Results tagged “books”

Bill Simmons is simply known by many as "The Sports Guy." But anyone who's ever read his columns on ESPN.com or heard an episode of his podcast, The B.S. Report, knows his interests extend far beyond the field. A Simmons column will take you from Kobe Bryant to Karate Kid, theories about Knicks' centers to jokes about late-night Cinemax starlets, Mike Dunleavy to Las Vegas travel tips.

The start of 2009 brought with it sad news for friends and fans of Book Soup, the much-cherished bookstore located on the vibrant Sunset Strip in West Hollywood, when its longtime owner Glenn Goldman passed away just a day after putting the shop on the market.

Celebrated novelist and poet Margaret Atwood reads from her new novel, Year of the Flood tonight at 8 pm at UCLA’s Royce Hall. Local actors and the L.A.-based vocal ensemble Sonos will join Atwood in recreating select scenes. The author is known for her best-selling novels The Handmaid's Tale and The Blind Assassin. Tickets: $24-$48.

An event that was expected to draw many families from far away has been canceled, the LAPD announced today, hoping to spread the word so people don't make the long commute. Houghton Mifflin Books withdrew their support of the text book giveaway, therefore canceling the event scheduled for tomorrow morning at the LAPD's Hollenbeck Station on the Eastside.

Nationally headlining comedian and best-selling author Aaron Karo is 30, single and loving it. The New York native who walked away from a Wall Street job to jump into a career in comedy isn't going to abandon the bachelor life to leap into marriage anytime soon, even if all of his friends are. In his new book, I'm Having More Fun Than You the LA-based comic shares with readers exactly why he's perfectly happy to live a life free of commitment and full of nights spent chasing chicks at the bar. Karo's book, which was the top selling comedy book on Amazon.com last week, is a celebration of singlehood through anecdotes, observations and a few tips along the way.

Today’s the last day for Hannah Beth’s “Things I Love” pop-up shop at Royal/T in Culver City. Her collection features reconstructed vintage fashions, art, jewelry, sunglasses and accessories of Laeken, Lily L, Esther Kim, Danny Roberts, Ivy Ensley, Adri Law, Lauren Ishii, Lulu Christine and Cinderella.

David Cross has made audiences laugh their asses of on stage with his brilliant and vicious style of stand-up, on television in his incredibly funny work on "Arrested Development" as never nude analrapist Tobias Funke and as one-half of the team that gave us the hilarious HBO sketch comedy show "Mr. Show with Bob and David," on CD with is Grammy nominated Shut Up You Fucking Baby! and on the big screen. Now, David brings his brand of humor to the written form with his first book, I Drink for a Reason.

Rogue Machine hosts a salon on the Royal Court Theatre, Britain’s leading national company dedicated to new work by innovative writers from around the world for the past 50 years. Panelists include playwrights Phyllis Nagy, Ron Hutchinson and British actress Katherine Tozer, and it will be moderated by Steven Leigh Morris, critic at large at the LA Weekly. The salon begins at 8 pm and the event is free. RSVP here.

Just a quick reminder, tomorrow is the pier's 100th birthday. Wish it well or join the festivities tomorrow night beginning at 6 p.m.

The Grammy Museum hosts bandleader and music icon Herb Alpert and singer Lani Hall tonight at 8 pm. The duo will talk about their careers, collaborative work and their new album together, Anything Goes. There will be a Q&A after the discussion, and they’ll perform a few songs. Tickets are $20; $15 for members.

Amoeba holds its weekly Monday night series of music-related films in the courtyard of Space15Twenty. Tonight’s free screening is Trouble The Water, an award-winning look at Hurricane Katrina.Tia Lessin and Carl Deal tell the story of an aspiring rap artist and her husband who survive the storm and then take a chance for a new beginning. The DVD comes out tomorrow from Zeitgeist Films, and will be made available for early sale at the screening. The movie starts at 8 pm.

In a move perhaps aimed to articulate her triumph over great adversity, de-throned Miss California USA Carrie Prejean has just signed a book deal to tell "her side of the story," with "conservative book house Regnery Publishing," KTLA is reporting. Prejean will discuss "what happened behind the scenes at the pageant and why she answered the question posed to her by Perez Hilton the way she did," and hopefully give insight to her subsequent firing by The Donald in the tome, to be titled Still Standing.

For many of us on the West Coast, we take our In-N-Out seriously. We know we love it, we know how to order off the (not-so-secret?) secret menu, we know our own favorite order. You don't have to have a reservation, or be a celeb to get the best of the best from them (although not too long ago actor Tom Hanks told the newly (re)arrived Conan O'Brien he thinks their catering truck beats the Batmobile). But--besides their sauce--what's their actual secret?

Filmmaker David Lynch and musicians Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse collaborated on a special CD, photography and book project, which LAist told you about last month. Tonight, the trio are signing their limited-edition book Dark Night of the Soul at Book Soup at 8 pm. They’ll also sign ONE ITEM in addition to a purchased copy of the book. This is not a ticketed event, so get there early. Attendance is on a first-come-first-served basis.

Here are our to-do picks for a post-Fourth Monday in LA: DIY DRUMMING* Tonight the On Ensemble, a contemporary taiko quartet, brings D.I.Y. Drumming to the Ford Amphitheater at 7 pm. Bring your drums, percussion instruments or even paint buckets to play along as the Ensemble coaxes Japanese taiko rhythms out of everyday household items. The J.A.M. session is free, so reserve your spot by calling the Ford Box Office: 323.461.3673. Don’t forget to bring a picnic for dinner.

The Ford’s kicks off summer with its first J.A.M. (Jazzed and Motivated) Session of the season tonight at 7 pm. The free, interactive events are guided by artists, musicians and dancers, all Ford artists. Bring the whole family down for a little “Zydeco Inzanity” with dance instructor by Karen Redding of LouisianaDanceLA.com tonight. She’ll teach basic bayou moves to Creole accordion accompaniment. Laissez les bons temps rouler!

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

       

LA has a diverse cast of characters. Whether it's the characters with stirring stories or interesting occupations or the people who are just simply characters, this town has them all. In an effort to get to know some of those characters a little better, we've created "Seven Questions with..." If you have a suggestion for a future Seven Questions subject send us an email.

"There must be a believer out there, one with both the foresight and resources to keep our city from becoming a wasteland of corporate chain stores, uninspired conformity and heartless mediocrity, and we think saving Equator Books would be a very good place to start," wrote Max Wheeler, part-owner of Equator, on the Huffington Post yesterday.

There are plenty of ways you can reach out and connect with Los Angeles' vast and fascinating history beyond the confines of our weekly LAistory column. Whether it be through joining a preservation group, taking a walking tour, visiting a museum or historic site, or opening up the pages of a book, LA's stories are often within our grasp. For LAistory, while we like to do the writing and photo-taking (or finding) ourselves, we, too, draw inspiration from our interaction with the city's resources, which is why LAistory is taking a brief pause today to give a shout out to a couple of publications that give us--and can give you, too--a better understanding of where we are and where we came from.

Many small libraries use web resource LibraryThing to help sort their inventory, as do readers all over the world who want to keep track of their tomes. The site is now urging users to form FlashMobs to catalog complete library inventories. They explain that the event usually entails a gathering where "LibraryThing members descend on some small library with laptops and CueCat barcode scanners, catalog their books in LibraryThing, eat some pizza, talk some talk and leave them with a gleaming new LibraryThing catalog."

Yes, it's cold and rainy, but if you venture out tonight you'll be rewarded with these great sights and sounds:

Ghettogloss presents a group show by members of the Drawing Club, featuring work by : Ray Caughron, Matthew Gray, Silas Hite, Emily Hillburg, Annie Hsu, Patrick Whitehorn and more. The opening cocktail reception is tonight from 8 pm to midnight. The show runs through Feb. 11.

It's been an unusually warm January, but some of last and this upcoming week things are cooling down across Southern California. It just so happens that starting yesterday, Stories Books & Cafe will be serving soup. What caught our local eye is not only a bookshop that sells local books, but one that features a vegetable soup using locally bought food, or as they say, "assorted produce from the Echo Park and Atwater Village Farmer's Markets." On Mondays, they will serve said vegetable soup and other soups on different days (today is Torilla Soup). Where is your favorite place to get some soup?

Prolific novelist John Updike died today of lung cancer in Beverly Farms, Massachusetts at age 76. Have you read his short story A&P? Capturing the teenage hell of working retail, it's one of his best short stories. An excerpt from the full (short) story:

A few days out of office and it didn't take long for the former rormer Secretary of State to get all Hollywood and sign with the famous William Morris Agency. But it's not what you think--she won't be making appearances in bad sitcoms. Condoleezza Rice will be joining House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Byron Dorgan, Sen. Jim Webb and former Sen. Fred Thompson to be represented for her upcoming books, lecture appearances, philanthropic activities and "new business initiatives in the media, sports and communications sectors," according to Variety. She's calling this career move a "reinvention and evolution."

Popular indie bookstore and longtime Sunset Boulevard retailer Book Soup has been mourning the loss of their owner and founder, Glenn Goldman, who recently lost his battle with pancreatic cancer. To honor Goldman, the store will hold a memorial event this week that is open to the public. Per the Book Soup website:

Everyone who knew Glenn or who appreciate the wonderful store he built is welcome to join us in remembering and celebrating Glenn's life this Friday, the 16th of January, in the store at 7pm. In lieu of flowers friends and colleagues may contribute to the "Glenn Goldman Booksellers Scholarship Fund" by donating below or emailing: GGBScholarshipFund@booksoup.com

This one has been making its rounds among the blogs. New York Times book reviewer Charles McGrath had this to say while talking about actor Carrie Fisher's new memoir: "What her Hollywood upbringing doesn’t account for is Ms. Fisher’s manifest intelligence and adroit way with words. She is one of the rare inhabitants of La-La land who can actually write and has published four novels, the best of which, the semi-autobiographical “Postcards From the Edge,” became a prize-winning movie with a script by Ms. Fisher herself." Really? La-La land? They're still using that?

Sunset Boulevard is home today to another sad story: Glenn Goldman, the owner of the 33-year-old bookstore Book Soup, died yesterday, just one day after he put the cherished shop up for sale.

He might have played a big box book retailer in 1998's You've Got Mail, but in real life, actor Tom Hanks is pitching for the little guy, namely Pacific Palisades' Village Books. Local blog Tabloid Baby explains that Hanks is trying to help efforts to save the store by signing books there tonight.