Dark Downtown Tunnel | Photo by ericcastro via Flickr Tuesday Laura Dave presents and signs The Divorce Party 7pm @ Book Soup Garth Stein discusses and signs The Art of Racing in the Rain 7pm @ Vroman's Alix Strauss presents Have I Got a Guy for You 7pm @ Borders, Hollywood Preeta Samsarasan presents Evening is the Whole Day 7:30pm @ Borders, The Grove Gary Panter discusses Gary Panter with Matt Groening 7:30pm @......

New Mural near La Brea & Melrose. Learn more about the artwork here | Photo by bumblebee via Flickr Monday Mark Sarvas discusses and signs Harry, Revised 7pm @ Vroman's Mike Farrell presents Just Call Me Mike 7pm @ Book Soup Tuesday Brian May presents Bang! The Complete History of the Universe 4pm @ Book Soup Millard Kaufman discusses Bowl of Cherries 7pm @ Central Library Adam Novak presents The Non-Pro 7pm @ Book......

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......

Colorful milk crates on Formosa Ave. | Photo by pink_fish13 via Flickr Monday Keith Gessen presents All the Sad Young Literary Men 5:30pm @ Vroman's Tobias Wolff discusses Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories with David Ulin 7pm @ Central Library Christophe Blain presents Isaac the Pirate 7pm @ Book Soup Baron R. Birtcher presents Angels Fall 7pm @ Vroman's John Landis signs his John Landis 7pm @ Borders, Santa Monica Tuesday Lydia......

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......

This week Oprah takes on Osama. If you're thinking the Queen of Daytime might bring something soft and fuzzy to the table, no way. She's not telling Osama to keep a dream journal. She's going hard news, for two whole episodes. In fact, she's fearmongering up a storm: What should you be worried about? she demands. Meet the man who met Osama Bin Laden! How vulnerable are we to another attack?!? OMG, is the......

Apparently this city really loves its awards shows and the sinister underbelly of The Cos. LAist had one of its biggest weeks yet and for that we say, "thank you." Hopefully, next week, some former child actor will hijack an orange line bus and we can continue appealing to the masses. - Did you like our Golden Globes coverage or just want to know more about Drew Barrymore's freedom orbs? - If Buffy the......

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......

LAist chatted with Kevin Smokler a few weeks ago about his new book, Bookmark Now, and now you've got the chance to do so as well. If you didn't catch him last night at Skylight Books, you can hang with him and Lynn Isenberg and maybe some of us -isters (ed. note -- mainly me) tonight at Book Soup. The word nerd party starts at 7 PM. Kevin will also be hanging with Carolyn......

After an exhausting — and possibly soggy — day at the LA Times Festival of Books tomorrow, literati of the most fun persuasion will be heading to Chinatown for the Vermin on the Mount reading series. Held at the Mountain Bar, this Vermin is co-produced by Swink Magazine, and promises to be both liquor- and literature-friendly. Readers coming in from afar include poet Alex Lemon, Steve Almond (My Life in Heavy Metal), and litblogger......

Martini Republic points out that the LA Times "scooped the blogosphere" in announcing the launch of The Litblog Co-Op. The Litblog is the brainchild of Mark Sarvas who runs the LA Based blog, Elegant Variation. More interesting to us than the Times beating most of us to the punch on this story is that the web version of Scott Martelle's article actually includes a hotlink to the LBC. That's the first time we've seen......

Over at the TEV book blog, Mark Sarvas spreads the rumor from Publishers Weekly that Steve Wasserman, the Los Angeles Times Book Review editor, may be leaving. 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......

Lots of aural and literary treats available today as we experience a break in the rainy weather: Listen to Mark Sarvas of The Elegant Variation at 4:30 today on killradio. Description: Pinky's Paperhaus features authors playing guest DJ. Famed sound editor Walter Murch converses with Charles Koppleman about his new book, "Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple's Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema" The title says......

Local author Mark Sarvas's literary blog, The Elegant Variation, reminds us that Los Angeles City Beat takes a short and shallow look at the L.A. Literary scene in two pieces: one on local readings and another on the two new LA-based literary journals (does 2 journals make a “scene”?) that focus (for the most part) on voices from Southern California. Apparently, we owe this bounty to McSweeney’s success. L.A.'s long-neglected literary scene is due......