Who's Gonna Be at the 2010 Brooklyn Book Festival?

Dublin 2010 UNESCO City of Literature

2010 Literary Orange will be at UC Irvine on Saturday, April 10

November 7 is National Bookstore Day

Steinbeck map of America by Molly Maguire in the collection of the Library of Congress

Not that it has anything to do with what I'm reading at the moment (The Painter of Battles, by Arturo Perez-Reverte), but it's a cool map that I hadn't seen in a while...

Amsterdam: 2008 World Book Capital

Click here on the header for a link to the UNESCO World Book Capital site, and click here for a link to a paper cardmodel of Anne Frank's house.

Beirut has been selected as the 2009 World Book Capital. There isn't an official website as of yet, but more informatin may be obtained from the UNESCO website, and probably from a fair number of the links found by clicking on the left under Lebanese Bloggers.

Spring Cleaning

It was long overdue getting to all of the changes on my links, but I'm caught up (for now).

There are some new sites to check out (as if anybody has the time) added as well: the news site 365gay, and the very funny author Kevin Sessums.

While I'm at it, Larry Portzline, of Bookstore Tourism has announced he's going to take a break to concentrate on writing his novel (Go Larry!); if you haven't already, you really ought to give him a well deserved thank you for all that he's done on behalf of independent bookstores at lportzline@comcast.net.

Historic Filipinotown

I spent a pleasant afternoon touring Histoic Filipinotown, sponsored by the Filipino American Library. It was as non-Academy Awards as you could get in this town, this weekend. But then, Wolfgang Puck never made lumpia, either (it was delicious, as was the pancit).

My birthday roadtrip

We're heading up Pacific Coast Highway for a birthday roadtrip on Sunday to San Luis Obispo. The first stop is Duke's in Ventura for brunch, then we'll pop over to the Channel Islands farmers market before we hit Main Street. Hopefully, we'll get to visit Abednego Book Shoppe, the Book Rack, Last Chapter Bookshop, Bank of Books, Books on Main, and finally the Calico Cat Bookshop.

Then we head inland to Ojai and Bart's Books, hopefully stopping at Dennison Park for the famous view of "Shangri-La" before returning to the coast via Casitas Pass Road.

The next stop is Carpinteria and Ponce a Time Books, followed by the Tecolote Book Shop in Montecito.

I get to spend more time in Santa Barbara more than anywhere else along the Central Coast, so I'll try to limit myself to just a few choice stops. From Lost Horizon Bookstore we'll hop down to the Book Den (reportedly the oldest bookstore in California), the over to the Paperback Exchange. Then it's on to Goleta and the Paperback Alley and the Front Page before hitting the Isla Vista Bookstore in Isla Vista. Then we'll head back over to State Street and Chaucer's Books, before going up the San Marcos Pass Road.

For some reason, I have it in me to visit the Cold Spring Canyon Bridge; with any luck we'll get there when the late afternoon light is just right. As long as I'm soaking in atmosphere, it's off to Solvang and the Book Loft, home of the Hans Christian Andersen Museum.

If there's still time, we'll turn off Highway 101 in Grover Beach to visit Nan's Pre-Owned Books, then passing by the Monarch Butterfly Grove alongside Pacific Coast Highway.

With any luck, we'll arrive in San Luis Obispo in time for the closing party of the Language of the Heart Poetry Festival at Linnea's Cafe on Garden Street before arriving at the folks.

It isn't likely we'll make every stop on the itinerary; that way we'll be sure to have something left over for the next trek.

National Poetry Month in LA

The Long Beach Poetry Festival takes place at various venues from April 10 - 14; and the Highways Poetry and Performance Fest runs from April 12 - 15.

And with no small degree of anticipation, natch, all the bibliophiles in Southern California are waiting for the LA Times Festival of Books at UCLA on April 28 and 29; an event which more than proves that, yes, people do read in LA. Who knew?

Saroyan Town Walk in Fresno, April 21, 2007

The William Saroyan Society will lead their annual walking tour of sites related to the life and work of William Saroyan through the heart of Fresno's old town on Saturday, April 21st. Click on the header at top for more information.