Los Angeles author J. Michael Walker responds to yesterday’s post with his own suggestion.
He says: “Going to Extremes by Joe McGinniss, around late 1980’s I suppose, would have to be a fairly irreplaceable book on outer Alaska, too.
“Parts of it —
swallowing whiskey? vodka? and stepping outside in sub-zero weather and freezing to death from [...]
Stories in Reading life:
Exploring Alaska, part II
Gioia: Why having books at home matters
The Indianapolis Star features an interesting column about Dana Gioia, the Los Angeles-born poet who has dedicated his NEA tenure to getting American’s reading again. Russ Pulliam writes:
With his working-class background in California, Dana Gioia didn’t look destined to lead a national literacy movement. Of Sicilian descent, his father seldom read books. Nor did his [...]
Waterboards and tea cups
Sunday’s NY Times Book Review featured The Dark Side, a new book by Jane Mayer that delves into the Bush Administration’s widespread use of torture as a central tool in the battle against terrorism. Reviewer Adam Brinkley calls The Dark Side “powerful, brilliantly researched and deeply unsettling.”
I lingered over Brinkley’s review this weekend, struck by [...]
Sweet deal: A new bookstore for Brentwood
The LAT reports that Diesel Books, of Malibu and Oakland, is opening a third neighborhood outpost this September in Brentwood, which lost its landmark Dutton’s bookstore earlier this spring.
Developer James Rosenfield offered Diesel’s owners a break on rent to entice them to Brentwood Country Mart at San Vicente Boulevard and 26th Street. Martha Groves [...]
What I’m reading right now
From William Grimes in today’s NYT: “An odd book fell into my hands recently, a doorstopper with the irresistible title 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die… Two potent factors make 1001 Books compelling: guilt and time. It plays on every serious reader’s lingering sense of inadequacy. Page after page reveals a writer or [...]
Malibu 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.
On the road with My California
Five California cities — Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Whittier, and Benicia — have embraced My California: Journeys by Great Writers for their One-City, One-Book programs. Folks in the Northern California community of Benicia are reading the anthology right now.
Perhaps you’d care to join them?
On Tuesday, March 18, My California contributor and Sacramento Bee [...]
On my nightstand
“At the moment I’m re-reading ‘No Matter How Loud I Shout‘ by Edward Humes. It is an account of a year in the life of the juvenile court system in LA. It is beautifully written, with righteous anger, honesty and an insight that few have a handle on. It is both scary and uplifting on [...]
Yup, the book’s still got legs!
We just learned that the Benicia Public Library has selected My California: Journeys by Great Writers as its community book for 2008.
The Bay Area community of Benicia is the fifth California city to choose the anthology. Librarian Helaine Bowles said her town will be reading My California and hosting events from March 1 to [...]
No magic spell
In a story on the popularity of Harry Potter, The Boston Globe previews an upcoming fall report on children’s reading by the National Endowment for the Arts that offers dismal news on the state of teen reading.
“Reading scores and rates seem to be going up in the age 7-11 range,” NEA Chairman Dana [...]
What I’m reading
“I’ve just read Ray Bradbury’s Farewell Summer, the 50+-years-later sequel to Dandelion Wine, and it feels like I’m drunk.” — Cory Doctorow, at BoingBoing.
What I’m Reading
“For about a year, I’ve been catching up on the novels I never got to in college…,” says UC Berkeley writing and grammar guru Steve Tollefson. “Almost every one of these books has been a joy to read: Wallace Stegner’s “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” Frank Norris’s “The Octopus,” Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt,” Jack London’s [...]
What I’m Reading
“Far too many courses and books on Creative Writing teach by negative example: they only tell us what not to do. This is what makes Prose’s master class in fiction so valuable. She provides myriad examples from great classic novels of what fiction looks like when it is done incredibly, perfectly, wonderfully right. Her [...]
Whittier Reads My California!
The enthusiastic team at the Whittier Public Library has assembled an impressive calendar of events as the entire community dives into the My California anthology starting TODAY.
Whittier is the fourth community to choose My California as a One City, One Book pick. From the local paper:
(T)his year’s selection - “My California: Journeys by Great [...]
Exploring Alaska, part II
Gioia: Why having books at home matters
The Indianapolis Star features an interesting column about Dana Gioia, the Los Angeles-born poet who has dedicated his NEA tenure to getting American’s reading again. Russ Pulliam writes:
With his working-class background in California, Dana Gioia didn’t look destined to lead a national literacy movement. Of Sicilian descent, his father seldom read books. Nor did his [...]
Waterboards and tea cups
Sunday’s NY Times Book Review featured The Dark Side, a new book by Jane Mayer that delves into the Bush Administration’s widespread use of torture as a central tool in the battle against terrorism. Reviewer Adam Brinkley calls The Dark Side “powerful, brilliantly researched and deeply unsettling.”
I lingered over Brinkley’s review this weekend, struck by [...]
Sweet deal: A new bookstore for Brentwood
The LAT reports that Diesel Books, of Malibu and Oakland, is opening a third neighborhood outpost this September in Brentwood, which lost its landmark Dutton’s bookstore earlier this spring.
Developer James Rosenfield offered Diesel’s owners a break on rent to entice them to Brentwood Country Mart at San Vicente Boulevard and 26th Street. Martha Groves [...]
What I’m reading right now
From William Grimes in today’s NYT: “An odd book fell into my hands recently, a doorstopper with the irresistible title 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die… Two potent factors make 1001 Books compelling: guilt and time. It plays on every serious reader’s lingering sense of inadequacy. Page after page reveals a writer or [...]
Malibu 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.
On the road with My California
Five California cities — Long Beach, Santa Barbara, Sacramento, Whittier, and Benicia — have embraced My California: Journeys by Great Writers for their One-City, One-Book programs. Folks in the Northern California community of Benicia are reading the anthology right now.
Perhaps you’d care to join them?
On Tuesday, March 18, My California contributor and Sacramento Bee [...]
On my nightstand
“At the moment I’m re-reading ‘No Matter How Loud I Shout‘ by Edward Humes. It is an account of a year in the life of the juvenile court system in LA. It is beautifully written, with righteous anger, honesty and an insight that few have a handle on. It is both scary and uplifting on [...]
Yup, the book’s still got legs!
We just learned that the Benicia Public Library has selected My California: Journeys by Great Writers as its community book for 2008.
The Bay Area community of Benicia is the fifth California city to choose the anthology. Librarian Helaine Bowles said her town will be reading My California and hosting events from March 1 to [...]
No magic spell
In a story on the popularity of Harry Potter, The Boston Globe previews an upcoming fall report on children’s reading by the National Endowment for the Arts that offers dismal news on the state of teen reading.
“Reading scores and rates seem to be going up in the age 7-11 range,” NEA Chairman Dana [...]
What I’m reading
“I’ve just read Ray Bradbury’s Farewell Summer, the 50+-years-later sequel to Dandelion Wine, and it feels like I’m drunk.” — Cory Doctorow, at BoingBoing.
What I’m Reading
“For about a year, I’ve been catching up on the novels I never got to in college…,” says UC Berkeley writing and grammar guru Steve Tollefson. “Almost every one of these books has been a joy to read: Wallace Stegner’s “The Big Rock Candy Mountain,” Frank Norris’s “The Octopus,” Sinclair Lewis’s “Babbitt,” Jack London’s [...]
What I’m Reading
“Far too many courses and books on Creative Writing teach by negative example: they only tell us what not to do. This is what makes Prose’s master class in fiction so valuable. She provides myriad examples from great classic novels of what fiction looks like when it is done incredibly, perfectly, wonderfully right. Her [...]
Whittier Reads My California!
The enthusiastic team at the Whittier Public Library has assembled an impressive calendar of events as the entire community dives into the My California anthology starting TODAY.
Whittier is the fourth community to choose My California as a One City, One Book pick. From the local paper:
(T)his year’s selection - “My California: Journeys by Great [...]
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.