Game ready. Catherine Sampson — a crime writer who’s lived in China for fifteen years — shares her top ten books on Beijing. The list includes two novels by Chinese authors living and working in California. Number 3 on the list, Please Don’t Call Me Human by Wang Shuo. Number 6 is The Last [...]
Stories in New Release 2008:
Book lotto: Human gets inside our heads
This coming week we’ll be giving away an autographed copy of Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique by Michael S. Gazzaniga.
Gazzaniga is the director of UC Santa Barbara’s SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. His new book is an engaging (and easy reading) exploration of the latest research into the [...]
Making points California authors style
Ah, remember those heady days when you didn’t even need to finish a sentence to get your internet IPO rolling? Times have changed, but in the post-post-bubble business world, California authors are still writing the book on getting your big dream across. Recent offerings:
Good in a Room, by Stephanie Palmer. A former MGM Director of [...]
A surf thriller for summer reading
Among this summer’s wave of surf books, crime novelist Don Winslow’s new thriller, The Dawn Patrol, careens along the San Diego coast and attracts fans all over.
The story revolves around five friends — among them an ex-cop-turned-private-eye — who meet at sunrise each morning to take the early waves as the Dawn Patrol. “With [...]
No place like home: California authors on California
A commitment to the terroir: On June 30, University of California Press released Wines & Wineries of California’s Central Coast by William A. Ausmus (I ordered mine today) and the Los Angeles Times’ Corie Brown uses the occasion to offer an interesting look at the University of California Press’ move into wine books — they’ve [...]
Imagining the future of bookselling
For the 150th anniversary issue of The Bookseller, the editors asked California author and Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow to write a short-short story about the next 150 years in book sales. The result is called “The Right Book.”
A snippet:
The thing that Arthur liked best about owning his own shop was that he [...]
More summertime books and a few stray notes
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression names its Book of the Month for June: Claim of Privilege by Barry Siegel, the former LA Times national correspondent who now heads the Literary Journalism Program at UC Irvine.
The ABFFE says: “Siegel uncovers the mystery behind a 1948 plane crash and the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in [...]
A trio of author updates
After I wrote yesterday about Latinos In Lotusland, editor Daniel Olivas shared the backstory of the anthology’s magical cover. He says, “Yes, it is a beautiful cover. Bilingual Press is affiliated with Arizona State University, which has the largest Chicano art collection in the country. So, last year, they flew me out to [...]
A new day at CaliforniaAuthors and a book lotto, too
Welcome to the new CaliforniaAuthors.com! Click around and you’ll find our familiar features with a fresh face and an easy-to-navigate new site.
To celebrate our re-launch, Kate and I are delighted to share an autographed copy of Mark Sarvas’ new novel, Harry, Revised.
Mark hosts the popular and often cheeky litblog, The Elegant Variation. Along [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Out there: three choice morsels this week
Roam … the City of Angels through the eyes of artist and newly published author J. Michael Walker.
Revel … as Derek Powazek explores how Weird Turns Pro.
Write … your personal essay with help from LA Times Book Editor David Ulin. (Only a few seats left in his Saturday workshop.)
Book notes and a few random links for writers, foodies, and readers with sore throats
Dan Weintraub chronicles the governor’s Party of One … Michael Pollen shares his simple secrets … Charlie LeDuff leaves LA … Cody’s owner Andy Ross tries the agent biz … Jonathan Gold updates his must-eat list … plus: Kate’s flu tips, the Pinball Hall of Fame, and an all-expenses-paid adventure to India, [...]
Book lotto: Human gets inside our heads
This coming week we’ll be giving away an autographed copy of Human: The Science Behind What Makes Us Unique by Michael S. Gazzaniga.
Gazzaniga is the director of UC Santa Barbara’s SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. His new book is an engaging (and easy reading) exploration of the latest research into the [...]
Making points California authors style
Ah, remember those heady days when you didn’t even need to finish a sentence to get your internet IPO rolling? Times have changed, but in the post-post-bubble business world, California authors are still writing the book on getting your big dream across. Recent offerings:
Good in a Room, by Stephanie Palmer. A former MGM Director of [...]
A surf thriller for summer reading
Among this summer’s wave of surf books, crime novelist Don Winslow’s new thriller, The Dawn Patrol, careens along the San Diego coast and attracts fans all over.
The story revolves around five friends — among them an ex-cop-turned-private-eye — who meet at sunrise each morning to take the early waves as the Dawn Patrol. “With [...]
No place like home: California authors on California
A commitment to the terroir: On June 30, University of California Press released Wines & Wineries of California’s Central Coast by William A. Ausmus (I ordered mine today) and the Los Angeles Times’ Corie Brown uses the occasion to offer an interesting look at the University of California Press’ move into wine books — they’ve [...]
Imagining the future of bookselling
For the 150th anniversary issue of The Bookseller, the editors asked California author and Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow to write a short-short story about the next 150 years in book sales. The result is called “The Right Book.”
A snippet:
The thing that Arthur liked best about owning his own shop was that he [...]
More summertime books and a few stray notes
The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression names its Book of the Month for June: Claim of Privilege by Barry Siegel, the former LA Times national correspondent who now heads the Literary Journalism Program at UC Irvine.
The ABFFE says: “Siegel uncovers the mystery behind a 1948 plane crash and the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in [...]
A trio of author updates
After I wrote yesterday about Latinos In Lotusland, editor Daniel Olivas shared the backstory of the anthology’s magical cover. He says, “Yes, it is a beautiful cover. Bilingual Press is affiliated with Arizona State University, which has the largest Chicano art collection in the country. So, last year, they flew me out to [...]
A new day at CaliforniaAuthors and a book lotto, too
Welcome to the new CaliforniaAuthors.com! Click around and you’ll find our familiar features with a fresh face and an easy-to-navigate new site.
To celebrate our re-launch, Kate and I are delighted to share an autographed copy of Mark Sarvas’ new novel, Harry, Revised.
Mark hosts the popular and often cheeky litblog, The Elegant Variation. Along [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Out there: three choice morsels this week
Roam … the City of Angels through the eyes of artist and newly published author J. Michael Walker.
Revel … as Derek Powazek explores how Weird Turns Pro.
Write … your personal essay with help from LA Times Book Editor David Ulin. (Only a few seats left in his Saturday workshop.)
Book notes and a few random links for writers, foodies, and readers with sore throats
Dan Weintraub chronicles the governor’s Party of One … Michael Pollen shares his simple secrets … Charlie LeDuff leaves LA … Cody’s owner Andy Ross tries the agent biz … Jonathan Gold updates his must-eat list … plus: Kate’s flu tips, the Pinball Hall of Fame, and an all-expenses-paid adventure to India, [...]
Meet the authors of the California Authors Directory. Visit the directory to discover writers like Christina Meldrum, a Bay Area attorney whose book Madapple was just released this month. “In debut novelist Christina Meldrum's mesmerizing literary mystery, 
July briefs: censorship, fires, new fiction and a b-day
No room for Freedom in Perry, Indiana. A veteran high school teacher in Perry, Indiana has been suspended without pay for teaching The Freedom Writers Diary: How a Teacher and 150 Teens Used Writing to Change Themselves and the World Around Them. The book by Long Beach, California teacher/author Erin Gruwell and her students [...]
File under: Author profile, Bookbloggery, Booksellers, Commentary, Education/literacy, Fiction, Freedom to read, Interviews, Jobs/labor relations, Libraries, Movies, Museums, New Release 2008, Nonfiction, Politics/government, Sad, San Francisco, Schools, Short stories, Writing