Stop by the West Hollywood Book Fair, all day Sunday Oct. 2 in West Hollywood Park.
Highlights include Veronique de Turenne signing the bestselling My California: Journeys by Great Writers anthology at noon at the Angel City Press booth.

“If I’m not reading this, who in hell is?” — Bruce Feirstein, on the “arcane and impenetrable” LA Times Book Review.
[via laobserved]

John Woestendiek on why Dummies Rule.

“If you would like to participate in a McSweeney’s/Voice of Witness book of oral histories of victims of Hurricane Katrina, please click here.”

Cody’s, a Berkeley institution, expands to San Francisco… and owner Andrew Ross has refinanced his home and tapped his savings to do it. “Cody’s is such a unique bookstore,” says Helen Bulwik, a Bay Area retail industry consultant, “And as we look at independents, the ones that continue to grow are the ones that [...]

Columnist Steve Lopez responds to David Geffen and the other moguls who want to GRAB the LA Times. Great line: “I can understand that. Twice now I’ve gotten less than sparkling book reviews in the New York Times. If only I’d bought the paper after the first one.”

The Elegant Variation chats with David Ulin, the new editor of the LA Times book review.
TEV: So what’s your first order of business when you get yourself settled in?
DU: It’s difficult to talk in terms of specifics having not yet begun the job. But the broad answer is this: I want to rethink [...]

The MacArthur Foundation hands out its genius grants today.

“As we see decades of newspaper experience and institutional memory walking out the door, I think all we can feel is sadness.” — Chronicle staffer on the newsroom exodus underway in San Francisco.

The new Book Passage newsletter brings a recap of the bookstore’s Katrina fundraiser, which raised in more than $40,000. In a single evening.
Whenever you wonder why you are in the book business, you have to think back on the events that make it a very special kind of activity. The Writers4Relief Benefit on September [...]

“If there is one truth that can be gathered from Lisa See’s beautiful and, at times, disturbing novel, Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, it is that no matter how oppressive a society may be toward a portion of its population (in this case, Chinese girls and women of the early 1800s), the victims [...]

Michelle Singletary of The Washington Post makes her September picks for the Color of Money Book Club:
• The Giving Book by Ellen Sabin. “This 64-page, spiral-bound volume is full of fun activities intended to teach children ages 6 to 11 the importance of philanthropy… Most important, the activities in the book aren’t just centered [...]

Jim Rainey looks at David Geffen’s interest in buying the LA Times.

California’s newest author is… former San Francisco Police Chief Earl Saunders, who just sold a serial crime saga called The Zebra Murders.

Clark Kepler has postponed filing for bankruptcy while a group of investors mobilizes with hopes of re-opening his Menlo Park bookstore, which closed Aug. 31. Also, Rick Opaterny, a writer, Google employee and Kepler’s regular, has launched a website, www.savekeplers.com.[via Ghost Word]
Firoozeh Dumas shares her thoughts about her local bookstore:
It is not an exaggeration [...]

Bidding is now underway here, all for a good cause

Ann Hulbert writes at Slate about the renewed emphasis on the personal statement in college applications.
No wonder essay-crafting services and even summer camps, as the Wall Street Journal recently reported, are catching on among an affluent clientele. Everyone’s trying to come up with what College Summit calls the “bomb essay.”

Previously, Edward Humes [...]

The American Booksellers Association has created a Bookseller Relief Fund to assist Gulf Coast bookstores affected by Hurricane Katrina. More here.

Our one-of-a-kind California new releases list. See it now.

as our new release of the week: A Field Guide to Getting Lost, by Rebecca Solnit (Viking, July 2005) From Outside magazine: “Rebecca Solnit, one of the American West’s leading cultural thinkers and the author of Wanderlust…, has a mind that roams over deserts, canyons and forests. In her latest book, a collection of [...]