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Episodes
Sunday Sep 27, 2015
Sunday Sep 27, 2015
PEN Center USA presents Rattling Wall Issue 5
Join us as LA literary journal The Rattling Wall presents writers from Issue 5 reading their work.
The readers will include:
David Ulin
Cecil Castellucci
Rita Williams
David Francis
Julianne Ortale
Susan Berman
Sunday Sep 27, 2015
Sunday Sep 27, 2015
Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men (New York University Press)
A straight white girl can kiss a girl, like it, and still call herself straight—her boyfriend may even encourage her. But can straight white guys experience the same easy sexual fluidity, or would kissing a guy just mean that they are really gay? Not Gay thrusts deep into a world where straight guy-on-guy action is not a myth but a reality: there’s fraternity and military hazing rituals, where new recruits are made to grab each other’s penises and stick fingers up their fellow members’ anuses; online personal ads, where straight men seek other straight men to masturbate with; and, last but not least, the long and clandestine history of straight men frequenting public restrooms for sexual encounters with other men. For Jane Ward, these sexual practices reveal a unique social space where straight white men can—and do—have sex with other straight white men; in fact, she argues, to do so reaffirms rather than challenges their gender and racial identity.
Ward illustrates that sex between straight white men allows them to leverage whiteness and masculinity to authenticate their heterosexuality in the context of sex with men. By understanding their same-sex sexual practice as meaningless, accidental, or even necessary, straight white men can perform homosexual contact in heterosexual ways. These sex acts are not slippages into a queer way of being or expressions of a desired but unarticulated gay identity. Instead, Ward argues, they reveal the fluidity and complexity that characterizes all human sexual desire. In the end, Ward’s analysis offers a new way to think about heterosexuality—not as the opposite or absence of homosexuality, but as its own unique mode of engaging in homosexual sex, a mode characterized by pretense, dis-identification and racial and heterosexual privilege. Daring, insightful, and brimming with wit, Not Gay is a fascinating new take on the complexities of heterosexuality in the modern era.
Praise for Not Gay
“Clear-eyed and unsqueamish, Not Gay defiantly insists that sex between contemporary American straight white men is in fact meaningful sex that can't—and shouldn't—just be hand-waved away. Jane Ward provides a timely and convincing corrective.” —Hanne Blank, author of Virgin: The Untouched History
“Not Gay is nothing less than a breath of fresh air. This book is certain to change the way that we think about heterosexuality’s relations with the homoerotic.”—Roderick Ferguson, author of Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique
Jane Ward is associate professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies at University of California Riverside, where she teaches courses in feminist, queer, and heterosexuality studies. Her published essays have focused on a broad range of topics including feminist pornography, queer parenting, gay pride festivals, HIV/AIDS organizing, same-sex marriage, and the social construction of heterosexuality. Her first book, Respectably Queer: Diversity Culture in LGBT Activist Organizations, was named by The Progressive magazine as a best book of 2008. Her second book, Not Gay: Sex Between Straight White Men, will be released by New York University Press in July 2015.
Ward is founder of the feminist blog FeministPigs.com and cofounder, along with CJ Pascoe and Tey Meadow, of SocialInqueery.com. She cofounded the queer burlesque troupe “The Miracle Whips” in 2004 and founded the parenting collective “L.A. Genderqueer Parenting” in 2009, both based in Los Angeles. She is also a baker, an urban gardener, and a parent to one human child, four cats, and eight chickens.
Sunday Sep 27, 2015
Sunday Sep 27, 2015
Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Moving Target: A Princess Leia Adventure (Disney Lucasfilm Press)
Join us today for a special Star Wars celebration! Show off your best Wookie roar! Compete in Star Wars trivia! And much much more! Costumes are encouraged!
Princess Leia returns for an all-new adventure in this thrilling upper middle grade novel. Set between Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi, the story follows the warrior princess as she leads a ragtag group of rebels on a dangerous mission against the evil Galactic Empire. Hidden in the story are also hints and clues about the upcoming film Star Wars: The Force Awakens, making this a must-listen for fans old and new!
Cecil Castellucci is the author of books and graphic novels for young adults including Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, First Day on Earth, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star, Stone in the Sky and the Eisner nominated Odd Duck. Her picture book,Grandma’s Gloves, won the California Book Award Gold Medal. Her short stories have been published in Strange Horizons, YARN, Tor.com, and various anthologies including, Teeth, After and Interfictions 2. She is the Children’s Correspondence Coordinator for The Rumpus, a two time Macdowell Fellow and the founding YA Editor at the LA Review of Books. She lives in Los Angeles.
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
The Scamp (Tin House Books)
Rayelle Reed can’t escape in her small town, where everyone knows everything and not enough: All the guys she slept with, but not the ones she loved. The baby she had out of wedlock with the pastor’s son, and how the baby died, but not the grief and guilt that consume her. At a motel bar, Rayelle meets Couper Gale, a freelance detective on a mission to investigate a rash of missing girls, and she tags along as an excuse to cross the state line. But when Couper’s investigation leads them to the mystery surrounding Rayelle’s runaway cousin, Khaki, she finds she is heading straight back into everything she was hoping to leave behind. As fates become entwined, Rayelle must follow a haunted and twisted path—leading her toward a collision where loyalties will be betrayed, memories uncovered, and family bonds shattered.
Unflinchingly dark and compelling, The Scamp confronts head-on the issues of family origins and the bonds between mothers, daughters, and sisters. In Pashley’s hands, the lost girls of rural and industrial America, trapped in the unforgiving systems of government assistance and single parenthood, are portrayed with depth and nuance. She exposes the ingrained poverty and atmosphere of disillusionment that damns them before they have a chance and she gives them a ray of hope for a better life ahead.
Praise for The Scamp
“Jennifer Pashley’s stunning debut novel is wonderfully colorful and dangerous, following a tough, savvy narrator on a perilous trek toward release from a messy and difficult life, a dead child, a troubled and troubling family. Rayelle Reed mixes it up with and draws sustenance from a motley crew of slightly and more-than-slightly off-center characters, each of whom, in his or her way, adds richness and complexity to the hunt. Pashley writes like an angel who has spent time in parts South, figuratively and literally, and the pleasures of reading her are rich and satisfying.” —Frederick Barthelme, author of There Must Be Some Mistake
“Precise. Blunt. Funny. Scary. Bleak. An inviting and well-carved debut.” —Aimee Bender, author of The Color Master
“These stories, like the characters who inhabit them, are tough-skinned and tender-hearted, and wickedly funny, as only the broken can be. Jennifer Pashley is the real conjurer here, pulling beauty from the despairs of ordinary people, splitting the skin of everyday tragedies, of people whose hearts have been ravaged and whose hands have done hurting, to reveal the hot pulsing hope in them, in all of us.” —Melissa Febos, author of Whip Smart
“Gritty, seductive, and completely mesmerizing, Jennifer Pashley’s . . . novel limns a trail of broken relationships, broken bones, and broken promises. Be warned: these characters bloom so large on the page, you’ll ignore the real world around you until the last tangled secret has been unraveled.” —Shanna Mahin, author of Oh! You Pretty Things
"The Scamp is knife and velvet, tongue and bone. Its pages smell of pool water, trailer sex, and huffed gasoline; they taste of reservation cigarettes and peaches from the can. Jennifer Pashley tells the brutal, elegiac story of two girls on the move: broken, burning, and so dangerously beautiful." —Dylan Landis, author of Rainey Royal
Raised in Syracuse, New York, by an accordion virtuoso and a casket maker, Jennifer Pashley is the author of two short story collections, States and The Conjurer. Her stories have appeared widely, in journals like Mississippi Review, PANK, and SmokeLong Quarterly, and she has been awarded the Red Hen Prize for Fiction, the Mississippi Review Prize for fiction, and the Carve Magazine Esoteric Award for LGBT Fiction.
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Lost Canyon (Akashic Books)
Four people on a backpacking trip in the Sierra Nevada find more adventure than they ever imagined. Each of them is drawn to the mountains for reasons as diverse as their own lives. Gwen Foster, a counselor for at-risk youth, is struggling with burnout from the demands of her job and with the loss of one of her teens. Real estate agent Oscar Barajas is adjusting to the fall of the housing market and being a single parent. Todd Harris, an attorney, is stuck in a lucrative but unfulfilling career--and in a failing marriage. They are all brought together by their trainer, Tracy Cole, a former athlete with a taste for risky pursuits.
When the hikers start up a pristine mountain trail that hasn't been traveled in years, all they have to guide them is a hand-drawn map of a remote, mysterious place called Lost Canyon. At first, the route past high alpine lakes and under towering, snowcapped peaks offers all the freedom and exhilaration they'd hoped for. But when they stumble onto someone who doesn't want to be found, the group finds itself faced with a series of dangerous conflicts, moral dilemmas, confrontations with nature, and an all-out struggle for survival.
Moving effortlessly between city and wilderness, Lost Canyon explores the ways that race, class, and culture shape experience and perception. It examines the choices good people must face in desperate situations. Set in the grand, wild landscape of the California mountains, Lost Canyon is a story of brewing social tensions and breathtaking adventure that will keep readers on the edge of their seats.
Praise for Lost Canyon
"Four unlikely Angelenos on a backpacking trip in the High Sierra discover that the perils of contemporary life don't stop at the trailhead. Rarely have the glories and hardship of backcountry travel, and the grandeur of this landscape, been so effectively portrayed. Revoyr strikes gold with this unexpected, fast-moving tale of high-altitude danger."--Janet Fitch, author of Paint It Black
"Four urbanites from Los Angeles embark on an uncharted trail, invoking shadows of Deliverance in this fast-paced story which celebrates the mountain world of rock, sky, and woods. Nina Revoyr's wilderness thriller leaves readers as breathless as the hikers."--Ron Carlson, author of The Signal
"Nobody knows Los Angeles like Nina Revoyr! Sharp-witted and big-hearted, Lost Canyon shows us what happens when the melting pot boils over. If you're brave enough to handle the truth about American race relations, this is the book for you."--Tayari Jones, author of Silver Sparrow
Nina Revoyr is the author of five novels, including The Age of Dreaming, which was a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize;Southland, a Los Angeles Times best seller and “Best Book” of 2003; Wingshooters, which won an Indie Booksellers’ Choice Award and was selected by O, The Oprah Magazine as one of “10 Titles to Pick Up Now”; and most recently, Lost Canyon. Revoyr lives and works in Los Angeles.
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Dragonfish (W. W. Norton & Company)
Robert, a rugged Oakland cop, still can’t let go of Suzy, the mysterious Vietnamese wife who left him. Now she’s disappeared from her new husband, Sonny, a dangerous Vietnamese smuggler and gambler who blackmails Robert into finding her for him. Pursuing Suzy through the glitzy gambling dens of Las Vegas, Robert finds himself chasing the past that haunts Suzy—one that extends back to a refugee camp in Malaysia after the fall of Saigon and to her daughter, Mai, abandoned long ago, now a steely professional poker player. The dangerous legacy of Suzy’s guilt threatens to immolate them all.
Taut, cinematic storytelling, vivid dialogue, and mesmerizing atmosphere combine here with beautiful, original prose. Some aspects of Tran’s own life are present in Dragonfish. He was born on September 17, 1975, six months after the fall of Saigon. In 1980—like the novel’s characters Suzy and her daughter Mai—Vu Tran, with his mother and sister, escaped Vietnam by boat and ended up in the refugee camps on Pulau Bidong. They spent four months there until Tran’s father sponsored them and they moved to the United States. Their reunion in Tulsa, Oklahoma—where Tran would grow up—was where he met his father for the first time.
“On the pure joyous level of great storytelling, Dragonfish is a top notch mystery; but it also deals with so goddamn much: the ramifications of war and the perils of assimilation, the impossibility of straddling two cultures and belonging to none, the limitations of the past, grief, lost lovers, gambling, ghosts, and Vegas, baby, Vegas. Note-perfect. Heartbreaking. Profound. Dragonfish is a polished dagger of a novel that will cut out your heart." -- Charles Bock, New York Times bestselling author of Beautiful Children
“A haunting, beautifully written novel, almost more ghost story than thriller, as Tran explores the world of refugees, immigrants, and the long hold the past and its dead hold on the present.” – Sara Paretsky, New York Times bestselling author of the V. I. Warshawski novels
"Dragonfish is a novel about identity, exile and the chains of memory wrapped in the muscle of a thriller. The suspense kept me turning the pages, but the beautiful writing and aching sense of loss remained with me long after I reached the end.” -- Lisa Brackmann, New York Times bestselling author of Rock Paper Tiger and Dragon Day
“Is this an immigrant saga disguised as a crime novel? Or a smart thriller that just happens to be set in the Vietnamese immigrant community in Las Vegas? It’s both -- but what matters is that Vu Tran has written a debut novel of uncommon artistry, about a group of Vietnamese Americans and the history of love, violence, and sacrifice that binds them together and tears them apart.” – Tom Perrotta, New York Times-bestselling author of Nine Inches and Little Children
“Vu Tran's spellbinding debut novel had me turning pages late into the night. I was drawn in partly by the book's utterly engrossing plot, partly by its vivid portrayal of a pitiless and dangerous Las Vegas, but mostly by its lovingly interwoven themes of loss, longing, renewal, and cultural memory.” – Tim O’Brien, winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize for Lifetime Achievement
“Vu Tran’s Dragonfish is that rare hybrid marvel—a literary thriller, a narrative of migration and loss that upends the conventions of any form. Tran draws the reader into an exquisitely rendered world of violence and heartbreak, loss and love that is impossible to forget.” – Dinaw Mengestu, author of The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears and How to Read the Air
“Sometimes it's creepy, like a really fine noir novel. Other times it's heartbreaking, as when it dives deep into the anguish of Vietnamese refugees. But either way, Dragonfish is absolutely gripping. Vu Tran has written a terrific novel.” – Tom Bissell, author of The Father of All Things: A Marine, His Son, and the Legacy of Vietnam
Vu Tran is the winner of a Whiting Award recognizing “exceptional talent and promise,” and he teaches creative writing at the University of Chicago. In 2008, Tran was asked to contribute a short story about Chinatown to the Las Vegas Noir anthology (Akashic Books). After “This Or Any Desert” was included in the 2009 Best American Mystery Stories, he found himself still intensely drawn to the four main characters—Robert, Suzy, Sonny, and Sonny Jr.. In particular, he thought it would be interesting to apply elements of his own life to their backstories. Tran expanded the story and devised Suzy’s letters, the novel’s secondary narrative, which provides a riveting literary and emotional contrast to the crime narrative.
Tod Goldberg is the author of several books of fiction, including the novels Living Dead Girl, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, Fake Liar Cheat and the popular Burn Notice series, as well as two collections of short stories, Simplifyand Other Resort Cities. His essays, nonfiction, and journalism have appeared widely, including, most recently, in Best American Essays 2013. His latest novel, Gangsterland, was release in fall 2014. Tod Goldberg holds an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Bennington College and lives in Indio, CA where he directs the Low Residency MFA program in Creative Writing & Writing for the Performing Arts at the University of California, Riverside.
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Eileen (Penguin Press)
A lonely young woman working in a boys' prison outside Boston in the early 60s is pulled into a very strange crime, in a mordant, harrowing story of obsession and suspense, by one of the brightest new voices in fiction.
"So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes--a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back. This is the story of how I disappeared."
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys' prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father's messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.
Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen's story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature.
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from Boston. She was awarded the Plimpton Prize for her stories in the Paris Review, and granted a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. She is currently a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford.
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Saturday Sep 12, 2015
Eileen (Penguin Press)
A lonely young woman working in a boys' prison outside Boston in the early 60s is pulled into a very strange crime, in a mordant, harrowing story of obsession and suspense, by one of the brightest new voices in fiction.
"So here we are. My name was Eileen Dunlop. Now you know me. I was twenty-four years old then, and had a job that paid fifty-seven dollars a week as a kind of secretary at a private juvenile correctional facility for teenage boys. I think of it now as what it really was for all intents and purposes--a prison for boys. I will call it Moorehead. Delvin Moorehead was a terrible landlord I had years later, and so to use his name for such a place feels appropriate. In a week, I would run away from home and never go back. This is the story of how I disappeared."
The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father's caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys' prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father's messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.
Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen's story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature.
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from Boston. She was awarded the Plimpton Prize for her stories in the Paris Review, and granted a creative writing fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. She is currently a Wallace Stegner fellow at Stanford.
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) (Touchstone Books)
From online entertainment mogul, actress, and "queen of the geeks" Felicia Day comes a funny, quirky, and inspiring memoir about her unusual upbringing, her rise to Internet-stardom, and embracing her individuality to find success in Hollywood.
The Internet isn't all cat videos. There's also Felicia Day--violinist, filmmaker, Internet entrepreneur, compulsive gamer, hoagie specialist, and former lonely homeschooled girl who overcame her isolated childhood to become the ruler of a new world...or at least semi-influential in the world of Internet geeks and Goodreads book clubs. After growing up in the south where she was "homeschooled for hippie reasons," Felicia moved to Hollywood to pursue her dream of becoming an actress and was immediately typecast as a crazy cat-lady secretary. But Felicia's misadventures in Hollywood led her to produce her own web series, own her own production company, and become an Internet star. Felicia's short-ish life and her rags-to-riches rise to Internet fame launched her career as one of the most influential creators in new media. Now, Felicia's strange world is filled with thoughts on creativity, video games, and a dash of mild feminist activism--just like her memoir.
Hilarious and inspirational, You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is proof that everyone should embrace what makes them different and be brave enough to share it with the world, because anything is possible now--even for a digital misfit.
Praise for You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost):
“It's hard to keep up with Felicia Day. She's an actress, a gamer, a screenwriter, a songwriter, a producer, a director, a webmaster, a costumer, and queen of the geek girls. It's hard to imagine where such a prodigy could have come from. Wonder no longer. Felicia tells all . . . well, most . . . well, some . . . in her new book. Reading this is like sitting down and having dinner with her, and hearing the story of her life between the clam chowder and the cheesecake. I can't imagine a more charming or amusing dinner companion. Felicia is a lot of fun, and so is her book.”—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN
“Reading Felicia Day’s memoir is like going on a road trip with an old friend you never knew you had. This is the perfect book to prove you aren't the only misfit in the world, and to remind you that that's a very good thing.” —JENNY LAWSON, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened
“At last, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) finally reveals the secret origin story of everyone's favorite Geek Superheroine! Felicia Day's new memoir is honest, hopeful, and hysterical. It’s the story of a girl who grew up lost and lonely--then became a self-made Internet rockstar. Reading it will make you feel like you can take on the whole Empire yourself.” —ERNEST CLINE, author of Ready Player One
“Smart, brave, emotionally raw, and hysterically funny. This is one of the best books ever written about what it's like to be a human being on the internet.” —LEV GROSSMAN, author of The Magicians
“Everything Felicia creates seems to succeed. This book should be no different. It’s a great read–far from ‘horrible’ and worth every ‘Penny.’ See what I did there? It’s a play on…never mind.” —NEIL PATRICK HARRIS, author of Choose Your Own Autobiography and Felicia’s co-star in Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
“What’s wonderful about Felicia Day isn’t how much she’s accomplished; it’s what a delightful, real person she’s remained along the way. She is a nerd heroine of the highest order: fiercely honest, refreshingly vulnerable, and unapologetically unique. Felicia kicks major ass.”—AISHA TYLER
“I came for the delightful snark, I stayed for the disarming frankness and the hard-won insights about the Internet. Felicia Day uses the Internet to distribute entertainment, but she understands that it's really there to be the nervous system of the twenty-first century.” —CORY DOCTOROW, Founder of BoingBoing.net
“You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is exactly like Felicia herself: intriguing, funny, vulnerable, and uniquely cool. If you’ve ever been awkward, ever doubted yourself, ever second-guessed who you are, this book is for you. Reading it is like having the quirkiest, most hilarious, most brilliant person you’ve ever met grab you by the shirtfront and say, ‘HEY. IT’S OKAY TO BE YOU.’” —DEANNA RAYBORN, RITA award-winning and New York Times bestselling author
“Smart, funny, endearing, nerdy and maybe also a little bit brave — in other words, very much like its author.”—JOHN SCALZI, Hugo Award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of Redshirts
"You're Never Weird on the Internet is fun, hilarious, and impossible to put down. Reading it is like getting a mega-shot of courage -- to be exactly who you are and no one else, to pursue your dreams fearlessly, to embrace your weirdness and wield it like a superpower. If you want to live a life true to yourself and not what others expect of you, you won't find better inspiration than Felicia Day. If you're not one of Felicia's millions of fans yet—you will be."—JANE McGONIGAL, author ofSuperbetter and Reality is Broken
“Math nerd defies physics! Felicia Day, who is woven from moonbeams, has written a book that seems lighter than air, but that ends up punching you firmly in the emotions. Felicia lays out a hilarious tale of how her unique upbringing, eclectic skill set, and killer work ethic led to The Guild, one of the pioneering works of online creativity. In the process, she pulls you inside her delicate skull, so that the final moving chapters aren’t as much read as they are experienced. An excellent book.” —JANE EPENSON, writer for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once Upon a Time, and Husbands
“Day writes charmingly. . . . [She] is delightfully good company and has an interesting story to tell.”—KIRKUS REVIEWS
“A super (and superquirky) memoir.”—BOOKLIST
“Felicia Day gives us an achingly funny, honest, open look at being 'situationally famous' (I love that phrase), plus the vital art of finding your creative joy, and weathering the storms that follow. It's a wonderful book. Buy it before I grab all the copies.” —RACHEL CAINE, New York Times bestselling author of The Morganville Vampires series
Felicia Day is a professional actress who has appeared in numerous television shows, including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and Eureka. However, Felicia is best known for her work in the web video world, behind and in front of the camera. She costarred in Joss Whedon’s Emmy Award-winning internet musical, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and also created and starred in the hit web series The Guild.
Felicia is the founder of the online digital channel Geek & Sundry, which was acquired by Legendary Entertainment in 2014. She continues to act as CCO and develop web content and television projects as a producer, writer, and performer. She is also extremely active on social media, has more than 2.4 million Twitter followers, and is the eighth most followed person on Goodreads, where she is also the founder of Vaginal Fantasy, a romance and fantasy book club with almost 14,000 members.
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
The Dying Grass (Viking)
Over the last twenty-five years, National Book Award winner William T. Vollmann has been working on what is arguably one of the most ambitious literary projects currently being undertaken by any living novelist – a seven volume sequence of novels called “Seven Dreams” that examine the repeated collisions between native Americans and European colonizers. This summer, Viking will publish the long-awaited new installment in this acclaimed series, The Dying Grass, which tells the story of the epic fighting retreat of the Nez Perce Indians in 1877.
Defrauded and intimidated at every turn, the Nez Perces, whom Lewis and Clark liked best of all the Indians they met, and who were proud that under all provocations they had never killed any white people, finally went on the warpath. The battles they fought (there were eighteen engagements, including four major battles and four fiercely contested skirmishes) and their long (nearly 1200 miles) retreat from Oregon across Montana to the Canadian border before they finally surrendered, have been taught at West Point and poeticized by Robert Penn Warren. Vollmann’s main character, however, is not Chief Joseph, whom the press dubbed “The Red Napoleon,” but his pursuer, General Oliver Otis Howard, the brave, shy, tormented, devoutly Christian Civil War veteran. In this novel, we see him as commander, father, son, husband, friend and killer, in an ever altering myriad of relations with soldiers, scouts, and “hostiles.”
The Dying Grass teems with many other vivid characters on both sides of the conflict, including Chief Joseph’s twelve-year-old daughter Sound of Running Feet, his two wives Springtime and Good Woman, the shell-shocked Colonel David Perry, who lost the war’s first battle (and his best friend), the Nez Perce war chief Looking-Glass, who trusted that treaties with the Americans would save him, the Three Red Blankets, who seem invulnerable against the Army, and Howard’s personally loyal but increasingly anti-war aide-de-camp, C.E.S. Wood.
In The Dying Grass, Vollmann brings a new chapter of North American history to life with stylistic daring, sardonic wit, rich imagination, and uncompromising intelligence.
Praise for The Dying Grass
“Peerless… an epic study of the Nez Percé War of 1877…Vollmann restores that history with an onrushing immediacy that takes on all the contours of a good Greek tragedy, complete with hubris born of supposed military superiority and an avenging angel taking wings in the form of the flight of an arrow… Vollmann's vivid reconstruction is believable and achingly beautiful, as often rendered in a kind of poetry as in ordinary prose: ‘he spies out the dark-tipped wings of the otherwise white snow goose, / the black beak and white breast of the long-billed curlew / but no brothers or enemies.’ Telegraphic and episodic—so much so that it recalls the later work of Eduardo Galeano—Vollmann's saga is a note-perfect incantation. Stunning.”—Kirkus Reviews
William T. Vollmann has written nine novels, four collections of stories, six works of nonfiction, and a memoir. He has won the National Book Award for Europe Central, the PEN Center USA West Award for Fiction, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in California.
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Driving Hungry (Pantheon Books)
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex (Simon and Schuster)
In Big Science: Ernest Lawrence and the Invention That Launched the Military-Industrial Complex, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Hiltzik tells the fascinating story of how one man and one invention forever changed the course of scientific research. Hiltzik explains how science went “big,” built the bombs that helped win World War II, and became dependent on government and industry. He also sheds new light on the forgotten genius who started it all, Ernest Lawrence.
More than eighty years ago in Berkeley, California, a charming and resourceful young scientist with a talent for physics and perhaps an even greater talent for promotion pondered his new invention and declared: “I’m going to be famous!” His name was Ernest O. Lawrence. His invention, the cyclotron, would revolutionize nuclear physics, but that was only the beginning of its impact. It would transform everything about how science was done, in ways that still matter today. It would deepen our understanding of the basic building blocks of nature. It would help win World War II. Its influence would be felt in academia, industry, and international affairs. Its progeny include the atomic bomb and the space program. It was the beginning of Big Science.
Praise for Big Science
“A fascinating biography of a physicist who transformed how science is done.”— Kirkus Reviews
“Hiltzik here tells the fascinating story of how this exceptional scientist won support for his epoch-making research tool and then assembled and managed an unprecedented team of experts who used that tool to penetrate subatomic mysteries. The continuing relevance of such issues will ensure a wide readership for this biographical inquiry into their origins.”— Booklist
“In this dual history of Lawrence and the movement he single-handedly brought into being, Hiltzik… explains how Lawrence’s postwar research exceeded the budgets of universities and philanthropic foundations, necessitating government patronage… his portrait of Lawrence, who gave birth to the modern research lab through sheer force of will, is powerful.”— Publishers Weekly
“Michael Hiltzik tells an epic story, one with arenas of tragedy as well as triumph, and he tells it well.”— Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian
“Einstein famously formulated new theories of the universe while sitting alone in the patent office in Bern. Today, many endeavors in fundamental research require large budgets, elaborate facilities, and huge staffs. How did science become ‘Big Science’? In this fascinating book, Michael Hiltzik gives us the inside story of this remarkable metamorphosis. This is a gripping biography of Big Science and of the people who originated it.”— Mario Livio, Astrophysicist, and author of Brilliant Blunders
“20th-century science delivered a series of revolutions, none more instantaneous than the microseconds it took to explode the first atomic bomb. By framing this story—and the development of the cyclotron that made it possible—from the Lawrence/Livermore perspective rather than the Oppenheimer/Los Alamos perspective that has dominated most accounts, Michael Hiltzik sheds fresh light on the transition from small science to big science that we take for granted today. Especially timely is a fascinating account of Lawrence’s attempt to return to small science: how do you encourage a small group of scientists to produce big results, rather than the other way around?”— George Dyson, author of Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe
Michael Hiltzik is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author who has covered business, technology, and public policy for the Los Angeles Times for more than twenty years. He currently serves as the Times’s business columnist. His previous books include Colossus: The Turbulent, Thrilling Saga of the Building of Hoover Dam and The New Deal: A Modern History. In addition to the Pulitzer Prize, Mr. Hiltzik’s other awards include the 2004 Gerald Loeb Award for outstanding business commentary and the Silver Gavel from the American Bar Association for outstanding legal reporting. He is a graduate of Colgate University and the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University and lives with his family in Southern California.
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Los Angeles Street Food: A History from Tamaleros to Taco Trucks (History Press)
Los Angeles is the uncontested street food champion of the United States, and it isn't even a fair fight. Millions of hungry locals and wide-eyed tourists take to the streets to eat tacos, down bacon-wrapped hot dogs and indulge in the latest offerings from a fleet of gourmet food trucks and vendors. Dating back to the late nineteenth century when tamale men first hawked their fare from pushcarts and wagons, street food is now a billion-dollar industry in L.A.--and it isn't going anywhere! So hit the streets and dig in with local food writer Farley Elliott, who tackles the sometimes dicey subject of street food and serves up all there is to know about the greasy, cheesy, spicy and everything in between.
Farley Elliott is a longtime food writer based in Los Angeles. A 2006 graduate of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, he grew up (mostly) in the cold confines of Northern New York, in a part of the state that hugs the Canadian border. After fleeing for the sunny side of the country for college, Elliott moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a writer/performer. Elliott's passion for all things delicious actually started on the streets of L.A. when, after many long nights exploring his new city in the late 2000's, he would inevitably land at a taco cart or torta truck to scribble down notes while inhaling the food. Many hundreds of street food dinners later, the idea for his first book was born. Currently, Farley Elliott is the Senior Editor for Eater Los Angeles, which is among the most respected and well-read food sites online. Prior to that, Elliott freelanced for numerous publications, including the alt-weekly newspaper LA Weekly, Serious Eats, Thrillist, Tasting Table, and more. He's also that guy in that Tiny Hamsters Eating Tiny Burritos video that went viral once.
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Not Funny Ha-Ha (Fantagraphics)
Not Funny Ha-Ha is a bold, slightly wry graphic novel illustrating the lives of two young women from different cultural, family, and financial backgrounds who go through two different abortions (medical and surgical). It does not address the events leading up to the pregnancy, or even the decision-making before choosing abortion as an option. It simply shows what happens when a woman goes through it, no questions asked. It follows them through the process of choosing a clinic, reaching out to friends, partners, and/or family…and eventually the procedure(s) itself.
Despite the fact that so many women and girls have abortions every day, in every city, all around us…it can be a lonely experience. Not Funny Ha-Ha is a little bit technical, a little bit moving, and often funny, in a format uniquely suited to communicate. The book is meant to be a non-judgmental, comforting, even humorous look at what a woman can go through during an abortion. Although the subject matter is heavy, the illustrations are light. The author takes a step back from putting forth any personal opinion whatsoever, simply laying out the events and possible emotional repercussions that could, and often do, occur.
Praise for Not Funny Ha-Ha
“This graphic novel is the abortion story that needs to be heard.” — The Huffington Post
“I want everyone who is having, has had, or is considering abortion to have this book. I want everyone who is close to someone who has had, is having or is considering abortion to have this book. I want anyone who feels like they just don’t or can’t understand what it’s like to go forward with, or even think about, abortion as an option to have this book. Really, I just want everyone to have this book, period.” — Heather Corinna, founder and director, Scarleteen: sex ed for the real world
“Reading this book is like sitting down with your cool older sister and having her assuringly and frankly explain a really tough situation you’re facing, and then convince you that you’re going to get through it and be okay. Intimate and kind, straightforward and informative, Leah Hayes clarifies and personalizes the clinical experience a woman can expect when she decides to have an abortion. Even more impressive, the author makes the story a compelling read, with charming artwork and humor.” — Ellen Forney, author of Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me
Leah Hayes is an illustrator, musician, songwriter, and producer. She works out of New York City and Los Angeles.
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Sunday Aug 30, 2015
Kitchens of the Great Midwest (Pamela Dorman Books)
From one of our favorite local authors comes a hotly anticipated debut--about a young woman with a once-in-a-generation palate who becomes the iconic chef behind the country's most coveted dinner reservation.
When Lars Thorvald's wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine--and a dashing sommelier--he's left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own. He's determined to pass on his love of food to his daughter--starting with pureed pork shoulder. As Eva grows, she finds her solace and salvation in the flavors of her native Minnesota. From Scandinavian lutefisk to hydroponic chocolate habaneros, each ingredient represents one part of Eva's journey as she becomes the star chef behind a legendary and secretive pop-up supper club, culminating in an opulent and emotional feast that's a testament to her spirit and resilience.
Each chapter in J. Ryan Stradal's startlingly original debut tells the story of a single dish and character, at once capturing the zeitgeist of the Midwest, the rise of foodie culture, and delving into the ways food creates community and a sense of identity. By turns quirky, hilarious, and vividly sensory, Kitchens of the Great Midwest is an unexpected mother-daughter story about the bittersweet nature of life--its missed opportunities and its joyful surprises. It marks the entry of a brilliant new talent.
Praise for Kitchens of the Great Midwest:
"Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a big-hearted, funny, and class-transcending pleasure. It's also both a structural and empathetic tour de force, stepping across worlds in the American midwest, and demonstrating with an enviable tenderness and ingenuity the tug of war between our freedom to pursue our passions and our obligations to those we love." --Jim Shepard, author of Project X and National Book Award finalist for Like You'd Understand, Anyway
"Tender, funny, and moving, J. Ryan Stradal's debut novel made me crave my mother's magic cookie bars...and every good tomato I've ever had the privilege of eating. Kitchens of the Great Midwest manages to be at once sincere yet sharply observed, thoughtful yet swiftly paced, and the lives of its fallible, realistic, and complicated characters mattered to me deeply. It's a fantastic book."-- Edan Lepucki, bestselling author of California
"In Kitchens of the Great Midwest, a charming, fast-moving round robin tale of food, sensuality and Midwestern culture, Mr. Stradal has delivered one extremely tasty, well-seasoned debut in what is sure to be a long and savory career."--Janet Fitch, author White Oleander
"From the quite literally burning passions of a lonely eleven-year-old girl with an exceptional palate, to the ethical dilemmas behind a batch of Blue Ribbon Peanut Butter Bars, J. Ryan Stradal writes with a special kind of meticulous tenderness--missing nothing and accepting everything. A superbly gratifying debut."--Meg Howrey, author of The Crane's Dance
"An impossible-to-put-down, one-of-a-kind novel. The prose is beautiful, the characters memorable, and the plot is surprising at every turn. I have never read a book quite like this--and neither, I'll bet, have you. This stunning debut announces J. Ryan Stradal as a first-rate voice in American fiction. This is a wildly creative, stunningly original, and very moving novel. I can't wait to see what Stradal does next."-- Rob Roberge, author of The Cost of Living
"A Great American Novel in the fullest sense of the term. Everything you want a book to be."--Ben Loory, author of Stories for Nighttime and Some for the Day
J. Ryan Stradal is the author of Kitchens of the Great Midwest. Born and raised in Minnesota, he now lives in Los Angeles, where he is Acquisitions Editor at Unnamed Press and the Fiction Editor at The Nervous Breakdown.
Julia Ingalls is primarily an essayist. Her work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, Salon, Guernica, and KCRW, among others. From David Mitchell to Alan Ball to Amelia Gray, she's had the pleasure of conversing with the world's finest imaginative writers, a tradition she continues tonight with J. Ryan Stradal.