| Join Our List | 
We send monthly email newsletters (with occasional extra updates). We don't share our list with anyone.
|
| Also Be Sure to Check Out... |
Sun., July 10 at 2:00 p.m. The Autry presents Mona Simpson discussing her book My Hollywood at the Autry in Griffith Park, 4700 Western Heritage Way. Info here.
|
Skylight Books
June 2011
Bestsellers | Store Bestsellers
1. Just Kids by Patti Smith
2. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
3. Go the F**k to Sleep by Adam Mansbach
4. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
5. Bossypants by Tina Fey
6. Life by Keith Richards
7. Secret Stairs by Charles Fleming
8. A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
9. A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin
10. Room by Emma Donohue
Event Bestsellers
1. This Won't Take But a Minute Honey, Letters from People Who Hate Me, and Bad Poetry by Steve Almond
2. Thxthxthx by Leah Dieterich
3. Secrets and Wives by Sanjiv Bhattacharya
4. Everything Is its Own Reward by Paul Madonna
5. Untied: A Memoir of Family, Fame, and Floundering by Meredith Baxter
|
| Services |
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 Gift Cards ____________________ |
|
|
|
Mary's View from the Skylight
| |
E-Fairness, Us, and You
 Big news out of Sacramento! Governor Brown signed a new law on Wednesday that would require a Amazon, Overstock, and some other online-only retailers to collect sales tax for purchases made in California. This is not a new tax, but a change in who is responsible for collecting the existing sales tax for these online purchases. For a more comprehensive view, definitely check out this article in the San Francisco Chronicle, but since indie bookstores have been active on this issue for 10 years, I thought I'd take the opportunity to give the bookstore perspective.
Some background: Basically, until yesterday, if you bought a book (or any other product) on the Internet and the retailer didn't collect tax from you (most do, but a type of e-retailer that includes Amazon and Overstock did not), you as the buyer were legally supposed to keep track of and pay that sales tax directly to the state with your yearly income taxes. In reality, almost no one did this. The situation gave a competitive advantage to some retailers over others, at the significant cost of $200 million annually to the state of California (the amount of sales tax that was left unpaid each year). The issue needed to be addressed, and there's an ongoing nationwide campaign to pass legislation in each state to fix this loophole.
So, the law: The proposed legislation varies state-to-state, but this particular law says that if you have affiliates (people who link to your website in exchange for a commission on the resulting sale) or subsidiary companies that are based in California, and if you sell more than $500,000 worth of goods to Californians each year, you have to collect sales tax from your customers and pass it on to the state. The California law was written specifically to include subsidiaries because Amazon (whose Kindle-developing subsidiary, and a few others, are based here) has fired all of its affiliates in 6 out of the 7 states that have passed e-fairness legislation, to avoid collecting sales tax in those states. But if subsidiary companies counted, not just affiliates, then firing the affiliates wouldn't change anything, and they could have been spared. Unfortunately, both Amazon and Overstock fired all their California affiliates the day the law was signed anyway.
It's a thorny issue, but here's my take: For Skylight, for your other favorite small businesses, for the continuation of the public services you use, and even for the chain stores you shop in, this is great news and a hard-won victory. Because our state needs to get all the money it's owed, for better schools and roads and libraries. And collecting sales tax online and in the store isn't too onerous for us, a small business, so it can't be that crushingly big of a deal to these giant online-only retailers. Unless it's the unevenness of the playing field that they're fighting so hard for -- the right to a de facto discount that only their narrow class of businesses is allowed to give. And isn't it wrong to let our state be bullied out of its metaphorical lunch money for something like that? I think it is, and I'm proud of California for standing up to these tactics and demanding that the playing field be shifted back into level.
Mary Williams Events Manager |
| Upcoming Events at Skylight Books |
JAMES BROWN, SETH GREENLAND, LESLIE SCHWARTZ, and DIANA WAGMAN
moderated by
MEGHAN DAUM
| |
Wednesday, July 6th at 7:30 pm
Memoirists and novelists James Brown ( This River), Seth Greenland ( Shining City), Leslie Schwartz ( Angels Crest), and Diana Wagman ( Skin Deep), will discuss the art and craft of fiction versus narrative nonfiction, in a panel discussion moderated by Meghan Daum ( Life Would Be Perfect If I Lived in That House). This is sure to be a fascinating discussion among terrific local writers, and should not be missed!
more info...
|
|
Fiction:
TONI MARGARITA PLUMMER
|
Thursday, July 7th at 7:30 pm
The Bolero of Andi Rowe (Curbstone) 
Toni Margarita Plummer will read and sign her debut short story collection, The Bolero of Andi Rowe. "A dreaminess marks Plummer's debut collection featuring troublesome first love among young Latinos in Los Angeles's San Gabriel Valley.... The action is muted and understated, while Plummer's characters, anchored in a crass present, hanker for a sweeter world of their own imagining." --Publishers Weekly more info...
|
|
Literary Journal:
AFTERZINE No. 2
| |
Friday, July 8th at 7:00 pm 
Celebrate the release of the second issue of the über-hip magazine Afterzine! Hosted by Brown Griffin Editions and The Fox Is Black. Complimentary sweets will be served courtesy of BabyCakes NYC. more info...
|
|
PEN Center USA's
EMERGING VOICES
MEET & GREET
| |
Saturday, July 9th at 5:00 pm 
PEN Center USA is hosting an Emerging Voices Meet & Greet at Skylight Books on Saturday, July 9 at 5 PM. This is an informal event to educate and encourage interested writers to apply for the program. Emerging Voices mentors, fellows, and alumni will hold a Q&A panel and short reading. Strange Cargo: An Emerging Voices Anthology will be on sale. A cocktail reception will follow the event. Please join us! more info...
|
|
Fiction and Music:
GLEN DUNCAN &
THE REAL TUESDAY WELD'S
STEPHEN COATES
|
Friday, July 15th at 7:30 pm
The Last Werewolf (Knopf) Glen Duncan will read and sign his new novel The Last Werewolf, accompanied by music from Stephen Coates, lead singer from The Real Tuesday Weld, the L.A.-based band who created an album inspired by Duncan's novel. For werewolf bonus points, Mother Nature is providing a full moon the night of the event! "Savvy and exceptionally literate, this is one smart modern werewolf tale." -- Publishers Weekly more info...
|
|
Nonfiction:
WILLIAM REMPEL
|
Wednesday, July 20th at 7:30 pm
At the Devil's Table: The Untold Story of the Insider Who Brought Down the Cali Cartel (Random House) Investigative reporter William Rempel (Los Angeles Times) will discuss and sign his fast-paced, action-packed book about former Cali cartel insider Jorge Salcedo, an ordinary man forced to risk everything to escape the powerful Cali crime syndicate.
"Rempel's book reads like an action-packed blockbuster, complete with a cast of hot-headed, short-fused drug lords and their trigger-happy underlings... A fast-paced, heart-racing nonfiction thriller." --Kirkus Reviews Photo of the author by Robert Harmon. more info...
|
|
Literary Journal:
SLAKE ISSUE #3
|
Thursday, July 21 at 7:30 pm
Slake Issue #3 Contributors to the thrd issue of this great Los Angeles literary journal will read from their selected pieces!
The list of readers is still TBD, so check back for more info. more info...
|
|
In the Neighborhood:
LOS FELIZ VILLAGE
STREET FAIR
|
Sunday, July 24 from 11:00 am to 10:00 pm After a two-year hiatus, the Los Feliz Village Business Improvement District is bringing back the Los Feliz Village Street Fair! Located on Hollywood Blvd. between Hillhurst Ave. and Vermont Ave., the fair will include food from local restaurants, a Main Stage featuring local bands, dancing, dance lessons, beer and wine gardens, and much more, including a Skylight Books booth!
Stop by the fair and check out everything your neighborhood has to offer. And say hi to us while you're there! more info...
|
|
Fiction:
EMMA STRAUB
| |
Wednesday, July 27th at 7:30 p.m.
Other People We Married (FiveChapters Books)  Brooklyn-based author Emma Straub will read and sign her much buzzed-about short story collection, Other People We Married.
"It is rare that I will love every story in a collection but I did love each of the twelve stories in this collection both individually and also as a whole collection with a distinctive shape. Each story was intimate and engaging and really, really clean. I never found a word or idea out of place, nothing that pulled me from the stories or the people and places borne of Straub's imagination." --Roxane Gay, HTMLGIANT more info...
|
|
Fiction:
DANA SPIOTTA
| |
Thursday, July 28th at 7:30 pm
Stone Arabia (Scribner)
 National Book Award nominee Dana Spiotta (Eat the Document) will read and sign her new highly acclaimed novel Stone Arabia, set in Los Angeles!
"Extraordinary...an inspired consideration of sibling devotion, Southern California, and fame...with her novel's clever structure, jaundiced affection for Los Angeles, and diamond-honed prose, Spiotta delivers one of the most moving and original portraits of a sibling relationship in recent fiction."
-Publishers Weekly, starred review
more info...
|
|
Music Criticism:
SIMON REYNOLDS
| |
Sunday, July 31 at 5:00 pm
Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past (Faber & Faber)
 Simon Reynolds, one of Skylight's favorite music critics (and the author of Rip It Up and Start Again), will discuss and sign his new book Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past.
"Peering deeply into pop's ever-expanding history and the technology that makes every part of it eternally accessible all at the same time, Reynolds wonders if culture can survive in conditions of limitlessness. . . . A restless, omnivorous intellectual, Reynolds roams far and wide. . . . His book is crammed with entertaining arguments." --The Telegraph (UK)
"Retromania deserves to be very widely read." --The Observer (UK)
more info...
|
|
|
SKYLIGHT BOOKS
BLOG
"Comments and insight from people who spend a lot of time underneath a tree surrounded by books."
| | Skylight staffer Kevin, one of our most regular bloggers, has delivered again with an entertaining blog about the origin of the Skylight and Found Magazine love affair.
Monday, June 6, 2011 Birth of an Empire I'm not a shiller. We here at Skylight don't do shillin', spread buzz, do mouthpieces or are plants. We pretty much only endorse stuff that we believe in, and/or like. This affords us a great deal of latitude in helping to promote artists and writer that may not necessarily have an outlet or venue to show their works to the general public. Some examples include Sad Animals by Adam Meuse (over 1,200 copies sold), My Life in Heavy Metal by Steve Almond (over 550 sold), Controlled Burn by Scott Wolven (over 230 sold) and on, and on the list goes. We have dozens of examples of stuff like this[...].
One of the greatest examples of this is Found magazine. Created by Davy Rothbart in 2001, what began as a magazine about stuff found on the ground has grown into an entire publishing empire. The post continues on our blog! See the rest of this post here, check on our blog regularly here, our Tumblr here, and join the discussion on Twitter by following skylightbooks. We're also on the Facebook as Skylight Books. |
|
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 are in front of the store. |
|
|
