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 [...]
Stories in Los Angeles:
Can the LA Times Book Review be saved?
From blog to book in LA
LA Times reporter Jill Leovy has sold a book to Spiegel & Grau that expands on her excellent Homicide Report blog, which chronicled murders in Los Angeles County (845 in all) during 2007.
Publisher’s Lunch says Leovy’s book — The Homicide Report: Black Men, Murder and America’s Unseen Catastrophe — will weave together “a [...]
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 [...]
Photos from opening day of The Big Show
Here’s Donna’s eye-view of the floor at BookExpo America this morning, where she was at the beginning of a great day. Click “Read more…” below for more Day One BEA Pix.
Biggest book party of the year
For the first time in five years, the publishing world returns this week to Los Angeles. The mighty BookExpo is bigger and bolder than ever. You’ll find digital innovations and green-come-lately initiatives galore, and everyone from print-on-demand authors to A-list celebs touting new books. This spring, however, you also may detect a jittery edge to [...]
Remembering Rauschenberg
This week Robert Rauschenberg — one of the titans of 20th century American art — died in his Florida home. He was 82 and still working. In 2006, a major exhibit of his “combines” — his hybrid painting/sculpture combinations, which presaged Pop Art during the ascendancy of Abstract Expressionism — was mounted at the Los [...]
Safe havens under siege
Los Angeles leaders faced an outcry from residents and city workers this week over proposals to slash library services and park rangers. As the LA Daily News reports, “In a budget focused on public safety and boosting the police department, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has recommended slashing the library system’s book-buying budget by $2 million, closing [...]
Bookish LA
Kevin Roderick waxes on the nation’s biggest book market on KCRW and highlights some of SoCal’s new spring’s books — among them Latinos in Lotusland; Hollywood Crows; The Devils of Bakersfield; The Age Of Dreaming; and Great Escapes: Southern California.
There are something like fifteen million people living within the sound of my voice. So there’s [...]
See you at the Festival of Books
This weekend I’ll be at UCLA on Sunday soaking up the sunshine and signing copies of My California: Journeys by Great Writers with Edward Humes and Veronique de Turenne. From 1-2 pm, we’ll be parked at the Angel City Press booth (near Royce Hall).
Carolyn See joins us at 2 pm. Carolyn, btw, has an [...]
Bravo
Publishers Weekly has named Vroman’s in Pasadena, Southern California’s oldest and biggest bookstore, as Bookseller of the Year. Read more and add your comment at the Vroman’s blog.
In other bookstore news: Cody’s has a new home in downtown Berkeley … The San Francisco State University Bookstore now partners with Eco-Libris and invites customers to plant [...]
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.)
She never leaves home without one
Author and columnist Patt Morrison shares her trademark chapeau collection in a video at the Times website. “You wear the hat,” says Patt. “You never ever let the hat wear you.”
Bukowski’s home gets landmark status
From Reuters: “The rundown Los Angeles bungalow where poet and author Charles Bukowski wrote his first novel was named a historic landmark by city leaders on Tuesday, saving it from demolition by developers looking to put up condominiums.” Read more.
[Thanks TEV]
A Christmas eve wake
Richard at Esotouric bemoans the passing of LA’s Craby Joe’s bar.
As Musso & Frank and their employees are a living testament to Hollywood and its golden age, so Craby Joe’s is to downtown Los Angeles’ tenderloin on Main street. At the corner of 7th and Main since 1933, it will close it [...]
Casa California
Author D.J. Waldie teamed with actress Diane Keaton to create a lovely new book, California Romantica. The LAT’s Thomas Curwen describes the effort as “the culmination of a lifelong obsession for Keaton and nearly two years of study for Waldie…
“Their collaboration is a love affair — in words and in pictures — with Spanish [...]
Front lines
LAist chronicles the five-day-old Writers Strike in photo galleries here and here.
Bucking the megastore trend
A while back, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a terrific profile of Allison Reid and John Evans, owners of Diesel Books in Oakland and Malibu. Ilana DeBare’s story looks at what it takes to survive these days as an indy bookseller, and the piece is such a good read (informative, too) that it’s worth [...]
Saving Bukowski’s Bungalow, part II
The Esotouric newsletter brings an update on efforts to save the author’s former LA home. “The Bukowski preservation hearing is Thursday morning at 10am, and your presence or emails of support are most welcome.”
The Bukowski blog has all of the details.
Can the LA Times Book Review be saved?
From blog to book in LA
LA Times reporter Jill Leovy has sold a book to Spiegel & Grau that expands on her excellent Homicide Report blog, which chronicled murders in Los Angeles County (845 in all) during 2007.
Publisher’s Lunch says Leovy’s book — The Homicide Report: Black Men, Murder and America’s Unseen Catastrophe — will weave together “a [...]
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 [...]
Photos from opening day of The Big Show
Here’s Donna’s eye-view of the floor at BookExpo America this morning, where she was at the beginning of a great day. Click “Read more…” below for more Day One BEA Pix.
Biggest book party of the year
For the first time in five years, the publishing world returns this week to Los Angeles. The mighty BookExpo is bigger and bolder than ever. You’ll find digital innovations and green-come-lately initiatives galore, and everyone from print-on-demand authors to A-list celebs touting new books. This spring, however, you also may detect a jittery edge to [...]
Remembering Rauschenberg
This week Robert Rauschenberg — one of the titans of 20th century American art — died in his Florida home. He was 82 and still working. In 2006, a major exhibit of his “combines” — his hybrid painting/sculpture combinations, which presaged Pop Art during the ascendancy of Abstract Expressionism — was mounted at the Los [...]
Safe havens under siege
Los Angeles leaders faced an outcry from residents and city workers this week over proposals to slash library services and park rangers. As the LA Daily News reports, “In a budget focused on public safety and boosting the police department, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has recommended slashing the library system’s book-buying budget by $2 million, closing [...]
Bookish LA
Kevin Roderick waxes on the nation’s biggest book market on KCRW and highlights some of SoCal’s new spring’s books — among them Latinos in Lotusland; Hollywood Crows; The Devils of Bakersfield; The Age Of Dreaming; and Great Escapes: Southern California.
There are something like fifteen million people living within the sound of my voice. So there’s [...]
See you at the Festival of Books
This weekend I’ll be at UCLA on Sunday soaking up the sunshine and signing copies of My California: Journeys by Great Writers with Edward Humes and Veronique de Turenne. From 1-2 pm, we’ll be parked at the Angel City Press booth (near Royce Hall).
Carolyn See joins us at 2 pm. Carolyn, btw, has an [...]
Bravo
Publishers Weekly has named Vroman’s in Pasadena, Southern California’s oldest and biggest bookstore, as Bookseller of the Year. Read more and add your comment at the Vroman’s blog.
In other bookstore news: Cody’s has a new home in downtown Berkeley … The San Francisco State University Bookstore now partners with Eco-Libris and invites customers to plant [...]
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.)
She never leaves home without one
Author and columnist Patt Morrison shares her trademark chapeau collection in a video at the Times website. “You wear the hat,” says Patt. “You never ever let the hat wear you.”
Bukowski’s home gets landmark status
From Reuters: “The rundown Los Angeles bungalow where poet and author Charles Bukowski wrote his first novel was named a historic landmark by city leaders on Tuesday, saving it from demolition by developers looking to put up condominiums.” Read more.
[Thanks TEV]
A Christmas eve wake
Richard at Esotouric bemoans the passing of LA’s Craby Joe’s bar.
As Musso & Frank and their employees are a living testament to Hollywood and its golden age, so Craby Joe’s is to downtown Los Angeles’ tenderloin on Main street. At the corner of 7th and Main since 1933, it will close it [...]
Casa California
Author D.J. Waldie teamed with actress Diane Keaton to create a lovely new book, California Romantica. The LAT’s Thomas Curwen describes the effort as “the culmination of a lifelong obsession for Keaton and nearly two years of study for Waldie…
“Their collaboration is a love affair — in words and in pictures — with Spanish [...]
Front lines
LAist chronicles the five-day-old Writers Strike in photo galleries here and here.
Bucking the megastore trend
A while back, the San Francisco Chronicle ran a terrific profile of Allison Reid and John Evans, owners of Diesel Books in Oakland and Malibu. Ilana DeBare’s story looks at what it takes to survive these days as an indy bookseller, and the piece is such a good read (informative, too) that it’s worth [...]
Saving Bukowski’s Bungalow, part II
The Esotouric newsletter brings an update on efforts to save the author’s former LA home. “The Bukowski preservation hearing is Thursday morning at 10am, and your presence or emails of support are most welcome.”
The Bukowski blog has all of the details.
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, 