Ominous Eye in the Arts District Downwtown | Photo by unobtanium via Flickr Monday Sloane Crosley presents I Was Told There'd Be Cake 7pm @ Book Soup Christopher Rauschenberg presents Paris Changing: Revisiting Eugène Atget's Paris 7pm @ Central Library Valerie Mendenhall Cohen presents Woman on the Rocks 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Mary Roach presents BONK: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex 7pm @ Central Library David Samuels presents Only Love Can Break......

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 @......

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 &......

Moderator: Janet Fitch Panelists: (from left to right) Chris Abani, Steve Erickson, Michelle Huneven, Jim Krusoe Two transplants (Abani from Nigeria and Krusoe from the midwest) and two natives (Erickson, Huneven) take on what it means to be a writer in Los Angeles. Erickson and Huneven were on a similar panel last year. We culled a few of this year's best (and lamest) quips. The high points: Chris Abani says, "The idea of being......

The Festival of Books was just like SXSW, except with books instead of music, and with scarcely any drinking, drugs or sex. Nevertheless, it was enormous, exhausting and exhilarating. LAist made it to a couple of impressive panels focused on LA: one featuring DJ Waldie, Norman Klien and Richard Rayner; the other with Steve Erickson, Michelle Huneven, Peter Lefcourt and Michael Jaime-Becerra. Some of their bon mots follow. Just for you, we managed to ferret......

Steve Erickson's new novel Our Ecstatic Days is set in a lyric, hallucinatory Los Angeles, where a spreading lake begins to take over the city, setting characters adrift. At Barnes & Noble's full-house reading last night, hosted by KCRW's Michael Silverblatt, it was apparent that Erickson's terrific writing is finally getting its due. Early reviews have been unapologetically adoring (Bookforum, CityBeat, Washington Post). Erickson's looping, time-twisting plotlines have long entranced readers who try to figure......