Any Angeleno worth their salt knows this city can be both bright and happy or sinister and dark by quick turns or subtle steps or shameless spirals. There is much to celebrate about LA and much to shy away from - which makes it the ideal city-as-character in many a writer's novel. A few new books are out that feature LA and they're on our radar to check out this month. Latinos in Lotusland: An......

There are many staple travel books to have on your shelf if you live in Los Angeles. There's 60 Hikes within 60 Miles for the outdoor adventure inclined. For those who want to stay a little closer to home, Erin Mahoney's Walking LA is a fun one (related, Mahoney owns Chill Out LA, a spa, beauty, yoga and pilates site and e-mail newsletter, which just relaunched with a new design last month). And today, from......

You can find former baseball player Jose Canseco signing copies of his latest book Vindicated today at Costco in Van Nuys Jose Canseco's first book, Juiced: Wild Times, Rampant 'Roids, Smash Hits & How Baseball Got Big was called "the worst sports book so far in three centuries" by the LA Times. Harsh words like this didn't stop Canseco's tell-all tome from opening at number three on USA Today's bestsellers list and impacting Major......

Some of our favorite independent bookstores in LA (Skylight Books, Vroman's, Diesel, Book Soup) have been targeted by scammers claiming to be some of our favorite writers. Here's how it works: a would-be writer calls a bookstore (impersonating a writer who has a scheduled store appearance in the next few hours or days), complains of car trouble, and asks to have cash wired to them immediately to avert their made-up crisis. These pranksters have impersonated......

Photo by sheilaellen via Flickr. The Los Angeles Public Library is under pressure from Mayor Villaraigosa and the City Council to cut spending and raise fees to help decrease LA's $400 million budget deficit. If the budget goes through unchanged on May 1, drastic cuts would force eight regional branch libraries to close their doors on Sundays, the book buying budget would be slashed by $2 million and library staff may be subject to......

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......

Yes, it's Monday and with an event like LACMA's upcoming Art Book Swap there is yet another reason to look forward to the weekend. Working in conjunction with Regency Arts Press Ltd. and the New Art Dealers Alliance, the museum has arranged for art books to be donated by stores, libraries, publishing houses, galleries and many others. The fun thing is you bring your old books in and trade for the gifted items or swap......

Celebrate your weekend. | Photo by ronnie44052 via Flickr Not everyone is going to Coachella this weekend. For those who choose to stay put in Los Angeles, the city is literally filled with events this weekend: AltBuild Expo at SaMo Civic Auditorium: an eco-friendy building & design expo LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA: a must see & do Fiesta Broadway at Downtown: party!......

Photo of inside Acres of Books by LWY via Flickr Ray Bradbury once called Long Beach's Acres of Books "a labyrinth, a tomb, a catacomb, a maze," and "a watering hole" of bookish treasures. The store, founded in 1934 by Bertrand Smith, has spanned over an acre of land at its Long Beach Boulevard storefront since 1960. But now "owners Phil and Jackie Smith have agreed to sell the 12,000-square-foot lot for about $2.8......

Because George Harrison was my favorite Beatle, I devoured Wonderful Tonight: George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me, a memoir by his first wife Pattie Boyd (of whom I confess I was, in my Beatle phase, horribly jealous) within days of its publication last year. Since recovering from her marriages, Pattie has become known as a photographer. This Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m., a show of her photographs opens at the Morrison Hotel Gallery......

The weekend of April 26 is more than a month out, but one of the coolest festivals in this city has recently launched their updated schedule for this year's literary fête -- the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. The event, which is the same weekend as Coachella, is full of panels, stage readings, booksellers, publishers and literary organizations. It costs to get into Tickets with a nominal fee of 75-cents are needed for the......

Photo by Clinton Steeds via Flickr While many mourn the loss of stalwart indie bookshops like Dutton's, many may want to celebrate the fact that LA (County, at least) is home to the nation's best bookstore, as deemed by Publisher's Weekly. Pasadena's 114-year-old Vroman's has been given the top spot, and is thriving in its Colorado Boulevard home, with no signs of falling prey to the big box bookstores and online buying. Now their staff......

The architecture of certain California homes reflect the golden optimism of the area's Edenic-period of growth and heightened romanticism. Sky-high ceilings take your breath away, while omnipresent beams of warm sunlight bathe tiled floors and stuccoed walls. Twenty homes in Southern California are photographed and honored in a coffee table book assembled and created by legendary actress Diane Keaton. California Romantica was released late last year from Rizzoli; the weighty tome features the photographs of......

Shadow & Light in Little Tokyo | Photo by pink_fish13 via LAist's Featured Photos pool on Flickr. Monday Jeremy D. Popkin presents Facing Racial Revolution 7pm @ Dutton's Tuesday Alan Corey presents A Million Bucks by 30 7pm @ Book Soup Christopher Rice presents Blind Fall 7pm @ Borders, West Hollywood Wednesday Milo Martin presents Poems for a Utopian Nihilist 7pm @ Book Soup Leslie Lehr presents Wife Goes On 7pm @ Dutton's Josh......

Sherman Oaks and South LA made national news yesterday when a Los Angeles native, now based in Oregon, became the latest decried author who penned a fraudulent memoir. Yes, Margaret Seltzer grew up in the Valley, no Margaret B. Jones (her non de plume) did not gangbang in South Central as her book said. Today, the fallout came in the form of experts giving quotes to the media about this reoccurring theme. What first comes......

A 33-year-old white woman from Sherman Oaks, now living in Eugene, Oregon, has made national headlines today as news comes that her memoir was largely fabricated. Last week, Margaret Seltzer who goes by the pen name Margaret B. Jones was featured in the New York Times' Home & Garden section in a fascinating story about her book, "Love and Consequences." One LAist reader explains her fascination about it in an e-mail: I read the home......

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is always kicked off by a ceremony that awards one book in each key category with a Book Prize. The nominees in each category were just announced and we're both thrilled and a tad flummoxed by some of their picks, listed below. We're mostly pleased to see that the usual suspects, who have made up every other book awards list this year, are noticeably absent. This list doesn't......

Many LAist staffers, contributors and readers were deeply troubled by the news of Dutton's closure. We all have a favorite memory of Dutton's - a particular book we discovered there, an admired author we met at a reading, a certain afternoon spent browsing. We'd like to honor the many unique memories of Dutton's that we all share with a series of posts about what Dutton's meant to us and what it meant to you. Our......

Photo by Peggy Archer via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr 60-year-old Kazuyoshi Miura "was arrested Friday while visiting Saipan, a U.S. commonwealth territory in the Pacific" for the murder of his wife, which took place in Los Angeles in 1981. Miura is awaiting extradition. The LA Times takes a look at two major Downtown projects that remain delayed, Park Fifth and Grand Avenue. Financing woes and pushed back start dates have led......

One of the most enjoyable aspects of celebrity fashion is what I’ll call the superiority factor. You know, the sneering satisfaction that you or I can take in seeing someone who has all the money and fashion consultants in the world and still looks like they got dressed in a lightless closet stocked with Salvation Army rejects. On Oscar Sunday, your television screen will offer the best opportunity to see which stars haven’t gotten......

The list of reasons for using public transportation just keeps growing: saving energy, protecting our environment, having fewer traffic jams. Now Bay Area commuters have an even bigger incentive to ride public transportation. The Contra Costa County Library has begun a partnership with Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) to provide an automated book “vending machine” for its patrons. The new “Library A Go Go” machines will appear first in county BART stations in April, then......

One of L.A.'s most unique and important centers for poetry, literature, and art, the non-profit center Beyond Baroque, may be in danger of losing its lease. According to an email sent out by the group's Board of Trustees, City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo would like to begin the auction process for the building, offering it up for other non-profits to bid on. City Councilman Bill Rosendahl had promised to extend Beyond Baroque's lease for another......

Monday Michael Pollan and Barry Glassner discuss In Defense of Food 7pm @ Central Library Cindy Pierce and Edie Thys Morgan presents Finding the Doorbell 7pm @ Book Soup Tuesday Traci Slatton presents Immortal 6:30pm @ Metropolis Books Joe McGinniss and special guest Bret Easton Ellis present The Delivery Man 7pm @ Book Soup Terri Cheney discusses and signs Manic: A Memoir 7pm @ Vroman's Gary Goldberg presents Sit, Ubu, Sit 7pm @ Dutton's......

Since February is Black History month, we asked our friends at Eso Won Books in Leimert Park to recommend ten history books that would provide a balanced overview of black history, filling in any gaps in the American educational system. Included are a number of books that specifically focus on the history of African-Americans in Los Angeles. Before the Mayflower Lerone Bennett "The black experience in America--starting from its origins in western Africa up to......

We've all been through our share of love-related misery, but probably most of us can look back on our teen years as the most horrific of them all, from unrequited love, tumultuous off-and-on romances, first times, moral dilemmas, and passionate moments amplified by the pure drama of adolescence. This is precisely what the folks from Mortified bring to their readers in their second book, Love is a Battlefield, assembled by Mortified guru and editor David......

The man, the legend, the writer who puts himself in crazy situations to get the best material, will read from his new book, Riding Toward Everywhere, at Book Soup tonight @ 7pm. Marc Weingarten for the LA Times says it best: "As one of our more intrepid cultural interpreters, William T. Vollmann has traveled with the mujahedin in Afghanistan, smoked crack with hookers and camped out at the North Pole. So it's not surprising to......

Deadspin's Will Leitch will be signing copies of his new book, God Save the Fan tonight at Book Soup Will Leitch, Deadspin editor, New York Times contributor, and author is in Los Angeles today presenting and signing copies of his new book God Save the Fan: How Preening Sportscasters, Athletes Who Speak in the Third Person, and the Occasional Convicted Quarterback Have Taken the Fun Out of Sports (And How We Can Get It......

LA readings and book signings around town for January 28th - Februar 3rd including Judith Freeman, Ron Jeremy, Tamara Jenkins, Mary McNamara, Sam Jones and Tom Dolby....

LAist recently got the opportunity to sit down with Marc Canter, author of "Reckless Road; Guns n' Roses and the Making of Appetite for Destruction." Not only is he still best friends with Slash, but his family owns the infamous Canter's Deli on Fairfax. Over a cup of coffee and some delicious treats from the bakery, we talked with Marc for almost three hours about L.A. in the 80's, his amazing collection of memorabilia,......

Monday No bookish events on Mr. King's Day. Tuesday John Densmore of The Doors, Jim Henke and John McDermott present The Jim Morrison Scrapbook and Jimi Hendrix: An Illustrated Experience 7pm @ Book Soup Wednesday Sudhir Venkatesh presents Gang Leader for a Day 7pm @ Vroman's E. Duke Vincent presents Black Widow 7pm @ Book Soup Robert Novak presentsThe Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington 7pm @ Glendale Public Library Thursday Steve......