I don’t own a Kindle. Or a Nook, or any of those other digital book-reader things. Maybe they’re more awesome than I think – I’ve actually never really even tried one – but nothing beats the feeling of walking out of a bookstore with a book in your hands.

That’s why I’m glad The Last Bookstore in LA had its grand re-opening last week, after vacating its former (and much tinier) spot at 4th and Main. Los Angeles may not be Seattle, but we’ve got our fair share of great little bookshops.

Me, I’m a fan of Skylight and Wacko, mostly because both are walking distance from my apartment. I also love two Glendale shops right across the street from each other, the Brand Bookshop and Mystery & Imagination (whose sign outside actually reads “BookFellows”). And I know at least one of my fellow bloggers (as well as many of you, I’m sure) is a fan of Book Soup (and with good reason; that place rocks). And I know Travis is a fan of the Taschen shops; I like the one in the Farmers Market because I pass it on my way home from work every day.

But I’m sure there are a bunch I don’t know about. What’s your favorite bookshop in LA?

Hey Kids – No wait, strike that – Hey Adventurous Non-Squeamish Over-18-Year-Olds!

The inimitable Ori (aka Ashley Blue aka GIRLVERT aka Oriana Small) has written a memoir that will twist your brain better than any Terence Malick movie ever could.

And guess what? She’s reading excerpts (and doing who knows what else) tonight at Largo at the Coronet!

Not sure if scanning the doo-dah in this image will work or not but do please find a way to attend. Knowing what I know, you’ll be talking about this for a while.

Sarah Labrie’s short piece “On (Not) Leaving Los Angeles” over at This Recording is really gorgeous. Go read it.

Lately, your life has been falling into place along a strange Los Angeles logic. That morning you got a $50 parking ticket, but last night you went to a party at Bret Easton Ellis’ house. The party was exactly what you expected, down to the minimalist monochrome décor, the celebrities famous for reasons no one could define. In an apartment overlooking Beverly Hills, you lived out the wildest dream of the college sophomore version of yourself. A gleam hovered over the fading film stars, the impeccable bartender, the party guests caught up in Bret’s orbit as he circled the room, glass in hand, imitating perfectly the person everyone assumes he is.

Thanks to Annie for the link.

My buddy Hank Rosenfeld has a piece airing tonight at 8 on KPPC.

He’s talking about Hollywood screenwriter Irv Brecher and I’m guessing a lot of this stuff is from his great book, The Wicked Wit of the West.

You should check it out -

(Main page for “The Story” is here.)

((ooh, so linky! I’m actually writing a post NOT from my phone ~))

Step aside Chelsea Handler, there’s a new IT girl on the street and her name is Hilary Winston.  Formerly head writer of the Emmy®-award-winning “My Name is Earl“, and currently a writer/producer on “Community“, the incredibly funny & talented Ms. Winston wrote a book.  Well.  Wrote a book in response to her boyfriend writing a book…

What? Who are these people who have enough time in their lives to have a full job, AND write a retaliatory book to the book their boyfriend wrote about them?  Oh, no sorry, you’re still confused about the whole “book being written in retaliation to a book” part.

Let’s start from the beginning.  Hilary, having just gotten out of a semi-serious relationship, and putting the piece of her life back together gets sucker-punched when she wanders into a bookstore to find that her Ex has written a novel.  A novel about their relationship.  One in which she’s referenced throughout as the “fat-assed girlfriend.”  True story.

From the ashes was born a phoenix. A hilarious book of a phoenix with, albeit one with  a broken vagina.

You know what?  Hilary could do a much better job making sense of the absurdity that is her life… and wouldn’t you know it, you’re in luck!  She’s doing a book signing on THURSDAY MAY 19th at the Grove Barnes & Noble, where you can ask her any and all of the questions you have about her fat ass, broken vagina, bikini waxes & community paintball.

Hilary Winston Book Signing
Thursday May 19, 2011 7:00 PM
Barnes & Noble @ The Grove at Farmers Market
189 Grove Drive Suite K 30
Los Angeles, CA 90036
http://hilarywinston.com/home/

And you can buy the book HERE.  Perfect for that book club you’ve always been meaning to start…

Since 2002, the first Saturday of May has been a special day for comic book fans everywhere. Free Comic Book Day is a worldwide event in which participating independent comic book specialty shops do what the name implies and give you free comic books. No, this does not mean that you can take any book off the shelf. There are designated titles up for grabs. Some locations also have special guests, signing, giveaways and other activities throughout the day. Not surprisingly, food trucks seem to be a popular addition this year!

There are many participating comic book shops in Los Angeles and surrounding cities. A few of my personal favorites are:

House of Secrets, 1930 W Olive St. Burbank, CA 91506. Appearances by Tom Kenny and Walter Koenig.

Meltdown Comics, 7522 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90046. Original statues from The Dark Crystal will be on display and The Grilled Cheese Truck will be making a special appearance.

Golden Apple, 7018 Melrose Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90038. Lots of special guests, sales, giveaways, free food and even a bounce house for the kids.

Check out the Free Comic Book Day Store Locator to find out if your favorite shop is participating. Insider tip: Go early if you want to choose from a good selection of books.

Actor, author, artist, auteur…provocateur John Waters is coming to Los Angeles this week. On Wednesday evening he’ll be at Largo at the Coronet, in conversation with Jeff Garlin.

Waters, the legendary filmmaker (Pink Flamingos, Hairspray, Cry-Baby, Pecker, among others) is on a book tour promoting the paperback release of Role Models, his essays about people he finds inspiring. Subjects range from Tennessee Williams and Johnny Mathis to Manson Family member Leslie Van Houten.

This is bound to be a fascinating (and funny) evening. Get your tickets now, and I’ll see you there.

What: John Waters in conversation with Jeff Garlin.
Where: Largo at the Coronet, 366 N. La Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles
When: Wednesday, 4 May 2011. 8:00pm.
Tickets available online.

Arrive early. You don’t want to miss a moment. By the way, if you’ve never been to Largo, it’s important to remember the rules; they’re pretty strict about them. No late entry, no cell phones/texting, no photos, no talking. Break the rules and you’ll likely be given the boot. Follow the rules and you’ll likely have a delightful evening.

Skylight Books Sign in Los Feliz

I’m not one of those Angelinos who will claim that our literary culture rivals that of New York (sorry people, it just doesn’t–we can still love LA and concede secondary status on pizza and publishers). Nonetheless, we do have a pretty vibrant community of writers and readers. I’ve written about Chaparral and What Books Press here before, and I’m always happy to see news of a new journal or press.

On that note, The Rattling Wall is set to launch this month, and the inaugural issue looks delightful with offerings from Albert Reyes, Tony Hoagland, James Frey, and Neal Pollack, among others. They’re having a release party at the Hammer a week from tomorrow. If Hoagland were reading, I’d be there in a heartbeat, but alas he is not. Nonetheless,the slate is full of talent: Joseph Mattson, Michelle Meyering, James Greer, Neal Pollack, Allison Burnett, Stacey Waite, Eloise Klein Healy, Sam Dunn, Matthew Zapruder, Lou Mathews. It should be a great reading.

the bumper of my car

When you ask people what’s great about LA, they might say the weather or the beach or the sushi or art walk or the New Bev or Umami Burger… but they almost never say “the literary scene.”   Yknowhatimsayin?

Still, we read. Well, some of us do, anyway, and many of those some of us will be at LA Times’ Festival of Books this weekend. I’ll admit I’ve never been there myself (though other b.la’ers have). Somehow it always gets trumped by a work event or a trip or something. This year, though, may be the year for me. I would love, love, love to see Jennifer Egan on Saturday*, though given her recent award, that panel will no doubt be packed plus I have a time conflict with a three-year-old’s birthday party in Ventura (Does the J.Egan panel promise a bouncy house? I think not!). Read the rest of this entry →

People often ask me if Tina Fey is gay.  This is because, I think, and unfortunately for me, I’m the only gay person they know, and they assume that we all know who the others are, like Cylons or something.  The larger takeaway, though, is the implication behind the question: that very few women can have the strength of her talents, defy as many conventions, and not talk incessantly about how she should be defined as a mother first, unless she were a lesbian.  There’s a whole lot wrapped up in that implication, too much to deconstruct here, so I’ll just say: that is a terrible work of fiction that no one wants to read but for some reason keeps getting checked out.

For those of you (gay, straight, boy, girl, in between, on the fringe) looking for a little inspiration a la Fey, Live Talks LA is hosting the writer/producer/actress/comedian at the Nokia Theater on Tuesday, April 19.  Fey will discuss her upcoming memoir, Bossypants, with Steve Martin.  Tickets just went on sale on Friday; get them here.  My guess is that these will sell out, soon, so you better get on it, now.

For those curious about Fey’s essaying abilities (because being head writer at SNL, the creator/writer of 30 Rock, and the writer of Mean Girls isn’t quite enough), check out the last few issues of The New Yorker. An essay  first appears in the same issue as the fantastic article on Scientology, about “juggling” her career and her – blahblah – family (“What is the rudest question you can ask a woman? ‘How old are you?’ ‘What do you weigh?’ ‘When you and your twin sister are alone with Mr. Hefner, do you have to pretend to be lesbians?’  No, the worst question is: ‘How do you juggle it all?’”).

The second essay, in this week’s issue, is on the lessons she learned from Lorne Michaels (“Never tell a crazy person he’s crazy.” – I’m assuming she’s talking about Tracy Morgan here, but I may be projecting).  I hope Tina Fey and Rudy Giuliani do a book exchange, BossyPants for Leadership, just to compare and contrast styles.  If you have nothing going on – and, heck, even if you do – go to the newsstand, flip to page 22, and just read it.  It’s great.  It makes you want to buy the book or e-book.  And, yes, see her live from Los Angeles, on a Tuesday night.

An Evening with Tina Fey in Conversation with Steve Martin, Tuesday, April 19 at 8:00pm at the Nokia Theatre. Tickets are $29 (seat only)/$49 (premier seating plus Fey’s book)/$119 (prime seating plus Fey and Martin’s books). A signing will follow the talk.

How’s this for a role reversal: instead of begging you to support the indepenent bookstore, Vroman’s in Pasadena is going out of its way to support you. The Pasadena independent bookstore will give you a $20 gift certificate to the store in exchange for your Borders Rewards Plus Card.  You know, that red card you bought for $20 because you thought it meant you would receive a discount on things, but now, in light of the Borders bankruptcy, is just another mini-card making your keychain look like a prison guard’s keychain, if the prison guard worked at a prison with cardkeys for keys (how fancy!).  Note that the offer is limited to the first 200 Borders Rewards Plus Card-carrying people, so go on, swap card for card, and maybe pick up a book with your new treasure.  Maybe this one?

Photo by Clinton Steeds and used under a Creative Commons license.

Sometimes when I get really angry at people for being whatever negative adjective they are being at the time, generally, I remember the library.  The library, to me, is the epitome of human goodness – there’s just so much trust required in order to make the whole system work.  I check out a book, and you trust me to return it in a timely(ish) manner so that you can read it later, too.   I trust you to not tear out pages from old issues of Real Simple (because you can check out the back issues of magazines at the Los Angeles Public Library, something I just discovered, to my amazement) so that I too can learn all about repurposing dental floss into a cheese slicer.  You trust me not to spill (too much) oil or flour on Baking: From My Home to Yours, a gorgeous book by Dorie Greenspan (CIRC 641.71 G8147-1) while I decide whether I would reference this enough to justify its purchase.  I do appreciate your marginal notes, though.  I trust you to not mark up Louise Erdrich’s fantastic Shadow Tag (FIC ERD), because she writes, extremely well, about the critical importance of space and privacy even within the confines of an intimate relationship, thoughts that more than one person I know, myself included, wanted to highlight and send to our ex’es.

And then there is the trust we have in our local governments to use our tax dollars and funding to support this resource.  One of the funniest/saddest things that happened all year happened during the horrific heat wave that saw downtown roasting at somewhere between 105 and 115 degrees.  The city’s Emergency Management Department urged the public to seek out cooling centers to be safe.  The city also suggested that they seek refuge at one of the LA Public Library’s branches. It was a very good suggestion, except for one thing: on the day the suggestion was made – a Monday that saw downtown LA registering a record-shattering 113 degrees, the hottest day in September since 1877 - all of the city’s libraries were closed.  The Central Library and its 72 branches were closed pursuant to the City Council’s decision earlier in the year to close the library on Sundays and Mondays.  To save money.  Or something. Currently, the library’s homepage is very, very excited to announce that its branches, including the Central Library, will be open on two Mondays this month.  That is sad.

Cutting city investment in an institution that does all it can to invest, educate, and empower its citizens is one of the meanest and most counter-intuitive things you can do.  Take your we-are-in-a-recession argument and shove it back where it came from: the recession is exactly the reason why cities in general should commit tenaciously to their libraries, schools, and other sources of public education.  Tellingly, for all the cuts made this year with surgical imprecision, the police department’s budget was not similarly manhandled.  I suppose this makes sense: if people aren’t going to the library, surely they’re committing crimes on the streets.  On the bright side, we haven’t privatized our library – yet.

’Tis the season, then, to give a little to our library system.  There are a few ways to give: there are, for example, a number of Friends of the Library groups that support specific branch libraries.  The Library Foundation of Los Angeles (LFLA) is the umbrella non-profit support organization for the LAPL.  Donations to LFLA benefit the Central Library and its 72 branches; they also support the library’s amazing ALOUD series – the same series that delivered Jonathan Gold to the foodies, John Waters to the quirkies, and Natalie Merchant to the children of the ’90s.  Your donations also fund amazing exhibits like “Forty Years of Sesame Street Illustration.”

So, this is me, trusting you, again.  Thanks for returning that book.   And thanks for investing in the library.

Beautiful photo of a wedding reception at the Central Library courtesy bhampton1963 via the Blogging LA Flickr pool.

This post is part of our Sweet Charity: Blogging LA’s Guide to Giving series, just in time for the holidays.

You may have heard that today is something called [checks notes] “Black Friday.” I quote Wikipedia here:

Black Friday is the day following Thanksgiving Day in the United States, traditionally the beginning of the Christmas shopping season…On this day, many retailers open very early, often at 4 a.m., or earlier, and offer promotional sales to kick off the shopping season.

To me, it sounds like a nightmare, but hey — to each his own.

Why not support your local small businesses by shopping with them tomorrow on the brand new tradition of Small Business Saturday? You know there are many business in your neighborhood that you love and want to keep around.

One of my personal favorites is The Traveler’s Bookcase. They are tiny but carry  so many amazing books — cookbooks, art books, travel guidebooks, travel writing and many awesome accessories for all your travel wants and needs. They may not be able to offer steep discounts, but they will offer personal service and a lovely inviting atmosphere. (Their couch is a comfy place to fantasize about your next adventure.)

Why should you support small businesses? Here are some interesting facts* that I just learned:

• For every $100 spent at local small business, $68 returns to the community.
• Small businesses employ half of all private sector employees.
• Small businesses represent 99.7% of all employer firms.

In these wacky economic times, keeping small businesses in business is more important than ever. If you can, please consider supporting your favorite small businesses this holiday season!

*I learned this on the Small Business Saturday website and you can learn more about the effort there too.

Richard Alexander Caraballo's photo used through Creative Commons

When I conjure the list of people I believe epitomize L.A. in some sense, Jonathan Gold and Bret Easton Ellis are both on that list, but together? Talking?  I admit I hadn’t really considered that. When I saw that the Hammer has them in conversation this Tuesday (tomorrow), I just had to pass it along to you all. I myself am busy or I’d go just because I love L.A., and Gold and Ellis are utterly paradigmatic of the city, each in his own way.

Can you imagine the conversation?

JG: You know, that story about kids snorting coke all night and prostituting themselves reminds me of this amazing coq au vin I had at this little French place on the Westside last month.

BEE: Speaking of cock, let me tell you about the novel I’m working on now…

Seriously, it’s bound to be a great night. (It’s like the sequel to Hank Moody’s stolen novel; this one’s called Fucking and Lunching.) 

Plus, the Hammer events are free, and there’s cheap parking ($3) right underneath the building. If only the gelato place up the street, Piccomolo, hadn’t closed it would be like a perfect evening. Have fun b.la-ers. Let me know how it is.

Rodger Jacobs is a friend of mine. Up until several years ago he lived in Los Angeles blogging at 8763 Wonderland and commenting pretty regularly here at Blogging.la. Then he moved up to San Francisco. After that, Vegas baby where his bloggings can now be found at Bat Country.

It’s been a trip — and mostly not a pleasant one to understate things. A couple months ago he climbed into the Las Vegas Sun and showed everyone how bad things had gotten, and in having that remarkable courage to do so inadvertently proved beyond a troll-stuffed shadow of a doubt that Tennessee Williams’ Blanche Dubois was full of shit. Kindness of strangers, my ass. Fuck ‘em — especially those who commented so vindictively and judgmentally. Line every single self-important hating motherfucking one of ‘em up with me wearing the latest in the Gorton’s Fisherman Fall Line of slickers and a baseball bat. Sa-wing batta!

But I both digress and now can never run for public office without that psycho quote coming back to haunt me. Ohgeedarn.

Behaving far more proactively and nonfeloniously, I did what I could to help keep him in cigarettes for a few days. Beyond that I’ve been sending a shitload of positive-affirming vibes in the direction of Sin City.

So what? Well, bear with me. I prefaced this post with all that because in the midst of all the crap he’s endured and enduring, there’s an incredible new book out that Rodger wrote the preface to called Jack London — San Francisco Stories, edited by Matthew Asprey from Sydney Samizdat Press. Since Rodger gets a little sumpin’ sumpin’ with every copy sold, I bought two. And since I don’t read in stereo I’m giving my spare copy away. I thought about auctioning it off on eBay with the proceeds going to Rodger, or just donating it to my local library branch and encouraging you good people to buy a copy, but in the end I went in between those two options and added it to my Neighborgoods inventory. So if one of you good people want it, be the first to request it. We can either arrange a hand-off or I’ll put it in the mail to you. Simple dimple.