Sigh. From Time:
[Former Wassilla Mayor John] Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. “She asked the library how she could go about banning books,” he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. “The librarian was aghast.” That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn’t [...]
Stories in Sad:
Time Palin backgrounder: She wanted to ban books
Notebook: fREADom, “real” literacy and black humor
About Uncle Bobby: In Uncle Bobby’s Wedding a niece worries that her uncle’s upcoming wedding will change her relationship with him. P.S. The characters are guinea pigs. P.P.S. Uncle Bobby is gay. One Colorado library patron wrote the local paper to say the children’s picture book was a “slap in [her] face” and urged other [...]
Can the LA Times Book Review be saved?
Author Celeste Fremon talks about the prospects for an eleventh-hour turnaround with former LAT Book Editor Steve Wasserman at her Witness LA blog. Freeman also cites some key facts about why keeping the Book Section is a smart business move.
Curious as to where Los Angeles stands as a book buying market, yesterday I called the [...]
Book editors protest demise of LAT Book Review
LA Observed reports that four past book editors of the Los Angeles Times — Sonja Bolle, Digby Diehl, Jack Miles, and Steve Wasserman — have released a letter protesting the elimination of the paper’s Sunday Book Review. “We urge readers and writers alike to join with us as we protest this sad and backward step,” [...]
Bought out? Laid off? Leaving the news biz?
CJR is seeking parting comments from staffers leaving American newspapers, where hundreds of jobs have vanished this summer.
If you are among the members of that very large group, which hundreds of journalists joined in the last few days alone, your colleagues would like to hear your thoughts about the state of our business. What are [...]
In case you missed it: Does LA need the LAT?
Last week, LAT Chief Russ Stanton visited KRCW’s “Which Way LA?” to discuss the question with Warren Olney and panelists Emma Schafer, Public affairs consultant who runs Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, Marc Cooper, Visiting Professor of Journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Patrick Frey, Blogger, Patterico.com. From KCRW:
After the Chandler family sold [...]
Media meltdown (continued)
Newspapers are their own worst enemies right now. They’re panicking all over the place and that public desperation just makes them look pathetic.
Today LAObserved brings word that the Orange County Register is outsourcing copyediting to India.
And look at the terrible way LA Times writer Patrick Goldstein introduces his new entertainment blog, also from LAO:
As you [...]
Another neighborhood gem in dire straits
OC Weekly columnist and author Gustavo Arellano says that Southern California’s landmark Librería Martinez bookstore may be forced to close by the end of the year.
Libreria Martinez in Santa Ana is one of the nation’s largest Latino bookstores.
Barber-turned-genuis-grant-winner Rueben Martinez opened his store more than a decade ago, turning a vacant storefront [...]
Reality check
Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks offers her read of Margaret Seltzer’s phony South Central memoir. She is offended. Puzzled, too. And she looks for answers at the scene of Selter’s lies.
Eso Won bookstore in South Los Angeles was supposed to host the author at a book-signing Friday night but canceled and sent the [...]
LA landmark bookstore calls it quits
LAObserved reports the very sad news this morning that Dutton’s Brentwood Books is closing April 30 after a tough year. “Be assured, especially those of you who have regularly asked, ‘How are things going at the store,’ that every effort has been made to try to sensibly and rationally save this enterprise,” says owner Doug [...]
From today’s e-mail
A friend laments, “Man, it’s depressing scanning LaObserved — LA Times layoffs, Daily News layoffs, OC Register desperation…” Yeah, and it’s only Wednesday.
Today’s most e-mailed story at NYTimes.com
“Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?”
Just read the sad news
in this morning’s LA Times: Eso Won Books may close by the end of the year. John Mitchell explains:
After 20 years of hawking books — some by popular authors; others, scholarly works, with rare and exotic titles — L.A.’s leading independent bookstore specializing in writings by African Americans is facing bankruptcy…
“We are suffering from what [...]
(Sad) Sign of the Times
Kevin Roderick reports that LAT columnist and author Al Martinez is being pushed into a buyout as the paper axes 57 newsroom spots. “Of all the stupidities committed by the new owners of the Los Angeles Times,” writes former Times City Editor Bill Boyarsky, “the dumping of Al Martinez is one of worst.”
Tale of two booksellers
Jeffrey Bezos, who launched Amazon.com from his garage in 1994, has just bought a $30 million estate in Beverly Hills … as indie bookstore owner Andy Ross, forced to sell his own home, is closing Cody’s Books in San Francisco this week.
Time Palin backgrounder: She wanted to ban books
Notebook: fREADom, “real” literacy and black humor
About Uncle Bobby: In Uncle Bobby’s Wedding a niece worries that her uncle’s upcoming wedding will change her relationship with him. P.S. The characters are guinea pigs. P.P.S. Uncle Bobby is gay. One Colorado library patron wrote the local paper to say the children’s picture book was a “slap in [her] face” and urged other [...]
Can the LA Times Book Review be saved?
Author Celeste Fremon talks about the prospects for an eleventh-hour turnaround with former LAT Book Editor Steve Wasserman at her Witness LA blog. Freeman also cites some key facts about why keeping the Book Section is a smart business move.
Curious as to where Los Angeles stands as a book buying market, yesterday I called the [...]
Book editors protest demise of LAT Book Review
LA Observed reports that four past book editors of the Los Angeles Times — Sonja Bolle, Digby Diehl, Jack Miles, and Steve Wasserman — have released a letter protesting the elimination of the paper’s Sunday Book Review. “We urge readers and writers alike to join with us as we protest this sad and backward step,” [...]
Bought out? Laid off? Leaving the news biz?
CJR is seeking parting comments from staffers leaving American newspapers, where hundreds of jobs have vanished this summer.
If you are among the members of that very large group, which hundreds of journalists joined in the last few days alone, your colleagues would like to hear your thoughts about the state of our business. What are [...]
In case you missed it: Does LA need the LAT?
Last week, LAT Chief Russ Stanton visited KRCW’s “Which Way LA?” to discuss the question with Warren Olney and panelists Emma Schafer, Public affairs consultant who runs Los Angeles Current Affairs Forum, Marc Cooper, Visiting Professor of Journalism at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Patrick Frey, Blogger, Patterico.com. From KCRW:
After the Chandler family sold [...]
Media meltdown (continued)
Newspapers are their own worst enemies right now. They’re panicking all over the place and that public desperation just makes them look pathetic.
Today LAObserved brings word that the Orange County Register is outsourcing copyediting to India.
And look at the terrible way LA Times writer Patrick Goldstein introduces his new entertainment blog, also from LAO:
As you [...]
Another neighborhood gem in dire straits
OC Weekly columnist and author Gustavo Arellano says that Southern California’s landmark Librería Martinez bookstore may be forced to close by the end of the year.
Libreria Martinez in Santa Ana is one of the nation’s largest Latino bookstores.
Barber-turned-genuis-grant-winner Rueben Martinez opened his store more than a decade ago, turning a vacant storefront [...]
Reality check
Los Angeles Times columnist Sandy Banks offers her read of Margaret Seltzer’s phony South Central memoir. She is offended. Puzzled, too. And she looks for answers at the scene of Selter’s lies.
Eso Won bookstore in South Los Angeles was supposed to host the author at a book-signing Friday night but canceled and sent the [...]
LA landmark bookstore calls it quits
LAObserved reports the very sad news this morning that Dutton’s Brentwood Books is closing April 30 after a tough year. “Be assured, especially those of you who have regularly asked, ‘How are things going at the store,’ that every effort has been made to try to sensibly and rationally save this enterprise,” says owner Doug [...]
From today’s e-mail
A friend laments, “Man, it’s depressing scanning LaObserved — LA Times layoffs, Daily News layoffs, OC Register desperation…” Yeah, and it’s only Wednesday.
Today’s most e-mailed story at NYTimes.com
“Dumb and Dumber: Are Americans Hostile to Knowledge?”
Just read the sad news
in this morning’s LA Times: Eso Won Books may close by the end of the year. John Mitchell explains:
After 20 years of hawking books — some by popular authors; others, scholarly works, with rare and exotic titles — L.A.’s leading independent bookstore specializing in writings by African Americans is facing bankruptcy…
“We are suffering from what [...]
(Sad) Sign of the Times
Kevin Roderick reports that LAT columnist and author Al Martinez is being pushed into a buyout as the paper axes 57 newsroom spots. “Of all the stupidities committed by the new owners of the Los Angeles Times,” writes former Times City Editor Bill Boyarsky, “the dumping of Al Martinez is one of worst.”
Tale of two booksellers
Jeffrey Bezos, who launched Amazon.com from his garage in 1994, has just bought a $30 million estate in Beverly Hills … as indie bookstore owner Andy Ross, forced to sell his own home, is closing Cody’s Books in San Francisco this week.
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, 
You can shop online from your local independent booksellers. 
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