From all of us at the Los Angeles Public Library, at the Central Library, and the 72 branches, we are pleased to announce the best books of 2023 as selected by our staff, who volunteered their…
Over the centuries, various forms of expression have been banned or destroyed, and their creators have been censored, imprisoned, tortured, killed, exiled. At the present time, all types of libraries…
From all of us at the Los Angeles Public Library, at the Central Library, and the 72 branches, we are pleased to announce the best books of 2022 as selected by our staff, who volunteered their…
From all of us at the Los Angeles Public Library, at the Central Library, and the 72 branches, we are pleased to announce the best books of 2021 as selected by our staff, who volunteered their…
The novels and poetry of Charles Bukowski continue to have devoted, admiring fans, who can never get enough of his books. We have those books in hard copy, and there is a good representation in…
It is a good thing that the lives of children’s authors are not always reflected in the books they wrote. Some of the most enduring and well-loved of these books were written by people whose lives…
Other than indigenous peoples, we are a nation of immigrants, those who came by choice and those who came by force. As our country keeps growing and changing with new people arriving all the time…
As Women’s History Month ends, we would like to offer you a few e-books and e-audiobooks about intrepid, adventurous women who traveled for the sheer joy of doing something different, to escape from…
The TV serialization of two novels, Sharp Objects and Big Little Lies, has brought attention to a new crop of novels. They are edgy, psychological, thriller, suspense stories with distinct…
In retrospect, it is ironic that the fire took place when it did: April 29, 1986. On that day, progress was quietly continuing with plans for a renovation of the original Central Library and a new…
In 2020, during those early weeks of COVID lock-down, when we were not allowed into our Los Angeles Public Libraries, and the present and the future were beyond comprehension, it was good to have some personally owned books at home. There were two series that I turned to. One was...
This is the first cookbook devoted entirely to celebrating the significance of Juneteenth. “The title combines a native-born African fruit–watermelon–with the African American and Native American adage that red birds flying in sight are ancestors returning to spread beautiful luck.” Writer and scholar Nicole A. Taylor states, “This is my...
Ai Weiwei is one of China’s most famous, and infamous, internationally known artists. His artistic style ranges from representational to pushing boundaries all over the place. Not only in his visual work has he stretched and pushed, but in his thoughts, ideas and comments about his native country and its...
Writer Sosuke Natsukawa has taken what might appear to be rather mundane characters and created a unique novel that has many twists and turns. A high school student (Rintaro Natsuki), who is lacking purpose or direction in life, and whose grandfather peacefully dies in his sleep leaving his independently owned bookstore...
This debut novel is a stunner, historical fiction at its best (captivating, illuminating and provoking) in its depiction and portrayal of the horrors of racism, discrimination, abuse and greed. The inspiration for the novel was happenstance, as recalled by Jenny Zhang, “In 2014, my father returned from a work trip through...
In a previous review about a poetry book, I wrote:"Poetry is the most intense and concentrated form of writing, using words, metre, rhyme and format to express thoughts, feelings and ideas that can be fact or fiction. It gets at the marrow of truth and truth-telling using words to create an...
Writer Valérie Perrin portrays her main character, Violette Toussaint, as someone who has found her true calling in life. She is the caretaker of a cemetery in a small town in France, where she makes the arrangements for funerals and religious services for the deceased and their family. Among the many...
There are three major "firsts" in Angela Merkel’s lifetime of public service. She was the first female Chancellor of Germany. She was the first leader of Germany with a doctorate in quantum chemistry who had done extensive research in the field of quantum theoretical chemistry. She was the first Chancellor...
In this extensively researched biography, which involved interviews with family, band members, other musicians, friends, managers and others, Daniel De Visé has written a biography about one of the all-time great musicians, B.B. King. It is more than a biography of one man, his art and his calling, it is a...
During the summer of 1964, at the Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Fannie Lou Hamer brought her voice of discontent about political injustice within the Democratic Party. She was asking for mandatory integrated state delegations, and spoke passionately and eloquently about voter suppression, discrimination and violence leveled at...
