BOOKPATHS

Echo Park, California

The Los Angeles Times' "bookstore of the week" is Stories Books & Cafe in Echo Park.

Co-owners Claudia Colodro and Liz Garo opened the store in November 2008, when the economy was at its lowest.  They'd been planning and getting the space ready for so long, they saw little to do but go forward.  'It was probably the worst time to open a business,' Colodro says, 'but it's only been up from there.'

San Francisco, California

Gregory Dicum describes "a book lover's San Francisco" in his December New York Times article.

This is a place, after all, where dozens of fiercely independent bookstores not only survive but thrive, thanks to a city of readers who seem to view books not only as a pleasure, but as a cause.  For the out-of-towner, these one-and-only shops can be destinations in and of themselves.

Echo Park, Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Mandalit del Barco talks with The Madonnas of Echo Park author, Brando Skyhorse.

In 'The Madonnas of Echo Park', Skyhorse draws from his childhood memories to tell the story of Echo Park as he knew it.

‘There was this sort of weird cast of characters just kind of around the neighborhood,' he says. 'There was this one elderly lady who used to wear a turban and this lime green coat, and she would walk up and down the neighborhood. For some reason, she always stopped at our house… because I guess my grandmother was very chatty… and she'd stop at 1 in the morning, pound on the door and say, 'This is the police, open up!’ – from NPR Website

Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Terry Gross talks with The Rev. Gregory Boyle, director and founder of Homeboy Industries, “the largest gang-intervention program in the country,” about his recently published memoir, Tattoos on the Heart, and Homeboy's current financial crisis.

Homeboy Industries Website

L.A.’s Homeboy Industries Lays Off Most Employees (Los Angeles Times, May 14, 2010)

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San Francisco, California, U.S.

Armistead Maupin’s website offers readers an interactive Tales Map -- “a map listing the locations mentioned in…Tales of the City…and some of the locations seen in the miniseries.”  Take a look.

El Monte, California, U.S.

Two writers, Salvador Plascencia and Michael Jaime-Becerra, “share a city and common inspiration: El Monte.”

But the El Monte that haunts and graces the fiction of Jaime-Becerra and Plascencia, who both grew up there, is no Hollywood film noir backdrop or comic punch line. It's a mutating, multilayered city of 120,000 that in certain moods and times of day can feel like a patch of rural Jalisco or Guerrero grafted onto the L.A. megalopolis. – from “Writers Salvador Plascencia and Michael Jaime-Becerra Share a City and Common Inspirtaion: El Monte,” by Reed Johnson, The Los Angeles Times

 

Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Novelist Jonathan Kellerman chooses his “top 10 LA noir novels.”

I tend to avoid lists, as I don't like reductionism in general, have never viewed writing fiction as a competitive sport and, let's face it, someone good is always going to be excluded. There are many fine contemporary writers covering the LA scene — Robert Crais's latest novel is first rate. But I'm going to concentrate on older books, because it was the previous generation of noir which inspired me to begin the Delaware series over a quarter of a century ago. I'm also going to expand the parameters from Los Angeles proper to southern California: LA isn't a city, it's a concept which applies anywhere in the Golden State where nice weather abounds, a chasm yawns between the haves and the have-nots, and delusional blind ambition is habitually confused with work ethic and wisdom. – by Jonathan Kellerman, The Guardian

California; World; Universe

Enjoy Reed Johnson’s excellent interview with Kim Stanley Robinson.

‘Apocalyptic thinking happens on the left as well as on the right, and in environmentalism, that's a terrible approach to take,’ Robinson says over lunch at one of his favorite downtown haunts. ‘Because it isn't true. We cannot kill off life on Earth even if we wanted to. Life is insanely robust, though we can make species go extinct, and this is the bad thing. So I always make the point that you can't say, 'Is it too late?' That is the terrible question, because either answer promotes inaction. If it's too late, you don't need to act; if it's not too late, you don't need to act.’ – from “Kim Stanley Robinson Maps the Future’s Gray Areas,” by Reed Johnson, Los Angeles Times

California; Germany; Oregon; Utah; New York; etc.

Novelist Carlos Ruiz Zafon chooses his favorite destinations.

I have a list of places around the planet that never fail to cheer me up. Chief among them is the Pacific Coast Highway. – Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Times

Jack London State Historic Park, Glen Ellen, California

Jack London State Historic Park, once a part of London’s Beauty Ranch, his home from 1905 until his death in 1916, is worth a visit, a "bookpath," any time of the year.  Trails lead to “the House of Happy Walls,” now a museum celebrating his life and work; the cottage where London lived with his wife, Charmian (and where she continued to live after his death); stables; stone barns; silos; the famous “pig palace;” Wolf House, “London’s dream house, which was destroyed by fire in 1913;” and into the backcountry where the author rode horseback over the landscape he loved.  You’ll want to linger here and, no doubt, return.

The Jack London State Historic Park website offers visitor information.