| Services |
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We Accept AmEx, MasterCard, Visa and Discover
Special Orders Welcome!
10% off all book purchases on your birthday
Senior Discount Tues before 4pm
Frequent Buyer Program--ask us for details
Free Gift Wrapping
National Gift Cards ____________________
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IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD |
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| Barnsdall Art Park
Take a look at some fabulous events at our beautiful neighborhood 'art park' - which contains a famous Frank Lloyd Wright house you can visit, art classes for kids and adults, a theater and art gallery, and currently -- Friday night movies and wine tastings out on the lawn (while you sit on the grass looking at the Observatory and the Hollywood sign on the hill beyond).
Fall registration for Barnsdall's adult and kids' art classes begins Oct 3 for the 6 week fall session beginning Oct 13. Info: (323) 644-6295 or look on the website above.
Los Feliz is the site of two Farmer's Markets -- one on Weds afternoons at Barnsdall's parking lot, and one on Sunday mornings (9-2) in the parking lot of The Dresden restaurant. |
| Skylight Around Town: Join us for these events |
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NELSON LICHTENSTEIN
Weds, Sept 2, noon to 2:00p.m.
Lichtenstein will read and sign Retail Revolution: How Wal-Mart Created a Brave New World of Business at the UCLA Labor Center, 675 S. Parkview, LA 90057. Free and open to the public.
TOM VANDERBILT
Weds, Sept 16, 7:30p.m.
Vanderbilt will read and sign Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) at The Actors' Gang, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City, CA 90232. Free and open to the public with reservations. Info and Reservations
CAITLIN FRIEDMAN & KIM YORIO
Tues, Sept 22, 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Interactive
workshop and luncheon.
Friedman and Yorio will read from and sign Happy at Work, Happy at Home: The Girl's Guide to Being a Working Mom at the Century City Chamber of Commerce,
InterContinental Los Angeles Hotel, 2151 Avenue of the Stars, LA 90067. Open to the public ($60-$80).
MARK A. R. KLEIMAN
Tues, Sept 29, 7:30 p.m.
Kleiman will read and sign When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment at The California Endowment, 1000 N. Alameda Street, LA 90012. Free and open to the public with reservations.
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| Skylight Books August 2009 Bestsellers |
Store Bestsellers
1. Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon
2.Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame-Smith
3. Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke
4. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
5. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami
6. The Coming Insurrection by the Invisible Committee
7. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
8. Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli
9. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
10. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Event Bestsellers
1. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
2. Imperialby William Vollmann
3. Undiscovered Gyrl by Allison Burnett
4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
5. Something Incredibly Wonderful Happens by K. C. Cole
6. Imperial: Photographs by William Vollmann
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Kerry's View from the Skylight
We just unpacked a few boxes of a new gift book you'll want to know about (and give to local friends as well as those in other  parts of the country):
Speaking of our website...
We have just 'moved' our website to a new format, which gives us the ability to add many more features than before. We are still experimenting and seeing what to add/change. Take a look and send me an email about anything you'd like to see on the site. www.skylightbooks.com
Ordering Online...
A reminder that you can order online from us (any book that's in print) -- you can specify whether to pick up in the store or have it shipped. And beginning on Labor Day, the you will have the ability to purchase (and instantly download) from our site e-books in several formats, including the EPUB format!
Banned Books Week
We're kicking off Banned Books Week (Sept 26-Oct 3) this year with two events:
A 5-hour Open Mic Reading of Banned and Challenged Books (see in events list below); and a Sponsor a Banned Book for a Local School program. See more info on both these events below and on our website or talk to Monica at our store ( Monica@skylightbooks.com).
Vacation!
I'm thrilled to be going on a camping vacation this month to Monument Valley, Bryce Canyon and Zion Canyon National Parks in Utah. This will be my first time to these spectacular  sites, and have been watching again all those great old John Ford westerns set in Monument Valley.
Kerry Slattery, General Manager
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Banned Books Week
September 26-October 3 |
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 The 27th year of Banned Books Week is fast approaching and we are planning an event-filled week of celebrating and defending our First Amendent. (For more details about banned and challenged books, check out ABFFE (The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression)!
Sponsor a Banned Book for Local High Schools
Celebrate our freedom to read by helping give underserved students the opportunity to read books they choose to read. We asked some local high schools to tell us the (banned) book they'd most like to read in class (and how many copies they needed. Dorsey High School was the first to reply with a request for 35 copies of The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison (challenged recently in Bakersfield, California and removed from the school curriculum). Once we have these copies donated, we'll get books requested by a number of other schools.
Sponsor one book or a whole class... see the Wish List
We're asking our individuals, organizations and businesses to buy copies of this and other selected banned books titles for high schools in need. You'll get a discount on your purchase and we'll get them to the requesting schools. Here's a "Wish List" of the requested books. |
| September Events at Skylight Books |
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JENNIFER CALOYERAS |
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| Tuesday, September 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Urban Falcon (Diversion Press)
 To celebrate the release of this debut young adult novel by local author Jennifer Caloyeras, we're hosting a launch party!
Evan
Falcon was all set to finish high school in Elbow Creek when his dad's
job forces the family to move to Lincoln Heights, a booming metropolis.
Now, his best friend won't even talk to him and he suspects his mom is
having an affair. Caught between who he used to be and the possibility
of who he could become, Evan is thrown into a world of dating, out of
control parties and family drama.
Jennifer
Caloyeras is a writer and college instructor at Kaplan University. She
was a finalist in both Glimmer Train's November 2007 Short Story Award
for New Writers and the 2008 Rofihe Awards as well as an honorable
mention in the New Millennium Writings competition in 2008. She lives in Los
Angeles with her husband, Basil and two sons, Peter and
Phoenix.
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| MICHAEL JACOB ROCHLIN
discusses Victorian L.A. |
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Sunday, September 6 at 5:00 p.m.
Victorian L.A. (URM)
We're pleased to invite Michael Rochlin, the author of several books on L.A. history (including the well-received Ancient L.A.), to discuss and sign copies of the new (signed and numbered) edition of his book, Victorian L.A.
Victorian L.A. explores the relationship between Los Angeles's nineteenth-century neighborhoods and the rail network that served them. Horse cars, cable cars, and electric cars--our city's early transportation companies--were highly competitive and when unified became the nation's most extensive system. When the trolley cars were illegally removed, the Victorian neighborhoods soon after disappeared.
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CANDACY TAYLOR
discusses the American coffee shop waitress (on Labor Day, of course!) |
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Monday, September 7 at 7:30 p.m.
Counter Culture: The American Coffee Shop Waitress (Cornell University Press)
 The award-winning photographer, writer, and visual artist will present her fascinating new book on an American cultural icon: the coffee shop waitress. This book is a must-have for anyone who loves diners and coffee shops. Taylor travels more than 26,000 miles throughout the United States collecting stories of lifer waitresses. Their compelling stories are complemented by Taylor's striking color photographs of them at work.
For eight years, Candacy Taylor she has produced multimedia ethnography and oral history projects that challenge common stereotypes of women and class. She has conducted research for National Geographic and the Library of Congress and has received numerous grants for her work, including two Story Fund grants from the California Council for the Humanities. To learn more about Taylor's work or to participate in her community blog on coffee shop culture, visit: www.taylormadeculture.com.
more info...
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MATTY BYLOOS
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Tuesday, September 8 at 7:30 p.m.
Don't Smell the Floss (Write Bloody Publishing)
 The author will present his new book of short stories. Says Andrew Leland of The Believer, "I was kittied to death by
these stories. Matty Byloos's fiction doesn't go down smooth, and
that's a good thing: his sentences are hot blurts that bust rudely and
hilariously into the reader's consciousness. The revelations of
Byloos's book are many.'"
Byloos founded and published the literary zine Smalldoggies from 2001 to 2005. His fiction has been published in Fishwrap, Schtick, Undershorts and The Fanzine;
in 2004 he was included in the UCLA Hammer Museum's New American
Writing Series; and during 2002-03, he ran the Monday night fiction
writing workshop at the Venice Literary Arts Center, Beyond Baroque. In
addition, Byloos is an accomplished painter with a history of
exhibiting both nationally and internationally.
more info... |
KIM ADDONIZIO
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Thursday, September 10 at 7:30 p.m.
Lucifer at the Starlite: Poems (W. W. Norton)
 Kim Addonizio, an acclaimed poet and the author of five poetry collections, including Tell Me, a National Book Award finalist, will read from and sign her new poetry collection, Lucifer at the Starlite. With both passion and precision, Lucifer at the Starlite explores
life's dual nature: good and evil, light and dark, suffering and
moments of unexpected joy. Whether looking outward to events on the
world stage--the war in Iraq, the 2004 Asian tsunami--or inward at
struggles with the self, these poems aim at the heart and against the
feeling that Lucifer may have already won the day. more info... |
PETER GADOL
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Friday, September 11 at 7:30 p.m.
Silver Lake: A Novel (Tyrus Books)
 Peter Gadol will present his latest novel, set a few miles away in Silver Lake! The novel is about two architects, two men turning forty who have been involved
professionally and personally for twenty years, who are beginning to see
their practice and their marriage falter. An intriguing young stranger's act of violence in their home shatters the
architects' ordered lives, each man in his own way over the days and
months that follow coping with blossoming doubt and corrosive secrets.
"Silver Lake is compulsively readable, a novel that combines all the suspense of
a psychological thriller with beautifully observed details of contemporary
domestic life in Los Angeles. This is a haunting book full of both beauty and
dread," says Sarah Shun-lien
Bynum, author of Ms. Hempel Chronicles.
Peter Gadol, a Harvard graduate and resident of Los Angeles, is the acclaimed
author of six novels. an Associate Professor in the Graduate Writing Program at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles. more info... |
JAIME HERNANDEZ
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Saturday, September 12 at 5:00 p.m.
Locas II: Maggie, Hopey & Ray (Fantagraphics)
 We're thrilled to host a discussion and signing with the influential
and award-winning graphic novelist Jaime Hernandez (creator of Love and Rockets with his brothers Gilbert and Mario), who the New York Times Book Review described as "one of the most talented artists our polyglot culture has produced."
This second omnibus volume of Locas tales by Jaime Hernandez--collecting over a dozen years' worth of stories from the award-winning Love
and Rockets comics--picks up shortly after Maggie and Hopey's long-awaited
reunion at the end of the Locas hardcover.
Jaime Hernandez is a lifelong Angeleno, where he continues to chronicle Maggie's life in the pages of Love and Rockets: New Stories.
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FRANK PORTMAN
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Sunday, September 13 at 6:00 p.m.
Andromeda Klein (Delacorte Press)
 Skylight Books is partnering with the Los Feliz Library for this exciting event with the author of King Dork. His new young adult novel, Andromeda Klein,
follows a quiet, bookish girl with an unexciting life--until her world
takes a turn for the weird. Strangely and suddenly, Andromeda's tarot
readings have begun to predict events with bizarrely literal accuracy.
Frank Portman (aka Dr. Frank) is the singer/songwriter and guitarist
for the influential East Bay punk band the Mr. T Experience (MTX). MTX
has release about a dozen albums since forming in the mid-1980s, and
continues to record and tour. Frank has written and recorded a theme
song for this book that will be released upon publication and available
for purchase on iTunes. Portman's first book, King Dork, was embraced by teens, adults, music lovers, Catcher in the Rye fans and haters, and the literary community. It has recently been licensed by Will Farrell's production company. Andromeda Klein
is Frank's second novel for young readers. He lives in Oakland,
California. |
PAUL KRASSNER
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Tuesday, September 15 at 7:30 p.m.
Who's to Say What's Obscene?: Politics, Culture, and Comedy in America Today (City Lights Books)
 We're looking forward to hosting Paul Krassner, the only person to win awards from both Playboy
(for satire) and the Feminist Party Media Workshop (for journalism), to
be inducted into the Counterculture Hall of Fame at the Cannabis Cup in
Amsterdam, to receive an ACLU Uppie (Upton Sinclair) Award for
dedication to freedom of expression, and to be described by the FBI as
"a raving, unconfined nut." He'll be here discussing and signing his
new book.
Paul Krassner was a close friend of Lenny Bruce and the editor of Bruce's autobiography, How to Talk Dirty and Influence People.
Krassner co-founded the Yippies, was involved with Ken Kesey's Merry
Pranksters and is written about in Tom Wolfe's unforgettable The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. His articles have appeared in Rolling Stone, Spin, Playboy, The Nation, Penthouse, Mother Jones, New York, National Lampoon, Utne Reader, San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, the L.A. Weekly, and Funny Times. He has been a guest on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher. Krassner published The Realist, the counterculture's first alternative paper, from 1958 to 2001 and writes regularly for Season in the Sun, High Times, AVN Online and the Huffington Post.
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CHARLOTTE INNES,
ANDREA SCARPINO,
and CORRIE GREATHOUSE
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Thursday, September 17 at 7:30 p.m.
Reading Ruskin in Los Angeles (Finishing Line Press) by Innes;
Grove Behind (Finishing Line Press) by Scarpino;
Portraits: Invisible Ink on Parchment (Noble Swine Press) by Greathouse
 It's a night celebrating the chapbook!
Three fantastic poets will read from and sign their recent chapbooks,
and in the process, bring more attention to these sometimes
underappreciated small collections of poetry.
Charlotte Innes's poetry has appeared in various journals, including The Hudson Review, The Sewanee Review, The Pinch, The Chaffin Journal, and Knockout. Currently, she is
writer-in-residence at Pilgrim School, where she teaches English and
creative writing; assists students in putting out a literary magazine;
and runs a visiting writers series.
Andrea Scarpino received an MFA in Creative Writing from The Ohio State
University, has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and is widely published in
both print and online journals. She currently teaches with the Union Institute
and University's Cohort Ph.D. program in Interdisciplinary Studies and is the
West Coast Correspondent for the blog Planet of the Blind.
Corrie Greathouse was raised in Orange County and lives in Los Angeles. She has performed throughout California and in NYC both solo and accompanied by ambient musician graffiti61. Her work has been published in Poetix, The Toronto Quarterly, Falling Star Magazine, November 3rd Club and others.
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STEFAN BUCHER
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Friday, September 18 at 7:30 p.m.
The Graphic Eye: Photos from Graphic Designers around the Globe (Chronicle Books)
 Stefan Bucher, the editor of this beautiful collection of the work of top graphic designers (and the man behind 100 Days of Monsters website and book), will discuss and sign his new book.
Selected from the personal photography portfolios of some of the
world's most innovative graphic designers--including big international
names such as Ed Fella, Jeri Heiden, and Marian Bantjes--the images in The Graphic Eye offer a glimpse into the working methods and obsessions of this unique class of visual creatives.
Bucher is the man behind http://344design.com
and has created designs for everyone from Sting and David Hockney to
groundbreaking filmmaker Tarsem. He designed the award-winning American
Photography 17 annual, and his work has been recognized by the
D&AD, AIGA, the Art Directors Club, the American Center for Design,
the One Show, the Type Directors Club, HOW, PRINT, STEP Inside Design,
novum, Communication Arts, and WIRED. He is the author of the books All Access: The Making of Thirty Extraordinary Graphic Designers and 100 Days of Monsters,
which chronicles his acclaimed online drawing and storytelling
experiment dailymonster.com. You can also see him drawing monstrous
letters on public television as part of the rebooted children's
television classic The Electric Company. He lives in Los Angeles.
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| SKYLIGHT LITERARY SALON
This month features Indie Graphic Novel publishers |
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Saturday, September 19 at 4:00 p.m.
 A modern-day mixer for the literary minded. Our staff will share their faves from indie presses. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served!
Indie Graphic Novel publishers
This month, we will feature indie graphic novel publishers! Staffer Dan will feature Ponent Mon, Darren will discuss IDW, and Justin will talk about Dynamite.
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| EILEEN MYLES |
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Sunday, September 20 at 5:00 p.m.
The Importance of Being Iceland (Semiotext(e))
 Eileen Myles will be here to discuss and sign her new book of essays. Culled by the poet from twenty years of art writing, the essays in The Importance of Being Iceland make a lush document of her--and our--lives in these contemporary crowds. Framed by Myles's account of her travels in Iceland, these essays posit "inbetweenness" as the most vital position from which to perceive culture as a whole, and a fluidity in national identity as the best model for writing and thinking about art and culture.
Eileen Myles is a poet (Sorry, Tree; Not Me, etc.) who writes fiction (Cool for You, Chelsea Girls). She ran St. Mark's Poetry Project in the '80s, and conducted an openly female write-in campaign for President of the U.S. in 1992. She is a Professor Emeritus of Writing at UCSD. She writes for Parkett, The Believer, Vice, The Nation, The Stranger, AnOther Magazine and is blogging all summer on the Harriet site.
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| JOHN CARRERA
Master letterpress printer and artist |
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Monday, September 21 at 7:30 p.m.
Pictorial Webster's: A Visual Dictionary of Curiosities (Chronicle Books)
 A fascinating presentation by master letterpress printer and artist John Carrera, whose latest project, Pictorial Webster's, collects 19th century engravings from Webster's Dictionary. Carrera will discuss the 10-year history of this project and the art and craft that go into letterpress printing and the techniques used in this book.
Featuring over 1,500 engravings that originally graced the pages of Webster's dictionaries in the 19th century, this chunky volume is an irresistible treasure trove for art lovers, designers, and anyone with an interest in visual history. Meticulously cleaned and restored by fine-press bookmaker Johnny Carrera, the engravings in Pictorial Webster's have been compiled into an alluring and unusual visual reference guide for the modern day.
John M. Carrera is a printer, book binder and artist who has taught and lectured extensively. He is the founder and proprietor of Quercus Press--a letterpress and bindery. He lives in Waltham, Massachusetts.
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INFINITE SUMMER'S END CELEBRATION
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Tuesday, September 22 at 8:00 p.m.
You wouldn't think an Infinite Summer could ever end, but this one is ending on September 22, and we're throwing a champagne party to celebrate.
The national online book group for David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest (www.infinitesummer.org) is scheduled to complete the novel on this date, and we figured we should give participants a venue to give themselves and their fellow readers a pat on the back.
Of course, the biggest back pat of all should go to the late author himself, so we'll be inviting special guests to help us pay tribute to DFW.
There will be discounts on books over 800 pages (to help IJ readers fill the void in their backpacks and lives), and some bubbly to help us toast the readers, the book, and the man himself.
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| MICHAEL BOBELIAN
discusses Children of Armenia |
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Wednesday, September 23 at 7:30 p.m.
Children of Armenia: A Forgotten Genocide and the Century-Long Struggle for Justice (Simon & Schuster)
 Michael Bobelian, a graduate of the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism and grandson of Genocide survivors, will discuss and sign his book about the Armenian Genocide.
After uncovering his family's experiences during the Genocide, Michael Bobelian struggled to rationalize how an event as widely reported as the Genocide--more than a hundred articles ran in The New York Times in 1915--could fade from public consciousness. Why was the Genocide ignored, forgotten, and, worse, relegated to fiction for so long? What role did America's national self-interest play in helping Turkey evade public accountability? Why did Armenians themselves initially stand silent? Based on years of archival research and personal interviews, Children of Armenia is the first book to trace this post-Genocide history and reveal the events that have conspired to eradicate the "hidden holocaust" from the world's memory.
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STEPHEN ELLIOTT
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Thursday, September 24 at 7:30 p.m.
The Adderall Diaries: A Memoir of Moods, Masochism, and Murder (Graywolf Press)
 We're thrilled to have Stephen Elliott, author of six prior books (including Happy Baby, a best book of 2004 in Salon.com, Newsday, Chicago New City, the Journal News, and the Village Voice) to read and sign his new memoir The Adderall Diaries.
"The Adderall Diaries is phenomenal. With jittery finesse and
a reformed tweaker's eye for detail, Stephen Elliott captures the
terrifying, hilarious, heart-strangling reality of a life whose
scorched-earth physical and psycho-emotional dimensions no one could
have invented -- they absolutely had to be lived. Elliott renders the
extremes of his own existence with a fearless, through-the-windshield
immediacy. By all rights, the author should either be dead or chewing
his fingers in a bus station. Instead, he may well have written the
memoir of an entire generation. Once you pick up Adderall, you won't want to crash. I loved this book." --Jerry Stahl
Elliott's writing has been featured in Esquire, The New York Times, GQ, Best American Non-Required Reading 2005 and 2007, Best American Erotica, and Best Sex Writing 2006. He was a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and is a member of the San Francisco Writer's Grotto. He is the editor of The Rumpus.
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THE PROMISING SERIES
Curated by Noel Alumit |
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Friday, September 25 at 7:30 p.m.
 The Promising Series is the only reading series in Los Angeles that exclusively features Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender writers. A goal for the series is to celebrate established authors and introduce the next generation of writers who will explore the GLBT experience. Writers featured this quarter are Ama Birch, Richard Villegas, Kim Savo and NPR's Cash Peters. The series is curated by Noel Alumit. (Pictured above is Cash Peters)
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| Banned Books Week Event:
OPEN MIC: Readings from challenged and banned books |
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Saturday, September 26 1 to 5 pm
we are kicking off Banned Books Week with a banned/ challenged book open mic. Come in and read five minutes worth from our selection of challenged and banned books. Not only are we inviting you to participate, but we are throwing the gauntlet down for writers, poets, actors, students and teachers to read selections from their favorite banned books. Contact Monica to sign up. |
KAYA OAKES
and Ben Bush, Courtney Knopf, Justin Gage |
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Sunday, September 27 at 5:00 p.m.
Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture (Henry Holt & Co.)
 We're looking forward to this panel discussion on the development of indie culture in America. Kaya Oakes, author of the new book on the topic, will be joined by Ben Bush, editor of The Fanzine; Courtney Knopf of Everloving Records; and Daniel House of CZ Records. Justin Gage, founder of the fantastic music blog Aquarium Drunkard, will moderate.
Kaya Oakes is the co-founder of Kitchen Sink magazine, which won the Utne Independent Press Award for Best New Magazine in 2002, and currently is a writing instructor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Based in Los Angeles, Justin Gage is the founder of both the influential music blog Aquarium Drunkard as well as Autumn Tone Records. He also hosts, and is the program director, for the weekly Aquarium Drunkard show on Sirius/XM satellite radio. His first book, Memphis And The Delta Blues Trail, was published in May via Countrymen Press.
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SIGN UP NOW TO VOLUNTEER FOR HOLIDAY GIFT WRAPPING!
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This holiday season, help your favorite bookstore and your favorite charity by doing volunteer gift wrapping! Sign up now and we'll contact you close to the holidays. All tips will go toward your charity/nonprofit/etc. of choice.
To sign up, contact Monica at monica@skylightbooks.com.
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SKYLIGHT'S BLOG:
A FEAST FOR THE EYES!
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Find us at www.skylightbooks.blogspot.com
 We've had a very visually oriented month at the Skylight blog! We've put up lots of new pictures and even a video of our new kitten, Franny; we posted several short videos from the Noise/Art Fest we held one Hot Summer Night; and we featured the book trailer for Dan Choan's new novel Await Your Reply, which includes performances and behind-the-scenes work from many members of Skylight's extended family!
If you're in the mood for a good old fashioned blog post, here's an excerpt from Edan's excellent recap of the exciting books that just came out in paperback:
 Tuesday, August 11, 2009
PAPERBACK ROW
One of my favorite things about being a bookseller is shelving all the
new paperbacks. Which ones have new covers? New author photos? New
blurbs? Be still my heart. This week we have many exciting arrivals.
Here are some delicious ones...you have to come to the store to find
the rest. The Boat by Nam LeOur
very own Kerrie (a.k.a. "K.K.B.") recommended this much-lauded debut
collection of stories when it first came out. Here's what she said: "The
opening story "Love and Honor and Pity and Pride and Compassion and
Sacrifice" is the kind of fiction you will tell everyone you know
about...utterly original and affecting, it plays with the concept of
storytelling and ethnicity, leaping effortlessly through hoops in ways
you never knew stories even could--then amazingly pulls back to become
a classical heartbreaker in the way of the Hemingway advice from which
it takes its title. Stunning." I
agree with her assessment, but my personal favorites in the collection
are "Meeting Elise" and the longer story, "Halflead Bay." Nam read at
Skylight on his book tour, and it was fabulous.
Be sure to check out the rest of Edan's picks here, and see what else we've been up to on our blog homepage!
Plus, you can follow Skylight on Twitter by adding skylightbooks to your feed. We're on Facebook as skylightbooks, too.
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BOOK GROUPS and
HOT FICTION!
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We know that a lot of book groups are formed for one purpose: to get the members reading all those books they mean to read but never get to, and that that applies to both the big name authors and those intriguing, small-but-worthwhile titles. We've got a few recommendations this month that fly both over and under the radar:
 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
This book was already popular in hardcover, and now it's out in paperback just as its sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire, is published in the U.S. This intrigue-filled novel is "exceptional... Meticulously plotted, beautifully placed, and features a cast of two indelible sleuths and many juicy suspects," according to the Boston Globe. Sounds like good end-of-summer reading to us!
 The Summer of The Ubume by Natsuhiko Kyogoku
First of all, if we were in the habit of judging books by their covers, that would be reason enough for us to love this newly translated supernatural mystery by the author the publisher calls "the Neil Gaiman of Japanese mystery fiction." This is the first novel in a series of nine, which won the author several awards.  Gourmet Rhapsody by Muriel BarberyFrom the author of Elegance of the Hedgehog, here's another novel that "shows all the skill of Hedgehog and deals with the same themes: social class, philosophy, Japan and food, glorious descriptions of all kinds of food," according to Publishers Weekly. This one just came out in the U.S., and it's bound to be just as popular with book clubs as Hedgehog, which it seems like everyone, even our own in-store Coyotes book club, read en masse! We'd also like to take the opportunity to announce that Skylight manager Emily, of the aforementioned Coyotes book club, has started a new feature on the blog! Now, after Coyotes meetings, members who missed the discussion will get the chance to catch up on the Coyotes Round-Up! First edition up now; keep your eye out for more in the future. If you have a book group but you're not registered with the store, remember that book groups that do register get 15% off their pick each month. E-mail Emily at emily@skylightbooks.com now to find out how to register your book group! You can check out our registered book groups here. |
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Skylight Books
1818 N Vermont Ave (between Hollywood Blvd and Franklin)
Los Angeles, CA 90027
323 660-1175
Next door to the Los Feliz Cinema and across the street from the Post Office (where you can park after 6pm)
 We are about 4 blocks north of the Vermont/Sunset subway stop and directly on many bus routes, including the Hollywood DASH. Bicycle racks in front of the store. | |
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