Topic Archive: Books and authors
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 18, 2009 07:19 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 10, 2009 10:10 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 9, 2009 09:58 PM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2009 12:52 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2009 09:34 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 26, 2009 09:48 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 27, 2009 11:04 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 26, 2009 12:32 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 23, 2009 12:54 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 11, 2009 11:48 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 4, 2009 05:06 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 3, 2009 09:27 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 3, 2009 01:10 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 30, 2008 06:40 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 29, 2008 05:54 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 14, 2008 02:13 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 12, 2008 12:53 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 5, 2008 12:58 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 5, 2008 12:57 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 4, 2008 08:17 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 3, 2008 12:44 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 28, 2008 10:15 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 28, 2008 08:37 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 24, 2008 03:08 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 21, 2008 03:38 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 18, 2008 11:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 12, 2008 10:38 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 5, 2008 11:29 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 31, 2008 03:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 27, 2008 12:24 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 27, 2008 12:33 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 14, 2008 03:09 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 14, 2008 12:13 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 13, 2008 12:13 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 1, 2008 01:01 AM
"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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 30, 2008 09:58 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 27, 2008 01:46 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 26, 2008 04:41 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 16, 2008 11:10 AM
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"... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 15, 2008 04:17 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 13, 2008 05:48 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 9, 2008 11:49 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 9, 2008 10:41 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 5, 2008 01:10 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 27, 2008 05:48 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 25, 2008 12:44 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 16, 2008 11:48 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 14, 2008 04:24 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 11, 2008 10:45 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 10, 2008 11:35 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 4, 2008 08:55 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 29, 2008 07:21 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 28, 2008 03:00 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 28, 2008 07:58 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 22, 2008 10:55 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 21, 2008 09:20 AM
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 America’s Unseen Catastrophe"... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 15, 2008 11:06 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 15, 2008 02:51 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 11, 2008 12:50 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 8, 2008 09:15 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 26, 2008 05:13 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 26, 2008 07:37 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 24, 2008 11:12 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 23, 2008 07:23 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 3, 2008 09:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 2, 2008 12:43 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 1, 2008 09:24 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 30, 2008 04:25 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 28, 2008 09:16 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 27, 2008 12:36 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 26, 2008 10:17 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 26, 2008 11:46 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 19, 2008 11:54 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 12, 2008 10:54 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 7, 2008 09:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 6, 2008 10:23 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 5, 2008 01:20 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 2, 2008 09:25 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 30, 2008 11:57 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 29, 2008 03:01 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 26, 2008 12:41 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 25, 2008 02:10 PM
'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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 21, 2008 12:36 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 15, 2008 11:19 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 14, 2008 07:24 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 11, 2008 04:24 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 7, 2008 11:13 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 7, 2008 12:25 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 3, 2008 09:20 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 30, 2008 10:40 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 26, 2008 01:05 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 26, 2008 12:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 25, 2008 09:25 AM
The English-born writer of science fiction died in Sri Lanka, his home since 1956. NYT, BBC, AP... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 18, 2008 04:25 PM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 18, 2008 11:41 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 11, 2008 06:40 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 6, 2008 12:50 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 5, 2008 12:35 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 4, 2008 12:29 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 4, 2008 12:51 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 28, 2008 06:06 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 25, 2008 11:44 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 25, 2008 05:33 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 25, 2008 03:11 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 25, 2008 01:53 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 25, 2008 12:44 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 25, 2008 01:57 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 20, 2008 11:15 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 20, 2008 06:04 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 12, 2008 11:27 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 11, 2008 09:13 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 8, 2008 03:59 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 8, 2008 09:23 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 6, 2008 09:42 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 30, 2008 04:29 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 24, 2008 09:16 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 14, 2008 10:31 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 14, 2008 03:06 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 14, 2007 05:11 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 11, 2007 11:28 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 11, 2007 11:25 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 10, 2007 01:42 PM
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.)... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 27, 2007 11:56 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 24, 2007 10:25 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 19, 2007 10:25 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 18, 2007 10:04 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 13, 2007 05:34 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 13, 2007 12:26 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 5, 2007 08:55 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 27, 2007 09:09 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 12, 2007 04:55 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 16, 2007 11:51 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 14, 2007 08:47 AM
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 &... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 9, 2007 10:49 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 5, 2007 11:19 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 31, 2007 02:20 PM
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?... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 31, 2007 12:50 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 5, 2007 12:24 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 5, 2007 08:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 27, 2007 08:43 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 23, 2007 12:46 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 20, 2007 09:10 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 20, 2007 08:56 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 18, 2007 08:54 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 14, 2007 03:44 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 23, 2007 11:54 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 14, 2007 02:19 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 28, 2007 12:44 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 26, 2007 09:52 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 25, 2007 08:50 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 23, 2007 04:00 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 22, 2007 09:56 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 18, 2007 08:58 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 13, 2007 02:26 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 11, 2007 10:14 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 4, 2007 05:05 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 2, 2007 08:15 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 26, 2007 09:20 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 7, 2007 08:25 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 6, 2007 07:59 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 5, 2007 08:09 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2007 02:47 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 1, 2007 03:29 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 27, 2007 09:24 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 22, 2007 02:24 AM
Results are in for The History Channel’s City of the Future design competition. On-line voters selected Chicago the winner. New York came in second. The Eric Owen Moss design for... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 8, 2007 09:49 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 6, 2007 03:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 4, 2007 12:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 30, 2007 11:09 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 23, 2007 10:12 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 23, 2007 01:59 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 23, 2007 02:34 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 22, 2007 10:56 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 17, 2007 01:31 AM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 10, 2007 09:43 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 3, 2007 01:12 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 2, 2007 07:57 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 2, 2007 04:36 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 20, 2006 02:30 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 19, 2006 05:55 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 17, 2006 03:32 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 15, 2006 08:32 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 1, 2006 11:39 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 27, 2006 06:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 22, 2006 12:15 PM
Caitlin Flanagan told the New York Observer a year ago that "You’d never, never, never leave The New Yorker," but now she has. Flanagan has left the magazine's staff to... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 22, 2006 09:22 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 20, 2006 12:59 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 7, 2006 01:55 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 24, 2006 09:34 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 21, 2006 11:57 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 12, 2006 06:11 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 11, 2006 01:56 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 9, 2006 02:45 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 6, 2006 02:31 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 4, 2006 02:37 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 3, 2006 11:53 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 2, 2006 10:01 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 7, 2006 02:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 5, 2006 10:54 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 5, 2006 02:48 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 30, 2006 08:52 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 30, 2006 08:48 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 28, 2006 12:30 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 20, 2006 02:32 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 16, 2006 09:09 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 8, 2006 01:46 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 2, 2006 09:43 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 30, 2006 08:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 20, 2006 10:40 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 14, 2006 03:05 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 12, 2006 01:47 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 21, 2006 11:49 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 18, 2006 10:33 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 5, 2006 02:45 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 1, 2006 07:05 PM
♦ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 14, 2006 10:27 PM
♦ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 8, 2006 03:16 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 4, 2006 10:39 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 1, 2006 01:07 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 28, 2006 05:15 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 26, 2006 10:15 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 23, 2006 11:56 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 21, 2006 01:01 PM
♦ 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. ♦... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 19, 2006 06:49 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 14, 2006 09:27 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 12, 2006 11:01 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 7, 2006 10:13 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 6, 2006 11:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 4, 2006 01:15 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 31, 2006 12:34 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 30, 2006 05:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 22, 2006 12:58 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 10, 2006 01:34 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 8, 2006 01:37 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 7, 2006 05:45 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 10:17 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 10:14 PM
Closing in on L.A... I’m 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 04:46 PM
Stuck in traffic, the mind tends to wander... I’m now in Morgan Hill, which used to be a wide spot in the road on El Camino Real (now 101) but... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 03:29 PM
Kipen enjoys his time at Stanford, but feels a little deadline pressure... I got back on El Camino Real after Kepler’s and before I knew it I was in Palo... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 02:15 PM
In which the intrepid critic-author-rookie book tourist pushes on toward L.A... Mission accomplished! Kepler’s was very nice. I managed to find a loading dock where I could park for 15... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 12:48 PM
The former books editor of the San Francisco Chronicle is driving south to appear tonight at Book Soup. He blogs from the road: I’m driving south on Highway 101 toward... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 11:58 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2006 12:01 AM
⇒ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 27, 2006 02:34 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 26, 2006 04:53 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 24, 2006 10:23 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 24, 2006 01:45 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 22, 2006 02:40 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 21, 2006 05:10 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 20, 2006 02:43 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 7, 2006 11:42 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 6, 2006 09:54 AM
⇒ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 5, 2006 12:30 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 5, 2006 11:50 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 26, 2006 02:48 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 26, 2006 01:36 AM
On the LA Weekly website and in Thursday's paper: Navahoax Did a struggling white writer of gay erotica become one of multicultural literature’s most celebrated memoirists — by passing himself... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 24, 2006 04:36 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 14, 2006 01:30 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 13, 2006 03:18 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 12, 2006 06:18 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 11, 2006 12:59 PM
Wilshire Boulevard: Grand Concourse of Los Angeles was at number eight on yesterday's Los Angeles Times hardcover nonfiction bestseller list.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 26, 2005 11:45 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 21, 2005 02:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 15, 2005 02:00 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 13, 2005 01:53 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 8, 2005 02:25 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 1, 2005 01:16 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 5, 2005 10:57 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 31, 2005 12:54 PM
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. Rubén... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 21, 2005 01:12 AM
♦ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 19, 2005 02:44 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 16, 2005 02:33 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 14, 2005 04:13 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 9, 2005 11:30 PM
♦ 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'... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 4, 2005 01:40 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 30, 2005 12:31 AM
♦ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 29, 2005 02:14 AM
♦ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 28, 2005 12:59 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 22, 2005 01:28 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 21, 2005 01:29 PM
♦ 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 19, 2005 12:53 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 13, 2005 10:05 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 8, 2005 03:59 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 8, 2005 11:59 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 6, 2005 02:58 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 1, 2005 01:43 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 31, 2005 11:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 31, 2005 11:11 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 31, 2005 02:18 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 30, 2005 02:37 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 29, 2005 01:22 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 25, 2005 10:52 AM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 24, 2005 01:36 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 24, 2005 11:42 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 14, 2005 11:25 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 11, 2005 12:12 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 3, 2005 12:35 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 28, 2005 01:35 PM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 27, 2005 02:20 AM
* 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 24, 2005 06:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 19, 2005 04:53 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 11, 2005 01:22 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 17, 2005 02:11 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 16, 2005 01:28 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 15, 2005 02:53 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 12, 2005 06:59 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 9, 2005 10:39 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 7, 2005 12:57 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 6, 2005 08:54 PM
The LA Weekly's recurring Weekly Literary Supplement has a cover piece on eighteeen local independent presses, sidebars on Tosh Berman’s TamTam Books, Feral House, Tsehai Publishers and Josh Kun writing... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 2, 2005 12:57 AM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 31, 2005 01:18 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 25, 2005 02:28 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 19, 2005 02:26 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 13, 2005 04:01 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 13, 2005 09:06 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 12, 2005 02:26 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 6, 2005 02:27 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 4, 2005 10:39 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 4, 2005 12:08 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 3, 2005 11:13 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 3, 2005 10:13 AM
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 —... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 3, 2005 09:47 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 2, 2005 01:59 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 1, 2005 07:42 PM
* 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 28, 2005 10:49 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 25, 2005 02:12 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 24, 2005 08:32 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 20, 2005 06:11 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 19, 2005 11:09 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 16, 2005 06:24 PM
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 —... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 12, 2005 03:01 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 10, 2005 11:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 6, 2005 04:04 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 3, 2005 11:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 29, 2005 09:14 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 28, 2005 02:17 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 18, 2005 12:45 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 16, 2005 09:44 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 9, 2005 01:22 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 8, 2005 12:29 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 7, 2005 12:37 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 3, 2005 10:48 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 23, 2005 02:18 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 17, 2005 11:03 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 6, 2005 12:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 31, 2005 02:39 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 28, 2005 02:00 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 27, 2005 01:50 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 26, 2005 11:51 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 23, 2005 09:20 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 18, 2005 05:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 17, 2005 10:45 PM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 10, 2005 02:59 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 9, 2005 10:02 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 7, 2005 02:22 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 4, 2005 11:45 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 4, 2005 02:39 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 3, 2005 02:49 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 28, 2004 12:16 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 15, 2004 12:04 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 12, 2004 01:29 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 5, 2004 11:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 3, 2004 09:38 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 29, 2004 05:29 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 28, 2004 03:47 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 24, 2004 01:11 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 23, 2004 10:24 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 22, 2004 11:32 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 15, 2004 01:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 12, 2004 10:25 AM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 9, 2004 09:56 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 9, 2004 03:27 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 9, 2004 10:14 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 1, 2004 12:38 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 29, 2004 12:22 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 27, 2004 10:12 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 27, 2004 09:52 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 26, 2004 10:13 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 24, 2004 10:17 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 23, 2004 03:37 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 22, 2004 08:19 AM
The Greek rights to Steve Hodel's Black Dahlia Avenger were sold to Patakis Publishers. (Via Publishers Lunch)... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 21, 2004 01:39 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 15, 2004 11:25 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 15, 2004 10:30 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 12, 2004 11:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 8, 2004 12:05 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 7, 2004 12:05 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 7, 2004 11:23 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 2, 2004 05:06 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 29, 2004 10:12 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 24, 2004 10:54 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 22, 2004 09:22 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 22, 2004 09:14 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 22, 2004 10:13 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 22, 2004 09:42 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 21, 2004 10:15 AM
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).... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 20, 2004 10:55 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 20, 2004 11:00 AM
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)... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 20, 2004 09:46 AM
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"... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 14, 2004 02:37 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 14, 2004 11:47 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 9, 2004 10:22 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 9, 2004 09:48 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 8, 2004 12:42 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 31, 2004 09:08 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 30, 2004 01:12 AM
I'm reading The Myth of Solid Ground: Earthquakes, Prediction, and the Fault Line Between Reason and Faith by David L. Ulin, which must be the prettiest, most thought-provoking writing about... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 9, 2004 01:58 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 8, 2004 11:40 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 6, 2004 11:21 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 5, 2004 01:17 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 2, 2004 06:15 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 27, 2004 11:31 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 18, 2004 08:56 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 14, 2004 11:28 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 13, 2004 06:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 12, 2004 04:15 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 9, 2004 03:39 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 6, 2004 12:26 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 30, 2004 11:11 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 27, 2004 12:33 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 25, 2004 08:55 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 23, 2004 11:16 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 22, 2004 03:47 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 21, 2004 10:31 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 20, 2004 11:57 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 14, 2004 12:35 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 11, 2004 02:48 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 10, 2004 10:23 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 9, 2004 10:29 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 7, 2004 04:40 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 7, 2004 11:55 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 2, 2004 04:03 PM
L.A. Observed is the newest co-sponsor of the "Public Square" Lecture Series presented by Zócalo and the Los Angeles Public Library. Zócalo seeks to create a non-partisan and multiethnic forum... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted June 1, 2004 01:10 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 27, 2004 10:41 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 26, 2004 12:02 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 26, 2004 01:47 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 25, 2004 11:46 AM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 24, 2004 05:48 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 20, 2004 11:41 AM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 17, 2004 11:19 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 17, 2004 11:00 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 13, 2004 09:52 AM
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)... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 12, 2004 10:52 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 10, 2004 11:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 9, 2004 03:55 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 7, 2004 12:04 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 7, 2004 09:03 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 3, 2004 07:24 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 2, 2004 11:41 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted May 1, 2004 01:36 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 28, 2004 09:38 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 27, 2004 11:51 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 25, 2004 12:23 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 23, 2004 11:44 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 21, 2004 12:15 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 19, 2004 06:27 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 15, 2004 12:13 AM
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 I’ve become... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 14, 2004 11:20 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 12, 2004 07:04 PM
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...... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 10, 2004 11:38 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 8, 2004 01:51 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 7, 2004 11:14 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 6, 2004 10:12 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted April 5, 2004 05:26 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 29, 2004 05:39 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 26, 2004 11:36 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 25, 2004 06:18 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 25, 2004 04:53 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 23, 2004 05:43 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 22, 2004 11:05 PM
William T. Vollmann’s 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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 17, 2004 08:54 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 16, 2004 06:53 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 11, 2004 11:27 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 8, 2004 06:39 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 8, 2004 12:41 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 7, 2004 10:56 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 6, 2004 12:23 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 3, 2004 08:43 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 3, 2004 12:50 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 2, 2004 12:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted March 1, 2004 06:15 PM
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"... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 29, 2004 01:13 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 23, 2004 06:04 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 22, 2004 07:00 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 17, 2004 09:58 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 16, 2004 10:55 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 11, 2004 12:57 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 9, 2004 10:17 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 4, 2004 03:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 4, 2004 10:00 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted February 3, 2004 12:42 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 28, 2004 08:47 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 22, 2004 10:34 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 22, 2004 12:10 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 21, 2004 11:52 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 21, 2004 12:05 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 14, 2004 11:56 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 9, 2004 01:02 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 9, 2004 01:25 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 8, 2004 11:51 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted January 6, 2004 11:36 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 31, 2003 03:30 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 28, 2003 02:41 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted December 3, 2003 12:50 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 30, 2003 11:52 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 24, 2003 10:42 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 24, 2003 06:03 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 22, 2003 10:57 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 18, 2003 12:35 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 12, 2003 09:25 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 11, 2003 11:23 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 11, 2003 01:15 AM
The L.A. Central Library's Aloud program for this week: Wednesday, November 12, 7 p.m. NATHANIEL PHILBRICK "Sea of Glory: Americas Voyage of Discovery, the U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842." National Book... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 9, 2003 12:13 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 6, 2003 02:54 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 4, 2003 12:52 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 3, 2003 12:45 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 2, 2003 11:26 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted November 1, 2003 12:28 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 31, 2003 10:27 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 27, 2003 05:52 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 25, 2003 01:37 AM
Susannah Breslin, the L.A. writer of the late Reverse Cowgirl blog, is out with Youre a Bad Man, Arent You?, billed as "a short story collection of sordidly sexual tales,"... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 24, 2003 11:06 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 16, 2003 04:22 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 15, 2003 12:54 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 15, 2003 12:37 PM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 15, 2003 02:07 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 12, 2003 11:16 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted October 9, 2003 12:32 PM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 28, 2003 01:36 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 26, 2003 12:58 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 22, 2003 06:29 PM
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.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 22, 2003 02:44 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 21, 2003 10:01 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 21, 2003 01:56 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 18, 2003 01:14 AM
California Authors notes two contrasting reviews of Joan Didion's Where I Was From: Patt Morrison, LAT: "...a soulsearching look at Californias complexities and contradictions." Benjamin Schwarz, The Atlantic: "He laments... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 17, 2003 11:12 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 15, 2003 12:15 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 15, 2003 10:44 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 15, 2003 01:05 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 11, 2003 09:57 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 10, 2003 10:27 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 10, 2003 10:12 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 8, 2003 12:38 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted September 5, 2003 12:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 28, 2003 02:08 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 26, 2003 02:13 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 21, 2003 10:13 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 21, 2003 12:05 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 19, 2003 11:28 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 19, 2003 12:55 AM
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,... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 13, 2003 11:56 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 12, 2003 12:32 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 7, 2003 01:47 PM
Suzan Lori Parks is scheduled to be on Life and Times Monday, Paula L. Woods on Tuesday.... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 4, 2003 01:00 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 3, 2003 01:45 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted August 1, 2003 07:32 PM
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author Edward Humes' eighth book, out in September, chronicles life inside Californias best public high school, Whitney High here in Cerritos. He spent a year at... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 30, 2003 01:13 AM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 29, 2003 01:00 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 22, 2003 04:23 PM
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 )... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 22, 2003 01:26 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 20, 2003 02:44 PM
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:... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 19, 2003 01:21 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 19, 2003 01:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 16, 2003 12:55 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 14, 2003 02:57 PM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 12, 2003 01:20 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 11, 2003 11:30 AM
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... $MTEntryExcerpt$>
Posted July 10, 2003 01:08 AM