The AfroFuturism Book Club reads “Ring Shout” by P. Djeli Clark
We’re reading P. Djeli Clark’s Ring Shout, an alternate history of early 20th Century battles against the KKK… and their demonic cohorts.
All events listed below take place online. Please visit the organizers’ websites for details.
We’re reading P. Djeli Clark’s Ring Shout, an alternate history of early 20th Century battles against the KKK… and their demonic cohorts.
The author of Saint Everywhere is answering the call from fans for more reports from her quest to learn from some quietly extraordinary women--and a man or two--who have changed the world. Mary Lea Carroll travels to shrines and hometowns to learn about such amazing people as Saint Marie of Quebec, who founded the first girls' school in the New World; philanthropist-turned-saint Katherine Drexel of Philadelphia; Saint Brigid, a patron saint of Ireland; Sudanese native Saint Josephine Bakhita, who ended up living in Venice, Italy; and Pierre Touissant, the 19th-century slave-turned-hairdresser in New York City who is in the process of being canonized. In between her travels, Mary Lea connects with everyday heroes she encounters in her daily life, all inspiring her to continue her own journey to be a better citizen of the world. (Prospect Park Books)
The 1990s was a decade of profound change on Broadway. At the dawn of the nineties, the British invasion of Broadway was in full swing, as musical spectacles like Les Miserables, Cats, and The Phantom of the Opera dominated the box office. But Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard soon spelled the end of this era and ushered in a new wave of American musicals, beginning with the ascendance of an unlikely show by a struggling writer who reimagined Puccini's opera La Bohème as the smash Broadway show Rent.
How much of the human experience can fit into 750 words? A lot, it turns out. Since its founding in 1997, Brevity: A Journal of Concise Literary Nonfiction has published hundreds of brief nonfiction essays by writers around the world, each within that strict word count.
Most of us know Patty from being the recently elected President of The Ebell, proprietor of The Larchmont Buzz, a longtime member of the society, and resident of Fremont Place and She currently serves as a member of the Fremont Place Association Board. During her busy life, she somehow found time to write a book on the origin and history of everyone’s favorite street, Larchmont Boulevard.
Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman (of the Call Your Girlfriend podcast) chronicle the history and philosophy of their friendship in Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close.
From writer Cazzie David comes a series of acerbic, darkly funny essays about misanthropy, social media, anxiety, relationships, and growing up in a wildly eccentric family. For Cazzie David, the world is one big trap door leading to death and despair and social phobia.
Rachel Bloom hosts a compelling evening of storytelling in conjunction with the release of her hilarious collection of essays, I Want to Be Where The Normal People Are, with special guests Gilli Nissim, Mano Agapion and David Hull. Join Rachel Bloom as she probes her friends for a cathartic night of humiliating coming-of-age stories that are sure to delight anyone that barely made it through Middle School!
What does it mean when a nation accustomed to moving begins to settle down, when political discord threatens unity, and when technology disrupts traditional ways of building communities? Is a shared soil enough to reinvigorate a national spirit? From the embattled newsrooms of small town newspapers to the pornography film sets of the Los Angeles basin, from the check-out lanes of Dollar General to the holy sites of Mormonism, from the nation's highest peaks to the razed remains of a cherished home, like a latter-day Woody Guthrie, Tom Zoellner takes to the highways and byways of a vast land in search of the soul of its people.
Beyond Baroque presents Part I of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by poets from the LA Time Festival of Books Poetry Stage. The Poetry Stage Redux2020 L.A. Times Festival of Books Poets & New WritersBeyond Baroque presents the first installment of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by nationally acclaimed poets from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage. Featured readers for November 19 include Sara Borjas, Nickole Brown, Cyrus Cassells, Victoria Chang, Cathy Colman, Megan Fernandes, Jane Hirshfield, Jessica Jacobs, John Murillo, & Aimee Nezhukumatathil.The full series will take place over four weeks in November and December and will feature over 40 poets. Every year, the Poetry Stage at the Festival of Books forms a major part of Los Angeles’ literary calendar. Poets with new or recent books gather from across the country to read from their work. This year, due to COVID-19, the Festival of Books, and the Poetry Stage, had to be canceled. In the spirit of keeping new poetry visible during COVID-19, Beyond Baroque and the L.A. Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage curator and moderator, Elena Karina Byrne, present a majority of the festival’s originally scheduled lineup along Read More ...
An archival collection of one of the bestselling alternative comic book series — arguably, the Great American Grunge novel — complete for the first time. Peter Bagge combined his signature cartoony drawing style with uncomfortably real Gen X characters, and created a series that resonated deeply with readers. The Complete Hate is a three-volume set that includes the original 1990-1998 30-issue run, the nine subsequent Hate Annuals, and tons of other Hate-related comics, illustrations, and ephemera created for books, magazines, comics, toys, and other merchandise.
A monumental, canon-defining anthology of three centuries of American essays, from Cotton Mather and Benjamin Franklin to David Foster Wallace and Zadie Smith. Tune in on Zoom using this link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84084909847
We’re reading about Alaskan serial killer Robert Hansen in Glimour and Hale’s Butcher, Baker.
From writer Cazzie David comes a series of acerbic, darkly funny essays about misanthropy, social media, anxiety, relationships, and growing up in a wildly eccentric family. Customers can pick up their books in person at the drive-thru signing or afterwards at the store. Books will also be available to purchase on-site through the Mel's Drive-In menu. *Please note: This drive-thru signing will take place at 6pm on Saturday, November 21, 2020, at Mel's Drive-In, 8585 Sunset Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90069.
Paul Tremblay’s Survivor Song is about a pregnant woman and her pediatrician weathering an eerily familiar pandemic (but with more biting).
Note: this event has been canceled. Following The People and the Books, which "covers more than 2,500 years of highly variegated Jewish cultural expression" (Robert Alter, New York Times Book Review), poet and literary critic Adam Kirsch now turns to the story of modern Jewish literature. From the vast emigration of Jews out of Eastern Europe to the Holocaust to the creation of Israel, the twentieth century transformed Jewish life. The same was true of Jewish writing: the novels, plays, poems, and memoirs of Jewish writers provided intimate access to new worlds of experience.
"When I was a young girl, my husband's father flew an air machine into the sun. Since then, the days have been dark, the nights bright." Roxane Gay, Tracy Lynne Oliver, and Rebecca Kirby adapt Gay's New York Times bestselling short story "We Are the Sacrifice of Darkness" as a full-length graphic novel, expanding an unforgettable world where a tragic event forever bathes the world in darkness.
That dream of inheriting a castle in the Alps? Not so dreamy – in Danielle Trussoni’s nightmarish The Ancestor.
Paul Thomas Anderson: Masterworks by film critic Adam Nayman, produced by Little White Lies, examines, in illustrated detail for the first time, Anderson’s entire career—fromHard Eight (1996), Boogie Nights(1997),Magnolia (1999), Punch-Drunk Love (2002), There Will Be Blood(2007),The Master(2012), Inherent Vice (2014), andThe Phantom Thread(2017) to his music videos for Radiohead to his early short films.
What a year, right? In celebration of Indies First, we're going to check in with our staff (your favorite booksellers) for a virtual conversation about this crazy year and what we've been doing to get through it. We'll talk about what it has been like to sell books during a pandemic, social justice movement, and particularly contentious election season.
Join us on Indies First Day and Small Business Saturday for a virtual LA Crime Writers Panel featuring Steph Cha, Rachel Howzell Hall, Joe Ide, and Naomi Hirahara. Moderated by Désirée Zamorano Los Angeles has always been an epicenter of crime fiction. It has also often been boxed in by stereotypes of what others think of it. This special LA Crime Writers panel feature authors who know the city & county as their home and write what they know.
In an age of great volatility-fake news, diverse audiences, technology at our fingertips, and change at the speed of light-clear, concise, and intentional communication is vital to successful human interaction. Workplace miscommunications, be they well-meaning or not, result in lost productivity, discontent, and even violence. This book answers the age-old leadership question: how do we get the best out of ourselves and others on the job?
Nothing ever happens in Filomena Jefferson-Cho's sleepy little suburban town of North Pasadena. The sun shines every day, the grass is always a perfect green, and while her progressive school swears there's no such thing as bullying, she still feels bummed out. But one day, when Filomena is walking home on her own, something strange happens. Filomena is being followed by Jack Stalker, one of the heroes in the Thirteenth Fairy, a series of books she loves about a brave girl and her ragtag group of friends who save their world from an evil enchantress.
From the New York Times bestselling author comes Admission an of-the-moment novel that peeks inside the private lives of the hypercompetitive and the hyperprivileged and takes on the college admissions bribery scandal that rocked the country.
Tanya Acker, co-star of the nationally syndicated and Emmy-nominated show Hot Bench, demystifies civil litigation and lays out an expert's guide to legal proceedings inside the courtroom and out, giving readers professional insider information they need to find THEIR WIN in a lawsuit.
How does Christopher Nolan manage to weave such personal, singular, panoramic films into international blockbusters? Film critic Tom Shone corralled Christopher Nolan into cooperating with Tom on his book about Nolan’s work. The beautiful result, The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan, guides readers on a deep dive into Nolan’s extraordinary imagination, his creativity, his process of moving from a germ of a dream of an idea to the film itself. The Nolan Variations helps to explain how Nolan’s films strike a nerve. Nolan’s full participation yields not only storyboards, but Nolan’s personal stories of what makes him a unique visionary.
The first definitive biography of Richard Avedon, a monumental photographer of the twentieth century, from award-winning photography critic Philip Gefter. In his acclaimed portraits, Richard Avedon captured the iconic figures of the twentieth century in his starkly bold, intimately minimal, and forensic visual style. Concurrently, his work for Harper's Bazaar and Vogue transformed the ideals of women's fashion, femininity, and culture to become the defining look of an era. Yet despite his driving ambition to gain respect in the art world, during his lifetime he was condescendingly dismissed as a celebrity photographer.
Particulate Matter is the story of a year in Felicia Luna Lemus’s marriage when the world turned upside down. It’s set in Los Angeles, and it’s about love and crisis, loss and grief, the city and the ocean, ancestral ghosts and history haunting. Nature herself seemed to howl. The Freezer Door records the ebb and flow of desire in daily life. Crossing through loneliness in search of communal pleasure in Seattle, Sycamore exposes the failure and persistence of queer dreams, the hypocritical allure of gay male sexual culture, and the stranglehold of the suburban imagination over city life.
Acclaimed filmmaker and poet Lynne Sachs reads from her debut collection, Year by Year Poems, and shares some of her recent short films. When filmmaker Lynne Sachs turned fifty, she dedicated herself to writing a poem for every year of her life, so far. Each of the fifty poems investigates the relationship between a singular event in Sachs’ life and the swirl of events beyond her domestic universe. Published by Tender Buttons Press, Year by Year Poems juxtaposes Sachs’ finished poems, which move from her birth in 1961 to her half-century marker in 2011, with her original handwritten first drafts. In this way, she reveals her process of navigating within and alongside historical events such as the Moon Landing, the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., streaking, the Anita Hill hearings, the Columbine shootings, and controversies around universal health care. In Year by Year Poems, Lynne Sachs realizes the long anticipated leap from her extraordinary career in filmmaking to this, her first book of poems. With an introduction by Paolo Javier, former Queens Poet Laureate and author of Court of the Dragon, and book design by Abby Goldstein. Praise for Year by Year Poems: “The whole arc of a life Read More ...
Badass Habits is a eureka-sparking, easy-to-digest look at how our habits make us who we are, from the measly moments that happen in private to the resolutions we loudly broadcast (and, erm, often don't keep) on social media. Habit busting and building goes way beyond becoming a dedicated flosser or never showing up late again--our habits reveal our unmet desires, the gaps in our boundaries, our level of self-awareness, and our unconscious beliefs and fears.
Prepare for the jaw-dropping finale of Sabaa Tahir's beloved New York Times bestselling An Ember in the Ashes fantasy series, and discover: Who will survive the storm?Picking up just a few months after A Reaper at the Gates left off... The long-imprisoned jinn are on the attack, wreaking bloody havoc in villages and cities alike. But for the Nightbringer, vengeance on his human foes is just the beginning. At his side, Commandant Keris Veturia declares herself Empress, and calls for the heads of any and all who defy her rule. At the top of the list? The Blood Shrike and her remaining family.
Beyond Baroque presents Part II of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by poets from the LA Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage. Beyond Baroque presents the second installment of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by nationally acclaimed poets from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage. Featured readers for December 3 include Francisco Aragón, Sarah Arvio, Shonda Buchanan, Maxine Chernoff, Tiana Clark, Timothy Donnelly, Karen Kevorkian, Judith Pacht, Arthur Sze, Imani Tolliver, & Mariano Zaro. The full series takes place over four weeks in November and December and will feature over 40 poets. Every year, the Poetry Stage at the Festival of Books forms a major part of Los Angeles’ literary calendar. Poets with new or recent books gather from across the country to read from their work. This year, due to COVID-19, the Festival of Books, and the Poetry Stage, had to be canceled. In the spirit of keeping new poetry visible during COVID-19, Beyond Baroque and the L.A. Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage curator and moderator, Elena Karina Byrne, present a majority of the festival’s originally scheduled lineup along with a selection of additional writers celebrating their new books. Read More ...
For nearly two decades, in the Orange County Register and many syndicated papers, readers have delighted in Marla Jo’s subversive humor, cranky intellect, and huge heart on her journey through broke, single, after-40 motherhood, when she adopted Cheetah Boy and Curly Girl, to her oddball adventures around the globe, to the sublime ridiculousness of life next door. Even while facing a devastating diagnosis, Fisher teaches us that humor is the balm that eases and the very thing that binds us together.
Paras, short for Perestroika, is a spirited racehorse at a racetrack west of Paris. One afternoon at dusk, she finds the door of her stall open and--she's a curious filly--wanders all the way to the City of Light. She's dazzled and often mystified by the sights, sounds, and smells around her, but she isn't afraid. Soon she meets an elegant dog, a German shorthaired pointer named Frida, who knows how to get by without attracting the attention of suspicious Parisians.
Ken Kwapis is among the most respected directors in show business, but getting there wasn't easy. He struggled just like everyone else. With each triumph came the occasional faceplant. Using his background and inside knowledge, But What I Really Want To Do is Direct tackles Hollywood myths through Ken's highly entertaining experiences. It's a rollercoaster ride fueled by brawls with the top brass, clashes over budgets, and the passion that makes it all worthwhile.
Antarctica's ice sheet is a powerful entity, alive and dynamic. It is up to three million years old; its mass is constantly and imperceptibly moving, finally calving to the sea. Deep in the heart of the continent is a barren desert of snow, while the coast teems with life: the dominion of whales, birds, penguins, and seals, which had previously evolved outside of human contact.
On Saturday December 5, 2020, at 3 pm, Hennessey + Ingalls Art and Architecture Bookstore hosts photographer Janna Ireland and preservationist Cindy Olnick as they discuss architect Paul R. Williams. In her just-released book of photographs, Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View (Angel City Press, 2020), fine-art photographer Janna Ireland explores the work of the first AIA-certified Black architect west of the Mississippi River. Ireland captures Williams’ brilliance in a series of intimate black-and-white photographs, giving the reader a vision of his work that is both universal and highly personal. More than a book of architectural photographs, Regarding Paul R. Williams is the result of one artist’s encounter with another, connecting across different generations within the same city.
Food critic Dorothy Daniels loves what she does. Discerning, meticulous, and very, very smart, Dorothy's clear mastery of the culinary arts make it likely that she could, on any given night, whip up a more inspired dish than any one of the chefs she writes about.
As Daphne Merkin's audacious new novel opens, a wife and mother looks back at the moment when her life as a young book editor is upended by a casual encounter with an intriguing man who seems to intuit her every thought.
We’re reading the dystopian scion of a classic fairy tale in Kalynn Bayron’s Cinderella is Dead.
What's Your Story? is an interactive journal for writers, creatives, scientists, psychologists, lawyers, activists, and anyone who longs to bring a new story to life--and leave behind the tired patterns of their past. Through a series of deeply personal writing prompts, you'll excavate the narrative that has shaped your past and be inspired to write a new, fulfilling story for the future.
Jen Atkin, celebrity hairstylist, wildly successful entrepreneur and social media influencer in conversation with Stephanie Shepherd, entrepreneur, environmental advocate, and tastemaker. Join Jen and Stephanie for a fun, fabulous and inspiring discussion about Jen’s remarkable journey!
Christopher Zyda confronts the long-buried and painful memories of his harrowing fifteen-year journey in The Storm: One Voice from the AIDS Generation, a heart-wrenching love story and coming-of-age tale during the early years of the AIDS crisis in Los Angeles.
Beyond Baroque presents Part III of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by poets from the LA Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage. Beyond Baroque presents the third installment of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by nationally acclaimed poets from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage. Featured readers for December 10 include Kazim Ali, Jubi Arriola-Headley, Reginald Dwayne Betts, Travis Denton, Katie Ford, Sally Wen Mao, Sandra Meek, Deborah Paredez, Eleni Sikelianos, David St. John, & Chad Sweeney. The full series will take place over four weeks in November and December and will feature over 40 poets. Every year, the Poetry Stage at the Festival of Books forms a major part of Los Angeles’ literary calendar. Poets with new or recent books gather from across the country to read from their work. This year, due to COVID-19, the Festival of Books, and the Poetry Stage, had to be canceled. In the spirit of keeping new poetry visible during COVID-19, Beyond Baroque and the L.A. Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage curator and moderator, Elena Karina Byrne, present a majority of the festival’s originally scheduled lineup along with a selection of additional writers Read More ...
A nostalgic reading featuring contributors of short fiction in Made in L.A. Vol. 3: Art of Transformation In the midst of change, Angelenos celebrate those landmarks of the past that persist. Small World Books has a front porch view of Venice Beach and the swirl of characters that saunter by. These reading and discussion features Made in L.A. contributing authors as they look back on a changing city and their inspirations.
As the novel coronavirus and its devastating effects began to spread in the United States and around the world, Alice Quinn reached out to poets across the country to see if, and what, they were writing under quarantine. Moved and galvanized by the response, the onetime New Yorker poetry editor and recent former director of the Poetry Society of America began collecting the poems arriving in her inbox, assembling this various, intimate, and intricate portrait of our suddenly altered reality.
It’s Hanukkah, and Max and Rachel can’t wait to light the menorah in their family’s new apartment, both they’ve lost their Hanukkah box. WHAT WILL THEY DO? This is a Zoom event in connection with the 2020 Jewish Book Festival. To RSVP visit www.jewishsgpv.org.
Back to a classic for the holidays: Lois Lowry’s The Giver, exploring a faux utopia as free of flaws as it is authenticity.
Rex Weiner speaks via Zoom with Lynell George, about her new book on the life and world of acclaimed writer Octavia E. Butler. A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler (Angel City Press) offers a blueprint for a creative life from the perspective of award-winning science-fiction writer and “MacArthur Genius” Octavia E.Butler. Written by award-winning author Lynell George, this book was drawn from her time researching the Octavia E.Butler archive at the Huntington Library as the recipient of the library’s Alan Jutzi Fellowship. A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky draws the reader into Butler’s world, creating a sense of unmatched intimacy with the deeply private writer. More than a biography, A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky is a collection of ideas about how a writer looks, listens, and breathes—how to be in the world. This book is about the creative process, but not on the page; its canvas is much larger. George not only engages the world that shaped Octavia E. Butler, she also explores the very specific processes through which Butler shaped herself—her unique process of self-making. It’s about creating a life with what little you have—hand-me-down books, Read More ...
Beyond Baroque presents Part IV of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by poets from the LA Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage. Beyond Baroque presents the forth installment of The Poetry Stage Redux, a series of readings by nationally acclaimed poets from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage. Featured readers for December 17 include Joshua Bennett, Gillian Conoley, Heid E Erdrich, Forrest Gander, Carmen Giménez Smith, Mark Irwin, Didi Jackson, Elizabeth Jacobson, Patricia Smith, Page Starzinger, & Tess Taylor.The full series will take place over four weeks in November and December and will feature over 40 poets. Every year, the Poetry Stage at the Festival of Books forms a major part of Los Angeles’ literary calendar. Poets with new or recent books gather from across the country to read from their work. This year, due to COVID-19, the Festival of Books, and the Poetry Stage, had to be canceled.In the spirit of keeping new poetry visible during COVID-19, Beyond Baroque and the L.A. Times Festival of Books Poetry Stage curator and moderator, Elena Karina Byrne, present a majority of the festival’s originally scheduled lineup along with a selection of additional writers celebrating their new Read More ...
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