Yearning for witty repartee and intellectual stimulation? How about wine and hors d'oeuvres? Come join us for our new monthly series, Skylight Salon, where our staff shares their faves from small presses and independent publishers. A modern-day mixer for the literary minded. This month's theme: NOIR/THRILLERS


Darren gives some respect to the Hard Case Crime. Hard Case Crime is dedicated to reviving the vigor and excitement, the suspense and thrills - the sheer entertainment - of the golden age of paperback crime novels, both by bringing back into print the best work of the pulp era and by introducing readers to new work by some of today's most powerful writers and artists.

Monica holds high regard for Bitter Lemon Press. Launched in 2003, Bitter Lemon Press is a London based independent publisher that aims to bring readers high quality thrillers and other contemporary fiction from abroad. They are dedicated to the crime genre and publish dark, sexy and often humorous novels that expose the seamier side of society. To understand a culture you need only examine its crimes.

Justin points the gun at Vintage Crime/Black Lizard. Vintage Crime/Black Lizard was formed in June 1990 with the acquisition of Black Lizard, a renowned publisher of classic crime fiction that was created by Donald S. Ellis and Barry Gifford. Before the acquisition, Vintage Books was already publishing the work of respected American authors such as Dashiell Hammett, James M. Cain, and Raymond Chandler under the Vintage Crime series. With Black Lizard came the literature of Jim Thompson, David Goodis, and other great noir writers of the post World War II era, allowing the formation of one of the preeminent crime publishers in the country.

Harper Lee (Viking Children's Books)

Cecil Castellucci, Ron Koertge, Lisa Yee, Cylin Busby


These Young Adult fiction authors will share their latest works and discuss what it's like writing fiction, nonfiction and graphic novels for teens.

Cecil Castellucci is the author of Boy Proof, The Queen of Cool and Beige as well as the graphic novel series The Plain Janes.

Ron Koertge is the author of Stoner and Spaz, Shakespeare Bats Cleans Up, Margaux with an X. His latest novel is Deadville.

Lisa Yee is te author of Millicent Min, Girl Genius; Stanford Wong Flunks Big Time; and So Totally Emily Ebers as well as the American Girl book Good Luck Ivy. Her latest novel is the YA novel Absolutely Maybe.

Cylin Busby was the editor at Teen Magazine and is the author of the middle grade series Date Him or Dump Him. Her latest book is the nonfiction memoir, The Year We Disappeared.

How the World Makes Love (St. Martin's Press)

Franz Wisner got dumped at the altar and then turned it into a career. He's the New York Times bestselling author of Honeymoon with My Brother, as well as essays for Redbook, the San Francisco Chronicle, Coast Magazine, and any other publication that will have him.

Kim Calder received her Master's degree in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University and her Bachelor's in English from the University of California at Berkeley in Contemporary Poetry and Fiction. Her first collection of poems, who's to say what's home, was released by Writ Large Press in May 2008. She has participated in numerous spoken word events throughout the country, and she teaches writing workshops nationally.

Cati Porter is the author of two poetry collections: a chapbook, small fruit songs: prose poems (Pudding House, 2008), and Seven Floors Up (Mayapple Press, 2008). Of Seven Floors Up, Tony Barnstone says "Porter names herself into the world with lyrical irony in poem after hilariously tragic poem. Follow her through the "bourbon-hinged jangling dancing open door" seven floors up to visit the kitchen of the soul. There are madwomen in that attic, but the booze is good, and they really know how to cook." Cati Porter's poems have been anthologized in White Ink (Demeter Press, York University, Canada), Letters to the World (Red Hen Press), and Bedside Guide to No Tell Motel -- Second Floor (No Tell Books). She is founder and editor-in-chief of Poemeleon: A Journal of Poetry.

Please join RED's brilliant and local young authors Dani Cox, Jordyn Turney, and more for a special Saturday afternoon of readings, and a Kenyan book drive, in proud partnership with LA-based OneKid One World (onekidoneworld.org)


For every copy of RED purchased at the event, we will match your donation and send a copy directly to the Nyamasare Girls School and Orphanage in Suba, Kenya. In an area with one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates in all of East Africa, Nyamasare is a safe haven for girls to dream (and write) about a better life. It's also near Obama's village, where anything is now possible... Our goal for this event is to put 50 books in the hands of these girls.


RED the Book is a collection of personal (sometimes very personal) essays by the next generation of writers--teenage girls--on what fires up their lives today.


"Honest, hysterical, heartbreaking, uplifting--these essays come straight from the true teenage soul. Read this book!"
--PAUL FEIG, creator of Freaks and Geeks and author, most recently, of Ignatius MacFarland: Frequenaut!



"Unsparingly frank and perceptive, the essays in Red take on politics, pop culture, and body image--and, oh yeah, they're written by teenage girls. Long underestimated and undervalued...they emerge as literature and society's great hope."
--VANITY FAIR

POEMS THAT TELL A STORY: THE NARRATIVE IMPULSE IN POETRY
(2-4pm)


In this workshop we'll talk about the stories poems tell and how they do it. We'll look at published poems and dissect how they work. We'll discuss the pitfalls and how to avoid them. And, time permitting, we'll try our hand at writing our own narrative poem. No previous experience necessary. Bring paper and pencil. Please pre-register by calling 323-227-4633.

Celebrate National Poetry Month with Emme Devonish, Kim Dower, Yvonne M. Estrada, Dylan Gailey, Brett Guitar Hofer, Eric Howard, Marta Mora, Ronna Perrin, Sharon Venezio, and Terry Wolverton who will beguile, provoke, and seduce you with poems of wit, insight, and style.

West of the West: Dreamers, Believers, Builders, and Killers in the Golden State (Public Affairs)


Mark Arax is an award-winning reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and is the author of the critically acclaimed In My Father's Name, about his search to find his father's killers. He lives in Fresno.

"West of the West is a dreamscape as much as a landscape--and heart-stirring in its style and acute perception. It could be titled Why We Live Here Anyway--I exhort you to read this book."
--James Ellroy, author of The Black Dahlia and the forthcoming Blood's a Rover

(photo by Gary Kazanjian)

Saul Williams is an American poet, musician, performance artist, actor, but above and including all, simply, an artist. He is best known for starring in and cowriting the movie SLAM, however, others may know him for his ability to redefine and blur the lines of hip-hop, poetry, and theatrics. When we talk about Spoken Word poetry, his name must be dropped. His poetry books include The Seventh Octave (1998; Moore Black Press); S/he (1999; MTV/Pocketbooks); said the shotgun to the head (2003; MTV/Pocketbooks); The Dead Emcee Scrolls (2006, MTV/Pocketbooks). Closely linked to The Dead Emcee Scrolls is Williams's latest album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust!, on which he worked closely with Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. Its blend of industrial, spoken word and hip-hop has received immense success.


Douglas Kearney's first full-length collection of poems, Fear, Some, was
published in 2006 by Red Hen Press. His second manuscript, The Black
Automaton, was chosen by Catherine Wagner for the National Poetry Series
and will be published by Fence Books in 2009. In 2008, he was honored with
a Whiting Writers Award. Also a librettist, he has collaborated with the
composer Anne LeBaron on the opera Sucktion, which received a MAP Fund
grant and premiered at the New Original Works Festival in Los Angeles in
2008, and on Mordake with composer Erling Wold, which premiered in 2008 at
the San Francisco International Arts Festival. An Idyllwild and Cave Canem
fellow, Kearney has performed his poetry at the Public Theatre, Orpheum,
and The World Stage. His poems have appeared in journals such as Callaloo,
jubilat, nocturnes, Ninth Letter, Washington Square and Gulf Coast. Born
in Brooklyn, now living in California's San Fernando Valley, he has a BA
from Howard University and an MFA in Writing from the California Institute
of the Arts, where he now teaches courses in African American poetry,
myth, hip hop and opera.

Website: http://www.douglaskearney.com/

This is a show not to miss. If you've seen him before, then you are undoubtedly a fan; if you have not, then you will be.

After the city, this (is how we live) (RAM Publications)

The History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory (Verso)

After The City, This (is how we live) gives an important insider view into the real world of real estate development in Southern California. Using the structure of a screenplay to tell the story, architect Tom Marble takes the reader inside the minds of the people on both sides of the development conflict--those seeing land as a commodity for profit, and those who see it as a valued resource for all to enjoy. Having spent time negotiating on both sides of the conference table, Marble goes beyond the usual debates over New Urbanism vs. Sprawl vs. Whatever-The-Next-Thing-Is to share his unique perspective, shedding light on the goals and motivations of all parties embroiled in defining how we live in a post-urban, consumer-driven economy.

Klein's A History of Forgetting: Los Angeles and the Erasure of Memory has long been an important staple to our Los Angeles section. And now in its 2nd edition, it adds much new material. Critic and historian of mass culture Klein uses a provocative mixture of fact and fiction to take us on an "anti-tour" of downtown LA, examine life for Vietnamese immigrants in the City of Dreams, imagine Walter Benjamin as a Los Angeleno, and finally look at the way information technology has recreated the city, turning cyberspace into the last suburb. In this new edition, Klein explores the evolution of the Latino majority, how the Pacific economy is changing the structure of urban life, the impact of collapsing infrastructure in the city, and the restructuring of those very districts that had been "forgotten."

The End of the Jews (Mansbach; Random House)and And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl(Kun; Crown)


Adam Mansbach's previous novel, Angry Black White Boy, was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2005. It is taught at more than sixty universities and high schools, and has been adapted for the stage. His previous books include the novel Shackling Water, and the poetry collection genius b-boy getting weeded in the garden of delights, and A Fictional History of the United States with Huge Chunks Missing, an anthology of original short stories which he co-edited. Adam is a hip hop artist whose debut album Stand for Nothing, Fall for Anythingwas released by Upshot Records in 2005. The recipient of a 2008 Future Aesthetics Artist Regrant from the Ford Foundation, Mansbach is the 2009-2010 New Voices Professor of Fiction at Rutgers University.


A San Francisco Chronicle Book of the Year (2008)


"A beautiful, funny, heartbreaking book that manages to take on art, love, identity, and class anxiety. Very few writers could have attempted all this without farcical results. Adam Mansbach succeeds, brilliantly

Next Words: a reading to showcase the thesis work from the Cal Arts MFA students' writing.

The CalArts MFA Writing Program and the CalArts School of Critical
Studies present NextWords-a series of readings to take place across
Los Angeles featuring new work by graduating MFA Writing students. The
readings and performances will include work that crosses genres,
engages hybrid forms, and questions the distinction between the
experimental and the conventional.

Tonight at Skylight Books: Graduating students read from new work: Ama Birch, Sarah Burghauser,
Brittany Goode, Kyoung Kim, Flint, and Salmeen Majid

Yearning for witty repartee and intellectual stimulation? How about wine and hors d'oeuvres? Come join us for our new monthly series, Skylight Salon, where our staff shares their faves from small presses and independent publishers. A modern-day mixer for the literary minded. This month:FILM SALON.

Join us and young adult authors Cecil Castellucci(Beige, Plain Janes)and Ben Esch(Sophomore Undercover) to discuss the novel, I Am the Messenger, by Markus Zusak! Each month we will feature and discuss a young adult book with young adult authors and librarians. And don't think it's just for young adults, it's for young adults and teens alike - you know who you are. No need to hide the fact that you're reading Harry Potter and Eclipse, now is the time to speak loudly and carry a young adult novel.

Searching for Tamsen Donner (University of Nebraska Press)


"Searching for Tamsen Donner is audaciously ambitious and utterly original. Gabrielle Burton, back in the day, was one of our country's most dedicated first-wave feminists, mother of five children, and wife to an endlessly tolerant husband. Decades ago, obsessed by the life of Tamsen Donner, Burton bundled the lot of them into a station wagon and retraced that doomed pioneer's footsteps--across our great plains and up into the treacherous mountains, where, with so many of the Donner party, Tamsen met her tragic end. This memoir combines--successfully!--domestic, historic, and mystical concerns that bind together our brave but heartbreakingly fragile nation. It's just a terrific read."

--Carolyn See

Gabrielle Burton is a writer whose numerous
projects include the film Manna from Heaven,
which she wrote and produced, and the novel
Heartbreak Hotel, which won Scribner's 1985
Maxwell Perkins Prize, an award for a first
work of fiction. Her writing has appeared
in publications such as the New York Times
and the Washington Post. She lives in Venice,
California.

Standing Up to the Madness: Ordinary Heroes in Extraordinary Times by Amy Goodman and David Goodman (Hyperion Books)

Join us for a lunchtime event with the remarkable Amy Goodman. This is part of a 50-city tour for the 13th Anniversary of Community Media and Democracy Now!

Amy Goodman has been confronting the Washington establishment and its corporate sponsors while giving voice to the ordinary citizens and activists who are fighting for a better, more peaceful world. Her daily international radio and TV show, Democracy Now!, began in 1996 and is now carried on more than 500 stations and on http://www.democracynow.org.


(author photo: Michael Keel)

Join us for the annual LA Times Festival of books at UCLA

Join us at the annual LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA

Join us for the annual LA Times Festival of books at UCLA

Join us at the annual LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA

Gringo: A Radical Coming of Age in Latin America (Scribner)


Four decades ago Chesa Boudin's parents Kathy Boudin
and David Gilbert were making headlines as leaders of
the Weather Underground. At the age of nineteen, hop-
ing to discover how their politics fared in the living struggle
of the Third World, Chesa paid his first visit to Latin America.
His timing could not have been better: It was 1999 and Hugo
Chavez was just taking power in Venezuela, heralding sweep-
ing radical change across the subcontinent.
Over the next eight years Chesa crisscrossed the region on
journeys that form the raw material of this book. The stories
he relates are written from the ground up, woven from the
voices of ordinary Latin Americans. He never takes a plane
when a fifteen-hour bus ride in the company of unfettered
chickens is available.

Chesa Boudin is a twenty-eight year old Rhodes Scholar with degrees
from Oxfrord and Yale Universities. He has contributed to The Nation magazine and is the coauthor of The Venezuelan Revolution: 100 Questions and 100
Answers and the co-editor of Letters from Young Activists.

The Endarkenment (Univ. of Pittsburgh Press)

Lucky Breaks

Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community, and Art (Manic D Press)




(author drawing from a mural by Mona Caron)

Join us for an L.A. "Noir" event, featuring two of PM Press's latest titles, by Phillips and Bremmer, who are joined by fellow Noir authors Fondation and Hamilton (who also edited the anthology, "L.A. Noir.")

Deflowered: My Life in Pansy Division (Cleis Press)


Founding member of the punk band Pansy Division, Jon Ginoli has been involved in Queercore since 1991. His new book is a humorous and hardcore look at what it is like to be in a gay rock band. Jon will read from the book as well as perform Pansy Division songs!

Smile Southern California, You're the Center of the Universe:
The Economy and People of a Global Region by Flanigan and Global California:
Rising to the Cosmopolitan Challenge by Lowenthal (both by Stanford University Press)

Los Angeles City Council President Eric Garcetti will moderate this discussion and talk about L.A.'s role as a global center. A fourth generation Angeleno, he became one of the youngest city councilmen in the city's history, and then became its president


For half a century, James Flanigan has been a journalist, columnist, editor, storyteller for Forbes, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Herald Tribune in Paris and New York. He has covered economies of countries stretching from Europe to Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. He currently writes a periodic column that appears in the New York Times.


Lowenthal, Professor of International Relations at USC and president emeritus of the Pacific Council on International Policy, has combined two different but intersecting careers: as a scholar with a dozen well-regarded books on Latin America and inter-American affairs and U.S. foreign policy, and as a founder of think tanks at the nexus between the worlds of ideas and actions, including the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington and the Pacific Council, a West Coast leadership forum.

A selection of West Coast authors who are finalists for the 21st Annual Lambda Literary Awards (awards to be given in NYC on May 28).


The Lambda Literary Awards seek to recognize excellence in the field of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender literature. Each year, over 80 judges -- writers, booksellers, librarians, journalists -- assess the entries in more than 20 categories.


Lambda Executive Director Charles Flowers will introduce the authors.

The American Painter Emma Dial (W.W. Norton)

Secret Son (Algonquin Books)


Lalami's debut novel is a powerful and poignant story of modern Morocco and the divisions of class, politics, and religion.


(Photo credit: Sara Corwin)

Love or Something Like it (Random House)


"Bright and promising.... Shaw's first novel unfolds easily, with well-crafted prose and vivid detail... a great young-in-L.A. novel." --Publishers Weekly

Yearning for witty repartee and intellectual stimulation? How about wine and hors d'oeuvres? Come join us for our new monthly series, Skylight Salon, where our staff shares their faves from small presses and independent publishers. A modern-day mixer for the literary minded.
This month we feature:

Monica fetes Pushkin Press in celebrating its tenth anniversary . They maintain our constant aim of publishing translations of classic and contemporary European literature that changes the way you look at the world. Against all commercial odds, they choose to publish translations of young contemporary writers who we believe reflect the extraordinary qualities of the classic writers we translate and publish.



Justin hails powerHouse Books, world-renowned and critically acclaimed publisher is best known for publishing specialized in fine art, documentary, pop culture, fashion, and celebrity books. We have blazed a trail through the staid book publishing industry, releasing books that have sparked cultural trends and redefined commonly held perceptions of the purpose and role of art books in contemporary culture.



Emily pays her respects to Calamari Press is an independent publisher of literary texts & art, including Sleepingfish magazine. They publish beautiful works such as: Motorman by David Ohle, Stories in the Worst Way by Gary Lutz, and Ever by Blake Butler.

Perforated Heart (Simon and Schuster)

"Eric Bogosian has an ear for the way Americans talk. He also has an entertaining knack for exposing the appalling yet hilarious way American men think."

-Sarah Vowell, author of The Wordy Shipmates and Assassination Vacation

A mainstay of the theater and art communities for more than two decades now, Eric Bogosian's work continues to draw new fans and longtime followers. His Pulitzer-nominated play Talk Radio recently received rave reviews and two Tony nomination on its Broadway revival (starring Liev Schreiber) and Bogosian himself can currently be seen in a starring role on NBC's Law & Order: Criminal Intent. His previous novels, Wasted Beauty and Mall also garnered enthusiasm from critics and readers alike.


(Author photo: Susan Johann)

Land of 1000 Dances: Chicano Rock and Roll From Southern California (University of New Mexico Press, revised, 2009)


A NIGHT OF CHICANO ROCK!

Come hear David Reyes and Tom Waldman, authors of the book and associate producers of the 2008 PBS documentary "Chicano Rock! The Sounds of East Los Angeles" share stories about the musicians and songs that have made this unique sound. They will be joined by the extraordinary Lysa Flores, one of the artists prominently featured in the new edition, who will perform her music. In 2008, Lysa released "Bring your Love" an EP featuring a duet with John Doe. Her new album, "Immigrant Daughter", will be released this year.

Chicle: The Chewing Gum of the Americas, from the Ancient Maya to William Wrigley (University of Arizona Press)

Mathews is cureently associate professor at Trinity University in San Antonio. She realized there was a fascinating story behind the chicle industry in the Yucatan Peninsula when she began studying the ancient Maya roads used by the industry in the late 1800s, as routes for their railroads.

Leatherstone

David Pabian is a longtime Silver Lake resident and writer, primarily of film scripts. After several years of bookstore management for a large chain, he spent ten years at the phone company, then moved into film development at United Artists, his work there leading to independent development and script assignments for Sony, Disney, Universal and others. Leatherstone is his first novel.

Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up about Moving On (Seal Press)


Ask Me About My Divorce: Women Open Up About Moving On is a spicy, bracing, riveting selection of essays by women from all walks of life. The unifying thread is "I got divorced, and it rocked my world." Although divorce has so far been lumped in with death and taxes, for these writers, it was a portal to stepping into their best lives. Praised by Publisher's Weekly, Redbook, Mothering, and more, this groundbreaking book offers women a bracingly honest, funny, heartfelt and stigma-free way to consider the big D...and correspondingly, their past, present and future.

Laura Andr� received her Ph.D. in art history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was an Assistant Professor in photo history at the University of New Mexico from 2003-2007. Currently she lives in Albuquerque and works for an independent bookseller specializing in rare and contemporary photography books.

H.K. Brown won Honorable Mention in the WOW-Women-on-Writing Flash Fiction Contest, and wrote The Ground Rules, a screenplay that was optioned by a production company in Simi Valley, California. She has completed the manuscript for a divorce recovery memoir entitled Even Good Girls Get Divorced. Ms. Brown currently resides in Laguna Beach, California.

Elaine Soloway is the author of The Division Street Princess: a Memoir (Syren Book Company, 2006). This coming-of-age tale of a young girl, a family grocery store, and an old neighborhood in the 1940s was named a Chicago Tribune Best Book of 2006. Currently, Elaine is putting the finishing touches on her second book, She's Not The Type, a coming-of-middle-age novel also set in Chicago.

Best of Contemporary Mexican Fiction (Dalkey Archive)


Celebrating the publication of this new bilingual anthology, editor Uribe will be joined by So Cal contributor Rivera-Garza .

Mexican beer and mini-burritos (provided by Yuca's) will be served!

Sunnyside (Knopf)


"A breathless stupendous novel that recreates both a young brash America on the verge of becoming itself, and Chaplin, one of its most bewitching quixotic citizens. From lighthouse to Hollywood to starlets to war to stardom to madness to genius Gold's startling narrative carries us across the world and back. Gold proves himself yet again to be the hungriest craftiest funniest and most humane novelist we have."

Secret Identities: The Asian American Superhero Anthology (The New Press)

Eat My Globe (Free Press)


Majumdar grew up in a household where food was always the focal point of any conversation; as an adult he devoted much of his free time to supporting the burgeoning restaurant scene in London. At age forty he realized that a big wide world of food lay outside London-and he'd hardly eaten any of it. So he quit his desk job, using his entire life savings to fund a whirlwind quest fueled by hunger and wanderlust.

Passionate, knowledgeable, and hilarious, Eat My Globe tours the cultures and dining experiences-dishes hot and haute-of thirty countries: from the glamour of Europe to the street stalls of Beijing and Mumbai; from making whisky in Scotland to tasting the infamous rotten shark meat of Iceland; from the delectable beef of Argentina to the world's largest barbeque cook-off in Kansas City. Along the way, Majumdar meets and dines with famous gourmands, master chefs, and hundreds of enthusiasts who share his zest for food and generously invite him to be part of their lives and meals. A captivating look at one man's passion for food, family, and unique life experiences, Eat My Globe will make readers laugh-as it makes them hungry. It is sure to satiate any gastronome obsessed with globetrotting-for now.

Puddlejumpers

The L.A. launch of Dennis Cooper's newest book.

World Ball Notebook (City Lights)


Foster's City Terrace Field Manual, published in 1996, caused a sensation, heralding the debut of a formidable voice experimenting with the "prose poem" genre. The critical success of Foster's next book, the novel Atomic Aztex with City Lights, increased awareness of his work. Atomic Aztex was awarded The Believer Magazine's Annual Book Award (2006), and received critical acclaim from publications such as Publishers Weekly, Bookforum, The Village Voice, Los Angeles Times Book Review, and the San Francisco Chronicle. This is Foster's anticipated follow-up publication-a collection of prose poems filled with awe, yearning, and acerbic wit.

The Promising Series is dedicated to showcasing emerging and established Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender writers. This edition will feature Cheryl Klein, Raquel Guiterrez, Orlando Ashley, and Scott Turner Schofield. (This series was formerly held at A Different Light bookstore.)

Join us for our annual reading of the terrific students in the King Middle School Writers Club, led by teacher/author Steve Abee.

The Favorites (Scribner)

This is the first novel from Mary Yukari Waters. She is half Japanese and half Irish-American. The recipient of an O. Henry award, a Pushcart Prize, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, she has been published in The Best American Short Stories 2002 and 2003, The Pushcart Book of Short Stories: The Best Stories from a Quarter-Century of the Pushcart Prize, and Francis Ford Coppola's Zoetrope 2 anthology. She earned her MFA from the University of California, Irvine, and lives in Los Angeles.

The Waters and the Wild (HarperTeen)

author photo: Nicolas Sage

The Great Perhaps (W.W. Norton)

(author photo: Joe Wigdhal)

Black Water Rising (HarperCollins)

Author Photo: Jenny Walters

Foreign Tongue (Harper)

Be Hung from the Ceiling by Strings of Varying Length (Akashic Books)

The Auto Mechanic's Daughter (Akashic Books)

The New Valley (Grove Press)


"I was captivated and moved by each of these finely made novellas. The quiet, mostly ordinary lives of the characters who populate The New Valley shine with a strange and intense luminosity that is at times heartbreaking, at other times triumphant. There is a magic and gentle beauty in this book that makes me remember why I had always wanted to be a writer."

Zero at the Bone (New Issues Press/Western Michigan Univ.)


"Of the many ways of knowing the world, Stacie Cassarino in her elegant and poignant first book of poems, Zero at the Bone, reminds us of the primacy of the senses."

-Michael Collier


Cassarino is a recipient of the "Discovery"/The Nation prize and the Astraea Foundation Writer's Fund, a finalist for the Rona Jaffe Writers' Award, and nominee twice for the Pushcart Prize. She has worked as a chef, and has held teaching positions at Middlebury College in Vermont & Pratt Institute in NYC. She is currently a candidate for the Ph.D. at UCLA.

The Signal (Viking/Penguin)


Ron Carlson is the award-winning author of four story collections and four novels, most recently Five Skies. His fiction has appeared in Harper's, The New Yorker, Playboy, and GQ, and has been featured on NPR's This American Life and Selected Shorts as well as in Best American Short Stories and The O. Henry Prize Stories. His novella, Beanball, was recently selected for Best American Mystery Stories. He is the director of the renowned UC Irvine writing program.

Double Your Creative Power: Make Your Subconscious a Partner in the Writing Process


Bring 3 pages of a story you're working on and noted story 'dowser' Stebel (who teaches in the graduate Professional Writing Program at USC)will assist you in moving on creatively.

The Year That Follows (Random House)


F
rom the highly praised author of All I Could Get
("Utterly engrossing, harrowing, and, yes, fun.
Scott Lasser's All I Could Get is all you could
want."-Richard Russo) a powerful, absorbing new novel about bloodlines and inheritance and what holds families together.


(author photo by Joanne Chan)

Shortcomings (by Tomine - now in paperback), A Drifting Life (the Tatsumi memoir edited and designed by Tomine), George Sprott by Seth, and The Collected George Wright (edited and designed by Seth)

Yearning for witty repart

The Enthusiast (Harper)


"As impossible to categorize as it is to put down... one of those rare, one-of-a-kind novels that defies description even as it moves readers to yank strangers off of buses to read them passages. Giants like Stanley Elkin, Tobias Wolff, George Saunders and J.D. Salinger come to mind. But THE ENTHUSIAST occupies a smart, weirdly fascinating, sometimes laugh-out-loud, ever soulful universe all its own. Already a journalist of legend, Charlie Haas more than proves his chops with fiction...as close to perfect as any first novel should ever be allowed to be. I really loved this book."

- Jerry Stahl

"I am having the most wonderful day, lying on the couch and reading Charlie Haas's brilliant book. It is wonderfully written, charming, wise, sometimes funny, always real. Henry is a perfect narrator, and the book reads like a dream."

- Anne Lamott

"I loved this novel from start to finish. It's always funny and often profound... Again and again there are single lines that are both hilarious and saddening, that are alive both on the surface of the novel and in the depths of experience. It's a triumph, it's unique, and no one else would have even thought to write it."

- Greil Marcus

American Nerd: The Story of My People


"The coolest book about nerds ever written. Heck, one of the coolest books ever written, period. Benjamin Nugent is the Richard Dawkins of geekdom. Outsiders of the world, this is required reading. Know your roots!"

- Paul Feig, creator of Freaks and Geeks


"AMERICAN NERD is very funny and consistently smart, but it's also mildly controversial-I'm not sure I've ever seen these kinds of cogent, intuitively accurate arguments made about any 'type' of modern person. Benjamin Nugent is just weird enough to be absolutely right."

-Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs


(author photo by Kathryn Mauger)

Black Postcards: A Rock n Roll Romance (Penguin)


A bewitching account of the lures, torments, and rewards of making and performing some of the most interesting music in some of the most iconic indie bands (Galaxie 500, Luna) in recent memory.


"I have always been a fan of Dean Wareham and have worked with him and Luna many times. I love reading the thoughts of frontmen. I think it's a great read for the fan of adventure."

-Lou Reed


(author photo by Michael Lavine)

Ad Nauseam

The average American sees something like three thousand ads a day, although they process perhaps only ten. To say that consumer culture is pervasive is to underestimate it. In Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Culture, Carrie McLaren and Jason Torchinksy encourage readers to think more critically about consumer culture-to consider how advertising and consumption affect them and shape how community, friendship and family are defined. Make no mistake, McLaren and Torchinksy don't believe there is anything wrong with buying and selling, but the trouble begins when the profit motive invades places it has no business being, such as schools, courtrooms, and hospitals.



Drawn partly from McLaren's magazine and blog Stay Free!, Ad Nauseam looks at how advertising works (linking a favorable, if arbitrary, image to one's brand) now and historically before examining how rampant consumerism influences individuals and their psyches. Advertising has increasingly received First Amendment protection, so sellers can advertise however they like, but consumers aren't free to get away from it.


Jonathan Lethem, writes, "In his opening salvo in the mental war against the paradoxes of Late Capitalism, George W.S. Trow proposed a motto: 'Wounded by the Million; Healed-One by One.' What the editors of Stay Free! set up inside the brilliant framework of their magazine was an arena where writers could roll up their sleeves and get cheerfully to work at shrugging off the succubus of commercial culture, for their own sakes, and for all our sakes. This book is a treasury of Trow's kind of healing."

Wayne White: Maybe Now I'll Get the Respect I So Richly Deserve (Ammo Books)


This is the launch of this monumental book about the work of artist Wayne White. You know his paintings which have been on display at Fred 62 for years (or PeeWee's Playhouse), even if you haven't seen the work that's at major museums.

Hollywood to Honolulu: the story of the Los Angeles Steamship Company (Glencannon Press)


The Roaring 20s saw many institutions fall by the way side. Flappers, the Charleston and bathtub gin all arrived on the scene and, almost as quickly as they appeared, they dropped out of history. So it was with the shipping line that hailed from Southern California: the Los Angeles Steamship Company. This once magnificent ocean going operation put its namesake harbor on the map, brought the idea of a glamorous ocean passage into the price range of the newly forming tourist population, and once and for all time branded the vision of a stately white cruise ship gliding effortlessly into a tropical Hawaiian paradise into the mind of the nation.

Martin Cox and Gordon Ghareeb have joined forces and together told a story of glamour, high finance, movie stars and gossip. Operated under the aegis of the Chandler publishing family of Los Angeles and the rest of their contemporary Chamber of Commerce associates, the Los Angeles Steamship Company (or LASSCO as it came to be known across the nation) brought to the world the realization that fledgling Los Angeles was coming into its own as a financial, industrial and culturally cosmopolitan crossroads of the country.

Ghareeb and Cox recreate a lost world of a nation riding high on the crest of a military victory from World War I juxtaposed against labor problems, political unrest and an economy gone mad.

At its height, the company had seven passenger vessels plus a host of freighters. The Los Angeles Steamship Company perished somewhat quietly in the stock market crash of 1929, but not before it had reshaped Los Angeles.

Great Balls of Flowers

Steve Abee is the author of the novel The Bus: Cosmic Ejaculations of the Daily Mind in Transit (Phony Lid Books), and a collection of short stories and poems King Planet (Incommunicado). Beck Hansen has called Abee "The love powered bull horn blasting down from the altitudes," and Lydia Lunch has remarked that his "savage poetry demands the reader devour passage after passage, only to be left soul seared and simultaneously re-invigorated." Born in Santa Monica, Abee holds a Master of Fine Arts Degree from Antioch University, Los Angeles, and has taught Middle School English in Los Angeles for 12 years.

SORRY BUT THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED. The Double Life is Twice as Good: Essays and Fiction (Scribner)

This Wicked World (Little Brown and Co)

In this first novel from the author of the story collection Dead Boys, former marine and ex-con Jimmy Boone is tending bar on Hollywood Boulevard, keeping his nose clean until he figures out his next move. But when he agrees to back up a buddy and look into a young man's mysterious death, he is soon neck-deep in trouble again.



Richard Lange's stories have appeared in StoryQuarterly, The Sun, The Iowa Review, and Best American Mystery Stories 2004.

Writing Picture Books (Writers Digest)

Los Feliz author Ann Whitford Paul will discuss her 10 tips for becoming a successful children's book author in an event celebrating the release of her newest book, Writing Picture Books.



In her how-to book, Paul covers researching the picture books market, creating characters, point of view, plotting, tips on writing rhyme, and more--all the lessons writers need to write great picture books that will appeal to both editors/agents and young readers/parents. Ann Whitford Paul is the author of Fiesta Fiasco and Manana, Iguana; Hello Toes! Hello Feet!; The Seasons Sewn: A Year in Patchwork; All by Herself; and Eight Hands Round: A Patchwork Alphabet. Her picture book Little Monkey Says Good Night was a Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year, and Kirkus Reviews praised it as "a perfect good-night read."

Drift: Stories by Patterson

Glass Grapes by Ronk

Two short story writers read from their recent collections.



Glass Grapes and Other Stories is the first full-length collection of short stories by distinguished poet and fiction writer Martha Ronk. Ronk's work has garnered critical accolades and numerous awards, including, most recently, a 2005 PEN USA Award in poetry, a 2007 NEA Fellowship, and a 2007 National Poetry Series Award. Glass Grapes is a collection of short, experimental stories, usually dominated by an object imbued with fetishistic qualities by an obsessive, self-involved narrator.

Through the lives of waiters and waitresses, divorced and single parents, and alienated teens, Victoria Patterson's Drift offers a rare and rewarding view into the real life of glittering Newport Beach, all the while plumbing the depths of female friendship and what it means to be an outsider. Fresh, energetic, deceptively powerful and delightfully frank, hers is a voice you won't be able to stop reading.

The Girls' Guide to Rocking: How to Start a Band, Book Gigs, and Get Rolling to Rock Stardom (Workman)

Jessica Hopper is a music and culture critic whose work regularly appears in Chicago Reader, LA Weekly, and SPIN. Hopper has also done time as a tour manager, band publicist, DJ, touring bassist, Girls Rock Camp booster, and fanzine publisher.

Nowhere-Land: A Stephan Raszer Investigation

After a young member of the Jehovah's Witness Church is abducted, the church engages cult specialist Stephan Raszer to find her perilous trail. To solve the puzzle and find the girl, Raszer must try to hold on to his soul and his sanity in a world turned on its head.



"This may be the first truly 21st-century mystery I've read. You could say it's a story of and for our time. Stephan Raszer is the thinking man's (or woman's) private eye."
--Judith Freeman, author of The Long Embrace: Raymond Chandler and the Women He Loved (L.A. Weekly)

Yearning for witty repart

The Labrys Reunion (Spinster's Ink)

The Labrys Reunion is sparked by the rape and murder of Emma Firestein, a young art student, and examines the varied and contentious responses of her mother's generation--women who were feminist activists in the 1970s--and those of Emma's contemporaries. Issues, strategies and tactics of the women's movement are all reconsidered through the lens of the personal costs of either activism or political disengagement.



Terry Wolverton is a poet and novelist who founded Writers at Work, a creative writing center, where she continues to teach. She has also edited fourteen compilations of literary work.

Vampires, freaks, and geeks! A night celebrating the publication of three new anthologies of young adult short stories. Eternal Kiss presents twelve teen vampire tales, Sideshow turns the spotlight on the freaks and outcasts with ten original stories, and Geektastic covers all things geeky with thirteen stories, plus illustrated interstitials.



It's an evening of short fiction for current and former freaks, geeks, nerds, and jocks (and vampires?) alike.

Erased (Tin House Books)


Krusoe is the author of the novels Girl Factory (Tin House Books) and
Iceland; two collections of stories, Blood Lake and Abductions; as well as
five books of poetry. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National
Endowment for the Arts and the Lila Wallace Reader

We Did Porn: Memoir and Drawings (Tin House)

Punk artist and icon Zak Smith made a name for himself by visually re-creating Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and drawing pictures of girls in the "naked girl business." His artistic pedigree and acute observation landed him in high-profile shows from the Whitney to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Somewhere along the line, Smith went from the observer to the observed, from the guy in the corner with a sketchpad to the guy on-screen doing the unnamable for anyone eighteen or older to see. We Did Porn follows Zak Smith (or Zak Sabbath) from the New York art scene to Los Angeles's seedy, yet colorful, underbelly--the world of alt porn. Smith narrates his own foray into pornography and gives his readers a new understanding of the industry, its players, and its audience.

We will again stay open till midnight Monday (Tuesday a.m.) on the eve of the release of "Inherent Vice," the new novel by Thomas Pynchon (who our buyer Charles says is "the greatest American author of the 20th Century"). Pynchon fans eager to get started on the latest epic by the legendary author can come before midnight, share a cup of coffee or glass of wine with other like-minded readers, pre-purchase the book, and pick it up at its on-sale date - the stroke of midnight. Please pre-purchase the book before midnight (you will receive a ticket for book pickup) to ensure that we have enough copies.

For anyone who loves Infinite Jest or who is taking part in the mass reading of it for Infinite Summer, we will be offering the store as a meeting place to find kindred DFW fans. We won't be leading a discussion per se -- the point is to put lots of IJ readers in the same room and see what happens. Maybe we'll talk about the book. Maybe we'll vent about how heavy it is to lug around. Maybe we'll play "cartridges." Maybe we'll break into a spontaneous game of tennis. Who knows? All of our staff members that evening either have read or are currently reading Infinite Jest! This is the first of two events -- see September 22 for more details about the second gathering. For more information on Infinite Summer, visit http://infinitesummer.org

5:00 PM

VICTORIAN L.A. 

Victorian L.A. explores the relationship between Los Angeles's nineteenth-century neighborhoods and the rail network that served them. Horse cars, cable cars, and electric cars--our city's early transportation companies--were highly competitive and when unified became the nation's most extensive system. When the trolly cars were illegally removed, the Victorian neighborhoods soon after disappeared.

Michael Jacob Rochlin is the author of eight books including the well-received Ancient L.A.

Mustang: The Saga of the Wild Horse in the American West (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Deanne Stillman

Twelve, the King (Perceval Press) by Michael Blake

Two authors will discuss and sign their books about the American West!

Deanne Stillman is a widely published, critically acclaimed writer. In addition to Mustang, she is the author of the bestseller Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave, an LA times “best book 2001” which Hunter Thompson called “A strange and brilliant story by an important American writer.” It was recently published in a new, updated edition.

Michael Blake’s first novel, Dances With Wolves, was published as a mass-market paperback in 1988, receiving no attention until the film version was released to worldwide acclaim in the late 1990s. The phenomenal success of the movie ended more than twenty years of impoverished struggle to make a living out of literature and resulted in a downpour of awards, including the Oscar. In addition, Blake has received other prestigious awards including The American Library Association’s Hero of the Year and Cancervive’s Survivor of the Year. His latest work is a memoir about a rescue horse that greatly impacted his life titled Twelve, The King (Perceval Press, 2009) and his past works include The Holy Road and Indian Yell. Blake also has a new movie in development with Keven Costner that is based on a short story he wrote titled “The One”. He resides on his ranch, Wolf House, in the foothills of Tucson, Arizona.