The SCIBA newsletter brings this upbeat report from the indie book world:
2010 is off to a roaring start with rep changes, a new store and several new owners to our existing stores. Pages: A Bookstore (Manhattan Beach) celebrates [its] grand opening on March 12. Both The Frugal Frigate in Redlands and The Yellow [...]
Stories in Booksellers:
The latest on Book Soup and other SoCal bookshops
LAT: Vroman’s to buy Book Soup
Two of Southern California’s major independent bookstores are about to become partners: Pasadena-based Vroman’s has signed an agreement to purchase Book Soup in West Hollywood, the Los Angeles Times reports tonight.
Glenn Goldman, Book Soup’s longtime owner, began looking for a buyer when he fell severely ill, and the fate of the store has been up [...]
SoCal Independent Booksellers Awards, 2009 edition
The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association has named its finalists for the 2009 SCIBA Book Awards.
The awards honor fiction, nonfiction, mystery and children’s books by Southern California writers. This year, indie booksellers have added a new category — the Glenn Goldman Art & Architecture Book Award — in honor of the beloved founder of West [...]
Reading LA: `I’ve seen the future and it is literate’
Sophie Heawood of UK’s Independent takes in the LA bookscape and marvels at a thriving scene.
There’s one shop called Skylight Books, where they had to hastily scrawl signs saying “full to capacity” last night, after so many people crowded on to the street to see hit author Dave Eggers talk about his new book and [...]
Catch a ride to the Festival of Books
SoCal Book Scene offers this excellent suggestion: Hitch a ride Saturday with Vroman’s or Warwick’s to the Los Angeles Festival of Books at UCLA. Take a moment to do the math: 130,000 attendees. 24,000 parking spots. Then get on the bookstore bus.
Here’s the rundown on this year’s festival, which features 450 authors, opening with Friday [...]
Browsing Skylight Books: favorite book videos
Bookseller and late-night reader Emily Pullen stars in Skylight’s debut video, sharing her latest find at the bookstore’s blog.
Skylight Recommends from Emily Pullen on Vimeo.
San Francisco celebrates Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Chronicle’s Heidi Benson catches up with San Francisco poet and City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who turns 90 next week.
A snippet from the interview:
Q: Can writing be taught?
A: It has to be taut.
Q: Is texting poetry?
A: It can be.
Read the full story here.
P.S. Mayor Gavin Newsom has declared March 24 “Lawrence Ferlinghetti [...]
Beautiful bookstores, all-star libraries, LA stories
Chronicle Books twitters about this lovely photo gallery: The most interesting bookstores of the world. San Francisco’s Borderlands Bookstore, and its hairless Sphynx cat, makes the cut.
Library Journal showcases the nation’s “star” libraries, including sixteen here in California
The Los Angeles Music Center invites Angelenos to share their life stories and oral histories this month. The [...]
`The little store he made so carefully’
Jon Robin Baitz, playwright, screenwriter, and creator of the television series Brothers & Sisters, pens a remembrance of Glenn Goldman and the beginning of Book Soup. From LA Weekly:
In the 1980s, the first iteration of Book Soup was closer to San Vicente; a tiny, chic little maze, a bit like a set from [...]
What’s going on
The January Poets & Writers newsletter offers this timely advice: “The deadlines for forty writing contests fall between January 15 and February 15.” Browse the submissions calendar here.
Beyond Baroque gets a lifeline: “Just days before the end of its fortieth-anniversary year, Beyond Baroque finally signed a lease with the Los Angeles City Council that [...]
Book hounds share their favorite new books
Great idea: The San Francisco Chronicle now invites staffs at Bay Area booksellers to share recommendations about new books and then features a weekly reading list online. Today’s list comes from the book hounds at Booksmith on Haight Street and you can browse it here.
Harbor bookstore turns 100 this month
Authors Ray Bradbury, Lisa See, Angi Ma Wong, Andy Rafkin, Debbie Marr, Joe McKenzie, Bungy Hedley, Mike Schaadt and Ed Mastro are helping Williams’ Bookstore in San Pedro — said to be LA’s oldest continually operating new bookstore — celebrate its 100th birthday on the weekend of January 23, 24 and 25. SCIBA website.
Book Soup founder dies
The LA Times brings the sad news that Book Soup owner Glenn Goldman died from pancreas cancer on Saturday, just one day after announcing plans to sell his Sunset Boulevard bookstore. He was 58.
Goldman opened Book Soup in 1975. After struggling to survive for nearly two decades, Book Soup found its niche. Goldman’s bookstore [...]
Acres of Books – the movie?
Acres of Books may be gone. But Jedediah Laub-Klein doesn’t want anyone to forget Long Beach’s landmark used bookstore. So he’s making a movie: “I went in one day and they told me it was closing and I knew I had to make it, because pretty soon, in three months there wouldn’t be anything to [...]
Supporting his local indie
Actor Tom Hanks is stopping by Village Books in Pacific Palisades at 7 tonight and will be signing copies of any books and DVDs (You’ve got Mail, Catch Me If You Can, The Polar Express, etc.) purchased at the store. The special visit is to raise money and keep Village Books in business for 2009. [...]
Two new SoCal bookstores & a winter surprise
This week Diesel opened its third California bookstore, with a champagne celebration at the Brentwood Country Mart. “The space is lovely, like a period library with crown molding, crisp white shelves and a walnut floor,” says Veronique at LA Observed. “And the books, oh, the books, an eclectic, surprising and deeply satisfying selection that [...]
The best gift, grants, free blogs & our latest news, too
…it doesn’t break
…it’s easy to pack
…there’s no need to guess the size; one size fits all…
BookReporter.com counts down to Dec. 25, sharing 45 reasons why a book makes the perfect holiday present.
Browse around CaliforniaAuthors and you’ll find links to your favorite booksellers to start your holiday shopping today.
Get your town reading: The NEA’s [...]
A sad closing, a great resource and a cool gift idea
My favorite Long Beach treasure house of children’s books is closing after 38 years on Second Street. Teacher Supply is one of those highly eccentric independently-owned stores that can never be duplicated in the chain store world. It is a full-blown teachers supply store and every inch of the place is jammed to the ceiling [...]
2008 SoCal Book Awards
Publisher’s Weekly recaps the fall Author Feast and Trade Show in Los Angeles and announces the winners of Saturday night’s Southern California Independent Booksellers Association book awards.
The association’s awards went to Jeanne Kelley for nonfiction (Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes, Running Press), Dean Lorey for children’s novel (Nightmare Academy, HarperCollins), Dan Hanna for children’s picture [...]
Author mines SoCal’s cold-case files
Pasadena author Weston DeWalt was researching jogging trails near his home when he heard about a boy who disappeared while hiking along an Arroyo Seco trail. Eight-year-old Tommy Bowman had run ahead of his family on a spring day in 1957 and vanished forever. “I was intrigued by the story that a child [...]
The latest on Book Soup and other SoCal bookshops
LAT: Vroman’s to buy Book Soup
Two of Southern California’s major independent bookstores are about to become partners: Pasadena-based Vroman’s has signed an agreement to purchase Book Soup in West Hollywood, the Los Angeles Times reports tonight.
Glenn Goldman, Book Soup’s longtime owner, began looking for a buyer when he fell severely ill, and the fate of the store has been up [...]
SoCal Independent Booksellers Awards, 2009 edition
The Southern California Independent Booksellers Association has named its finalists for the 2009 SCIBA Book Awards.
The awards honor fiction, nonfiction, mystery and children’s books by Southern California writers. This year, indie booksellers have added a new category — the Glenn Goldman Art & Architecture Book Award — in honor of the beloved founder of West [...]
Reading LA: `I’ve seen the future and it is literate’
Sophie Heawood of UK’s Independent takes in the LA bookscape and marvels at a thriving scene.
There’s one shop called Skylight Books, where they had to hastily scrawl signs saying “full to capacity” last night, after so many people crowded on to the street to see hit author Dave Eggers talk about his new book and [...]
Catch a ride to the Festival of Books
SoCal Book Scene offers this excellent suggestion: Hitch a ride Saturday with Vroman’s or Warwick’s to the Los Angeles Festival of Books at UCLA. Take a moment to do the math: 130,000 attendees. 24,000 parking spots. Then get on the bookstore bus.
Here’s the rundown on this year’s festival, which features 450 authors, opening with Friday [...]
Browsing Skylight Books: favorite book videos
Bookseller and late-night reader Emily Pullen stars in Skylight’s debut video, sharing her latest find at the bookstore’s blog.
Skylight Recommends from Emily Pullen on Vimeo.
San Francisco celebrates Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Chronicle’s Heidi Benson catches up with San Francisco poet and City Lights founder Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who turns 90 next week.
A snippet from the interview:
Q: Can writing be taught?
A: It has to be taut.
Q: Is texting poetry?
A: It can be.
Read the full story here.
P.S. Mayor Gavin Newsom has declared March 24 “Lawrence Ferlinghetti [...]
Beautiful bookstores, all-star libraries, LA stories
Chronicle Books twitters about this lovely photo gallery: The most interesting bookstores of the world. San Francisco’s Borderlands Bookstore, and its hairless Sphynx cat, makes the cut.
Library Journal showcases the nation’s “star” libraries, including sixteen here in California
The Los Angeles Music Center invites Angelenos to share their life stories and oral histories this month. The [...]
`The little store he made so carefully’
Jon Robin Baitz, playwright, screenwriter, and creator of the television series Brothers & Sisters, pens a remembrance of Glenn Goldman and the beginning of Book Soup. From LA Weekly:
In the 1980s, the first iteration of Book Soup was closer to San Vicente; a tiny, chic little maze, a bit like a set from [...]
What’s going on
The January Poets & Writers newsletter offers this timely advice: “The deadlines for forty writing contests fall between January 15 and February 15.” Browse the submissions calendar here.
Beyond Baroque gets a lifeline: “Just days before the end of its fortieth-anniversary year, Beyond Baroque finally signed a lease with the Los Angeles City Council that [...]
Book hounds share their favorite new books
Great idea: The San Francisco Chronicle now invites staffs at Bay Area booksellers to share recommendations about new books and then features a weekly reading list online. Today’s list comes from the book hounds at Booksmith on Haight Street and you can browse it here.
Harbor bookstore turns 100 this month
Authors Ray Bradbury, Lisa See, Angi Ma Wong, Andy Rafkin, Debbie Marr, Joe McKenzie, Bungy Hedley, Mike Schaadt and Ed Mastro are helping Williams’ Bookstore in San Pedro — said to be LA’s oldest continually operating new bookstore — celebrate its 100th birthday on the weekend of January 23, 24 and 25. SCIBA website.
Book Soup founder dies
The LA Times brings the sad news that Book Soup owner Glenn Goldman died from pancreas cancer on Saturday, just one day after announcing plans to sell his Sunset Boulevard bookstore. He was 58.
Goldman opened Book Soup in 1975. After struggling to survive for nearly two decades, Book Soup found its niche. Goldman’s bookstore [...]
Acres of Books – the movie?
Acres of Books may be gone. But Jedediah Laub-Klein doesn’t want anyone to forget Long Beach’s landmark used bookstore. So he’s making a movie: “I went in one day and they told me it was closing and I knew I had to make it, because pretty soon, in three months there wouldn’t be anything to [...]
Supporting his local indie
Actor Tom Hanks is stopping by Village Books in Pacific Palisades at 7 tonight and will be signing copies of any books and DVDs (You’ve got Mail, Catch Me If You Can, The Polar Express, etc.) purchased at the store. The special visit is to raise money and keep Village Books in business for 2009. [...]
Two new SoCal bookstores & a winter surprise
This week Diesel opened its third California bookstore, with a champagne celebration at the Brentwood Country Mart. “The space is lovely, like a period library with crown molding, crisp white shelves and a walnut floor,” says Veronique at LA Observed. “And the books, oh, the books, an eclectic, surprising and deeply satisfying selection that [...]
The best gift, grants, free blogs & our latest news, too
…it doesn’t break
…it’s easy to pack
…there’s no need to guess the size; one size fits all…
BookReporter.com counts down to Dec. 25, sharing 45 reasons why a book makes the perfect holiday present.
Browse around CaliforniaAuthors and you’ll find links to your favorite booksellers to start your holiday shopping today.
Get your town reading: The NEA’s [...]
A sad closing, a great resource and a cool gift idea
My favorite Long Beach treasure house of children’s books is closing after 38 years on Second Street. Teacher Supply is one of those highly eccentric independently-owned stores that can never be duplicated in the chain store world. It is a full-blown teachers supply store and every inch of the place is jammed to the ceiling [...]
2008 SoCal Book Awards
Publisher’s Weekly recaps the fall Author Feast and Trade Show in Los Angeles and announces the winners of Saturday night’s Southern California Independent Booksellers Association book awards.
The association’s awards went to Jeanne Kelley for nonfiction (Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes, Running Press), Dean Lorey for children’s novel (Nightmare Academy, HarperCollins), Dan Hanna for children’s picture [...]
Author mines SoCal’s cold-case files
Pasadena author Weston DeWalt was researching jogging trails near his home when he heard about a boy who disappeared while hiking along an Arroyo Seco trail. Eight-year-old Tommy Bowman had run ahead of his family on a spring day in 1957 and vanished forever. “I was intrigued by the story that a child [...]
Meet the authors of the California Authors Directory. Visit the directory to discover writers like Andrew Sean Greer, a San Francisco novelist whose latest book, 
You can shop online from your local independent booksellers.