LA-based food writer Jeanne Kelley knows her way around a recipe (she develops them for Bon Appétit) and knows how to present food in its most glorious state (she's a food stylist) - so it should be no surprise that her just-out cookbook, Blue Eggs and Yellow Tomatoes: Recipes from a Modern Kitchen Garden, perfectly combines these talents. more ›

Hint to recent grads or those about to graduate soon: While your well-intentioned friends and family will inevitably give you books like Oh, the Places You'll Go! and How to Win Friends to ready you for the real world, you might want to add Megan Hustad’s How to Be Useful: A Beginner's Guide to Not Hating Work to your summer reading. more ›

We don’t know about you, but Sunday mornings are about sleeping in, getting breakfast late, then scurrying back home to read the LA Times from the comfort of your unmade bed. When you read the Times on Sunday, there are many things you get – Comics, Current, Parade, West. Those trifles we could take or leave. Really. What gets us going is the blessed, blessed Book Review section. We have come to count on this little gem every week. more ›

Spring is less than 7 days away. What better way to greet the new season's arrival than to focus on the Fallen Fruit Project, which distributes maps of places where people can pick free fruit throughout Los Angeles. The collective also hosts foraging sorties. You can check their website for info on upcoming sorties and maps. more ›

Last night author Paul Auster (right) sat down with LA Times Book Review editor David Ulin at the Writers Bloc reading series. They talked a lot about process — after having a cup of tea, Auster goes to an apartment to write, picking up a tuna sandwich along the way — that writing is a lot of work and actually quite boring. Aspiring authors love to hear about how successful writers write, and the audience ate it up. more ›

Mark Sarvas has championed local reading series, excoriated the LA Times Book Review, and tirelessly blogged about all things literary on his site The Elegant Variation. With its smart writing, frequent updates and splashes of wicked humor, it has become required daily reading — for both Angelenos and folks in the Big Established Publishing World in NY. He is also a founding member of the LitBlog Co-Op (more about that below), which announced its latest book recommendation — Garner by Kirstin Allio — today. Mark has helped raise LA's literary profile, reminding the rest of the world that we're not just about breast implants and lunch at The Ivy. more ›

FRIDAY more ›

Guests include Gil Maurer, former president of Hearst Magazines and winner of the Henry Johnson Fisher award for distinguished service to the magazine industry; Eric Nakamura and Martin Wong, the founders and co-editors of "Giant Robot;" and Steve Wasserman, who has been the editor of "The Los Angeles Times Book Review" since 1996. more ›

Sarvas pretty much echos our feelings about Wasserman's editorship of the section. He writes:

Now, since Wasserman's apparently only "likely leaving", we'd like to urge Wasserman in the strongest possible terms to follow your impulses and skeddadle. We'll even help you pack your books. Really, the door's that way. more ›

Sontag died at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City..." more ›

Anyone can tell you what's wrong with Los Angeles and its surrounding areas, but few can clearly articulate what's right, magical and true about this place as well as Lawrence Weschler does in his 1998 . more ›

LA Observed shares the frustrations of blogger Lee Watters, as he struggles with the inoperable Calendar Live registration system. A VERY BRAVE LA Times.com web developer wades into the LA Observed comments section, faces readers' wrath and vents a few frustrations of his own. more ›