning News. "We've made monumental moves in their direction...and they have not moved one...
Los Angeles' participation in the national Big Read program has been to encourage reading and discussion of "The Maltese Falcon," the classic Dashiell Hammett noir novel from 1930 that the...
For a couple of years I've been anticipating the biography of Isaias Hellman, who had a hand in so much early Los Angeles history as the power behind Farmers and...
Los Angeles-born Olympic wrestling champion Henry Cejudo will write his memoir, "The Americano Dream," for Celebra. It's about growing up Mexican American in South Los Angeles, being moved to New...
The author and creator of "ER" died yesterday in Los Angeles "after a courageous and private battle against cancer," his website announced. His books included "Jurassic Park" and "The Lost...
The Chicago Tribune summarizes Studs Terkel as "author-radio host-actor-activist and Chicago symbol." He died today at home there, with his book scheduled for release next month, "P.S. Further Thoughts From...
Deanne Stillman posts at Native Intelligence about Tony Hillerman, her former professor who died yesterday and who provided inspiration for her own writing about the West. I can't remember any...
Tony Hillerman introduced readers to the Navajo culture of the Southwest through his series of mystery novels centered on Navajo Tribal Police Lt. Joe Leaphorn and officer Jim Chee. Hillerman...
Mark Hull, publisher of Red Hen Press, got the word to get out of his Granada Hills home office as the Sesnon Fire bore down. Which books did he choose...
It's not just the Pasadena Symphony. The almost-certainly-a-recession is affecting arts and culture organizations all around. On KCRW's Politics of Culture at 2:30 this afternoon, Ruth Seymour talks with key...
The New York Times' David Carr jets out to the coast and finds that in Hollywood, it's still morning in America. Hollywood comes by its indifference honestly. Certainly, the stock...
Just for kicks, before and after my "Noir of Politics" panel at Sunday's West Hollywood Book Fair I shot some video of other panels and did interviews with author...
"Smogtown: the Lung-Burning History of Pollution in Los Angeles" will be published Thursday by The Overlook Press/Penguin U.S.A. The book, by Chip Jacobs and William J. Kelly, looks like it...
Fox 11 crime reporter Chris Blatchford is out with "The Black Hand," which Dominick Dunne calls in a blurb, "A gripping, powerful, chilling inside look at a criminal organization that...
My KCRW spot this afternoon talks about the story possibilities of having the Dodgers and Angels in the playoffs, and about the star power of Manny Ramirez. LA Observed on...
The film in which Robert Downey Jr. portrays LAT columnist Steve Lopez, and Jamie Foxx plays downtown street musician Nathaniel Ayers, must be getting close. The trailer runs 2:31 on...
KCRW (89.9 FM) will devote this week's "Politics of Culture" to the death and literary legacy of David Foster Wallace, who killed himself last week at home in Claremont. "Bookworm"...
Novelist David Foster Wallace, best known for "Infinite Jest" and other books, hanged himself at home in Claremont, police said in the city east of Los Angeles. He had been...
October 18 will be the final day for the venerable Long Beach book store. Everything is 50% off as of now, with further markdowns to come. Ray Bradbury did what...
I enjoyed reading the story of Tom Dreesen and Tim Reid, who met at a Jaycees meeting outside Chicago in 1968 and struggled to break through as a black-and-white comedy...
Attention ex-journalists looking for something new to do. A bookstore in Big Bear Lake is for sale. "In the heart of Big Bear Village, a four seasons resort community in...
Los Angeles magazine's September issue includes a round-up of the area's best high schools (not on line) and a book review-cum-profile of the city's most visible activist parent of the...
This was the weekend that Sandra Tsing Loh's latest book, "Mother on Fire," got reviewed in the New York Times and her hometown Los Angeles Times. Both reviewers enjoyed the...
Eating L.A.'s Pat Saperstein joined LA Observed author Denise Hamilton on a culinary tour based on locations mentioned in "The Last Embrace," Denise's latest Los Angeles-based mystery. This one, set...
LA Observed author David Rensin was on a book tour-vacation when Hollywood manager and producer Bernie Brillstein ">died, but I for one have been anticipating David's reaction. He helped Brillstein...
Allan Sloan of Fortune Magazine, a persistent skeptic of Tribune dealings, breaks down Sam Zell's latest creative financing scheme for Marketplace: "The company is in, as you know, big trouble....What...
Echo Park author Sarah Miller has an amusing piece in the Times opinion pages Sunday about John Edwards' former extra-marital squeeze, who rented the room Miller had vacated in a...
Bill Boyarsky, LA Observed's occasional politics columnist, is a finalist in nonfiction for the 2008 book award from the Southern California Independent Booksellers Association. It's for "Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh...
Even as Acres of Books' coming demise in Long Beach becomes more certain, Skylight Books in Los Feliz is becoming the rare independent bookstore to grow these days. On Wednesday...
The "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer" drills down on the closure of newspaper book sections, pegged to the L.A. Times situation. Here's the email blast at Romenesko: This past Sunday, the...
Times book editor David Ulin tells Publishers Weekly that, in the post-Book Review era, the upside is that editorially and aesthetically, we are going to be producing the same kind...
Yesterday it was the Book Review's former editors pleading to keep a distinct books presence in the Los Angeles Times. Today, Los Angeles author Daniel A. Olivas (Latinos in Lotusland,...
Four past book editors of the Los Angeles Times — Sonja Bolle, Digby Diehl, Jack Miles and Steve Wasserman — released a letter protesting the planned termination of the Sunday...
Jill Leovy is turning her year as the Los Angeles Times' homicide blogger into a book for Spiegel & Grau. "The Homicide Report: Black Men, Murder and Americas Unseen Catastrophe"...
Carolyn Kellogg blogs at Jacket Copy that there is a potential winner in all the handwringing and debate over the magazine cover depicting Barack and Michelle Obama as Islamic militants....
That's how one staffer describes the mood around the Los Angeles Times offices, where editors were believed to be working last night on their final lists of staffers — 150...
Sam Zell's in-house innovator Lee Abrams has memoed again, long and rambling and ungrammatical as usual. Now that the cost-cutting Los Angeles Times is apparently moving towards folding the stand-alone...
Email from proprietor Michael Dawson announces that Los Angeles' oldest bookstore, now located on Larchmont Boulevard, will go to appointment only. Dawson's has sold books in L.A. since 1905 and...
Ray Bradbury spoke last night at the iconic Long Beach bookstore and railed about its threatened closure and the dearth of bookstores in certain areas around Los Angeles. LBReport.com was...
Frank Girardot, city editor at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, also posted his paper's original 1958 coverage of the murder of writer James Ellroy's mother. In the post Girardot describes...
Today is the 50th anniversary of a story hitting the Los Angeles papers that would become iconic in local literature. On June 22, 1958, 10-year-old James Ellroy came home in...
Tom Waldman is the chief of staff to Los Angeles school board member Tamar Galatzan (and he formerly was press secretary to Rep. Howard Berman.) He's also the author of...
The former E! Channel host, Elite model and daughter-in-law to Ed Asner (she's now married to Steven Soderbergh) has a new novel landing tomorrow. "Whacked" is set in Hollywood, of...
At least two Japanese gangsters who received liver transplants at UCLA Medical Center then donated $100,000, the LAT reports. (WitnessLA adds some context to the UCLA transplant stories.) Todd...
Book launch 2.0, the video: LA Observed channel on YouTube NOTES: Marketplace ran a nice piece on Skylight Books expanding, featuring owner Kerry Slattery...BEA party roundup from the New York...
Working through the pile on my desk in advance of this week's BookExpo America at the Downtown Convention Center. Sascha Rothchild's piece on ending her starter marriage ran in the...
A huge chunk of the book world will be here this week for BookExpo America, which opens Thursday at the Convention Center and runs through the weekend. BEA, last here...
Deanne Stillman, author of the forthcoming "Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West," posts a Memorial Day paean to Buffalo Bill Cody and one of his...
Newsweek editor Fareed Zakaria packed them in at the Central Library's ALOUD series last week and his new book, "The Post-American World," is getting mostly good reviews. His argument that...
Steve Harvey debunked some of author James Frey's so-called quirky facts about Los Angeles in his Only in L.A. column on Saturday. Author Frances Dinkelspiel picks up the cause and...
Actually it's just one book, the new novel set in Los Angeles by fabulist James Frey. But look at how differently it's being read. LAT Book Editor David Ulin holds...
The host of the long-running "Connie Martinson Talks Books" gave nearly 3,000 tapes of her cable show to Claremont Graduate University. "It's a pretty extraordinary gift," said Rick Wartzman, director...
You could say that former Dodger and product of Los Angeles Darryl Strawberry had the book thrown at him so often he should write one. Well, now he is. According...
Mark Sarvas is often biting in his reviews and commentaries at The Elegant Variation, a point that Scott Timberg makes up front in his Q&A with Sarvas in today's LAT...
Nice Q&A by Deanne Stillman over at Native Intelligence with Larry McMurtry, the author and screenwriter who was in town this week to receive the Los Angeles Public Library Award...
Denise Hamilton sits in at The Elegant Variation today and guest-interviews author Nina Revoyr about her new novel, "The Age of Dreaming." Excerpt: "The Age of Dreaming" recounts the story...
My panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books ("California: The Great Experiment") was well-attended by an enthusiastic crowd that asked many provocative questions, provocatively answered by Bill Deverell,...
Before the first author was honored at Friday night's Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, Times critic Kenneth Turan delivered a tribute to Dutton's Brentwood Books, which closes April 30. As...
In her new travel guide "Great Escapes Southern California," Donna Wares describes author D.J. Waldie's ritual for the weekend of the L.A. Times Festival of Books. He takes the bus...
'Tis the season for new Los Angeles-focused releases — and the week for book parties — with the Times Festival of Books on tap this coming weekend. "Latinos in Lotusland:...
This year's L.A. Times Festival of Books is the weekend of April 26-27 at UCLA. I'm moderating a 3 pm Saturday panel called "California: The Great Experiment," with a distinguished...
He still makes appearances and will be talking about "KTLA's News at Ten: Sixty Years with Stan Chambers" tonight at 7:30 pm at the Beverly Hills City Hall. Info...
Unlike in New York, baseball steroid man Jose Canseco drew a muted response at this week's book signing here. Stuffed behind a counter in a dimly lit corner of a...
On the day that Michael Ramirez won a Pulitzer Prize, it's somewhat fitting to run a Robert Scheer item too. He and Ramirez were both dropped from the L.A. Times...
My prediction of this morning was correct, if general. The Washington Post cleaned up with six Pulitzer prizes, for coverage of Walter Reed, Virginia Tech, Dick Cheney and Blackwater among...
The OC Weekly's Nick Schou got a double dose of good news today. Universal is developing a film based on his 2006 book "Kill the Messenger," about the late journalist...
A few hundred fans applauded Dutton's Brentwood Books on Sunday afternoon, filling the courtyard where so many authors have spoken on their L.A. tours. The store closes April 30, and...
Friends, fans and employees of Dutton's Brentwood Bookstore will gather in the courtyard one last time this Sunday at 5 pm. The shelves already look rather sad, but the final...
As a reporter, I liked to write about L.A's infrastructure — freeways, water, refuse. I always thought there was a book in the history of the Los Angeles sewer system,...
Christian Lander, the Culver City-based writer of the hit satire blog Stuff White People Like, has gotten a William Morris agent (Erin Malone) and a book deal out of the...
The English-born writer of science fiction died in Sri Lanka, his home since 1956. NYT, BBC, AP...
Longtime L.A. Times pop critic Robert Hilburn has signed with ModernTimes/Rodale to do a "deeply personal and highly opinionated memoir" of his decades covering the music scene. From the flackage:...
Last weekend's New York Times did a nice spread on J. Michael Walker and his one-of-a-kind Los Angeles book, "All the Saints of the City of the Angels: Seeking the...
Her years in Los Angeles taught Nancy Rommelmann, an ex-New Yorker, that no one is more provincial than New Yorkers. So she isn't surprised that Manhattan's publishing industry and the...
Mark Lacter and I were just on "Airtalk" talking with Larry Mantle about the buyouts at the Times and other local papers. You can hear it in the archives at...
Celeste Fremon is expected to guest on "Patt Morrison" on KPCC at the top of the 2 pm hour, to talk about the fake Margaret B. Jones "memoir" and what...
She's Margaret Seltzer, she went to preppy Campbell Hall, and she never ran drugs for the Bloods in South L.A., she confessed to the New York Times. The publisher of...
Novelist Maxine Hong Kingston wins this year's Robert Kirsch Award. Nominees in the nine categories, announced tonight in New York, include Ron Brownstein, Naomi Klein and Tim Weiner. Winners are...
Charlie Munger, who owns and wants to redevelop the Brentwood block that includes Dutton's Books, promised to pay all of the bookstore's debts — and forgive the rent — in...
Poet T.S. Kerrigan lives in Burbank, so not precisely L.A.. And OK, it was Friday, not today. But some verse of his was the selection of the day at Best...
A lot of sites and media are reacting to the sad news — first posted here at LA Observed early this morning — that Dutton's Books in Brentwood will be...
Jacket Copy, the blog written by the staff of the L.A. Times' books section, today added a new voice: Carolyn Kellogg's. She is the former editor of LAist who left...
The words "speculative sports fiction" caught my eye and made me go: huh? But that's the genre that covers the anthology edited by Tujunga author Karen A. Romanko. She emails...
Dutton's Brentwood Books will close April 30 after a tough year. A clientele like Dustin Hoffman, Diane Keaton and half the authors in the city isn't enough to keep a...
When LA Observed was just a toddler of a blog, I watched Nancy Rommelmann chronicle her anxiety-filled but hopeful (and ultimately happy) move to Portland in a blog she called...
Slate editor Jacob Weisberg gave a little shout out to LA Observed in his remarks last night at a book party at Arianna Huffington's home. Actually, he noted that I...
L.A. author, humorist and kitschy snapshot collector Charles Phoenix will share his vintage Valentine's Day slides with Martha Stewart on her syndicated TV show on Thursday. I have no idea...
At least two Los Angeles blogs are included in a new book, "Ultimate Blogs: Masterworks From the Wild Web," edited by the NYT's Sarah Boxer. They are Go Fug Yourself...
Native Intelligence contributor Deanne Stillman has the cover of the new Los Angeles CityBeat with a nice piece on the Mojave Desert portion of L.A. County. Photos by Mark LaMonica...
Much honored Los Angeles sci-fi writer and alternate historian Harry Turtledove writes about time travel in his Crosstime Traffic series. Could he be predicting the future with the sixth book...
Last year's managing editor of the Los Angeles Times (actually he stayed nearly two years) will be on Hugh Hewitt's radio show Thursday. Frantz and his wife, Catherine Collins, will...
Who knew? I'm told, by Los Angeles poet Richard Beban, that this morning's verse about opossums was no lone wolf. He says there is something of a cult of local...
Author Samantha Dunn writes in today's Calendar section, "We should thank our lucky stars Mary McNamara's debut novel, 'Oscar Season,' arrives when it does, because if the writers strike goes...
An LA Observed reader who works at Cal State Long Beach stopped by Wilshire Books in Santa Monica and found the store cleared out. "Quietly closed at the end of...
The authors of that book claiming a slew of ethical breaches by former USC Trojans star Reggie Bush and his family have posted excerpts and documents on a website: TarnishedHeisman.com....
The author and widow of Aldous Huxley has died in Los Angeles, according to family friends. She was 96. She was born in Italy and became a top violinist at...
Publishers Lunch brings word that Maria Shriver has sold Just Who Will You Be, "presenting life lessons and reflections on what's important in her life, inspired by a poem she...
This one is more of a prank than yesterday's scam, also from Shelf Awareness: Kerry Slattery, general manager of Skylight Books, Los Angeles, Calif., has another cautionary tale about an...
John Evans, co-owner of Diesel: A Bookstore out in Malibu, told the newsletter Shelf Awareness about a strange come-on at his Oakland store. I guess with everything else they face,...
Remember Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, the journalist who quit the L.A. Times in a huffy outburst and resurfaced as a successful novelist? (And who more recently mourned the death of Cathy Seipp.)...
Katie O'Laughlin of Village Books, one of the city's best and coziest small bookstores, says she's losing the battle against the big boxes and rising rents in her Pacific Palisades...
In addition to his blog here at LA Observed, Bill Boyarsky is a regular columnist for Robert Scheer and Zuade Kaufman at Truthdig. They actually pay him, unlike here, and...
Los Angeles novelist and screenwriter Clancy Sigal turned up in today's letters section in the New York Times Book Review, offering a counter view to the description of mass-market writer...
Judith Regan today sued News Corp for $100 million over her firing last year and charged that a senior executive urged her to mislead federal investigators about her relationship with...
Events are starting up for Bill Boyarsky's major political history from University of California Press, Big Daddy: Jesse Unruh and the Art of Power Politics. Unruh, of course, was the...
In a post over at Native Intelligence, Denise Hamilton goes for a sidewalk adventure in the city with Judith Freeman, author of the new book The Long Embrace, Raymond Chandler...
Author Denise Hamilton and Eating L.A. blogger Pat Saperstein did a fun road trip recently, visiting many of the local dining spots patronized by Hamilton's lovelorn newspaper reporter protagonist, Eve...
Andrea Grossman's independent literary series Writers Bloc has become part of the Town Hall Los Angeles organization. Grossman will continue to select the programs, but there will be more promotion...
He did not pay anyone to threaten reporter Anita Busch and pretty much loathes PI Anthony Pellicano, says the actor whose name was prominently mentioned when the feds first began...
Former L.A. Times feature writer-turned-novelist Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez had been a victim of journalist Cathy Seipp's gratuitous mean side, and gave it back to her. But she was sad to learn...
Steve Wasserman and Robert Scheer are together again. The former Los Angeles Times book editor, now managing director of the New York office of Kneerim & Williams at Fish &...
Douglas Anne Munson, author of an L.A. noir trilogy that opened with the admired Dogtown, has champions in Michael Connelly, Carolyn See, John Rechy and Jonathan Kellerman. Also in Denise...
PEN USA has chosen the winners of its 2007 literary awards for writers and journalists in the West. Among the local winners is Cynthia Kadohata, who won in children's literature...
Our post earlier this month on Hollywood tabloidist-turned-author Marlise Kast and her pursuit of blissful contentment inspired Luke Ford to interview her for his blog. Or was it the picture?...
Marlise Kast is a former Hollywood production assistant who began digging up dirt for The Globe at age 21. She now dishes about her three years on the tabloid beat...
A memoir, noted at Publishers Lunch: "Director of strategic alliances for global think tank, TalentSmart, Lac D. Su's THE CRIP WALK, a coming-of-age memoir about his life as a first-generation...
Don't Let the Lipstick Fool You will be "an uplifting memoir profiling the author's personal and professional life," says Publishers Lunch. Dafina bought it for publication next May. Leslie won...
Now Michelle Delgadillo has business tax problems, but abruptly took care of them Friday in advance of a new round of stories. LAT, DN Popular progressive and previously faceless...
The 30-year-old daughter of former VP Al Gore lives near downtown with husband Paul Cusack, writes for "Saturday Night Live" and "Futurama" and has a new novel, Sammy's House, coming...
Business was fine, but the building was sold and co-owner Ben Weinstein got a good offer for what Scott Timberg calls in the Times about $10 million worth of inventory....
Publishers Weekly leads today's Deals with Los Angeles Magazine staff writer Jesse Katz selling The Opposite Field to Crown in a preempt "said to be worth major dollars." Katz will...
Producer and author Tom Teicholz hit on a pretty good way to give his next book a shot at a favorable reception. He devoted his column in the Jewish Journal...
How's this for a tangible book prize? Charles Rappleye, formerly of the LA Weekly, won the $50,000 George Washington Book Prize, "honoring the most important new book about America's founding...
L.A. bloggers Mark Sarvas (The Elegant Variation) and Callie Miller (Counterbalance) were quoted in a weekend LAT story on the rise — to a point — of books blogs as...
Couple of additions to the lineup of LA Observed contributors at this weekend's L.A. Times Festival of Books at UCLA. Veronique de Turenne has been added as moderator of the...
Snakeskin Shamesin, third in the series of Naomi Hirahara's novels set in Southern California that feature Japanese-American gardener Mas Arai, won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America...
Books editor David Ulin is scheduled to discuss the changes in the Times Sunday Book Review, the situation at the paper and this weekend's LAT Festival of Books with host...
The author and journalist was involved in a three-car crash this morning near the Dumbarton Bridge in San Mateo County, according to AP stories out of Menlo Park and San...
Erika Schickel and myself (along with Times columnist Al Martinez) were the guests on KABC 790 AM's show "Spotlight on the Community" this morning talking with hosts Nelkane Benton and...
T. Jefferson Parker's L.A. Outlaws is moving to Dutton as part of a two-book deal, with publication next February. But here's my favorite L.A. angle from Publishers Lunch: Adena Halpern's...
To juice up interest in Ray Bradbury's appearance this Sunday in Santa Clarita, this ad ran in The Signal. Dozens of mystified, angry calls flooded into the paper, the fire...
Kurt Vonnegut died tonight in Manhattan, several weeks after suffering brain injuries in a fall. His wife, photographer Jill Krementz, confirmed the news for the Times. Elaine Woo's obituary calls...
President Bush has an evening fundraiser in Brentwood, there are accidents on both sides of the 405 near Wilshire, and the northbound Pasadena is backed up near I-5. Luckily, Bush...
The author and professor of creative writing at Cornell was born in East Los Angeles, graduated from Garfield High and Immaculate Heart College, and worked as a bottler at...
An L.A. Times press release announces several reductions in the value of what the paper give its dwindling readership — oops, I mean "editorial changes designed to meet the evolving...
I'm going to guess that the pressure to fold the Times' Sunday Book Review into a cheaper, thinner Saturday tabloid comes from the Chicagoans in temporary residence on Spring Street....
If Jeffrey Trachtenberg's Wall Street Journal report is accurate, that would mean the Times decided to face the critical music and launch the scaled-back Book Review before the big LAT...
The San Francisco Chronicle has a unique understanding of how readers here might react to the LAT folding its Book Review in with Current. The Chronicle merged its Sunday review...
Essayist William Kittredge will pick up the Robert Kirsch Award on April 27 when the winners in the following Los Angeles Times Book Prize categories will be announced. Finalists were...
Mark Sarvas, L.A.'s most recognized lit-blogger, has a post up at The Elegant Variation that he's been hoping to write for a long time. He sold his first novel, and...
L.A. freelancer Janelle Brown has sold her debut novel, All We Ever Wanted Was Everything — "about a woman and her two daughters coming together after their lives are dramatically...
Newsroom sources at the Times expect the Sunday Book Review will be folded into a new hybrid opinion section and delivered in Saturday papers. The new section that some staffers...
Results are in for The History Channels City of the Future design competition. On-line voters selected Chicago the winner. New York came in second. The Eric Owen Moss design for...
Daniel Olivas, the author of Devil Talk, writes at California Authors.com about trying to make the transition to novelist while also finding time to be a father, husband and full-time...
The New York Times received a partial transcript of O.J. Simpson's never-televised Fox interview with Judith Regan describing how the 1994 murders of Nicole Simpson and Ron Goldman might have...
Sidney Sheldon had won a screenwriting Oscar (The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer), a Tony ("Redhead") and created TV sitcoms ("I Dream of Jeannie" and "Patty Duke") before beginning to write...
Denise Hamilton writes that Barbara Seranella, who died this week, was the rare mystery author who didn't have to rely on second-hand observations to create gritty, realistic characters and scenes....
Manhattan's 92nd Street Y is hosting a night this week with three L.A. literary types who happen to be ex-New Yorkers. In advance of Thursday's event, artist/writer/standup Beth Lapides answers...
Issue number three of Swink — the "bi-coastal, biannual print magazine dedicated to identifying and promoting literary talent in both established and emerging writers," edited by Leelila Strogov — will...
The best-selling mystery author from Laguna Beach died yesterday in Cleveland while awaiting a liver transplant. She had received two livers in 2005 and spent much time since at USC's...
Will the sad bookstore news never stop? Dutton's Brentwood Books on San Vicente "may soon succumb to its landlord's plans to redevelop the site," the Times' Scott Timberg and Martha...
Another independent bookstore is on the ropes. Tia Chucha's Cafe & Cultural Center in Sylmar lost its lease and has to move. Co-founder Luis J. Rodriguez writes on the website:...
A study at Central Connecticut State University ranks the most literate cities in the U.S. based on "newspaper circulation, number of bookstores, library resources, periodical publishing resources, educational attainment, and...
Last-chance talks between Dutton's management and the city of Beverly Hills failed to stave off the Dec. 31 closure of the Canon Drive bookstore. The doors did not reopen today...
Judith Regan's upcoming fight for her honor with Rupert Murdoch's empire inspires the NYT's Sharon Waxman to muse on Hollywood court battles of yore: think Bette Davis meets Joan Crawford...
It was a big deal for Beverly Hills in 2004 when Dutton's opened the city's first general bookstore in a decade. Business has not been all it was hoped, however,...
Yeah, the former head of LAPD internal affairs cops to the affair with a sergeant under his command — but only for three years! Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally apologized (sort...
An "offensive" phone call to a HarperCollins attorney on Friday preceded Judith Regan's sudden firing, Sunday's Los Angeles Times says citing two unnamed but "highly placed corporate sources." Regan was...
Judith Regan, publisher of the terminated O.J. Simpson book, was abruptly fired tonight by HarperCollins. The company announced the dismissal, effective immediately, in a news release issued about 7 p.m....
On the occasion of the paperback release of his well-received first novel, The People of Paper, Salvador Plascencia talks with guest blogger Daniel A. Olivas over at The Elegant Variation....
Bebe Moore Campbell, a best-selling novelist "known for her empathetic treatment of the difficult, intertwined and occasionally surprising relationship between the races," has died at home in Los Angeles, the...
John Shannon's literary private detective Jack Liffey has lived in Redondo Beach and (lovely) Mar Vista and I think even wandered up Highway 395 to the Eastern Sierra. But he's...
Caitlin Flanagan told the New York Observer a year ago that "Youd never, never, never leave The New Yorker," but now she has. Flanagan has left the magazine's staff to...
Rupert Murdoch pulls the plug on the Judith Regan book and the Fox TV special. "We are sorry for any pain that his has caused the families of Ron Goldman...
Wendy Werris worked at some of the most cherished and long-vanished Los Angeles bookstores, starting at Pickwick Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard, where Susan Sontag developed her love for books on...
Jerry Blaz says he'll soon close his BOOKie Joint on Reseda Boulevard. His post at ValleyNews.com (via The Valley Observed) talks about the book biz and some of the clientele...
Authors, publishers and good bookstore people — revelers all — partied tonight in the Gold Room at the Biltmore downtown for the 2006 Southern California Booksellers Association awards. Carolyn See,...
PEN Center USA, based here, announced its annual awards for books, journalism, poetry and drama by writers living in the West. In addition to the winners below, the finalists in...
The L.A. Times' investigative reporters on the Getty story, Jason Felch and Ralph Frammolino, didn't get the Pulitzer but they did get a book contract. Chasing Aphrodite was billed as...
Author and former Los Angeles cop Joseph Wambaugh, writing on the Times op-ed page, calls Rossmore Avenue his favorite L.A. street and only partly because James Ellroy lives on it....
Why yes, it is. On the cover of her new book, Democratic campaign steerer-turned-columnist and USC law professor Susan Estrich strikes an Ann Coulter pose. The pic, in fact, mimics...
LA Observed regulars may remember last year when Will Beall, a homicide investigator for the LAPD in 77th Street Division, sold a novel called L.A. Rex to Riverhead and the...
In an essay that ran in the Los Angeles Review, novelist Tara Ison writes about her six-month relationship with an actor who has worked enough to be familiar — and...
W.W. Norton picked up the world publishing rights to The Joy of Opera by Placido Domingo, general director of the Los Angeles Opera. Steve Wasserman, the former LAT book editor...
On Tuesday, News and Chatter noted that James Ellroy's copies of the Steve Hodel book, Black Dahlia Avenger, appear to be for sale on eBay. In today's CityBeat, Ellroy elaborates...
Arianna Huffington's new book, On Becoming Fearless...in Love, Work and Life, has morphed instantly into a new feature section at the Huffington Post: "...devoted to promoting fearlessness in all aspects...
One of the surprising things about retired LAPD detective Steve Hodel's 2003 book arguing that his father killed Elizabeth Short was that James Ellroy endorsed the theory in his introduction...
Los Angeles mystery writer Naomi Hirahara, whose best-known character is Japanese American gardener Mas Arai, will be giving a private walking tour of Little Tokyo mystery sites later this year....
Kirk Douglas says that Let's Face It will be the last of his nine books. The announcement at Publishers Lunch calls it a "humorous and poignant examination of moments in...
Nice to hear that Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles (link) is a finalist for the Southern California Booksellers Association 2006 Book Awards. Especially nice to be included in...
Two letters make it into today's West magazine praising James Ellroy's July 30 essay about moving home to Los Angeles, but it's the zinger that's more notable. Ellroy must be...
Silman-James Press here is upset all over again with the New York Times for not allowing the title of its book, Chess Bitch: Women in the Ultimate Intellectual Sport by...
The topic of Gary Webb and his treatment within the journalism world remains divisive. People I respect fall on both sides: that he was a courageous investigative digger who got...
First thing Amy Wilentz did when she moved to Los Angeles with her husband, Nick Goldberg — op-ed editor at the LAT — was to write a book about California...
Author James Ellroy writes in today's West Magazine about returning in June to live in Los Angeles after a lengthy self-exile. "The L.A. mandate," he says, "was always enticement and...
Over at his blog From the Desert to the Sea, John Stodder goes literary and recalls that the reclusive author Thomas Pynchon wrote much of Gravity's Rainbow while high and...
Lucinda Michele Knapp, managing editor of the L.A. Alternative, nominates S.A. Griffin as Beat avatar and should-be poet laureate of Los Angeles. Her cover story in today's issue includes history...
The collection of close-to-home travel narratives titled My California has been newly chosen as the One City, One Book pick for Whittier, Santa Barbara and Sacramento. The collaborators at CalforniaAuthors.com...
Author, Emmy nominee and longtime LAT columnist Al Martinez is giving his literary archive to the Huntington Library. The library will fete him Thursday at 7:30 pm when he will...
Los Angeles now has a media-anointed Yahoo parents group—introduced to the national spotlight in today's Sunday Styles section of the New York Times. Peachhead has 3,000 members, about 500 of...
Paperback Mysteries, reviews of new books by Dick Adler, reviewer for the Chicago Tribune and Publishers Weekly and longtime Los Angeles author and journalist. Add books: Jailed PI Anthony Pellicano...
Seems to me that Michael Walker is doing the whole book-blog synergy the right way, and creating a readable and valuable Los Angeles neighborhood website. (I'd say this even if...
♦ The Clippers tie up their NBA playoff series 2-2, beating the Suns 114-107 at Staples Center on Sunday. ♦ USC basketball freshman Ryan Francis was shot and killed while...
♦ Answer: Mayor Villaraigosa, Sheriff Baca, Lakers owner Jerry Buss, Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, Magic Johnson, Natalie Cole, Johnny Grant and Councilman Tom LaBonge. Question: Who shows up when Channel...
For its June 4 fundraising auction at the Skirball Cultural Center, PEN Center USA plans to let guests bid to have their name used in a writer's next novel or...
Michael Hiltzik came up, of course, during my interview of Los Angeles Times Editor Dean Baquet on Sunday at the Times Festival of Books. He beat me to the punch,...
Posting will be light (if that) this weekend due to time commitments at the Festival of Books thrown at UCLA by the Los Angeles Times. One of my roles is...
Best-selling mystery author Michael Connelly has pulled together a collection of articles from his days as a crime reporter for the Los Angeles Times and in Florida. Crime Beat: A...
When Gay Talese reported his famous 1966 Esquire story "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," his Beverly Hills hotel and restaurant tabs became legendary. Things have changed some. This week he's...
The fifth issue of Black Clock, the literary journal edited by Steve Erickson and published by California Institute of the Arts, focuses on Los Angeles fiction reaching from "the Hollywood...
♦ Longtime L.A. radio reporter and anchor Hettie Lynne Hurtes is joining KPCC as mid-day anchor. Her film credits include roles in Terminator and Throw Momma from the Train. ♦...
Black Dahlia expert Larry Harnisch has been blogging the errors he finds as he reads through Donald H. Wolfe's new book The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul and...
Caitlin Flanagan perhaps "owes her success largely to a misogynistic media that loves a catfight...[but she] has so masterfully created a persona that it virtually guarantees literary celebrity," says the...
The good guy in Robert S. Levinson's new mystery, Where the Lies Begin, is an elected member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Nicknamed Duke, he used to...
Three Los Angeles TV stations are fingered in a Center for Media and Democracy report out today critical of news operations that package video releases from sources and PR agencies...
Joseph Wambaugh was (I think) the original LAPD detective to turn novelist. He's certainly the biggest. His books set in and around the department—beginning in 1970 with The New...
Eric Lynxwiler and I were pleased to give a little talk about Wilshire Boulevard yesterday at Round Table West, a venerable luncheon group that began meeting 29 years ago at...
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...
Turn the page for items on Dean Singleton's California strategy, Sheriff Baca's Compton strategy, a Saudi prince gets booed at Town Hall Los Angeles, celebrities at the fashion shows and...
At this year's Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, Joan Didion will receive the Robert Kirsch Award previously accepted by Carolyn See, Tony Hillerman, Wallace Stegner and a list of other...
Runoff for school board...more strangeness around the Ferrari Enzo crash...Rob Reiner's campaign chief steps out of the limelight...L.A.'s blogging pet czar blasts the Animal Defense League...while Cardinal Mahony seeks a...
Dutton's North Hollywood and proprietor Davis Dutton are featured on the cover of the Studio City Sun. The bookstore on Laurel Canyon Boulevard is still in the throes of its...
Mr. Kipen goes to West Hollywood... Because I made up a little time on the way to L.A., and because it was just a few blocks from Book Soup, I...
Technical issues delayed my posting of Mr. Kipen's final dispatches from his drive through California. Here is the penultimate feed, a musing on the the undervaluing of screenwriters and a...
Closing in on L.A... Im now in the central valley of California, the bread basket, passing some flowering pear trees. It's cloudy but in the distance the coastal range has...
Stuck in traffic, the mind tends to wander... Im now in Morgan Hill, which used to be a wide spot in the road on El Camino Real (now 101) but...
Kipen enjoys his time at Stanford, but feels a little deadline pressure... I got back on El Camino Real after Keplers and before I knew it I was in Palo...
In which the intrepid critic-author-rookie book tourist pushes on toward L.A... Mission accomplished! Keplers was very nice. I managed to find a loading dock where I could park for 15...
The former books editor of the San Francisco Chronicle is driving south to appear tonight at Book Soup. He blogs from the road: Im driving south on Highway 101 toward...
Even the Director of Literature at the National Endowment for the Arts has to hit the road if he wants to sell books. And it is Oscar week, after all....
⇒ USC Annenberg awarded the Selden Ring investigative reporting prize to the Washington Post for stories on Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Copley News Service reporters Marcus A. Stern and Jerry...
Author Steven Barnes is reporting on his blog (picked up by Boing Boing, where Cory Doctorow calls the news confirmed) that Octavia Butler has died in Seattle following a fall...
A piece in today's LAT Calendar asks why author Kate Braverman isn't more famous in Los Angeles, her hometown. She is more than happy to fill in Anne-Marie O'Connor on...
Full plate for a Friday morning: Plaschke rips the silver from Sasha Cohen's neck, Steve Cooley's least favorite Mexican fugitive is nabbed, the Writers Guild invites Cheryl Rhoden to stay...
Another near-miss at LAX, Vin Scully signs on for three more years (but that's probably it), chiding Erin Aubry Kaplan on race, the editor of the LAT's Home section moves...
Josh Getlin, New York bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, is moving over to the Calendar staff to cover the publishing beat. He will remain bureau chief, while mixing...
Murder sprees in Venice (maybe) and the gangland of Panorama City-North Hills...How Darry Sragow came to hire former Roy Romer advisor Glenn Gritzner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal is the...
Doug Dowie scores some points but not a knockdown, the police commission mums up, "Today" takes the Chino shooting story, a new Nina Zero review and paying tribute to the...
Former LAT book editor Steve Wasserman, now in New York as Managing Director at the compound-named agency Kneerim and Williams at Fish and Richardson, has gotten a preempt deal for...
⇒ Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez writes that the Democrats would have reached more Latino voters had Antonio Villaraigosa given the English-language State of the Union response: "the ethnic politics behind...
LAT book editor David Ulin responds to the James Frey controversy in Sunday's Book Review with an essay that argues the line is fuzzy between literary truth and lie. Ten...
Joel Stein will be on Oprah at 3 pm on Channel 7, but not to talk about his own controversy of the moment. The LAT op-ed columnist is one of...
This is the anniversary of the Metrolink disaster near Glassell Park. Unrelated, we think, fictionating non-fictionist James Frey will guest on Oprah to address the literary hubbub he has created....
On the LA Weekly website and in Thursday's paper: Navahoax Did a struggling white writer of gay erotica become one of multicultural literatures most celebrated memoirists by passing himself...
The Dutton's in North Hollywood is in the midst of a clearance sale and will be gone by mid-March, Davis Dutton tells Daily News columnist Dennis McCarthy. Davis and his...
Saving the convention center (really Staples Center) hotel and the mountain yellow-legged frog, photo op of the day, missing shotguns at the Long Beach PD and a sell-out for the...
This year's Los Angeles Times Book Festival at UCLA will be April 29-30—no repeat of last year's awkward overlap with Passover, which cost the festival some authors and probably some...
On Thursday at 6:30 pm, author Donald H. Wolfe will talk about his new book, The Black Dahlia Files: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles,...
Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles was at number eight on yesterday's Los Angeles Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list....
Four people were found dead on one day in different places on Skid Row, none of them due to crime. The City Council got the news just before creating a...
From L.A. writer, producer and blogger Lee Goldberg: Dear Friend, I am a former general in the Nigerian army who has managed to steal countless millions from my people. It...
Mayor Villaraigosa appears before the police commission at 9:30 am to urge more transparency in use of force investigations by the Inspector General. The LAT does an advancer on the...
Public Radio International's Tavis Smiley interviewed condemned Crips founder Tookie Williams by phone on San Quentin's Death Row. Calls are limited to fifteen minutes, so it took two redials to...
At 1:30 Mayor Villaraigosa will announce a deal to scale back the old LAX expansion plan (and settle the lawsuits) at a command audience of pols: two Congress members, two...
Patt Morrison reviews Sen. Barbara Boxer's co-written first novel in today's LAT and calls A Time to Run "a passable political thriller of wishful thinking and wish fulfillment Capitol...
Sen. John McCain was on Airtalk with Larry Mantle (and John Rabe) during this morning's fund drive and was almost effusive in his praise for KPCC. Sure he was pitching...
Daniel A. Olivas at The Elegant Variation reviews the new release of Chicano, thirty-five years after the landmark book by L.A. journalist Richard Vasquez first made it into print. Rubn...
♦ City Hall lobbyists now have to disclose online their clients, the issues they advocated and how much they got paid every three months. Daily News ♦ Hollywood waits and worries over...
Happy news for the Angel City Press clan. Santa Monica Beach: A Collector's Pictorial History by Ernest Marquez won the Southern California Booksellers Association award for nonfiction on Saturday...
Mayor Villaraigosa today named an "independent peer review panel" to look into the idea of a Wilshire Boulevard subway west of Western Avenue. He wants a report in November. The...
Abel Salas did a nice q-and-a with me pegged to my Wilshire book in Sunday's L.A. Times Magazine. We met at the HMS Bounty and talked about the boulevard's importance...
♦ Adelphia blames equipment failure related to the Topanga fire for depriving thousands of their "Desperate Housewives" fix. ♦ Mayor Villaraigosa's plan for improving schools falls into the hands of the Times'...
I have a lot of distractions this Friday, so before it turns into an off day I'm declaring it a day off. No postings unless something big happens. For those...
♦ Tempers flared during the ten hours the city council locked itself in to finally select Gerry Miller as the CLA to replace Ron Deaton, Rick Orlov reports in the Daily...
♦ The school board picked up Supt. Roy Romer's option for another year. ♦ The state medical board opened an investigation of the St. Vincent's physicians who sold a liver transplant to...
Let's hope L.A. smells better today... ♦ Today's LA Weekly declares war on air pollution with a thirty-page special package that looks closely at the threat posed by ultrafine particles and...
New LAT books editor David L. Ulin sits for the Three Minute Interview at The Elegant Variation, the site by Mark Sarvas that regularly panned the Times Book Review under...
♦ In today's New York Times, Dennis McDougal reports that the Writers Guild is sitting on millions of dollars owed to writers it can't find—no-names like Tom Clancy, Mira Nair and...
• Michael Kinsley's departure from the LAT rates a bylined story in the New York Times, and to a cynic maybe that alone was good enough reason to give him a...
If you were wondering why Calvin and Hobbes suddenly returned to the LAT comics pages this week, here's what's up. It's to help sell a massive new collection by the...
Southern California writers dominate the books section in the current issue of The Nation. In fact, they write the whole thing. David L. Ulin, recently named Book Editor of the...
On Sunday, Mireya Navarro filled in New York Times readers on the horsey life in L.A. Life is good for Rocket, the urban horse. He lives in a wooded neighborhood...
Welcome to September... • Seems like every gas station between Hollywood and Santa Monica went to $3-plus a gallon overnight. The 76 station at Olympic and Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills...
Every week the Southern California Booksellers Association canvasses its member stores to find out what readers are buying. Here are the top fives from today's best-seller lists. HardcoverFictionHardcoverNon-fiction The Historian,...
Here's how it works: You send your resume, writing samples, family info and agent status to an anonymous email address. Then you submit to a background check and sign an...
A little morning briefing... • Brian Cullen, the suspected killer of model Iryna Singerman, was found dead in a Tijuana motel room. Authorities say he killed himself with a bullet to...
• The L.A. Conservancy threw in the towel on the fight to save the Ambassador Hotel from demolition. The school board votes today on a plan to donate $4.9-million toward conserving...
• KCAL and KTTV each won nine local Emmy Awards on Saturday night. Among the top honors, KCBS won for best daytime newscast ("CBS2 News" at 6 a.m.) and best daily...
David L. Ulin's choice as Book Editor of the L.A. Times is starting to get good blog reviews. Mark Sarvas at The Elegant Variation wishes him the best, writing: "We...
David Kipen, the Malibu-dwelling book critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, is the new Director of Literature at the National Endowment for the Arts. Here's how the release explains it:...
The Times has named David L. Ulin to run the Book Review. Ulin authored most recently The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction and the Fault Line Between Reason and...
Sounds like there are a ton of insider references in Hollywood Hussein, the new novel by Ken Baker, West Coast editor for Us Weekly. Monday's Page Six says that the...
September's Vanity Fair has six images from photographer Tim Street-Porter's new entry on the list of books that are titled simply Los Angeles. I don't know about the book, but...
Not just a semi-vacation week, but a travel day too. • The New York Times catches up on David Shaw, General Motors and the Getty probe. • Author and former LAT Book...
Michael Silverblatt, the host of KCRW's weekly Bookworm, has been devoting the program to a ten-part series he calls "Escaping the Cage: Identity, Multiculturalism and Writing." In a piece in...
Public Affairs has picked up Bigger Than Life, a collection by L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan. The book is due for publication in Fall 2006, says Publishers Lunch. Also:...
* Newest additions at the bottom... • Now that's a book party venue. Simon & Schuster threw Sunday's launch reception for Thomas Greanias' Raising Atlantis on the front lawn of the...
Former LAT Book Review Editor Steve Wasserman has not yet relocated to New York, where he'll run the office of Kneerim & Williams at Fish & Richardson, the literary agency...
Summer weekends when there is no fog at the beach are no time to be blogging. But here are some items that fought their way out of the pile. • Shots...
• Mayor-elect Antonio Villaraigosa took the official oath privately in his office, with Corina and children Antonio Jr. and Natalia Fe attending. It doesn't take effect until July 1, of course....
Jacoba Urist is 28 and worked as a lawyer in the New York office of O'Melveny & Myers for eight months, before quitting two years ago. Page Six says she's...
Yeah, the photo is familar. I ran it in March — but it's a great downtown image from 1923, showing the old Farmers and Merchants Bank that still stands at...
Eric Stone, the Silver Lake author of Wrong Side of the Wall: The Story of Blackie Schwamb, the Greatest Ballplayer in Prison History, is driving the country for a summer-long...
Staffers close to Antonio Villaraigosa say that Sacramento Bee reporter Aurelio Rojas is at work on a book about the mayor-elect's rise and the state of Latino politics. They knew...
Maria Shriver tells the New York Daily News' Lloyd Grove that she had no contact with anyone at NBC about the Schwarzenegger biography by Laurence Leamer. "It never came up,...
The Times is converting a seat on the editorial board into a three-month visiting fellow slot, as a way to bring in more thinking from academics and foreign journalists. The...
The LA Weekly's recurring Weekly Literary Supplement has a cover piece on eighteeen local independent presses, sidebars on Tosh Bermans TamTam Books, Feral House, Tsehai Publishers and Josh Kun writing...
Ever heard of Angelo Mozilo? He is chairman and CEO of Countrywide Financial Corp., and king of the L.A. Business Journal's list of highest-paid local executives. His take last year:...
That's what the L.A. chapter of Sisters in Crime is calling its June 11 conference on writing and selling "killer mysteries." Speakers and panelists include Lee Child, Robert S. Levinson,...
The latest Publishers Lunch Weekly says that Ecco will publish Pulitzer-winning journalist and author Edward Humes' next book, Monkey Girl. It's "about the modern-day Scopes trial taking place in schools...
A feature story about the Chinese student body at San Marino High School has promoted an outcry by students and threats of violence against Pasadena Star-News reporter Cindy Chang. Editor...
The San Francisco Chronicle swoops in with two pieces on Steve Wasserman's departure (which becomes official today) from the editorship of the Los Angeles Times Book Review. In the newsfeature...
LAPD detective Will Beall sold the film rights to his novel LA Rex to Scott Rudin, in a deal put together by by Shari Smiley at CAA on behalf of...
• Mark at The Elegant Variation lists the top ten things he would do as editor of the L.A. Times Book Review. • Newsweek's website asks if Monday's launch of the Huffington...
• Longtime Channel 7 weatherman Johnny Mountain joins the rival Channel 2 news on May 8. He will work the news at 5, 6 and 11 p.m. He left KABC in...
Fresh off his LAT Book Prize, Evan Wright has sold his next book, The Seed — about his experience at a drug recovery camp in the 80s that used radical,...
Steve Wasserman is moving to New York. Today's press release is below, followed by this afternoon's memo to the Times staff saying a successor "will be named soon." First, the...
A new website, LAPDauthors.com, compiles links and information on books by almost two dozen current and former Los Angeles Police Department officers, from Bill Parker to Joseph Wambaugh to Bill...
The outgoing L.A. Times Book Review editor may be considering life as a book agent, says Steven Zeitchik on the Publishers Weekly website. [That's confirmed now.] Also, Tim Rutten —...
This spring Malibu is reading the original Frederick Kohner novella Gidget, inspired by the surfing subculture his daughter Kathy joined at the beach there one summer in the fifties. The...
Michael Yamaki, the appointment secretary when Gray Davis was governor and former L.A. police commissioner, has been hired as senior adviser to Sheriff Lee Baca, the Daily Journal says...The Times...
* Newest at the bottom, including Bill Lockyer out of the race for governor... • Looks like an interesting cover package in LA Weekly on apartment living, under the theme of...
Surely you didn't think that baseball outcast Jose Canseco wrote Juiced, his tell-all book on steroids, by himself (if at all.) His uncredited ghostwriter was Steve Kettmann, a Brooklyn-based journalist...
Long but terser-than-usual roundup, due to a books-filled weekend away from the computer. It was great to chat with old friends, new readers, media people and bloggers and to hear...
Continuing the run-up to the book festival, Thursday's Calendar Weekend in the Times runs a piece by Scott Martelle that grasps for the soul of the city through literary references...
LAPD anti-gang investigator Will Beall has sold Riverhead a pair of novels set in South Los Angeles — and Hollywood powerhouse CAA is marketing the film rights. LA Rex and...
New items added at the bottom • Dawson's Books, the oldest bookseller in Los Angeles, celebrates its 100th anniversary this month with an exhibit at the store and Michael Dawson Gallery...
Judith Regan is vacating New York and moving her publishing and media group to Los Angeles by the end of the year, to concentrate on television and film projects —...
• Tracks magazine has gone on hiatus after a little more than a year, while management pursues "new financing support with the goal of relaunching the magazine in the future." • The...
• Denise Hamilton's newest Eve Diamond novel, Savage Garden, hits the shelves on May 3. There's a Jayson Blair-like subplot swirling around our favorite fictional LAT reporter. • Tim Brown, the LAT's...
LAT scribe-turned-author Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch mystery, The Closers, comes out May 15. On his website, Connelly narrates a five-minute video tour of downtown sites mentioned in the book,...
Drex Heikes, recently replaced as editor of the LAT Magazine [actually, he was doing the #1 job from the #2 slot, with the top editor job vacant], becomes deputy editor...
Evan Wright, who writes locally for Rolling Stone and others, has picked up this year's J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize for Generation Kill: Devil Dogs, Iceman, Captain America, and the...
Catching up with some reading and email after a slow online day: • Venice gets the 36 Hours treatment in Friday's NYT Escapes. Janelle Brown has the gig and visits the...
Here's some stuff that piled up while I was off. Updated a couple of times: • Gary Webb, the investigative reporter whose suicide has been partly blamed on his treatment in...
In this week's New Yorker, New York Sun book critic Adam Kirsch takes a leisurely look at the life and work of the late Los Angeles poet Charles Bukowski. His...
David Kipen of the San Francisco Chronicle, "Day to Day" and KCRW asked each of the Big 5 candidates for mayor to name their favorite book and also recommend one...
Daniel Olivas is profiled in Stanford magazine: At age 3, Daniel Olivas stopped speaking for an entire year. When his parents took him for tests, experts told them that growing...
Tracy Wilkinson, the L.A. Times bureau chief in Rome, has sold Warner a book on, as Publishers Lunch puts it, "the chief exorcist for the Diocese of Rome, Father Gabriele...
Hilary Kaplan of the website The Next American City sits down with D.J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir and the new Where We Are Now: Notes from...
Other projects and a stubborn cold have slowed me down the last day or so. Here's some things I missed: • Estrich vs. Kinsley: USC law professor and columnist Susan Estrich...
Updated through the weekend Lesbian chic: Screenwriter and "L Word" creator Ilene Chaiken is profiled in Sunday's NYT Arts section. "In 1999, after writing a magazine article about same-sex couples...
L.A. Observed reported back in September that the Times had promoted Tim Rutten to the new post of Associate Editor of Features and gave him authority over the Sunday Book...
I can't swear that PEN Center USA's website is new, but I just came across it for the first time. Bookmark it as another good place to find about literary...
The deck on the cover story by Brendan Bernhard in the LA Weekly observes that "Bruce Wagner infects his novels with madness, celebrity, name-dropping, drugs and sex. And that's just...
In a New York Observer diary that begins with a riff on the Hollywood swag season that is upon us and ends with a personal tribute to Johnny Carson, Bruce...
Johnny Carson: No shortage of appreciations and retrospectives online and on the air for the late-night pioneer who died Sunday at home in Malibu (of emphysema at age 79). David...
On Kitty Felde's Talk of the City yesterday, author Douglas Flamming told some great stories about the little-known history of African Americans in early Los Angeles (including in the expedition...
Author and journalist Rodger Jacobs hopes to convince the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to name the intersection of Hayworth Avenue and Sunset Boulevard for F. Scott Fitzgerald. The author and...
Short items for a new week: WeHo mayor: BoifromTroy comments on West Hollywood mayor John Duran buying a share of Frontiers, which bills itself as "California's gay biweekly." Hewitt book:...
The University of California Press has just published a book on Los Angeles politics by four Occidental College faculty members. Two authors of The Next Los Angeles: The Struggle for...
There's another book of then-and-now photographs about Los Angeles coming. Los Angeles Views of the Past and Present opens with a foreword by Catherine Mullholland, the historian and granddaughter of...
CaliforniaAuthors.com has freshened up its exclusive listing of books written by California authors or about the state. Those coming in 2005 include: Wrong Side of the Wall. By Eric Stone....
On today's L.A. Times op-ed page, author Patrick Moore chides the LAT and the New York Times for not stating in last week's Susan Sontag obituaries that she was a...
One of Los Angeles' more charming secrets is that there are still families here whose ancestors were original settlers of the pueblo and surrounding Spanish and Mexican ranchos. Bob Pool...
Sontag died today [Tuesday] of leukemia at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. The L.A. Times online obituary by her good friend, Book Editor Steve Wasserman, calls Sontag...
Author Penny Rudolph lives in Albuquerque but she is setting her newest murder mystery Thicker Than Blood here. Her website describes it: In this latter-day Chinatown, recovering alcoholic Rachel Chavez...
Updated through the weekend, newest at the bottom • Mayor Jim Hahn and councilman Bernard Parks both opened their 2005 campaign headquarters on Saturday. Hahn's (photo provided by his campaign) is...
Sunday's L.A. Times Book Review rolled out its dignified selection of the "best books of 2004," a fiction list of two dozen works including the latest by Philip Roth, E.L....
When the author and former Daily News book editor Bruce Cook died last year, a number of fans posted comments here on the blog. His wife Judith Aller also came...
• Milton Bradley did it again. The volatile Dodgers outfielder was cited for disorderly conduct after allegedly interfering with a police traffic stop near Akron, Ohio. The winter baseball meetings are...
Long before Hollywood came into being, a photographer for motion picture pioneer Thomas Edison traveled the Southern Pacific railroad shooting the first movie footage of locales in the West. Snippets...
Steve Wasserman, editor of the L.A. Times Book Review, joined other editors (including Sam Tanenhaus of the New York Times) in a roundtable discussion at BookReporter.com. An excerpt from Wasserman's...
My post on last Sunday's story about the Black Dahlia case in the L.A. Times Magazine prompted the following email from Elisabeth Reynolds. Other thoughts are welcome, as are signed...
Retired LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel is still trying to convince people that his father was a 1940s serial killer who mutilated Elizabeth Short, the so-called Black Dahlia. His book,...
California historian Kevin Starr chats with Saul Gonzales tonight at 6:30 on Life and Times on KCET, then tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. sits down for a half-hour conversation about his...
Janelle Brown gives downtown the 36 Hours treatment in today's New York Times Escapes section. Chinatown galleries, dinner at Ciudad, Saturday morning at the flower market, a walking tour with...
From Publishers Lunch Weekly: • Joe Keenan, the author of Blue Heaven and Putting on the Ritz and former writer and producer of "Frasier," sells My Lucky Star to Little, Brown:...
Dutton's warns anyone who comes to see Tom Wolfe at the Brentwood store next Monday that the author has laid down a few ground rules. Violate them and, I guess,...
The Southern California Booksellers Association gives its 2004 awards to Jamesland by Michelle Huneven for fiction, The King of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of the Secret American...
The downtown Long Beach institution with an inventory of one million books celebrates seven decades in business, the last 45 years at 240 Long Beach Boulevard. In a Press-Telegram feature...
In the new Classic Hollywood issue of Los Angeles magazine (not yet online), Steve Erickson nominates ten classic films that don't belong in the pantheon, and ten that aren't regarded...
The Washington Post has a piece today on a problem with the long-awaited Gourmet cookbook produced by Ruth Reichl, who was the L.A. Times food editor before heading off to...
Philip Roth will promote The Plot Against America on "The Today Show" Thursday morning. Liz Smith says the taped interview with Katie Couric will be his first television appearance since...
Darcy Cosper writes that if you were planning to attend the LA Lit party tomorrow night, don't. "Circumstances have arisen...," she says. Cynthia Ozick's appearance on Thursday evening at the...
Mas Arai, "a diminutive man in his late 60s with a dwindling number of regular customers whose yards he tends with loving care and a practiced eye," is the center...
Dutton's celebrates the opening of its new Beverly Hills store on Sunday. It's at 447 N. Canon Drive, around the corner from Taschen's Beverly Drive showroom, and is said to...
William Grimes, the former New York Times restaurant critic, will focus on nonfiction books. He joins Janet Maslin and Michiko Kakutani as full-time reviewers....
The Greek rights to Steve Hodel's Black Dahlia Avenger were sold to Patakis Publishers. (Via Publishers Lunch)...
That's the title of Court TV's new show based on access to the files of the Los Angeles County Coroner's morgue, located at 1104 N. Mission Road. I haven't watched...
Miles Corwin, who accompanied police to Robert Blake's home while researching his book, Homicide Special: A Year With the LAPD's Elite Detective Unit, was ordered to testify at a pre-trial...
• John Gabree, the author and former Newsday book reviewer who created Santa Monica's late L.A. (The Bookstore), writes a wide-ranging blog that he calls Impractical Proposals. He noted yesterday that...
Publishers Lunch brings word that Stacey Grenrock Woods (of Esquire, Oprah, "The Daily Show" and L.A. Innuendo) has signed a book deal. I, California will be "a memoir of being...
Xeni Jardin reports at Boing Boing on the return to the web of writer-about-sex Susannah Breslin. Her new website, The Invisible Cowgirl, offers an excerpt of her forthcoming semi-autobiographical novel...
The Jane Austen Society of North America sweeps into the Biltmore downtown today for a weekend-long conference. Among the day's events are a subway outing to Phillipe's, a guided tour...
I've been busy the last couple of days helping judge entries in the Online News Association awards to be handed out next month. Perusing and discussing the examples of great...
Janet Maslin gives the thumbs up in Friday's New York Times to Open Wide: How Hollywood Box Office Became a National Obsession, the new book by Variety editors Dade Hayes...
• The good people behind My California: Journeys by Great Writers — Angel City Press and California Authors.com — gave the first $10,000 check from the book's proceeds to the California...
Times reporter Scott Martelle, currently assigned to the Barbara Boxer-Bill Jones Senate race, will move over to the Style desk after the election to cover the L.A. literary beat. The...
Hollywood A-listers and assorted other liberals turned out at David Geffen's Beverly Hills manse last night to celebrate New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd's visit to tout her new book,...
Elderly and living in a Santa Monica nursing home, the former editor and poet Joyce Fante — mother of writer Dan Fante — wants a strong-voiced actor to read classic...
The Hollywood Reporter is taking over the Hollywood Creative Directory line of guides and Lone Eagle Publishing. "We are thrilled to add such strong brands to our entertainment portfolio," THR's...
This look at Coast of Dreams: California on the Edge, 1990-2003 is by Cathy Seipp in today's Wall Street Journal (online here for subscribers): Kevin Starr's latest California chronicle, covering...
Seymour Hersh chats about his book Chain of Command with Lawrence O'Donnell on The Politics of Culture Tuesday at 2:30 p.m. on KCRW (89.9 FM or live on the web)....
• The contents page in Sunday's L.A. Times Magazine had a posed photograph of a faux prisoner in a faux cell, to illustrate a cover story on the Three Strikes law....
This ad ran in Sunday's LAT Book Review: Writer to collaborate on sensational, unsolved murder of prominent, wealthy L.A. businessman in early 30s. The first time two people (my grandparents)...
I'm about halfway through reading Slick, the funny debut novel by Daniel Price about a deviously creative Los Angeles crisis PR guy — "a shameless man living in shameless times"...
The literary scene knows Tom Curwen as the one-time deputy editor of the L.A. Times Book Review and an erudite writer in his own right. Today, he was named editor...
Publishers Marketplace, the site that issues Publishers Lunch, has added blogs to its menu of services to authors and others in the book world. Mark Sarvas of the local literary...
LAist excerpts an interview about the beauty and other qualities of Los Angeles with author and New Yorker writer Lawrence Weschler, a Valley boy from Van Nuys who spoke with...
Authors Lillian Faderman and Stuart Timmons have sold Gay L.A., "a history of the gay culture that took root on the Western frontier in the mid-19th century and evolved with...
Andrew Gumbel, the L.A. correspondent for the Independent, has sold Steal This Vote! to Nation Books. They call it "an entertaining history of American electoral fraud, and the larger than...
The magazine's September issue out now is a good one, and I'd say that even if I didn't have the cover story on Mayor Jim Hahn and his political conundrum....
• They're out there: George Noory sends "Coast to Coast AM" into the overnight air from a studio on Ventura Blvd. (LAT Mag) • Business as usual: Mayoral candidates still raising money...
New entries added at end • Former LAT publisher David Laventhol is writing the history of Times Mirror for Public Affairs. The company's former chief exec, his working title is A...
Yes, blook. Ian Williams in the LA Weekly uses the term to describe the recent books by Arianna Huffington and the sister-brother team of Amy and David Goodman. He calls...
For the third year, the Pasadena Public Library is selecting a book for its "One City, One Story" program. Star-News editor Larry Wilson had the short list of prospects in...
Kem Nunn broke into fiction writing with Tapping the Source, his 1984 "surfing novel" set in the beach culture of Huntington Beach, "a twisted world of crazed Vietnam vets, sadistic...
The Da Vinci Code has been knocked off, finally, from the #1 spot on the L.A. Times fiction bestseller list. The Rule of Four by Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason...
Ken Ellingwood's Hard Line: Life and Death on the U.S.-Mexico Border, based on his experiences as a reporter based in San Diego and Tijuana for the L.A. Times, is featured...
New book deals from the latest Publishers Lunch: Writer and co-producer of "Six Feet Under" Jill Soloway's memoir WHY JEWS GO TO THE BATHROOM WITH THE DOOR OPEN, a look...
Tuesday's "Politics of Culture" show on KCRW is devoted to Isaac Bashevis Singer, who would have been 100 on July 14. Ruth Seymour will discuss Singer's writing and life with...
I'm told that on Wednesday night, the new travel anthology-for-a-cause My California ranked in the 20,000s on Amazon. On Thursday morning, a contributor to the book, critic David Kipen, mentioned...
A couple of stories in today's Times features section survey aspects of the local literary scene. Lynell George's piece looks in on the three journals to start here recently: Black...
From this week's Publishers Lunch roundup of book sales: • Film rights to Bernard Cooper's THE BILL FROM MY FATHER, a memoir about his difficult relationship with his father, and how...
Reyner Banham in Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies coined the label "Plains of Id" for the vast basin of mostly suburbs that surrounds and defines the city. In...
Bill Clinton brings his book tour to L.A. today and tomorrow, and Gayle Pollard-Terry in the Times Calendar section has a feature on the preparations. Brentano's in the Century City...
The L.A. Times' Tim Rutten steps away from his media column for the day to review the Bill Clinton memoir and finds it a bit thin for a 957-page effort....
How insane will it be in Century City when Bill Clinton drops in at rush hour for a 5 p.m. Friday appearance at Brentano's? Here's a clue. Blogger Jeff Jarvis...
Michiko Kakutani gave a bad review to Bill Clinton's book, but Publishers Lunch says the only surprise there is that the New York Times let her do the review. Given...
CaliforniaAuthors.com on Sunday notes the release of a new collection of essays from D.J. Waldie, Where We Are Now: Notes from Los Angeles, published by Angel City Press. Patt Morrison...
The New York Post reported last week that Elvis Mitchell is pitching an "unusual" book on Richard Pryor. In today's Page Six, Pryor says he's got his own book in...
Elvis Mitchell, host of "The Treatment" on KCRW, is using his time (now that's he's stopped reviewing films for the New York Times) to write a book on Richard Pryor....
Two Marines who fought in Iraq help tout Evan Wright's new book on the war in a Sharon Waxman story out of Oceanside in today's New York Times. They are...
Bestselling local Young Adult author Francesca Lia Block has sold her first adult novel Necklace of Kisses to Harper. In the book, her long-running character Weetzie Bat turns 40, faces...
Aside from the threat of editorial staff reductions at the L.A. Times, there has already been a cutback on the business side that has a personal effect. After more than...
Angel City Press and CaliforniaAuthors.com took their new anthology of travel and adventure essays to last week's Book Expo America in Chicago. And it was a hit with the West...
When the National Magazine Awards were handed out last month, I blew it. There was a winner from Los Angeles. Evan Wright, who writes from here for Rolling Stone, got...
L.A. Observed is the newest co-sponsor of the "Public Square" Lecture Series presented by Zcalo and the Los Angeles Public Library. Zcalo seeks to create a non-partisan and multiethnic forum...
Angel City Press in Santa Monica and CaliforniaAuthors.com collaborated to produce an anthology of essays about California to benefit the budget-starved state arts council. All of the pieces in My...
Today's New York Observer "Off the Record" column offers some background on that Michael Kinsley review of conservative pundit David Brooks' new book that was excerpted here yesterday, eight posts...
As Spoken Interludes closes in on its final event in Los Angeles, June 6 at the Skirball Cultural Center, a couple of new online literary venues have launched. Fresh Yarn,...
The "Goodnight Midnight" party is Friday, May 28 at 7 p.m. at the soon-to-close bookstore at 1450 2nd Street in Santa Monica. Pilar Perez and David Warshofsky of Perceval Press...
Novelist and food critic (LA Weekly) Michelle Huneven and L.A. Times literary critic Bernadette Murphy have sold Bloomsbury a book to be called The Tao Girl's Guide to Real Estate....
USC creative writing professor Percival Everett is profiled in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers magazine, the CaliforniaAuthors.com blog notes. His newest novel is American Desert....
The author of The Mailroom and the forthcoming The Little Stuff Matters Most (with Bernie Brillstein) has had a good week. Rensin's latest project All for a Few Perfect Waves:...
David Kipen, the San Francisco Chronicle book critic and KCRW commentator, takes a look at the growing scene of West Coast literary journals. He spends a lot of time with...
Michael Viner and Deborah Raffin's New Millennium Entertainment, the Beverly Hills publisher of Jayson Blair's book, was ordered liquidated by a bankruptcy judge, the New York Daily News says. The...
Nice splash in the Times Calendar section today for author Denise Hamilton, the ex-LAT reporter whose main character in her Los Angeles-based mystery novels, Eve Diamond, is (as she was)...
The LAT scribe-turned-successful novelist was the subject of a Bruce Weber profile in Sunday's New York Times magazine. The piece opened with Connelly sitting with a bunch of LAPD homicide...
J.D. Lasica, the Bay Area-based senior editor at USC's Online Journalism Review, has put online the introduction and first four chapters of the book he is writing and asked for...
The venerable Midnight Special bookstore tried to make a go of it after moving off the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, but it didn't work out. The store has...
L.A. screenwriter Andrew Leigh complains at National Review Online that the Times book festival had too many left-identified books on sale and writers on panels, and not enough right-identified panelists...
Karl Fleming, the former Newsweek bureau chief in L.A. and editor at Channel 2, has sold a book called Nothing to be Ashamed Of: The Memoir Of A Civil Rights...
Janet Maslin in the New York Times gives a glowing review to Michael Connelly's latest Harry Bosch mystery, The Narrows, which takes its name from a portion of the L.A....
The Millions, by Max Magee. He works at Book Soup and blogs daily, but catch him fast. He's moving to Chicago this summer to attend the Medill School of Journalism...
Nick Tosches announces his death with a tribute at Selby's official website. Hubert Selby died often. But he always came back, smiling that beautiful smile of his, and those blue...
Local author Thomas Greanias's Raising Atlantis was a bestselling ebook on Amazon and a Web phenomenon. Now the novel about an iconoclastic American archeologist and a beautiful Vatican linguist, rivals...
Pete Dexter (Train: A Novel) gave the funniest acceptance speech, Anthony Hecht (Collected Later Poems) the most poignant, and Bruce Wagner and R.L. Stine were the most entertaining presenters, based...
It's not the writing that Tim Rutten likes about the new Bob Woodward book, Plan of Attack. He writes in today's LAT review, "Woodward's prose can charitably be described as...
The Times Festival of Books is this weekend at UCLA, which means there will be a lot of authors around the city (doing TV and radio, making bookstore appearances, giving...
Columbia has picked up Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies with plans for John Calley to produce a feature film. Some other local sales in this week's Publishers Lunch newsletter: Steven...
Michael Silverblatt's guest today on "Bookworm" is novelist Octavia Butler, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Kindred. KCRW's new Tuesday book commentator, David Kipen, had a piece in the San Francisco...
Local journalist Deanne Stillman writes in today's New York Observer about the Robert Blake and Phil Spector murder cases, which she has been covering since the start. As Ive become...
It's been decades since anyone has written a serious biography of Hugh Hefner (Hef's Little Black Book, co-authored by Hefner and Bill Zehme, to be published in May by HarperEntertainment,...
Sunday's L.A. Times Book Review carries reviews of the new books by Eric Lax and Joe Domanick, and sees Richard Clarke displace Suzanne Somers from atop the non-fiction bestseller list......
CityBeat's cover story says that Los Angeles is home to "the most dangerous publishers in America." The piece by Mick Farren profiles Adam Parfrey and his Feral House, and Richard...
Hollywood, Interrupted, the book by Mark Ebner and Andrew Breitbart, includes a chapter about Heather Robinson, who says she used her job at AOL to purloin the screen names of...
Too Much of Nothing is the title of a new novel by Michael Scott Moore set in the fictional South Bay town of Calaveras Beach, in which a Jewish surfer-teenager-ghost...
NPR commentator and autism expert Christina Adams has turned an essay about her son's recovery that she wrote last year for the L.A. Times Magazine into a memoir. Publishers Lunch...
Local author Steve Oney's And The Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan & the Lynching of Leo Frank didn't quite win the $10,000 J. Anthony Lukas Prize Project...
That happy and by now very rich (we hope) writing couple, Faye and Jonathan Kellerman, have finally done a book together. Double Homicide, out in the fall, will be a...
Oops, I missed this earlier in the week. Mayor Hahn has chosen Lauren Hillenbrand's Seabiscuit as this year's One Book, One City selection. Hahn's previous book choices were Fahrenheit 451...
The April issue of Los Angeles with Shaq on the cover (not yet online) has an on-balance unfavorable review by Tom Carson of Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax,...
Jayson Blair is scheduled to appear and sign his book on April 2 at 7 p.m. at Eso Won Books on South La Brea....
Mark Sarvas' blog The Elegant Variation has a report from the launch party for Black Clock, the new literary journal from CalArts edited by Steve Erickson. It was held at...
William T. Vollmanns Rising Up and Rising Down runs seven volumes and 3,000 pages and costs $120 from McSweeney's. David L. Ulin confesses in tomorrow's LA Weekly that he hasn't...
L.A. journalist and author Hilary de Vries, whose first novel So Five Minutes Ago follows the life of fictional celebrity publicist Alex Davidson, has sold The Gift Bag Matters and...
David Ehrenstein of the LA Weekly sits down at home with British ex-pat Gavin Lambert to reminisce about Hollywood and Natalie Wood, the subject of Lambert's latest book. "I came...
A sampling of book deals from today's Publishers Lunch weekly. Non-fiction: • Journalist and critic James Sullivan's AMERICAN BLUE, the story of blue jeans, from their development in the days of...
The March calendar of events has picked up some new listings. Among them is a book party to be thrown by the LA Weekly next week for its own writer,...
Tim Rutten reviews Jayson Blair's Burning Down My Masters' House: My Life at the New York Times, in the L.A. Times Book Review: Blair owes the readers and colleagues he...
Some of the finalists for this year's L.A. Times Book Prizes are listed in the paper today (full list is below). Among the local nominees are Michelle Huneven for her...
The author of Los Angeles studies City of Quartz and The Ecology of Fear has a new science-adventure tale for children out called Land of the Lost Mammoths. Susan Salter...
Sara Nelson in the New York Observer: By my count, the reviews and the ranking system on Amazon.com count for about 95 percent of writers hopes, anxieties and dreams. Which...
Publishers Lunch is amused by LAT baseball writer Ross Newhan's reference to Judith Regan (in a story today about ex-star Jose Canseco's book) as a "mansucript developer for HarperCollins." Quoting...
This should provide inspiration (of the pull your hair, bang your head on the wall kind) for the aspiring novelists among you. Publishers Lunch reports that Ralph "Sonny" Barger, who...
Deanne Stillman recently got Amazon.com to delete 16 customer "reviews" of Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave that she calls "vindictive, malicious, and possibly libelous"...
New book deals from Publishers Lunch: Los Angeles Magazine editor R.J. Smith has sold The Great Black Way: Central Avenue and the Legacy of African-American Los Angeles to PublicAffairs at...
One of the books in Susan Salter Reynolds' "Discovery" column in Sunday's LAT Book Review is Malibu Diary: Notes from an Urban Refugee. It's by Penelope Grenoble O'Malley, an ex-upstate...
What is it about novels based in Los Angeles and books with journalists as the main characters? Publishers Lunch reports a low six-figure deal for this first novel with both...
Southland by Nina Revoyr, Steve Oney's And The Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan & the Lynching of Leo Frank and Steve Hodel's Black Dahila Avenger are local...
Business Week Online's Thane Peterson reviews Peter Biskind's Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film and finds it revealing as a look at the foibles...
The Smoking Gun has posted a photocopy of the 12-page book proposal for Tongue in Chic: Paris Hilton's Confessions of an Heiress. Yes, it's just like you'd think it would...
Nice in-depth treatment in the latest New York Review of Books for Steve Oney's impressive 742-page investigation of anti-Semitism and racism in Georgia, And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder...
Cory Doctorow, one of the co-editors at the blog Boing Boing, has released his second sci-fi novel Eastern Standard Tribe as a free online download at the same time it...
Publishers Lunch brings word that actress Teri Garr is writing a memoir that will include her current battle with multiple sclerosis. She's calling it Does This Wheelchair Make Me Look...
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller is backtracking from last week's surprise comments on the future of the paper's Sunday Book Review. He told the Poynter.com "Book Babes" then...
Publishers Lunch reports that Paris Hilton (or her agent, Dan Strone at Trident Media Group) is circulating a book proposal for Tongue in Chic: Confessions of an Heiress. Her co-author...
Author Susan Choi is the guest today on Bookworm with Michael Silverblatt (KCRW, 2:30 p.m.). Her novel is American Woman, told from the point of view of the Asian American...
The Daily Dish (meaning gossip page) at the N.Y. Daily News says today that bad-boy Beverly Hills publisher Michael Viner, no stranger to the pages of L.A. Observed, and his...
The L.A. Press Club and Reason magazine are teaming up to throw a book party for ABC co-anchor John Stossel and his latest, Give Me a Break: How I Exposed...
Richard Horgan writes at FilmStew that Peter Biskind's new book, Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of Independent Film, will be the talk of the parties at...
Here's a way you know your book is having an impact -- when the New York Times national staff runs a feature on what people think about it. Los Angeles...
Author and New Yorker writer James B. Stewart's next book target is Disney. He's well along on the project, which Simon and Schuster will publish in the fall, says Paul...
The ESPN columnist who scored an early copy of the Pete Rose book and posted the first review -- Alysse Minkoff -- works out of her home in Brentwood, says...
In today's L.A. Times Calendar, Lynell George interviews three authors whose settings are fragments of the Los Angeles whole: Alan Rifkin (Signal Hill: Stories), Elizabeth Stromme (Joe's Word: An Echo...
From the L.A. Times news obit: John Gregory Dunne, the journalist, screenwriter and novelist who chronicled the Hollywood movie industry in his book "The Studio," then went on to write...
SportsLetter, the online newsletter from the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles, interviews author and journalist Don Wallace about his book on Long Beach Polytechnic High School, One Great Game....
California Authors.com posts on a San Francisco Chronicle story by Edward Guthmann about the raging partisanship on best-seller lists, and has a separate entry on Wil Wheaton's public ecstasy over...
In his Westword column in the L.A. Times Book Review, Jonathan Kirsch reviews Murder at the Sleepy Lagoon: Zoot Suits, Race, and Riot in Wartime L.A. Playwrights and pop singers...
Los Angeles has quite a few gorgeous old churches, temples and shuls. On Wilshire Boulevard alone are a half-dozen striking landmarks from the 1920s, such as the dark gothic Immanuel...
Eugene Volokh has filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court on behalf of some writerly names, among them Michael Crichton, Elmore Leonard, Scott Turow, Harry Shearer, Ron Shelton and...
Scott Timberg has a pair of Calendar pieces in the Sunday LAT on German art book publisher Benedikt Taschen, who adopted Los Angeles as home and last week opened a...
Tonight at 7 p.m., Leo Braudy will discuss his book, From Chivalry to Terrorism: War and the Changing Nature of Masculinity, with Los Angeles magazine editor Kit Rachlis. Then on...
The L.A. Times chose syndicated columnist Robert Scheer to review the Rick Bragg book on PFC Jessica Lynch, and he makes of it about what you'd expect of a guy...
Bruce Cook was the books editor of the L.A. Daily News from 1984-90 and had been a senior editor at Newsweek and books editor at USA Today. He died Sunday...
The book deals on Publishers Lunch this week include a sale by J. D. Lasica, a senior editor at USC's Online Journalism Review who blogs his musings on New Media....
The L.A. Central Library's Aloud program for this week: Wednesday, November 12, 7 p.m. NATHANIEL PHILBRICK "Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842." National Book...
The bookstore has sent email to customers saying it will reopen in Santa Monica today at 5 p.m., in the new location at 1450 2nd Street. Earlier post....
Favorite L.A. blurb from this week's Publishers Lunch round-up of fiction sales, but try not to picture it: Lynn Isenberg's MY LIFE UNCOVERED, likened to Mary Tyler Moore meets Boogie...
He talks about Negro President: Jefferson and the Slave Power at LAPL's "Aloud at Central Library" program Tuesday night at 7 p.m. On Wednesday, Simon Winchester comes in to talk...
Rochelle Krich slips onto the L.A. Times Book Review bestseller list at #11 with Dream House, her novel of an "Orthodox Jewish true crime reporter [who] investigates vandalism, arson and...
The Midnight Special bookstore won't reopen at its new location on 2nd Street in Santa Monica -- off the Promenade, its home until last spring -- before December. City permit...
Today's Christian Science Monitor reports on the "hot, new indie-lit scene" in Los Angeles and says it is especially hot in the neighborhood around Skylight Books on Vermont in Los...
Last week's book sales by L.A. writers or of local interest, from Publishers Lunch Weekly email: Journalist Christopher Noxon's Rejuvenile: How a New Species of Reluctant Adults is Redefining Maturity...
Author Mark Salzman was invited to visit a writing class at L.A.'s Central Juvenile Hall and was so blown away by the experience that he became a teacher there. His...
Susannah Breslin, the L.A. writer of the late Reverse Cowgirl blog, is out with You’re a Bad Man, Aren’t You?, billed as "a short story collection of sordidly sexual tales,"...
I left Marianne Wiggins (Evidence of Things Unseen) off yesterday's list of local authors nomnated this week for a National Book Award. Rene Tawa in the L.A. Times has more...
Couple of prominent locals are nominees for the National Book Awards: T.C. Boyle in fiction for Drop City and Carol Muske-Dukes in poetry for Sparrow. Tim Rutten also has a...
Poynter has a feature up about Michael Connelly, who went from covering night cops in the Valley for the L.A. Times to writing best-selling mysteries. Clint Eastwood starred in last...
John Connolly, the author of the Premiere magazine profile on Schwarzenegger, can't sell his expose book, but humorist Andy Borowitz (or actually his agent Mort Janklow) has sold Governor Arnold:...
Jamesland by Michelle Huneven, dining columnist for LA Weekly, gets a good review in the New York Times. And Malcolm Margolin, publisher of Heyday Books, gives a full thumbs up...
Cathy Seipp takes a read of Peter Bart's new collection of short stories, Dangerous Company: Dark Tales from Tinseltown, and says the Variety editor "has an ear for dialogue even...
Thomas Curwen in the L.A. Times Book Review and Thomas Mallon in the New York Times Book Review both weigh in on Joan Didion's dark take on a California spoiled,...
The new memoir by novelist James Brown, The Los Angeles Diaries, visits a side of L.A. not frequently traveled or well chronicled. Anne-Marie O'Connor of the Times joins Brown for...
T. Coraghessan Boyle's next novel The Inner Circle -- his sixteenth -- has just sold to Viking. The agent's blurb is intriguing for a Boyle work, from Publishers Lunch: "...at...
Amy Wilentz, the author of Martyrs' Crossing, is writing a book on the recall and California. She opined in Sunday Opinion on the 9th Circuit....
Roger L. Simon has posted a nice report from the weekend's Santa Barbara Book and Author Festival, two days after posting that he was through blogging for the moment. Glad...
The second annual West Hollywood Book Fair is today. Plenty of local authors will be there, among them Carolyn See, Janet Fitch. Aimee Liu, Denise Hamilton and Charles Phoenix and...
In Ramblin' Man, his upcoming biography of Woody Guthrie, USC journalism professor Ed Cray explores Guthrie's years in Glendale, Topanga and Silverlake hanging out with other notable lefties of 1930s...
California Authors notes two contrasting reviews of Joan Didion's Where I Was From: Patt Morrison, LAT: "...a soul–searching look at California’s complexities and contradictions." Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic: "He laments...
A new Los Angeles literary event, "Our Favorite Writers," begins tonight with Jeffrey Eugenides, author of the The Virgin Suicides. He will read and talk with Mona Simpson, the author...
Slate takes a quick look at the four influential book review publications Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Library Journal and Booklist. You've probably never read these magazines, even if you've seen...
Frances Ring, the former editor of Westways, wrote a poignant piece in the Sunday LAT Opinion section about being old and losing her license to drive. Perhaps the test would...
Just yesterday, the New York Post and Variety ran planted stories about disgraced New York Timeser Jayson Blair getting a book deal at New Millennium Entertainment here. Today, the NYT...
As we've noted before, Leslie Epstein's Los Angeles novel San Remo has gotten nice treatment in the New York Times. He had to have been nervous about it though, the...
The humiliated ex-journalist was turned down by New York publishers but struck a deal with New Millennium, the Beverly Hills publishing house run by Michael Viner and Daborah Raffin, says...
Now that Matt Miller has his own book out, the moderate moderator of KCRW's politics show Left, Right & Center is being a guest and his colleagues are playing the...
In his day job Ken Baker is the West Coast executive editor in L.A. for Us Weekly. Somehow he also finds the time to write personal books. His first, Man...
The former Form Zero bookstore has reopened on the Miracle Mile as Art Haus Books. They are in one of those Wilshire Boulevard buildings with a past. It was designed...
Denise Hamilton has sold two more Eve Diamond novels to Scribner, "for six figures"... Deborah Martinson has sold a biography, Lillian Hellman: A Life with Foxes and Scoundrels, to Counterpoint...
Recently I mentioned the Variety piece on Michael Viner, the somewhat controversial owner of Beverly Hills-based publisher New Millennium. There's a follow-up in the LAT today (picked up here on...
Jane Leavy wrote last year's bestseller on Sandy Koufax and a previous comic novel, Squeeze Play, loosely based on herself, about a sportswriter making her way in the man's world...
Paul Newman writes in the New York Times that he'll sue the federal department of Housing and Urban Development for misusing the name HUD. Also: Fox Sues Dr. Seuss Over...
William Rehder spent three decades chasing bank robbers in Los Angeles for the FBI. Now he and Gordon Dillow have co-written a book about it, Where the Money Is: True...
Michael Viner publishes Bill Maher, Larry King and Gene Simmons -- and books about Heidi Fleiss and the O.J. Simpson case -- but he wants no part of the recall,...
Law professor Eugene Volokh says the Fox lawsuit against Al Franken over the phrase "fair and balanced" in his book title is much weaker than even Spike Lee's claim to...
Margo Hammond and Ellen Heltzel regularly bat around book topics on the Poynter website -- the place where Romenesko has a home. This week, they examine Los Angeles as a...
Suzan Lori Parks is scheduled to be on Life and Times Monday, Paula L. Woods on Tuesday....
A. Scott Berg's Kate Remembered takes over the best seller spot in his hometown L.A. Times Book Review (he did it last week in the New York Times). Living History...
Phil Garlington reported for the Los Angeles Times many years ago, and later for the Register. After getting canned from his last job, he slunk off to a remote desert...
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Edward Humes' eighth book, out in September, chronicles life inside California’s best public high school, Whitney High here in Cerritos. He spent a year at...
Michael Walker, a former editor at the L.A. Times Magazine and at Los Angeles, has sold a book on the city's place in 1970s pop music. Lions in the Street:...
The book on Enron's demise by a couple of prize-winning Wall Street Journal reporters in the Los Angeles bureau will be officially released August 5. 24 Days: How Two Wall...
For those who like to plan way, way ahead, here are the guests scheduled to be on Bookworm with Michael Silverblatt on KCRW (Thursdays from 2:30 to 3:00 PM )...
He still hasn't gotten a review of his Los Angeles-centric book here in L.A., but Donnell Alexander got a break today -- his Deadline L.A. appearance ran for an extra...
A little more than a month since the New York Times did a nice interview with author Leslie Epstein, his novel partly set in 1940s Pacific Palisades, San Remo Drive:...
Northern California writer Kathryn Chetkovich confesses a major case of jealousy over the literary success of her former lover, who she loved most of all because he was struggling. She...
Michiko Kakutani's review in the New York Times of "Kate Remembered" blames author A. Scott Berg for too few revelations and too much hyperbole. A strange hybrid: part biography, part...
Former LA Weekly (and ESPN the Magazine) writer Donnell Alexander is back from a seven-city book tour and will read from his memoir Ghetto Celebrity at Book Soup next Monday...
Tim Rutten reports in the LAT today that Benjamin Schwarz, who has changed the profile of The Atlantic book section in his three years as literary editor, is moving to...
We're late on this one, but last week's Downtown News carried the news that Form Zero Books has given up on the Arts District and will relocate to Mid-Wilshire. The...
James Pinkerton, the former White House aide to Reagan and Bush senior, rips into Ann Coulter in his L.A. Times op-ed column. Not only does she fail to bring the...
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Clinton fundraises in LA
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Brown declares disaster area
The natural gas leak above Porter Ranch now qualifies for various government actions. Story
Performing arts with cheer
Donna Perlmutter closes out 2015 with productions downtown and on the Westside.
