It was a lovely evening of bookish folks gathered about to celebrate books and to kick-off the LA Times Festival of Books which begins today and runs through tomorrow afternoon. The awards ceremony for the Book Prizes was short and sweet, the acceptance speeches were both funny and poignant and the after-party had a full chocolate buffet, complete with ice sculptures. What more could you ask for? Ah, the winners. Here are the winners of......

LA Times Book Prize Fiction Nominees There are some juicy picks - and even a few underdogs - among the nominees of the two fiction categories for the LA Times Book Prizes that will be awarded later this month. While the National Book Award often goes to the obvious front-runner and Pulitzers (go Diaz!) rarely surprise, the LA Times Book Prize winners are never a sure thing, which is what makes following them all......

Monday Paul Cummins signs Two Americas, Two Educations 7pm @ Dutton’s Tuesday Daniel Alarcon presents Lost City Radio 7:30 pm @ Skylight Books Jane Hirshfield reads poetry from After 7pm @ Hammer Museum Catherine Allgor presents A Perfect Union 7pm @ Vroman’s Brian Doherty Radicals for Capitalism 7pm @ Book Soup Tara Ison presents The List 7pm @ Borders Century City Wednesday Dinaw Mengestu signs The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears 7pm @ Dutton’s......