The LA Times Festival of Books offered something for everyone this weekend. The many panels, author interviews and signing booths were exciting for bookish nerds like us. If you weren't into the bookish side of the book festival, however, there was plenty to whet your appetite. Literally. The food court was full of smoked meats and organic treats and live music could be enjoyed from many open plazas on the UCLA campus. There was even......

Incredible detail and artistry can be seen in this giant Koran If old and rare books are your thing, you're in luck this weekend. The 41st California International Antiquarian Book Fair opens at 2pm today and runs through Sunday. Ever wanted a first edition of Raymond Chandler's The Big Sleep? Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451? The first three Harry Potter books? This is your chance! Over 200 exhibitors from all over the globe will be......

I made my way to the yellow covered tents at the far end of the WeHo Book Fair fifteen minutes early, for the panel that had made me cream when I read about it. Moderated by Hilary Carlip, “Cracking Up: Women on the Verge of Laughter” was a discussion with five female writers whose work ostensibly falls under the heading “comedy”: Beth Lapides, Cathryn Michon, Meghan Daum, and Erika Schickel. I’ll be frank –......

It was scorching hot in West Hollywood on Sunday for the West Hollywood Book Fair, much too hot for the heavy, dirty jeans and tight, thick t-shirt I was wearing. I don’t know if it was because of the hangover I was nursing, the fact that I arrived a little late, or just the heat, but at 12pm when I arrived at West Hollywood Park near the Pacific Design Center, I had some trouble......

The LA County Fair comes to end tonight, and if you can't make it or county fairs just aren't your thing, there's plenty of festival happenings today around Los Angeles:Swerve Festival @ Barnsdall Park National Geographic's All Roads Film Festival Feast of San Genaro Italian Festival Abbot Kinney Festival Grand Avenue Festival West Hollywood Book Fair Just Lives Festival Santa Clarita Street Arts Festival Polska Parafia Bazaar SGV Greek Festival Nigerian Independence Day Celebration......

Autumn is upon us and here in LA we are harvesting art, music, and mayhem. For whatever reason, it seems that this is the busiest festival weekend of the year, with something for all ages, in all corners of LA, and all times of day and night. If ever there was a weekend to clone yourself and be everywhere at once, this would be it. Jump right in. Swerve Festival: This looks to be......

The West Hollywood Book Fair, now in it's sixth year, will take over West Hollywood Park this Sunday from 10am - 6pm. We like to think of the WeHo book fair as the calmer, cooler cousin to the LA Times Festival of Books - great authors, excellent panels, live readings and good food - but much easier to navigate. As with any festival, planning the who/what/when is key...especially when trying to pack it all into......

Monday Bjorn Lomborg presents Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming 7pm @ Central Library Terry Pratchett presents Making Money 7pm @ Borders, Torrance Randall Robinson presents An Unbroken Agony 7pm @ EsoWon Books Tuesday Carol Muske-Dukes presents Channeling Mark Twain 7pm @ Vroman's Cathy Malkasian presents Percy Gloom 7pm @ Book Soup Gilbert Hernandez presents Chance in Hell 7pm @ Book Soup Leslie Garis signs House of Happy Endings 7pm @......

We've covered the LA Times Book Prize nominees for the past few weeks and quietly rooted for our picks. The winners, announced at the annual hob-nob affair on Friday night, surprised us. We highlighted our picks weeks ago. What more did the committee have to do other than - you know - pick them? To wit: Biography We said Daniel Mendelsohn for The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (Daniel freaking Mendelsohn, the......

Saturday’s “The Future of News” panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books was quite a raucous event. Panelists were James Taranto, editor of the Wall Street Journal’s opinion website, ABC News political analyst Mark Halperin and Times editor James O’Shea (whose introduction met with hisses and boos). The discussion was moderated by Marjorie Miller from the Times, who opened with the comforting observation that ”we don’t really have a clue about the......

Saturday’s “New Media: Blogging and Beyond” panel at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books found bloggers Hugh Hewitt (pictured), Kevin Roderick and Jill Leovy deliberating over the merits of print vs. e-media. The panel was moderated by RJ Smith, a senior editor at Los Angeles magazine. “I got into it because I hate editors,” said Hewitt, blogger at HughHewitt.com and author of Blog: Understanding the Information Reformation That is Changing Your World. “Blogging......

After a packed day of panels and Organic To Go food, we're looking forward to Sunday's LA Times Book Festival offerings. Here's why: Food Situation: Bountiful. If there weren't so many book booths and authors running about, we'd think this was a cooking festival. Your food choices are endless and several food courts are setup all over campus so you'll never have to utter the painful festival sentence:"Where is the food?" It's everywhere! Line Situation:......

If you aren't going to Coachella this weekend and somehow think that attending the LA Times Festival of Books requires less planning...well, you may be right. But only by the smallest of margins. The festival keeps growing and this year may be the largest with 400 authors, 300 exhibit booths, 6 outdoor stages and 97 hour-long panels featuring some of the quirkiest minds in the country. What does this mean for you? In the words......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Beautiful Fall is a nominee in Current Interest. In 1954, two fledgling fashion......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley......

by Kathleen Bishop It’s easy to get sucked into Jonathan Green’s novel An Abundance of Katherines for selfish reasons: Protagonist Colin Singleton develops a mathematical formula to predict the outcome of any relationship. We'll be honest: LAist hoped it would work. Yeah, it’s a sad state of affairs when adults find themselves referencing young adult fiction for advice about their love lives, but Green’s story and characters are honest and clever enough that you probably......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party......

We were a bit apprehensive – OK dreading – reviewing Janis Cooke Newman’s Mary: A Novel (MacAdam/Cage) when it first arrived at our doorstep. It had everything going against it – not only did it weigh in at three pounds and a hefty 707 pages, it was also a work of historical fiction (read: 50-50 shot of being boring) about Mrs. Abraham Lincoln. But Newman’s first novel – she also authored the memoir The......

The panel schedules are now up for the LA Times Festival of Books. What does this mean? It means you have 25 days to figure out which writers, speakers, bloggers, agents and personalities you would like to see before the free tickets become available at noon on Sunday, April 22nd at all Ticketmaster locations. Then, on April 22nd, you must sprint to the nearest ticket provider and snap up the tickets for the panels you've......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Lost is a nominee in Biography. In any family, the stories that are only......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher by Debby Applegate......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. Black Swan Green is a Fiction nominee. David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green is a departure......

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. Black Swan Green by David Mitchell – A smaller tome than Mitchell’s fans are used......

Google has unveiled a new Web site dedicated to literacy. It's an online resource for teachers, literacy organizations and anyone else who might be interested in finding books online, promoting literacy and education at all age levels. Titled The Literacy Project, the site was set up through an agreement with UNESCO’s Institute for Lifelong Learning and LitCam, the Frankfurt Book Fair literacy campaign. The site provides users access to literacy resources from around the......

At LAist, we believe in literacy and we believe in the power of the printed word. And, we love books. If you feel the same way and want to meet others who share your feelings, head on over to the West Hollywood Book Fair tomorrow. From the official site: Join more than 300 authors, 100 exhibitors, and 25,000 guests at the 5th Annual West Hollywood Book Fair. This year’s Book Fair will include an......

Hillary Carlip is a handful. She's an author, juggler, entertainer, and all around prankster. She's just published "Queen of the Oddballs," her memoir about about growing up at celebrity's edge in Hollywood. Independent booksellers selected the book as their Book Sense Pick for May. Hillary is also a familiar web presence. Two years ago, she started the FRESH YARN literary website, the first online salon for personal essays. The site resumes its publishing schedule......

The West Hollywood "Fall Into Reading" Book Fair is this Sunday on October 3rd. Avid readers can visit with their favorite local and national authors at West Hollywood Park, 647 N. San Vincente Boulevard from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. The event has attracted a pretty heady mix of talent for a one-day schedule: Local author Nichelle Tramble, will be in conversation with Susan Straight on the "Blurred Reality" panel at 3:30 PM. Actresses......