. Pico's playlist

Publisher's Weekly calls its main character an "irresistible antihero" and the book itself a "tour de force of plotting and characterization [that] may well be Parker’s best." In a new essay for CaliforniaAuthors, bestselling author T. Jefferson Parker writes about the genesis his of new thriller, L.A. Outlaws — the mysterious history of an infamous California outlaw and all the interesting "what ifs" it spawned. Click here to read "Considering Joaquin Murrieta." It took a remarkable outpouring of generosity to make My California: Journeys by Great Writers a reality. This anthology of travel and adventure stories donated by 27 of California's most talented writers benefits the beleaguered California Arts Council and writing programs for children statewide. Learn more about the project and author events at mycaliforniaproject.org. Read Pico Iyer's introduction here. Read contributor Hector Tobar's essay, "Ode to Caltrans" here. Buy the book here. Whittier is latest community to select My California as its One City, One Book pick. Browse the 2007 calendar of events here. Is your city or county reading "one book?" Check out our list of community reading programs. The Big Read: Learn more about the NEA’s effort to restore reading to the center of American culture here. Alone among scientists, Charles Darwin inspires continuing political and cultural movements and, most recently, yet another incarnation of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. "Over time he has become an archetype, a mythic figure ... routinely ranked by scientists as one of the three or four most important thinkers in history, and just as routinely ranked with Hitler and Marx in the religious right’s pantheon of evil," Edward Humes writes in, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, Religion and the Battle for America's Soul. Read more here. Inland inspired: “For twenty-five years I have written about this region and tried to infuse my work with love and desire and the fierceness we retain in these small places where people loved their own with the vehemence, the stubborn and suspicious and inventive qualities required to survive...” novelist Susan Straight writes in the introduction to Inlandia. Read more here. “The more time I spent wandering the trails of Joshua Tree National Park, the clearer it became that the desert — not Long Island, Wall Street, the White House, Madison Avenue, the Home Shopping Channel, or other regions born of mirage — explains the national character..." Read more from Deanne Stillman's Joshua Tree: Desolation Tango here. American renaissance: "Schools for art, acting, photography, dance and design from coast to coast were sustained by veterans returning from war…" Edward Humes writes in Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream. "The men and women who graduated from them after the war launched a twentieth century renaissance in the arts in America..." Read more here. In her 2006 collection of poetry, Mary Mackey journeys from her childhood Indianapolis to a Brazilian favela to the Golden State she shares with the world. Read here poem "The Californian" here. California farmer and author Mike Madison writes about the evocative — almost magical — effect of lilac-time at the farmers' market in "Listening to Lilacs," an excerpt from Blithe Tomato. Read it here. In The Yellow-Lighted Bookstore, Lewis Buzbee, a former bookseller and sales representative, celebrates the unique experience of the bookstore — the smell and touch of books, the joy of getting lost in the deep canyons of shelves, and the silent community of readers. Read an excerpt here. On LA's Grand Concourse: "Natives and tourists alike have been known to answer the call to explore the whole thing, like a peak that must be climbed," Kevin Roderick writes in Wilshire Boulevard. Read an excerpt here. "I could only shudder at the thought of how few romantic prospects awaited a single, middle-aged, black woman in a town of a little over two thousand ... It didn’t take a rocket scientist to do the math..." Read more of April Sinclair's essay from Single Woman of a Certain Age. "There are certain writers that find us in youth, or in a moment of youth when we're bent-backed and hoary, who cause a strange and irreversible reaction... William Saroyan is such a writer," William E. Justice writes in Essential Saroyan, a collection of stories by the Pulitzer Prize-winner Fresno author and playwright. Read more here. "There are plenty of toxic places in the gated enclaves and McMansion wastelands of America. They don’t have enough of the play between life in public and life in private that I see choreographed by design in my suburb." D.J. Waldie writes in the new introduction to Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir. Read more here. California Uncovered: Stories for the 21st Century. "The Californian adventure is a marvelous one — with manifold outcomes," writes novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in the introduction of this anthology which features prose from twenty-five California writers. Read more here. The real you in 750 words: Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and School of Dreams author Edward Humes gives us a window on the angst behind college admissions essays here. Blooming late: In Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman's Guide to Igniting the Writer Within, Barbara DeMarco-Barrett has created "a practical, inspirational guide for fitting serious writing into stolen moments," complete with advice from well-known authors. And, she says, it is never to late to begin. Read an excerpt here. California Girl: Prizewinning mystery novelist T. Jefferson Parker shares an excerpt of California Girl, a page turner set in 1960s Orange County — "a national drama played out in the small Southern California towns of Tustin and Laguna beach, where I grew up," says Parker. Read the excerpt here. Literary 101 (and 405 and PCH, too): How many hours do we sit in traffic, working through the expanding and contracting snake of cars on the freeway? For many of us, literary radio gets us there and back. In an essay from The Misread City, author Marcos M. Villatoro is our tour guide and reminds us that Angelenos actually buy more books than New Yorkers do. Read it here. Plus: our own quick guide to California literary radio The accidental author: Thomas Steinbeck's Down to a Soundless Sea traces the fates and dreams of an eccentric cast of characters as each struggles to carve out a living in the often inhospitable environment of rocky cliffs, crashing surf, and rough patches of land along the California coast and the Big Sur. In his essay, the author tells the story behind the publication of his collection of Big Sur stories. The Real Gidget. Deanne Stillman tells the story behind the story of the original California girl — an essay featured in the new book, Surf Culture: The Art History of Surfing.   Have it all: Click here to browse a complete index of excerpts and essays published here at CaliforniaAuthors.com, including excerpts from Kathi Kamen Goldmark’s quirky debut novel, And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You; Matt Warshaw's Zero Break: An Illustrated Collection of Surf Writing 1777 - 2004; Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom; and Heyday’s California Poetry: From the Gold Rush to the Present. Enjoy a remarkable selection of more than 25 first person essays! • Daniel A. Olivas recounts the journey from short story master to new-minted novelist. • Cristina Garcia — author of A Handbook to Luck — looks at life, luck and migration, Q&A style. • Earl Warren biographer Jim Newton on the compelling scope of his subject's story. • Janis Cooke Newman bakes Mary Todd Lincoln's white cake and discovers a delicious kind of “literary method acting.” • Read Amy Wilenz — author of I Feel Earthquakes More Often Than They Happen — on California, niceness and the writing life. • Bestselling author Rochelle Krich offers her personal guide to California’s mystery scene. • Derek Powazek shares Twenty-five cents and counting, his first-person slice of a freshly minted author's life and his pilgrimage to the neighborhood bookstore. • Gerald Haslam writes about reading Grapes of Wrath as a boy growing up in the Great Central Valley. • Reyna Grande author of Across a Hundred Mountains tells her own immigration story. Click here for much more first person.

Living with music and other stray notes from around the web:

• Pico Iyer shares his playlist with The New York Times.

• Book Passage owner Bill Petrocelli blasts Amazon's tax holiday in California.

• Former LAT Times Editor John Carroll offers his take on "The Future of Journalism" in a speech at the University of Kentucky.

• Author Patt Morrison reels in more top interviews to her KPCC show. Last week: a sitdown with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. This week: former President Jimmy Carter stops by on his book tour.

• Novelist Susan Straight wins an Edgar Award for her short story "The Golden Gopher" in the Los Angeles Noir anthology. [from laobserved]

• California author, commentator, and "cybersalonista" Arianna Huffington takes a star turn in W.

Posted on Thursday, May 8, 2008

Malibu's Top Ten: The Malibu Times looks at the books locals are buying lately, among them California Poetry (the city's 2008 One Book, One City pick), The Wentworths by local author Katie Arnoldi, and All for a Few Perfect Waves by David Rensin. Read more here.

Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008

Safe havens under siege: Los Angeles leaders faced an outcry from residents and city workers this week over proposals to slash library services and park rangers. As the LA Daily News reports, "In a budget focused on public safety and boosting the police department, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has recommended slashing the library system's book-buying budget by $2 million, closing regional libraries on Sundays, cutting back on park maintenance and getting rid of half of the city's 42 park ranger positions."

Residents who turned out for Thursday's public hearing pointed out that the city actually would be undermining public safety by cutting back safe havens at libraries and parks.

For the latest library budget updates, visit Save LAPL. Add your voice here.

Posted on Saturday, May 3, 2008

Bookish LA: Kevin Roderick waxes on the nation's biggest book market on KCRW and highlights some of SoCal's new spring's books — among them Latinos in Lotusland; Hollywood Crows; The Devils of Bakersfield; The Age Of Dreaming; and Great Escapes: Southern California.

There are something like fifteen million people living within the sound of my voice. So there's really no competition for who buys the most books.

Places you might think of as bookish — the Bay Area, say, or Boston or Portland — just aren't big enough.

And New York -- well, even with all the publishers and agents squeezed into Manhattan, the boroughs aren't really filled with readers.

So that leaves Southern California...

Read more or listen here.

Posted on Sunday, April 27, 2008

See you at the Festival of Books This weekend I'll be at UCLA on Sunday soaking up the sunshine and signing copies of My California: Journeys by Great Writers with Edward Humes and Veronique de Turenne. From 1-2 pm, we'll be parked at the Angel City Press booth (near Royce Hall).

Carolyn See joins us at 2 pm. Carolyn, btw, has an excellent Op-Ed piece in today's Times about giving up her driver's license: "Living car-less in Los Angeles is living by your wits."

On Saturday, My California contributors Patt Morrison and D.J. Waldie sign books at the ACP booth at 1 pm, and David Kipen, literature director at the National Endowment for the Arts, stops by at 4 pm.

All My California proceeds, of course, benefit the California Arts Council and writing programs for children.

More about the festival: Kevin Roderick posts his weekend guide at LaObserved and TEV shares a coupla pointers, too.

*Update: The winners and a special tribute to Doug Dutton at Friday night's Los Angeles Times Book Prizes.

—Donna

Posted on Friday, April 25, 2008

What I'm reading: Author Edward Humes reviews LA Times columnist Steve Lopez's new book and finds it "a very human drama that is hard to put down." A snippet:

Los Angeles' skid row, as Steve Lopez writes in "The Soloist," is the homeless capital of the nation.

Hidden in plain sight just down the street from City Hall and mere steps from the offices of this newspaper, skid row is a reeking repository of disease, drugs and desperation that most of us avoid when possible or hurriedly step past when necessary, averting our stares from hollow cheeks and hollow eyes, as if they were invisible.

"The Soloist" is Lopez's compelling and gruffly tender account of what can happen when you don't step past.

In his unsparing portrait of this universe and the plight of the homeless mentally ill, Lopez offers not a moment of wonkery or preachiness -- just his keen observations and eye for telling detail as he unfolds the story of his unintended and improbable friendship with a homeless, schizophrenic classical musician, Nathaniel Ayers.

Read the rest here.

Posted on Monday, April 21, 2008

Site notes: Next week we are launching a newly re-designed californiaauthors.com and as part of the refurbishing process, we cannot accept new Author Directory listings until the new site debuts. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Posted on Monday, April 21, 2008

Good idea: RJ Smith at Los Angeles magazine interviews the six living ex-editors of the Los Angeles Times about the paper's past, its unpredictable new owner, and its prospects for the future. The story isn't online yet, but LAObserved posts some choice morsels.

Posted on Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Hmmm: "HarperCollins Publishers is forming a new publishing group that will substitute profit-sharing with authors for cash advances and will try to eliminate the costly practice of allowing booksellers to return unsold copies." From today's NYT.

Posted on Friday, April 4, 2008

On being a reclusive weirdo: "So I woke up this a.m. thinking about how unsuited most writers are to the kind of self-promotion — or any kind of promotion — that publishing a book seems to require. Me, I live in a hole. I like my hole. Me and my hole have rapport ... Want to know what it’s like being a first-time novelist? You watch the Food Network when you can’t sleep, which is all the time." – Fiona Maazel, guest blogging at the Elegant Variation.

Posted on Thursday, April 3, 2008

Saucy schemes and new stories: Isabel Allende's memoir is just out: The Sums of Our Days... novelist Tobias Wolff is on the cover of Poets and Writers magazine (though the story is not yet available online)... Veronique de Turenne teams up with Ernest Marquez to chronicle Southern California's century as a maritime hub in Port of Los Angeles... former Islands Magazine Editor Joan Tapper has just published Shear Spirit... poet Carol Muske-Dukes says "My Love is Like a Sweet Revolver"... columnist Steve Lopez invites readers to co-write a novel, Birds of Paradise... Carolyn Kellogg joins the LAT's book blog, Jacket Copy, and shares an interesting dispatch from Istanbul... Author Enablers Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry include a nice My California mention in their advice column for aspiring writers... Fray Quarterly is looking for a few good geeks... Michelle Nicolosi wants to know: What’s the coolest off-the-beaten-path place in the U.S.?

Posted on Thursday, April 3, 2008

A good deed and spring cleaning, too: The California Highway Patrol begins its annual Cesar E. Chavez Book Drive today. You are cordially invited to drop off new and gently used children's books at the nearest CHP office. The drive runs through May 5 and book donations will be distributed to schools, shelters and other charitable organizations throughout the state.

Find the closest CHP office here. Or pack up a box of books and ship them off to CHP headquarters, 2555 First Avenue, Sacramento, 95818.

Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008

Last word: "Reading books - it's a crummy business model, but it's a wonderful life." — Doug Dutton, at Sunday's farewell party for his Dutton's Brentwood Books.

LAObserved has a roundup and photos here. More at TEV.

Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008

The travel writer and the monk: Today is publication day for The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Pico Iyer, who divides his time between Santa Barbara and Japan and first visited the exiled Dalai Lama at age 17. "A brilliant pairing of writer and subject," says Publishers Weekly. We have to agree.

Read an excerpt and more about the book here.

Posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bravo. Publishers Weekly has named Vroman's in Pasadena, Southern California's oldest and biggest bookstore, as Bookseller of the Year. Read more and add your comment at the Vroman's blog.

In other bookstore news: Cody's has a new home in downtown Berkeley ... The San Francisco State University Bookstore now partners with Eco-Libris and invites customers to plant a tree for every book they buy ... Skylight Books in LA's Los Feliz area is growing. "I'm happy to tell you that we are going to be expanding our store to include a storefront next door!" says Skylight general manager Kerry Slattery. "It will be at least a few months before all is ready, but we plan to move our art, film, music, theatre and a few other sections to the new space, which will allow us to also expand a few sections like Fiction and the Children's section."

Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008

The odds couple: Mark F. at BoingBoing advises, "Harper Collins has posted the full text of Double or Nothing: How Two Friends Risked It All to Buy One of Las Vegas' Legendary Casinos, by Tom Breitling with Cal Fussman. It's available until April 14th." For free.

The writers: "Their unlikely friendship began in college over an $8 veal parmigiana sandwich..."

Posted on Thursday, March 20, 2008

Treasures from the East: This week UC Berkeley opened the $46 million C.V. Starr East Asian Library. Its vast collection includes: Ancient Chinese oracle bones inscribed with pictographs that evolved into Chinese writing. Thousand-year-old Chinese books printed by woodblock, centuries before Gutenberg. More than two thousand historic Japanese maps said to be the most comprehensive outside of Japan. An 18th century anthology of Korean poetry. "It's the first stand-alone East Asian library in this country," said Philip Melzer, president of the Council of East Asian Libraries. "It's a beautiful building." From the San Francisco Chronicle.

Posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Performance art: Roshawnda Bettencourt, a student at Placer County's Oakmont High, captured first place in California's Poetry Out Loud state finals. She recited "Sympathy" by Paul Laurence Dunbar.

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opens,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
I know what the caged bird feels!

The California Arts Council saw a record number of students from 147 schools compete in this year's contest. Browse the photo gallery here. The National Poetry Out Loud Finals are April 29 in Washington, DC.

Posted on Sunday, March 16, 2008

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