Name: Steven Salardino
Favorite paragraph: "The lean days of determination. That was the word for it, determination: Arturo Bandini in front of his typewriter two full days in succession, determined to succeed; but it didn't work, the longest siege of hard and fast determination in his life, and not one line done, only two words written over and over across the page, up and down, the same words: palm tree, palm tree, palm tree, a battle to the death between the palm tree and me, and the palm tree won: see it out there swaying in the blue air, creaking sweetly in the blue air. The palm tree won after two fighting days, and I crawled out of the window and sat at the foot of the tree. Time passed, a moment or two, and I slept, little brown ants carousing in the hair on my legs." - John Fante, Ask The Dust
(Steven is on leave starting February 10, 2022.)
Los Angeles Review of Books Naked Bookseller (not my typos): http://tumblr.lareviewofbooks.org/post/44401183405/the-naked-bookseller-...
"The world is peaceful only when everyone has enough to eat." I love ramen so much.
There is something incredibly sweet about the history of these bands and this collective. Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control, Apples In Stereo, etc...the sounds that were merging/melding within this group of friends and comrades created some really special music. The book will make you nostalgic for a world that existed 20-25 years ago whether you were there or not.
All these stories have surprised me with their originality—I could not tell what would happen next and I cracked up or cried when it happened. Gurganus is a master of the short story, reminding me of Flannery O’Connor and Roald Dahl … tales exploring the uniqueness of everyday people and their morality.
Everyone growing up in Los Angeles will have memories involving Bob’s Big Boy or See’s Candy or Lawry’s Prime Rib. Nostalgia mixes with history and a little drool in this history of California’s culinary claims to fame.
We are lucky to be alive in the time of Jon Klassen. The way he uses the interplay between illustration and text is masterful, as seen in his previous books including his “hat” series. Themes of friendship, fate, and the future are explored beautifully and humorously in this modern classic.
There are a few books that always make great gifts and that everyone should have on their shelves: Manly P. Hall’s The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Mr Boston’s Official Bartender’s Guide, a Hoyle’s book of card games, and All the Rain Promises and More. It might not be the biggest or most complete listing of mushrooms found in the west, but look at that cover! It is definitely the most fun.
For being the quintessential Gen-Xer, it is a bit remarkable that I never read Coupland’s Generation X. But I have read a lot of his other stories, novels, and essays (I even read his book on Terry Fox), and I am excited for this new book. He always makes me laugh and see the world (and myself) a little differently.
Possibly out of print. Email or call to check availability and price.
Read Dodie Bellamy. Then explore some more by reading this book. She has been one of my favorite writers since I bought the little Hanuman press book containing two of her stories. All her writing burrows into my head with a needle so thin I don't know it is there until the words are INSIDE ME. She is magic to me.
Someone reminded me that I recommended this book to them right after their mother passed away and it worked as a meditative soother/distractor. That is the power of a good fable. So read about the best fence builder, a duck named Fup, and Ol' Death Whisperer - the moonshine whiskey of immortality. It just might help you through this world of grief and suffering.
Kristen Radtke's illustrated essay explores the feeling and stigma of loneliness from a personal and modern historical perspective. She ingeniously circles around the subject, narrowing in and zooming out, speaking to where we find connection and why. Coming out of lockdowns and out from under our masks - this book hit home for me.
A new book from Amy Gerstler is something to celebrate. A poet that can make the strange and beautiful profound in new and unpredictable ways. The personal is political and vice versa. It is truly wonderful for us that Los Angeles has someone as talented as Amy sharing our sun and smog.
Masterful storytelling. Ishiguro's book is told from the point of view of an Artificial Friend and explores what it means to be human. But it is so much more. It works on you from the inside, propelling you into a world so close to our own that it is eye-opening. This is one of those books that makes my mind swim in possibilities and questions, yet doesn't let me slowdown to contemplate them because I am enjoying the story so much. It's moving, suspenseful, beautiful, and hard to pin down...picking up weight as we move through it. I look at the sun a little differently now.
The first book in the new Library of Esoterica series is a fascinating exploration into the history, artwork, and meaning of the Tarot. This is an art book that surveys many ancient, modern, and contemporary decks and the artists that created them, and can also be used to help divine meaning from a tarot reading. I love the way it is designed and organized in conjunction with the order of the deck, and the essays are interesting and enlightening.
Kristen Radtke's illustrated essay explores the feeling and stigma of loneliness from a personal and modern historical perspective. She ingeniously circles around the subject, narrowing in and zooming out, speaking to where we find connection and why. Coming out of lockdowns and out from under our masks - this book hit home for me.
D.J. Waldie is a treasure for all of us that love Southern California. A lifelong Lakewood resident, he writes about all parts of Los Angeles, from the big to the banal, with the insight and focus of a precise and meditative scientist. All through the eyes of someone still discovering meanings in our personal and cultural histories during this strange time.
Possibly out of print. Email or call to check availability and price.
Possibly out of print. Email or call to check availability and price.
Known for Wittgenstein's Mistress - "pretty much the high point of experimental fiction in this country" (says David Foster Wallace) - David Markson is a major literary figure that often flies under the radar. All three of the “not novels” collected in this book are wonderful but the one that most harpoons my heart is The Last Novel. Published a few years before Markson’s death it is particularly profound in its discussion of a writer’s mortality. These books are my versions of “unputdownable”. I find myself suspended somewhere inside all of history, art, creativity, the page, etc, as my own personal triumphs, fears, frustrations, and loves get muddled with Markson’s. I feel guided, but free...I imagine as “Writer” meant it.
William Saroyan is Mark Twain to me. In his words and stories I hear a version of the person I would have liked to be. His adventures are small and romantic—about life, writing, and the common bonds between all us humans. His writing from the 1930s still feels contemporary and fresh—comfort food in these times.
