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......

After the odd news that broke this morning about the verboten action of snapping photos in Disneyland parking lots, more news comes out of the House of Mouse today -- in the form of transportation. Ray Bradbury may want a monorail in Los Angeles, but Disney is the only place you'll actually get some one-on-one action with it. And beginning Friday, "the first new monorail car in two decades — called the Monorail Red or......

Chris Burden's Urban Light | Photo by pink_fish13 from the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr Monday Steve Tolz presents A Fraction of the Whole 7pm @ Book Soup Lisa McKay presents My Hands Came Away Red 7pm @ Vroman's Dario Castagno presents A Day in Tuscany 7pm @ Dutton's Terry Cheney signs Manic 7pm @ Borders, Westwood Ray Bradbury, Forrest J. Ackerman and Ray Harryhausen discuss their work 7:30pm @ Mystery & Imagination......

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......

Ray Bradbury will receive France's highest Arts & Letters Award, the Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters, tonight at 6pm in Beverly Hills for his contributions to literature all over the world....

‘Tis the season for good theater. For fun theater. The holidays always usher in tons of lighter fare and holiday reviews. Here’s just a sampling of what’s going on this weekend your local neighborhoods… Bob’s Holiday Office Party Bob is back. As usual, insurance agent Bob Finhead’s clients stop by his small-town office for the annual holiday bash. What started out as an improve sketch 12 years ago has morphed into an annual event…with......

Monday Paul Krugman discusses The Conscience of a Liberal 7pm @ Central Library Randy Cepuch signs A Weekend With Warren Buffett 4pm @ Dutton's Jenna Bush presents Ana's Story 7pm @ Pasadena Public Library Jason Goodwin discusses and signs The Snake Stone 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Wole Soyninka discusses his work with Mona Simpson 7pm @ Hammer Museum Eduardo Machado & Michael Domitrovich present Tastes Like Cuba 7pm @ Book Soup Maira Kalman discusses &......

Monday Will Beall presents L.A. Rex 7pm @ Book Soup Robert Alter & Jonathan Kirsch discuss The Book of Psalms with David Ulin 7pm @ Central Library Mark Schapiro signs Exposed 7pm @ Dutton's Richard King presents Spirituality in the Workplace 7pm @ Vroman's Alan Alda presents Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself 7pm @ Borders, Westwood Tuesday Bill Clinton presents Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World 2pm @ Vroman's......

The heatwave of 07 might be waning, but the local theatre scene is getting hot hot hot. Here are LAist’s five theater picks for this weekend: Butterflies of Uganda: Memories of a Child Soldier Butterflies of Uganda tells the story of Mary, who as a young Acholi girl was stolen from her home in Northern Uganda and forced to fight as a soldier in the Lord's Resistance Army. The play explores an already strained......

At 87, esteemed American author Ray Bradbury is in the twilight of his life – and his latest play Green Town serves as an homage to his childhood -- with the requisite Bradbury twists, of course. Green Town consists of three vignettes set circa 1929 that focus on fantasy and the whimsical. In the first, 14-year-old Ralph Spaulding (Anders Asbjornsen) can feel something exciting coming on the noon train. He races home to his......

Writer Ray Bradbury may be 87, but his mind and sense of humor are as agile as ever. LAist joined his diehard fans and other audience members for an evening with Bradbury live at the Fremont Centre Theatre in South Pasadena on Friday night. The author of American classics – Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles etc. – took the stage and talked for nearly an hour and a half on his love life. Using......

Here are the five productions opening this weekend that are currently piquing LAist’s interest: 7 Glimpses of Utopia Tonight only, the Skid Row-based theater group LAPD (Los Angeles Poverty Department) presents a picture of utopian possibilities in downtown L.A. LAPD'ers and others were asked to identify and invite someone they knew who was doing something "laudable, and important, something that represents the best of the current and future downtown." National Center for the Preservation......

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......

After a packed day of panels and Organic To Go food, we're looking forward to Sunday's LA Times Book Festival offerings. Here's why: Food Situation: Bountiful. If there weren't so many book booths and authors running about, we'd think this was a cooking festival. Your food choices are endless and several food courts are setup all over campus so you'll never have to utter the painful festival sentence:"Where is the food?" It's everywhere! Line Situation:......

A New World War: 14 Scenes from a Possible Future is another study in dystopia, with playwright Rita Valencia taking cues from Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and Ray Bradbury. While we've seen all this doom and gloom before, it's Valencia's take on the futuristic parable that saves us from cliché hell. The play focuses the Antar (Niamh McCormally), a woman who's signed a long, long-term contract with a company that provides cyborg companionship. But......

Dresden Dolls, The Red Paintings @ Orpheum Cheyenne Kimball @ House of Blues Ray Bradbury @ Every Picture Tells a Story Peter Falk @ Book Soup Cathouse @ Key Club Brooks & Dunn @ Gibson Gov’t Mule @ Grove of Anaheim Bobby Bare Jr. @ Spaceland Mat Kearney, Griffin House @ Roxy Trainwreck, Supafloss, Baby Dayliner @ Safari Sam's The Sweet Hollywaiians @ The Coffee Gallery Backstage Bang Sugar Bang, Venus 6, Josie Cotton......

Back in February, I got an e-mail with the subject line, "blog tip." With a link to the blog, all the e-mail said was, "just some information - nothing flashy. Glad to know you. LACN." Overtime, the anonymous LACityNerd became an authority to all things, city of Los Angeles. I don't know who the nerd is. I don't even know if the nerd is a male, female, child or beast. All I know is......

Golden Smog @ Avalon Spencer Davis @ Highland Grounds Japanese Motors @ Spaceland Paolo Nutini @ Hotel Cafe John W. Dean @ Royce Hall The Black Keys @ Troubadour Ass Pocket of Whiskey @ Harvelle's John Legend @ Roxy The English Beat @ Malibu Inn Louis C.K. @ Comedy & Magic Club Turning Robots Into People @ Whisky Ray Bradbury @ Encino-Tarzana Branch Library Ian Gillan @ House of Blues The New Amsterdams, Mae......

Metro Rider LA noticed a pattern in our "20 Under 30" series. They saw similarites in some of the answers to this question: “ If you could make one thing be different in LA for your 30th birthday, what would you change?“ ”I’d probably like a comprehensive, convenient, and affordable public transportation system…” -Meghana Bhatt “I would make a subway line down Wilshire from downtown to the beach, that stops at virtually every cross......

Don't be alarmed at the loud title above. This is just a primer to get you in the mood for all the festivities, mayhem and otherwise cool stuff that will be happening at the Comic-Con in San Diego next week. If you don't already know, the San Diego Comic-Con is one of those events with humble roots that is now one of the premier happenings of the year, at least on this coast. However,......

The Festival of Books is a lot of fun and a set of curious paradoxes. The first is that it's an enormous social festival about books, an art form usually enjoyed, unlike, say, theater, film, or music, by oneself in silence. Another is that much of the point of the festival is to see writers in the flesh, even though the point of a writer, really, is that their thoughts and feelings reach their......

Science fiction fans in the rest of the world must be insanely jealous of Angelenos. Tonight we get to watch Clash of the Titans on big screen — and then watch Ray Harryhausen, Ray Bradbury and Harry Hamlin talk about it afterward. You might know Ray Harryhausen is the 85-year-old visual effects genius who made monsters come to life in Clash of the Titans, Jason and the Argonauts and more. Ray Bradbury is also 85;......

Science fiction writer Ray Bradbury: he's the author of Farenheight 451, The Illustrated Man, the Martian Chronicles and many more. He's won a pile of awards, including a Kennedy Center honor in 2004. (What do you think is going through his mind when this photo was taken?) He's 85, and he lives in our very own Pasadena. After his family moved to LA in the 1930s, Bradbury hung around Hollywood; special effects visionary Ray......

The Gold Line's new express service between Pasadena and Downtown LA starts today. It'll make just 4 stops in addition to Union Station: Highland Park, Mission, Del Mar and Sierra Madre Villa. US snowboarders are SICK! A 17-year-old Long Beach teen has climbed 6 of the world's 7 highest peaks with her dad. Next up: Everest. If a full-sized monorail isn't likely for LA, maybe Ray Bradbury can get this one for his puppies.......

As anyone who travels by car in Los Angeles can tell you, traffic can be a real pain in the ass. Just try getting from the Valley to Santa Monica in under an hour or from Santa Monica to Downtown without several tense moments and feelings of complete hopelessness, and you'll know what we mean. And God forbid if there is ever even a minor fender bender. The whole thing just grinds to a......

Today at 12:00 PM, see legendary science fiction pioneer Ray Bradbury at Vroman's Bookstore in Pasadena, where he will be signing any and all of his books in celebration of Halloween. LAist suggests arriving early. If brash is more your style, author and filmmaker Neil LaBute will be reading from his new book, Seconds of Pleasure at Skylight Books, accompanied by the talents of Greg Kinnear and David Schwimmer. The reading begins at 7:30......