Callie Miller

If you need to your soothe your sweet tooth with a cupcake while shopping at Downtown Disney, it'll cost you $4.95. The OC Register concludes that "$4.95 for any regular-sized cupcake seems a bit extreme." They also note that the provider of Disney's cupcakes, The Cupcake Store, sells their non-Disney version for only $3.95. Is a one-dollar mark-up the price of access to millions of tourists each year? Perhaps. Yet, there are plenty of pricey cupcakes all over Los Angeles and Angelenos keep shelling out to quell their cravings.

Stormy downtown LA (Photo by Mark Luethi via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr) While you're busy chiding your East Coast friends about how fantastic our LA climate is and making them all wish they lived here as they plod through their weekends battling rain and snow and very low temperatures, stormy weather is heading our way and it's going to strike soon. How soon? Tonight soon. The National Weather Service Forecast Office...

Tomorrow night, Tavin Boutique in Echo Park will curate an eclectic mix of vintage and designer clothing, literary stylings and wine. The fourth installment of their Little Birds Reading Series will showcase the work of three writers whose work is perfectly suited for this shop that feels both timeless and au courant all at once.

Suzanne Rivecca is in town this week to read from her debut short story collection, Death is Not an Option. Each story in the collection brings us into a character's life at a moment of change. Will they overcome their past, will they break free from other's perceptions of them, will they stand on their own?

While we're not usually ones to overly promote Target, we were thrilled to see an area at this year's LA Times Festival of Books that is dedicated to book donation. The target truck was front and center, the signage was out and the opens bins stood ready to receive donations. Festival-goers were encouraged to bring their new or gently used books to the donation station so the books could be delivered to schools in need....

There was buzz about a secret flash mob hours before the mob actually appeared. A window of hours during Saturday's festivities was secretly passed along, but no mob was sighted during the supposedly set times. Then, just as we were leaving, we saw an unusual number of umbrellas. It was hot enough for shade protection, yes, but not that hot. Soon, we found ourselves surrounded by umbrella wielding folks who began swaying back & forth...

LA Times Festival of Books - What Are You Reading Wall The LA Times Festival of Books is underway (avoid Westwood entrance for parking, head to Hilgard people, head to Hilgard) and lines are forming for all sorts of panels, stages, cooking demos, food booths (no amazing food trucks that we can find, but the day is young and we are still on the hunt) and the well-publicized scavenger hunt....

Photo by ginnerobot via Flickr Amidst a few technical difficulties, an awkward triumph, a few genuine tears, and a truly speechless speech, the LA Times Book Prize winners were announced last night at The Times’ Chandler Auditorium. LAT Book Editor, David Ulin, presided over the festivities and opened the ceremony with a warm welcome to “book nerds.” So who won?...

LA Times Book Prize Graphic Novel Nominees We're at it again - inappropriately guessing at who might take home an LA Times Book Prize this year. This time around, we're looking at one of our favorite categories and still pinching ourselves that, for the first time ever, there is now a Graphic Novel category for the LA Times Book Prizes. To celebrate this new category, we'll tread lightly on yeas/neas and focus more on...

LA Times Book Prize Nominees for Fiction We're back to our favorite odds-guessing hobby at this time of year - pondering aloud (with little precision and with great skepticism) which LA Times Book Prize Finalists will take home the cake when awards are handed out April 23rd. Here's our not-so-scientific take on the nominees in the Fiction category and our guesses at what might go down on awards night, including the buzz about a...