I made my way to the yellow covered tents at the far end of the WeHo Book Fair fifteen minutes early, for the panel that had made me cream when I read about it. Moderated by Hilary Carlip, “Cracking Up: Women on the Verge of Laughter” was a discussion with five female writers whose work ostensibly falls under the heading “comedy”: Beth Lapides, Cathryn Michon, Meghan Daum, and Erika Schickel. I’ll be frank –......

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......

A sassy group of women have contributed essays to the book The May Queen: Women on Life, Love, Work & Pulling it All Together in Your 30s and a passel of them will be in one place tonight. Actually, two places. First, at 7pm, head to Dutton's Brentwood for readings from the book and a panel discussion, which is sure to be lively, since Meghan Daum (who writes for the LA Times) and Erin......

Howard Stern signed off broadcast radio Friday and is taking a 2-week vacation before doing his thing, FCC-free, on Sirius satellite radio. We aren't regular listeners, but the LA Times' Meghan Daum, who says she flips back and forth between NPR and Stern in the mornings, sure appreciates him. When we wrote about Stern's decision to jump to Sirius in 2004, one LAist reader was skeptical about the company lasting this long. Well, stranger......