It’s true…I’m such a fan of Chuck Palahniuk that even if he squatted over my open mouth and deposited a chocolate, cigar-shaped, sewer serpent into my open mouth, I’d exclaim, “Thank you sir, may I have another.” with a literal shit eating grin emblazoned across my face. Luckily, for me, the new novel, “Rant” from “Fight Club” author, Chuck Palahniuk is far from stinky turd level. It’s more like a chicken pot pie served to......

From time to time, LAist will take a look at the many book-to-film projects underway in Hollywood. We'll explore the books we love and why we're over-the-moon excited or just plain worried about the film projects that bear their name. When it was announced a few weeks ago that Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson were teaming up to make a film out of Alice Sebold's outstanding The Lovely Bones, we wondered if they'd make it......

Monday Chuck Palahniuk presents Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey 6:30pm @ Vroman's Tony Cohan signs Mexican Days 7pm @ Dutton's Donna Hogan (Anna Nicole's Sister) presents The Life and Death of Anna Nicole Smith 7pm @ Book Soup Rick Riordan signs The Titan's Curse 7pm @ Borders, Torrance Joan Didion discusses The Year of Magical Thinking 8pm @ Music Center Tuesday Tish Cohen & Rex Pickett present Town House 7pm @ Book......

If you see Jennifer Love Hewitt today, wish her a happy birthday; she turns 27. And she's not the only one celebrating. Charlotte Church, the little "voice of an angel" soprano, turns 20. Musician Mark Arm from Mudhoney turns 44 and Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads will be (yikes) 57. This was Nina Simone's birthday too, but she's not around anymore for someone to put a little sugar in her bowl. Another gone but......

Saturday, May 21st • 8:00 pm : Selected Shorts: The Love Story Weekend--Marital Matters at the Getty Center • 11:00 am : ArtsDay panels at UCLA Extension • 4:00 pm : LACC Creative Writing Content Winners read works • 7:30 pm : Alicia Erian reads her book "Towelhead" • 7:30 pm : lecture on "Artist & the City as Social Imagination" at Villa Aurora •8:00 pm: Cinespia presents "The Bad and the Beautiful" at......