Malibu's beloved indy bookstore, Diesel, is hosting basketball legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at 3 p.m. this Sunday. (That's author Melissa Lion, Diesel's events coordinator, in the photo.) Kareem's signing his new book, "On the Shoulders of Giants," a look at his love of jazz, basketball and African-American history. A nice piece in the East Bay Express says L.A. writer Raymond Chandler is one of Kareem's favorites:

"...he describes Chandler’s Philip Marlowe as a “hardened but virtuous hero [who] never gets the girl, never has a private life, but tries to do some good in a corrupt world.” The basketball star evidently shared Marlowe’s underdog sensibility, having spent many years as a too-tall, skinny-necked teen who couldn’t talk to girls, and who looked the other way when one of his high school coaches used a racial slur. Despite such humble beginnings, he went on to become one of the top players of all time."

Another good Kareem story on BlackAthlete.net