Callie Miller

We've covered the LA Times Book Prize nominees for the past few weeks and quietly rooted for our picks. The winners, announced at the annual hob-nob affair on Friday night, surprised us. We highlighted our picks weeks ago. What more did the committee have to do other than - you know - pick them? To wit: Biography We said Daniel Mendelsohn for The Lost: A Search for Six of Six Million (Daniel freaking Mendelsohn, the...

Monday Cristina Garcia discusses A Handbook to Luck 7pm @ Vroman's Criss Angel presents Mindfreak: Secret Revelations 7pm @ Book Soup Tuesday Criss Angel presents Mindfreak: Secret Revelations 6pm @ Borders, Westwood Steven Bach presents Leni: The Life and Leni Riefenstahl 7pm @ Book Soup Wednesday Steven Bach presents Leni: The Life and Leni Riefenstahl 7pm @ Central Library Rue McClanahan presents My First Five Husbands and the Ones Who Got Away 7pm @...

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:...

If you aren't going to Coachella this weekend and somehow think that attending the LA Times Festival of Books requires less planning...well, you may be right. But only by the smallest of margins. The festival keeps growing and this year may be the largest with 400 authors, 300 exhibit booths, 6 outdoor stages and 97 hour-long panels featuring some of the quirkiest minds in the country. What does this mean for you? In the words...

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley...

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will be held this week on Saturday & Sunday, April 28 - 29th. Monday Cathryn Jakobson Ramin signs Carved in Sand 7pm @ Dutton's Tuesday Jeff Hobbs presents The Tourists 7pm @ Book Soup Jeffrey Lewis signs Theme Song for an Old Show 7pm @ Dutton's Santa Montefiore discusses and signs The Gypsy Madonna 7pm @ Vroman's Wednesday Kristen Buckley presents Tramps Like Us: A New Jersey...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Halberstam died yesterday in a car crash in Menlo Park, CA. He was 73. Halberstam's work as a journalist ranges wide and delves deep. He covered the Korean War, the Vietnam War and civil rights but he was also fascinated with the humanity and spectacle of sports. He did not simply document the history he lived through - he explained complex societal constructs and cultural shifts in a way that anyone...

The Spring Art Walk in the Brewery downtown is upon us once again. This weekend is a time for touring this downtown neighborhood & not simply looking at the art in the quiet calm of a gallery, but looking at art in the artist's actual lofts. Cool, no? Yet every time we attend this event, or hear someone talk of attending this event, or listen to a friend tell another friend about it after...

The LA Times has nominated five books in each of nine different categories for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. In the weeks leading up to the Festival of Books where the winners will be announced, LAist will take a quick look at each category and will wax poetic on a few favorites (or least favorites) along the way. The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 1: The Pox Party...

Monday T.C. Boyle reads and chats with David Ulin 7pm @ Mark Taper Forum Jennifer Kaufman & Karen Mack present Literacy and Longing in L.A. 7pm @ Studio Branch Library Denise Hamilton & contributors signs Los Angeles Noir 7pm @ Borders Torrance Pat Montandon discusses Oh, the Hell of It All 7pm @ Vroman's Tuesday Barry Glassner discusses The Gospel of Food 7pm @ Central Library Kirk Douglas signs Let's Face It 7pm @...