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......

KNX1070 is reporting that "a police manhunt is ongoing West of a Washington Mutual bank at Ventura and Topanga Canyon in Woodland Hills. Authorities are searching for two armed kidnapping suspects." Things were something close to touch-and-go late this afternoon on the Blue Line near 5501 S Long Beach Ave when a female pedestrian fell near the tracks as a train passed by, but did not have any direct contact with the train itself.......

If you see folks walking around with some dirt on their foreheads today, they proabably did it on purpose. It is Ash Wednesday, where Christians are supposed to fast, pray, repent after the debauchery of Mardi Gras and (Super Tuesday). So here' are a few debauch-free events for tonight: WORDS The ALOUD series continues with John Burnham Schwartz, author of Reservation Road, who talks about his new novel set in 1959 Japan where a non-aristocratic......

'Santa Monica Subway: Alternative 4' is one of the 17 routes presented by Metro Last night, a packed room of community members at LACMA listened attentively to Metro present nineteen options to serve the Westside. This first in a series of three public input meetings (two more meetings next week) was exciting -- wheels are in motion to get Los Angeles moving, even if that reality be around ten years from now. One of......

Last week Monday, Metro released a series of service enhancements and additions including the new Gold Line schedule. In the additions bucket came two new Metro Rapid lines, both starting in Downtown. The 728 runs between Downtown and Century City, mostly along Olympic Blvd. A ride review by Wad at MetroRiderLA finds that the busy thoroughfare "has a cross-cultural crosstown aspect" as it runs through Central American community of Pico-Union, Koreatown, Little Ethiopia, South Carthay......

Could you imagine Los Angeles without the Getty Museum? If that serene white chunk of Italian marble nestled above the 405 suddenly removed its bulk to some other parts, would you notice? Would you care? An article in yesterday morning's LA Times reconsiders the Richard Meier-designed edifice in the light of its 10th anniversary, and in doing so, asks some important questions about the nature and integrity of architecture in Los Angeles. "there is......

Monday Maggie Nelson presents The Red Parts: A Memoir 7pm @ Pomona College, Claremont Rich Eisen presents Total Access 7pm @ Book Soup Sue Grafton signs T is for Trespass 7:30pm @ Barnes & Noble, 3rd Street Promenade Tuesday Sue Grafton signs T is for Trespass 6pm @ Vroman's Steve Schapiro presents Schapiro's Heroes 7pm @ Book Soup Christine Pelosi presents Campaign Book Camp 7pm @ Book Soup Deborah Landis presents Dressed: A Century......

Back in July, LAist and you, our dear readers, had some fun with Walk Score, a site that lets you punch in your address and spits out a walkability score for your neighborhood. Some Los Angeles neighborhoods earned a very respectable "walkers paradise" rating and some just plain sucked (that's what you get when you live on Quakertown Ave. in the northwest Valley). A recent Brookings Institute study finds that Los Angeles ranks 12th......

There is nothing like combining fashion and philanthropy. Tomorrow night, the Los Angeles flagship store for Martin & Osa is have a launch party for the opening of their store in Century City. The stylish fashion company has generously donated $5,000 to Step Up Women's Network and the event will feature shopping (optional), cocktails and bites, and time to mingle with friends and to meet new people. While Step Up Women's Network is for......

A new blog has appeared on the blogLAsphere called ditch the car, take the metro and blogger, John, has created, revised and tweaked his idea on LA's future subway transit. "My LA subway plan is based upon latent but unrealized relationships that organize Los Angeles," he explains in an early post. "The core of the system is built upon two parallel corridors (the Red and the Purple Lines) connecting three central business districts (Downtown,......

Monday Dave Isay, from StoryCorps, presents Listening Is an Act of Love 7pm @ Vroman's Johan Lehrer presents Proust Was a Neuroscientist 7pm @ Dutton's Nigella Lawson presents The Domestic Goddess 7pm Borders, Torrance Tom Brokaw presents Boom! Voices of the Sixties 7:30pm @ Temple Emanuel Tuesday Clive Barker presents Mister B. Gone 7pm @ Vroman's Gregory Rodriguez presents Mongrels, Bastards, Orphans & Vagabonds 7pm @ Central Library Susanne Daniels presents Season Finale 7pm @......

I love, love, LOVE hole in the wall ethnic food. I love the feeling of stumbling across a great little restaurant with passionate people working there to feed the locals. I also love finding a restaurant that has its own soul and unique take on a culture's food. Melanee Thai near Century City is the perfect example of the hole in the wall with its own voice. I had the great fortune of meeting......

North County just can't catch a break lately: another fatal freeway pileup near Antelope Valley today, this one involving eight vehicles and at least one fatality. The freeway has been closed in both directions. Things Not Worth Beating Someone With a Hammer For: six dollars? A group of males accosted and hammered a man in Canoga Park last night; then they blew the cash on penny candy and stamps. Not really, but six bucks??......

Monday Porochista Khakpour presents Sons and Other Flammable Objects 7pm @ Dutton's Kenneth Turan presents Never Coming to a Theater Near You 7pm @ Studio City Branch Library Tuesday Susan Faludi presents The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America 7pm @ Central Library Max Brooks presents World War Z 7pm @ Book Soup Walter Mosley presents Blonde Faith 7:30pm @ Skirball Cultural Center President Vicente Fox discusses and signs Revolution of Hope......

An "Eater LA" reader reveals just how wrong San Francisco Chronicle critic Michael Bauer still is. Police officials revealed details of the Burbank shooting rampage that led to the deaths of three people. Good news public transit fans: local officials broke ground on a $640-million project that will include eight new Expo Line stations. Catch legendary comics writer Peter Bagge (of Hate, MAD and Weirdo Magazine fame) at the Secret Headquarters tonight (did I......

Monday Gordy Slack presents The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Kimberlee Auerbach presents The Devil, The Lovers and Me: My Life in Tarot 7pm @ Book Soup Gregg Hurwitz presents The Crime Writer 7pm @ Borders, Century City Kirk Douglas presents Let's Face It 7:30pm @ Barnes & Noble, Encino Wednesday Laurie Viera Rigler presents Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict 7pm @ Vroman's Helen Gilbert presents Okay Girls,......

Stevie Wonder will hit the road this month for a 13 city U.S. tour. The man who just called to say I love you will kick off his tour, dubbed "Wonder's Summer Night," in San Diego at Humphrey's on August 23. Wonder announced the details of the tour Thursday afternoon at a press conferenced in Century City. Those who were lucky enough to be in Century City this afternoon were treated to a mini-concert from......

Earlier this year, International Creative Management (ICM) and Creative Artists Agency (CAA) moved their offices from Beverly HIlls to within the city limits of Los Angeles in Century City. Score one for LA where expensive high power lunches turn in to tax revenue for city coffers (we're talking "a side of assorted mushrooms sells for $21 and a Wagyu rib-eye costs $98"). One problem though, Century City choices were slim for Hollywood agents: The......

Photo by Lisa Brenner Taken on Galaxy Way in Century City......

Last night's free Zocalo program at the Central Library featured L.A. Weekly food writer Jonathan Gold in conversation with Variety's Monica Corcoran. Her first question: Did winning the Pulitzer Prize (for criticism, this year) blow your cover as an anonymous food critic? And if so, this evening won't help, will it? Gold sheepishly admitted that he can no longer be quite so anonymous. He went on to talk about topics ranging from the opening......

- Jonathan Gold pays tribute to the late, great Al Langer in this week's LA Weekly. - Losanjealous interviews Palms Thai's Thai Elvis: um, does he put fish sauce on his peanut-butter and banana sandwiches? -EaterLA is totally representing our Tom Colicchio obsession; here they're peepin' on the continued progress of Craft over in Century City. - Go see Rescue Dawn: and sneak in a bottle of Baron Herzog wine in honor of the......

Universal City, CA - Announced last fall, it is supposed to be the Century City of the Valley. And according to a group named The NBC Universal MTA Project Working Group (a coalition of the surrounding community organizations), it will have 1.47 million square feet of new commercial and residential space, office towers (up to 24 stories tall), a 34 story (445 feet tall) condominium & hotel tower. They also contend that there will......

A late lunch at the Century City Mall’s Bread Bar proved quite refreshing. It’s Friday of Memorial Day Weekend and everything is jammed, but Bread Bar was pretty empty and we got seated right away. We ordered iced teas, a ham sandwich and some chicken soup. Everything was really good. I’ve heard that the salads come a little under-breaded for a place called the Bread Bar, and indeed, most of them seemed to come......

Monday Nathan Englander discusses The Ministry of Special Cases 7pm @ Central Library Nassim Assefi presents Aria 7pm @ Dutton's Bill Bryan presents Keep It Real 7pm @ Book Soup Carolyn See signs There Will Never Be Another You 7pm @ Platt Branch Library Tuesday Antoine Wilson presents The Interloper 7pm @ Dutton's Bruce Dern presents Things I've Said, But Probably Shouldn't Have 7pm @ Book Soup Helena Maria Viramontes & Manuel Munoz discuss......

When my best friend Becky called me two weeks ago and asked if I wanted to go with her and our friend Bethany to the 20th anniversary screening of Dirty Dancing I almost hung up the phone on her. Becky’s known me since we were nine and I couldn’t believe she even had to ask. Duh. Of course I want to go. How did I not know about this before? There we were, on a......

Here are a few spots for eats and drinks that we are looking forward to seeing open: 1. We were very excited to pass on to you that last month was National Grilled Cheese Month, and now we're gearing up for the impending opening of Culver City's Meltdown, which is a (mostly) grilled cheese eatery that's slated to open as early as this week. Their menu, which is available online, looks like an ooey-gooey......

People talk shit about our local paper. Sometimes we're the ones talking shit. But every day there's gotta be ten things that you can learn from the Times. Right? 1. Houston's in Century City doesn't do reservations but accepts "call ins". 2. Rancho Cucamonga's mayor was once a heroin addict. 3. The Times uses Wikipedia as one of its sources. 4. Two people arguing at a Laguna Beach resort were shot and killed by......

Monday T.C. Boyle reads and chats with David Ulin 7pm @ Mark Taper Forum Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack present Literacy and Longing in L.A. 7pm @ Studio Branch Library Denise Hamilton & contributors signs Los Angeles Noir 7pm @ Borders Torrance Pat Montandon discusses Oh, the Hell of It All 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Barry Glassner discusses The Gospel of Food 7pm @ Central Library Kirk Douglas signs Let's Face It 7pm @......

To promote their new series "Drive", Fox is giving away free gasoline at the Unocal 76 at the corner of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Blvd. near the mall in Century City. Don't get fooled by the old Google satellite image that shows SM Blvd. before they improved the roads. This is the 76 across the street from the Walgreens (formerly the charming Santa Glen Market) and two blocks away from the McDonald's. LAist......

In Britney news... Britney got caught up in a real life gun drama today - Metro And she reportedly checked back into the Century City hospital this evening - X17 In other news... Joel Madden defends his break up skills - People Rose McGowan tries to color coordinate her cast at the Grindhouse premiere - Page Six How can anyone go from dating Matthew McConaughey (dreamy sigh) to Josh Hartnett, I mean seriously - Star......